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.