self-defeating coffee mug

I bought a cheapy heated coffee mug - it plugs into a cigarette lighter socket and keeps your coffee warm - but mostly for use as a giant coffee mug rather than an in-car pick-me-up, since I don't have a coffee cup holder in the car. It holds >1.5 times the standard office mug, which is nice. However, I have noticed that you can't get rid of the smell of cheap coffee no matter how much you wash the thing, so I can't drink anything else out of it now - it all tastes like cheap office coffee. Bah.

so patriotic, we sited it offshore!

"Irish Rugby - The only Destination for true fans.". Note the domain name.

Not that this is anything new: Guinness, after all, was founded by an Englishman and is currently run by Diageo, and U2's official fanclub - Propaganda - has always been based in London.

a little praise goes a long way

From our CRM just now:

[mgmt person@customer company] stopped me to say thank you for the on-time vending delivery and the thorough release notes. I told him it was standard and entirely the work of our high-quality vending developers.

The "high-quality vending developers" would be ME ME ME, thankyouverymuch.

biking record

Bang on 10k at 20.8kph average, max 36.8. No crowded beaches to contend with today!

Addendum: I tweaked the gears before I went out. I've basically neglected the bike for about two to three years, and the front shifter in particular was well out of whack. There's still a little rattle from the rear that suggests it's not entirely bang on, but I don't care enough to fix it - at this point it's probably sufficiently worn that it can't be perfectly tweaked; in fact, I've a vague notion that the last time I had the bike in a shop for a tune-up, they told me that the rear sprockets were pretty worn - and that was about four years ago.