Surreal – but somehow amusing

I’ve been very good on this, and not mentioned the Who Wants to be a Millionaire cheats court case, but the fact that the case got adjourned for a day because the jury were overcome by a fit of coughing was just too surreal to go without some form of mention.

Shit end to a shit day

Got back to Manchester, and just missed the bus. So I had to wait for the next one – and of course because of Stagecoach Bus‘s fucking shonky timetable after 7pm, they run every half hour. So the 7.30 finally arrives – and coasts straight on past, half empty and obviously driven by a complete arsehole.

I finally got home nearly an hour after arriving in Manchester – and the first thing that got done was a shitty email to Stagecoach. We’ll see how it goes with that one, anyway.

Getting Paid

Today’s definitely qualified as “one of those days”. I’m in the mood to murder some poxy fucking bureaucrat. And it’s all down to my favourite people in the world, the banking industry. (People who know me will somehow not find this a surprise)

For the last two weeks, I’ve been working for a web-design company over in Huddersfiled, on a contract organised by an agency who shall remain nameless. A week ago, I sent off the first invoice of this contract, which should have been paid into my bank account last Friday. It wasn’t. Because I’d worked for this agency before (about 18 months ago, give or take) they’d still got my bank details on file – unfortunately, they were for an account with a bank who shall remain equally nameless which I closed three months ago after a nine month battle. Oh fucking whoops.

Today, I’ve been told that they can’t pay the money into the correct account until they’ve got the money back from the bank they sent it to incorrectly. The general attitude seems to be “well, it’s not our problem – you’ll just have to wait”. The fact that they didn’t even pay me the correct amount is, of course, utterly irrelevant.

And along with that, I’ve been having to write webpages that will work off an Access backend – a total nightmare, to say the least. I’m a database geek, can’t deny it – but Access bears the same resemblance to a decent database as a dog-turd bears to a diamond.

Hopefully tomorrow will improve.

Considering a move

Following on from various comments, not least being today’s one from Peter about the growing shonkyness of Haloscan for commenting etc., I’m considering moving hosting over from EasySpace to 34sp.com (mainly on the recommendation of Pat) over the next couple of weeks. Who knows, I might even go the whole hog and consider cursing Moveable Type.

In all honesty, right now it’s going to depend on a couple of factors. 1) Having some spare time. 2) Getting paid. After that, it’ll all happen, and hopefully it’ll be a smooth process. Ha. Who am I trying to kid?

Children and contraceptives

I’m turning into another Green Fairy. (which won’t surprise anyone who knows me) The Grauniad is reporting today that the Green Party has launched it’s new policy on abortion and sex education. Part of this policy is to give out free contraception (A Good Thing) and improved sex education (also A Good Thing) to children of school age. Considering the Marie Stopes report last week that children are having sex from the age of 11 now, I can’t help but think that the provision of contraception and better education are an improvement on the current situation where they can’t obtain medical contraception (such as the Pill etc.) without their parent’s permission/knowledge until they’re sixteen.

As for better sex education, well, anything that means they don’t have to keep writing to Just 17 or whatever, saying “I gave my boyfriend a blowjob, can I get pregnant?” has to be an improvement.

The phrase that Green Fairy will froth at though (my prediction for the day) is this one : “Improved support should also be given to women on low incomes, so they were not driven to terminate pregnancies for financial reasons, they said.“. It seems to be saying “hey, it’s OK to have loads of kids even if you can’t afford it”, which is just an extrapolation of the current attitude, involving “have more kids and you can claim more benefit”. Maybe that’s just my perspective on it though.

Weekend

Well, there wasn’t much updating getting done over the weekend, due to an invasion by the parents. Nothing too bad – having seen them last back in November, and quarterly visitations are OK in the grand scheme of things. It’s a year now since my father had his heart attack, and he’s doing really well after it, which is always a good thing to see.

Anyway – Saturday involved a trip to Manchester Airport to drop off my brother so he could go off for a week’s ski-ing. Not that he knew exactly where he was headed (“it’s either Grenoble or Lyon, depending on what happens“) or whether he’d meet the people he intended to meet once over there. It’s been that kind of level of organisation – which reassures me that it’s a family trait, not just me. Following a visit to a pub while working out where to go next, a visit to the Whitworth art gallery, and then an intention to visit Werneth Low park – which was doomed from the start due to piss-poor navigation on both my part and then my mother’s. Being fairly well lost (although still knowing we could get back dead easy) resulted in a trip around a fair amount of South Manchester, including Cheadle Hulme, Wilmslow, Handforth Dean and several others.

Finally got back, and then went out for a meal in the city centre on Saturday night – very pleasant.

And now they’ve gone, and the house is back to being mine ’til next weekend, when I’ve got more friends staying…

People are strange

Looking through yesterday’s logfiles (So I’m a geek, and pay attention… *Grin*) it looks like some of the Google searches that found d4d were – how shall I put this? – slightly out of the ordinary. (Hey, nice understatement there, lyle).

I’m not sure which is worse – that I come up #1 on this search, or that someone typed it all in.all i have wanted is simply to get back to the normality of things, if there is such a normality. then i pause to think, is the normality of things really so great? when every day of my life is wasted…

And then I spotted this one : Can you help me find some things on farts? Looks like I’m #6 on that one. Then we find the epic mis-spelling of Kick Poxing, for which yours truly is sat happily at #3.

And finally, the truth is obviously out there. a Yahoo search on I hate ashton-under-lyne brings up d4d at #6. I can live with that.

War thought

I’ve been trying to avoid blethering on about the war for the most part, because many other people are doing it far better than I can – but the more I see stories about the US and UK getting ready for a long war rrather than the short hyper-war they bollocksed on about beforehand the more I wonder if this isn’t going to be the Vietnam of the ’00s.

Lesser of evils

I’m not sure what’s scarier about this story about many children losing their virginity at the age of 11 or so – whether it’s that sex seems to rear it’s head earlier and earlier, or the stunning lack of knowledge on the part of those interviewed.

