Paperwork and Bureaucracy
Posted: Sun 10 December, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Own Business, Thoughts Leave a comment »There’s always one downside of moving – sorting out changing the address details on everything.
Hell, even my poxy bank won’t let me change my address on-line. My credit card will. My bank won’t. “We’re working on it. Maybe next year” Yeah, right. Bunch of cunts. Hell, they even fucked it up when I had to do it by phone.
I think we’re now pretty much done on the changes, so we’re now officially here.
And I’ve got a little business idea…
Tree
Posted: Sat 9 December, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Festering Season Leave a comment »
Oh, can’t you just tell that the Festering Season is looming large. There seem to be more and more chavtastic house decorations every year – and while the town centre of Attleborough actually looks OK, there’s one hell of a lot of places that look really really nasty.
Today, we had to go out and buy a tree. Woo, lucky us. To be honest, I don’t mind – Herself decorate the tree in a fairly nice way, without too much tat, but equally I’d be quite happy to not have one at all.
Still, it’s going to be in the conservatory this year, as we’ve got one, and that’s fine.
New House – One Week On
Posted: Sat 9 December, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »So yes, as well as the entire Local Cooling thing having been done a week ago, it’s now also a week since we moved into the new place. Amazing how time flies when you’re having fun, isn’t it?
In that week, though, we’ve been fairly busy. Considering that this time last week we were still really in just a house full of boxes, we’re now pretty much settled, although there’s still one room that’s full of boxes. Then again, most of those aren’t likely to get unpacked unless it’s a situation of great need (i.e. I’ve got nothing to read) because it’s the dread book boxes, and if we can get away with not needing to unpack those and then repack them in six months time, that’s A Good Thing. (But I bet at least one gets opened and fecked about with in the time we’re here)
But the place is pretty much sorted. We’ve had to buy a new fridge (the kitchen isn’t designed to hold a fridge-freezer, and it’s a pain in the arse to have to go out to the garage every time you make a cup of tea or whatever) Actually, we’ve bought two fridges, only the first one didn’t fit, because while the gap for the appliance may look like a standard 600mm gap, the fuckwit twats who fitted it actually made it about 570mm. No idea why, other than incompetence, but there we go. So the first fridge we bought was 585mm wide – and of course didn’t fit the fucking hole. So we had to take it back, and order a different one instead.
Moral of this part of the story – Assume all you want, but make sure you still measure the fucker before buying anything to fit.
Other than the fridge farce, well, the place isn’t perfect – there’s a small matter of some holes in the garden fences and hedges that an inquisitive collie can disappear through with ease, and there’s also a ditch down one side of the garden that the self-same collie can dive into and come out muddy and stinking. So at some point, probably this weekend, we’re going to put up a temporary fence (Blues Brothers moment : “Chicken Wire?”) which’ll stop her from doing that too much. But it’s an OK place, it means we’re based where we want to be, and can start checking out the surrounding area, finding the places we’d like to live on a more permanent basis – and, of course, also the ones that we wouldn’t touch with a shitty stick.
Speaking of animals, Psycho Cat is still cooped up in the house, and while he’s settling into the idea, he’s still a grumpy, tempramental little sod (who really does put the mental in tempramental) and Hound is being very careful to not push her luck too much with him.
But yes, one week in, and things seem to be going OK. Only another five months and three weeks to go…
Local Cooling – One Week On
Posted: Fri 8 December, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Green Leave a comment »Well, it’s a week since I talked about Local Cooling, and in that week, I’ve apparently saved 5KWh of electricity, which works out as quarter of a tree, or 2.3 barrels of oil.
In that week, Local Cooling has gained about 9,000 users – and while obviously some users will be better than others when it comes to saving energy, it still makes for a lot of people starting to get the idea about saving energy.
And that’s got to be a good thing!
First Class?
Posted: Fri 8 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »Can someone tell me, just what is the point of buying a first class ticket when you’re on a regional train?
I can understand it (up to a point) on the big long cross-country jobs – I used to take advantage of club class, first voyager, or whatever the feck they called it when I was travelling reguarly between Manchester and Reading, because most of the time it was the only way to guarantee getting a seat. Even better, it was normally a seat that wasn’t dead opposite a squealing child, or some mad git trying to talk to everyone. And you make sure you take advantage of the free snacky things and so on that come as part of the “benefits” of ‘first class’ when you have to pay that much extra, so it kind of works out. (well, it doesn’t, but if you get enough freebies off them, you can almost convince yourself it’s worth paying double the price – and having a seat for four+ hours is a definite advantage over standing for the entire journey.)
But when it comes to the small regional trains, the only difference between first and standard class is that you’re in a different spot on the train. There’s absolutely no extra benefit. Well, maybe again you get a seat – but on all the services I’ve used of late (whether it’s London – Bracknell, Cambridge-London, or Cambridge-Attleborough) have all had free “normal” seats.
So what is the point of the first class bit on these little local services? Other than, of course, to fleece egotistical twats who think it makes them special, and to fill the coffers of yet another train company? </cynicism>
Typo
Posted: Thu 7 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News 1 Comment »I love this advert, in Guardian Jobs…
Absolutely brilliant.
UPDATED : Ah, the rotten sods have pulled the advert. No fun at all.
Paste’n’Go
Posted: Thu 7 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Weirdness 1 Comment »One other thing (which Jann mentions in a comment below) I experienced yesterday with Firefox was that all of a sudden all my keyboard shortcuts stopped working.
I couldn’t use [tab] to switch between form fields (which is one of the things I do a lot of, for some godforsaken reason) , couldn’t use Ctrl+Enter in the address bar, nowt.
Turns out, it’s a bug in the Paste’n’Go extension – that had an update yesterday as well, and it just blew the keyboard shortcuts away.
If you disable that extension, all the keyboard shortcuts come back…
Avoiding Scams
Posted: Wed 6 December, 2006 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Getting Organised Leave a comment »The Motley Fool has an interesting piece today about avoiding various scams etc.
Personally, I still find it amazing that people fall for scams like these. I love the way people are so stupid that they’ll send money out as a ‘transfer fee’ to get their winnings from a lottery they’ve never entered in a country they’ve never even visited. So far as I’m concerned, that’s just like an idiot tax – you’re an idiot, you deserve to lose the money.
In a semi-related note (and I know I’ve whittled on about this one before) I also find it amazing that spam comments or emails get any results at all. I mean, what’s the point of the ones I get every day, that say things like (and this is a copy of one of the texts)
Thank you for your loan request, which we recieved yesterday, your refinance application has been accepted
Bad credit OK, We are ready to give you a $339,000 loan, after further review, our lenders have established the lowest monthly payments.
Approval process will take only 1 minute.
Please visit the confirmation link below and fill-out our short 30 second Secure Web-Form.
Does anyone respond to the damn’ things? And lets face it, if they do, they deserve everything they get…
Passwords etc.
Posted: Wed 6 December, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised 2 Comments »For some reason, this morning, my Firefox install at work has decided to blank out all my remembered passwords and so on. I don’t know why – I haven’t done a clean-up of my saved private data or anything, and it’s bloody annoying.
At the same time, it’s probably a good thing – there were a couple of sites where I’d forgotten the password myself, and was just relying on Firefox to remember it (which is just another of the reasons I like Firefox in the first place) but now I’ve had to go on and get it changed.
All the same, though, I’d really like to know why the poxy thing decided to develop e-Alzheimers…
Moving – Stage 2 – Redux
Posted: Mon 4 December, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel 2 Comments »Oh jesus, I was right, it was a really long day. We left at 6:30am, got to Bracknell for about half eleven – although that did include a break for breakfast. There’d been an accident on the M11, and the M25 was solid from Junction 25 to 16, so we thought “Sod that” and went via the North Circular Road instead, which (while longer) at least meant we were moving.
Having picked up the animals – both of whom were fine – we drove back, leaving at about 12:30, and getting home by 3pm. In fact, the journey back was incredibly smooth.
They’re now both settling in – Hound is cool, thinks the new place is great, but Psycho Cat is seriously unimpressed, both with the journey, and with having to stay Indoors now he’s in the new place. There’s abso-bloody-lutely no chance that he’s going to stay indoors for the recommended two weeks…
Well, not unless we also want to visit the vets, with a severely beaten-up Hound…
Moving – Stage 2
Posted: Mon 4 December, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel Leave a comment »In an effort to reduce our stress levels slightly, we’ve had Hound and Psycho Cat in kennels while we move. Life would’ve been irredeemably more complex if we’d also had to keep an eye on those two while removals men traipsed in and out all day, as well as the presence of the Outlaws, etc.
