Snowy weather

The BBC asks Why can’t we cope with bad weather? The answer is : Because we’re a completely crap nation who make no preparations for these types of occurrence. We get the same story every year, as soon as some snow falls, or the temperature goes below about -1 C.

Surely you’d think we might get some kind of clue in the end?

Employers

A quick pop quiz : What do you do when you realise your new employer is a complete twat?

In the three weeks since I started off on this new contract, my boss has definitely turned out to be a fuckwit. It’s hard to list the exact reasons for this conclusion, mainly because there are so many. The fact that he readily admits he doesn’t trust anyone who works for him is a pretty major point. I should have taken the hint when it turned out he doesn’t even allow his employees access to email, let alone internet access. Insisting that the programmers wear shirt and tie is never a good sign.

Another convincing factor is his tendency to talk complete bollocks. The conclusion between myself and the other main contractor at the moment is that he’s trying to dazzle us with the stuff he knows – maybe this has worked with other employees, if they’re new to the industry or whatever, but we’ve both been doing databases and IT stuff for a minimum of seven years, so any amount of bollocks spoken is duly noted, and then made fun of in our office. (For example, the boss uses a query to “SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT FROM” the database – we have no idea why, because it’s exactly the same as saying “SELECT ALL FROM” the database, which is of course much easier to remember.)

The real insult to injury today though was getting one of the reception people to lock his office because he wasn’t around.

Oh, and even the reception people think he’s a complete fuckwit – and one of the rudest people they’ve ever come across. Thank god I’m only there for a maximum of three months.

January 31st

Hold on – we’re at the end of January already? Where the hell did that disappear to?

Ah well, if it’s the last day of January today, that must mean I’m seeing Sum41 tomorrow.

Actually, February’s a pretty good month for gigs for me – Sum41 tomorrow, Solomon Burke on the 12th, and Turin Brakes (supported by I Am Kloot) on the 28th.

In the post

Many thanks to Mike for the CD, as promised for being a runner-up in his wordsearch.

The CD’s storming, and is currently annoying the neighbours. *Total Grin*

Abusive emails

I had to laugh at this story in The Register about a schoolboy who’s been suspended for sending an abusinve email to the truly shite search engine Ask Jeeves. I’ve “used” (more like attempted to use) this one a few times, and it’s one of the biggest hunks of crap on the Internet – I can’t blame the boy for sending the email, only for senidng it from his school email address…

Much delayed

Oops, knew there was something I was going to put on here. At the start of this week, d4d went past it’s 25,000th page impression, which isn’t bad considering it only hit 20,000 on New Years Eve. Anyway, I forgot to put that on here, and now it’s just gone over 26,000 so it’s slightly irrelevant.

But all the same, it’s pretty good. *Grin*

Opera – it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings

As regular readers will know, I loathe Microsoft in all it’s nefarious guises. So it’s no surprise to know I try and avoid using Internet Exploder Explorer as much as possible (in fact, I use it for precisely one function – Internet Banking) because I loathe it.

Instead, my browser of preference tends to be Opera, and I’ve just downloaded the latest release, version 7. It’s human nature to “prefer the old version” because we’ve got used to it and so on, so I’m still learning the idiosyncracies of this new version, but it seems pretty good, and it’s got some funky new stuff to play with too.

A more detailed review will probably follow when I’ve been using it for a while longer…

On the Piste

Not for those with a faint heart or nervous stomach, this story concerns an Australian ski resort that’s found a way of creating snow from, um, recycled human waste.

Apparently it goes through three stages of filtration, but all the same, you wouldn’t want to be caught in an avalanche of it, would you?

And maybe they can link it up with this job that was advertised recently (thanks, Pat for the link)

Comment system weirdness

Hmmm, for some weird reason it looks like any comments posted yesterday have been deleted on Haloscan. I have no idea why, and they’re busy not answering questions at the moment…

Apologies to all involved, and I’ll see what happens during the day to see if they get restored or anything.

Updated – Bizarre, looks like they’re coming back, slowly but surely. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on (Some people would say that’s my normal state of being) with it, but there we go.

Clots and the Internet

According to stories here and here it’s now thought that people spending long hours in front of computers can develop DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis).

And there I was thinking the only clots on a computer were the ones using AOL.

About Fuckin’ Time

Hallelujah. At risk of being a complete sad person, I’d just like to say that I’m dead pleased Channel 4 is finally starting to show Season 3 of West Wing, as of 8th February.

And to top it off, Season 2 will be out on DVD on the 7th April, according to Play.com. So I’ll be a happy bunny then…

New Legislation

So, in response to various dollops of media hysteria, we’re now getting new legislation to deal with on-line paedophiles – most of which is probably a good thing.

One of the weird ones is that the sentence for “Paying to have sex with a child” is a maximum of 14 years. Why 14? Why not round it up to 15? Or even 20? What makes 14 years so special?

I’m not sure about the new offence of sexual “grooming” of achild. I know what they mean by it, but it still comes up with an image of someone tidying themselves up and getting clean etc before sex. (Then again, I’m weird.)

As for the new offence of “befriending children with the intention of abusing them”, I can see that one being hard to prove, but hey, what would I know?

Professional appearance

As regular readers will probably already know, I loathe neckties. They’re a bizarre piece of “clothing” that does absolutely keff all, yet for some reason some workplaces insist on their workforce wearing them. (Although in fairness they do make exceptional keyboard cleaners) They seem to think that people are more professional if they’re wearing shirts and ties, or smart office dress.

Personally, I think that’s complete bollocks. I hate wearing them, it’s not like I’m dealing with the public, or even with clients – I’m a sad little web geek/code hacking type person, I don’t need to wear a fucking tie.

But no, the place I’m at currently insists on geeks in ties – it makes us more acceptable or something, makes us all look more professional. Fuck it, they’re paying for my skills, not how I look in a poxy tie.

