It started snowing on Monday night. It's still snowing. It's also sodding cold. I love it!

Spent time yesterday making snowballs for the dogs to catch. Miles is convinced they're frozen treats, and leaps into the air to catch them, and then chomps each snowball down, like a low-budget Italian ice cream.

I got a bunch of chores done today, including a trip with Benny, to see the lovely Dr M.

We took the Beetle, and Benny griped and moaned about it the whole way there. He sits on my lap whilst I drive, and generally likes to give a running comentary on how I'm doing. Today he was especially vocal, to the point of my having to suggest that if he didn't shut up, he'd be continuing the journey on the roof of the car.

The appointment went well, and ended up with Dr M and I chit-chatting about ways for me to stay in the US. I shalln't embarrass her by recounting some of her suggestions, or indeed the offer I made.

Afterwards, whilst I settled the bill, Benny marched around the surgery, and found a nurse to harrass. He followed her into an exam room, and was barking orders at her whilst she cleaned it. Actually, from the resultant number of treats he solicited from her, I think the orders were for today's special, biggie-sized.

This evening, I tried, so very hard, to finish a little rant article I have on the go, about Halloween. But between dog-walking Miles in the snow, and phone calls and IM chats, I never quite got back into my stride with it.

I guess you could say I was snowed.

There's a new coffee house in the neighbourhood, and so in my capacity as the Roger Ebert of Denver coffee, I checked it out today.

It's beautifully decorated and stocked with some mighty fine chairs and sofas. The music was upbeat Euro-techno, and the barista was cute, if a little stand-offish.

Bear in mind, I took all these pictures surreptiously, by swtiching my flash off, switching the LCD screen on the camera on, and glancing down, as I snapped away from waist-height. I did this because I didn't want to freak out or annoy the already bored-looking young lady who worked there.

Click each thumbnail to enlarge.

Cafe Europa

The coffee was OK, but served with such a lack of enthusiasm, it might as well have been instant coffee. Also, there was no Internet access. Purrrlease! It's the 21st Century, people! Get a clue!

Update - May 2003
I've recently been back there. The same snooty girl is working there. She's very cute, tall and thin, but that doesn't excuse her awful attitude towards customers, especially female ones (which I observed just after I'd sat down). It was like everything was a real hassle for her, including making me a coffee.

This time I had a sandwich as well as coffee. The sandwich was very exotic sounding but very expensive, considering it was just a sandwich. My latté and sandwich came to nearly $10!

At that sort of price, I'd expect eye-contact and maybe even a smile, from the staff. Apparently, though, I'm not worthy of that. I'm "just a customer". Hmmmm.

Update March/April 2004
Whilst a friend from the UK was visiting me, we went in search of a different coffee house than my usual two or three haunts. Just for a laugh, we went back to Cafe Europa, if only to show him the snooty lass that had caused so many comments on this website.

What a pleasant surprise awaited us! New ownership. Not only that, but free WiFi Internet access. The new staff/owners were very friendly, and the coffee was very tasty. The place was busier than I'd ever seen it before, partly due to the friendlier serivce, but mostly (I suspect) due to the free Internet access.

The same cool sofas, chairs and décor remained, but at least this time, customers weren't made to feel like they weren't worthy of such a place.

I'm thinking on my next visit, I may take my camera back again, and take some better, less covert, photographs.

OK, so I'm done with my on-air radio mularky for now.

It was a real blast, and I now really really really really want a career doing radio, instead of IT. Preferably radio in the US, as I think they do it so well. Now I think about it, I probably would like to do public radio more than anything, but frankly any station, commercial or otherwise would be great!

Incidentally, I managed to get them to tape my last 40 minutes on air. At some point, when I sort out the new version of this site, I might get it off the tape, and into an mp3 file for download - should any of you ever care for such a thing.

And now, back to our regular scheduled writing...

OK, so after my 8-9am slot on-air on Friday, I was on my way out the door, when the Program Director asked if I'd do another hour. So, I ended up going back on-air for the 10-11am hour.

I think it was my best performance yet. Susan and I really got into a rhythm, although I did make her totally lose it on one occasion, and took over mid-phone number, as she was laughing too much!

We make a really good double act, teasing each other on-air. I think it's a chemistry that could go on at great strength, if I were allowed to stay. Unfortunately, it'd not be a paid gig, as far as I can tell.

Ed and I work well together too, as evidenced by this exchange, live, on-air on Friday, at about 815am:

Max: (reading a pledge) "... and he says, 'we love you Mr Mayor'. ? Err..."
Ed: "What Max doesn't realise is that I'm often referred to as the Mayor of Morning Beat, folks."
Max: "I didn't know that. So, does that mean I'm the Michael J. Fox of Morning Beat?"

