I may cry

It’s been productive again – out of the 20 items I’ve got on the list of people who need to know I’m changing address, and things that need doing (mail redirection etc.), I’ve now got four left to sort out. All of the remaining ones are items that can’t be crossed off until I’ve sorted an exact moving date, so there’s keff all I can do with them until I’ve seen the removals people. I’m talking to most of those tomorrow, getting some quotes ASAP. I must be barmy…

Cornwall photos

Ooops, knew there was something I’d forgotten to do, what with everything else that was going on this week. I’d forgotten to post the photos from the weekend in Cornwall, and particularly the Lost Gardens of Heligan. So enjoy. I knew I’d remember to do them in the end…

Sunday shopping

There’s an expression that seems to work very well when surrounded by screaming brats on a Sunday in the middle of Tesco. That expression is

“If you don’t house-train your hellspawn, I’ll train them for you”

Bureaucracy

Ye Gods, I’d forgotten the amount of paperwork involved in changing addresses. I’ve made a list, and it’s got about fifteen different things on it just for changing details. Nightmare. Still, in a pretty productive day I’ve managed to change address details at the bank, the (lovely lovely) insurance people, the two book clubs I belong to, Companies House (for the two limited companies I’m director of, as well as moving the registered office of the main one to my new address), and effing Britannia – who I’d love to abandon, but they’re like Reader’s Digest, and just keep coming after you. In addition, I’ve spoken to two removals companies, and they’ll be giving me quotes early next week.

Two more gigs

The rest of the year is beginning to look like Concert Central now. I’ve just also managed to get tickets to see Good Charlotte and Evanescence later this year. Currently, it’s now looking like I’ll have been able to get out of every single “family” Festering Season™ type thing in December, as I’ve got a concert every weekend ’til Christmas.

Not that it was planned like that – honest. *Ahem*

Pros and cons

Well, I now have the keys to the new house, which is a major step in the right direction. I’m happy to be sorted – or at least on the way there. Now comes all the gubbins of changing address on everything known to man – and I know I’ll forget a couple of things, so I’m also setting up mail redirections. I love the “belt and braces” approach to this sort of stuff.

On the plus side, I’ve spoken to my (increasingly lovely) insurance company, told them I’m moving, and because of the change in postcode, the premiums have now halved. Blinkin’ flip, said I.

On the negative side, I’ve discovered that I have absolutely NO idea who recently became my supplier of gas and electricity. I need to find out, so I can move the account – but I’ve less than no clue who I swapped to. It used to be TXU Energy, now Powergen, but they can’t/won’t tell me who I changed to either. Fuckers.

UPDATED : Ah – found out – it’s British Gas who supply both gas and electric. I love ringing up and looking like a tit by saying “Do I have an account with you?“. *Grin*

Weasel-boy has left the building

I know it’s schadenfreude at it’s best, but I have to admit that the news that Alastair Campbell has announced his resignation from No. 10 has put a real smile on my face. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer sleazebag…

Concerts (and link-fest)

I don’t know what hit me yesterday (other than the nagging feeling that I really hadn’t sorted out much stuff to do over the next few months) but a quick trip to the ticket office soon had me sorted out again. So I now have tickets to see (in no particular order) :

• Skin (ex-singer from Skunk Anansie)
• Kosheen
• Michael Franti & Spearhead
• Linkin Park

and

• The Levellers

I’m sure there will be others that get bought as the year goes on, but it’s already looking like another fairly busy few months.

BBC

Over at The Register, there’s a piece about BBC Online, and the recent media hype about whether the Tories want to shut down the BBC News site. It makes for interesting reading – and has some facts I didn’t know at all, both regarding the way the BBC works and is financed, and also some statistics about the news site. 660 million page impressions per month – now that’s what I call a success story.

And they’re off (again)

Amazingly, the infamous Naked Rambler has been arrested again – and this time he’s going to court.

I’m sure there are other people who’ll know far more on the subject, but doesn’t Scotland have some wonderful laws? Naked Rambler is being accused of “being obsessive and self-indulgent” in his pursuit of the right to walk bollock-naked from Land’s End to John O’ Groats. In a different (and far nastier) story of a mother who simply dumped her murdered daughter’s body in a canal, the charge is “attempting to defeat the ends of justice“.

The latter story, I must admit, leaves me cold – she’d seen her partner kill her daughter, having beaten her up and thrown her down the stairs. She then helped her partner put the body in a weighted suitcase, and thrown it in the canal. She’s already pleased guilty to her charge, and the story is in relation to the reports on her before sentencing.

Missed Appointment

In the news today, it’s been saying that GP’s support ‘fines’ for people who miss appointments. Personally, I can’t believe it’s taken this long to happen – there are so many people who seem to book appointments then just not bother turning up because they feel better or whatever, and it’s just a complete waste of time for all involved.

I’ve never understood the attitude though – so far as I’m concerned, if I’m going to the doctors, it’s for something important. Otherwise I tend to avoid them at all costs. But I wouldn’t make appointments then simply not turn up. I hope that the fines do get introduced – but at the same time I wonder how many surgery receptionists will end up taking more flak from stroppy arseholes who miss appointments and don’t see why they should pay for the privilege of missing them.

UPDATED : Following Gert’s point in the comments box, I realise I did miss a point – as she says, there are people who make appointments for whom chaos and unpredictability are part of the issues which they’re seeking medical help for. I should have said that the fines should be introduced for either persistent missers of appointments, or perhaps if there’s no valid excuse. Yes, if someone’s suffering from depression, addiction, or similar, then appointments would be understandably missed. And then there’d be the accusations of “two-tier systems” and so on. Hmmm…

Postcodes

Finally, I get to do all the stuff with signing tenancy agreements and so on tomorrow. It’s taken long enough to happen, and I’ve gone through more hoops than the average circus pony, but it’s finally getting confirmed and signed for. I need to go to the head office for the letting agents in order to sign everything and hand over a wad of cash – so I try finding their postcode in order to look on MultiMap or wherever in order to know where the feck I’m going.