However, the down side of this idea is that now we’ve done the main bit of the move, and all is ensconced in the new place, today we’re driving back down to Wokingham to pick up the animals, and then have two-and-a-half-ish hours (being optimistic) coming back with both of them in the car.
It’s going to be a looong day…
On go the lights
Posted: Sun 3 December, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season Leave a comment »It seems that our now town of residence has some interesting idiosyncracies.
Not least among these is the fact that everyone seems to have done their outdoor christmas lights today, and there appears to have been some kind of town-wide ceremonial switch-on.
All of a sudden this evening, the things seem to have gone on all over the place. It’s very strange. On the plus side, there’s one or two installations that aren’t completely chavtastic. Although that does leave the huge majority still being fit for that title….
300D
Posted: Sun 3 December, 2006 Filed under: General, Thoughts Leave a comment »Having walked past the local Jeep/Chrysler office every weekday for the past two months, I can categorically state that the Chrysler 300D is one of the most butt-ugly cars I’ve ever seen.
I mean, there’ve been plenty of other ugly cars over the years, but man, that 300D is one seriously ugly bit of tin.
24-Hour
Posted: Sun 3 December, 2006 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Just while I’m away, and nothing’s happening here (well, except the nascent starts of a redesign which may or may not come to fruition)…
I went to the local 24-hour store last night, and found the owner locking the doors to go home.
“I thought this was a 24-hour store?”
“Not all in one chunk” he replied© Steven (not Steve) Wright
Sorted
Posted: Sat 2 December, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Amazingly, both BT and Sky did what they’d promised.
By the time the Sky man arrived (at about 10am) the phone line was active – broadband didn’t come online ’til about 5pm, but BT had said that it could be anytime ’til 8pm. So that’s OK.
But surely this is a sign of the impending apocalypse?
Norfolk in Chance
Posted: Sat 2 December, 2006 Filed under: General Leave a comment »So, we’re now Norfolkians.
Oh dear, oh dear – there’s just no hope for us, is there?
Moving
Posted: Fri 1 December, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Travel 1 Comment »If I were you, I wouldn’t expect too much from D4D™ this weekend – we’re moving from Berkshire to Norfolk, and while we’ve got a a removals company doing most of the hard work (well, they’re moving it, but we’ve packed it all up) we’re still going to be doing a lot of moving stuff about and getting it all in the right places.
And for some reason I very much doubt that Herself will see connecting broadband as being a priority…
Secret Millionaire
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »Last night, on Channel 4, I watched one of the best (in my opinion) bits of TV this year. Made by the same people as “Faking It” (which was another of my long-term favourite series), “Secret Millionaire” each week takes one multi-millionaire and puts them in a scenario way outside their normal environment.
In last night’s programme (the first of the series) Ben Way was in one of the most deprived parts of London, the “Murder Mile” of Hackney, volunteering to work in the local youth centre, the Pedro Club. In an area with one of the highest percentages of under-16s in the country, this is the only youth centre, and it was really awesome to see how much they did with so little.
The kicker for the programme, though, is that these (in general) self-made multimillionaires are also looking at where their donations could have the greatest effect, the most benefits, and be appreciated the most. And it makes for great TV, when Way came back at the end of the ‘volunteering’, fully suited and booted, to give cheques to the people he’d decided needed it the most, or would benefit the most.
OK, he “only” gave away £40,000 – but to the people involved, those amounts could’ve had an extra zero on them, for the impact they made.
For me, though, it was also seeing that at the end, Way is still going back to the Pedro Centre, and is still heavily involved. To him, it wasn’t ‘just’ a TV programme – this was something where he learned about other people, got involved, and stayed involved.
Maybe I do live in an altruistic bubble, where I believe that people should work better with each other, and yes, maybe I am a bit of a hippie about some of these things. But this was a programme that kind of reaffirmed those ideas in me, and it was great to see something on TV that was about something rather more altruistic, touchy-feely, and generous than the great majority of current mainstream programmes.
Well worth the effort of finding it, if it’s repeated – alternatively, the next episode will be next Wednesday, on Channel 4, 9pm.
Local Cooling
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Green 1 Comment »A company called UniBlue have released a product called LocalCooling.com, a small application that makes power management on your PC or laptop a lot easier.
Yes, I know a lot of this can be done via the Windows power management stuff – but the application makes it a lot easier to do, without needing to ferret around in Control Panel etc. (As per usual, I’d already changed a lot of the settings in order to reduce power consumption etc., but most people don’t)
It’ll take some time to see how it all pans out, but yeah, initially at least, I’d say it’s worth checking out.
In Progress
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »Well, according to Herself, the removals men turned up by 8:30 this morning.
It’s now nearly 12 noon, and they’re just leaving.
It’s all happening, and tomorrow we’ll be unloading all our shit into a new house…
Life Tech
Posted: Thu 30 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »As I’m coming to the close of the “working away from home” period, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the stuff I’ve been doing, and the way I’ve been living over the last couple of months. While I can’t deny that in many ways I’ve been depressed and demotivated, I know I’ve also been able to get a lot of things done that I wasn’t expecting, or wasn’t necessarily planning on doing. Oh yeah, and I’ve been able to get started on some plans for the next 12 months as well, which is always a good thing, considering that it’s bloody December tomorrow.
Anyway, of all the stuff I’ve been thinking about, there’s been two – OK, probably three, but only two are ‘recent’ additions – things that’ve made my life one hell of a lot easier than it could have been in other circumstances.
Of course, being a geek, they’re both/all techie things, but really that shouldn’t come as any shock.
First, and this is the one that’s not ‘recent’ is just a mobile phone. It’s meant I’ve been able to keep in touch with Herself, as well as sorting out a lot of stuff that would have been far, far harder (and far more expensive) in the days before mobile communications.
Second, and probably the saddest, would be the little USB Freeview dongle thingy. While it was initially shit, and is/was utterly crap with the supplied mini-aerial, once it was connected to a proper “real” aerial, it’s been bloody marvellous. In honesty, I’ve watched some unutterable shite, but again it’s also kept me up to date with the things I do want to watch, and keep up to date. (Which reminds me, Torchwood is improving in leaps and bounds – and it was pretty good to start with!)
And the top thing that’s made my life a lot easier? The new laptop that I got just before starting this job. No, it’s not cutting edge, but it’s a fairly decent spec, and it’s been great over the last two months. The previous one, while it had a shit-hot battery life, was pretty slow, and would have been next to useless for a lot of the things that I’ve been doing – even the simple stuff, like watching a DVD, or the USB Freeview dongle.
All very sad, but it’s some of the things you never really think about unless you’re in the same situation.
Lego® bricks
Posted: Wed 29 November, 2006 Filed under: General, Photography Leave a comment »(via Slashdot)
Fantastic photo-story on how lego® bricks are made. Makes for really interesting reading, along with some great photos.
Headlong
Posted: Wed 29 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »The big move is trundling along nicely.
Sky have confirmed (twice) that they’ll be doing the install at the new place on the day we arrive, which is a bonus – considering I was initially told that there were no available slots on that day, or for the forseeable future in the new location.
BT are still insisting that the switchover from Bracknell to Attleborough will happen with no problems, and will all go ahead on Friday. I’m still unconvinced – but who knows, they may decide to be impressive for once.
Removals people arrive in Bracknell at (roughly) 9am tomorrow, get everything loaded, then trundle up to Norfolk, and then it all gets unloaded on Friday morning.
It’s going to be weird – but great – to be back to going home in the evening!
Pizza Hut
Posted: Tue 28 November, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 4 Comments »Why on Earth would anyone queue to get into fucking Pizza Hut ?!?
Lunchtime today, going in to the city centre, and yes, a queue of people outside bloody Pizza Hut.
Even better, in true irony, Pizza Express over the road was totally empty…
People are strange.
Problem Solved
Posted: Tue 28 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 2 Comments »Yesterday, Jann pointed out that there was a problem with D4D™ if you tried to get here by clicking on a link from another site. Ooops
Turns out, I’d forgotten to copy over a database user which was only being used for one particular function on the site – yep, the one that checked when people were coming in from other sites. Feck
Anyway, ’tis all fixed now, so all should be well again. I hope.