So, anyway, it's my last go on air - at least during the current pledge drive - tomorrow morning.

I'm on the same hours as before, 8-9am with Ed, and 9-10am with Susan, but as evidenced by my experience on Friday, I could easily do extra hours.

After this, I promise to try and get back to my regular, less diary-like, blogging. The radio stuff has been preoccupying me this past week or so.

Just a very quick reminder. I'm on-air in 's breakfast show, Morning Beat, with Ed Danielson.

Those of you who still love me, tune in at 8am MDT - which is 2pm GMT.

Those of you who don't love me anymore, are excused.

Bless those geniuses at dribbleglass.com. I needed cheering up tonight, and as ever, they've come up trumps.

Due to blogger.com's inability to find it's own arse with both hands, this article got lost in the ether. It was posted on Monday night (21st October).

...
We Were On

After a nervous first few minutes on air, I got into my stride, and had a good time.

They wouldn't let me use the "Send money now, or we start playing Kenny G." threat, so I resorted threatening that if we didn't meet our goal of 12 pledges in the hour, I'd sing on-air.

Needless to say, we met, and in fact exceeded our target.

Mid-Morning Jazz Host, Susan Gatschet-Reese Mid-Morning Jazz Sidekick, Max Turner

I'll be on again, on Wednesday 23rd, from 8am - 9am on The Morning Beat, and 9am - 10am on Mid-morning Jazz.

OK, so I made it in for Morning Beat, replete with almost more WPCC coffee than I could carry.

Being the seasoned pro of one whole hour of broadcasting, that I am, this morning's two hour-long slots went well.

Seriously though, I did feel more relaxed today, something which was confirmed by a regular EID reader somewhere east of me.

As if you hadn't had enough pictures of me wearing headphones and ill-advised t-shirts, here's a snap of this morning's Morning Beat posse:

The cast of the radio version of "You Wouldn't, Would You?"

After Morning Beat, I stayed on for the first hour of Mid-Morning Jazz, wherein it was all I could do to stop Susan from trying to auction me off to the female listeners.

As if that wasn't enough, she goes on to mock my English accent on-air! The cheek of the woman! It's a good job I love her!

The whole morning was pure fun, and if anyone reading this has a need for some English on-air talent, drop me an email. I'd do it full-time in a heartbeat.

I started to get feedback about my on-air work, and it was all positive. One woman told the station that I could talked about toilet paper and she'd have been captivated! Go figure.

This started a discussion about the merits of doing voice-over work. It seems it can be a nice little earner.

After the morning session, I was called back in to supervise the phone volunteers, making it a very long working day (7.45am - 6pm) - especially for someone who's gotten used to not working (unfortunately).

I've managed to get an extra on-air slot on Friday, from 8-9am, then I'm on again on Monday 8-10am.

... Oh my God it's early. In fact, it'll be 0600 hours.

Yes, after so long as a man of leisure, I'm having to get up super early this morning, to be on-air by 8am. I'm sidekick to Ed Danielson during the last hour of the breakfast show - Morning Beat, then I'm doing the first hour of Mid-Morning Jazz with my buddy Susan.

Prior to arriving at the radio station, I have to go pick up a bunch of coffee from the WPCC, which they are donating to the station in exchange for a whole bunch of free on-air promotion.

Tune your radio to 89.3FM if you're in Denver, 89.7FM in Breckenridge, or 104.9FM in Laramie, Wyoming. Alternatively, click here to listen, and feel free to ring the station and make a pledge of however much you can afford. Over half the station's funding is from generous listener member donations, allowing it to remain commercial-free, and playing good jazz, blues and latin jazz.

I'll probably also be helping out managing the volunteers after my on-air time is over.

So in one hour and 25 minutes time, I'm doing my first on-air slot on - KUVO.

It'll be just one hour to start with, but that's probably enough for my first go. I say that, because it's one solid hour of me trying to simultaneously be witty and entertaining, whilst trying to talk-up the station, and convince listeners to send a monetary donation (it's how commercial-free public radio pays the bills).

I've had one, five-minute practice at this carefully choreographed spontaneity, and whilst it went well, there's no telling how it'll go live on-air for an hour.

Nervous? Me? Why, I'm a media professional darrrhhhling!

So anyway, I'm on at 10am MDT.

As part of EID's continuing commitment to give it's readers useful and informative guidelines for life, today we're going to discuss diet and exercise.

There are a lot of quirky diets out there, high carbs/low fat, no carbohydrates, high protein, body typing etc, but we need to take a look at a revolutionary weight loss program called the M-Plan diet.

When you send away for our instructional booklet, you'll get detailed instructions, on how to live by the M-Plan. For now, however, let's give you a brief overview.