More than 50 percent “didn’t know that wearing condoms can prevent HIV“, and 10 percent “think that HIV can be passed on via kissing“. Looks like there’s still a long way to go on the education front then.

Unlucky? I think not

And in the news today, Brighton’s West Pier is burning. In the last six months this pier has had two collapses, and is now burning away merrily. Anyone would think it had some enemies or something…

Recorded Delivery

While I was at work yesterday, I got a card through the door from Royal Mail saying that they’d tried to deliver a package, no-one had been there to sign for it, so I’d have to get it from the sorting office. Bit of a bummer, but no worries – I can do it on the way in to work.

So today, I get down to the sorting office, and sign for the – envelope? Hang on, that’s not what I was expecting – if anything, it was going to be a DVD or two. But an envelope? What the feck?

Upon opening it (I was curious, OK?) it turns out to be a ticket for a concert I’m seeing. Nothing expensive – the ticket’s face value is only six quid. I paid £7ish for it from TicketMaster, I think, what with the dodgy booking fee shite we all know and love. Tet it’s cost half that face value to send it out recorded delivery – weird.

Car Junk

For some reason I was obviously slightly more conscious than usual this morning, so on the way into the city, I was looking out of the bus window, and a couple of things struck me. (Not literally – we’re talking about ideas, not physical objects)

First of all – why do so many people have so much junk in their cars? As they went past, I could see cuddly toys, fluffy things, nodding cows (Quite cool cows, but all the same), what can only be described as wicker-ware, ornaments, gadgets and general crap of all varieties/sizes/breeds. Why? All it seems to do is block up the windows and so on, and become a distracting influence. Then again, people seem to do the same thing to their desks at work, “personalising” their space with toys and so on – but when everyone does it (Or even the majority do it) then it becomes commonplace, and hardly personalised at all. I love the way expressions of individuality all blend into one homogenised object, normally known as “clutter”.

And Second – what’s the point of having “Baby on Board” (Or, as I saw today, a “Little Person on Board” one) stickers on windows? I always thought they were initially there in case of an emergency, to help rescue workers etc. know if there were more than one person in a car. But now they seem to be pretty ubiquitous – plus the search techniques and technology is far better now anyway.

So what’s the point of them? The car I saw today with one of these stickers on it had a baby seat in, but there wasn’t even a child in there – so the bloody thing wasn’t even on board. Is it just an advertisement, a statement of “Yes, I’m a parent – aren’t you pleased for me?” broody mawkishness? Is it just something to say “Yes, I’ve had sex at some point in my life”?

Seriously – what’s the point of these things?

For Fucks Sake

First of all, i should point out that I don’t drive. Not banned, not disqualified from driving – it’s just one of those things I never got round to. I’d like to get it sorted this year, because I’ve been made to realise that it would make life easier in certain areas.

Because of this, I notice a piece in the Guardian that’s detailing how the UK driving test is about to get harder. As of 1st September, as well as everything else, it’s also now going to require some knowledge of things like how to change the oil, check tyre pressures and so on.

I can sort of see the point in this – but not by much. OK, it can be useful to know how to check the oil and so on, but surely a far more life-threatening occurrence (not just for the driver, but for anyone in the vicinity) is a car skidding on ice/oil/any other shit on the roads? Yet that’s not an integral part of the test – most people never learn how to deal with skids until they’re in one, at which point it’s too late.

Personally, I think that a lot of this has to do with the Government’s pledge to get more people off the roads and using public transport. Unfortunately, as with so many Governmental directives, it’s completely arse-about-face. Yes, training people to be better drivers is A Good Thing. However, it doesn’t get people off the roads. A far better plan for getting people off the roads would be a re-test every five years that had to be passed in order to keep driving. Far too many people simply pass their driving tests, then decide they need never learn another thing about driving – the results of which are visible on every road in the country.

Anna’s Lists

Anna says she was sober when she came up with a list of differences between roses and spoons. I’m not so sure…

40,000 and counting

Blimey – nearly didn’t spot that one. It turns out that yesterday, d4d had it’s 40,000th page impression. Not bad for six months in existence. Well, it made me smile, anyway.

My head hurts

Via Slashdot, I was just reading about a lens that improves the resolution of an image. The concept of this makes my head hurt. I love this sort of thing. the new discoveries, theories and inventions – but sometimes they’re just so amazingly counter-intuitive that my brain might as well sit down and say “Huh?”

I’m a bad person

Well, following on from yesterday’s post about the domain name idea, all I can say is I’m a bad, bad person. And once it’s confirmed, and the webspace is online, I’ll have to find something to put there. Ideas abound – but bringing them through to reality may be a different matter.

Meanwhile, in a mountain range

And while all attention is on Iraq and America, Pakistan and India go back to “testing” nuclear-capable missiles.

But it’s OK, these nukes aren’t Weapons of Mass Destruction, because everyone’s signed the nuclear treaties, and bought all their stocks from authorised suppliers. Unlike Iraq, who’ve bought from pretty much anyone, including most of the authorised suppliers…

War is business

I do love seeing the excuses that companies churn out when they’re bringing forwards job cuts and so on. Today (in what I suspect will be the first of many) BA announced they were cutting their number of flights, oh, and accelerating their redundancy programme for 3000 people.

Their excuse? “People are travelling less because of the war” So, absolutely fuck all to do with the extortionate prices BA charge then.

Two years ago, everyone and their dog used September 11th as an excuse for fiscal hardships. BA was one of the first on the bandwagon then too – but think about it, did anyone you knew actually decide not to fly because of September 11? Hell, do you know anyone who knows anyone who stopped flying because of it? I certainly don’t, and neither do any of the people I’ve asked about it.

Privacy vs. Big Brother

In a related thing to the one below, I also read that Privacy International released its winner’s list for the UK’s Big Brother 2003 Awards. My personal favourite is the “Dog Poo on a Stick” award, given to the person they most wanted to not even give a gold-plated award to. Step forward, David Blunkett.