So I’m being hugely infantile, and wearing the vilest colour combinations known to man. Let’s see how professional I look in that. (And yes, the code’s still getting written, so that side of professionalism isn’t affected at all.)

Interruption of service

Blogger was down earlier, hence no new posts – I was wanting to write some, but for the first time since I started using it, the fucking thing was tits up. Or maybe it just hates the iMac I’ve got to use at work.

Which is a reasonable excuse – I hate the fucking thing too.

Fine spell of weather

This morning in Manchester was absolutely vile, pissing it down, quick gale-force gusts of wind, grey skies (well, greyer than usual) and street lights coming back on.

What I want to know is this – when people get off a bus and realise it’s blowing a bastard gale, why do they put umbrellas up? I saw more inside-out brollies today than I have in ages.

OK, it’s comedy to watch, and rather like a street-based IQ test, but all the same, it does leave me wondering what the point is of even trying…

Ouch

Now that’s a way to kill someone. Brings a whole new meaning to “my balls are killing me.”

Time flies, Challenger didn’t

Hard to believe that it’s 16 years today since the space shuttle Challenger exploded. There’s a lot that’s happened since then…

Now there’s a shock

The Government moots taking over the fire service and forcing them to accept a pay “offer”. Just another case of blurring the line between Labour and Tory policies.

And how do you call it an “offer” when it’s something you’re forced to accept?

Gasp! A review

Well, looks like I’ve been reviewed by Bloggy Opinions. I’m not quite sure whether they like it or not…

Though I love that the layout is unique in the blog aspect, a word to the wise, if you are not careful I am certain that you are infringing on copyright and trademark laws, especially if you do not have the permission from them (http://cda.dummies.com/WileyCDA/). [But then again, the author clearly knows, this as stated in his about section] The theme is the same as the “… for Dummies”, the yellow and black background, and even their mascot/icon guy.

You, the jury, can decide…

Protected Data?

Worth a laugh – the fact that Microsoft UK have let their Data Protection Registration lapse. So in theory they could now be sued by the Data Protection Registrar until they register again.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer corporation…

People

Looks like it’s not just me who needs to get out more. First there’s the man addicted to refuse lorries – a very worrying case. Then there’s also the sad twat who’s complaining about a youth football team’s logo and motto. It took me a minute to figure out the motto, and when I did I just thought it was funny.

But the complainant definitely needs to get out a hell of a lot more, if they find that offensive.

New bits

A weird piece (well, technically “pair of pieces”) today that have relevance to how my mind’s been “working” through the throes of Insomnia recently. Within the insomnia section itself, the piece Yet Again is the end result. It may be a bit disjointed, and may need some editing once I’ve had a respectable level of sleep, but for now it resembles my mindset pretty well.

The second piece, in the thoughts section is almost a follow-on, almost a parallel process, but not quite either one. It’s held at the imaginitively titled Thoughts and Insomnia piece.

And for now that’ll do. I’m going to try and get some sleep.

Quirky

Emily gets to hear a porn star utter his immortal phrase.

(I could say more, but it would give the game away slightly)

Fully signed-up geek

OK, I’m definitely a techie. I’ve just found myself laughing at this cartoon about American football and IP addresses. I need to get out more, for sure.

Another step closer to Minority Report

Interesting piece on the BBC News today about advertisements that can send internet links to your mobile. Luckily, it only appears to work through an infra-red link, which is something that the great majority of mobiles no longer have, since IR became the least popular way to transfer data between phone and PDA or PC.

Once they get an ad that works via Bluetooth instead, that’ll be more functional.

Questions

While the world and it’s wife blethered on about the funeral of the police person who was killed in Manchester on the 14th January I notice that a lot of it has managed to avoid the relevant questions.

Like – Why wasn’t he wearing a stab-proof vest? It was a raid on a house suspected of being involved in terrorism.

And why was the person who stabbed DC Oake (and four of his colleagues) not handcuffed? Again, you’ve got four people in a room who you suspect are involved in terrorism. You don’t exactly sit them down and say “have a coffee while we search your place for bombs/poison/whatever”, do you?

Supposedly an inquiry has been launched. I’d like to see the answers to those questions, instead of some bullshit about President Blair attending the fecking funeral.

I’ve been dying to write this

Because of the media hysterics about it all, I’ve been restraining myself from writing anything on here about Reginald Crew, the man who travelled to Switzerland to fulfil his wish to die.

I’ve never understood the British laws regarding murder and suicide. This was a man suffering from Motor Neurone Disease with no hope of recovery, and knowing that his life would only get worse in the years until he died naturally. He was going to die – that was without doubt. He still had the ability to decide what he wanted to do, and he’d decided that he wanted to die without all the garbage that would precede it. Yet the British law system decided that it knew better than he did, and wouldn’t allow it.

So the poor sod who wanted to die had to fly to Switzerland in order to be in a country where the doctors could help him die without being arrested for murder. And when he’d died, it was stated by Merseyside Police that his wife would be interviewed in conjunction with possible charges of murder. (They’ve since recanted on that threat)So not only do we force people to travel to bve allowed a decent death, we also plan to sure their partners and/or families when they come back with the corpse. How charming is that?

Personally, I feel that assisted suicide isn’t something that should be illegal. When someone is diagnosed with a fatal illness, shouldn’t it still be possible for them to choose when to die? To be able to say “That’s enough”, to go through the process and say goodbye to loved ones, and then be able to finish things without letting them have to remember the person as they die slowly and painfully. That’s a humane way of doing things – to know you’re dying and to have the right to choose your time of death.

It wouldn’t suit everyone – but that’s why it’s a choice. You don’t have to do it in that way if you don’t want to, but to have the ability to choose – to me that’s paramount. Don’t you just love living in a nanny state that insists it knows best for everyone else?