The M-Plan is a bit like the F-Plan from the 1980's, except instead of making you eat ludicrous amounts of fibre, M-Plan involves a strict regime of eating as much yummy food as you can cram into your piehole, and then doing fuck-all exercise, other than walking your dog.

Then that, combined with following a complicated routine of worrying about unemployment, fretting about US immigration, staying up way too late, and averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night, will make the pounds will just fall off you.

User Testimonial
I have been following the M-Plan diet since January, and the results are noticeable.

I'm in my mid-thirties, and so in theory my metabolism will have slowed down considerably, compared to when I was in my early twenties. However, thanks to the M-Plan Diet my metabolism is back up there, alongside Linford Christie's.

The house has recently acquired a new set of digital weighing scales. I thought I'd give them a try. I've not weighed myself for about a year or so.

Back then I weighed 180lbs. Last night, the scales told me I weighed 171.5lbs, however this morning I realised that the feet had not been put on the scales, and so it may have been giving a false reading. It turns out that the reading was false, because after attaching the feet to the scale, I found out the grim truth. I actually weigh only 167.5lbs.`

If my wasting away continues at this rate, and I don't get any IT work by next year, I'm thinking of becoming a super-model.

This morning, my postman Dewey, rang the bell wanting a signature.

I assumed it was some registered letter or something equally as dull. It wasn't. It was a parcel, for me, the contents of which, were a surprise.

I'd forgotten it was coming, but I knew there was a surprise parcel on the way. It was coming all the way from Merry Olde Englande, from my dear friend John.

It was such a well wrapped parcel, including more brown paper than I've seen in years, that I thought I'd share it with you. I remembered, as I opened it, that he had warned me that what had started as a simple single purchase, had turned into a work of art.

Condimental

Thanks John, for such a fine range of very British condiments! The HP Sauce is especially welcome!

I think someone needs to check the copyright on "Condimental", as it sounds way too much like a Pet Shop Boys album.

In case you hadn't spotted it by the timestamps on my postings, I'm a bit of a night owl.

Even when I was working, I used to be up pretty late, say until 2am, and then sleep until 7 or 8am. Now that I'm a man of extreme leisure, however, I'm finding impossible to sleep before about 4am, and I wake about four hours later.

So whilst I'm either writing, instant messaging, or just surfing the Internet, late at night, I get to watch a lot of less-than-highbrow TV. Don't worry this isn't yet another essay on WWPV with the irrepressible Sheriff John Bunnell.

No, a lot of it has been Cheers, which is a timeless classic. However, if I'm not paying attention, they slip in other programs.

Specifically, they slip in one, very cheesy 1970's US re-make of a British sit-com.

I'm not going to name names. Suffice to say that I keep waking up the next morning with the following words, going round and round in my head:

Please! Someone! Make it stop! So far I haven't felt the need to wear incredibly camp neckerchiefs, á la Mr Furley, but it may only be a matter of time.

At some point, I might get round writing a rant on what a crap actress Suzanne Somers was, and how "having long blond hair" isn't actually an occupation. I mean, don't you have to actually do something, other than stagger about like some retarded tellytubby, to be allowed to claim 'actress' as your occupation?

p.s. I'd like to thank Imelda for sending me the full lyrics, despite having heard me sing it. It takes a brave, or some would say foolhardy, woman to do such a thing, knowing that they will be used for evil, and not good.

Folks, my dates and times for being on-air on have been set. They are as follows:

Mon 21st 10-11am on Mid-morning Jazz
Wed 23rd 8-9am on the Breakfast Show, and 9-10am on Mid-morning Jazz
Mon 28th 8-9am on the Breakfast Show, and 9-10am on Mid-morning Jazz

All times are Mountain Daylight Time (our clocks haven't gone back yet), so it's GMT-8.00. I've a feeling that the clocks go back an hour in the next week or so, meaning we'll be back to our standard GMT-7.00 time.

If you're in our neck of the woods, it's 89.3 in Denver, 89.7 in Breckenridge and 104.9 in Laramie Wyoming. If you're not, click on the link above an in the links section, to catch the streaming broadcast via the website.

from the Gastro-Intestinal Dept.

The women amongst you, will know that when men get ill, they fall into one of two distinct categories.

The Martyr
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine. (cough, splutter) I'll just finish re-roofing the garage, (wheeze) and painting the bathroom, and then maybe, I'll think about dying in a corner somewhere."

The Hypochondriac
Needs no explanation really. The majority of guys fall into this category. For them, any head cold is the flu, and they may not make it through to the next sunrise.

Whilst they think nothing of your monthly period pain, their cutting themselves with a Stanley knife whilst attempting yet another poorly considered DIY project, is the worst injury to happen in the Western world, since that poor lad in Reservoir Dogs got a rather more close shave than he'd have liked.

As For Me...
I fall somewhere between the two categories. I demonstrated this, this weekend.