Actually, the entire thing makes for an interesting read – I think personal privacy is going to be one of the absolutely huge political issues over the next five to ten years.

Don’t Tell Them Your Name, Pike

Considering how much the US has been bollocksing on about Iraq breaching the Geneva Convention and yadda yadda yadda, I found it particularly interesting to see that today the US Department of “Justice” has ruled the FBI don’t need to make stringent checks on the truth/accuracy of the data they hold on people.

So, along with prisoners kept in Guantanamo Bay not being allowed US justice rights (the last I heard on this one is that “it doesn’t matter about the Geneva convention, these people are terrorists, not POWs” – don’t you just love semantics?) it looks like the US is trying to turn itself into a dictatorship of its own.

Getting Out More

For some reason, my social life has exploded this year. In a good way – more like a fun firework than a naffing large landmine. I’ve just looked through the diary – my next free weekend is Easter. After that, June’s looking like it’s got a gap. Maybe.

In the meantime, how to convert a Nintendo game system into a PC is good for a chuckle – although it is geeky in the extreme (but still not as geeky as the Teddy Borg). Ah well.

VSTL

Initially it was written as a quick reply to this post of Gerts, but it just had to be written about here too.

I’ve just spent an hour on a packed train with one woman’s arse pretty much right in my face. Some people would say that’s not such a bad deal – in some circumstances I might even be prompted to agree with them. However, the arse in question today was encased in black knickers, wrapped in skintight white leggings. The pleasantness quotient suddenly starts to fall, doesn’t it?

And then it actually achieves negativity – because not only was this a horror of a backside wrapped in Lycra/nylon mix, but it had the ultimate in Visible Lines – the infamous Visible Sanitary Towel Line. It really wasn’t a good train journey.

What a shock

Nice to see the Grauniad reporting that Geoffrey Robinson, the Paymaster General, has had the charges dropped against him with regard to cocaine found in his car. Hardly a surprise, I suppose – it’s not the first time that police have conveniently “failed to find relevant evidence” linking Robinson to the cocaine – other than it bveing in his car, of course.

Ah well. Such are the vagaries of power and politics, eh?

Temptation

Every so often an idea for a new site/domain-name comes into my head – and then I check it and the domain actually exists and is available. I’ve no idea what content I’d put on it, but the name appeals to me enough that I really want to own it. That’s how the name “destruction for dummies” came about (and yes, I’m still waiting for the lawyers to get hold of me, particularly considering something else I read yesterday) as well as a couple of others.

I’m in that situation again at the moment. A conversation last night brought up (as a completely spur-of-the-moment thing) an idea – I’ve checked it, and it’s available. So I’m in that quandary moment right now – thinking “do I? don’t I?” It’s exceptionally tempting – but I’ve no idea what I’d do with it (yet).

And I just know that the Daily Mail would love it as a domain. For now, that’s the only clue you’re getting. *Grin*

Normal service restored

Yes, I’m back on form – regardless of feeling like I’ve been repeatedly smacked in the mouth with a hammer. And with luck that’s the last I’ll say on the subject for a while.

Many thanks to the people who commented below – the ideas re chocolate mousse and MullerRice were well received. *Grin* (And if you don’t know what I’m on about, just read the bloody comments I also found that doing a semi-casserole of vegetables and chicken, accompanied by cous-cous ( which for some reason my brain always gets mixed up with glis-glis, which is edible dormouse) also works very well on the “no real need to chew hard” front.

Dental hysteria

At 9am today, I’m going to be in the dentists, starting off on the work that needs doing. Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to it at all. However, my mind’s set on the end result, not the process for getting there – which seems like a smart way to do things.

But what on earth posessed me to make a ninety minute appointment for 9am on a Monday? I wish I knew. Still, I suppose the week won’t be able to get much worse after having this as a starting point.

Redesigns (again) and things

Anna is now out of the gutter, and instead looking into the clouds (with minor apologies to Oscar Wilde) – and very nice it looks too. She’s also the “token woman” on Mike‘s next project…

Gadgets

Also in the list of purchases yesterday was a new little cheap digital camera – not bad for only £20. It’s no piece of high-res camera technology, but it’ll do nicely for snapshots – and it’s a lot easier to carry and use than the £500 thing I normally use.

Geneva convention

Following on with war-related concepts, Rumsfeld today has been bleating on about how showing American POWs on Iraqi TV is against the Geneva convention. And fair enough, it probably is.

What it looks like he’s forgotten though is that (to my knowledge) America never even signed the Geneva convention, and I’m about 95% sure that Iraq failed to do so either. Which makes it all a bit of a moot point really. Of course I could be wrong.

But considering that America has recently decided that it’s OK to hold POWs at Guantanamo Bay (technically US soil in Cuba) because they’re actually not subject to the US Bill of Rights, it’s just another fine example of “do as we say, not as we do”.

Geeky piss-take

I’ve just had a conversation with another website owner where she was saying she’d been trying to put a proper multiplication sign (i.e. an “x”) instead of the computer notation for it ( i.e. a “*”).

It didn’t take much to point out that it was simple to use the keyboard “x” for this notation.

Own Goals

Following on from the Tornado jet getting shot down by ‘friendly fire’, the BBC has a feature on How it can happen. Personally (if slightly xenophobically) I’d say that it’s mainly caused by fighting on the same side as the Americans – they seem to be far more lethal to their bloody allies than to their enemies.

ADDED – I knew I’d seen something else about friendly fire and American “marksmanship” – it’s here at Scaryduck’s special archive site.

The drugs don’t work

Looking through the Grauniad’s website, there’s an interesting piece from today’s Observer about drug-testing at work, as well as some of the outcomes that positive tests can have.

Writer’s Blog

Apologies for the appalling pun, but I’d just like to say that I’m really chuffed at having discovered the blog of Chaz Brenchley, an author I’ve been impressed with for years.

