Or Not

Proof Positive that spammers don’t know me – or that they really crave attention of the vilest sort. I’ve just received a spam from “Kris Kringle” (American for Father Christmas/ Santa Claus/ that fat jolly bearded old cunt in the red suit) about “the hottest Christmas toy of 2003”. So hot, it’ll probably burn it’s way right onto the “most nicked pre-Christmas item” list.

Aaaaaaand Relax.

Ok, the Prince of Profanity (© Gordon Something) has been popped back into his room with the nice soft padded walls. It seems like in some cases quality (or indeed obscenity) is better than quantity – with three posts all day. yesterday was one of the busiest days on d4d™.

Of course, links from Gert, Gordon, Chasing Daisy as well as an apparent listing on Blogshares all helped. And never let it be said I’m behind the times, when it comes to mentioning Blogshares now. *Grin*

Anyway, today’s looking slightly improved – I got some sleep, and my brain’s not quite into Tourette’s mode. (<Tangent> Is it Tourettes or Tourette’s? I have no idea – I’m going on the theory that it’s the syndrome discovered by Tourette, hence the apostrophe.</Tangent>) Then again, I’ve still got to figure out the hacks needed for that putrid gangrenous swampdonkey known as IE, so there may just end up being another sweary post later.

Internet Exploder

One of these days, I want to meet that tosspot who implemented CSS rendering within Internet Explorer. I’d like to shake the fucker warmly by the throat, then proceed to give them a major kicking.

My day today has consisted of a task that took ten minutes at most to cover Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, Gecko in general, and any other graphical browser (i.e. non-text-only) on the planet. Except one. Fucking wanky bollock-sucking knob-jockey IE, and it’s rancid festering scumlicking minions. All that’s required was a simple bar across the top of the page that stays there while the graphic scrolls underneath it. Piece of piss in everything else – you just give it a “position:fixed;” property in the CSS. Bingo, job bloody well done.

Except of course for the shit-shifting piece of toss we know and love as IE. It doesn’t even fucking recognise the position:fixed attribute, let alone render the cunt properly. Instead you’ve got to go round the houses, hacking the shit out of CSS in order to make IE read bits that all the other browsers don’t fucking need. And the furtling spunk-monkey still doesn’t pissing well bastard work.

Yes, it’s been a stunning day. Thanks for fucking asking.

Bollocky Bastards

I’m so glad I don’t know where the BT Broadband office is. The supercilious fucktard I’ve just spoken to would be in receipt of a kick in the head if I did.

“According to our system, your ADSL was installed today“
“So why wasn’t it done on Monday, when it was arranged for?”
<supercilious smartarse sarcasm>
  “Well, obviously there was a pause put on it on the system somewhere“
</supercilious smartarse sarcasm>
“Well, would it be beyond your obvious charm and exceptional customer service skills to inform me why there was a pause within the system, and why your people couldn’t inform me of this prior to the installation date?”
“I refuse to be spoken to like that. Goodbye. “*Click*

Fucking little wankstick cunt. I’m going to leave it ’til I get home – that way I can swear properly while on hold. For now, it’s time to figure out what’ll bring my mood down to slightly less incandescent. Working on problems with IE’s handling of CSS isn’t helping either. Piece of hairy-arsed monkey-buggering shite that it is.

Ug.

Sparkling wit and scintillating conversation are not likely to be my forté today, I’m afraid. Last night insomnia reared it’s ugly head for the first time in a while, and as a result I’ve had a truly shit night. Time will tell, but I’ve a nagging suspicion that I may not update a lot today. Then again, I may do- it’s in the hands of the Gods for the moment.

You have been warned.

Donna Tartt, St Anne’s

What can I say? It was great. The church itself is lovely – I’d never been inside before, but I now want to go back, and take some photographs of the interior. The lighting wasn’t good enough today, due to the timing. It’s a stunning place, and the stained glass windows are absolutely beautiful.

Donna Tartt was obviously feeling under the weather – she did say she had a cold, and she was quite obviously nervous to be doing a reading to the gathered 300-400 people. I can understand that – in a similar situation I know I’d have been in a far worse state. Because of her nerves, the reading (the prologue to “The Little Friend”) started off in a very stilted fashion, but as she relaxed it became far better. Once it was done, she took some questions from the audience, but again that was cut shorter than usual because of the sheer number of people.

All in all, it was an interesting hour or so – and I managed to pick up a hardcover edition of Secret History, which is now also signed. Makes it worth the £3 ticket price, particularly as the price is refunded against the book purchase price.

Poodle?

So, according to Tony Bliar (intentional), the UK isn’t America’s poodle. Apparently the UK went to war in alliance with the US “to make our country safer”. Yeah right.

To be fair, I’d agree that we’re not the poodle to the US. I was thinking more that we were the Andrex puppy. (NOT a site for the faint-hearted or diabetic, I should point out)