At some point, I'd eaten something with wasn't 100% healthy goodness, and got food poisoning.

I'm not sure if it was from the dinner on Friday, at The Cheshire Cat, or the result of my sushi-making exploits on Saturday night.

So Sunday, having been awake until 4am the night before, I awoke at 7.30am, with what felt like the entire cast of this movie staging a recreation of the film inside me. In fact, at one point I could have sworn I heard Gordon Jackson and Donald Pleasence arguing over who was going down the tunnel first.

I had a lunchtime meeting arranged, and so dosed myself up with enough pharmacueticals to be mistaken for a branch of Boots, and set off out.

When I got home, the drugs had started to wear off, so I quickly set about cleaning the house, with what energy I had left. This folks, is the martyr element at work.

After that, I retired to my bed, wherein my temperature skyrocketed upwards, and I started fading fast.

Any promises I made, to any of you via Instant Messaging, during that period, are null and void. In fact, it's entirely possible that you may have been IMing Miles, who was also on the bed, with the iBook was between the two of us.

Miles has no power of attorney over me, however, he tells me that any offers of walks or dog biscuits are valid, and he looks forward to getting the goods.

I've made a start with moving EID to its new home.

As my free webspace at mac.com is about to evaporate, I've moved all EID imagery to a new, but temporary, home with my DSL provider.

In fact, I was "kicking it old skool", by using the Terminal application, and the Unix command-line for my ftp needs.

I then set about editing all the posts that contain images, to give them the new location.

I'm still not done doing that, but it's 5am, and the sun is nearly up, so I have to go crawl back into my coffin for my usual 0.005 hours of sleep.

For a week or two, there's been a problem with the EID archives. Specifically, the archives after 14th September.

I've tried all the usual tricks to fool Blogger.com's servers, but have had no luck.

I'm still working on solving this problem.

Once EID has moved to its new home, this won't be an issue (I hope!).

Tonight, I went down to the radio station for a "How to be on-air" meeting.

The first hour was a read through of some handouts about what we need to do to promote the station.

After that, three of us went into a and practised the delicate art of making precisely timed and co-ordinated pitches for the station, sound like we're all just talking off-the-cuff.

I could hear myself through the headphones, and for the first time ever when hearing my own voice in a disembodied way, it actually sounded like me. It was clear, and there was a good mix of tenor and bass to it. I actually sounded like a radio broadcaster!

I mention this because, normally when I hear my voice on tape or video, the compression makes my voice sound like some reedy-voiced tosser from southern England.

My partner on the practice was the station's Program Director, who said I did well, and we talked about what on-air slots I'm booked to do. So far, it's only the one slot, however, there are lots and lots of unfilled slots of air-time for us 'pledge rappers' and he suggested I get a good number of on-air appearances under my belt.

Then, after I'd gone on about my wanting to get into broadcasting, he suggested that if I'm still in Denver in November or December, he might be looking for new volunteer DJs, and he'd like to consider me for doing a show.

So, if I'm still here in Denver, I'll be reminding you to tune in to me!

Meantime, I'll be posting reminders as to when I'm on-air during the pledge drive. Tune in if you're in Colorado or Wyoming, or if you're outside that broadcast range, surf to kuvo.org and click on the "Tune In Now" button.

And don't think I won't be making a note of which EID readers don't ring in to the station with a pledge.

Was that enough multiple negatives in a single sentence? Don't look upon it as bad grammar. Look upon it as a test of your reading skills.

I just heard the following, on a TV commercial for the new movie, White Oleander.

"... featuring blockbuster performances from... "

Which begs the question, if it's a Blockbuster performance, does that mean it's going straight to video?

I've been cooking a lot more, since I've been out of work. Not only that, but I've been trying lots of new recipies. Most of the new ones have worked out well.

My latest success was Garlic Chicken Pasta with Proscuitto.

Other recent meals I've done, that proved popular, included Tuscan Chicken, and Chicken Cacciatore. Not that I can't cook vegetarian, should there be a demand.

If you visit EID Towers, be sure to arrive hungry.

Despite Colorado's "No-Call List", I have just fielded a telemarketing call from a subdivision of my bank, offering some me some bullshit Get-Hit-By-A-Truck-And-We-Send-You-A-Buck scheme.

For some reason, I didn't resort to either of my two techniques for fielding sales calls:

1) Rant at them about the Colorado No-Call list, legal repercussions, and how I'd be more likely to agree to go on a date with Anna-Nicole Smith, to an all-you-can-eat pizza parlour, than buy something from an unsolicited call.

2) In my most English accent, tell them that I'm only visiting the U.S. and that the householder isn't in right now.