Mondays
Posted: Tue 28 November, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »I wish I knew why Monday nights at the moment were such a complete pain for me.
For some reason I just seem to invariably have a shitty night’s sleep (well, lack of sleep) on a Monday – I don’t know if it’s the results of the day, or of the travel, or just being in a new bed (although I’ve been in the same room at the B&B for the last month or so, so that shouldn’t be relevant really) but Mondays are always bloody awful.
Packed
Posted: Sun 26 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Currently, the living room is a maze of boxes. So’s the kitchen. So’s the office.
Why is it that as soon as you pack everything into boxes, it all seems to expand to fill all available space? You wonder how you’ve managed to accumulate so much crap – and yet when it all comes out at the other end, it’ll all revert to it’s normal space allocation.
Bizarre.
But it does have the side-benefit of making me realise (again) how much stuff we have accumulated, while also working as a bit of a rationalisation exercise (again) to reduce those levels of stuff, or at least re-allocate them off to
- a local charity shop
- recycling places
- a skip
or - the local tip, as a last resort
Diet Coke
Posted: Sat 25 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Travel 2 Comments »Why is it that the following phrase has so many problems being understood?
A Diet Coke, please, with no ice or lemon
Over the last two months, I’ve been eating in restaurants four nights out of seven. Some places have become regular haunts, some have been one-offs, some are just irregular “when I feel like it”s. But the commonality with all of them is that it’s incredibly rare to get what I ask for.
- Drink with ice, but no lemon. Common
- Drink with no ice, but lemon. Equally common
- Drink with both. Worryingly common
- Drink with neither – i.e. what I ordered. Depressingly rare
I just don’t get what the issue is with that order…
Drinking Habits
Posted: Fri 24 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »One year ago today, the UK licensing laws changed to allow 24-hour drinking, which in theory was going to mean that there wasn’t the crush of people at 11pm when the pubs closed, and that it wouldn’t mean loads of drunk people were all chucked out at the same time to wait for taxis etc., which was when fights broke out.
So, one year on, has it worked? According to the BBC, No
There was also a load of old bollocks being spouted at the time that 24-hour opening would mean people went out and drank more, or more regularly, and so it was The End Of The World (© Daily Mail, Daily Express, et al.).
One year on, has that happened? According to the same story, No.
What a shocker.
Of course, it’s not the time that’s the issue when it comes to drinking (and to many other things) – it’s the fact that in most cases, the amount of disposable income that can be used for socialising, drinking, whatever is a) finite and b) hasn’t changed. So while people have more hours in which they can drink, they still have the same amount to spend on drink, and so the change hasn’t happened.
Quelle surprise.
Bobble-Hats
Posted: Fri 24 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts 1 Comment »I know I give them fairly regular links and comments here, but I still really like Innocent Drinks and their attitude to life in general.
At the moment, they’re doing a very silly, but really good promotion where the bottles have little knitted bobble-hats. Even better, for every one of these bottles sold, innocent will give 50p to Age Concern. With the 175,000 bobble-hats that’ve been done for innocent, that adds up to £87,500 given to Age Concern.
Absolutely brilliant – and really nice to see a company leading the way on things like this.
Oh, and the bobble-hats fit perfectly on mobile phones, for extra silliness.
Sky Redux
Posted: Thu 23 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Following on from the farce a couple of days ago with dealing with the idiots at Sky’s “Customer Services” I called them again.
Six calls to India later, having dealt with idiots who couldn’t take down phone numbers correctly, in fact couldn’t do anything correctly, and were incapable of passing a phone-call to anyone else in the department – cutting me off each time, which meant I then had to call back – I ended up speaking to someone in the UK call centre instead.
And lo, the Moving Home form hadn’t been received, so I had to go through it all again. What a shocker. Even better, I’ve paid £40 for an installation fee, then been told they can’t find a free slot, so they’ll call me back.
That, of course, was 24 hours ago, and nothing’s happened.
Sky really are a useless bunch of cunts. It almost makes me want to go back to NTL. Not quite, though.
Finally
Posted: Thu 23 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Hallelujah. The domain switchover has finally happened at work as well. So now I can add and edit stuff on D4D™ in the same way I always used to.
I’ve still no idea why it took so long for work’s systems to change the server address, but at least it’s all done now.
Yay!
Rental Car – Again
Posted: Thu 23 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’ve just gone through the process of sorting out a rental car for next weekend, which should make life a lot easier.
Basically it means that on the Thursday, I can pick up the car, sort out stuff in Cambridge, then I either go up to Norfolk on the Thursday night, or I can get up to the new house directly on the Friday morning.
The bizarre bit, though, is that it is only costing me about £5 more to rent the car Thursday – Monday than it is to rent it Thursday – Friday. My brain can’t quite process the logic of that one, I’m afraid…
Seasonal
Posted: Thu 23 November, 2006 Filed under: Depression, Festering Season, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last couple of days (well, this week, really) I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve been, and the stuff that’s been going on in my head.
I know that my motivation has been rock-bottom for a lot of the last two months, and that there’s a lot of stuff I could’ve done (perhaps even should’ve) but I just didn’t get round to it. I’ve actually preferred going back to the B&B, and – if I’m honest – really not doing much.
Of course, that’s still my version of “not doing much”, as opposed to anyone else’s version. I’ve still started an OU course, written loads of stuff for D4D™, put together two websites, written some snippets of code to help out other people, and gone through the jus of debugging those snippets when the recipients had NumptyMoments®, (I’m not going to name names – they know who they are!) written a butt-load of emails, sorted out various other odds and sods, written letters, and generally caught myself up on a fair number of things.
But still, I know that deep inside me, it’s been unproductive in a lot of ways – there’s a lot more I could’ve done, anyway- and that instead I’ve wanted to be curled up in my room/cave/whatever, rather than going out into the big wide world.
It’s no bad thing, in general. And I know that I’ve also needed the down-time. The first two-thirds of this year have not been great, and I’ve needed recovery time from all that crap.
But equally I do think – with perfect hindsight – that the old Seasonal Depression has caught up with me a lot this year as well, and I can now see/feel the effects of that too.
Once we’ve done the move, I’m hoping that things wil settle down a bit, and I can get on with some stuff. That’s the plan, anyway.
But more than anything else I think it’s just that I’m going to have to keep an eye on that old SAD this year. It’s been a couple of years since it’s really hit me, but I’m beginning to think that this year will be the one where it returns…
Preparation for Moving
Posted: Wed 22 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised 1 Comment »One of the supposedly fun things when it comes to moving is the transfer of existing stuff to the new place. Over the last couple of days I’ve had two experiences that were polar opposites.
First, BT. Amazingly – and obviously we still need to see the proof of it next Friday – they’ve been really efficient, and seem to be pretty well organised. I’ve been able to call them, organise the connection of a new phone line, and have the ADSL connection done at the same time, and making sure it’s ready to go on the day we move in. In addition, I know what our new account number will be, what the new phone number will be, and also everything is in place for getting the final bill sorted once we’ve moved – they’ll tell me how much it’ll be, and it’ll be paid by direct debit. And how long did it take to get everything sorted? One phone call, maybe fifteen minutes all told. Most impressive.
And then, of course, we come to Sky. So far I’ve had to register our user account online, go through the Sky website (a sack of shit in itself) follow useless ‘help’ information, fill in a form, and receive absolutely no information in return about whether they a) have received the information about us moving house, or b) will do anything about it.
So I tried calling them direct, and it took at least five minutes to get through five levels of automated voice stuff, “to direct me to the right person”. Once I’d eventually got to the ‘correct’ location, the person in the call-center answering told me their systems were down, and I’d have to try again! And all at national rate, too. I was promised a callback, but that hasn’t happened yet either.
So, BT are currently looking pretty impressive, and – as usual – Sky are looking like total tosspots.
Quiet
Posted: Tue 21 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised Leave a comment »D4D™ was quiet today – primarily because I could only get to the Old Server from work. I’ve no idea why it’s taken so long to migrate the DNS at work (unless the bugger’s cacheing big-time) but with luck normality will be restored tomorrow.
In the meantime, well, there’s been a bundle of stuff going on today, and I’ll be writing some more about it as I go on this evening – along with probably a back-up set of posts for the morning, just in case the DNS is still playing silly sods.
