riding on cannons

We decided to go out for the day. Almost had a lovely day in Greenwich. Babycake melted down shortly after this photo was taken. Something to do with wanted to be left alone in Greenwich Park with the cannons. I think he got the idea from a TV programme he saw about feral children. He melted down again when we stopped for a coffee. Had to abandon it and head off home. Toddlers are just lovely, so long as you do exactly as they want.

If you look closely at the picture you can see that the little pictogram sign on the cannon clearly says 'No riding on the cannons'. Mrs McMuffin for some strange reason interpreted it as 'Do not put cannon balls in the cannon'. I'm not sure what she was on at the time.

little robot baby having her hearing tested

favourite hat, come rain or shine

clean and tidy

If anyone had told me three years ago that I would be glad to do the cleaning, tidying and washing to get a few minutes respite, I would have laughed in their faces. It's now more than eight weeks since I was alone and although I love my family, it's all a bit much. I just crave an hour of my own without company or responsibility. Mind you, I'd probably spend it trying to clear up the mess and sort the garden out.

waiting for a train at Denmark Hill

Testing new iPhone software

Just downloaded iPhone 2 software with App Store and installed native Typepad app. Thought I would test it with this post. Everything seems to work well. Oh, and I have downloaded the free remote app which allows me to use my iPhone to remotely control iTunes and Apple TV. How cool is that?

iPhone 3G

The iPhone 2 software is excellent. Apple are still having problems with the switch over to MobileMe (stupid name, Apple!). What should have taken 6 hours has now been going on for 24 hours and still not complete. You would think that they would have sorted out some of the problems before they started. The app store is looking good. I imagine that I will spend a few pounds there over the coming months. At the moment only a couple of apps have that must have sheen to them and they are both less that £4. I'm off to get a new phone this morning. For me it is all about the speed and the extra £60 for the upgrade seems worth it. Mrs McMuffin on the other hand is probably going to kill me. Initially I did think I would get the 16Gb phone but it just isn't big enough so I am going to stick with the smaller one. £220 seems a lot of money over the year for an extra 8Gb.

iPhone

Picked up my new iPhone yesterday afternoon. The 02 systems were down so the process of getting it home was short and sweet. Unfortunately when I got home I discovered that the Apple system had collapsed too, so I had to wait a frustrating couple of hours before I could play with it. First impressions are good. The new body feels nice to hold, fitting comfortably into the palm of your hand. The GPS seems to be fast and works as advertised, in fact the whole 3G thing really has made a huge difference to how usable the phone is. The only downside so far is that my MobileMe email is playing up. Now all I have to do is find a buyer for a first generation iPhone. Interested?

EMERGENCY Ben and Jerry's Sundae

I have made a bit of a mess of things and forgot to buy tickets for B@J's Sundae on Sunday 27 July. Mrs McMuffin is very disappointed. Does anyone have tickets they don't need?

UPDATE: Managed to buy a couple of tickets off someone on eBay for the princely sum of £57.50! That's a 300% mark up on the cover price. Just had to have them though for what has rapidly become our annual chance to hear live music. Bit sad really. Oh, and we are both excited about how excited Babycake will be about all that free ice cream!

just thought I would say...

I'm loving my iPhone 3G, especially the App Store.

she loves to stick out her tongue

amazing

Unsurprisingly perhaps, I have an Elgato EyeTV attached to one of my Macs. I just used my iPhone to watch a programme that I had recorded at home while sitting in the local Costa. The stream was a little jerky but points to good things. I had no idea that I could do that.

iPhone camera

Apparently iPhone 3G camera is much the same as the old one with a few tweaks. I don't know about that, all I know is that the photos seem a lot better. They seem sharper and less prone to being blurry and slightly out of focus. All the recent photos I have posted were taken using my phone. What do you think?