So I listened. At one point she said, and I quote, "...and if you are illegible for this scheme...". I managed to supress my laughter, but started to wonder if this counted as a vote for illegiblebatchelor.com in the Name Max's Next Domain competition.

As if that wasn't lame enough, she then went on to ask me if I'd heard of the actor Christopher Reeve. I'm serious, she actually used his name to try to sell me this policy.

She said that he has been quoted as saying that this scheme is a really good idea, because you never know when an accident can happen, leaving you paralysed.

I managed to not blurt out, "Fuck off, did he! You lying cow!", and suggested that if Mr Reeve would like to call me himself, I might consider his endorsement.

How surprised would you be that she didn't spot my sarcasm?

Last night I went back to The Comedy Works, dowtown, for an evening of stand-up comedy. Relax, I was in the audience, not on the stage.

Not that I wouldn't mind having a go at stand-up comedy, if I had the material, and the balls to stand there. My years of acting experience would enable me to get up there, but once there, then what? No script or character to hide behind with stand-up.

The Comedy Works is your archetypical comedy venue, in a downtown basement, with black walls, and seating with all the room of economy-class airline seating, and $5+ pints of beer

As usual the host for the evening was a local guy who did a spot of stand-up comedy before introducing the first act.

There was then a stream of four comedians, interspersed with our genial host, reminding us to tip the waitresses, although after one of them told us there was a "two-drink minimum", the only urge to tip her, was over a cliff. That said, I managed three - just to show willing.

All but one of the four supporting acts were funny.

The only one that didn’t make me laugh was Stephanie McHugh a regular at the Store, who's act centers around being a stay-at-home-mom. It wasn't because I don't identify with that lifestyle that I didn't find her funny. I just found myself thinking of material she could do that would have made me laugh, about the trials and tribulations of motherhood and/or soccer-momness. I guess it's easy to think of stuff, when you don't have to actually get up there and do it.

Next up, David Gray was a mild mannered and softly spoken guy with an easy-going nature.

He did some great humour, with a local flavour. I particularly liked the stuff about being stoned in the 'burbs of the greater Denver Metro area. This segwayed nicely into a little bit about SUVs, which had us all crying with laughter. I think it was mainly the image of someone having a such a big SUV that if they painted it yellow they'd be able to take retarded children to school, that made me almost spurt beer out of my nose. His impression of a retarded child on the bus, saying, "Ooh the Eddie Bauer Edition, I love the Fun Pack." made even the most PC members of the audience guffaw.

He was followed by a Latino comedian, a Colorado native, who made us all laugh. I passed on his comment, "My mother was Irish, my father was a Chicano, so I guess that makes me a Lephrecano.", to my Irish roommate.

The last of the support acts, a former warm-up man for Greg Kinnear (host of Later with Greg Kinnear). Try as I might, neither I, nor the friend that I went with, can remember the guy’s name. A lot of Internet searching has revealed and equal lack of clues.

Anyway, the guy was funny. Originally from New Hampshire, he's recently moved from L.A. to Denver. Anyone in the Western United States would identify with some of his material however. My favourite bits were his tirade against Qwest, and his description of 'coming out' to his insane farmer father. And I quote, "so I say 'Dad, I'm gay', and my day says 'aint nothing wrong with a guy getting corn-holed a couple of times, son. How do you think I met your mother?'". Bizarre!

And then there was the headline act, Kathleen Madigan, an award winning comedian.

She did about an hour. Frankly, it seemed like more than an hour, but not because it was boring. No, it seemed like longer because I didn't stop laughing the whole time she was on stage.

She was, without a doubt, the best female comedian I have seen in years, possibly ever.

One thing I realised afterwards was that she differed from the majority of female comedians in one important way. She didn't do gender-specific comedy, and she didn't bash men.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to sit through female comedians going on and on and on about, "Hey, ladies, you know when you're having your period, but you want to wear thong underwear?"

Not that I'm offended or upset by such material, I just can't relate to it. Not only that, but it's all been done before. I just want to say to comediennes doing that stuff, "OK, you menstruate. I'm real happy for you. Now can we please, move the fuck on, and think of some new material?"

Kathleen Madigan, however, did none of this. She got on with face-paced and witty comedy that everyone, regardless of chromosomes, could relate to.

I was captivated. Two of the biggest things that attract me to a woman, are brains and humour. Kathleen had both.

In addition to making me laugh harder than any other woman walking this earth has done, I noticed some of her delivery involved the exact same kind of assides towards the audience that some of my comedic stage performances have involved. I guess this made me feel like we had something in common.

She covered a wide range of subjects, but I was too busy clutching my sides and deafening the poor man next to me with my guffawing, to remember any of them, save for "British soccer fans were banned from the World Cup for being too drunk. You know it's bad when the rest of the world is telling you, you drink too much.".

There was other stuff, and I feel just terrible, that I can't remember enough details to make it a good read.

