The DSL was turned on on Thursday and by 11pm I'd broken the router... tried to flash the latest firmware and it died. The guy on insanely late Tech Support said they might be able to get a replacement to me on Saturday, but they couldn't guarantee it. So I picked up a replacement router from PC World - and decided to get a wireless one.

I'm not entirely impressed - the connection seems very fragile. I moved the aerial on the back of the PC and the connection took a dive. When it is working though it seems decent enough. It's sucking a few GB of data in the form of my ripped CDs across from the old PC (still connected by cable - the router comes with four ethernet ports too) at the moment.

Things to do when moving into a new flat:

1. Order cable - done
2. Order DSL - done
3. Buy food - oops...

I'm looking after my little brother's Guinea Pigs whilst he's on holiday. I'm trying to work out why anyone would choose to keep them. They look like a rather elderly mop head (though, be warned, don't use them as one: they take ages to dry out and the squealing if you try and wring them out is pitiful) and are frightened of noise, movement, noise and movement and probably a lack of noise and movement. One of the four has to be kept apart from the others because it's male, but too young to be neutered and is likely to screw the others to death if given the chance. Apparently, they can die of a heart attack if handled too roughly.

You could stroke one if you don't mind stroking a quivering ball of fur I guess...

I mentioned it before and now it's happened again. Heading down towards the QEII Bridge on the M25, a police car came down the sliproad, pulled in front of the traffic and sat in the middle lane holding the traffic back. Now, you might think it'd be normal for the traffic to slow down to 70 when there's a cop car car around and behave nicely - but this one was doing only 50 and both coppers had an arm out the window waving everyone back...

After about a mile, they just upped sticks and zipped off into the distance.

I stopped volunteering my time to Stratics. Let's recap.

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From the inimitable Weebl: Peekaboo Pole Dancer - like DDR but in flash, using your fingers...

How to Make Outlook the the Default Mail Client:

1. Start Internet Explorer

War zone or Essex... you decide...

...is: People who drive in the middle lane of the motorway when there's space in the inside¹ lane. I'm not the only one who hates this either. There's a theory that such people are worried about getting out of the inside lane should they venture in:

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Nervous drivers are more likely to make mistakes, according to the RAC, which ups the ante even more. It helps explain "middle laners" - those disenfranchised motorists who cling to the belief that as long as they stay out of the "slow lane" they at least have some stake in the motorway social hierarchy.

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Then again, I saw one guy last week barreling along at 70 mph in the middle lane and I was the only other car within a half-mile of either direction. Even more, he had his left-indicator going all the time. I think he'd achieved an advanced state of nirvana more normally found after a Camberwell Carrot and an audience with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and was utterly closed to external stimuli.

1) Note for Americans and other aliens²: the inside lane is the one furthest away from the central divider between the two directions of traffic. That is, if you were to take a Freeway, mark the six lanes from left to right ABCDEF, then swap the two sides over so they were DEFABC, lanes C and D are still the inside lane.

2) Yes, I stole that from Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman. And the footnotes on footnotes too.