NYE

Well, it looks like ’04 is going to come in with much the same sense of occasion let-down and anticlimax as 2003. People ask why I loathe New Year’s Eve and all the shit that goes with it – it’s because the entire thing is (for me, anyway) a colossal let-down, a constant reminder that hope and optimism get dashed.

So here’s to you, 2003 – in some ways you’ve been a good year, and in others you’ve been a complete cunt. Cheers.

Addendum

Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday and lots of other sideways stuff for Peter over at Naked Blog. Not just a birthday, but another anniversary too. All the best for what looks like being a pretty arduous day…

Review of 2003 or
Thank fuck that’s over and done with

Well, most places seem to be doing their summing up of 2003, now that we’re on the final day of it. I’m not sure I’m quite going to go down the path of “best and worst of ’03” nor simply some “best bits“

2003’s been a bloody busy year here – as well as two blogmeets, and the now infamous change of domain name (thanks Wileys) d4d™ shot past the 100,000th page impression without even blinking, and had a load of content added all over the place. It’s been an eventful year for sure, although looking back at what I wanted to happen in 2003 and comparing it to now makes me realise I’ve achieved precisely fuck all of the hopes listed. A couple started, and then got put on hold again, and rather than buying a house I just moved to a different rented property after the two break-ins at the old place.

Things have changed a lot in the last year – mainly for the better. Now I just want to get today and tomorrow over and done with, then I can get on with the things I want to work on. I’ll probably add more odds, sods, and thoughts during the day, but for now – well, I hope everyone else has the New Year they expect/hope for/want, and all the best for 2004. Me, I’ve got a couple of friends and a dog, and we’re likely to be staying in, avoiding arseholes, and not doing much at all. Sounds like a plan to me…

Cooking with Lyle Craddock – part 2

Ah, now that’s much more like it. Another steamed sponge, this time with sliced apple on the bottom, and stewed apple (OK, before anyone thinks I’m way too domesticated, I cheated and used a tin of apple pie filling) then a standard sponge mix, with some added cinnamon. 25 minutes in the steamer. A quick prayer to Delia and Fanny, followed by flipping the pud onto a plate.

The finishing touch? Demerara sugar, blowtorched into caramelisation. Yummy.

And on and on it goes

It gets better. The response to the email below is as follows…

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.

I hope you’ll understand that we do our best to ensure that all of our customer orders leave our Fulfilment Centre as close as possible to the availability and delivery estimates that are listed on our website.

We are sorry that your shopping experience at Amazon.co.uk has been so disappointing.

Please know that your business is very important to us. We hope that you will allow us another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in the future.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk.

I bet this won’t be the last thing I write to the incompetent motherfuckers….

OK, this situation is now beyond farcical. Is there any chance of Amazon managing to send a reply to my queries that _isn’t_ a form response?

In response to an email saying “you’ve lost a customer”, the reply says “we hope you’ll give us another chance”. Frankly, if I got any response from a person as opposed to a glib form-letter, I might consider it.

So far this problem has now carried over no less than seven emails. Absolutely none of them have addressed the problem that we are dealing with here – namely that Amazon has utterly failed to deliver the ordered goods at the expected time, and has then utterly failed to manage my problem at all.

When Amazon is capable of either a) sending me a personalised response from a customer service manager, and b) manages the obviosuly impossible task of calling me on 07729 60xxxx to explain why the entire process has gone wrong on this occasion, then I might consider coming back to Amazon.

Until those occurrences, then I will not be shopping through Amazon again, and will in fact go out of my way to direct people to other online stores instead of Amazon.

Congratulations – not only have you lost a regular customer, you’ve also hacked him off enough that he’ll tell all his friends and colleagues not to use them. An impressive achievement, for want of a simple explanation and “sorry”.

Useless bastards

Way back on the 12th December, I ordered two books from Amazon for part of my parent’s christmas presents. Various complaints have ensued, but today’s one was the final straw. First we have Amazon’s reply to my previous email…

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk with your enquiry about your
order #202-9848300-35xxxxx.

First of all let me apologise for the delay you have experienced in
the dispatch of your order.

Having checked your order, we can now confirm that it was sent from
our Fulfilment Centre in the UK on 30 December via Parcelforce 24
using the following tracking number RR470xxxx.

Here is the delivery address for your order:

xxxx (deleted delivery address, for obvious reasons)

In addition to our large selection of goods, one of the benefits we’d
like to offer our customers is convenience, and I realise that we have
not met that standard in this case. I hope that you will give us
another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in the
future.

We do want to make sure you receive your order. Thank you for
shopping at Amazon.co.uk.

Which resulted in this being sent back to them…

Frankly, to receive an email saying “one of the benefits we offer to customers is convenience” is quite insulting in this situation. Damn right Amazon haven’t offered convenience in this instance.