I've been sitting on this damn article for over 24-hours, and if I don't stop now, and post it for you, one of us is going to lose it. I'm just hoping it's not me.

I've been out tonight, got back later than planned, and I'm now too tired, and too bummed out, to write.

Come back later today, when I've managed to find my happy face, for a report on what was a great evening of live comedy.

OK, so this is slightly out of sequence chronologically, but what the heck.

On Friday night, I met up with an EID reader (and fellow blogger), and her boyfriend, for a few beers. The names will be changed to protect the guilty, and we'll called them D and M. The venue was the Pearl St. Grille - a regular haunt of mine, that I often refer to as being the bar that is most like a British pub, without actually meaning to be.

I also refer to it as The Land Of The Amazon Waitresses because at certain times of the year, they seem to employ beautiful waitresses, who are all over six feet tall, tanned, and live in a rain forest. OK, so I made that last bit up. They're not really that tanned.

Oh, and did I mention that the pitchers of (fine microbrewed) beer, give you four pints for the price of three? Unfortunately, they don't give you a straw.

So M, is not only a fellow former subject of her Royal Britannic Majesty, but is also a former employee of the same company that I used to work at in both the UK and the US.

D, meanwhile, is an all-American gal, who clearly had more sense than to work for my ex-employer, and who despite being in the presence of two foreigners, babbling away in their strange foreign tongue, held on the conversation and gave as good as us foreigners could dish out.

All-in-all a thoroughly fun evening, and it was really nice to meet folks who have read EID, and still turned up.

If any other readers want to meet and carry out a thorough inspection of a nearby pub's beer, whilst partaking in some verbal fencing of the calibre you'd expect of Oscar Wilde('s cleaning lady), then contact me through the site. Book early to ensure disappointment.

Whilst I don't want to turn this into a "Dear Diary" kinda blog, here's my Saturday so far:

Woken by my father, ringing from Britain, to tell me, "thanks for emailing him that screensaver, but I suspect it might have a virus". Needless to say, I had sent him no such email. I checked all three of my computers, and thing had been sent to him by me. I'd had a similar email earlier in the week, but as I do all my email on my Macintoshes, 95% of viruses are ineffective against me, because they generally exploit the myriad of gaping holes in Microsoft's so-called operating systems.

Fed and watered the animals, retired to bed with tea, and NPR's Car Talk.

Later, lunch with a friend, then back home, to find my roommate out with Saoirse, and Miles hanging out with my next-door-neighbour, Mark, at his place.

So Miles and I went for a wander, to Twist & Shout, wherein I found the new Coldplay album with a bonus CD for a very good price, and then another 10% off, upon production of my KUVO membership card.

From there, we proceeded to our current location, sat outside the Washington Park Coffee Company, where I'm having coffee, and Miles is having a bowl of water and some of their complimentary dog biscuits.

So now here I am, beaming to you direct via the WPCCnet, and chatting on the phone with a certain cutie on the west coast, who will remain nameless. Now if this could just last forever...

What is it with these people who, having whined about it being too hot all summer, crank the heat the moment the temperature dips below 70, leaving the thermostat locked 75 all night?

For the record, this is not aimed at any one person. This is aimed at almost every woman I've ever met.

And yes, this will probably draw some negative responses from the female readership, but it doesn't detract from the fact that it's true.

Now if that headline didn't get your attention, I don't know what will! However, true to the naming convention of EID headlines, it does vaguely relate to the subject matter.

As you'll no doubt know, I have one PC, and two Macintoshes. I'm a Windows software developer by trade, hence the PC, but I love my Macs.

I used to have a Psion PDA. It was near perfect. When it died, and Psion announced they were pulling out of the consumer handheld market, I looked around at the alternatives, and reluctantly, went for a Pocket PC.

I bought the Compaq iPaq 3670. It's a great little machine, with a superb screen. It was great when I was still working, because I could easily sync it up to my work PC and get my meeting notices on it.

However, now that I'm a stay-at-home-international-playboy, and I do all my email on my two Macintoshes, I really need a PDA that synchronises with them. Not so much for the email synchronisation, but for the contacts synchronisation.

It is possible to get some software that will sync a Pocket PC to a Mac, but you have to pay $70 for the version that will do contacts sync-ing.

BTW, for those of you who are (stupidly) saying, "Well, just use your PC for synchronisation just for now.", see my recent entry on that subject, and what happens if I'm stupid enough to think that I could successfully synchronise data from two machines running two Microsoft operating systems.

So anyway, the up-and-the-down of it, is that I'm now left wanting rid of my Pocket PC device. It's perfectly functioning, and if your Windows PC is kosher, it'll work wonderfully (mine isn't, and it's not the iPaq's fault).

