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Had an eyelid operation this morning, yet another tweak to the upper right eyelid. It went well as far as I know. Have slept all day and am feeling fairly well, just minor twinges. Can't see well with my uncovered left eye and have the glasses hanging skewed on my face in a most undignified manner so I can see what's on the screen.
Am very glad that I missed seeing the Confederations Cup semifinal between Cameroon - Colombia this afternoon. Marc Vivien Foe collapsed unchallenged and died despite efforts to save him. Horrible. United tried to sign him a few years ago.

Bought a bike this morning and got it delivered this afternoon. Need to go out and give it a spin soonish

There is, apparantly, some TV cable-or-something network in the US called Showtime. I was wandering through some Buffy pages and there was an ad for some show on Showtime (Dead Like Me) which I thought vaguely interesting. So I clicked.
And got: "We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States."
http://www.sho.com/lockout/us.cfm
I am at a loss for words, ok, maybe not of much interest to non-USians, but a lockout???
P.s. I wuw my iPod.

Went out of town last night for dinner. Returned 25 minutes past midnight to find the bookshop had sold out of The Order of the Phoenix. Next shipment arrives on Wednesday. Must check other bookshop for earlier arrival.

So, I haven't written anything for a week. Not because I went on the planned round-Iceland trip, but because I'm lazy. I didn't go since I'm lazy and my side pain annoys me too much to drive 100s of kilometres per day. So I've been spending my holidays relaxing at home, reading and watching DVDs and wandering downtown when the weather's been good, and on June 17th, Independence Day, when the weather was foul as usual on the day. Just back from a nice walk downtown, a hot dog and an ice cream. Met plenty of co-workers who have re-located downtown after the merger.
Have finished some books recently, see the booklist for details, but I'll here's a cut'n'paste: Redemption Ark by Peter Hamilton: Finally finished this one. Started out slowly, but the latter half is much better. Not that the laying down of the story in the first half isn't needed. The Scar - China Miéville: Another finally... Again I started out slowly, and I was a bit bogged down with other things. It was certainly worth it in the end. Excellent book. I think I'll need something light after this. Like Harry Potter. I'm going out of town tonight not returning until after midnight. guess by then the shop'll have sold out of the copies set aside for the midnight opening. But I'm getting it asap.

Travelogue
On Monday, I took the afternoon flight with Iceland Express, the new low-cost airline, to London, arrived around 8 and was met at Liverpool Street Station by my very nice hosts, Gideon and Jenny. The morning after all three of us were conveniently booked into the same flight to Schiphol, and thanks to some nice people at the Paddington check-in that allowed us to queue-jump, we checked in on time, and in due course I arrived in the Netherlands for the first time. Train to Leiden and there we split up, Gideon and Jenny wandered centre-wards and I took a taxi to my hotel... which turned out to be all of 2 minutes walk away.
Anyway, that saved me time searching. I managed to get to take a short detour into the centre of Leiden before getting to where the doctorate defence took place. Very nice university town. Jos did his defence admirably, not that I understand a word of the Dutch and only the general gist of the questions in English posed by the visiting German professor. Very nice ceremony to a packed house.
After the ceremony there was a reception in a side room and after that, the afp-ers headed to the North End pub, the site of many an afp-meet and later, dinner. In the evening, Jos held a party at a restaurant in the old city gate of Leiden. Very nice location that.
In the morning, I had a few hours to walk around Amsterdam. I didn't find the Red District, mainly because I wasn't looking for it, but given the area I covered, it's somewhat surprising I didn't
since it's supposed to be very near the central train station. After a very nice lunch where I had a pannekoekje for the first time (mushroom) it was back to London.
Evening was taken up with watching people fencing and then pub afterwards. Thursday and Friday were mostly wandering around, and shopping a bit. I got some very nice geektoys, one of which, as detailed yesterday, is non-usable at the moment. Finally it was time to shoehorn self into low-cost plane seat and suffer a recurrence of tha side pain that's been annoying me for a while now.

Back home after a good holiday. Watching Animatrix at the moment. The travel story comes a bit later

6am on a Whitsunday morning and I'm awake. Anyone surprised? No? Good. Pondering whether to start to get ready to go to work now, or not to go until 8am. There's stuff needs doing, see? I could have worked until midnight Friday, but certainly didn't feel like it then.
Went golfing yesterday, my first full round. Horribly crap at the start, but improved to just crap at the end. I even managed to go on hole in less than 10 shots. 8 in fact. It was a par-3 of course

Went to my first Víkingur match of the season tonight, we won 1-0. That's three wins and a draw out of four. Good start. Let's hope it continues.

Not been exactly perky over the last few days. What energy I have I use at work. Holidays soon.