I placed this order on the 12th December – plenty of time for a company that says it will deliver within two days. (as the order said at the time) In fact, we’re now 18 days down the line, and they’ve finally been dispatched. Because of Amazon’s blatant incompetence, I’ve had to field arguments from (understandably) hacked-off parents who’ve thought I didn’t get them anything for Christmas. To receive things a week late is better than never receiving them, but not by much. In this case, apologies don’t matter a toss – with my current feelings about Amazon, I may use them for my convenience, but I’ll never trust them to deliver presents to anyone else again, and nor will I recommend them to anyone else.

The simple fact of the matter is – Amazon didn’t fulfil their part of the agreement. There’s been no explanation of why, and the requested phone call has (as expected) never happened. The level of customer service and complaint investigation is appalling, and I currently wouldn’t recommend Amazon to my worst enemy.

Many congratulations on the almost-certain loss of another customer.

Which seems reasonable.

Wow

Thanks to a small obsession (i.e. regularly, but not every five minutes) looking at my referrers, I’ve discovered that d4d™ has it’s very own Googlewhack. How geeky pleased am I?

Cooking, by Lyle Craddock

One thing I did get for Christmas was a steamer for a different form of cooking. I’m pretty impressed with it too – one thing it’s exceptional for is steamed puddings, sponges and the like. So far, my score on the sponges is one-all – the banana one came out really well, but the chocolate one was slightly shonky, as the chocolate hadn’t melted. We still don’t know why – it was warm enough, but the stuff just didn’t melt. The sponge wasn’t quite perfect, but it was OK – the entire thing was edible, but the chocolate made it look rather more unpalateable than it actually was. Ah well, it just gives me an excuse for keeping on making them ’til I get them right…

Oh, and Pewari, the recipe’s the same as for a normal sponge. (I need to buy scales, so bear with me on this) … According to Tony my haute cuisine advisor on these things, cream together 100g of Butter and 100g Sugar, add in two eggs (one at a time), followed by some vanilla essence, a teaspoon of baking powder, and about 50g of sieved self-raising flour. Line the bottom of the bowl with – for example – some golden syrup, or jam. Then put the sponge mix over the top, and cook in the steamer for 20-25 mins. Flip the bowl onto a plate so that the pudding comes out. Bingo.

Here endeth today’s domestic lesson.

Work

I swear it should be illegal to have to work between Christmas and New Year. There’s nothing going on, and to call this lot a skeleton crew would be a misnomer. Still, I suppose that at least I’m getting paid for doing fuck all. Could be worse… *Grin*

Jodrell Bank

Yesterday was a geeky day out in many ways. The friends I’ve got staying are very into things as esoteric as canal boats and astronomy, so it seemed like a good idea to mix the Anderton Boat Lift at Northwich and then troll a few miles down the road to Jodrell Bank Observatory, particularly while it’s also involved in trying to find Beagle 2.

Anderton Boat Lift was OK – interesting to see but bugger all to do – particularly as the Vistor Centre is closed from 22nd December to 7th January. Handy, when it’s possibly somewhere that sad geeky gits people would want to visit during the Christmas Break.

Jodrell Bank on the other hand was wonderful. A princely sum of £3 (for car-parking) gained us entry to the visitor centre, a 15 minute 3D film of a fictional journey to Mars (fictional, but factual, with plenty of footage of Mars landscapes including Olympus Mons and the Mariner Valley) and also a 40 minute talk on the Beagle Mission to Mars, as well as it’s European Council parent project. Well worth the money, and a truly fun day out, improved only by the wonderful views of the dish itself.

Aftermath

Well, thank the lord that’s over for another year. Come Christmas ’04, I think I’m either going to go back to helping out at a soup kitchen, or helping the Samaritans, or I’m heading off overseas for the season. Any of these options will be fine with me, although I must admit that I find myself rather fancying the idea of a Christmas in the sun, where no-one can find me. In fact yes, that sounds very seriously bloody appealing.

Seasons Bleatings

Unaccustomed as I am to this, Merry Syphilis and a Happy Gonorrhea to all my regular readers. Let the Festering Season™ commence/conclude (depending on your perspective) productively.

In the meantime, I’m off to get well and truly leathered. Spirit of Christmas, and all that jazz. My spirit of choice being vodka. *Grin* *Hic*

Asda, Moscow Manchester

In a fit of true genius, I’d agreed with my guests for the Festering Season™ that going shopping for food etc. at 1am would be a good idea. How fucking wrong can one person be?

Unshockingly, I’ve ranted about this before, but Jesus Christ, how long are the shops actually shut for? Two days at most? So why the blue blazing flibberty fuck do people pretty much empty the shelves of anything they think they might vaguely want/need? Even things they’ve never needed before. Mad panic buying – and yeah, it’s only two days of closure, and even then there’ll be stores that are open. I just don’t understand the mindset.

And Asda. What the chuff possessed me to think that would be a good idea at any time, let alone around Christmas. *Shudder*. Coming out left me actually glad that we do have gun laws in this country. Otherwise there’d have been a Macdonalds-esque bloodbath in Aisle 14, blood sprayed over the empty shelves of tampons. Because, like so many festive decorations can be made from them – either that or the entire female population of Manchester is due on – heavily – on the 25th December.

