North of the Stupid Line » Moblogging

Is ‘North of the Stupid Line’ boring?

Rob — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:33:07 +0000

I ask the question because since the launch of deaf-blogs.com earlier this year, I’ve been far less inclined to post on here, much less vlog. Why? Simple. Some brilliant blogs have emerged that I feel I can’t compete with in terms of content and humour. It’s a sad situation, I admit. What’s to do? I guess I just have to try harder!

Commuting (again)

Rob — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:26:31 +0000

Joe jokingly wished me a good journey home from work this afternoon, particularly with regard to the smelly man eating a packet of cheese and onion crisps. It’s not that bad at the mo (yet) but it did get me thinking. What is a succesful commute? Is it that you get to work or home in the quickest time possible? Or that you make the least amount of changes? I’ve just missed a train direct to East Croydon (actually saw it leaving Farringdon just as I arrived). I could got on the train to Wimbledon and changed at Herne Hill for Beckenham Junction then a tram from there to the flat. I opted not to, and instead to wait 21 minutes at Farringdon for the next train direct to East Croydon. Over to you, what is the perfect commute?

Packed train

Rob — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:04:22 +0000

How lovely . . . here I am on a Thameslink train to Farringdon that’s been reduced from 8 carriages to 4 due to a fault. In the rush hour. Good timing. On a train that I can usually sit down on, it was already full of people. Luckily I managed to strategically place myself on the platform so I was the first person to get on the train. Even so, I’m still having to stand for half an hour. Ho hum. Moan over.

Clapham Junction

Rob — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 21:36:21 +0000

(Posted via mobile) Just saw something absolutely hilarious. Following on from Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots and Leaves, I just went through Clapham Junction on the way to East Croydon and noticed that the sign notifying all and sundry that Clapham Junction was “Britains [sic] busiest railway station”, as pointed out by Truss in the book. That’s not what’s funny though. The funny thing is that someone has stuck an apostrophe where it should be from the Punctuation Repair Liv, so that it became ‘Britain’s’. Classic!

London Underground

Rob — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:05:24 +0000

(Posted via mobile) Seeing as this is the first time I’ve been on the London Underground since the strikes and for a week or so, I thought I would comment on the state of London’s public transport system. It was quite amusing to receive a text from my sister on Monday morning just as I was making my way back to London from Wales, that there were tube strikes. I thought to myself, hmmm ok, that means I should avoid the Tube wherever possible. Then I realised that I don’t normally get the Tube on Mondays anyway, apart from the one stop to Royal Oak from Paddington on the Hammersmith and Shitty Line, which is easily avoided by catching the 36 bus from Eastbourne Terrace instead. In essence, as I usually get the 36 bus from Royal Oak to Victoria to get the train to East Croydon anyway, avoiding the Tube altogether. So, where was this Tube strike? You’re probably thinking, Duh, you’ve not seen owt cos you didn’t use or try to use the Tube. That is true, but people I’ve spoken to have said they’ve not seen any problems when they’ve used the Tube. Apparently, it was just the tube stations that were closed, not the tube system itself. The only inconvenience caused would have been to those who like to buy their tickets from a real person, but then it’s cheaper to use Oyster, especially after the recent price hikes. So, where was the ‘chaos’ so widely reported in the papers?

Blogging

Rob — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:32:29 +0000

(Posted via mobile) I have a few thoughts on North of the Stupid Line that I’d like to share, primarily on the leaps and bounds that my blog has come through these past few weeks, since I had WP2 installed. In terms of look and feel, the blog is back the way I liked it. Now, I have the ability to seamlessly embed vlogs, and to moblog too. A word on moblogging, if I may. It gives me a thrill inside to know that I can post to my blog from anywhere, anytime: it could be in bed when I’ve my laptop down, on the loo (!), on a train, on a bus, on the tube, when I’m out and about with friends and family and there’s a lull in the conversation. I can write a post when there is no signal and send when there is. The possibilities are endless. The only thing I can’t do is, create paragraphs on my mobile! Pah! Heh. Here’s to North of the Stupid Line. Things have just got a whole better.

Moblogging

Rob — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:03:08 +0000

First vlogs, and now moblogs! I’ve already had a go at emailing pics to the blog via Flickr. Having been inspired by a blog recently added to my aggregator Bloglines, called ‘Just Tiphanie’ I decided to test out the Write by email feature in WP2. I actually wrote this post on my Sony Ericsson K700i and emailed to a secret email address on my server. Nifty huh? Thanks Tiphanie!