Tis the season for re-invention

Damn, Gert beat me to the original thing about part-works, but I was going to write more anyway, so what the hell.

As she observes, come the start of January, the magazine publishers kick in with all their “new” part-works. For those who’ve been living in a cave in the desert for the last twenty years, part-works are the magazines coming in like 50 parts, courses on cross-stitch, painters, collectible bird statues, you name it, you can get a part-work on it. (Oddly enough, one of the biggest publishers of them, Del Prado Publishing, doesn’t appear to have any web-presence at all.)

It’s all part of the New Year conspiracy – once we’re through the bollocks of Christmas and the Festering Season (™), it’s the season where we’re supposed to change the things about us that we want to alter, what with New Year’s Resolutions and so on. So along with the part-works starting new skills or new interests, we’re pestered by TV adverts for Weightwatchers, Holidays, Diet Programmes, and things for stopping smoking.

Does it work? I don’t know – the entire “self-improvement in January” is something I don’t claim to understand, and I’ve never really gone in for it. Do people aspire to change themselves come January? Probably – as I said, there’s the entire Resolutions tradition to contend with, so yeah, they probably do.

Feeling shite

Well, the insomnia’s after-effects are now rising up. Having felt pretty crappy yesterday, this morning was accompanied by aching joints, my nose having been replaced with a broadband snot production facility, and generally feeling crap. So, like the brave little bunny I am, I took the day off and have mainly spent it vegetating and feeling shite. Oh, and fomulating plans to work for 37.5 hours over four days instead of five, and get a three day weekend. What an ace way to spend a Friday.

Interesting coincidence

Spotted in today’s BBC News Site:

  

Should I worry?

OK, now, I’m going to be nosy now. Who is it who’s reading this site from work at the International Atomic Energy Agency? It comes up fairly regularly on the referrer logs, so I’m just a bit intrigued really…

Somebody’s Girl

In relation to Jane‘s comment here about who the next celebrity paedophile would be, I must admit I didn’t put any money on it being R Kelly (although it does amuse me that BBC has this story filed under “Entertainment”)

So, who next? Personally, I’d love it if Jack Straw or President Blair got done for looking at child porn, but that’s hardly likely. So instead I’ll nominate Delia Smith or Jeremy Clarkson. No particular reason – but hell, we can hope.

(Oh, and the title for this piece is also the title of one of his “songs” – apt, eh?)

Black Irony

During a phone conversation with a friend tonight, I came up with the following concept…

“Wouldn’t it be fun, considering the levels of emnity between them already, if Osama Bin Laden assassinated Saddamn Hussain? I’d love it – having to see George Bush admit that bin Laden had eliminated ‘the biggest threat’ (blah blah blah)”

Maybe it’s just me that would find that funny. Maybe I need to get out more.

Hiatus

Not much has been going on today – brain’s pretty much hibernating, due to a hugely impressive attack of insomnia, coupled with absolutely keff-all worth going on in the world that’s worthy of blethering about.

I’ve written a small piece about the hopes I’ve got for 2003 which got written over the weekend and I’ve only just remembered to upload it. Which shows how braindead I am.

Normal service will probably be resumed tomorrow. Ish.

Pong

Ah the joys of working in an office building (part of the Regus bunch of buildings) where the toilets are blocked. Every single one of them.

Turns out, some kind soul (or several of them, unless he was feeling very productive) managed to block them with a combination of toilet paper and – um – impressive quantities of faecal matter. In every male toilets in the building. (Three on each floor, two floors – this person had obviously had a LOT of Guinness)

The smell has to be experienced – it’s impossible to describe. Throughout the building, everyone is trying to breathe solely through their mouths, so the entire population of the building looks slightly retarded and slow.

All in all just another vile day. Hopefully they’ll be fixed by tomorrow…

Nothing wrong with a nice tight seal (as the walrus said)

Interesting to see that Tupperware have decided to change their sales party marketing technique. Of course, they/re not the only ones who sell plastic goods in parties at people’s homes – who knows, maybe that’ll be changing soon too…

Bollocks

The world hates me. I’m now sure of it. Come April 12th, I’ll be seeing Massive Attack in concert – bought the tickets, and can’t wait. Last night I saw somewhere that Henry Rollins is doiing a spoken word concert (as opposed to a shouted song/music concert – he does both sorts) in Manchester. He’s someone whose gigs I love going to, and so I go every time he’s in the area. (only about once a year, in fairness)

Guess what day he’s doing the show in Manchester?

You’ve got it – bastard April 12th.

Quote of the Day

In this BBC story, I found myself laughing at the synopsis “Two men admit to plotting to cause explosions in London and Birmingham as three others go on trial for the same charges” – is it just me, or is there a double meaning to the phrase “charges” in this context?

Back to Stalin’s days of history editing

Not that I give a flying toss about the album itself, I still think airbrushing the cigarette out of the Abbey Road cover is more than a bit ridiculous.

So the American anti-smoking lobby wanted to stop advertising the smokers on the cover of a thirty year old album? Smart move, sherlock – it’s now a story in the international media. So like, that’ll stop the smoking coming to the attention of impressionable teenagers, oh yes…

Musical Interlude

Having been away with friends for the weekend, the MP3 collection here has grown a bit. Old age is creeping up on me, as I love the new album by Tom Jones, the imaginatively titled Mr Jones. There’s a slightly ill-advised cover of Bob Seger’s “We’ve got Tonight“, but the rest of the album is pretty bloody good. And with bass to kill for. (Unsurprising, considering it’s produced by Wyclef Jean)

However, the crowning point (other than the two Yazoo albums, but I’ll stay quiet about those) was being introduced to a very queeny cabaret act called Topping and Butch. I’d never heard of them before, but they’re obviously popular. Having listend to the “Absolutely Fatuous” album, I can see why.