Bollocks
Posted: Mon 20 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Knew it was too good to be true.
Turns out, while the site’s domain details were saying “I’ve moved”, they hadn’t actually. Which I had a kind of nagging feeling might be the case.
So I’ve lost three posts – and a couple of comments – but only ’til tomorrow. Because I’m a bloody idiot, and the ‘back-up’ text file and database back-up I’d done are, um, at work.
And I’m not.
Bollocks
Paranoid
Posted: Mon 20 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised Leave a comment »It’s strange, but I’m still really really unconvinced that the server move went that smoothly.
My paranoid little brain keeps saying “It can’t have been that easy. Something’s going to go wrong”.
As such, I’m taking regular backups of the database at the moment, just so that if something does go wrong, I’ve got a backup and don’t lose anything. (Except maybe some time) I wish I weren’t this cynical and paranoid, but well, technical stuff just isn’t that smooth and problem free.
I think I’ll probably be happier about it once I’ve arrived at the B&B tonight, and been able to spend some time furkling in the database on the new server, so I know that these posts are entered on the new database, not the old one. Then I might be more reassured…
All Done
Posted: Mon 20 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Well, blimey. It all looks to have moved across to the new server disturbingly smoothly.
However, 34sp went tits-up this morning, which made it look like I’d made a complete bollocks of it. Fortunately, I hadn’t, it just looked like it. Fuckers.
Still, D4D™ is now on its nice new server, and things are looking good.
Big Drive
Posted: Mon 20 November, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised 1 Comment »Partly due to the move, but also partly down to my requirmeent for some more storage of geeky stuff at home, last week I ordered a 320Gb Western Digital “My Book”, which arrived in time for the weekend’s shenanigans.
And I have to say, it’s a fantastic little bit of kit – I’ve now got all my music, photos, and documents backed up on it, and I’m debating what else needs sticking on there for preservation purposes (must figure out how to save my FTP settings for all the various websites – although that should be lessened with the decision to change to that reseller account) so I can dump all that on there next weekend when I’m back home.
Definitely an impressive bit of kit – and one I’ll find many more uses for over time, I’m sure – and for less than £100 all told. Can’t be bad.
Reseller
Posted: Sun 19 November, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Own Business Leave a comment »Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be doing a fair amount of work on my various sites.
I’ve recently (i.e. in the last week) moved over to 34sp‘s reseller account, which basically means that all the sites I run will move to one server (when I move them, rather than when someone else tells me to) and all be able to be managed and maintained with one log-in rather than the 15 I currently have.
It also means I have 750Mb of webspace and 15Gb of monthly bandwidth to play with, which I can spread around the 15 sites. Some sites I handle need more bandwidth than others, but all the same, it should keep me going for a while.
At the same time, I get to save some money, and move some sites around from where they’ve been costing me more than they should. In fact, in the course of the first year, I stand to save more than I’ve actually paid out, due to getting refunded any remaining time on the existing hosting agreements, and also to save myself on one particular piece of hosting that’s proved to be remarkably optimistic – and thus unnecessary right at this moment.
So all told it’s going to be an interesting little project, and I’m quite looking forward to it, actually.
New Location
Posted: Sat 18 November, 2006 Filed under: General 3 Comments »Oh yeah.
Our new location? Attleborough, in Norfolk
All Quiet
Posted: Sat 18 November, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, all is likely to be pretty quiet here.
Because of the utter insanity of our timescales and lifestyles, we’re going to be doing a lot of the packing up, and general sorting out of the house this weekend. Yes, there’s still another weekend between now and Moving Day, but in that one we’re up in Birmingham at the Good Food Show, and – um – doing something else that I can’t quite remember right now.
But anyway, it means that this weekend we have various people round to help with shifting stuff about, getting it into boxes, slinging unwanted/broken stuff into a skip we’ve hired, and generally just getting ready all the stuff that we can get ready.
Hound is away in kennels for the weekend – she’ll enjoy it, and there’s no point in stressing her out while there’s loads of people around and moving stuff. She’ll be freaked out enough when she comes back to find her house mainly boxed up and ready to go.
Obviously there’s some bits that’ll wait ’til the removals people arrive on 30th November, and they’ll do all that, but all the fun stuff like books, DVDs, CDs, techie crap, desks, non-essential furniture and the like is all getting done this weekend.
I’ll be glad to get back to work on Monday for a rest!
Alarm Systems
Posted: Thu 16 November, 2006 Filed under: General Leave a comment »I came across this piece via Bruce Schneier’s CryptoGram email, but thought it was quite interesting:
Why millions of home burglar alarms are useless.
Sorted
Posted: Tue 14 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel 1 Comment »So yes, Saturday was successful. We’ve now got a place lined up, and it fulfils all the requirements on cost, location, availability, size, location, the lot.
It feels like we’re getting somewhere – and about time too.
As an extra side benefit, it means I’ve only got three weeks more of using B&Bs all week. And while it’s been an OK way to do things, being able to go home in the evening is going to be a really good thing. Yay, and indeed Woo.
Ug
Posted: Tue 14 November, 2006 Filed under: General, Health Leave a comment »I hate having a cold.
It’s 6am (OK, now 6:15am) and I’m wide awake. The skin at the bottom of my nose is glowing like Rudolph, and is sore. For some reason I’ve woken up, and my brain won’t let me go back to sleep. So instead I’m sat here, coughing my lungs up, sneezing, and generally feeling like shit.
Oh, and one of my nostrils is blocked by a plug of what I can only assume is snot, which has apparently congealed in a spot that is both unreachable and immovable.
Ain’t life glamorous?
Bleh
Posted: Mon 13 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Travel Leave a comment »Ah, you can tell it’s Monday 13th.
It’s 8am, and I’m still at home. By now I’m supposed to be in London, and pretty much on my way to Kings Cross in order to get my arse on the Cambridge train.
Only I feel like crap, having developed a cold and cough, and slept through the alarms. And now, well, I’m going to be late.
Still, it means the trains won’t be as crowded, with luck…
House Hunting
Posted: Sat 11 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »So today we’re going to be up in Norfolk, looking for a place to live. Well, to rent initially, and once we’re done with that and moved, we’ll be looking for somewhere to buy.
Currently, Herself has organised no less than six places for us to look at, so we should have something sorted by the end of the day, with luck.
It’s all coming together at last!
Giggage
Posted: Sat 11 November, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Music 1 Comment »Woo-Hoo.
Not content with finding that Nine Inch Nails are touring (again) in ’07, and booking a ticket to see them at Brixton Academy (and no, this time I am definitely not going to be taking a camera this time) I then found out that Massive Attack are also touring, and playing the same venue in February.
Fan-bloody-tastic.
On initial impressions, it looks like 2007 may be a promising year for gigs. Except, of course, for the fun that will be the travelling between Norfolk and London for the gigs themselves…
Schadenfreude 2
Posted: Fri 10 November, 2006 Filed under: Charm School Leave a comment »Walking back from work tonight, another joyous sight :-
There’s a whole bunch of police people doing safety checks on cyclists, and pulling over all those who don’t have any lighting. Which is good in itself, as there’s a fair number of cyclists in Cambridge who seem to think that all drivers have vision like Superman, and can spot a cyclist with no lights, in dark clothing, in November, at 6pm.
Even better, though, was the cyclist coming the other way, riding on the path, who almost rode into one of the police people. Needless to say, she was stopped and got a pretty serious bollocking.
I walked on, smiling.
Bizarre
Posted: Fri 10 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness 2 Comments »As I think I’ve said before, I’m a member (or gullible sucker, whichever) of one of those mail-order book club things.
Usually, they’re not too bad, and at least I get the books I want while not paying through the nose for them from Waterstones etc.
Anyway, this month I’d ordered The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, one of my favourite authors. And that’s definitely what the delivery note said they’d sent, too.
Only when I opened the box, it wasn’t the Book of Lost Things at all. Instead, it was this…
Yes, “Mustn’t Grumble” by Terry Fucking Wogan.
Now really, how the blinking chuff do you get those two mixed up?!? The mind boggles…
Total Nutter
Posted: Thu 9 November, 2006 Filed under: News, Weirdness Leave a comment »OK, I was wrong about the Strangest Story of the Week.