“And what’s your postcode, so I can find you on an online map?“
(mumbled) “*blah* 2DF“
“That’s 2 D-for-Dog F-for-Foxtrot, yeah?“
“Yeah“

But of course it’s not – it’s 2DS, as I found out after looking at four other sites in order to get the right postcode. Oh, and Royal Mail, your postcode finder’s shit.

It just goes on and on

Following on from the *cough* cheating case regarding “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, the BBC’s today reporting that Tecwen *cough* Whittock has patented his name in order to stop a company using Tecwen as a brand for cough-medicine. Maybe I’m wrong, but I didn’t think you could patent a name – surely it’s a trademark?

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time our Tecwen has got his basic facts wrong – the Patent Office’s “newcomer’s guide” might help him out here. Assuming I’ve answered the questions correctly, it certainly looks like it’s a Trade Mark™ that he should have got. Pillock.

Filing

As stated below, I wanted to get the album by Martina Topley-Bird today, an album by the name of Quixotic. Now, note Martina’s double-barrelled name.

Into HMV to look for the album. Look under “T” for Topley-Bird. Nothing. Realise that HMV are cretins, and look under “M” for Martina. Nothing. Decide that maybe it’s not listed under “Pop” (christ only knows why), look in “Urban” (which appears to be the new name for “Rap”) under “T” and “M”. Nothing. Look in “Dance” – again, nothing under “T” or “M”. Inspiration (and cynicism about the intelligence of HMV Staff) strikes – ah, here it is : under “B” for Bird. *Sigh*

Synopsis of a weekend

Utterly manic, yet somehow quite relaxed at the same time. The weekend went (roughly) thus:

• Friday 5pm – Manchester to Reading by train.
• Friday 11pm – Reading to Penzance by car
• Saturday 4am-ish – Arrival in Penzance.
• Saturday – Lands End *shudder*, Minack theatre, back to Penzance and some shopping (including another bloody phone charger!), and a meal in Penzance in the evening.
• Sunday – Lost Gardens of Heligan, back to Penzance, wander around, and meal in the evening with work colleagues of friends.
• Monday 10am – Penzance to Bristol by car
• Monday 1pm – Arrival in Bristol
• Monday 2pm – 11pm – Open Air Concert, see below
• Monday 11pm-ish – Bristol to Reading by car
• Tuesday 1am-ish – Arrival in Reading
• Tuesday 10am – Reading to Manchester by train

All told, about 1,000 miles of travel over four days. Not bad at all.

Arse

After all my banging on about Firebird being able to render Blogger properly, something’s changed on Blogger which now means it looks like shit in Firebird. Fuck it.

Home again

Finally, I’m home. 1,000 miles travelled, minimal levels of sleep, and The World’s Most Uncomfortable Futons™, and a bloody good concert, as well as some gorgeous scenery and so on. But for now, mental collapse is imminent. More later.

Flying tonight

In many ways it’s quite amazing about the blind guy who’s flown across the English Channel in a microlight, and Im impressed that it’s been done, the phrase that keeps coming into my head is of him saying “are we nearly there yet?“

Eeek

Bloody hell – that’s quite a list of places to brand. I’ll need some thinking time – and time to do some research on the buggers – so bear with me. Besides, it’s too nice here to bother with things like work. So sod it – it’ll give me something to do at work…

In other news, there’s a new rant (warning, it’s train-based) sitting over here for your delectation. It’s been a while since a decent one got written, and there’ll likely be another couple of non-train-based ones written on the way home too. As well as photos and the like from the weekend. You lucky people…

Heligan

Yes, the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Absolutely fantastic – I’d never been before, and it’s wonderful. Of course, if it had rained I’d probably not have appreicated it quite so much – but it’s blazingly hot, so all’s well. If I’m not careful I’m going to be a very brown person by the end of tomorrow. No day is wasted…

There will be photos of this little expedition once I get home – but there’s still Massive Attack tomorrow in Bristol to go, so don’t hold your breath.

Lands End

Well, a visit to Lands End – never been before, won’t ever go again. Nice rock formations and so on, but other than that it’s just tourist ripoff central. Vile. Ah well. On the way back, we dropped in on the Minack theatre – an amphitheatre carved into the cliffside. Absolutely wonderful.

There were a bunch rehearsing for the next play to be held there, so we got to watch that too, and all in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Photos will follow when I get home and sorted out.

4am Saturday

Penzance at last. It’s been foggy for the last hour of the journey through Cornwall. I’ve been travelling since 5pm -with a couple of hours in Reading in the middle, but all the same. “Cream-crackered” is not the word. “Fucked” might be.

So here we are, in the last town in England. (or, to paraphrase Blue Juice, “Penzance ain’t the last town in England, boy, it’s the first”) God knows what the rest of the weekend holds. Goodnight.

The d4d™ branding studio

Following on from the Brum Brand, Lori suggests I should do some for other places. She’s come up with a pretty respectable list – but the next stage is this :

Which places do you want to see branded? You give me the names, and I’ll see what I can come up with.

Hallelujah

Finally, I’ve had confirmation through the letting agents that I’ve got the tenancy on the new place – the one I saw and applied for about a month ago. All of the delay has been because of the credit-checking people, who decided (as is their wont) to be complete paper-pushing bureaucratic fuckheads, and make life as awkward as possible. In the end I had to meet up with the actual landlord, talk to him so he could decide whether I was OK or not (and God help him, he decided I was!) and go from there rather than keeping on waiting for the paper-pushers to shove up the next hurdle.

So I sign the paperwork next week, and then it’ll be hey ho, off to new place I go. Along with all the places where I’ve got to change my address details, sort out moving/installing ADSL, deal with business gubbins and so on – that’ll be fun.

Unsearchable 80’s

Following on from a post at Jannism about the 80’s band “The The”, I had a quick footle round Amazon, and found that relatively recently an album featuring a compilation of singles by The The had been released. And so I bought it – not through Amazon – and ripped it last night. I’ve got it on the MP3 player now, and all I can say is “Yay”.

It’s a real joy – I used to have the albums on cassette, and got Mind Bomb on CD too, as it’s probably my favourite, but now I think I need to get the rest of them again. Sad, but true – I’d forgotten just how much I love the lyrics, the music, and Matt Johnson’s voice in general. There’s an official site for The The, including some samples from the singles album. I’d recommend it whole-heartedly.