mobileme: when push comes to shove

One of the great features of Apple's new MobileMe service was to be 'push' everything. No more syncing, our mail, contacts, calenders and bookmarks were supposed to be automatically updated across all of our devices. Apple called this 'exchange for the rest of us'. Sadly MobileMe doesn't work like that. It has now become clear that the best we can hope for is for our data to sync every 15 minutes. Or is it? Some clever people have worked out that you can edit the plist to alter the time between syncs. There are a couple of clear tutorials around. Unfortunately I can't give you a link because I am typing this on my phone on the train and, as you know, I can't cut and paste! The process is dead simple. I have now changed the interval to 1 minute, which is the shortest time available, and I now have something which us pretty close to push. If Apple had done that then I imagine most people would have been happy. Although with their recent server problems, I guess they were worried about the whole system collapsing under the demand.

The photo was taken out of the moving train. Pretty nice, eh?

babycake trying on new shoes

hancock

I skived off college today and we went to see Hancock. I wasn't expecting much because it has had some lukewarm reviews and some downright meaness from some of the sci-fi blogs. However imagine my surprise when we found that we really enjoyed it from beginning to end. It has a surprising melancholy running through it. Will Smith was excellent as the lonely hero and Justin Bateman always give good straightman. It was just a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. Go see it with an open mind and you might be surprised to find that you enjoyed yourself too. I'm going to give it ✮✮✮✮✩. It probably deserves a tiny little bit less but I'm feeling a lot of goodwill towards it at the moment.

you just can't get the staff

Mrs McMuffin bought me a dock for my new iPhone today. The fella who served her kept asking if it was for the new phone or the old one. She kept telling him it was for the new one. When I joined them he asked me the same question and I showed him my phone. He apologised and said he was having trouble himself working out which was which. Guess what? It's the wrong dock!

fizz weather

I just bought Fizz Weather from the iTunes App Store for my iPhone. It is a truly wonderful piece of software designed to cater to the weather obsessive in us all. The amount of info that it provides is amazing. I love it.

what have we done?

Mrs McMuffin is on the laptop. I'm on the iPhone. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Babycake has left the room. I found him sitting on the couch with his toy laptop in front of him. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "'m on 'mputer."

iPhone GPS

Wow. I tried it out today for the first time. It us a little bit creepy to watch the little pulsating blue dot move along the road tracking your every move. Very useable even without voice commands.

dr horrible

Just watched Dr Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. I loved it and so will you.

a half dozen ladybirds please

Got back from college tonight to be greeted by Babycake asking me to go to the corner shop with him to buy a Ladybird. I tried to explain to him that you couldn't buy them but in the end I took him down the shop. You can't imagine anything cuter than watching Babycake ask the shopkeeper for a Ladybird. Unfortunately they didn't have any. Babycake seemed to accept this bad news in good cheer.

a half dozen ladybirds please

Got back from college tonight to be greeted by Babycake asking me to go to the corner shop with him to buy a Ladybird. I tried to explain to him that you couldn't buy them but in the end I took him down the shop. You can't imagine anything cuter than watching Babycake ask the shopkeeper for a Ladybird. Unfortunately they didn't have any. Babycake seemed to accept this bad news in good cheer.

anniversary

How times change. It's only been six short years and already the "best day of our lives" has been forgotten. We both forgot that it was our anniversary today! We have done something every year so far, but this year I'm writing an essay while Mrs McMuffin tries to keep the children occupied by taking them to the park We should be sitting in a Parisian cafe!

Oh well, at least we have Babycake to keep us amused. Today he wanted to go to the big boy park, which what he calls the local skateboarding park. He has decided that the trailer for one of his toy trucks is a suitable alternative for a skateboard and has been trying to zoom around on it this morning, narrowly avoiding a cracked skull a couple of times. The best bit is though is that he insisted that the old deflated football be washed because he needed a helmet and planned to use that instead. Who knew that skateboarding could work out so cheap.

another baby

Babycake has decided that what this house really needs is another baby, so he's dug out his old baby doll and shoved a nappy on it. The doll hasn't complained about being viciously poked in the eye or bashed on the head. However, it has already shared a tender moment with its 'parent' when Babycake breastfed it. Very sweet.