I shouldn’t be let out

Of course, the bad bit about getting paid plenty all at one is that it leaves me deeply in the arms of temptation. What that means is that yes, I’ve upgraded my digital camera. Maybe I’ll regret it come the sales, but I got it for a decent amount off the RRP anyway, so *shrug*.

Fly me to the moon Alps

I must be in a good mood, or something. Maybe it’s the fact that in less than a hundred hours, the Festering Seaon™ will be over and done with. Woo and (repetitively) Yay indeed.

Anyway, a little email flittered into my inbox from Sapientum – and wow, can he creep *Grin* – asking me to draw some attention to his plea for emergency crew on a hot-air-ballon trip to the Alps. Typical NHS, 18 month waiting list, and as soon as the person’s needed elsewhere, #bing# to the top of the list they go. So – if you’re free and fancy a trip in a cramped capsule to the Alps, give Peter at Sapientum a yell…

Paid

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but one thing I still love about being self-employed is seeing the invoice get paid for the work I’ve done. (Yes, particularly when it comes in at an opportune time, like today) It makes all the hassle and grief worthwhile, and even after being self-employed for five years (on and off) there’s still that big smile that appears on my face, that feeling of “Yeah, that was work that was worth the money – and they thought so too”.

Blinding.

Shortest Day

Yes, we’re past the midway point. The 21st was (or at least should be) the shortest day, AKA Winter Equinox Solstice (corrected, thanks Peter). So now the nights will start getting shorter, and we’re over the big hurdle for another year. Woo, and indeed Yay.

Autumn Photos

Ooops. As always, I’d forgotten about some shots I took a while back on a trip to Derwent Water. They’re now online and loaded into the Photos section. Also, I’ve remembered to update the index page for the first time in three months or more. *Sigh*

UPDATED : Yes, OK, I’d chuffed up the pages, so some of the text wasn’t readable in IE5 and 6. Mea Culpa. ’tis fixed now, though.

Antisocial

I’d just like to say that if my neighbour’s burglar alarm is still going off when I get home, I’m going to take a fucking hammer to it. All bloody night the knacking things been whistling it’s way into my subconscious. The thing is, even when the police say “there’s nothing we can do”, they’ll still happily nick you for criminal damage and – oh, sweet irony – “breach of the peace” if you go and disable the fucker.

And what does the owner get, for having an alarm that doesn’t comply with the standards about turning off after 20 mins, and that’s basically bloody annoying? Sweet F A. Nothing. There’s a logic in there somewhere, but shit if I can find it.

Return of the King

No plot-twists were harmed in the writing of this piece. So yes, at last we come to the final part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Two films that – in the inimitable words of my brother – dont even have proper endings. (Yes, he’s going to see this one – after wasting five-plus hours of his life watching the other two, he wants to see how it ends) At three and a half hours, it’s no short film either. If you go and see it, make sure it’s in an auditorium with comfortable seating, and decent legroom if possible. Otherwise you’ll just be uncomfortable by the last hour.

Not that that’ll damage too much. I’ve heard it said elsewhere, but this is a film that suffers from a surfeit of endings. Fr too many of them – and some done in amazingly mawkish Hollywood-friendly fashion. By the end of it, even I was praying for the bugger to finally display the words “The End”.

Overall, the film’s still stunning. The effects and visuals are amazing, particularly Helm’s Deep, and Minas Tirith – truly impressive. A couple of effects are slightly shonky, particularly the ones where the hobbits are in shot at the same time as those of “normal” size, but that’s pretty forgivable. Shelob is fairly grotesque, and Gollum is rendered exceptionally well. He’s an integral character and part of the film – and there are no real occasions where you disbelieve his existence within the world of the film. As a computer-generated actor, it’s at least a generation above anything else – even Dobby the House-elf.

Overall, thoroughly enjoyable – but it could do with finishing about 30 minutes before it does, and without all the mawkish bollocks that goes with it.

Surviving the Festering Season

Many thanks to both GF and Ionicus for giving me these links.

First of all, Ionicus recommended the BBC’s “How to avoid christmas” page – some fun suggestions of how to not appear to be a Scrooge while still disliking the Festering Season™. “Pretend it isn’t happening” is kind of difficult to carry off, “Spend it in Jail” sounds worryingly promising (I wonder if you can get a commuted sentence for killing people out doing their Christmas shopping?), and “Do Something Worthwhile” has been done by me for several years prior to this. But for me, I think the plan for next year may well be “Leave the country“. SOunds like a plan – disappearing somewhere that’s a) hot and b) doesn’t do much for Christmas. Perfect.

