Telling it like it is

Because of the recently-discovered I-beam in the middle of our basement roof, it does rather make it difficult to run cables from one side of the room to another. The cabling run to get from where the a/v equipment is going to be, to where the rear speakers are going to be should be 15m. Because of the I-beam, I've got to go around it - all the way to one end of the room and back, making the cable run nearly 25m instead. I've got to find a solution to this for the video cables - a 25m set of cables is going to have terrible signal transmission and is going to cost a bloody fortune to buy.

Well , 242 bin bags full of loose-fill insulation later, we now have no ceiling in our basement.... We have in fact un-finished the basement. The 1940's wiring is spectacular.

Phew. Dory plucked up the courage to come back in 5 minutes ago. We're sort of past the point of no return on the basement now - our once-finished basement now has no ceiling in most of it. The good news is that the structure of the house looks in excellent condition and well built. The monstrous steel I-beam running through the central line of the house is a pleasant relief and surprise, and does rather explain the lousy WiFi reception in some parts of the house :-)

The demolition began in the basement today and our cat, Dory, has moved out again like she did at Christmas. We don't know where she's gone this time - she's not responding to calls behind the garage or anything. With the apalling weather today, I'm really worried where she might be. I just hope she comes in tonight.

A surefire sign that B*sh is ramping up to using nukes in Iran : Divine Strake. That's the codename for a "test" that the military are going to perform on June 2nd at the Nevada test ground. It's a 700 ton heavy ammonium nitrate-fuel oil bomb which is going to be detonated at ground level over a specially-constructed series of tunnels and hardened shelters. The military's intent? "To determine what yield tactical nuclear device would be needed to penetrate such a construction." Divine Strake will throw up a 10,000ft high mushroom cloud over the Nevada desert, which whilst not radioactive, should strike fear into the hearts of every American alive today. It will be conclusive proof that B*sh fully intends to go nuclear. Worse still is the name - "Divine" Strake. This intolerably demonstrates his crazed "God told me to do it" attitude. These are more dangerous times than the cold war. A power-crazed trigger-happy dictator is invading a

Not in April, especially not when our garden had beautiful flowers in it, as well as trees that are coming into leaf. We've already had two mature trees die in our garden. The last thing I need is this fucking weather to dump 6 inches of heavy, wet snow on the remaining trees we have and and snap all the branches off ! STOP FUCKING SNOWING!!!!

Why is it that you can't get any of the really decent motorbikes here in America. It seems that the standard response from the corporate stuffed shirts is "model X won't sell well in America." Bollocks. I'm talking of course about dualsports bikes. Honda need to start selling the Varadero and the Transalp, but they believe there's no market for them. They won't even sell the CBF1000 - a semi-naked sports bike. Same story with Yamaha - they don't sell the TDM900 here. The problem is that their argument just doesn't wash. Suzuki sell bucketloads of the V-Strom, as do BMW with the R1150GS, R1200GS and F850. Same with KTM with their Adventure, and Triumph with their Tiger. Aprilia aren't doing a bad job with their Caponord either. All of these are dualsports and all sell here in America. So why do Yamaha and Honda so pig-headedly stick to their faulty argument that dualsports bikes won't sell? Come on guys - give people more choice than unins