Having had another £300 gas and electricity bill from our supplier, and on my flatmate's suggestion, I bought a couple of electricity metering devices.

One of them plugs in to the wall and you attach appliances, and the other attaches around the live feed out from the electricity meter, then sends data back to a control unit via radio.

I like the concept of being able to see how much power each of the appliances in the flat draws. The tumble dryer appears to use 2.3kW and runs for 80 minutes - which a 9p per kWh, is about 25p roughly. The kettle, television and my computer are next.

I plan to draw up a little chart of "costs of using items" - it may help Sarah and I cut down on our electricity usage by being more aware of how much we're using.

Now, how do I do the same for gas consumption? :-)

I flew out to Seattle, then down to San Francisco on Thursday.

The flight out was uneventful although long. A nice touch was that the cabin steward referred to people as "Mr Hicks", for example - certainly added a personal touch even when travelling in Premium Economy.

I was very tired and slightly incoherent when going through Immigration. I picked up my luggage from the carousel, then went to check it right back in again for another flight to San Francisco. Virgin America rock - Internet access on the flight, a young, fun vibe and decent at-seat entertainment.

kest met me at the airport and drove a very tired Poggs back to Oakland, where I crashed out a couple of hours later.

Friday, we went to a local cafe for brunch, then wandered through San Francisco for a bit, then over to the Exploratorium, and ended up at the Can't Fail Cafe for dinner. I crashed out from activity about 10.30pm and woke at 8.30am the next day.

So today - Haight St. where I bought some random cute stuff, then the California Academy of Sciences, and a mountain of not-too-bad-but-not-fantastic-either sushi.

I am going to crash out now - tomorrow, kest is driving me to the airport for my flight to Seattle to see ebonyraine and company, and I might just get to see the Golden Gate Bridge...!

Does anyone have a silver Dell travel charger and the cigarette lighter lead? I am flying to the US tomorrow and whilst I thought I had mine at home, it appears not to be.

If I can get it before midday tomorrow (Thursday), I will be a very happy man and buy you lots of alcohol/things :-)

What kind of a screwed-up traceroute is *this*?

traceroute to www.poggs.com (193.109.197.25), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 172.26.131.194 (172.26.131.194) 139.619 ms 140.565 ms 158.532 ms
2 172.26.131.193 (172.26.131.193) 159.493 ms 160.472 ms 178.457 ms
3 172.25.134.131 (172.25.134.131) 188.446 ms 198.404 ms 1815.557 ms
4 172.25.134.133 (172.25.134.133) 1814.476 ms 1815.472 ms 1815.450 ms
5 tufnell.london.poggs.net (193.109.197.25) 1815.432 ms 1815.415 ms 1815.400 ms
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 tufnell.london.poggs.net (193.109.197.25) 131.640 ms * 111.584 ms
9 tufnell.london.poggs.net (193.109.197.25) 148.706 ms * *
10 * * *
11 tufnell.london.poggs.net (193.109.197.25) 138.545 ms * *
12 * tufnell.london.poggs.net (193.109.197.25) 1020.249 ms *
13 * tufnell.london.poggs.net (193.109.197.25) 1018.192 ms 1016.172 ms
14 * 193.109.197.25 (193.109.197.25) 133.714 ms *
15 193.109.197.25 (193.109.197.25) 133.659 ms 133.637 ms 133.622 ms

It's a traceroute from my Orange 3G service to one of my hosted servers.

Why on earth are Orange screwing around with ICMP TTL Expired messages!?! Give me back my Vodafone service - at least that was just slightly flaky hardware! :(

Ingredients

Some lean steak strips
200g wholemeal rice
Sunflower oil
Two large carrots
Several medium sized mushrooms
Two beaten eggs
Two cloves of garlic, crushed
Soy sauce
Oyster sauce

Method

Put the rice in a a pan, measure the depth with your finger and cover with cold water to the same level above the rice. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down, place a lid on the saucepan and cook for about eight minutes until all the water is absorbed. Remove from the heat and shake the rice. Leave for ten minutes or so.

Chop the carrots and cut the steak in to 3-4cm long and 0.5cm wide strips (approximately - there is no need for precision).

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a wok, and add the beaten eggs and garlic. Fry until properly scrambled but not browned, and remove from the wok.

Heat another teaspoon of oil in the wok, add the steak strips and fry until brown. Add the carrots and mushrooms, some soy sauce and oyster sauce, and cook until the mushrooms shrivel.

Add the rice, and cook for 3-4 minutes. Finally, add the egg and fry for another minute or two.

Serve on a large plate, and inform your flatmate that she should eat the remains, and not the planned cold turkey dinner.

Comments

Nom. I might do less rice and more egg next time, perhaps chopping the carrots smaller.

This recipe is ideal for using up food that would otherwise turn in to penicillin whilst you're at Whitby.

Ingredients

Two salmon steaks
Olive oil
Parsley
Tabasco sauce
Soy sauce
Lemon juice
Asparagus
400g wholeweat pasta
Green pesto
A Peshrawi naan

Method

Eat the Peshwari naan whilst deciding what to cook. Discuss the relative merits of Peshwari naan over, say, garlic naan, and both agree the former is your weakness.

Next, place the salmon on foil, and drizzle the olice oil, soy sauce and a few drops of tabasco sauce on. Add lots of lemon juice. Wrap up in to a parcel and cook for 12 minutes at 180 degrees centigrade.

Place the asparagus in your magic steamer thing and set the controls to "steam".