Winner? Well, near enough.

Over at Troubled Diva, Mike had a blog wordsearch going on last week. As it had been a quiet evening, I had a go at it, and just about broke the 50% mark (26 out of 48 possible answers) – so you can imagine how surprised I am to know I came in fifth and even get a runners-up prize.

Of course, there were probably only five people who entered ( *Grin* ) but I won’t let that affect my current good mood. SQL Server can do that easily enough later…

Now that could backfire impressively

Not that I give a monkey’s toss one way or the other about whether Matthew Kelly is a perv or not, I can see that the letter of support from other “stars” could backfire impressively.

More than anything else the phrase about “he’s a sweet and gentle person” reminds me of the garbage that neighbours say every time the person in the house next door turns out to be a serial killer, or a terrorist, or a wife-beater, or whatever else. “But he seemed like such a nice, quiet person”.

Only time will tell.

Can’t be bad

Maybe 2003 will actually end up being a good year. *Gasp* As well as me being back in the wonderful world of employment, another friend of mine has just been offered the job she’s been wanting for the last month or so. Dead pleased for her.

Ug.

It’s official – I hate Mondays. I’m not even going to comment (much) about RBS and their various fuckups over the weekend.

However, if anyone out there got plenty of sleep, and in fact feels they had too much sleep, would they please be kind enough to send it to me? I could really do with at least a couple of hours worth, if possible.

You can tell I’m tired – I’m saying please.

And now back to the “joy” that is Microsoft SQL Server 7.

Thoughts from a train – Part Three – The Return Journey

It’s getting to the point where I can’t even be bothered to rant about train journeys. Right now I’m on a train that’s travelling from London to Manchester. I’m on this rather than the one that goes from Reading through Birmingham direct to Manchester is because of track maintenance work, which has cancelled the services. It’s not emergency repairs – they’re going on over the next three months, every weekend. So there’s no real explanation for why the useless cunts utterly helpful people at Virgin Trains can’t be bothered to explain this when booking tickets and saying “I’ll be travelling on the Sunday”. Of course I don’t want to know that my journey is going to be an hour longer – what possible use could I have for that information?

So it’s been an enforced journey from Reading to London Paddington on a packed and cruddy train, a brief trip through London’s Underground to Euston (which I must admit was surprisingly empty, quick, and almost respectable – we’ll ignore the graffiti covered carriages) followed by the joys of a minimum two and a half hours on the way to Manchester. I say a minimum of two and a half hours because we’ve already been delayed by thirty minutes due to an unexplained “technical fault on the engine”. Quite how we’re now moving again with thus technical fault is also unexplained. Maybe Virgin have hired flying carpets to levitate the train slightly off the track and keep us going. Oh, and they’ve somehow managed to “forget” to attach a buffet car to the train – I’d have thought that was pretty fucking difficult, they’re not exactly small.

It still strikes me as somewhat ironic that Virgin is the name for the most utterly fucked train service in the UK.

Thoughts from a train – Part Two

I’m getting worried – I’m on a Virgin train on a Friday night, it’s not packed solid with people, it’s running on time, I’ve witnessed the staff actually being helpful, and I haven’t heard anyone say “Is this the train for…?”

Has war broken out? Have I been abducted by aliens?

Update – Of course that was tempting fate, because within ten minutes of completing that post, we were stuck with a points failure for half an hour.

Thoughts from a train – part one of an Odyssey.

This is the Fashion Police. You there – yes you, with the shirt. That thing’s not just offensive, it’s a frigging weapon. It’s not bad enough that you think lilac gingham is acceptable as material for a shirt – trust me on this, it’s not – the real problem is that scarlet tie with the green polka-dots on it. Can’tg you see the people around you wincing?

The only possible excuses for wearing an outfit that offensive are a) you’re colourblind; b) you’re mentally retarded, c) it’s a bet. It’s not big, it’s not clever, it’s not even ironic, you bastard, it’s just piss-poor taste, and you deserve to die. Painfully.

No Shit Sherlock – another in a long line.

Sometimes I just despair of the way people seem to keep on coming up with new methods of stating the obvious. In this story from the register Donald Rumsfeld finally figures out the American Military (.mil) websites might not be such a good idea after all…

You couldn’t make it up, I swear.

In my email box today

Sometimes I love being able to save e-mails as webpage files. It allows me to post up some of the bizarre bollocks I get in my spam-tray Inbox – but this has to be one of the better ones of recent times. Not quite as good as the umbrella one but close – hysteria and cures for sleep apnoea and snoring.

A true gem.

Now that’s what I call classy

Hmmm, I’m sure that would make a fascinating fridge magnet – or even a paperweight.

Maybe a pen holder?

(Link via Emily.)

Some people really need to get out more

Sheesh, and I thought I was a geek. Amazing the things you can do with a Speak and Spell.

Blimey, what a day

Well, not much at all appears to have happened in the world today. I’m still trying to get used to this entire “proper work” thing, although as it includes having to be in an office for 9am, and I’m not getting to sleep ’til 5am at the moment (insomnia having raised it’s ugly head once more) as you can imagine, sleep deprivation is becoming a bit of an issue.

I should also point out that it really isn’t a smart move to be trying to write ASP pages and VBScript when one is so low on sleep that concentration is becoming an issue, and maintaining it is becoming more of one.

So, in the name of sanity, I’m afraid I haven’t done much here today, and the weekend will probably be fairly slow on that score too, as I’m seeing frinds in Reading. I’ll add stuff as and when I can, or feel like it.

Other than that, well hell, there’s plenty of other reading material both on this site and on the blogroll over on the right…

Another one bites the dust

It’s a plot to get rid of dodgy “celebrities”, I’m sure of it.