The only problem though, is the band’s name. Try using Amazon’s search facility for “the the” and it can’t find anything – you have to know the name of the albums. *Grin*

Presentations

Over on Dearie Me, Pogo has been speculating about the corporate presentation he missed through illness. *WARNING* Do not read this link if you’re eating or drinking anything.

I was eating breakfast while reading it, and now have pieces of cornflake trapped in my nasal passage. Thankfully, Pogo knows he’s a bastard, but I should learn not to eat and read at the same time.

Branding Birmingham

Over at The Register, they’re talking about the new brand for Birmingham. It’s shockingly unimaginative, so far as I can see, but I’m not a “creative”. Instead, I had a play with a different kind of “concept” to come up with an identity for Brum, and this is the result. I may do some more work on it, but for me it pretty much sums up the city centre anyway.

At any rate, it’s better than some shonky lower-case B with the name of the city inside it – although at least it’s slightly less ephemeral than some of the logos of late…

Shoes revisited

Thankfully, my parents don’t read d4d™. They know it exists (kind of – I’ve told them about it, anyway) but they’ve never been given the complete URL. Maybe they do visit, and simply keep quiet on it. I don’t know.

Anyway, I sent my father the photo of the mismatched shoes from the other day, and his sole comment was :

“That’s funny, I bet you had another pair exactly the same at home”

*Sigh*

No, I said take off his spectacles

Even though it’s decidedly black humour, I love the tale on the BBC today of the Brazilian man with earache who ended up with a vasectomy. Because of his muffled hearing, he misheard the name being called for the Snip, and didn’t say a word while they prepared an area entirely unrelated to the ears…

Speaking later (in a high-pitched voice, one assumes) he said “I just assumed that the infection had spread”. Pure class.

The fat lady sings

Over at Fuddland, dvd has been observing how many companies don’t make their websites viewable in all browsers. It’s something I’ve banged on about previously, and will almost certainly do so again. Live with it.

Out of choice, my main browsers are Opera and Mozilla’s Firebird. For the most part, they’re pretty interchangeable – both have tabbed browsing, seem to be very quick to render web pages and so on, and comply with pretty much all the standards that are thrown at them, which is more than can be said for some browsers. *cough*IE*cough* (Oh, and on a tangent from *cough*, it’s the cheating coughing Major’s last day in the army today)

Firebird has it’s uses in some areas though – this post is being written on Firebird, which still appears to be the only other browser to give me a decent screen size for typing stuff into Blogger (and also the little buttons for links and text formatting) – Opera still throws a wobbly of epic proportions.

Actually, IE only now gets used for two things – testing to make sure everything I do works on IE as well, and for internet banking. My infamously shonky bank will only use IE or Nutscrape Netscape, and they won’t let me use any of the decent versions of Nutscrape, preferring instead the “security” of a browser with more security holes than a sieve.

I’m 101, you know!

According to the BBC, there’s now a new longest lived member of the Royal Family. What I find odd is that I didn’t actually know anything about her, and even the name doesn’t ring any bells. So – is it just me that’s been out of touch?

Holiday Crackdown

I must admit, I’m not surprised that after last week’s incident with a man on Faliraki getting stabbed to death the Greek police are cracking down hugely on pissed fuckheads British holidaymakers. The only thing that surprises me is that this didn’t all happen a couple of years ago. Since the incident, they’ve arrested a woman with her tits out (classy), holiday reps organising yet more drinking sprees and some twat who decided to show his arse to the world. The holiday companies are supposed to be having a summit to sort out what can be done to curb the excesses of the holidaying chuffwits (update : it’s been postponed) and quite honestly the first thing I’d say is to stop doing “documentaries” on how great it is to go to the island for a week/fortnight of excess.

At the end of the day, the tour companies are reaping what they’ve sown – the “documentaries” have been nothing more than advertising puff pieces for the holiday companies, and it’s been a media-fuelled frenzy. I’m sure that the holiday companies pissed themselves laughing to know that ITV and SkyOne would pay them to advertise their holidays for 10 hours of TV every summer – it must have been like a gift from the gods. But now we’re in a position where the morons holidaymakers think it’s what they have to do if they go to Faliraki – maybe it is, I don’t know. As holidays, they appeal to me about as much as syphilis.

Is there anything that can be done to stop the excesses? No, I don’t think so – the most that can be done is to stop using Faliraki as a destination, but then the excesses will just go somewhere else, the same as they did with Ibiza and Ayia Napa before. And there’ll be new TV shows to tell them where to go – the cycle will begin again.

Missing

LOST
A complete set of IQ points, approximately 150 all-told. Owner very worried about them – they’re not used to being out on their own. If found, please return them to Lyle, c/o D4D™

Should’ve stayed in bed

Have you ever noticed that there are some days that can be described as “Oh, it’s been one of those…”? Here on Lyle-world, today is one of them. It started off badly, when my body finally decided to get some proper sleep. After the alarm had gone off. Forty-Five minutes later, waking up was accompanied with the phrase “Oh fuck!” – it was like the start of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

It’s only now, four hours later, that I’ve realised a couple of things.
1. My shirt has been buttoned incorrectly. All morning – including the commute to work on two buses.
2. I then look further down, and discover that not only am I wearing mis-matched socks, I’m also wearing mis-matched shoes. They’re not even the same colour, or style. One’s a black slip-on thing, the other’s a blue trainer.
3. Basically, I look like the sort of person people cross the road to avoid. So that’s a plus point.

When I get home, I’ll take a picture of the shoes. My self-pride is shot away today, so I may as well have evidence of it being a truly shonky day. In fact, one of those days…

Time flies

Looking at the BBC’s “On this day in history” page, I hadn’t realised that it’s now 16 years today since the shootings in Hungerford. It’s also 12 years since Mikhail Gorbachev was ousted. Isn’t it scary, the way time just disappears?

They’re back

Many happy returns (and pardon the pun) to Sarah at NYTOO and Anna at Little Red Boat after breaks that have felt too very flippin’ long indeed.