Green Fairy’s contribution, however, appeals even more. Well, this year anyway. The Christmas Resistance Movement – complete with block-art WW2-style posters and propaganda. Absolutely excellent. They have my support, that’s for sure. And quite probably my membership in future years…

Scam

Because I’m self-employed, I have my own limited company. It’s been useful, and continues to be so. However, today I got a piece of not-quite-junk mail from the Data Processing Protection Corporation (they have a domain here but it’s just a holding page) telling me that I need to be registered with the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Now, I know I don’t, and I’ve heard plenty about these scamming bastards who try to charge £95 for registration – which the IC does for £35. In short, it’s a con, targetted at the many company directors etc. who don’t have a clue. A quick Google search for the DPPC revealed a whole host of results, none of which were – shall we say – exactly flattering or complimentary to the scam-merchants. Also, the Information Commissioner has a list of the known scammers to date.

The moral of this story? Know what you’re talking about, and don’t believe anything from these conning bastards. I know Neveratoss got one of these letters recently too, so there’s obviously a resurgence of them coming out just in time for the festering season…

Scapegoating

Well, it’s come as no particular shock at all that Ian Huntley has been found guilty on two counts of murder. The shock (for me, anyway) was that he’d been accused no less than three counts of rape, one of indecent assault, and four of underage sex – and yet had never reached court on any of them. Each time, either the accusers backed down, or the CPS decided they couldn’t be sure of a conviction. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what judges and juries are for? Rather than some bunch of pen-pushing bureaucrats?

(On a slight tangent, the CPS’s “What does the CPS do?” page answers the question with several photos of people, and fuck all information. How very apropos.)

In the bunch of scapegoating and “how could this happen?” hindsight that’ll ensue, it looks like background checks are going to be the main victim. But how can a check into the criminal record of an applicant be properly vetted if the court system, CPS, and police apparently cosnpire to make sure that people aren’t even cautioned, let alone accused? The “blunders” that allowed Huntley to work as a school caretaker can be laid directly at the door of the CPS and the relevant police forces for failing to prosecute on any one of these accusations. But instead we’ll end up with a specialist police unit based on the FBI which’ll still prove to be fuck-all use, because the Crown Procrastination Service will still fail to prosecute unless they’re pretty sure they can get a conviction.

Linkage

Would someone who’s viewed this site after coming from some discussion board on wilwheaton.net please tell me why I’m getting linked? The poxy message board won’t even let me read the posts, let alone say anything. I’m waiting to be authorised for a log-in so I can read it, but for now I’ve no idea whatsoever.

Thanks.

Allergic? Psychotic, more like.

via Gordon, a story I’d missed on the BBC about people who are allergic to christmas.

This will come as a surprise to some people, but I think this is absolute bobbins. People seem to use allergies as an excuse for many things now, in a similar way to how depression is an excuse for just about every work-shy sickie-puller on the planet. True allergic reactions can be bloody nasty – I’ve seen people have major ones to things like nuts and seafood, and they never joke about “being allergic to work” or anything else.

So yes, I can see that people who are allergic to latex would have problems with festive balloons, etc., and that dust-allergic people might have a reaction to a fake christmas tree that’s been in the loft for 11 months. But allergic to Christmas itself? Get a grip.

There are many ways I could describe my feelings about Christmas. Most of them would involve a large selection of four-letter words, and probably some frothing at the mouth. But I’d never say I was allergic to it. I don’t even have a phobia about the Festering Season™. I simply dislike it. (Well, OK, bloody loathe it – but that’s still not a phobia)

Mayfly

Looking back on it, my 2002 Mayfly Project entry was this :

Split up, pissed about, started d4d, found work, read logfiles, wrote loads, avoided Christmas. Good year.

A year in 20 words. Quite a challenge – so, what am I going to put for this years? I’ll add it in here when I’ve decided…

Well, I’ve done two – one for the site, one for me. Maybe that’s cheating, I don’t know. D4D™’s one was :

Ambled along. Fought Wileys. Lost. Huge support. Changed URL. Carried On. 100,000th visitor. Thought about redesign and MT. Strange Year.

Mine, on the other hand, has been slightly more challenging, and has now been decided on as :

Dental work. Loads of it. Met friends. Lost friends. Stayed working. Two breakins. Moved. Manic. Huge SAD fit. What’s Next?

And that’s that. Roll on 2004.

In the meantime, add your own year to the Mayfly Project. Thanks Meg.

Pissed Off

While I was in HMV yesterday, I spotted a long-time favourite film of mine, Nikita, on DVD – brilliant. However, it’s the bloody dubbed version, rather than the subtitled one – it’s still a good film, but I bloody hate the dubbing. It’s so annoying, watching lips move and not match the words.

Gnomes

Ah, the joys of a failed sense of humour. I love the idea of sending a letter to gnome owners threatening eviction of said gnomes because they’re in violation of planning laws. Having done my fair share of gnome kidnappings, along with a couple of “world tours” for the hostage gnomes (including sending postcards home – I like having friends on round-the-world journeys!), the idea of an eviction notice just makes me grin evilly…

Reminiscence

I was looking over some of the older stuff here on d4d™, and it’s occurred to me that I really haven’t done much on the other sections in the last couple of months. Hopefully come January that’ll be rectified. I’m currently working on a piece for the Thoughts section, primarily about looking back over 2003, what I’d thought I’d do, and what’s actually happened.

