What is making you happy right now

[Timbuk2]

Amazon finally got their shit together. The Kindle now supports OverDrive and library checkouts

My other half was telling me yesterday that Amazon have opened up a locker-room area at Victoria train station, which she passes through every day.

Amazon deliveries are placed in the locker, you are provided with an email/text with access code once delivery has been made, and you go to pick it up.

Kind of odd, but there must be a market for those who are unable to receive deliveries to home or work addresses I guess.

[Hazir]

When I arrived at the office this morning the first time I noticed was that the entrance I use was closed. When I walked to the other entrance I also noticed all lights in the lobby but emergency lights were off and the fire barriers were down. Turns out a water pipe had burst in the corridor my office is on and that there was severe water damage to all officed on that floor (ceiling had come down etc). Because of that I can't get to my files and I went back home. Since it was sort of a slow week anyway that amounts to a couple of extra days off

[Nessus]

Passed my defense.

Congrats!

[Ominous Gamer]

Kind of odd, but there must be a market for those who are unable to receive deliveries to home or work addresses I guess.

Amazon is working with 7 Elevens (gas stations) in the States to do the same thing. UPS is a bitch of a company with some of the laziest drivers you can find. People are getting fed up with drivers leaving notes, forcing people to drive to distribution centers, instead of delivering the actual package.

Plus, there is the real problem, working 8-5, making it damn near impossible to be home for a delivery.

[Hazir]

My other half was telling me yesterday that Amazon have opened up a locker-room area at Victoria train station, which she passes through every day.

Amazon deliveries are placed in the locker, you are provided with an email/text with access code once delivery has been made, and you go to pick it up.

Kind of odd, but there must be a market for those who are unable to receive deliveries to home or work addresses I guess.

I'd love such a service. Half of the time I have to go to a post office 20 minutes away from my home to pick up packages that 'couldn't be delivered'. I'd rather not have stuff delivered at work. Things like that you can get away with once in a while where I work, but not on a regular basis.

[Flixy]

My other half was telling me yesterday that Amazon have opened up a locker-room area at Victoria train station, which she passes through every day.

Amazon deliveries are placed in the locker, you are provided with an email/text with access code once delivery has been made, and you go to pick it up.

Kind of odd, but there must be a market for those who are unable to receive deliveries to home or work addresses I guess.

How is that odd? First of all, you don't want stuff delivered to the office. It wastes time, and maybe you don't want your colleagues to know what you ordered And what about people who are constantly on the road, or in meetings? But even for students - I can hardly have something delivered to a lecture. And it sucks to have to take a day (or part of a day) off for a delivery, especially now that more and more people order stuff online.

Passed my defense.

Congratulations, doctor!

[Aimless]

Giant hunk of roast beef, wild mushroom risotto cooked with leftover beef stew/soup, delicious gravy, fresh herbs, the latest crop from the tomato-farm on the balcony... the cavalcade of yum continues

[Nessus]

Can I have dinner at your house

[Dreadnaught]

Picked up my car from the shop. It turns out crap had been slipping-in from the fuel-line past the sub-par filter and clogging the carb. Plus there was a small oil leak and vacuum-seal problem.

I had gotten to a lower standard of performance than the car could deliver. Once those problems were fixed, I had no freaking idea how fast that little car could go. It was even more fun to drive.

[Lor]

Picked up my car from the shop. It turns out crap had been slipping-in from the fuel-line past the sub-par filter and clogging the carb. Plus there was a small oil leak and vacuum-seal problem.

I had gotten to a lower standard of performance than the car could deliver. Once those problems were fixed, I had no freaking idea how fast that little car could go. It was even more fun to drive.

What's the engine size of the car? It's a VW Beetle right?

[Flixy]

My band has been a bit inactive lately - no show since april, irregular practice. But now we've been working on an awesome new song, and have five shows planned, two in belgium and three in the netherlands, of which one with the american band Guttermouth

[Flixy]

Earlier this year I was coproducer/production manager for a short film, and it's been selected to the Ghent International Film Festival

Woo, and because of this I get to go to the opening film, Tinker tailor solder spy, which is supposed to be pretty good! I do like spy movies, and the director's last film (Let the right one in, which was also remade pretty well in the US as Let me in) was good And it will have celebrities, and a reception with free booze!

And we're arranging a private viewing for cast, crew, sponsors, etc., and can get a local cinema with digital projectors and 160 seats for 'free' (€75 in 'organizational costs', which sounds reasonable). Downside is, it would be friday between 18.00 and 19.00 which is a bit of a sucky time, but they are booked full for the rest and can't shift much because of contracts with distributors.

Here's the trailer, by the way - but it's not subtitled yet. Not that they're saying that much

[Lor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FytI-rdhfaA -

[AnnieBerries]

Cooking food for my love one.

[Ominous Gamer]

and the spambot finally finds its sig box

[Dreadnaught]

What's the engine size of the car? It's a VW Beetle right?