Doctor Acronyms

There’s a wonderful piece on the BBC about the acronyms doctors use to describe patients. Maybe I’m just sleep-deprived, but the DBI (Dirt Bag Index) certainly made me laugh. Take the number of tattoos, multiply by number of teeth missing, and get a rough indication of how many days since the patient last washed. Other joys are “handbag positive” and “pumpkin positive” – you’ll have to read the article to find out the definitions…

Shattered – revisited

Yes, the weekend was great. I’m still knackered, having had a lousy night as well, so my grand total of hours asleep since 6am Friday morning comes to… Six. At most. Needless to say, I feel lousy and caffeine of industrial levels is being inflicted on my body.

The absolute killer of yesterday was – of course – the trains. On Sundays, the service between Nottingham and Manchester is – theoretically at least – an hourly one. Fair enough, that’s not too bad, and is in general fairly acceptable. What isn’t acceptable is having two trains cancelled, with no reasons given, so that some poor bastards had been waiting in the station since half past four for the train that finally left at half seven. (On this one, I’ll note that I’d only missed the half-six train, and reports of earlier ones being cancelled was reportage from other travellers)

So of course it was utterly rigid for most of the journey. It’s times like that when a little MP3 player is an absolute god-send.

Shattered

Note to self : when out for a weekend with friends, getting three hours sleep in three days is not a good idea. In fact, it leaves one unable to type anything of consequence. So I’ll write more tomorrow…

Routine, part 2

Another facet of routine (in my current workplace anyway) is the locks on the external doors. They all have a keypad and a number code – until recently, the code for them was based on a formula so it was easily memorable. For example one was 3618 ( 3 x 6 = 18 ) – but in the last week they’ve changed, and no longer run to this kind of formula.

It’s caused real hassle – people just don’t seem to be able to remember the new code. I’ve seen so many of them with it written down or having to keep on talking to their colleagues about it (including while they’re outside tyring to type it in) and so on. Utterly farcical. And is it a difficult number to remember? Hell no. It’s along similar lines to remembering 9876 (obviously it’s not that, but it’s equally easy to memorise).

Now, I acknowledge that I’m a techie, and thus possibly more disposed to remembering PIN numbers etc., but surely remembering a new code isn’t that difficult? I realise I’m probably a rairty in that I’ve got different PIN numbers for everything, and also tend to remember my customer nuumbers, Internet banking log-ins, passwords, and all manner of other gubbins, but is it really all that hard to just remember a new four-digit number? And what do these people do when they get a new bank ATM card or whatever, and have to memorise a new PIN? Oh yeah, they write it down in their diary or wherever. *Sigh*

Death where is thy sting?

As my father used to say, “Life has a way of letting you know when your time is up“. Being crushed by a car falling on you while sunbathing isn’t just “time’s up”, but also forms a pretty good indication that St. Peter is going to be pissing himself laughing when you get to the Pearly Gates.

Word “HTML”

Argh. God preserve me from fucking idiots who insist on using MS Word to produce HTML. Contrary to their belief, it does NOT make my life easier. There is a major set of differences (not least being file-size and readability) between the Word example of

<p class=MsoNormal style=’mso-pagination:widow-orphan’><span
style=’font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt’>blah blah blah<o:p></o:p></span></p>

and the version I want, which is

<p>blah blah blah</p>

Whichever moron wrote the methods for Word to convert stuff to HTML should be dragged out against a wall, shot, reincarnated, tortured, killed, and then buried at a crossroads.

Routine

I realise that this one is utterly trivial, but it sometimes amazes me the routines people get stuck in. One of the people I currently work with (God help me) has just broken the mug he always uses for his coffee. Half the office is now saying about how he’ll have to get a replacement (no, really?) and that it won’t taste the same in a new mug. He’s had this mug – in this office – for 24 years. Twenty-fucking-four-years. Of always drinking from the same mug. OK, it was a wedding present and blah blah blah, but ye gods, I can’t imagine staying in one job consistently for 24 months, let alone years.

Downtime

Yes, yesterday was a down-day. I don’t know why, there were no identifiable causes, but the brain didn’t activate at all, and the mood was simply not conducive to posting. But I seem to be out of the dip again today – and that’s something I always find reassuring.

Five years ago, “down-time” would have been a week, or even a month, or more. If the depression did attack me, it was a big thing, and it lasted. While it wasn’t “manic” depression, it’s always had a distinctly cyclical nature – I suspect it does for most sufferers, but I don’t have any empirical knowledge on that one – and when the troughs came, they were on a real “Perfect Storm” level, with the gravity of depression ensuring that it was nigh on impossible to stop the slide until I’d hit the bottom of the trough.

Now, for whatever reasons, it’s easier to handle. The troughs aren’t anywhere near as deep- but by contrast, nor are the peaks. Sometimes I miss the extremes, even though the smoother journey is normally preferable. The peaks were amazing, the troughs were disgraceful – now it’s all far more level. However, in general I’ll take the current way of life, where the depression hits for a day of downtime, and then bounces back. So normal service will be resumed today.

Lost : One Will to Live

I don’t know why, but today is a very groggy day. I swear my body’s not designed to sleep – I always feel like crap the day afterwards. So instead for now I’m going to bung up a few links and comments, and write more when I’m in the mood for it. Probably later.

• While I think it’s sad about the lad getting stabbed to death in Faliraki, it’s hardly a shock. Men, unlimited booze, and a culture that encourages the aggression and drinking – there was always going to be fallout.
• I wish I could bring myself to care about the report that security was shit at the birthday party of Prince William. Like, nice work, Holmes.
• Equally, I couldn’t give a toss that the new head of the CPS was charged with possession of cannabis 31 years ago – instead I think it’s far more worrying that he has hardly done any criminal prosecutions, and is also possibly in the position because of his links with Presidente Blair and his troll wife.

And that’ll do for now.

Cack-handed

I didn’t know it, but apparently today is National Left-Handers Day. Being left-handed myself, I can appreciate a lot of the things that are written about here. Lefties get quite a lot of stick for things like having the mouse on the “wrong” side of the keyboard and so on. (and in honour of being awkward, my mouse is on the left of the keyboard, but the buttons are still configured for a right-hander – it invariably confuses people!)