It’s actually this bloody idiot who for some reason decided to try lighting a firework that was, um, stuffed up his arse.
I honesly can’t even begin to think of any reasons why someone would think this was a good idea, let alone amusing. But there we go – I’d say it was a Darwin Award waiting to happen.
My favourite quote, though, has to be:
“We received a call stating there was a male who had a firework in his bottom and it was bleeding.
“He sustained fairly significant injuries in the fact that there’s huge damage to that particular area.”
Mastering the fine art of understatement…
Schadenfreude
Posted: Thu 9 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »I can’t deny it, there is something very satisfying about being a witness on some occasions. This morning’s walk to work proved to be one of those occasions.
At one of the sets of traffic lights, I got to see one cyclist ignore a red-light, go belting into the junction, only to collide with another cyclist who was also ignoring the red-light on their section of junction. Neither cyclist had checked to see if there was any other road-users, and both had just assumed that they had right of way.
Neither was hurt in the clash, but I think it brightened up the day of several drivers and pedestrians…
Fiscal Status
Posted: Thu 9 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Yet again, I’ve been thinking about debt, and all that financial guff. One of the things I got for my birthday was Alvin Hall’s What Not To Buy, which was another of the books I’d been interested in reading. When all’s said and done, I know I’m bad with money – but at least I acknowledge that in myself, and I try to be aware of my limitations – so actually I do a lot of work (and have done a lot over the last year) to make sure I don’t end up chuffed up and in debt.
But actually, what I’m realising is that because of that, I’ve ended up in a bloody good position. My debt level is minimal – one credit card, and that’s it. Even the credit card is really only being used for my work-related expenses, and is interest-free at the moment. (that’s a point – must remember to check when the interest-free bit runs out!)
So in many ways actually I don’t need the stuff about how to get out of debt, which is what a lot of the information in the books is about – it’s all more concerned with how to reduce your spending, sell off assets, and get out of the sht, rather than about how to not get in the shit in the first place.
All the same, it’s interesting – and bizarrely reassuring, in that I’m not necessarily the utter fuck-up I sometimes think I am…
Long Weekend
Posted: Wed 8 November, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography, Travel 1 Comment »So, a brief list about the weekend…
- Happy Hound because of
- Quiet nights
- Quiet village
- No fireworks
- Daily visits to Dunster beach, at least an hour each time
- Visit to Tarr Steps on Saturday
- Daily walks in the local park, which also had a stream
- Happy Us because of
- Happy Hound (see above)
- Being less than 300 yards from the village pub
- Fantastic weather
- Nice cottage through English Country Cottages
- Peace and Quiet
- Being able to turn off for a few days
And that just about sums it up.
Oh, and lots of photos that I need to do something about at some point soon.
Surreal
Posted: Wed 8 November, 2006 Filed under: News, Weirdness 2 Comments »And the award for “Most Surreal Story of the Week” goes to this little gem.
You just couldn’t make it up.
Out Of Whack
Posted: Wed 8 November, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »In fact, my entire week is completely out of kilter following that long weekend.
It is Tuesday today, right?
Christmas Stamps
Posted: Tue 7 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, Thoughts 2 Comments »Today, Royal Mail has released the images of their Christmas Stamps for 2006.
What I want to know is why they’ve gone with an image of Father Christmas taking a shit down a chimney as the First Class stamp ?
Back from the Wilderness
Posted: Tue 7 November, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel Leave a comment »Well, we’re back, following a really good weekend.
Hound had a fantastic time, involving at least two hours on the beach every day, and Saturday also involved a large amount of time at Tarr Steps, which she loved.
And now of course we’re back in the war-zone formerly known as Bracknell. Well, I was back for one night, and now I’m off to Cambridge for the week. Last night was back to normal for the war-zone, with Hound on sedatives for most of the evening.
We so need to move…
Starting Off Badly
Posted: Mon 6 November, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »Having signed up about ten days ago for that Open University course, I was expecting to get a bundle of paperwork, course information etc. last week. But it didn’t arrive. Hmm, that sounds familiar from last time I signed up with them.
Anyway, having given it a clear two weeks ’til today to allow them time to be inefficient, I gave them a call today. Turns out, despite having paid, and the money having left my account, they’d still got my account listed as “on hold” , rather than “registered”.
I’ve sorted it now, and the paperwork should be on its way. But really, it’s not an auspicious start to the course, is it?
Beginning to Study
Posted: Mon 6 November, 2006 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised Leave a comment »One thing I’ve banged on about a lot is re-starting myself in some education – either with evening courses, or through something like the Open University. For a variety of reasons, I’ve never really got round to it – mainly through moving either my house or my job at the time that course registration is going on. It’s not even a conscious thing, just the way timing works out.
I did sign up for an “Openings” course with the OU back while I was in Manchester, but the entire thing was farcical and went horribly wrong – including a tutor who never actually contacted me at all – and I ended up getting my money back following a formal complaint to them because of how fucked up the entire thing was.
Anyway, now I’ve got some time on my hands in the evenings – although I’ve got a whole bundle of things I intend to be doing as well – I decided to see if things were any better in a different area (I know, in theory they shouldn’t be, as OU is national, but I bet/hope they are) and signed up for another Openings course a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve no idea as yet what it’ll involve – but in theory they’re supposed to be about getting people back into the practice of study, and that’s definitely something I need. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how it goes this time.
XXXV
Posted: Sun 5 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, General 2 Comments »Holy Shit, I’m thirty-fucking-five.
Now there’s scary.
Away
Posted: Fri 3 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Things are likely to be quiet this weekend. We’ve gone off down to the wilds of Somerset. Primarily this is to keep Hound away from the worst ravages of fireworks (ravages? Barrages? Either works) by being in the arse-end of nowhere.
Personally I still quite like fireworks, although I’m sure some of that’s also down to being born on Fireworks Night, but at the same time I do hate the way they seem to be everywhere for about a month either side of November Fifth now, and I hate the way they affect Hound.
I would still like to see fireworks completely banned from sale to the public – and with some heavy fines to anywhere that did sell them. However, that doesn’t mean I want to see fireworks banned. I just want to see them only used in properly organised public events, rather than being set off by people in their back gardens without any real safety or consideration of others. I’d like to see public displays, but not displays by the public, if that makes sense.
Anyway, we’ll be back on Monday, and while there’s almost certainly going to be some updates over the weekend, it’s going to be quieter than usual.
Have a good one.
Back to Yellow
Posted: Fri 3 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Health Leave a comment »Now October’s over and done with, the default colour for D4D™ should’ve gone back to Yellow.
As I said at the time, D4D™ went that horrible pink colour by default for October as part of Breast Cancer Awareness month.
What’s really sad and geeky though is that I actually just wrote a simple little script-bit that’ll change it automagically in October from now on. I really need to get out more…
Heavy Debt Levels
Posted: Fri 3 November, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism 1 Comment »I was watching a thing on Channel 4 the other night about people in debt, and I must admit that I really don’t understand how (as in the case of this one programme) someone can end up with debts of £65,000 over the span of six years. I just don’t get that mindset of “I want [xxx], but I can’t afford it, so I’ll just get it on credit”.
Personally, I also fail to understand how someone can run up debts like that, and even keep it secret from their partner. I just couldn’t handle that much stress or deceit, to be honest.
Fuckin’ Comments
Posted: Thu 2 November, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised, Resolutions 1 Comment »Yes, yet a-fucking-gain, the comments system is down.
I’m going to be looking at upgrading/redesigning D4D™ to WordPress 2.0 while we’re away this weekend, I think.
Bloody thing.
UPDATED : And now it’s fixed again. Poxy thing, definitely needs looking at. Grrrr.
Tidal
Posted: Thu 2 November, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »You know, it really comes to something when you find yourself checking the tide times for the time you’re away, so that you know whether you can take the Hound to the beach at decent times…
Sleeping Positions
Posted: Thu 2 November, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Sometimes I truly despair of Psycho Cat.
Every week or two, he changes the place where he’s sleeping – usually he ends up gravitating back to sleeping on the bed in the end, but he does change what he’s doing every so often, and he’s a complete pain in the arse when he does so. Recently, he started sleeping in the laundry basket – on clean laundry, rather than dirty (Of course, he’s a cat) – but has now changed location again, and Herself sent me a photo of it…
Constant Motion
Posted: Wed 1 November, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »Tonight is my last night this week in Cambridge. Tomorrow I’ll be back in Bracknell, then we’ve got three nights in Somerset, then I’m back for one night in Bracknell, then back to Cambridge.