Mind you, if it means we never have to see Matthew Kelly or Michael Barrymore on our screens again, then please, lock ’em up now…

Well, it’s another way of getting a bird pissed

Thanks to H for this link about pissed Swedish birds. Most surreal.

Then again, I’ve seen a bird hit a window hard enough to leave an imprint.

Welcome to the Hype

So, it’s less than a month ’til Valentine’s Day (*Spit*), the cards are in the shops already, and what’s going to be next on the hype list? The new Harry Potter book finally getting a release date of course. I’m amazed GreenFairy isn’t frothing at the mouth.

Knock Knock

In the aftermath of the idiot policeman getting murdered yesterday (And just WHAT was the thinking there? “I know, we’ll go and raid a place, but not wear the stab-proof vests, not do a proper search, and forget to handcuff the suspects?” Bizarre) it seems President Blair is now banging on about ridding the world of fanatics.

I agree – let’s make sure George Bush is front of the queue when it comes to killing off the war-mongering idiots. With El Blair in second place…

Working…

Well, the site isn’t going to get as many updates as normal for the moment, as I’m actually working for a living, and for the moment it looks like the office doesn’t have internet access. Odd, for somewhere that primarily works with websites and databases, but hey, what the hell would I know?

Still, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunity to add stuff on still – just not during 9-5. I can live with that.

Linkage and other webthings

Just a quick little post to congratulate Pat on being the author of the 300th comment on the site. Well, the 300th Haloscan commenter – there were a fair few in Enetation before I got rid of it too.

Also, a quick thanks to Emily and Mike for adding yours truly to their link lists. Maybe it sounds all lovey-type stuff, but I’m really still bizarrely chuffed that people whose blogs/sites I read, and whose writing I respect, apparently think the same about this one. Quite an ego boost, in a strange fashion. (And most people I know will agree all my fashion is strange…)

Mike’s also got a blog wordsearch going at the moment, on which I managed a score of 26. I’m sure it’ll put me nowhere near the winner’s podium, but it’s a fun way to waste an hour or two…

Without Prejudice

Last week, Channel Four released a new programme on the public, Without Prejudice. In it, a panel of five “normal people” choose who out of a group should receive £50,000, based purely on their own perceptions and prejudices. Peter wrote some views and comments on the first edition, and having just seen the second in the series as well, it’s time for some of my own thoughts as well.

As a TV programme, it’s really quite a fascinating psychological study. Watching the panel of “judges” form their own opinions, seeing how those opinions are formed, and what they’re based upon. In fact, it’s more interesting to see the bias and bigotries of the panel rather than what the “contestants” are like. Quite an interesting state of affairs, to say the least.

Some of it makes for viewing that is pretty offensive in some ways, hearing/seeing the amazing bigotry that people are capable of. But it’s fascinating for the same reasons. I’ll certainly be keeping on watching it.

The new question mark

As astute viewers will have noticed, there’s a new little graphic in the post below. It’s this little question mark which won’t link to anything, but if you hover the mouse over it, the pop-up text should explain a bit more about whatever I’m blithering about.

Fun, eh?

Quote Of The Day

Yes, quote of the day is back. Not often, and not rock solid in the way it used to be. But sometimes I just see a story with a quote in it that begs for a (slightly) wider audience. Today’s one comes from this BBC story about postcode snobbery and made me laugh out loud…

“It’s a dump. You can call it Peckham Village. You can call it whatever you like. It’s still a dump.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself…

How is this attractive?

OK, I was unlucky enough to be channel-flipping last night, and landed on BBC’s “drama” Mersey Beat. One of the people who stars in it is Leslie Ash – who’s been receiving some media attention recently for plastic surgery she’s had done. I hadn’t seen the effects of it ’til last night, and it’s left me fairly surprised, to say the least.

The woman looks like she’s been beaten around the mouth with a blunt instrument. Surely it’s not something that’s supposed to be attractive?

What the chuff possessed me?

I know there must have been some good reason for me to think that being at a dentists at 9am was a good idea. Right now, I can’t think of that reason.

I’m not frightened of dentists per se – I don’t like them, that’s for sure (but who in their right minds enjoys a visit to the fang-fixers?), but I’m not terrified of them, or anything like that. I’ve seen people who are terrified, and wouldn’t ever belittle that fear, but it’s not something I have. I just don’t like ’em.

I think it’s the attitude more than anything – I’ve never really seen one that wasn’t a patronising twat. I haven’t met a phrase more homicide inducing than “Oh, we’ve got some cavities that need filling. Someone hasn’t been very good about dental hygiene have they?”. No, WE haven’t got cavities, I have – and I’m paying you to sort them out. Now get on with it and shut the fuck up.

Anyway, this experience isn’t going to be fun. I know I’ve been lax on the entire dentist thing (insert whole loads of excuses here that really come down to “I didn’t get round to it”) and that my teeth are a mess. I’m fully aware of this, and have no desire for anyone to be patronising about it. It’s going to be the best part of a year before it’s all fixed, but I’ve finally got round to wanting it done. (It was supposed to be done in the year I was 30, but that was disastrous, so I’ll do it in the year I’m 31 instead)

At 9am on a Tuesday for the first bit. What on earth possessed me?

Say Hello Wave Goodbye

Bit of a tenuous link in that title, but there we go, tenuous is should be my middle name. Anyway, I was watching a repeat of the BBC’s Horizon programme on mega-tsunami, and it made me wonder about a couple of things.

1) How aware are Americans of this “threat” to their eastern seaboard?
2) Would it be possible to set this off without a volcanic explosion?

Really, 2) has some interesting extrapolations. If the Cumbre Vieja could be blown apart by conventional explosives (or, for example, diving a jet liner into it) could it not be used for terrorist purposes? Would it be too random (along the lines of “we don’t know if it would work or not”) to be a valid threat?