In that context, Depression, and it’s Seasonally Affected cousin can be quite interesting – they make for interesting background voices when looking at hopes for the forthcoming year. Maybe I should put the “what I want to do” part on hold ’til March or April, allow the sunlight to sort me out a bit first – but where’s the fun in that?

So there’s a new Thoughts piece being written, and I haven’t ranted in bloody ages. I’ve got a set of photos that I really should sort out – maybe I’ll do that tonight. They’re from ages back, and I just haven’t got round to doing anything with them. So there’s stuff in the offing, I just need to get my finger out with it all. Fun fun fun.

Piss

I knew there was something I’d forgotten about this Festering Season™. Now I know what it was – presents need to be wrapped. And yes, I’ve no focking wrapping paper. Bugger. Ah well, that’s the purchase list sorted out for lunchtime today, anyway. And I thought I’d been so organised, yet it’s the basics that chuff me up yet again. Arse.

UPDATED : There, fuck-up sorted. I now have enough bloody wrapping paper to (hopefully) do everything I need to. And not a santa or snowman in the lot. If I’d been more organised I’d have sourced the black wrapping paper I got last year. Against all my best intentions, it actually looked really good, particularly with Silver pen being used.

Spirit of Christmas

Oooh, that’s worrying – two posts about the festering season, and nary a swearword between them. I must be mellowing. Maybe it’s this flummin’ headache…

Anyway, pop over to Uborka and read Pete’s heartfelt letter to Santa, along with the replies in the comments box. Very silly, but it’s made me laugh. Now, all I need is a darkened room…

Perfect Present

Ideal for Scary, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the iDuck. You couldn’t make it up.

Surely some mistake

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but the story about Saddam Hussein being arrested by Coalition forces today left me more than slightly confused. Weren’t they supposed to have killed him three months ago?

So how do we know that truth is being told now? In short, we don’t. Instead it’s yet more turns of the propaganda screw, and no-one really knows what the hell they’re up to. Then again, I don’t really think that they’ve got any idea either…

Godsend

Unaccustomed as I am to being nice about Christmas shopping and so on, I have to say that today’s shopping “trip” has been bloody fantastic. Amazon, EasyArt, Trainline.com, Go Places and MicroDirect. Everything ordered and sorted – and delivered to the correct people. No crowds, no hassle, no stress. My kind of shopping for the Festering Season.

I’d also like to say – and yes, I’m referring to you, Postershop and Leather Bean Bag Co– that I can’t believe there are some stores who have an online presence and e-commerce system that either a) doesn’t accept Switch, for fuck’s sake, or b) uses e-commerce that actually just emails the details to the shop – no stock-checking, nothing. Sacks of shite.

Snap Happy

via Slashdot, I found an article from Fortune magazine about the future of digital photography. More to the point, would Ansel Adams have used digital cameras if he were alive today?

Ansel Adams was always one of my favourite photographers, and provided many inspirational shots of nature, and natural phenomena. And yes, having seen the results that even my shonky little camera can come up with, I have no doubt at all he’d have used a digital camera if he could’ve got his hands on one.

The other part of the article that interested me was the idea that apparently digital photography and image manipulation are seen to be very much the same thing. I find that odd – maybe it’s because I’m not a professional photographer, or something, but it’s rare that I twonk about with images at all. About the most I normally do is crop an image, or adjust the brightness and contrast – which is what a “traditional” photographer would do too. Perhaps I’m just a realist – I don’t like the feel of images that have been messed about with, no matter how professionally. I’d rather leave a lamp-post in a shot (for example) to provide contrast. Life isn’t perfect : photos shouldn’t try to be either.

Modern Communications

Sometimes words fail me. I’ve just received a call from someone in another department, telling me they’ve sent me an email. It’s not the first time either – this is a weekly process, a document that gets changed every Friday. Every week I get an email of the document, which goes up onto the intranet. Every week this moron calls me to tell me she’s sent it. No matter how many times I tell her I don’t need a call, come the next Friday she still calls.

Now, call me picky, but if you’re going to send an email, just send it. There’ll be a bounced message to say if there’s a problem with it. I don’t need a fucking phone call to back it up.

Gimp

Since writing the piece below about SAD and how hard it’s hit me, something suddenly occurred to me. When I moved in September, I didn’t take my daylight-imitating lightbulbs with me. Well, that’s some kind of proof that they work, I suppose. What a complete twat.

Ups and Downs

I wish we could get some dotty old whackjob to invent a time machine. It might allow days like today to draw out a bit so I’m not utterly swamped with stuff. It might also allow the next month or so to disappear into the past without affecting me quite so much on the SAD front.