Would I rather be right-handed? Hell no. For me the benefits of being more creative, better at lateral thought and problem-solving, and all that gubbins more than make up for the few occurrences where being a leftie is bloody awkward.

Happy Left-Handed Day!

We have lift-off

The camera’s been getting it’s test-drive. There’ll be photos of my working environment later (i.e. when I get home and get them uploaded). On them, a new PC-variant will be visible that’s been placed on my desk today. It’s a nice bit of kit, all flat TFT monitor, all the hardware running behind the screen in one built-in unit. All very attractive, even when the keyboard and mouse are attached via cables that slightly detract from the aesthetics.

But there’s one thing that’s a complete turn-off, and has made me rethink ever having something like this. And that’s the fucking noise of it. The fan’s banging away nineteen to the dozen, I can hear it over the personal stereo (which is admittedly on quietly), and it’s actually a noise that’s distracting. I’m going to batter the fucking thing soon…

UPDATED : The link within the post now goes to a photo of the piece of shit nice new computer.

Black

In the news today is that the widow of Oswald Mosley has died. He was the founder of the British Fascists, AKA the Blackshirts.

Anyone want to bet what the de rigeur colour will be at the funeral? *Grin*

Camera

One half of the insurance settlement came through yesterday – the voucher for the replacement of the laptop, to be exact. I’d already decided that at the moment a replacement laptop wasn’t essential (the stolen one was also the old one, a positively archaic beast of an IBM) so it was going to be used in part for a replacement camera. It’s the thing I’d missed most from the first break-in, so it was time to replace it.

So now I have a new toy. The Fuji M603. It’s not perfect – I’d have preferred to have more optical zoom than it’s got, for example – but it seems like a good camera already. One strange thing (for me) is that it doesn’t have a viewfinder – instead it’s all done via the comparatively huge 2.5″ LCD. The manual mode isn’t as good as the last camera, but I rarely used it in anything other than automatic anyway.

As it is, I’m still getting to grips with some of the stuff – in some ways it’s very non-camera, the shutter button is in a different position to usual, for example. But by the weekend there’ll be some shots with it, and I’ll be able to do a better comparison then. And there’ll be plenty of space on it too – I got a 256Mb card to go with it, and it can also take up to a 1Gb Microdrive…

Abusive

While I can kind of understand the newsworthiness of the story about the charming individual now barred via an ASBO from using one particular abusive term, it does also appear to have given every single paper and news website the ability to use that word.

So – is it valid for them to use it, because it’s “newsworthy”? Or is it still just as abusive, and they’re as guilty as anyone else for using it?

GF Asks

In a worthy bit of memery (is that a word?), started off here on Green Fairy’s site (although it does originally hail from elsewhere), GF asks me five questions…

1. What qualities do toy moose have that say, cuddly antelope do not?
  If I knew why I prefer toy moose to any other forms of furry toy, I’d probably be a lot saner than I am. I suppose some of it comes from the sheer ability to pun names based on “moose”, plus there’s the sound of the word, which is infinitely preferable to the sound of “antelope”. Moose, reindeer, elk – they’re all a bit quirky really, aren’t they? On the same kind of vein, I could probably have ended up collecting cuddly fish, or even cows – except cows are cliched.
2. What’s your very first memory?
  For some reason(s) (some of which I know, and others which continue to confuddle me) I have very few memories from before the age of about 10. However, the first clear memory I have is of starting primary school. I’ve always said it was the first day there, but I doubt that’s true – whatever, it was close to the start. By this time I’d been able to read for about 12 to 18 months, thanks to literate parents – but that also made me rather more “advanced” than the rest of the class. So when the teacher told us to get books to start learning to read, she meant Roderick the Red Pirate, not for me to wander over to the other bookshelf, find a Roald Dahl book I hadn’t read before, and get stuck into it. The memory of being forced to prove I could a) read and b) comprehend the book I’d chosen still rankles, and remains in memory.
3. What things do you consider to be overrated?
  How long have you got? From my own perspective, I feel the entire scoped-out timetabled existence of “proper job, marriage, career, house, mortgage, family” is hugely over-rated. That’s probably the biggest one, combined with “having to be in a relationship”. Peter recently said that he felt some people are designed to be single, and I have to admit that I wonder if I’m not one of them. Only time will tell. But the people who look at me in shock to realise I’m happy to be buying ONE ticket to go to a concert, or a film, or whatever, I think their attitude is over-rated, that the innate need some people have to always be in a couple is over-rated.
  I should point out at this juncture that there are probably hundreds of other things I feel are equally over-rated, but I just can’t think of them at the moment. It’s a pretty all-encompassing question, GF!
4. Kindly complete this sentence: “I would rather have my innards scooped out and replaced by earwigs than __________________”
  The first response that sprang to mind was the word “moths” – with spiders coming a close second. Earwigs don’t bother me, spiders I’m not keen on, Moths I’m full-blown phobic about. You want comedy? Stick me in a room with a couple of the flapping hairy bastards, and lock the door.
  Other than that though, I’d rather go through the innard-scoooping than participate in a war (particularly one whose cause I didn’t believe in), live in central London, travelling economy-class to Australia, get married, or go through phobia-based aversion-therapy. As with 3., there’s probably a whole load more answers still floating in the ether to that one too.
5. Do you believe your personality is a product of biology or your environment?
  Um, Yes. I believe it comes from both – there are bits of my personality (as well as body-type, appearance etc.) that are absolutely a product of my parents. There are plenty of others that come from friends, and life experience. It’s quite spooky when I see my father, our mannerisms and personalitys definitely have parts that have been inherited. However, there are other parts that are probably as alien to him as, say, Neptune would be. If pushed, I would probably say that there are basic personality traits that are genetically hard-wired, that are an absolute swine to change or alter, but that the great majority of what makes us individual is based on our own lives, and thus down to environment and experience.

Want to be interviewed?

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions – each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

UPDATED : Pogo and Dragon, your questions are now in the comments box…

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

I know that yesterday there were a few comments on the idiocy of people undergoing foot surgery in order to wear “sexy” pointy shoes (see GreenFairy, Dragon and Into the Wild for more information) and I must admit, while I agree that people who undergo this treatment are inherently shallow and (quite probably) madder than a bathful of hippos, at the end of the day it’s their own stupidity and thus they pay for the service.