I'm thinking of putting PDA, plus two cradles, a power supply, the compact flash expansion sleeve and a bunch of software up for sale. It cost me about $650 in total (the iPaq alone should have cost this much, but I shopped around).

If anyone reading this is interested, let me know. Otherwise, it's going on either eBay or half.com.

It'll be replaced by a cheap Palm device, until the next generation of Palm devices is available. These will rival the Pocket PC's functionality, but without the Microsoft SUV approach to software.

from the System Administrator

I've been corresponding with my host-to-be, ICD Soft. It looks like the new domain registration and the hosting setup will occur simultaneously. It'll probably happen Monday or Tuesday of next week.

I probably won't write as much on EID next week, as I'll be setting up the new home for us.

There's all the CGI stuff to set up, plus I want to look at a new design for the site. It's still essentially going to be a blog-style site, but with more! Yes, it's going to be, EID++ !

I'm thinking of adding extra pages. I'm not sure what they'll all have on them, probably a bio page, a photo gallery, and possibly a video page, plus hopefully the main blog bit will have improved navigation and archives.

If you guys have any ideas or suggestions, I'd like to hear them. Constructive criticism is a good thing.

Just a quick update on Benny.

I'm writing this, because I periodically get emails from readers, checking up on how the little guy is doing. Some of you may not give a toss about him, or his brother, or Miles, in which case, I'd skip this. You know me, there'll be something more amusing along here soon.

His insulin dosage was upped to three units last week, so we were back at the vet's again last night, for blood tests to see how that's working for him.

This is such a regular trip for him, that we don't even bother with the cat-carrier. He just sits on my lap in the truck, squawking away at me. Occasionally he climbs over to the back seat, and starts telling me where I'm going wrong with my driving.

All the nurses remember and adore him, as we wait. I wait on the bench in the seating area. Benny waits, by marching around the reception area, behind the desk, making sure he's squawked hello to every member of staff, before coming out into the main area, and inspecting every client and their pet.

Eventually, his inspection completed, he hops up on the bench next to me, and we wait together.

We were seen, as ever, by the lovely Dr M, who. charmed Benny by feeding him a constant stream of treats, and me by smiling. As if that smile wasn't nice enough, she (knowing my unemployed state), fixed the bill, so that we only got charged for the blood test, and not her (considerably more expensive) veterinarian’s time. Doc, if you read this, THANK YOU.

His insulin has to go up to two shots a day, which for a cat as skinny as he is these days, can't be a whole lot of fun.

We drove back in the rain - yes actual rain in Colorado! Wonders never cease!

Benny stayed on my lap, quite still, watching the rain on the windscreen, and occasionally trying to reach over to the stereo and change the old CD i had on. I think he still thought I had Dummy in the changer.

A few days ago, I made a brief mention of, "Max's Media Career". Perhaps I should explain.

Whilst it's not about to start paying the rent, there are the beginnings of the possibility of work (if not an actual career) outside I.T. and in a more creative field.

I sometimes wonder if my latent creativeness was why I was chosen to be part of the 20% cull of staff, when a certain large corporation bought my employer.

A Little History
What you probably don't know about me is that, in addition to my writing (both here and offline), I spent 20 years, on and off, acting. I started young, at the age of 12. It was unpaid, but I loved it.

By my mid-twenties, I was getting lead roles, and doing two plays a year - all in my spare time. Typically, the plays were period comedies, set anywhere from the Victorian era, to the 1960's. I got some serious roles, but for the most part was typecast as the "hapless hero", or upper-class twit. I won't deny that comedy was my speciality, but I did like to get my teeth into more serious stuff.

At some point, when the "New Improved EID" site is up and running, I might get some of the publicity shots up there, in one of the non-blog pages. If nothing else, you'll get to see what I look like without the goatee! Incidentally, I grew my goatee for the penultimate play I was in. It got such good reactions from friends that it stayed beyond the run of the play.

The Way Forward?
So, here we are in 2002, and what's the scoop? Well two things.

First, the Editor of a well-known Denver magazine has contacted me. He apparently reads this drivel of mine, and would like me to consider penning an article. It'll be a one-off assignment, and a slight departure for the magazine.

If they publish it, you can be sure I'll find you a link (if allowed) to the magazine's online version of it. It'll be clearly labelled as, "This way to my article", just so's you're not confused by the positive nature of it, and the lack of ranting and swear words, and mistake it for the work of a stranger.

The second development in my invasion of the media world, is that I will be on-air at (KUVO) next month.

I've explained about the nature of public radio way back in March.

Anyway, if all goes well, I'll be on the Mid-morning Jazz show, with host (and friend) Susan Gatschet-Reese. I'll basically be her on-air sidekick, promoting the station, and urging people to ring in and pledge money.