On the high points of today, I’ve finally finished a big dollop of work in PHP. Considering that six months ago I knew PHP in the same way that I know the ins and outs of local morris-dancing customs in Mongolia, I’m quite ridiculously chuffed with myself. Yes, I’m sure a hardened PHP coder would look at it and wimper, but my concerns were that a) it works, and b) it’s easy to use. Both criteria have been well and truly fulfilled, and I’ve got a load more confidence in the stuff now. Of course, that means that it’s time to get Projects #2 and #3 off the ground, which are rather more complicated. Rod for my own back, and all that jazz.

Also on the high points, I’ve been getting in some new work, which will keep me busy for a while. There’s also a couple more bits on the horizon (although not – as yet – the website for that “web designer” talked about below) which look promising, as well as one huge dollop of on-spec work which may or may not result in a steady regular income.

On the low side, well, it’s December. The SAD is hitting harder and harder, but at the same time I know it’s nearly time for the recession to start. In eleven day’s time, to be exact. Roll on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Once that’s done, the nights can start getting shorter again – and not a moment too soon, because this bollocks of getting up while it’s still dark, and then coming home while it’s dark too is really whacking me out this year.

So, this time machine. Any ideas?

Oh Dearie-Me

Sorry, Pogo, couldn’t resist the title. As the observant may have noticed, I’ve taken Dearie-Me off the Blogroll, because some cunt called Max Cady has hijacked a decent blog in order to host his own sack of shit. No links, because he doesn’t deserve them.

Hopefully, Pogo’ll have a new address as soon as poss, and can work from there. The link will be on here when he does.

It’s a Question of Tact

Hard as it may be to believe from d4d™’s appearance sometimes, but as most people know, I do a fair amount of website work, databases and the like. Yesterday, one of my clients forwarded an email from a “website designer” who had written to them on spec.

This dweeb is creating sites that don’t work on half the browsers, can’t even do simple tasks like remembering background colours for the page, aren’t standards compliant, and – frankly – look shit. For these, he’s charging £450.

His own homepage, supposedly an advert for how great he is, consists of exactly one page, with in-page links to different sections. It’s bollocks in it’s purest form – and as yet I haven’t decided whether I should put the link here, because people would only ridicule pity him – although in that context (along with piss-poor english) it’s quite funny.

Now, the question is this : Do I reply to his email, and offer to design his site for him so that it at least works? Or should I stay quiet, and simply up my rates? *Grin*

Sack of Shite

For currently unknown reasons, Blogger’s been an absolute cunt today. Hopefully we’re now back to situation “normal”. But come January, when (*please GOD*) things are slightly calmer and less socially intense chez Lyle then I’m going to be cursing installing MT.

Spearhead – Manchester Academy 2

I didn’t really know what to expect from the Spearhead concert, to be honest. I’ve been a fan of Michael Franti’s for years, right back to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and then also when he formed Spearhead. Most of their music is very political and intelligent rap/hiphop, so that was kind of what I was expecting, if I could be said to have any real expectations at all.

First semi-surprise comes when it turns out that a good 99% of the audience is white – OK, we’re in a Student Union Environment, but considering their material, it still came as a small surprise. Noticeable, if nothing else.

The support act was a very strange – and incredibly talented – single performer. Initially I wasn’t that impressed, but – like herpes – he grem on me. I’m hoping that Peter from Sapientum can remember the bugger’s name, because I can’t. Something like Kelley Williams, but that’s not bringing up any valid results on Google.

Spearhead themselves were obviously determined to have a good time. Bouncing all round the stage, bringing a true party feel to the crowd. Franti himself towered above the audience – helped by the stage, obviously, but he’s no shorty anyway – and quite obviously just loves being on stage, and performing his music. Well – his own music, and also Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, the Clash’s Guns of Brixton, and even Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song (Hey Mr Tally Man). The supporting voice of Radio Activ, the “beatbox” was stunning – some of his solo performances were nothing short of stunning.

In conclusion, Spearhead managed to get all their political points across in a pectacular fashion that managed the clever trick of not sounding like preaching – it was a party with meaning.

The imperfect cards

Blah. Last night was the first particular brand of festering season business I had to get through. The much-loathed writing of cards. After all, once you’ve got to the thirtieth, what the hell do you write? It gets boring as fuck writing the same thing (albeit with minor variations) in each one, but writing something new for every card is a strain on the creativity. Many have a comment about “the joys of the festering season” – there’s no way people would know they’re not from me.

Am I horrendously early in getting them out and sent? Maybe. But considering here in Manchester I’m still waiting for the postman to deliver an item to me that was sent last Wednesday, I think it’s not unreasonable either. Also I ahd to get one of them off to a friend in Gibraltar, and keff only knows what the last posting date for BFPO addresses is, so better early than late.

Anyway, it’s all sorted now, and all the cards are in the indelicate and scabrous grip of Royal Snail. Now I just need to figure the few presents I’m buying. *sigh*

The perfect card

via Wherever You Are, the truly wonderful Lance Arthur has been busy designing some Christmas cards. And I think I’ve decided on this one as my card of choice.