In contrast, the BBC’s report that millions of people never get their eyesight checked, even when they know their vision isn’t as good as it was seems far more upsetting and stupid. I suppose it’s down to the fact that there’s a greater chance of harming others through poor eyesight – I’ve never had a problem per se with fuckheads, so long as they only harm themselves, it’s when they also can harm others that I start having a problem with it. As an example, people only need a basic sight-test before passing their driving test (by which I mean “read that numberplate 50 feet away”) and that’s it. There’s no need for another sight check while driving. A good percentage of these people (the story says 65%) who know that their sight is going to shit and never get it checked are also drivers.

As with the feet/shoes story, vanity is cited as a reason for not getting a sight check. To quote paraphrase from the article, “73% thought they would find them irritating to wear, while 52% did not like the way spectacles made them look. 78% of people cited discomfort as a reason why they would not wear contact lenses, while 67% thought they would be a hassle and 60% believed they would pose a risk to their eyes. Asked about laser eye surgery, 73% said it was too expensive, 37% thought it was too risky and 52% said they did not like the idea of surgery on their eyes.” So – they’d rather not have a brief period of irritation, or not have to look slightly different than run the risk of killing or harming someone while driving. I can understand some of the concerns about laser surgery – I’ve enquired about it, but my eyes are bad enough that even post-surgery I’d still have to wear glasses, albeit ones of a lighter prescription. Contact lenses don’t work for me, although I know several people for whom they’re ideal. But that’s the thing – experimentation, finding out what works and is best for each person.

Personally I’d rather wear glasses than be thinking for the rest of my life about the person I ran over because I didn’t see them.

Light and Tunnels

Well, the letting agents have contacted me, and all’s well so far – the credit check’s been sent off today, so I’m crossing my fingers that everything goes OK. With luck, I should know by the end of the week.

Also, the bank finally confirmed the overdraft I’d requested, which will make doubly sure that everything’s OK for clearing the deposit and first month’s rent – the finances are there, but it’s better to have some form of fiscal padding too. The new house isn’t quite confirmed yet, but there’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel – I just hope that it’s not a freight-train coming the other way…

Comments

Yes, at the moment the commenting system is down. Joy. I know, I know, I really do need to sort out MT, and get that side of things done. The basics are installed, I just need to do the template etc., and move the archives over. “Just”. Ha.

Exams

While I agree to some extent that there are pupils for whom skipping GCSEs to go straight to AS-levels might be a good idea (I should point out that I was one of them, and would have stayed with academic learning far longer if I hadn’t spent 14-16 bored to tears and not giving a shit about staying in school – if I’d taken the GCSEs at 14, I’d have done fine, and been able to go on to A-levels there and then) I’m equally unconvinced that assessing the relevance of GCSEs is going to be of much use either.

Now, assessing the relevance of the syllabus – that might actually be useful. I’ve never had to solve a quadratic equation outside the confines of a classroom, but understanding how the APR works on credit cards would have been invaluable. I’ve never felt the need to make another metal coathook since leaving metalwork classes, but cookery and simple home economics would seem like a good thing to have in the brain. Making the courses relevant to life, not just to fit the confines of the current outmoded and ineffective syllabus – now that would be a real advance.

Page alterations

Following on from Saturday’s birthday, there’s been an addition to the index page for the site, as well as alterations and updates to the about d4d™ page detailing some ideas for the future and so on. I’ll be adding more to the pages over the next couple of days as well, and also probably writing some more stuff in other sections, but I’ll detail those later.

In the meantime, thunder’s rattling around the building I’m working in, and I’m hoping for a really decent downpour. Actually, a drop of about 10°C would be nice too. Today’s the day for refuse collection where I live, and the miasma of smells and stench from the bins was like wading through a marsh this morning. Utterly vile.

Rain – pt. 2

Sometimes I wonder if it’s me that’s barmy or the rest of the world. It’s still raining here, and I’ve walked down to the supermarket to do the shopping. It’s still bakingly hot, yet people are out fully covered up in waterproofs – it must be like cataracts of sweat inside there. Why do people worry so much about getting wet?

At the end of the day, we’re all human, our skins are inherently waterproof – we dry off. So when the weather’s so warm that we just broil inside waterproof clothing, why are we so obsessed with staying dry? I know I came home soaked, and about ten degrees cooler than anyone else who’d been out – thoroughly enjoyed it.

So – who’s barmy? Me or everyone else?

Rain

Ah, that was nice. Woke up to the sound of thunder, and it’s just absolutely pissed down for an hour. And yes, I went out to get my paper while it was raining – it brought the temperature down nicely. *Grin*

Of course, now it’s stopped, and the temperature is ramping up again nicely. But at least the thunder’s cleared the air a bit.

Skipton

I don’t know why, but over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting a shedload of search requests for “Skipton Building Society”, and then also getting connections from some poor gonk who actually works for them. So – what’s the deal? I’m intrigued to know…

Happy Birthday to me

Yes, amazingly d4d™ is now 1 year old. The presents haven’t been up to much, but hopefully the party with jelly and ice-cream later will go down well. A couple of friends have been invited, but really a first birthday party is more for the parents. So I’m going to get pissed.

It’s not bad really – 79,500 page impressions in a year. Not bad for a little baby site. I’m sure I’ll add more here later today, but for now…

Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear d4dddddddddddddddd,
Happy birthday to me. :¬)
*Blows out the candle*

Knew I’d forgotten something

When this site changed from destruction for dummies to d4d, I knew I’d forgotten something. I’d changed the addresses in all the comments boxes and so on, and it finally occurred to me today what I’d neglected to do. So the Contacts page has now been amended, and also (ahem) added to the list on the index page. *Oops*

Yick

While I’ve no problem with nature red in tooth and claw, sometimes there really is such a thing as “too much information”. This BBC piece about the reasons for penis shape definitely comes into that sector.

“Thanks” to Gordon, for the link.

