Let me just state for the record: I hate moving.

The movers are here. They mumble under their breath to each other in Eastern European accents. After walking through the house, their assessment:

"We will work like dogs, and still it will not be enough."

Update: 10.20am
Fag break.

Most boxes done, sofa successfully moved (with both front doors removed).

Apparently, I am unable to differentiate between Russian and Hebrew at low volume. Also, I have noticed we have too many computers (13), not counting non-functioning ones (1), handhelds (4) or ReplayTV (1).

I fell for the classic up-sell: 'I can get one more guy to help out for a small increase in price'. He's not here yet, but now we've started I can see that traffic on the stairs will be a bottleneck, so another body won't help so much.

Update: 12.36pm
Done

The movers have left. As has my wife, who objected when I insisted that the contents of The Closet Of No Return be emptied and moved upstairs, where there is No Equivalent Space, and therefore boxes that have been in storage for years lie randomly sprinkled all over the rest of the what were neatly organized piles in each room.

It is now eerily quiet.

Still, the wireless network seems to rise up through the floor strongly enough - I suppose I should at least write 'First Post!'.

I am now off to find some food, and my wayward wife.

Update: 3.29pm
Hungry.

She came back, and after a bare minimum of tears and a short stint in a dark cupboard, we're up and running. We decided to attack the kitchen to create an oasis in the midst of the mayhem, and most of the boxes are in here are unpacked and put away.

I'm updating this in the guise of 'checking my work email'.

The kitchen computer is up and running, with Groove Salad pumping out of the Creature speakers, but there is still Much To Do.

Update: 5:59pm
No Longer Hungry

We nipped out for a bite to eat, which included a pint to steady our nerves, and progress continues. I am now about to make The Great Internet Switch - by simply swapping posts 5 and 11 I should, according to the nice guy at SBC, be able to switch our phone and DSL service from downstairs to upstairs. This is good, because SBC no longer offers static IP, so if we had to get new service it would surely suck. And this way we get to keep our phone number too. Self service number portability!* Of course, when I located the junction box, there were no numbers in sight, and only 8 posts as far as I could count. However, with a bit of trial and error (and with only one wrong guess!) I think I've located the wires to switch. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know what happened. Otherwise, expect a pause while I drag all the gear up here and set it up. Here goes...

Update: 8:39pm
Hungry again. I hate phone wiring.

Well, the DSL switcheroo didn't work. I've put it all back together how it was at last. I've learned more than I wish to know about phone and DSL wiring. With the state of most of the wiring in the house, it's amazing any of it ever works. I think it didn't work because I have a filter at the NIDS outside, and insufficient wiring to bring the split phone and data inside.

In other news, we now have a bed to sleep in too - yay. So, I think that's about it for today. Time for dinner.

In the great tradition of Blogging, I bring you a quiz. In a desperate attempt to raise the tone a little though, it's the Economist's Style Quiz:

The Economist's Style Quiz

A new project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. Have you seen anything that's broken? Places? Things? Websites? Take a picture, or just write about it, and send it to us.

Preparations were underway in this small town in eastern Germany on Tuesday for the start of the world's longest performance of a piece of music.

The sole item on the programme is a piece of organ music by the revolutionary American composer John Cage (1912-1992), entitled Organ2/ASLSP.

The performance is scheduled to begin at midnight and last for a staggering 639 years.

The World's Longest Music Performance

Brilliant street-art modification turning the cube in Astor Place in Manhattan into the world's largest Rubik's Cube.

The Astor Place Rubik's Cube [via Gawker]

Senior administration officials tell CBS News the President’s mistaken claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa was included in his State of the Union address -- despite objections from the CIA.

The White House officials responded that a paper issued by the British government contained the unequivocal assertion: “Iraq has ... sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” As long as the statement was attributed to British Intelligence, the White House officials argued, it would be factually accurate. The CIA officials dropped their objections and that’s how it was delivered.

In a bizarre echo of the Lizzie Grubman fiasco, a golf cart fashioned to resemble the publicist’s infamous black Mercedes Benz SUV by the North Sea Fire Department for Southampton Village’s Fourth of July Parade struck and injured an 8-year-old boy on Friday.

According to Mr. Siben, the golf cart—painted black and dragging a mock corpse behind it—careened wildly along the parade route throughout the day, possibly as part of the satirical performance.

The golf cart, Mr. Siben said, ... reversed its course and hit the boy with its front end as it headed northbound.

Parade Route Accident Breaks Boy’s Leg [The Southampton Press] via Gawker

In further removing the artist from the creative process, NAG is a tool for OS X and Win XP/2K that searches P2P networks for music files based on keywords you specify, extracts tiny phrases from the results and then creates a sonic collage from these fragments. The results are strangely haunting, extremely avant garde remixes, dada for the P2P generation.

The results are generally closer to sound art than conventional music. Searching for "Madonna," for instance, spawns a staccato string of song excerpts, some as short as one-twentieth of a second. But chance can yield a mellifluous outcome, as when overlapping versions of "Yesterday" by the Beatles, James Taylor, Boyz II Men and José Feliciano produce a near fugue.

How to Make a Sonic Pureé From Pop Snippets [New York Times] (Registration Re-blahblah)
Downloadable from: Turbulence.org

On holiday in Malta I spotted this little shop - I thought I'd share it in honour of the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.