Next week I’m in Cambridge Tuesday to Thursday night, then I’m either in Cambridge or Norwich (depending on what we decide) on Friday and Saturday, and then probably back in Bracknell for one night before coming back to Cambridge for another week.
In short, over the next fortnight we’re running round like blue-arsed flies…
Halloween
Posted: Tue 31 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic 3 Comments »Oh good, it’s that day when little bastards go round knocking on doors and expecting sweets etc.
Now, where did I put those super-hot “joke” sweets?
Awake
Posted: Tue 31 October, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Why is it that even whem I’m utterly knackered, having been awake since 5.30 this morning that my body wakes up again at about 9.30pm ?
It’s now half midnight, and I’m not even vaguely interested in going to sleep.
Grrrrr….
The Return Drive
Posted: Mon 30 October, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Well, the return drive from Bracknell to Cambridge went OK in the end.
It didn’t start off well, as at 6 in the morning I couldn’t start the fucking car, and ended up having to call out the breakdown people. Turned out that the steering lock had engaged, and locked the key barrel of the ignition too, although it only took the AA man a few minutes of wiggling the wheel and swearing before it all worked. Fucking thing.
Finally left Bracknell at around 6:45, and got in to Cambridge for about 9, 9:15 – so not too bad at all, considering the M4 and M25 were starting to get busy. If I’d started off much later, I think the entire thing would’ve been a nightmare.
Would I do it again? No, probably not. It was more expensive than the train, more hassle (bizarrely) and saved me about 20 minutes all told. So no, not really worth doing. But it’s the first time I’ve been able to rent a car since passing the test, and it answered a lot of questions for me, so in that context the entire thing was a success. It means I know now that if I need to, I can rent a car easily – and in the next month or so it’s likely that I’ll need to do so at least once in order to go and check out rental places in Norfolk (far easier to do from Cambridge than from Bracknell) and so on, so yeah, it’s good to know that I can do it with no problems.
Mind you, I’m fucking knackered now…
Turning Back
Posted: Sun 29 October, 2006 Filed under: General Leave a comment »So – have you remembered to turn all your clocks back?
I’m sure we’ve still got a couple to do – but all the main ones have been done.
And lo, ’twas the run-up to the Festering Season once more.
Resolutions – The End of The Road
Posted: Sun 29 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the year, I’ve had a list of resolutions, and thought I’d do a quick update before the birthday rears its ugly head in a weeks time, as a kind of progress report.
- Photography
Macro Lens– yesPortfolio– working on it as a websiteTalk to Agents/Publishers– spoke to some photographic publishers, which is why the above item changed.Submit work to various places– started off with ImageKind, but no joy yet.Join local camera/photography club– tried, and it all turned to bollocksLook at potential for “proper” photography qualification– looked at it, but nothing that’s viable for 2006/7 academic year- Work
Get the three main sites up and running– two of three, and other ideas too- Make them successful – getting there
- Keep track of how they do – yes
- Reassess in Jan 2007 – if they haven’t worked, kill ‘em – moving this to various times in 2007
Get more smaller sites done and paid– yep, two so far, and more on the way- Writing
More “proper” writing– it’s starting – nothing publishable yet, but it’s starting- Longer pieces for d4d? – no, and that idea is back ‘on hold’
- D4D
- That bloody sweary filter. – nope
- Installing WordPress 2.0 – nope, and not going to
- Photoblogging? – nope, but may come up elsewhere
Thankfully, it actually it looks like I’ve managed to get a fair amount done since the last update back in July. And that’s something I’m pleased about – seeing how little I’d got done by that time was quite demoralising. I knew that the work I was doing at the time, and the influence of Arsehole Boss in general wasn’t helping my motivation one jot, so it’s good to see that moving on work-wise has started having a positive effect on everything again.
On Song
Posted: Sat 28 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 6 Comments »Watching a fragment of ITV’s X-factor tonight, I realised what it is that I dislike about it.
Bascially, it’s just karaoke, isn’t it? All you have is a performer ‘singing’ someone else’s lyrics, with backing that’s either pre-recorded, or a bunch of session musicians. OK, so it doesn’t have the lyrics rolling up on a TV screen, but when all’s said and done, it’s just a person performing someone else’s songs – no musical talent necessary.
Walks, Woods, and Fireworks
Posted: Sat 28 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography Leave a comment »This afternoon we’ve taken Hound up to Burnham Beeches again, and she’s had a great time.
The past week, and the next couple, are the worst time of year for Hound – there’s fireworks all over the place, and Bracknell seems to become like a war-zone with them going off every night. While I’ve been away, there’s been a whole week already with fireworks every night, so Hound has been fairly stressed. I took her out this morning (she’s still been getting walked every morning, but apparently when Herself does the walk, it’s just not the same) and she ran round the local park like an absolute loon, burning off some of that nervous energy that’s built up over the week.
So Burnham Beeches was always going to be part of the plan this weekend, and she’s had a great time.
It also gave me the chance to get some photos with the new lens, and it’s a fantastic bit of kit – even though it was the “wrong” lens, it’s still great, and is providing me the chance to get a lot of a certain type of photos I was wanting to experiment with.
But the most important thing for us was to make sure that Hound had a really decent run – and she’s most definitely had that now. And we’ll most probably be doing something very similar tomorrow, although not at the same place. Variety is the spice of life, and all that jazz.
Rental Car
Posted: Fri 27 October, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel 1 Comment »This weekend, I’ve gone for a different plan to the usual one for travelling to and from Cambridge. It’s kind of an experiment, although even if it works out OK this weekend, it’s not one I’m going to be making use of a lot, I suspect.
Anyway, rather than travelling home (and then back here on Monday) by train, this weekend I’ve rented a car from Avis. Purportedly it’s going to be a Renault Megane, but that’ll only be confirmed when I get there later today.
Bizarrely, it’s actually costing me slightly less to rent a car for the weekend, than it does for the train ticket (£59, vs. £65) but that’s not including the extra for bringing down the insurance excess to something sane. However, the real test is going to be down to time and convenience. At the moment, the train journey takes me roughly 2½ hours door-to-door – and a maximum so far of 3 hours, including a delay because a bunch of little bastards all set off the emergency alarms in four carriages. The AA‘s route planner reckons it’ll take me two hours by road, but that also includes the M25 Orbital Car Park on a Friday afternoon (although I’ll be leaving Cambridge at about 2pm, so *touches wood* I shouldn’t hit the M25 at a bad time) so we’ll see.
Of course, there’s also the journey back on Monday morning – and I suspect that may rapidly become nightmarish. Partly because the thing I failed to include in my calculations of when to do this little experiment is that this week is half-term, which means that Monday is likely to have a lot of people travelling back to university/college/school/whatever. Still, I’ll be leaving at some ungodly hour of the day, so I don’t know what it’ll be like – and I’ve already warned work I may be horribly late on Monday, so *shrug*
Whatever happens, it’ll be fun, I’m sure.
Tax Return
Posted: Fri 27 October, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 1 Comment »This week, I got a letter from your friends and mine, the Inland Revenue. Following on from my self-assessment tax return, which I sent off in time for the “we’ll tell you how much tax you owe” deadline at the end of September, and please bear in mind that I’ve been on PAYE (AKA ‘paying the tax decreed by Inland Revenue’) for the entire tax year.
So – the letter arrived, along with fucking reams (I may exaggerate slightly) of paperwork explaining how they’d done their calculations, what tax had been paid, when, why, what it should’ve been, what it might be, what it is, and all sorts of other shit.
At the end of it, they finally tell me the amount that I owe for this year – bearing in mind (again) that I’ve only been doing PAYE this year, so really it should be nothing at all.
But instead it’s… Are you ready for this?… 88p
They’ve spent about 85p on the fucking postage!
Getting Off
Posted: Thu 26 October, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »I was reading Diamond Geezer’s post about how people get on trains this morning, and remembered something I’d been going to write about a while back.
Basically it’s quite similar to DG’s post, but I still find it fascinating that when it comes to trains and platforms, so many people
- Just get to the entrance to the platform, and simply stop, making no effort to move down the platform, and having no consideration for other people. (I know, it’s London, and I really shouldn’t hold out any hope of consideration for others, but there we go – sometimes I’m an optimist)
- Don’t know where the exit they’ll be using is at their destination station.