Ah, blessed irony

OK, in a vain effort to steer away from stuff about Nazis, hatred, and discrimination, I’ve just spoken to the letting agents for the house I saw last Saturday, and filled in the forms for.

I was trying for an update, to let me know where things stand and if there were any problems. However, the letting agents themselves were broken into last night, so the office is chaos today. They should be able to give me an update by the end of the day though – the files are still there, just the computers got nicked.

Comments

I must admit, following Peter’s comment here about my comment regarding Eugenics, I find myself quite stumped really. Maybe I made out I was some form of a fan of programmes involving creating a master race – which I’m emphatically not. If such a programme existed, I’d never have been let through the net, nor would most of the people I know and care most about in the world.

However, when temperatures rise and IQs fall, I do despair of people in general, and that leaves me wondering about what else could be done. As an intellectual exercise, things like Eugenics are fascinating – how would it be administrated and administered, what would the criteria be, who would get to chose, that kind of thing. It’s an abhorrent exercise – I’m firmly retro and not even convinced about the necessity of choosing the sex of one’s child, let alone whether it should fulfil some kind of specification for Aryan perfection.

I’m actually quite hurt in some ways that Peter would think I’d consider Nazi-esque pogroms, let alone be an enthusiast of them – but at the end of the day, there’s very little I can do to change his perspective, nor that of anyone else. As for no longer wanting to read a site because of one post – I find that equally hard to understand. Over the last year I’ve seen many viewpoints I dislike, or even disagree with intensely – but that doesn’t stop me reading the site. In the example used here, if I were reading a site that constantly put out hatred of others, bigotry, racism and generally Nazi-esque viewpoints then yes, I’d stop reading it. If it were a one-off mention – and even then not one that was particularly enthusiastic about the subject, just using it as an illustration – then I think benefit of the doubt could be applied.

At the end of the day, I suppose I keep coming back to an ethos my father drilled into both myself and my brother : “I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.“

Pewari Says…

Via Pat BlogsLife, she mentions Pewari’s post saying that people can easily list ten things they dislike, but take much longer to list ten things they’re happy about – which seems like a challenge to me. So…

10 things I’m happy about
1. d4d™ – I know it’s sad and self-referential, but yeah, d4d makes me happy – I’m proud of it, and the fact it’s been running for a year now.
2. The fact I’ll be moving soon – that makes me happy (and stressed, but that’s another story)
3. The way life‘s slowly shaping up – work, money, life in general
4. The friends I’ve got who’ve come through in times of need, and who have offered help when it wasn’t expected
5. The way the future looks (no, not Orange) and the potential events of the next couple of years
6. Good food – and good drink – but the occasions when I go out with friends in general
7. going to concerts – particularly seeing favourite bands, but most gigs make me happy
8. Producing decent websites that clients like – again, sad but true
9. Feeling my age-old depression lifting, feeling optimistic about the future – just having that newer viewpoint makes me happy
10. Possibly linked to the previous item, but also feeling the desire to write more again – that’s a very good feeling, like welcoming back an old friend

Jane Says…

While Gert apparently has the theme tune from Knots Landing going through her head today, I’ve instead been blessed with a variety of sound-bites from Jane’s Addiction. It doesn’t cause me a problem – I’ve always liked them anyway – but going through the town centre with the lyric “Some people should die – and that’s just unconscious knowledge!” rattling around inside the brain is possibly not the best idea.

Ah well.

Nicked with his boots on

Further to my earlier comments about naked hikers, it turns out that the police have arrested the man trying to hike naked from Lands End to John O’Groats and returned him to Cornwall where he started off. However, as no-one had actually complained about him (and quite right too – let the daft sod get on with it, so far as I’m concerned) they’re going to let him off with a warning, rather than being charged with anything.

I suppose that all comments about “being picked up by the fuzz” would be completely inappropriate. *Grin*

An actor after all the clowns

I suppose it’s true that Californian’s never learn. I know we’ll have to wait ’til the elections to know for sure, but the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger is standing for the position of Governor in California would surely be enough to scare most people comatose.

However, looking at some of the other people who may be candidates, Arnie actually seems like a sensible choice. There’s Gary Coleman (the height-challenged one from Diff’rent Strokes, also an ex-convict), Larry Flynt (Publisher of the Hustler porn magazines, among other things), Leo Gallagher (a comedian so funny I’ve never heard of him) and a porn star called Mary Carey. Hardly the most reassuring bunch of proto-politicians.

And you just know that if/when the Schwarzenegger campaign fails this time, his official statement will be “I’ll be back”.

Colour coding

In a fit of heat-induced boredom, I went over to do a test on “what colour are you“? I think the result may be quite revelatory…

Genocide is painless

When the weather gets warm, what is it that makes peoples IQs drop so significantly? I’ve just been out, and the quota of braindeads is even more than usual. Maybe the sun just brings them out of the woodwork or something – from the sheer lack of brains I’ve witnessed so far though, I’d be surprised that they can manage to negotiate complex activities like opening doors, or walking and breathing at the same time.

I think the first thing that must get melted out of the brain is the decision-making section. Everyone seems to be so aimless, wandering around with even less clue than usual, displaying all the IQ and personality of a road-kill walrus. The really worrying thing is that most of these keff-wits are also breeding – all of them were either pregnant, or dragging/pushing (depending on the ownership of pushchair/buggy) round some snotty wailing brat. I know that they say there’s a partner for everyone, but sometimes I do start considering whether a programme of eugenics wouldn’t be the way to go.

Actually, eugenics and birth-control would only hit the tip of the iceberg. But the concept of genocide opens up a whole world of opportunity…

The truth will out

Ah well, it had to be proved at some point. First I’m geeky enough to take The Geek Test, and then to reveal that I scored 44.18146% – which makes me a Major Geek. Apparently. *coughs* Of course, anyone who knows me would be amazed that the score was that low. *Grin*

Heatwave

I don’t want to be overly British and go stating the obvious by saying “Bloody Hell it’s hot today“. So instead I’m going to comment about another phenomenon from heatwaves, and basically whenever the temperature goes above about 15°C (60°F, for anyone outside the UK) – the fact that some people really fucking stink.