New addition

As part of today’s shopping mission, Sam bought me a new moose to join the collection. Bizarrely, it’s (I haven’t decided whether it’s male or female yet – so far there’s only one that’s definitely female in the collection) actually a cover for a hot-water bottle, and yes, I’m using the loop to hang it from a picture-nail in the wall. Anyway, the problem is – I’ve no idea what to call it. Any suggestions will be gratefully received/considered. UPDATE – I should point out that, as with other members of the collection, all names should be a piss-poor pun involving the word “Moose”. Because this one is a hot-water-bottle holder, I’ve kind of ended up stuck with a name from Monsters Inc – but calling him Watter Moose would be sad. I need inspiration. And I absolutely refuse to stick with Boots’ own idea (from the label) of “Roger the Moose”. UPDATE 2 – Oh, and Peter, Sam is a friend – it was her and her daughter I went to see Avril Lavigne with on Friday. But yes, I should’ve been more diligent in my reporting. *Makes sound of very loud raspberry being blown* (which is in no way slang, nor is it defamatory, although it definitely sounds better in my head)

Avril Lavigne – Manchester Apollo

Well, I’d have written this earlier today (i.e. around moidnight or 1am) but for various reasons I didn’t.Hey Ho.

I have to say, I love the Apollo as a venue, one of the best features is that it’s got an angled floor, which makes it dead easy for shorter people to see over the tops of the lanky gits who always get in the way. Also, the people who work for venue security are some of the best in the city – tonight they were spraying water over the people in the crowd at the front to cool them down, helping kids out of the crush as necessary, walking through making sure everyone had the best possible time at the concert. If there could be a group award, an honours list for venues or areas, then the people in security at the Apollo should be first in the queue to receive one.

As for the concert, well – hard to describe really. Technically, it was an absolute blinder – lighting, sound balance, and music were all spot on. In fact, it was so close to perfect, for me it was almost like listening to a CD. And that was where the problem lay – I didn’t feel there was any real passion – it was just a recital of the songs, it could’ve been done in a studio. When I think of the way Pink reacted to the crowd – a crowd that was just as adoring and into the music and experience as the crowd tonight were – there was just no similarity in the reactions.

So in many ways it was a disappointment – technically perfect, and with no soul at all. There were moments of brilliance – the cover of Green Day’s “Basketcase” was superb, Complicated was a tour de force and it did pick up after that, for all of the three songs that remained. The set was amazingly short too – an hour and five minutes, including the encore. It was a good gig – just lacking in that certain something, that stage presence that’s the real sign of someone who gigs because they love it, rather than just wanting to do it as a commercial venture.

Arseing Bollocks

Well, what a complete tosspot. I’ve got tickets for (among others) both Peter Gabriel and Erasure concerts. And when I opened the diary to write them all down, they’re both on the same fucking day. Bugger.

How do they know?

Looking at the Guardian, I’m told tonight will be “one of the biggest nights of the war“. Or, as it’s known in less well informed circles “the third night of the war” – so how the fuck do they know it’ll be one of the biggest?

And just what makes it a “big night”? Are they persuading the sun to stay down for a bit longer, so it’s a nice long night? Or is it just going to be darker than the others?

Nominations

As normal when my brain is in entirely different places to normal (about which more later/tomorrow/soon), I knew I’d forgotten to mention something. D4D’s been nominated for anti-Bloggies by Kristen. Luckily it’s about as serious as an extremely flippant thing, but it made me smile, so that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

However, it does mean the tagline’s going to change sometime soon.

In the meantime though, I’m off to see Avril Lavigne – and I’ve just realised my camera’s batteries are dead, so no pics tonight. Ah well.

Thoughts

While travelling to work on the bus this morning, for a moment there was a van beside me with the sign “No tools left in this van overnight” on it.

So what I was wondering was : do these vans still get broken into, just on the offchance that the owner of the van is lazy and/or lying? Or do the little scrots just believe the sign and decide it’s not worth the hassle?

Protests

The Guardian today is full of stuff about anti-war protests – and no bad thing either. I’ve been caught up in two of them now, with people chaining themselves to train tracks and railings, and laying down in the middle of busy roads etc. – it’s a pity I still believe it’ll do fuck all, but there we go.

Seeing the way Bush and Blair were attacking at something like hyperspeed, I honestly can’t believe that there was ever any intention not to go to war.

And as for the soldiers who’ve died in a helicopter accident, well, some things never change – the Chinook and it’s brethren continue to kill more soldiers than the Iraqis. Friendly Fire indeed.

Rebuttal of the Bandwidth Thief

Just a quick thanks to LooeyB who did take the image off (or used it from his owwn webspace, not sure which) and was very apologetic.

Thanks. :¬D

Bandwidth thief

Over the last couple of days, I’d noticed a large number of hits coming from a site called Vodatones, or more accurately from a user of Vodatones called LooeyB. Turns out he’s linked to my logo pic (the little pointing man) directly, and used it as his avatar/image on this chat/message board.

I’ve emailed him today to ask him to stop. We’ll just have to see what happens after that.

Sleep plans interrupted – Part 2

Also, can anyone tell me the relevance of dreaming about shopping in a packed-out Tesco (or any other supermarket) and continually colliding with some old bastard (that’s not a pejorative, just a description – he was old, and he was a bastard) who was screaming on and on about “If they won’t get out the way nicely, just ram them ’til they’re out the way!“?

Personally, I’ve no idea what it’s about – but it certainly was weird enough to be noteworthy.

Sleep plans interrupted – Part 1

Considering how shattered and exhausted I was yesterday, it’s no surprise that I managed to crash out early (for me) last night, and actually get some sleep.

However, the semi-conscious plan to sleep right through ’til the alarm went off was utterly keffed by the sounds of police “knocking” on the door of the house next door with an FBH at 5am. I have no idea what they were after, but I hope at least one of them dropped the FBH on his foot.