I find this particularly odd on the train from Waterloo to Bracknell, where tons of people just cram on to the train and find a space anywhere – then you see the same people walking all the way along the platform when they’ve reached their destination. To a bunch of people so obsessed with wasted time, delays, and anything that interrupts their little routines, I find this really weird.
When I’m using that train (or in fact any train where I know the route, the destination, and where I’m likely to end up) I try and get a seat at the place where the exit is closest when I get off the train. When I was going from Reading to Manchester (or vice versa, actually) I knew it was best to be at the front of the train, because at each end it’s the final stop, so the front is going to be closest to the exit. Conversely, when I’m going from London to Cambridge I stay at the back of the train, because that’s where the exit will be at Cambridge.
Maybe it’s just something far too logical for most people, I don’t know. It just seems weird to be in such a hurry all the time (in the example of London commuters/people) yet not be organised about things at the same time, so that you don’t have to keep on fucking about walking the length of a platform.
Turns of Phrase
Posted: Thu 26 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Weirdness Leave a comment »The other night I had to talk to a bank’s “customer services” department. I’ve been trying to set up a savings account, and they offered one of the better rates around (roughly 4.75%) so I sent in an application. Two months ago. They’re only just processing the application now, and were calling to find out whether I knew my (now-ex) employer’s company number, because they couldn’t find the company on Companies House, and directory enquiries couldn’t find the phone number. (In fairness on that point, I can’t find the phone number either)
So they called me, but wouldn’t/couldn’t
- accept the number if I gave it to them
- accept the company number if I gave it to them
- use the company’s website to find the number
or - find the company details in the HSBC system, even though the company banks with HSBC
Which rather led me to question just what the point of the call was. Unfortunately, the woman I was speaking to couldn’t actually tell me what the point was, except to go through the cyclical argument of “well, it’s on the form” – “but you can’t find the information, and it’s irrelevent anyway, so why do you need it?” – “because it’s on the form”
Eventually, we had the following conversation snippet
Me: OK, this is now utterly farcical. Can I speak to your supervisor please?
Her: Sir, I’m the on-duty supervisor tonight.
Me: OK, can I get a call from your manager tomorrow then?
Her: I don’t know. It’s not the usual procedure…
Me: Fine. Can I speak to someone who’s even vaguely competent, or at the very least capable of independent thought?
Her: …
I don’t think First Direct have any of those…
Anyway, I’m now going to use a different bank – First Direct can get stuffed if that call is representative of their attitude to customers.
Autumnal
Posted: Wed 25 October, 2006 Filed under: Depression, Thoughts Leave a comment »Outside my window at the office is a tree that’s had gorgeous red leaves since I started here.
This week, all those leaves have suddenly disappeared, and now the view is of grey buildings on the other side of the road, rather than the bright red leaves. This is Sad Thing.
All of a sudden it seems like everything has gone “Fucking hell, it’s October! When the hell did that happen?” – all the leaves have started falling, the sky has been dull and grey, and the weather keeps on going back to the “wet and windy” October default.
Yes, Autumn has suddenly appeared with a vengeance.
Sounding the Alarm – Additional
Posted: Wed 25 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »Following on from here, Gert made a comment saying, effectively, that I could use my phone as an alarm.
And yes, I could – and indeed I do while I’m away- but I prefer to have a stand-alone device to work purely as an alarm clock. And there’s one very good reason for this, which I re-discovered this morning. It’s pretty simple, but still very relevant.
If the phone is on silent (and even more so if it’s on ‘silent mode, but not vibrate’) then the alarm effectively doesn’t go off. It’s muted.
And I have a habit of muting my phone while either a) at work or b) in a restaurant, and then forgetting it’s been muted, so the alarm doesn’t work the following morning.
And that is why I don’t use my phone a lot as an alarm. Because I’m a fuckin’ numpty.
Travelodge and Watchdog
Posted: Wed 25 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, General, Travel 1 Comment »One thing that interested me last night was to catch BBC’s Watchdog programme, which featured Travelodge being shitepots. Nothing new there – but I didn’t know about this particular policy of Travelodge’s.
Turns out that despite offering a “guaranteed” room when you book with them, they have a policy of overbooking, so you could easily find yourself still without a room. They call this a “last man standing” policy – although it might as well be called a “last man sleeps in his car” policy. Of course, they can then say they’ve got a room at another Travelodge, but if you head off there (assuming that you can, have a car, and all that jazz) and someone else gets there before you, you can still not have a room.
And even better, because you can’t get a room at the original place, you don’t check in. Which means that the devious scumbags then get to charge you a full room rate for not turning up!
Now that is briliant. In a sleazy scumbag way, of course, but it’s still brilliant.
Bag vs. Bike
Posted: Tue 24 October, 2006 Filed under: Travel Leave a comment »One thing I discovered last night – or rather, that went from “theory” to “practice” in one brief swing – was this :
The Big Yellow Bastard Bag provides a very rapid method for decelerating a bike that someone is riding towards me instead of around me. This deceleration method is very effective, and works nicely on the bike, although not as well on the rider of the bike, who carried on moving forwards for a short, but decisive, distance in a very neat parabola.
I’ll leave the rest to your imaginations…
Out Of Stock
Posted: Tue 24 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Letters Leave a comment »Over the weekend I got an email from Marks and Spencer advertising their new range for big wide bastards (not quite the way they phrased it, but that’s what they meant) that was currently only available on-line. It’s a range that interests me – hey, I definitely qualify as a big wide bastard – so I had a look.
Surprisingly, there were a couple of things I liked the look of, so I ordered them through the site. All well and good.
Last night I got an email…
Dear Lyle,
Thanks for your recent online order.
I am sorry to tell you that we have had to cancel [one of the items] from your order as they are currently out of stock. You have not been charged for these items and your new order total is £xx.xx. I understand that this information will bedisappointing and I’m sorry for any inconvenience that it will cause you.
The remaining items on your order will be delivered within the next 4-7 working days.
We update availability regularly, so you may wish to check the website again in the next 2-3 weeks however, if these items were part of a sale we will not receive any more stock. If you would like to order an alternative product please call us on [I can’t be arsed to give the number]
Thanks for shopping with Marks & Spencer Online.
Kind Regards,
Customer Services, Marks & Spencer, www.marksandspencer.com
My response wasn’t quite so polite…
Dear Customer Services,
Thank you for your email.
Personally, I would rather have been given the choice of whether I wanted the items removed from the order, or held for when the items came into stock. So many thanks for giving me that option.
Actually, I’d *far* rather have had the website not even show the items that were out of stock – or even at least to *say* the items were out of stock, and would be delayed. I find it hard to believe that a company like M&S can’t organise that kind of integration between warehouse and website. However, it’s obvious that they can’t.
I think it’s even worse for the company to hold the attitude of “you ordered it, wecan’t provide it, so hey, why don’t you come back in a month or so and see if we’ve managed to get our fingers out or not“. Surely if you have this order listed as “out-of-stock” in the system, it’s not *that* much of a leap to then mail customers when the stock becomes available again, so they can order/re-order.
As it is though, congratulations, you’ve lost a customer for M&S online. I’ll go back to using Cotton Traders, who at least have the competence/systems to say “that’s out of stock, you can’t order it” on their website.
Sincerely
Lyle
Recorded Delivery
Posted: Tue 24 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Ten days ago, I sent a letter to the scumbag bandits at Holmes Place via Royal Mail‘s “Signed For” service. (“Signed For” being the dumbed-down name for “Recorded Delivery”) Basically, I wanted to know that Holmes Place had received the letter and cheque – not an unreasonable concept, really – and I wanted to be able to check online when it’d been received. And Royal Mail emphasise that you can use their “Track and Trace” online system to check that an item has been delivered.
Only, well, you can’t. It’s been ten days now, and still all I see when I key in the Track and Trace number is
Come back later
Recorded Signed For™ items are only tracked after the item has been delivered. Depending on whether the item was sent first or second class, this may be a few days after posting. Please try again later.Information on your item is not yet available online.
So frankly, what fucking use is that as a service?
Defecation’s what you need (if you wanna be a Record Breaker)
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »
I have to say, there’s something ineffably gross about this story of a man who has been smearing shit over train carriages in the South-East.