All of them are pretty good – and match up to my feelings on the Festering Season™ without too much hassle. It’s always good to know I’m not the only one…

Parting

Regardless of whether he’s on your normal “daily read” lists, go and see Troubled Diva today. A notice of departure – and all the best to Mike on the next phase of the voyage.

Aaaaand Relax

Well, that was officially A Busy Weekend™. Hence no updates. It’s back to being calm again, and for once my week isn’t booked solid with things to do, which has to be a good thing. I know, most people would prefer to be socially booked up etc., but after the last couple of weeks, a few days off is just what’s needed…

Various updates will (probably) be added through the day today, but highlights of the weekend included:

• High Point : Seeing Spearhead in concert on Friday night
• High point : A visitation from the parents for the weekend
• High point : Visiting the European Markets in the city centre.
• Low point : the fucking crowds of idiots, particularly with prams/pushchairs/dogs
• Low point : Attempting to book a table at one place I like, which turned out to be full.
• High point : Vaguely recalling a good review about another place, calling on the off-chance, getting a table, and ending up in a place far better than the original idea.
• High point : My brother making a flyingish visit on the Sunday
• Low point : Brother taking the wrong turn onto my road, attempting to turn road, and getting hit side-on by a pissed fuckhead who then drove off
• High point : the three witnesses, who all got the pisshead’s number plate, and stayed ’til the police arrived, thus meaning the pissed cow got nicked anyway.

Other than that little lot, once the parental units had gone home, thirty minutes later two friends randomly dropped in for coffee before going on to a concert at the MEN. I didn’t stop all weekend. It’s been good – if busy.

Ratty

Having spent ten minutes in a queue, and being barged into each time I move forward – by the same person each time – on the last five occasions, when the sixth occurrence happens, is it really all that unreasonable to turn round and say to the woman “If you slam into me again, I will break your fucking leg” ?

The reaction of the incompetent twat (I’ve never dealt with someone in need of lessons in how to walk before) would seem to imply that she felt I was in the wrong, and should perhaps enjoy being walked into, or at least understand how someone’s sense of spacial awareness can be that fucking flawed.

Temptation

So far I’ve resisted – but the rabid moose-collector in me (no, not rabid moose, but the rabid collector) is slowly breaking down. Disney’s latest, “Brother Bear”, while appealing to me about as much as herpes, has not one but two moose characters, Rutt and Tuke, and they’re available in either 15″ height or 18″.

Must…. Resist….

Besides, I’m sure plenty of people know I collect the bloody things. So maybe Christmas will be moosified. And in the meantime I’m just off to sue the subtlety school…

IWOOT

There’s not a lot I can say about this link that I’d forgotten yesterday. But if you want to see a purple dancing hippo, this is the link to click…

Eeek

In a fit of being horrendously organised (I’m yet to decide whether that means I’m exceptionally organised, or organised horrendously) I’m off after work to sign up for a proper little office unit thing for my company to operate from. It’s a complete pain in the arse that it’s happening now, rather than in a month’s time, but that’s the way the world goes, I suppose.

I’ve been wanting to seperate the company registered address from my home address for a while now. There’s a range of reasons for doing so – but the main one is just to be able to seperate work and home. 2004’s likely to be manic enough, without having that kind of thing to contend with as well. But christ, it’s all a bit grown-up and sensible.

Short Fuse

The office where I work has installed a new lock system on the doors. It’s not difficult – the swipe card we had anyway just needs to be waved in front of the sensor. Even the most cerebrally challenged should be able to open doors with it no worries.

So far, not one single person going through the door has managed to get it right first time.

So many people – bearing in mind that the door has always had a lock on it – are now trying to open the door without using the swipecard first, it’s really beginning to fuck me off. Every single one gives it a yank (Fnarr) before remembering about the new card. Then the card gets used, a *beep* comes from the fucking doorbox (and I can tell you now, that beeping little bastard is due for a fix a la windchimes) they give it a tug again (Fnarr again) before the lock’s disengaged. It’s not rocket science, but this bunch of fucking ‘tards still can’t get their heads round a new locking system.

The best one was a woman who’s obviously used to doors that just push open, who was completely befuddled by technology like – well – a door handle. I despair.

Shite

I was intending to blether today about a very silly piece of animation I got from a friend – only I’m utterly crap, woke up late, and forgot to get the URL. So I’ll add it in later tonight, when I finally get home.

Down

There’s been a lot going on in my head of late. The SAD has hit me harder than it has in years, and I’d tried to take the advice of someone else (for once) and keep myself busy this year. Well, that’s been a fuck-up of epic proportions. I’d thought it might be better to be busy, to be out and about rather than inside and in the throes of an SAD blot. How wrong could I be?

The thing is, I’m now in a position where I don’t really know how to break the circle. Not exactly a situation I’m used to, and definitely not one I’m comfortable with. I wish I were – it would make life a shitload easier than it currently is. Instead, my brain keeps racing at 200mph round a figure-of-eight racetrack, never quite coming off the track, but coming close.

