The good morning, good night thread

[delboy]

If you close one eye, squint with the other, and tilt your head sideways you can see that hill is actually one of the Roswell aliens in repose.

Derek

[SamLeeFreak]

*squeels* This is a great Tuesday. If you go read Necrotic Tissue, there are koi fish everywhere! It's adorably gruesome. 

[starktheground]

Yep, Ed, pretty much as far south as I can get without being in Mexico! 

Now, am I the only one squinting my eyes and tilting my head!

[Ed]

It's the night of the big party tonight. Wife is stressing because so many people have let her down at the last moment when they'd previously said they were coming. Why do people do that?

It's an 80s themed do. I'm supposed to be going as George Michael, though I've absolutely no idea why, other than we've already got the wig for it. And I'm thinking there could be trouble if somebody else turns up as the motorcycle cop from the Village People, singing, "Let's go outside." 

[PaulH]

Worry will turn to panic if you have a mirror ball in the loo!

[Ed]

It was a great night, I thought... I know - because of all the spelling mistakes I'm making. I've got a nasty feeling I'm going to wake up with a headache tomorrow morning, despite the three glasses of water I've drunk since coming home

[Grillmeat]

Hair of the Dog that bit you Ed. Its the only sure fire cure!!

[Ed]

Thanks for the advice - and it's true, actually. A hair of the dog works surprisingly well. The only thing is, it stops you being able to drive for that much longer. Boy, but did I feel it this morning. I went to bed at something past two, and then woke up at five thirty and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up. The longer I was up for, the rougher I felt. Then at about seven I felt like I could sleep, so I snoozed until about nine. Felt like crap for most of the day, though. That's the trouble with drinking too much - you really do pay for it the next day, and the price probably isn't worth it.

Everybody has been ringing and texting to say what a great time they had, so that's good to know. There were some seriously cool outfits, and the party was a roaring success, which is a great relief for my wife - she was scared nobody would turn up. Half the people we invited didn't bother to come, but I think the right people turned up, so it didn't matter so much about the others.

[Ed]

Urgh - I'm going to bite the bullet and upgrade the forum to the latest version of SMF sometime soon. Usually it causes some problems for a while, but it looks like I'm going to have to do it, because I've just had a couple of the usual Turkish script kiddies trying to join the forum, which means they'll try to exploit the vulnerabilities if I don't patch them. Why the hell they can't get their jollies some other way, I don't know. It's not even as if there's any skill involved in the process. All they do is copy instructions on how to exploit the software and then do it. What's clever about that?

[Ed]

Yep, well, that didn't go as planned, as per usual

[Geoff_N]

I don't see any difference, ed. Is that cos you restored it to previous or users wouldn't see any difference anyway?

[Ed]

I don't see any difference, ed. Is that cos you restored it to previous or users wouldn't see any difference anyway?

It's just one of those critical updates that patch holes in the PHP code of the forum, Geoff, so you wouldn't see any changes, other than the smilies tend to get wiped out along with the attachments and the portal whenever I have to upgrade. I've replaced all the files that need replacing, but the forum refuses to do the upgrade - I guess I'm having the same functionality problems as the Turkish script kiddies who have failed (so far) in their hacking attempts. We've been under attack for the past month or more. Tossers.

Ah - I think I might have figured out what the problem is. I'll give it another try tonight. Sorry for all the down time.

[Ed]

Still having problems trying to upgrade, but we'll get there in the end, I'm sure.

Just booked my hols. Going to Italy again, back to the same hotel we stayed at last year. There's still a lot of stuff to see around there that we didn't get to do last time, so we thought we'd do the same hotel again. Probably shouldn't spend the money, what with work being very shaky at the moment and recession looming, but what the hell - seize the day, huh? We could all be dead tomorrow.

I still wish I could sit back and relax about the work situation, but I can't seem to bring myself to do it. I've always got my sights set way ahead, trying to see into next year and plan for the future, keep on an even keel, make sure we've always got prospects. I really shouldn't worry, but I can't help it - that's just the way I am, I suppose.

[Geoff_N]

It is only to be expected that the booming house prices would periodically crash.
Shame cos my son bought a nice penthouse apartment in Nottingham for £110k 3 years ago and others (not penthouse) are going for £90k in his block lately. He needs to sell now he mostly lives with his girl but what should I advise? Maybe he should rent out and keep the flat for a) when prices rise again, or b) he and girl are not an item.

Parenting isn't easy even after they leave home.

Geoff

[Ed]

Property is just a waiting game, Geoff - always has been. If he sits tight he'll make that money back and more in the future. My advice is to rent it out until the property prices come back up again. Only sell if you've got no other option. After all, that £20,000 shortfall represents a significant chunk of disposable income, and just because it's spread over twenty-five years and doesn't seem very much like that, it still is, and it'll have trebled to £60,000 by the time he's paid twety-five years' worth of interest on it.