Anyway, it was just a thought – I wonder if there’s any type of guard on that particular island…

Pinball Wizard

So, Pete Townshend is potentially a p*a*edophile (Stars so I don’t get ultra-linked by google) and is ready to hand his computer over to the police. Amazing what a quick run of FDISK’ll do, isn’t it?

Still, does anyone really care about this story? Yes, the excuse that “he gave his credit card details to see a child porn website, but insisted he had done so for research and was not a p*a*edophile.” is about as piss-poor as they come, but I do find myself wondering if the entire thing isn’t now becoming a bit of a hysterical witch-hunt, with the media as the accusers.

Personally, I’m about as virulently anti this stuff as it’s possible to be, but there just seems to be so many people now accused of viewing it, that I do wonder if it’s not hysteria, coupled with the sort of attitudes that homophobia brought about twenty years ago…

The sound of silence

Sorry for the break in updates, I’m sure I’ll think of something to write soon.

In the meantime, it’s down to sorting out ideas for what needs doing over the next few months, and that’s taking up most (if not all) of my brain power for the moment.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as IQ points are freed up.

I need more sleep

I’ve just been made to realise that sometimes sleep is a good thing. The precursor to this thought was when I tried operating my computer with the cordless phone instead of the mouse. It’s not even like they’re similar…

Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive

I was never really a fan of the BeeGees, although as Robin Gibb lives in the same town as my parents, I’m not unfamiliar with them, and had met them on a few occasions. So yes, I’m a bit gobsmacked that Maurice Gibb has pegged it after Friday’s heart attack…

RIP and all that.

Update : And in a stunning piece of timing, the Mail On Sunday‘s magazine today has a piece interviewing Robin Gibb. Sometimes you just have to laugh.

8 Mile

Well, Eminem makes his proper film debut. (For once I’m going to ignore the derivative shite like Da Hip Hop Witch, an abortion that should’ve been killed along with whoever came up with the “concept”) And yes, it’s pretty impressive. I liked it, anyway – more than I was expecting to, to be honest. I’d tried to read as little about the film as possible, so I could go in with an open mind, rather than with any pre-conceived ideas.

Actually, I think that’s the best way to look at it. Since coming home I’ve looked at other reviews, and most of them seem to centre on “Is is autobiographical?”, “Can he Act, or is just being him?” and various other lumps of crap that seem to be the reviewers raison d’etre at the moment.

Frankly, I couldn’t give a good dump whether it’s supposedly biographical or not, nor about most of the other things that are supposedly important. At the end of the day, is the film itself any good? For me, the answer to that is “yes”, without a doubt. There’s a definite feel of “it’s Rocky for rappers” in a lot of the scenes, but what the hell, Rocky and it’s ilk are a staple of the film world. Classic “underdog beats the bad guys” type storyline. But it’s still capable of being absorbing for the nearly two hours of runtime. Kim Basinger is actually good (which came as quite a shock) as Jimmy/Eminem’s mother, and while there are bits of pure American gut-wrenching tackiness, it’s still a good film.

Yesterday

Well, in reference to Pat‘s comment, yesterday’s running around was actually pretty productive. By the time I’d finished the second interview (all for IT contract positions, Gordon, not a nork or head nork in sight) the first one had called me back and said “yes, we’d like you to work for us”. So I didn’t have to bother going over to Bradford for the third one.

So, a three month contract, working on yet more databases and ASP sites. Starting Wednesday. It’ll keep me busy ’til the end of April, and by that point they’ll almost certainly have more stuff to do, and more need for contractors. So it could be pretty promising, but for now I’m just looking at the next three months, and sorting out a load of stuff that needs doing.

But yes, it was a good day, and I’ve already felt a big weight leaving me again. Can’t be bad…

Quote of the day – an occasional series

Regular readers will recall a certain shitty day I had, involving dealing with loads of inefficient cretins all at once. Yes, I’m still getting the backlash from one of them – Nationwide Building Society to be precise.

The letter I got this morning was a perfect gem. It involves the phrase “Your e-savings must be closed before the current account. (Bear in mind, it’s taken the useless cunts 9 months to tell me that) To close your e-savings, please send an email on the internet to eservices requesting that the account be closed.” which leaves me completely dumbfounded.

First of all – how the hell do you send email NOT over the internet? (OK, some smartarse will now say “with a g3/gprs mobile phone” but balls to that) And second, wouldn’t it have been useful to have actually included some relevant information like the actual email address for eservices? I’m sure that if they have to specify sending email over the internet (as opposed to email through the snail post, I suppose) then several people will have tried sending an email just to “eservices”.

Now that’s impressive

How the hell does someone manage to run up parking tickets worth £28,000? That’s one hell of a figure, even in three years – we’re still talking more than £9,000 per year. In fact it works out as £180 of parking fines per week. Which is quite an achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree…

Um – interesting phrasing

OK, so the UK’s longest running siege is finally over, and the gunman is dead. I, however, am still trying to figure out the logic of this statement “The gunman at the centre of London’s longest armed siege had vowed never to be taken alive before he died“. OK, so he was prepared to be taken alive after he died? Or he’d made the vow never to be taken alive before he was shot. Because of course it would be stupid to say he made the vow after he died.

Don’t you just love Tautological statements?

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

Following on from several bits on here recently, I’ve added in a new piece in the thoughts section. This one is about some of the joys of depression. It’s a happy time chez Lyle, as you can see…

Hearse in a long room

RIP Peter Tinniswood – as always, the year seems to be starting off with some high-profile kicking of buckets.

Tomorrow

Not much will be added to the blog tomorrow, as I’m going to be running round like a nork going for interviews and the like. Unfortunately, depression’s risen up and whacked me in the head today, so I’m not really up to much.

