Got a new linux machine in the office today. The dark days of Solaris are over. I might even be able to run my PhD program on this machine, not yet though as the version of Bison (moo) is too old for the parser of the theorem prover that I use.

Warning: incoming rant...
German customer service is extraordinarily bad. I mean in Britain it's pretty lousy, but in Karlsruhe, forget about it. In the last few days I've bought a cruet set, a pair of trousers, and an alteration to said pair of trousers, and each time I was treated as if I was personally robbing the cashier of her life savings rather than handing over some of my own hard-earned. You almost want to laugh sometimes, they're so pointedly unfriendly it's like dealing with 6 year olds. There are exceptions of course, but not many, and a lot of these are foreigners, e.g. the Italians in the deli or the eponymous Wok Man in his noodle bar. I can see why there are so many automated machines, e.g. for stamps, cigarettes, the sauna baths, train and tram tickets. It's because nobody wants to deal with the bloody cashiers.

Ok, end of rant. Off to the bilingual pub quiz tonight for another humiliating defeat.