Yup, it's a Beetle. 1600 CC, about 46 horsepower. But it was acting more like a lawnmower engine before this repair.

[Ominous Gamer]

Amazon Fire was announced yesterday. Work already has approval to order a classload of them
Its an android device, so its coming to market with a well stocked inventory of apps and an amazing price, so I might make it a personal purchase as well for the kids. Scarlett playing with the iPad2 always makes me nervous.

<break>

Got 4 new tires installed on the Saturn. Little noiser than I remember the original pair being, but they have been amazing in the wet weather so far. Plus the city just recoated most of Bayshore; Tampa's most famous, richie-rich road. Its 7 miles of wavey, unbroken road with no cross streets and only 1 light thats rarely used. Can't wait to jump on it one early morning to see how these tires really work out
Of course that wouldn't have happened if this city wasn't hell bent of throwing a temporary band-aid on every blight and problem for the GOP convention thats coming up, guess that group is good for getting something done around here.

[Timbuk2]

<break>

[Ominous Gamer]

omitting that caused problems earlier, so I'm easing back into regular people talk

[Nessus]

[Aimless]

Home alone great music, delicious dark chocolate, home-made cherry-liqueur. I am a spoiled man

[Timbuk2]

Last day of paid employment today. Wondering what to do to celebrate.

As of tomorrow I am officially dolescum.

[Draco]

^^Go out for a few drinks!

Home alone great music, delicious dark chocolate, home-made cherry-liqueur. I am a spoiled man

Home made alcohol?! I thought that would have been illegal in Sweden? Because it is in Australia

[Timbuk2]

^^Go out for a few drinks!

~

We decided to book a couple of nights in Amsterdam, going a week monday.

Flixy, Hazir, Ziggy; recommendations for places to see? Cool bars and cafes to hang out in? Must-dos?

[Draco]

Even better Wish I could take a quick trip to Amsterdam

[Aimless]

Home made alcohol?! I thought that would have been illegal in Sweden? Because it is in Australia

We were responsible only for the "cherry" and the "liqueur" part, buying Absolut at the world's best booze provider for making liqueur is perfectly legal

And perfectly delicious I'd never made liqueur before but I knew I didn't like it too sweet so I reduced the amount of sugar and replaced some of it with yummy brown sugar and added some other yummies. SO GOOD

For your health

[Aimless]

Last night guards at a Swedish prison forgot to lock six prisoners--three of whom are murderers--into their cells. The prisoners took this unprecedented opportunity to bake chocolate cake and watch some telly. They said it was the nicest evening they'd had in a very long time

[Draco]

^^That's pretty interesting. They did the smart thing by not attempting an escape.

We were responsible only for the "cherry" and the "liqueur" part, buying Absolut at the world's best booze provider for making liqueur is perfectly legal

And perfectly delicious I'd never made liqueur before but I knew I didn't like it too sweet so I reduced the amount of sugar and replaced some of it with yummy brown sugar and added some other yummies. SO GOOD

For your health

Well sounds delicious the only liqueur I've had was chartreuse and it was tasty.

[BalticSailor]

Once again, chemistry!

It's been a while since it last made me happy, to be honest. What I'm working on lately can be best described as struggling to get a well-known synthesis pathway work with a slightly different starting material (this has one more (fused) benzene ring than the original one - and it's attached a few bonds away from any reactive centres in the molecule, so no idea why all of a sudden it wouldn't work). In fact, the first two steps are described in literature, so it's very confusing to, instead of the promised "light brown powder", obtain something that looks like shit (quite literally), or sometimes soil. The second step simply fails to give any precipitate as it's supposed to - and attempts to isolate the necessary compound from the reaction mixture are difficult, involve a lot of cursing, and end up producing the compound with no more than 5% yield, if it happens at all. The next step produces a ton of compounds. At the same time, in the same mixture. Attempts to isolate the necessary one in quantity sufficient for analysis have failed.

Today, I tried the second reaction again. I didn't do anything different from the usual procedure, but this time I did get some precipitate. It even appeared pure enough on TLC (the fastest available analysis method), so I decided to just go ahead with the next step. After this reaction I saw some precipitate in the reaction mixture. It looked bad - it was dark brown and somewhat oily. Usually, that's what crap (decomposition products, polymers of reactants capable of producing such, some serious impurities from starting materials or solvents, stuff like that) looks like in organic chem. I tried to dissolve some of that dark brown stuff in ethanol for analysis, and noticed the solution turning pink, then deeper and deeper red as the precipitate dissolved. This was a good sign, as it is known that the kind of compounds I was trying to synthesize are usually red. To make sure it was the compound I needed, I tried a quick test - I knew these compounds can be deprotonated by a non-aqueous base, and this appears as a sharp change in color of the solution, usually it turns blue or purple, as an anion is produced. So, I added a pellet of potassium hydroxide to the ethanol solution, and sure enough, it turned blue. Yay!

[Bitter Jeweler]

I'm in Louisville, KY. Vacation, yay!

Had the biggest slab of short ribs EVER!