Robert Hampton

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4th November 2007

This Web Site is a Mochrie!
Posted by at 11.03pm | It's My Life | No responses

The thought occurred to me today that I have a blog, and I really should post something in it. So here, in no particular order, are things what have happened to me recently.

  • My missing items ordered from various internet retailers finally made their way through the 1970s (aka Royal Mail Copperas Hill) and reached my doormat. Hurrah!

  • I’m really enjoying Whose Line is it Anyway? repeats on the craply-named Dave channel, despite the ham-fisted editing which sees games cut off midway to go to a commercial break and anything even slightly rude cut out (so when Tony Slattery is on, it’s doomed from the get go).

  • I upgraded the WordPress software for this site from 2.3 to 2.3.1 (offering new features, including an extra dot and number!) only to suffer a heartstopping moment when every page on the site started coming up with 404 errors. Oh, you crazy misconfigured .htaccess file!

  • After my earlier negative experience with Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, I am pleased to report that I have got my brain age down to a sprightly 20! This achievement was only possible thanks to many hours of continuous brain training exercises, and certainly not because I used the hidden cheat mode.

  • I have started Christmas shopping. My family are the most impossible people to buy gifts for. I’d buy them all gift vouchers, but that always seems like the lazy option: “Hello, I know you like books, but I couldn’t be bothered finding out which books in particular, so I’m giving you a book token, thereby transferring the responsibility from me to you! Happy Christmas!”

  • Tomorrow is the annual Hampton Family Festival of Standing Around in the Cold, Dark November Night While Robert Desperately Tries To Light The Blue Touch Paper By The Light of a Torch With Almost-Dead Batteries While The Children For Whom This Whole Thing Is Supposedly Intended Are Sitting Inside Watching Lazy Town. The whole family will show up to join in the “fun” (my brother’s married to a Catholic which I like to think adds an extra layer of awkwardness to the situation).

If I don’t blow myself up, I’ll see you all tomorrow!

29th September 2007

Brain drain
Posted by at 3.03pm | It's My Life | No responses

I bought the catchily-titled Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?. After doing the tests, which involved shouting the names of colours into the DS microphone (this is not a game to play on a crowded train), the titular Japanese chappy, appearing via a slightly scary-looking 3D avatar, breezily informed me that my brain age was… wait for it… 50!

Yes, fifty. Five-oh. Half a century. 2×25. Clearly that hour I spent watching BBC Three the other night has killed my brain beyond all hope of repair. Actually, Brain Training is quite good fun, and it uses the features of the DS well. You write your answers using the stylus and, as mentioned above, it has voice-recognition as well. The good news is, after 2 days of hard graft, I’m now down to 41! Hurrah! Don’t ship me off to the old people’s home just yet.