Of course, they also then had to get someone out to “secure” the property again – also known as “making a fucking load of noise with drills and hammers at 6 in the morning”. And then people wonder why I’m not a great fan of the police.

Shock departure

Another one joins the “off on hiatus” list – I’ve just been over to Naked Blog and it’s got a message saying “We’re gone.”. I hope it’s a short-term thing, but whichever way it goes, my best wishes and hopes for the future still go out to Peter.

CORRECTION – Hmmm – strange. Looks like Naked Blog’s back now – not quite sure what happened. I should’ve done a screen grab or something. (Ah the joys of hindsight)

Still, the best wishes and hopes are already on their way, so the sentiment stays the same. *Grin*

Chuff

Well, so much for the rebellion of MPs then. Unsurprisingly, they put up a minor show of disagreement, then bowed under. No surprises, obviously no real contact with the people who don’t want war, and it’s all just political business as usual.

Cunts.

Now there’s a thing

Nice to see that no matter what happens, politicians still stay the same. After all the press and media bobbins last week about her, Clare Short is now saying she won’t leave the government – a U-turn which really is remarkable only for the swiftness with which it was executed.

Still – what would the world be coming to if politicians actually did what they said they would?

Sorry

No updates yesterday for a variety of reasons, but really coming down to “not in the mood”.

Normal service will be resumed ASAP.

Snoozy

Can I just say that working on the ins and outs of an ASP Content Management System on two hours sleep really isn’t much fun.

And yes, I’m using the wonderful British habit of stating the fecking obvious…

Quick, Easy, Nutritious

When you get home at nearly half past ten, having had naff all to eat since noon, what’s the best thing to go for?

Fish finger sandwiches

God, I feel almost human again.

Now that’s what I call comic relief

Sometimes, some things are just too sublime for words. Anthea Turner and her partner getting robbed of £40,000 while watching Comic Relief is one of the better ones. Talk about ironic…

Major Arcana Blues

As most of the regular readers will be aware, I do tarot readings on occasions, both for myself and for others. One thing I try to avoid doing with it is readings for very close friends, for people where I know them well and can be seen as “tailoring” readings to suit what I know they want. However sometimes I still do the reading, but make sure that the friend knows I’ll be reading from the cards, not the knowledge.

Doing a reading today for one of my closest friends was one of the hardest readings I’ve ever had to do. Everything about it related to things I knew – and trying to see a clear meaning through it, trying to divorce the level of knowledge from what the cards were telling me – and failing, because they were so parallel. For the first time ever, it left me with a card reading that I didn’t want to interpret honestly, because of what it portrayed. The outcome was one that involved struggle, major life changes, and it won’t be easy – and I truly didn’t want to say about it.

In the end I did do the reading honestly, going through it all to the best of my abilities. It wouldn’t have been fair to lie or to avoid parts of the reading, regardless of the extra information I had in my possession – but I hated doing so on a number of levels, not least just because of the depths of work and struggle that the reading represented.

It won’t stop me from doing readings – as it turned out, there’ve been other readings that have said much the same, so rather than being the bearer of news, my role was more as a confirmer of it. But it’s a long time since I’ve been that affected by a reading – and in many ways I hope it’s a long time until I’m affected at that level by another one.

17.50 from Scrote-ville

*Written on the laptop
Travelling back home, I’m on the train, and it seems to be filled with mouthy fuckwits. I must be getting older, or something.

With regard to the foursome sitting on the table opposite mine, I simply don’t give a stuff about the whys and wherefores of your car’s breaking down on the A47, which is why you’re now going home on the train. The fact you’ve spent the last thirty minutes yelling down your mobile phone to your mother about how it’s “embarassing” to not have been rung back, how if it had been Laura she’d have been called back, and whether they should have still gone out for the meal or not is all utterly irrelevant. I find it hard to believe you’re not utterly embarassed at the display you’re making, and the way your children appear to have free reign to fight each other while your idiot partner does fuck all to help – for me all of those things would be perceived as embarassing, but then again, I probably wouldn’t be broadcasting it all at a level that can be heard by at least two thirds of the occupants of the carriage.

As for the bunch of pubescent schoolgirls, squealing and giggling at what appears to be their first trip away from home (“Yes, mummy, I’ll call you when we get there. Yes Daddy, I’ll be good”) I’m already considering compulsory ballgags for all travelling groups of under-16s unaccompanied by an adult. Please God, you’re only travelling one stop. It’s not often I consider intense prayer as a method of alleviating problems, but in this case I’m prepared to make an exception.

However, for comic effect, I’ve been sat opposite a besuited educator. I can tell he’s involved in education because of the Music exams he’s marking – Sherlock Holmes would be proud. He’s sighing and rolling his eyes, either at the noise from the aformentioned groups, or at some of the items he’s marking. The real joy comes when someone else’s mobile phone rings close by, with it’s stylised Rolf Harris stylophone rendition of Toccata and Fugue. (the Nokia remix) On journeys like this, you get your laughs where you find them.

There are several other groups worthy of mention, but for now I’ll be good/restrained. This piece may be upgraded and/or edited if the journey gets worse, but for now I’m going to simply allow myself to journey away with the Talahassee album by the Mountain Goats. I am truly thankful for the joys of MP3.

Dante may have summed up the Inferno for the Middle Ages with it’s multiple levels of Hell, but he had absolutely no idea of the purgatory that is a Central Trains service on a Sunday evening.

Mini-hiatus

And now a probable small pause in normal service – I’m off seeing friends in Cambridge. Things may be added, but don’t hold your breath. Back on Sunday.

Troubled Comments

Further to yesterday’s post regarding Mike‘s project to get more than 234 comments on one post before midnight tonight, he’s well and truly blown the target out of the water already. When I looked just now there were 265, and the comment system he uses (YACCS) is limited to 250, so it’s deleting some of the first comments to make room for the newer ones. (*mumble*Sack of shit*/mumble*)

Anyway, early congratulations to mike, even though it’s cost him £100, and it’s also cost Badge over at Wafflybollox the same amount (that’ll teach him to not believe) – all proceeds going to Comic Relief.

