domdavis.com

One of the things that’s been driving me nuts of late is the posting of wall items on the Facebook iPhone site. The post button is impossible to hit. You press to low down on the screen and it thinks you’re trying to edit the text. Half a nanomillimeter up and suddenly it thinks you want the photos tab (thus looking the wall post and nessesitating entering I’d again). You also don’t seem to be able to zoom in so the button becomes so big you can’t miss it. Highly annoying.

So the postman finally turned up at about 11:30 which meant I could go shower and shop. In retrospect I should have shopped then showered as I would have missed the [thankfully light] rain and I was rather warm when I got back. Anyway, I decided to do a sausage casserole for lunch as I haven’t had one for ages and proceeded to make waaaay too much mash Not sure I’ll be having any dinner tonight.

I also applied for a job today. Should find out pretty soon if they want to interview me as it’s at my old place and they’re fast tracking my application. Was in two minds over applying as it’s a job I can do and looks interesting, but would mean no big payout

May, the latter part thereof, sucks. Throughout this month there are 14 anniversaries, some good (6 birthdays for example), some not so good, some really quite bad. Anyway, one of the good ones (borne out of one of the bad ones) is I’ve now lived in Colchester for 1 whole year. While I bought the flat a year ago last month I didn’t move in properly until a year ago today.

During that year I’ve:

• Almost completely furnished the house to my exact specifications. The ceiling lights are still all bare bulbs, I’m waiting on delivery of my new computer desk, I’d like to replace my hob, I want a chest at the foot of the bed, I really need to get my photo’s printed and hung on the wall and I’d like a small cupboard in the en-suite bathroom, but that’s all pretty minor.
• Made a stack load of friends. It’s got to the point where I can now just toddle up to the pub and not have to worry if anyone is going to be there as there will invariably be someone I know and can talk to, even if it is just the staff.
• Given John Lewis an awful lot of my money (I was wondering around there last week and saw some things I’d really like, but lacked the many hundreds of pounds it would cost to get them all).
• Failed completely to have a house warming party. I think this should be organised for very soon.
• Actually come to realise I no longer live in London and have come to think of Colchester as home (in fact, in many ways I prefer it to London).

Not bad if you ask me

So I’m expecting delivery of two (2) books today on the subject of throwing money away on the stock exchange. Given I was rudely awoken by the postman on Monday I figured I’d go to be early last night, get a good nights sleep and be up in time for him. I duly did this, got something like 10 hours sleep (finally! And it was absolute bliss Few more nights like that and I may even get to the stage where I am not permanently tired) and am now up and waiting for the postman to arrive. It’s proving to be quite dull. I want to have a shower, but can’t in case he comes while I’m having a shower. I want to go to the supermarket, but again, need to wait until he’s come. I just hope he gets here before it starts raining because that’ll put a real downer on things if I have to go to the shops in the pissing down rain.

It staggers me how often they have to change the shower curtains at the gym. On Monday I got into the shower, pulled the shower curtain closed only to find I needn’t have bothered due to a huge slash through it. Today all the shower curtains have been replaced with shiny new ones. I give them 2 months before they’re broken, half pulled off the hooks and generally in need of replacing again. Must cost them a fortune.

So, for the second night running, I managed to get a good, sound nights sleep… which was promptly disturbed at 8am by the doorbell going. This time it was the cleaning company who do the communal areas [either that or someones flat is being done over and I let them in]. Don’t these people understand that I’ve got 11 years of sleep to catch up on? No doubt the postman will wake me tomorrow as I’m expecting some books from Amazon which will be too large to fit in the letter box.

And before you lot have a go at me with comments about being a layabout and the like I worked damn hard I worked I turned up to work for over 9 years to get this payoff. I think I deserve it

Yesterday, during a particularly relaxing piece of lounging around just before heading to Tai Chi I had the crazy idea that perhaps I didn’t need to find a new job. You see, I write applications for investment banks. These applications then go on to allow them to make oodles of money. They, in turn pay me oodles of money (until they go and loose it all on some stupid scheme and fire everyone, but that’s beside the point). Why not cut out the middle man and write applications for myself. In short, why not become an Algo Trader at home?

In theory the whole scheme is disgustingly simple. You take live, realtime market data, run it through a set of algorithms and have the program buy and sell trades for you. Provided the algorithm is sound you make money. Of course the devil is in the detail. How do I get a real time market feed that I can access programatically rather than using someone else’s software? How much does it cost? Do any brokers provide direct access to their trading systems?

I know it can be done in theory, hell, I’ve written large chunks of an Interest Rate Swap electronic trading platform before I just need to find out what it’s like in practice. Anyway, today I’m doing some research into it and hopefully I’ll have some books on the subject arriving tomorrow.

I finally managed to get a good nights sleep last night… which was promptly interrupted by the postman delivering sweeties and meece (well, trackballs, but hey). Still need a few more nights like that until I’ve caught up with sleep, but I don’t feel quite as wiped out as I have been the past few days.

Anyhoos, not really got much to do at the moment so I decided to have a day off and relax so I’ve played some Guitar Hero II, watched The Omega Man (which isn’t as good as I thought it was going to be), done a little bit of tidying round the house and now I’m just watching TV until Tai Chi tonight. It’s been great

I’ve created a Search Agent on my erstwhile employers jobs board which means I’ll get daily notifications of the 4 posts they have open that I’m not qualified to do. Still, it makes this part of the job hunting process easier. Once my ‘Individual Consultation Period’ is up I can then start looking for jobs elsewhere. Looks like I’m going to become doley scum

I’ve finally got round to setting up the Mac Mini again It had been bought to play DVD’s, watch TV and play music but had been made somewhat redundant with the laptop, sky box and PS3. Anyway, I’ve copied my iTunes library to it and will probably use it to play tunes purchased from ITMS, noodle about with Google Earth and show people piccies when they visit.