Should make it a fun one tomorrow. Oh yes.

Bloody hell, that’s cold

Note to self : Don’t live in Russia in winter. Frankly, chuff that.

Spam…

Sometimes I really do find life very amusing. I received a spam yesterday from a company in Hong Kong. It was in relation to the piece that I wrote here about umbrellas. Basically, I’m not a fan of umbrellas, and firmly believe that people should be forced to hold an “umbrella proficiency certificate” before being allowed to possess such an item. So receiving the following email amused me no end…

Dear Sir or Madam,

Eric Lee
Neo Umbrella Mfg. Co. (Contact details deleted here)

I’m not going to take the piss out of the oddities of the English used – mainly for the pretty good reason that this email from a Hong Kong company is infinitely better than anything I could write in the language of Hong Kong (Cantonese?). I just find the entire concept of me selling brollies to be quite funny, particularly when the link is from something saying I can’t stand the bloody things.

At Bloody Last

Finally, three months down the line, I’ve got the problem with Nominet sorted. The whois information changed a while back, and printed names/addresses of the people who owned domain names. It’s supposed to be “only” for commercial sites, except through some wonderful piece of paperwork bollocks, my name and address was easily available to anyone who knew about this change.

Obviously, it’s not something I was happy about – even just for relatively simple things like saying “I’m away til Sunday”, it advertised a nicely empty house. Which is why I also haven’t really mentioned it here ’til now.

Changing the details has been an amazing exercise in futility – it’s needed a form about the “change of registrant details” from Nominet (which conveniently got lost twice), which could be only sent by snail mail. No PDFs for our friends at Nominet, oh no. Electronic documents? What would we need them for? The truly bizarre bit involved having to transfer ownership of the domain from myself (as a personal site) to – um – myself (as a personal site), including two covering letters (one from each person – I thought I was going schizophrenic for a while) confirming the “change” of ownership, which allowed Nominet to change the details.

Having done that, I then had to re-inform my hosting service that the details had changed, and that I wanted to opt out of having the personal details (address etc.) displayed. And it’s all finally happened. The rules changed at the start of October. It’s taken 3 months to carry out something that should have taken a maximum of ten mouse clicks.

I love bureaucracy.

Worra Lorra Insults

Poor old Cilla Black. Not only does she announce her retirement from that sack of shit staple of Saturday Night television, Blind Date, but now she gets insulted on the cover of the Guardian’s G2 supplement. I wish I’d bought it – I’d have framed the sodding thing.

Updated – the cover’s visible here – thanks to Vaughn at Wherever you are for pointing it out…

Smart-Arse

It’s hard to believe that he pretty much failed in school, but now, donkeys 88 years later, it seems Einstein has been proved right (again) – the first measurement of the speed of gravity agrees with him that it does, in fact, travel at the same speed as light.

Does this mean that light has a gravity all of it’s own? Or just lend weight to the argument? *Grin*

Ricin and the fun you can have with it

Since yesterday’s discovery of ricin in London, and the follow-up stories about further people being sought and whether the NHS can cope with posion attack victims, it seems that people have found this site because I’ve belted on about ricin (used in the assassination of Georgi Markov via an umbrella tip) in a couple of pages on the site already.

Weird, the way these things work, isn’t it? Still, always good to know I’m getting hits from Yahoo and Google about this kind of current stuff…

Got to be a trigger for happiness

Yes, I missed this one at the time, but I’m making up for it now.

A century ago, that wonder drug was – um – heroin. Ten years ago it was MDMA (Ecstacy to it’s friends). Now we have this equation for “thinking yourself happy”. It’s no different than pain in the arse humans people saying “cheer up, it might never happen” to depressives, as though they believe they’re simple concept will make the whole world a better place.

It’s bollocks. A nice little sentiment if you’ve never been totally terminally depressed, and have no idea what it’s all about. And the “consultant psychologist” quoted in the article as saying We can all be happy in a heartbeat if we make the decision to be so. should be struck off the register as a disgrace to her profession.

You’d think I was a fuckwit or something

OK, I admit it, I do kind of enjoy having a go at people when their companies get things wrong. I’d expect the same treatment myself, if my own company (or the one I worked for) had keffed something up.

However, having spoken to three different companies already today, it does get a bit wearing. One lot tried telling me that a courier service might take 28 days to bring the items back to the warehouse (the response “Best change courier services then, even Royal Snail does it quicker than that” didn’t seem to go down all that well); that just because someone’s changed their address with the Halifax building society that doesn’t mean it’ll stop junk mail coming to that person at her old address from, um, Halifax building society; and that when a company sends me something, the fact they posted it is proof I must have received it – this from a company who actually state in all their own literature “Proof of posting is not proof of receipt”.

It’s going to be one of those days, obviously.

New stuff

Right, finally got the new additions uploaded. The weekend got kind of extended, I’ve come home to find I’ve got three interviews on Friday (nothing like planning – and I do mean nothing like it at all), 700 emails (don’t you just love spam), and a couple of updates to the thoughts section, one in the shape of a witter about natural states of being and one about the alcohol drunk over Christmas. I’m sure there’ll be even more over the next week or so.