Comic Relief

On a slight tangent, is it wise to have Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking door-to-door on Comic Relief day?

And really, is it fair to ask “do you know who we represent?”? I mean, dressed all in black, carrying bibles, I just had to ask if they were Morons Mormons. Ah well, it gave me a laugh.

Health drinks

And can I just say that yes, I know it’s a knee-jerk reaction, but the concept of marketing urine as a health drink is really quite revolting. Most things like that really don’t bother me, the entire “I won’t eat that, even though I’ve never tried it, because I know don’t think I’ll like it” is so not me. (Well, except for octopus tentacles. *shudder* If they were battered, a la calamari then I probably could, but just out there in the open? Sorry, vision takes over from taste at that point) But drinking urine because it’s “healthy” goes past the line for me.

OK, when it comes to health/energy drinks, Purdey’s is pretty similar to piss in both taste and appearance, but at least it’s not actually piss. (I hope)

Relevant days

In the American form of date notation, today is 3.14. In the geek community, it’s known as Pi day (as in π, not as in Weebl and Bob(still a favourite cartoon of mine, and a perfect use for Flash)). Depending on the way you wrote down the time and date, 1:59:26 this morning was the most π moment of the year.

Sad, isn’t it?

Renewable energy

OK, I forgot to say anything about this yesterday, although I did intend to. On the local news around here yesterday, there was a story that an offshore wind-farm has been approved just offshore from Barrow, in Cumbria. This application has been through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops because of the NIMBY cunts who were complaining about it obstructing their views or whatever.

Anyway, the application has been approved, and so far as I’m concerned, it’s about bloody time. As this page shows it’s not even like the wind-farms would be interfering with people’s sightlines – for the most part they’re over the horizon for anyone standing on the beach/seafront.

For myself, I love the sight of wind-farms, and most of the other renewable sources of energy. There are a couple of windfarms already near (well, semi-near) me, and I find the sight of these creations to be incredibly uplifting. No idea why, but there we go.

235 comments, or the cat gets it

Over at Troubled Diva, Mike is doing his own thing for Comic Relief. He wants to get a post with the most comments on it, and if the target of (hard to believe, but true all the same) 235 then he’ll pledge £100 to Comic Relief.

Personally, my day of Comic Relief will be spent on trains – not so much Comic Relief as “Arrrrrrgh! Get me off this fucking train!”. Good luck ot Mike in his mission…

Questioning thoughts

According to various news sources, there’s a Home Office White Paper considering with-holding housing benefit to noisy tenants. Now OK, it’s a plan, I suppose – but one thing occurred to me – what happens if a tenant is someone who’s employed, yet is still an unreasonable neighbour, or whatever?

Surely if the punishment scheme is going to involve with-holding benefits, then a tenant who’s not on benefit is going to be laughing?

It appears to me that both government and media are obsessed with the people on benefits, and forget that not every tenant is on benefits. Maybe they are in the minority (I’ve experienced it personally, that’s not some media-based bias – when I was a council tenant, I was the only tenant on my street with a job, and by some weird coincidence I was also the only one without a satellite dish on the house) but they still exist.

Renaming frenzy

Nice to see that the Americans are still completely insane when it comes to things about patriotism, and thinking/believing/knowing they’re in the right etc. etc.

The BBC is today reporting that because of France’s promise to veto any resolution for war with Iraq, America is now stopping use of the word “French” – the ubiquitous “French Fry” is now – wait for it – a “Freedom Fry” (words fail me at this point, I’m afraid – I have a nagging suspicion that Green Fairy will sum it up far more succinctly, and with less use of swearwords) and “French Toast” will become “freedom toast”.

Basically, it’s all just more American reactionary hypocritical bollocks, but sometimes it’s just amazing the sort of shit they’ll come up with. I do love the quote within the story of “I don’t think we have to retaliate against France. They have isolated themselves. They have resigned from any responsibility for the war on terror.” – which seems to sum it all up from the American perspective.

The best sort of copper

Had to laugh at the mental image of police in Warwickshire holding a shoplifting spree to highlight to shops how easy it was to do. Shop managers are “reviewing their security policies”.

My personal favourite was the fact they managed to get away with a giant teddy-bear worth over £100. Sometimes the mind just boggles. Then again, I also know that one of the best ways to steal stuff is to simply walk out looking like it’s something you’ve already purchased – if you have the confidence to do it without looking all shifty as if you expect to get caught, most shop assistants simply assume it’s yours in the first place.

Thomas the crashed engine

At risk of jumping on the bandwagon after Gert and Graybo, I really can’t believe that there’s a psychologist who thinks Thomas the Tank Engine is putting children off travelling by train. He thinks that because there are so many accidents in the programmes/books, children expect the same thing to happen in reality.

Now, I’m no parent, but in my experience, if kids thought there was a real possibility of an accident, they’d be all for travelling by train. Also, when I saw the BBC TV news story about it, all the children asked replied that they weren’t scared of trains because of the Thomas stories. Which makes it pretty much a complete non-story really. *Grin* And at the end of the day, there’s a major difference between Thomas and real trains – which I suspect the person who came up with this theory may have failed to notice – in that real trains don’t have bloody great faces on the front of them, and nor do they have Ringo fucking Starr narrating the announcements. (Although that might actually make it more fun on occasion)

Dresscode Sexism

I know I’ve been a bit evangelical about this one, but I’m utterly overjoyed to see that a tribunal has agreed that the insistence on men wearing “business dress” (shirt and tie) while women can wear pretty much anything is a sexist policy. A “civil servant” in Stockport accused the Jobcentree he worked in of being sexist, they disciplined him, he took them to tribunal with the support of his union. They’re now saying there’s another 40-odd cases lined up.

Hopefully we’ll end up with a far more sane scheme before long – it’s been waiting to happen for far too long.