As you'll know, I’ve helped out at two of these pledge drives, mainly manning the phones to take pledges, but also supervising the phone volunteers. It can be hard work, when there's a rush of calls, but it's always fun, and you get to meet other volunteers.

According to the staff there, a number of women callers rang back to ask if I was available! At the time I wasn't, but this time round? Well, we'll have to see if I have to use my booty to help generate more donations.

Once I know when I'm due on-air, I'll let you know. If you've really that little to do, you can tune in on either:

89.3FM - in Denver
89.7FM - in Breckenridge
104.9FM - in Laramie, Wyoming
or streaming at http://www.kuvo.org/

...and now back to our regular scheduled broadcast...

So after a lazy start to the day (that is, if you call having to walk two blocks for your first hit of caffeine, lazy) Mark and I decided to go for a hike in the mountains yesterday afternoon.

Before we set off, he appeared at my door bearing two bowls of pasta for our lunch. Damn that boy can cook!

We headed off in my truck, with the dynamic duo, into the mountains.

We started with a near-death experience with a typical male Colorado driver , whereby we had a brief off-roading experience at 50mph in order to avoid this dickwad's erratic driving on a highway exit ramp.

We drove to "Lair O' The Bear". No, seriously, that's what it's called. Despite it's not being an off-leash area, it was so quiet there, being a Monday, that we let Miles and Saoirse roam free. This is something they loved because it meant they could spend a lot of time, jumping in and out of the beautiful stream that we walked alongside.

We did pretty much the same hike that I'd done two years ago, on my first visit. Followed tracks that zigzagged up and down the hills above the stream.

After that, at the end of the trail, we spotted a new trail! Well, it'd have been rude not to really, wouldn't it?

And that, dear reader was our first mistake!

The track was a continuous 30% gradient, up the sides of hills I'd not previously climbed. It was a beautiful route, with many nice views, and interesting rock formations.

Of course we didn't see this, as we were focusing much of our energy on:

1) Breathing
2) Not falling over due to lack of oxygen to the brain
3) Getting Miles and Saoirse out of the way of the mountain bikers, passing by at 30mph or more (and that was when they were going uphill!) on the narrow dirt track.

Our second mistake, was being two stubborn males, who wouldn't let a little thing like physical exhaustion get in the way of us getting to the top of the trail.

I should point out, however, that neither of us is that unfit. I've actually found that hiking in the mountains is one physical activity I'm quite good at. I can bound up mountains (starting at say 8,000ft) whilst my gym-going companions often struggle. I guess I don't need so much oxygen as most?

However, for some reason (probably the fact that this was a fairly tough trail with a continuous climb) both Mark and I were fairly tired by the time we reached the top.

We'd been going on the (frankly stupid) assumption, that the trail would loop back down and round to the parking lot where my truck was.

When we met a woman (who was on foot, so going slow enough to speak to) at the top, she informed us that the trail carried on to ... (some other place, I forget the name of which, but I think it's in New Mexico).

So we took a brief rest, and I filmed myself doing a "So, we've reached the top", piece to camera, which will be inserted into the other footage of majestic views and panting dogs, taken that day.

I've been told by a number of different people, that when I do pieces to camera, I look like a natural TV presenter. I'm not sure why that might be, possibly because I talk to camera the same way I talk to small children and animals - in other words, I talk to them like I do adults, only with slightly less sarcasm.

At the top, a man and a boy on mountain bikes arrived, and paused a while. As we walked back down the way we'd come, the man passed us by. The boy was not with him. We both thought that was a bit odd.

The walk down was uneventful, apart from the fact that it was a heck of a lot easier work! All downhill. We watched the sun go down over Mount Evans, from about halfway down. By the time we reached the bottom, there was little or no daylight left.

At the bottom, in the parking lot, was a small group of people. They asked us if we'd seen the boy on the bike. Just as I was about to say, "Well, he was with some creepy-looking guy in a pink shirt, who came back down without him", said gentleman appeared from behind their Jeep.

He made some half-assed comment about not seeing the boy on the way down. I used all my inner strength, not to blurt out, "Did it never occur to you to look over your shoulder, and check he was following you, you fucking moron?", and wished them good luck, and left.

I'll not rant about my opinion of these idiots. We'll be here all day if I do.

Back in Denver, my roommate had cooked up a storm, and produced her infamous pot-roasted chicken with lemon and olives, accompanied (on piano) by couscous and a roasted autumn vegetable salad. Mark stayed for dinner, and the two of us were never more grateful for my roommate's cooking.

By mid-evening, I was starting to feel my age. I ached all over. By the end of the evening I was starting to feel Ronald Reagan's age, and retired to bed, with the words of the theme from The Dukes Of Hazzard ringing in my ears.

"Some day the mountain might get them (but the law never will)"