I, for one, welcome your feline overlords.

I've got a couple of my own - one of which weighs 15lbs, seems to summon angry eldrich deities on a regular basis and is named Chairman Mao.

Even more important, your lava lamp is now out where it can be seen and worshiped. Congratulations; new furniture is something to celebrate.

Nice looking couch, though it doesn't look too comfortable for napping?

hmm, what can i say but the new sofa looks ugly, is small and the color makes me a headache :)

As the owner of an identical sofa (I recognise that texture and the cushions), I can reassure you that the foam will wear in eventually and not remain like a brick.

With a heavy couch placed as it is, how do you get to the books? Inquiring minds want to know.

Have the cats settled into their new territories yet? Seeing as a change of furniture can often mean the disappearance of one cat's turf.

Brian: that's the small one. (It came with a big brother and an armchair: the others are in the living room.) If I want to nap, I can always go to bed.

Patricia: most of the bookshelf space behind the sofa is occupied by box files full of foul papers (annotated copy-edited manuscripts and galley proofs) that might, at some point in the future, be of interest to somebody doing a PhD in science fiction studies.

I've had both cats on the sofa at the same time. They seem to be happy with it.

Ben: Frigg (the black one) was a little bit overweight when we got her -- she weighed 7.6 kilograms (16.75 pounds). Now she's down to 3.8 ... and willing to play with cat toys.

Always good to see a can of WD40 on standby.

I've just received a Chumby. I've also got the kde working again with acpi but sadly without the Metisse 3D desktop.

Any suggestions as to what to do with the Chumby, strossosphere?

We have this problem also.

If I can get it past your SPAM-filters, I'm going to send you a photo of our current monster and fluffy overmistress, sitting ON TOP OF THE SPARE (old) computer monitor ......

The new sofa looks so respectable and grown-up :(

G. Tingey: got your photos -- that's one cute cat you've got! (Bet she sheds fluff like a cloth factory.)

Alex: combine this with something from these people's inventory (personally, I favour the Chieftain).

Muhahahaha!

Seriously, though, my Hong Kong neighbours keep getting these huge deliveries of stuff; 40kg of it in four nameless boxes twice a month. I reckon they're building a nuclear bomb.

There's an accelerometer somewhere in there; I wonder if it's too heavy for an aeronautical application? It's certainly a bit of a lump for most platforms in terms of form factor...though ChumbyUAV does have a ring to it.

At the very least I could do a virtual joystick for my laptop; completely fucking useless as I don't play any computer games, but certainly interesting.

Gawd, I thought --my-- office was a mess. And it is! Nice new sofa, Stross. May you compose and repose in comfort. What, no toys on the shelves!? No Corgi cars? No Dinkies?

I don't recognize any of the book spines. The possible exceptions being: 1. Top pic, on the shelf just above the WD40, dead center just above the top left corner of the keyboard -- Lone Wolf and Cub digest sized manga? 2. Bottom pic, the shelf just below the WD40, between the WD40 and the bottom left hand corner of the keyboard -- Collected HP Lovecraft TPB?

Daniel Warner: wrong on both counts.

Hint: the entire run of shelves on the level above the WD40, from far left to the point where it turns into non-books, is my publication reference shelf (i.e. one of everything I've written and sold, with a few exceptions for magazines and some foreign editions, and some add-ins in the shape of ARCs).

Jeff: no Corgi or Dinky toys, but you missed at least 5 working ARM cpus and two Celerons on your way along those shelves ...

The new couch looks much more grown up! Nice to see the cats when they're not complaining.

Henceforth Stross criticism will be divided into "old couch" and "new couch" works. Learned dissertations will be written on the two periods and their characteristic themes and influences. Friends of the author will be asked by grey-bearded profs if they ever sat on either (or both) of the couches when visiting, and what were their recollections of the different comfort levels of the two pieces. Could Accelerando have been written on the new couch? Would it have been the same work or would the couch's subtle comfort have softened the author's insight and resolve? Truly questions for the ages.

Daniel Warner@16: The two "digest sized" books are Japanese, but not manga - they're the Japanese editions of Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise.

The cat needs some bacon taped to it.

Mike, as the other human in the home is vegetarian and takes a dim view of her fridge being contaminated by bits of dead pig, the bacon experiment may be hard to run. I've seriously considered tofu or seitan, but on further thought decided it might be seen as derivative ...

Yes, she really does, but since she is UNSPEAKABLY CUTE - and knows it - we don't care ....... Since she is half-Birman, we also have photos of some of the even more cute relations ...... Send me an e-mail if you want more CAT-overlord photos!

Charlie@22: But Mafdet is the cat who likes asparagus, yeast extract and soya milk. She's also a cat to whom you can do this. She needs tofu taping to her--bet she tries to eat it.

C.S. I'm a bit sad to here you don't have any of the James Bond die caste metal toys. I expected at least the original Aston Martin. I insist that you go buy on and play with it now! I don't care enough about animals to give up eathing them. Meat is yummy. Life without lamb would be lame.

Nice Aeron you lucky bastard... ;)

It's not luck, Shan, I bought it second-hand on eBay. Because, you know, I sit in an office chair for 40-50 hours a week and nobody else is going to buy one for me? If I want RSI and lower back pain all I have to do is save my pennies and use a pile of banana boxes instead. But it's a false economy. So I gritted my teeth and bought a half-price Aeron for twice what I'd ever paid for a new office chair in the past ...

(Anyway, I've had it for about five years now. In that time I'd normally have gone through two cheap office chairs. Aerons are so well made that I think it's good for another five, at least: it works out cheaper than buying crappy cheap chairs in the long run, even before you consider the comfort factor.)

C.S., my brother is a designer for Herman Miller, here in beautiful Michigan. That chair should last you forever, not just five years. I love the lumbar support. I've had some Herman Miller office chairs for fifteen years and they're still perfect. They now come in a color called True Black, which sucks in light like carbon nanotubes.

RE. #27 & 28 - it's called "cost per wear" for clothing, and is a very useful concept. How long are you going to want to keep it (whatever it is) and how often are you going to use it? You will often find that apparently expensive items are really cheaper, in the long run.

ALthough I live in London, and I don't drive much, when I have to, I have to, and I don't want any hassle... So - our car will take almost any luggage or goods, will caryy lots of people, will go almost anywhere, and I can do 99% of my own maintenance, and I don't ever expect to have to buy another car EVER again. So, it's a Land-Rover 110 County.

G. Tingey@29: that's actually the ONLY way to actually make cars "worth" what they cost --- buy 'em, maintain 'em yourself, and run them into the ground.

Don't, can't, will never understand the "buy a new car every two years" thing.

Charlie@27: How much did you pay for shipping can I ask? I'm simply assuming the chair came from another UK-er?

Shan@30, I have carefully not worn my 21-year-old minvan into the ground!

Precisely.

I expect to KEEP my Land-Rover for a LONG time, so I maintain it, carefully. It is, as I said, actually cheaper that way.