One thing that’s not helping is the onset of the true Festering Season™. I’ve got friends staying here for it – and in all honesty that’s a first. I’ve absolutely no clue even where to start when it comes to the general Christmas Day thing, because it’s not something I bother with. I’m still not going to go over the top – but these are friends whose opinions I care about, so yes, the entire concept is preying on my mind. And yes, I feel like a twat for letting it get to me – but it is, so there’s not much I can do.

This Too Will Pass

Do you ever have days where there’s just nothing working right, and even if it were working, you still wouldn’t have the words to describe it?

Today is one of those days for me. I can’t think what to write, nor even how to string words together in an interesting way. So we’ll call this a one-day hiatus, a brief interlude, and keep quiet about it ’til tomorrow. At which point I’ll have hopefully managed to get some sleep, and not feel like utter, utter shit.

Calling a Spade a Manual Digging Implement

According to the BBC, Donald Rumsfeld has been given an award for speaking complete bollocks. I love the Plain English Campaign‘s annual awards – there’s normally something funny within them – particularly for the “Foot in Mouth” award (which is the one Rumsfeld received) for people who make absolutely no sense. The “Golden Bull” ones are quite stunning too.

A World Aids Day Christmas Carol

Today, it just seems somehow apt to bring you this utterly utterly non-work-safe link – I don’t know if it has sound (my work computer doesn’t have sound, so I’ve no idea ’til I get home) so be careful. via Green Fairy…

The 12 STDs of Christmas.

A Moral reminder for the Festering Season.

Current thoughts

Looking at the article in the Guardian, I have to say that I don’t find it surprising to know that hetersexual HIV infections now outnumber homosexual ones. What happened to the HIV/AIDS adverts of the 80s and 90s? They’ve all disappeared, sucked up into the air of apathy and “it won’t happen to me” that seems to abound.

When HIV first came out as “the new threat”, condom adverts and so on were everywhere. Everyone knew that condoms meant safety from HIV, as well as a range of other transmitted diseases. Now, if you ask teenagers – or even a whole load of adults – they don’t know, or more damningly, they don’t bother. Yes, we need a better programme of sex education – not just for schoolchildren, but for everyone.

The British HIV Association aims to improve education and knowledge about HIV – as does the National Aids Trust. But what the entire AIDS industry (if you’ll pardon the expression – I simply can’t think of a better word for it) needs is a vociferous spokesperson, a media-savvy entity that can push for the education, the advertising, the knowledge.

In March of this year, NAT started the “Are you HIV prejudiced?” campaign. Had you even heard of it? Have you seen anything about it, anywhere? Me either.

There are enough HIV information sites out there – now we just need to find a way to make them more visible, to put the knowledge out and force an apathetic and complacent public to take note.

It’s not just me

I’ve just had to laugh at the story from today’s Manchester Evening News about the christmas obsessive who’s had her Santa Claus kidnapped. People after my own heart.

Personally, I don’t have a particular problem with people who insist on doing up their houses in all forms of cheap nasty tacky decorations for the Festering Season. Well OK, I might take the piss, and despair a bit – but at the end of the day, it’s their property, they can do with it what they want.

However, when people put their external christmas decorations up on Bonfire Night, (5th November, for non-UK readers) that’s taking the piss. I can’t blame people for taking Santa hostage in order to make sure that (as detailed in the story) she turns off all the external lights etc. at midnight, rather than leaving them on all night. Seems reasonable to me…

World AIDS Day

Well, December 1 rolls round again. World Aids Day – and still there’s so far to go. A new policy has been announced to ensure another 3 million people get treatment for AIDS by the end of 2005 More information about it is available at the UNAids site. But at the end of the day, that isn’t likely to even cover the number of new infections over the next two years. Currently, there are about 42 million people in the world who are HIV positive – and the number is growing, regardless of initiatives, plans, policies, and charities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has a whole repository of information about HIV on a global scale. Even Weasel-Boy Blair has thrown in his ten penceworth of soundbite bullshit today. Not that he appears to give a stuff about HIV and AIDS at any other time of the year.

And that – as with many other special “days” – is the crux of the problem. HIV isn’t just something tobe talked about and thought about on one day a year. For 42 million people it’s there day in, day out – a constant reminder of mortality. For millions more it’s a reality, a life measured in six-month segments as they get regular tests, waiting for their own red-blood-cell lottery to come up, hoping it’ll beat the odds, expecting that one day it won’t. HIV is here to stay, and in common with every other virus in the world, we’ve no idea how to even begin curing it.

Fucking cunting Monday

Oh, it’s going to be one of those days. Two and a half FUKING hours to get into work. No reason, no excuse, and the GMPTE (the people who supposedly co-ordinate/organise public transport in Greater Manchester) both a) have no fucking clue why the entire of East Manchester is apparently served by two buses today, and b) don’t appear capable of giving a shit. Orbital levels of pissed off, that don’t even bear a vague resemblance to normality. So far as I’m concerned, just on the basis of today both Stagecoach Manchester and First Bus both now qualify for a world-infamous “Piss-Up in a Brewery” award.