Classic headline

Sometimes the world of coincidences is too much for me – I went off to a place called Brighouse today for an interview. While there, I spotted that the local paper had a website and being a sad git, I couldn’t resist having a look when I got home (and remembered the URL).

And then I just had to laugh when I saw this as one of the headlines. Click on the headline for a bit more of the story. Small towns are strange, strange places…

And Yay, though I struggle through the valley of fuckwits

Ah, the joys of dealing with the council tax department of an authority first thing in the morning.

Over the last three months or so, I’ve been getting council tax mail addressed to the person who used to live here. What’s FAR more impressive is that this house isn’t even in the area of responsibility of the council that is sending me the shit. So I’ve been hearing “oh, I’ll sort that out” from the person to whom the mail was addressed, and it’s still getting sent out.

Today though, I decided to call them myself – and lo and behold, they’ve promised not to send any more stuff to the wrong address. Of course, only time will tell if they’ve actually managed to do so.

The fact that the conversation started off with me giving my address and them saying “well we can’t be sending it to you, because you’re not in our area” wasn’t all that promising. But it looks like they’re more sorted now, so we’ll just see how it goes.

Oops

One day I’ll learn to type. From the error logs, it looks like I’ve managed to call this page radnom.html instead of random.html on a comment log-in from somewhere else. *Sigh*

Tivo – part 2

Further to some comments about TiVo from when I was blethering about installing it here, I thought I’d slap in a couple of photos, including two screenshots – they’re not best quality, but they convey the idea.

Yes, Pinky, it’s like the Sky+ device that Sky TV released, only better. It’s not all that impressive to look at really, but the power within the quiet little box is quite something. On a geeky note, it actually only has a 54Mhz processor, but it doesn’t need a great deal of speed, so that’s ideal.

I’m still getting my head around the “TiVo suggestions” where it saves programmes it “thinks” you’ll like, according to what you’ve recorded and enjoyed (via use of a simple ‘Thumbs Up’ or ‘Thumbs Down’ process) before. At the moment it seems to have decided that I like all kinds of documentaries, so I’ve been going through the lists getting rid of the ones I’ll never watch – but the more I watch and record, the more it’ll “learn” what other things I might want to see.

The other thing that I’m already getting used to doing is “pausing” live TV if the phone rings or whatever. It saves up to half an hour of TV, so you can pause it and watch it when the call’s finished or whatever – and also it means you can rewind a live tv programme and catch some detail you might have missed, any time up to 30 minutes ago. It’s a fun toy, but also it’s something I could get very used to.

A full review (and better screen shots) will come along in a few days when I’ve got more used to the system, and sorted out the little teething problems (like an addiction to documentaries *Grin*)

My father would love this

Via Blogs Life comes the story of the literacy scheme’s advert that contained it’s its own grammatical error. Just the sort of thing my ultra-pedant of a paternal influence would thoroughly enjoy.

Getting out more

Well, no matter how much people I know tell me I should get out more, there’s one thing I’m pretty certain of. And that’s that I don’t have the time on my hands to carve pencils like this.

Then again, I did have the time to find the link, but for that I blame UserFriendly. It’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

Brief attack of dyslexia

Looking at the cover of one of the Sunday papers this morning (about Tony Blair facing yet more trouble if he goes to war) I managed to read “Go to war now and we resign” as “Go to war now and we redesign“.

Amazing what just a couple of letters can do, isn’t it.

Conspiracy Theory

I swear it’s all a plot. Batteries communicate with each other. That’s the case – it has to be. In the last week I’ve had to replace the batteries in the remote controls for TV, Video, TiVo (although that’s a bit irrelevant, as it was new and didn’t come with batteries), and the stereo upstairs.

Now, the batteries in my alarm clock have just upped and died too. Bastard things are AAA size too, so I’ve got to buy a 4-pack, with naff all else running on them. Ah well.

Cheesy Beans

I know various other bloggers have written about the weirdo photographing a woman’s feet covered in baked beans, but it still makes me smile every time I read the story. Now that‘s what I call Comic Relief.

And how the hell did the police issue their advisory warning without pissing themselves laughing at the same time? I doubt I could’ve done the same.

TiVo

After much deliberation, and also because the boxes are hard to find at the moment while they plonk about sourcing a new supplier, I ended up buying a Tivo unit last week. I’ve waited ’til today to get it all sorted for a variety of reasons, not least that I simply couldn’t be arsed to go climbing over the TV and fuck about with cables and wires.

But today, with shitty weather outside and not much else on the agenda once the shopping had been done, well, it might as well get set up and sorted. So out come all the cables, manuals, and the TiVo box itself.

Connecting it all up went surprisingly easily. (Famous last words) Then it comes to powering it up so it can call home and set up channels etc. Turns out it’s still on Demo Mode, but a quick call to Customer Services sorts that out. Yes, amazingly enough, customer services are helpful, know what they’re talking about, and can sort out problems. On a Saturday. Wonders will never cease.

And after that it was a piece of piss. It’s now all connected up, has downloaded all the TV schedules for the next two weeks, and is up and running. This goes down as a successful Saturday.

Yet more hysteria

Following on from all the shit at the end of last year about certain councils banning video-cameras and cameras from school nativity plays because of the media hysteria about paedophiles, The Register is today reporting that some councils are now equally paranoid about mobile phones with cameras being used in swimming pools etc..

When will this sort of thing calm down again? At the end of the day it’s far more likely that someone who was into that type of thing would simply go along to the swimming pool and watch from the visitor’s gallery, or even just go swimming and “accidentally” brush past people/children. I despair.

Lemsip and Lockets, oh my

Interesting to see that both Meg and Vicky both commented on the naff Lockets and Lemsip ads in the last 24 hours.

I was going to blether on about this a while back, but kind of hoped that if I ignored it, they’d go away.