At the same time, cook the pasta, then drain and add the pesto, stirring well.

Remove the salmon parcels and allow to cool slightly whilst chatting to your housemate. Flake the salmon in to the pasta and stir.

Serve with asparagus on the side, and a wine glass full of chocolate soy milkshake.

Result

Omnomnomnom.

Since I don't have a dual layer DVD, I've copied the OSX 10.5 DVD image to an external hard drive, booted from it, and I'm now making a backup image of my internal disk to another external drive before I wipe the whole lot and put 10.5 on.

I'm really glad I think I know what I'm doing.

I log in to my Orange account, only to be greeted with an advert that's larger than the useful content on the page.

( Advertising Fail )

Nice one, Orange.

A wife sends her husband, a coder, to the grocery and says "Buy sausages - if they have eggs, buy 10"

The coder goes to the shop and asks "Do you have eggs?" The shopkeeper replies "Yes", so the coder replies "10 sausages please"

For some time - and I mean some time, as it's been ages since I last tried this - I've wanted to sync the contacts on my Nokia N95 with somewhere else so I can keep track of everybody's email address, home address etc.

It seems like you can do it with SyncML with Google. Now that is a really useful thing for me.

Time to go and put everyone's addresses in there from my diary...

severe_delays, passengeraction and I went to see Mark Thomas tonight.

I laughed so much :)

DISCLAIMER: I thought I had samon steaks. Turned out to be tuna. I made this recipe up on the fly.

Ingredients

100g tuna steak
Leeks
Quarter of an onion
Half a clove of garlic
Lemon juice
Mustard
Mayonaise
Parsley
Olive Oil
Foil (for cooking, dur)

Method

Place the tuna steak on the foil on top of a baking sheet. Drizzle the lemon juice and a little oil over the tuna, then throw the chopped onion and garlic on top.

Make a parcel with the foil and bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 190 degrees. Science bit: the foil allows heat in but doesn't allow the moisture to escape, keeping the tuna lovely and juicy.

Mix a tablespoon of mayonaise with a little bit of mustard, then add half a teaspoon of parsley and a little lemon juice.

Serve the tuna with the mustard mayo smeared on top, with leeks and mange tout.

Result

I made the mustard mayo too strong, and should have used half a clove of garlic. The lemon flavour in the tuna was slightly overpowered by the garlic and onion, so I decided to use a quarter of an onion in future.

Some kind of sauce would go with this really well, I think.

Ingredients

Half a pack of turkey mince (which we will call 'beef' below)
Spaghetti
A jar of Dolmio (strangelover is unhappy with me now)
Basil
Lemon juice
Five drops of Tabasco sauce
Tomato Pesto

Method

Easy. Cook the spaghetti, lightly fry the turkey mince and add a load of basil and lemon juice. No, really.

Drain the spaghetti, empty the pan, and place the Dolmio, a tablespoon of pesto and the beef in the pan. Heat until bubbling.

Serve and nom.

Verdict

The lemon flavour is incredibly subtle and comes out under the flavour of the tomato. It's really darned good.

The title is nothing to do with menstrual cycles

Ingredients

Noodles
Turkey
Leeks
Brussels sprouts
Soy sauce

Method

Fry the turkey in a wok. Add the leeks and sprouts and a load of soy sauce for flavour.

Wait until alohura comes through the door, then serve.

Eat hastily and write-up on LiveJournal quickly because you're off to Brockley in a second...

Ever thought of doing something so simple, yet so damned tasty?

Sausages, bagels, salmon, scrambled eggs.

Lightly toast the bagels, scramble the eggs, place the salmon on the bagels, dump the eggs on top, and serve with sausages.

Ingredients

Bits of fish
Potatoes
75g flour
Butter
Mustard
750ml soy milk
Two cloves of garlic

Method

Heat the fish and soy milk together until the mixture start to boil, then remove from the heat, throw the garlic cloves and leave.

Peel the potatoes and bring to the boil, then simmer until mostly cooked.

Drain and mash the potatoes until smooth with some butter and a few tablespoons of the milk from the fish. Add half a level tablespoon of mustard and mix thoroughly. Leave the potatoes to cool a little.

Melt 75g butter in a saucepan and then add the sieved flour gradually to make a paste. Cook the lump for a couple of minutes, then gradually add the milk - leave the fish behind. Mix until smooth, then add the fish, combining the items gently so as not to puree the fish.

Spread the fish and lump mix in to a buttered dish, smooth the potato on the top, and cook for 40 minutes.

Serve with microwaved vegetables.

Verdict

F*cking NOM. I haven't heard any feedback from alohura, so she might be dead. Uhm...

How To Cross A Road The Poggs Way

Press button. Patiently wait for lights to change in my favour and green man to illuminate. Check in both directions before beginning to cross, then pause to allow a wanker driving too fast to overtake the stopped bus (which, if it was stopped at a bus stop, would have put its indicator on), realise he's three feet from knocking me down, note his "OH SHIT!" expression on his face, and hope he saw me noting down his registration number.

Number of near-death experiences tonight: 1

Oh well, tomorrow's another day and another opportunity for me to routinely preempt some of the lesser intelligent species who are let out on to London's roads.

This evening, I met fire_brand and le_spike in Big Red - which could be described as "my local" - for drinks and chilli. Drinks plural, as I had two before leaving to come home.

I needed a quiet evening, and I feel a bit better for it.

The weekend doesn't have many plans - what's going on, folks?

It's amazing what a difference going to work on sausage and bacon can make.