Until then, enjoy…

The Weekend

An interesting weekend, what with one thing and another. It srikes as bizarrely amusing that living in a city that used to be known as the gun-crime centre of the UK, I end up going to Nottingham and someone gets shot at the pub down the road. It wasn’t me who did it, honest…

Other than that, just pretty relaxed, staying with friends, and utterly incredulous at the new government guidelines on how to avoid online paedophiles. Will they stop stupid 14year olds from being in chatrooms and sending out their own “A/S/L” queries (Age/Sex/Location, for the uninitiated) to all and sundry? Will they shit as like. Normally I’d file this under “No shit, sherlock”, but this time it’s far more like “I don’t keffing believe it, you fuckwits”

The rules are :

• Keep the computer near you (You mean not everyone has cordless keyboards? How the FUCK do you keep it a long way from you?)
• Talk to your child about what they do online (If you can understand when they talk about ASL, LOL, LMFAO, VPN, OCS, so forth, so fifth)
• Keep a ‘favourites’ folder of agreed sites (And let Daddy store his under “everyday porn”)
• Ask your ISP about safety features (And if you call most support lines, they’ll have even less clue than you do)

As Peter says, the parents who care about this stuff are already doing all of this crap, and the ones who aren’t won’t care enough to change the habits of a lifetime and give a flying fuck in the first place. Well, until they become victims (or, more accurately, their child does) and then they can sit and bollocks on about “Well, SOMETHING should be done about these pervs”

In short, it’s much the same as the rest of the stuff Labour’s come up with recently, and it’s bollocks of the purest variety. Complete window-dressing, looking like it’s worthwhile, when it’s got all the value of a condom on a cactus.

In fact it’s much the same as the stuff on possession of illegal guns blah, blah, blah – and why are so many guns now in circulation while they’re now completely illegal? Because the knobbing government banned them after Dunblane back in ’96. So, another load of hypocritical old shite from our wondrous government…

The Geek-o-meter

I know, I know, it’s sad, but I just had to take the test.

And I came out with 62%. The report of “You are practically computer-literate, in an almost real sense. This could be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on whether you use your knowledge for good or for ill. Looking at your answers, I’d almost certainly say it was a bad thing.” is a bit of a worry, but pretty much accurate.

Away

Knew I’d forgotten to do something. I’m away from home this weekend, and not really doing much, so I’ve written some new pieces for the main site that’ll get updated when I get home later tonight. Other than that, it’s all a bit chaotic, and not much going on.

Australia’s planning to build a new target for Al Qaeda to attack, Yahoo is blethering about the weird and wonderful sites of 2002, Peter’s put up his Hunk of the Week, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say later.

Here’s to a sober January, and just relaxing after the manic stupidity of the last month or so…

You’ve got to be fucking kidding

Right, that’s it. It’s not enough to have already seen an ad for Christmas Hampers for 2003, I’ve just seen an advert for Cadbury’s fucking Creme Eggs. It’s not even the end of the first week of January. Cunting fucking bastard advertisers.

Come the revolution, those fuckers will be first up against the wall, I swear it.

(Oh, and a big Nyah Nyah to Green Fairy re her challenge – I saw one first :¬P )

Blah

That’s pretty much my summation of the day so far. Lack of sleep last night, working today, listening to bushels of inane drivel about christmas parties, christmas presents, what people did for christmas, what they had for christmas dinner, and just for variety what they did on new year’s eve.

It’s been like Chinese Water Torture. So for now I’m going to go and curl up and consider emigrating to somewhere that doesn’t do Christmas at all. Maybe India. Maybe somewhere good and Arabic/Moslem/Muslim (what the fuck is the correct spelling of that now? Normally I’d know, today I just don’t give a shit) or similar. Or maybe just somewhere like Antarctica. Hmmm – Roast Penguin on Dec 25th. For some reason that appeals…

Google

Every so often, I manage to be really impressed with Google and the way it works. About a week ago, I wittered on about Elizabeth Shaw’s Vodka Shot Chocolates, and today when I look in my referrer logs, I discover that a google search for them brings up this site, and lists it #3 for that search.

Which is pretty impressive.

Ooops, yet again

You’d have thought that by now other ships would know where that sunken car transporter was in the English Channel, wouldn’t you? Well, obviously yet again I’m over-estimating the intelligence of people, as yes, another idiot ship captain has managed to whack it. All that sea, and they still manage to hit the keffing thing. You just couldn’t make it up, could you?

To redesign or not to redesign

Well, as the year becomes a new one, a geeks thoughts turn to redesign. Do I bother, do I say “arse” to the entire thing?

I know the yellow does most people’s heads/eyes in, so the real thing for any real redesign will be that I put some skins on the site, redo the graphics so they’re based in transparent rather than yellow, and skin it from there. Can I be arsed to do it? Maybe.

Other than that, I’m not sure – maybe the black bars top and bottom could be changed into something funkier, but we’ll see. And I know I’ve got to add the awards section into the navigation too – that’ll be a pig of a job, for one day when I’m bored comatose (AKA Sat on a train) or something. Next time I look at hosting for d4d, I’m going to go for somewhere that supports PHP, then I can just do the nav as an include file. Much easier.

Anyway – as I asked before, any other ideas on what could be done for a redesign? What would you like to see on here? More importantly (other than keffing yellow) what would you like to see got rid of. (Any answers saying “the author” will be deleted *Grin* )

Health Warnings

According to the BBC, there’s going to be a new set of health warnings on cigarettes – why? Surely the people who smoke already have picked up the news that smoking is bad for them? Are they suddenly going to realise now that the print is bigger and blacker? Don’t think so.

Are they aimed at the people buying their first pack? If so, wouldn’t it be better to have the warning a) on the front of the pack and b) to have it on all the ads and shelves. (And yes, I’m aware they do that already) So, frankly, what’s the point of making the warnings bigger?

Because all this seems like to me is a kind of “you can collect the entire set!” marketing ploy…

Happy New Year. Blah Blah Blah.

And sometimes it occurs just to fulfil one’s negative expectations.

Another one where experience outweighs optimism. Hope everyone else has had a good one.

Phew

I didn’t say much about it yesterday, but I knew that the 20,000 page impressions mark was coming close. And yes, we went past it on Dec 31st 2002. How cool is that? *Grin*

In fact, geek that I am, it actually brightened up an otherwise shite day. Hey Ho.