I’ve never really understood the entire craze for ‘flu and cold medication, to be honest. At the end of the day, both are viral in cause, and as such, there’s a grand total of fuck all we can do about them. The medications don’t cure the illness, they just alleviate the symptoms. It’s the same with people who get the flu and go to the doctors – they can’t do a fucking thing, it’s just that we seem incapable of realising that there are still plenty of things we can’t cure, even though we “should be able to”.

As for the ads, well, they’re just shite really, aren’t they? Not really any more offensive or crap than the craze over the last couple of years for the other ones where the flu medication “sorts the men from the boys” or whatever other bobbins the advertising fuckwits came up with during their latest crack-fuelled brainstorming session.

For myself, I have absolutely no idea whether these campaigns are all by the same agency just recycling ideas over and over (I suspect this is quite probable though) or if one agency came up with the idea and the others stole paid homage to it. I don’t know if they’re supposed to be all self-referential, ironic and post-modernist, or if their down to ad execs wanting the world to go back to the 80’s “greed is good” ethos. Nor do I care.

It’s all advertising bobbins, and at the end of the day all it does is make me take note of which brands I wouldn’t buy even if I ever really did bother with flu medication in the first place. (At this point I should point out that I got “advised” to take some over the last couple of weeks – got Beechams Flu Pills, and took ’em. Yes, I felt better, but that’s because they’re loaded to the gills with paracetamol and caffeine. And then I felt shit again, because they’re also loaded to the top with E110 Sunset Yellow food colouring, which always makes me feel like shit.)

Easter

Having inflicted some daytime television on myself for once (call it a motivational exercise to make me want to work) I couldn’t help noticing that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is busy banging out a half hour video on the life and works of Jesus Christ. The ideal present for that special person in your life – get ’em into the Morons Mormons.

No, he’s totally ‘armless

I’m sure I’ve seen too many horror films or something – but whatever the reason, while it’s very clever etc., the idea of a double arm transplant really does make me shudder.

Well, that’s new…

I’m sorry, but Ron Davies’ excuse that he was “watching badgers” at a well known gay haunt has to be one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.

Still, if he can come up with an excuse like that and think people will believe it, he’s certainly ready to be the next Prime Minister.

Congratulations

A quick little additional post – congratulations to Gert on writing the 500th D4D comment on Haloscan.

It’s Spring – time for a rebranding exercise

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but Immac, that well-known cause of depilatory screams everywhere, has now been renamed as Veet. Why? Who knows. I can’t think of what the name Veet is supposed to represent.

Personally, I’d have opted for “Yelp“, or maybe even “Jesus Fucking Christ, can’t you think of a better way to do this?“. But “Veet“? It sounds more like a German chiropody cream.

Also, there’s a new “calorie-free sugar replacement” called – um – Splenda. *Spit*. I hate that name – I think it’s the way it sounds like a word, and actually isn’t spelled the same way at all. And again, what the fuck is so “Splenda”ful about calorie-free sugar replacements? I can’t come up with a decent alternative to it, but the name really does suck arse.

Winter Gardens

I knew there was something I’d forgotten to write a bit about. Over the weekend, we all went over to Sheffield to see one of the new developments there, the Winter Gardens. I must admit, I actually really liked them – they’re a lot smaller than I’d expected from the site and so on, but they’re still an exceptionally pleasant addition to the city.

When it comes to Sheffield, I hadn’t really been there for many years. It’s actually a place that’s linked in my mind with visits to the Grandparents, and all the joys that involves. Just thinking of the place made me simply think of grotty power-station cooling towers, grimy city and generally not that pleasant. But over the last five years or so, it’s undergone a huge revamp, what with the Winter Gardens, the Peace Gardens, and much more besides.

I think I’ll have to make a couple more visits to Sheffield before I can make a full re-assessment of the place, but it’s already gone a long way towards improving my own perception of the place.

Meme of the Galactic Toss Monkey

And yes, just to keep on with a theme, there’s even something on Blogpsot now – I’m amazed Gordon didn’t think of it first….

Text message abbreviations

A very quick kudos to Vicky for her comment in Green Fairy‘s website regarding some of the nastier abbreviations.

Tw@ is going into my own lexicon and dictionary for phone texts, that’s for sure…

Scotland

Yes, it’s taken me some time to finish and upload (and in fact there’s still one day’s stuff to be written), but the tale and photos are finally uploaded and sitting pretty in the scotland section. Enjoy…

Interesting points

Watching Jonathon Meades’ new programme on Britons and their food was a complete joy. His observation that the more cooking programmes we watch on TV, the more pre-prepared ready meals we eat made me laugh out loud.

Day of Weirdness

Yes, I’ve been very slack on the blog front since returning from the wilds of Scotland. Truth be told, I picked up a dollop of flu (again – it’s the clean air that does it, I swear) and have been feeling truly vile since returning, in conjunction with having guests (and a dog) until yesterday.

But today, despite the fact I’m still coughing like a laboratory beagle, I’m almost back on form. And (via Mike at Troubled Diva), the saga of How to cook a Goose Egg.

And in my own email today, spam about terrorist attacks in the US and how to survive them.

Some people are just dafter than others

What a welcome back to society. The news that some idiots are going to try replication a 200 year old endurance challenge might not seem all that relevant. Until you realise that what they’re doing is actually attempting to walk 1000 miles in 1000 hours. That’s about six weeks without proper sleep, just sort of napping between miles.

I wish them all the best luck in the world – but they’re definitely totally insane.

Turin Brakes – Manchester Academy

I can’t really come up with a valid review or thoughts on this concert. For once the Academy was absolutely rigid with people, and had turned into a complete sweatbox – supposedly fire regulations meant that they couldn’t – um – open the exit doors. (No, I haven’t worked that one out either, but there we go) So it was rigid, full of fuckwits barging through for booze and/or talking to their mates instead of listening to the fucking music they’d paid £15 to hear, and it was just generally shit.

Musically, from what I heard, Turin Brakes were bloody good – but the crowd and venue combined into such an epic level of cuntdom that I’m afraid to report, dear reader, that for the first time in five years, I left early.