(as an aside here, I should point out that yes, I do know I’ve ranted about this subject before)

I don’t know what it is about this country, but it certainly seems that there’s a facet of the nation that simply don’t wash or use deodorant (I’m going to stick with an Americanised spelling on that one, because deodourant still doesn’t look right) – I know there are some facets who won’t use it for religious reasons etc., and fair enough, I’m not going to aim this at them. But the others, the offensively smelly fuckers, deserve to be shot. How can they not realise how bad it is? And even how antisocial? In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s just fucking vile.

In the office where I’m currently working, there’s one person who obviously suffers from this condition (known in medical circles as “stinkyfuckeritis”) to an epic degree. It’s hard to be subtle about it – the temptation to walk over and tell him he stinks is getting more tempting by the minute, and I don’t even sit near him. I pity the poor sods who sit opposite, because every time he walks past me, the smell is enough to pole-axe a mastodon. It seems to carry a physical force to it, because wherever he walks, people are reeling afterwards.

There’s not even any real escape at lunchtime – walking into town there were at least two others suffering the same problem, and it’s exceptionally difficult to walk uphill without inhaling at some point. The town is full of scrots in tracksuit bottoms, who seem to feel that these temperatures are a grand excuse to strip off and show how amazingly shonky their cheap nasty tatoos are, and how well they’ve already faded. Oh, and how well dodgy gold necklaces go with pasty scally skin.

Personally, I’ll be glad when the clouds come over again, and the temperature drops. Now, has anyone got some horse-shit so I can tone down the smelly bastard?

Look out for thistles

The concept of “boots-only” hiking (that’s hiking in the nude, for those who care about such things) conjures up a whole range of images – very few of them particularly pleasant. In weather like today, I imagine that sunburn is a pretty relevant issue – and considering that half the vegetation on hiking routes is either Gorse (fucking prickly) or Heather (bloody abrasive) I would think there’s a fairly good risk of ending up scratched all over. Which is enough to make most people wimper a bit.

However, the random sightings of two naked men hiking The Pennine Way made me smile, another sign of the eccentricity for which we’re world renowned. Particularly with the female witness who “absent-mindedly” bumped into one of the men – I wonder what she was paying attention to? *Grin*

Uneventful

So far, it’s been a fairly quiet day. It won’t last, I’m sure. In the meantime, I’d just like to say that converting Adobe PDFs so that they can be filled in on-line is a task of utter wankdom, and not one I enjoy. So of course that’s what I’ll be doing for most of today. *Sigh*

Lame Academy

Please God, we’re beginning to see the end of the “reality” game-show. The BBC’s Lame Academy has managed to lose one million viewers in a week. 50% more people watched Grease on ITV than watched Lame Academy – now that’s really rubbing it in. This Saturday, ITV’s Flop Idol is back (again) – let’s hope it crashes and burns like most of the audtionees do.

Return to normality

Since the swap of domain names for d4d™, there’s been a bit of a dip in the regular hits from search engines. In some ways this has been no bad thing at all, as it’s allowed me to drop a couple of very old bits that I no longer wanted on d4d™ without too many hassles. And now I’m starting to get search hits from Google again, so it looks like the resumption of normal service is continuing apace.

And I really must get my finger out on some of the stuff I want to play with on d4d™ after the first birthday is out of the way. With all the other stuff that’s been going on, it now might not happen in time for Friday (ye gods, a year already – how did that happen?) but it’s in the process of happening.

Grass is always greener

Well, having read this story about a Californian family who got their entire house stolen, I have to admit that I do realise I could have been a whole lot worse off than I am/was. *Grin* I think it’s the fact that they even took the (just under) 10,000 litre water-tank that really adds insult to injury. But it’s definitely one of the more impressive accounts of house-theft.

Not quite so busy

The parental units have vacated the premises, and made their way down to the sunny South. It’s been a pretty good weekend, all things considered – spent yesterday looking at the (*hopefully*) new house and sorting out the initial paperwork for it, then went off into the Peak District, lunch at the Yorkshire Bridge by Derwent Water, back through some of the more hair-raising roads through the Peaks, out again in the evening to one of the the local pubs – which was bloody good.

Today has been inherently lazy. Cooked a full-on roast for lunch, and the parents disappeared at about half five. Since then I’ve done close to naff all – the brain has had some much-needed down-time. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed that everything comes through for the house.

Busy

Well, there’s been a visitation from the parents, so don’t expect too many updates today or til tomorrow afternoon-ish.

The house viewing went fine, and the application process has been started, so it’s a matter of waiting for references and credit-checks to come back. Let’s hope it happens smoothly and quickly.

The new place is a bit bigger, in a lot better area, and costing a third as much again as where I am. But it’s worth it. Fingers crossed.

Paranoia

I just received a call on my mobile – number withheld – where no-one said anything, and the only noise in the call sounded like the beep the new alarm system at home makes. Straight away, paranoia kicks in – would it have been possible for the scrots to get my number(s) while in the house last time? Imagine how great it would be to call the person who lives in the house while you’re inside it, going through things again. What a laugh.

I called up the neighbourhood wardens (the people who actually discovered the last break-in), explained I was almost certainly being daft, but could they possibly have a look at the house, make sure it was OK? No problem, we’ll call you back. And they just have – the house is fine, it’s just me being paranoid. I can’t wait to move on.

Riding on the Sardine Bus

Earlier this week, Meg (and welcome back, by the way) was saying about the problems experienced by tall people on public transport. On the way to work today I’ve been wedged into seats on both buses – the ones run by First Bus in particular are abysmal, designed for people of about 5’6″ at most, and the seats have this awful moulding on the back that projects out into where your knees should be. This means you either sit with legs either side of the mouldings, which takes up part of the legroom of the person sat beside you, or with your legs jammed together between the mouldings.

Considering all the reports that our average height and size/weight is increasing, what on earth causes the “wisdom” of ramming the seats ever closer together on public transport?

Nine days to go

Bloody hell, it’s AUGUST! How the hell did that happen? Where’s the year gone? It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that the joys of the Festering Season™ were upon us – and yet now we’re two-thirds of the way through the year.

And yes, in nine day’s time, d4d™ will have been going for a year. In some ways that’s even scarier…