So far he’s done this on about thirty trains, which has cost about £60,000 in cleaning costs and damages.
Really it just makes you wonder how some peoples minds work, doesn’t it?
Adopting Madonna
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »I must be missing something relevant in the farce about Madonna adopting a boy from Malawi.
Personally I don’t give a monkey’s toss what Madonna does or doesn’t do, and I think a lot of the hype around this story is just that – hype.
But I do have to wonder (in the little brain-time I’ve given this) one thing. If the boy has a father, what the blue blazing fiddly fuck has he doing in an orphanage?
Or do I have the wrong meaning of “orphan” stored in my head?
Counting Down
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s less than two weeks now ’til my birthday, and I can’t deny, it does feel like it’s beginning to loom a bit.
I shouldn’t be bothered by it, and after all, it’s “only” thirty-fucking-five, but there we go – I’m not bothered by it per se, but it’s something I’m conscious of. I think that some of it is that turning 35 is a change of demographic – I will no longer fit into the 29-34 demographic, or the 25-34 one, or whatever. I’ll be in the 35-44 range, and that’s kind of old.
Ah well, I’m sure I’ll be fine.
Besides, we’ll be away in Somerset, making sure that Hound is away from the full “fun” of fireworks night…
Fusion
Posted: Mon 23 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic 2 Comments »I love the adverts for the Gilette Fusion razor. The entire bollocks of “the comfort of five blades” is hilarious, but then the final bit about “a single blade on the back for those hard-to-reach places” is the absolute killer for me.
Because I’m sorry, but if the cartridge weren’t so bloody huge with its four or five blades on the front, there’d be no fucking need for that extra one on the bloody back! In short – unshockingly – if you stuck with the razor with three blades, or even shock, horror one blade (I should confess here, I do use the one with three blades) you’d be fine, and wouldn’t need the poxy single blade on the fucking back.
Breakfasts
Posted: Sun 22 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Over the last month, I’ve been in a selection of different hotels and B&Bs, and one thing I’ve noticed is the sheer difference in quality that’s around. However, there’s also a weird little equation that seems to keep on coming up – it’s not just in the last month I’ve noticed this, but over the last rumty tumty years.
The more a hotel is per night, the poorer the breakfast is
I still don’t really understand how this works out, but I know that the cheapest B&B I’ve used is the one with the best breakfast – and the one that cost me the most was easily the worst. (And yes, that was the one with the watery scrambled eggs)
Very odd.
Dog Results
Posted: Sun 22 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Photography Leave a comment »Not that they’ve publicised it yet, but The Kennel Club has released the winning images (and runners-up) for their Dog Photographer of the Year competition.
And neither Herself nor I have come anywhere in it.
Ah well, maybe next year.
Sounding the Alarm
Posted: Sat 21 October, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 4 Comments »During the week, my alarm-clock of long standing finally curled up its (metaphorical) toes and died. I can’t complain, it’d lasted a good ten years. Anyway, one of the main reasons I bought that clock was that I knew the alarm was one I could tolerate.
I’m a ratty twat in the mornings – and that’s one of the politest descriptions I’ve heard – and one thing that drives me crackers is an irritating alarm. Which list includes pretty much all of them. So when I heard the alarm on the one I bought (a friend had one, which is how I found out what it sounded like) I knew it was one I could live with. It’s an Oregon Scientific clock, and the alarm started off with a single “beep. [pause] beep. [pause] beep.” tone, which was enough to wake me up just fine. (As well as being ratty, I sleep remarkably shallowly for the most part) Eventually it did rise to four beeps in a row, and that could be quite loud, but it never got much past the second beep with me.
So now I’ve got to buy a new clock. And I was thinking – why is it that there’s no website that displays alarm clocks and the like that also allows you to hear the alarms? On a website, I’d think that would be fantastic – just a simple sample of the alarm sound, so you know what the god-dam thing will be doing when it wakes you up.
After all, I can’t be the only person who doesn’t want some blaring, buzzing piece of crap that vibrates itself off the desk, or that makes me want to connect a baseball bat with it. (See, told you I was a ratty twat)
As it is, I’ve ordered a new one from the same place, and now I just hope the alarm won’t have changed – or at least won’t be too horrific. Still, it’s only cost me a tenner, so I won’t be financially sad if it does need to meet that baseball bat…
New Lens
Posted: Sat 21 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Photography Leave a comment »Photgraphically, it turns out I’m a numpty.
OK, that needs a bit of explanation.
On Saturday, I ordered a new Lens for my camera. Turns out I ordered the wrong one. Not the wrong fitting, or anything really stupid. It’s just I clicked on the 100mm f2 USM lens, instead of the 100mm f2.8 Macro USM lens which was the item under the one I clicked on. As Scary would say, “Oh, Spoons”
Luckily, despite being a numpty who can’t even click a mouse on the correct item, the lens I do now have is going to be fine for a lot of things. I’d been looking at (OK, honestly, dreaming of) the absolutely beautiful – and effing huge/heavy – L Series 85mm f1.2 lens from Canon, and while that’s well out of my current price range, this new lens will do a similar job for about a sixth of the price – and will at least give me some range to see how I do with it.
But I still need to order that Macro lens too – I might wait a few weeks now, though…
Welcome
Posted: Fri 20 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »Got home this evening, walked through the front door, and Hound was wanting me to go and chuck a ball round outside for her. Hardly even a chance to put my bag down before she’s there, wagging away, wanting me to play.
Then I took her out for a walk, and all was well with the world – in canine terms, anyway.
Nice to be welcomed home, and wanted, isn’t it?
Comment Problems – Again
Posted: Thu 19 October, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Yes, comments are currently down – I’ll work to resurrect them as soon as I can.
It’s due to an epic dollop of comment spam which has locked up the database table. Fuckin’ brilliant. Twice in a month that’s happened. I may even need to upgrade WordPress – something I’m emphatically not looking forward to.
UPDATED : All sorted – it was exactly what I thought, the comments table had locked up. A simple SQL repair table and ta-da, job done.
IE7
Posted: Thu 19 October, 2006 Filed under: Geeky 1 Comment »Yes, Microsoft has finally released Internet Explorer v7 for download. It’s been around for a while as a Beta release (and is installed on my work PC by default) but it’s live at last.
Now I can see what’s confirmed as being broken (and/or fixed), instead of just suspecting…
UPDATED : Be warned, it involves a restart, and takes about ten minutes to do the entire install – and that’s on a fairly decent laptop. Not a quick update (which was obvious, but all the same – it’s a bit of a job!)
‘Tis the Season
Posted: Thu 19 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season Leave a comment »This week I’ve been watching some TV via that USB adaptor (which works fantastically now it’s linked to a proper aerial, instead of the piece o’ crap micro-aerial that it came with) and I’ve noticed something. The adverts.
It seems like a good 80% of the adverts are for either perfumes, toys, or ‘greatest hits’ compilation CDs. (The other 20% is for either Cillit Bang or some kind of crappy room-fragrance candles)
Anyone would think it’s coming up to Christmas…
80s
Posted: Wed 18 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 3 Comments »Currently on my MP3 player :
- Depeche Mode : Black Celebration
- Depeche Mode : Violator
- The The : Mind Bomb
- Peter Gabriel : So
The most recent album in that list? Released in 1990. Which, worryingly, makes all of the stuff I’m currently listening to at least fifteen years old.
I’m getting disturbingly old. Well, it’s either that or I’m starting to hark back to “when music was decent” AKA “When I were a lad”…
Woman of the Year
Posted: Wed 18 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m really pleased to see that Camila Batmanghelidjh has been recognised for some of her work, and won the “Woman of the Year” award for the things she’s done with Kids Company and the like.
(Pause at this point, as I was hunting for something I thought I’d written a long time ago about Kids Company on d4d™, but can’t find now)
Kids Company is, from what I recall, a fantastic charity based in London, with Camila as the main person. They do a lot of work with exceptionally vulnerable children and young adults, particularly those with emotional and/or mental health issues.
Oh, and her book is bloody fantastic too, and well worth the time/money.
All in all, a truly fantastic woman, who utterly deserves the recognition.
Inconsiderate Twats
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »Tonight, while out having my evening meal, I saw something that I personally consider to be one of the rudest things I’ve ever seen.
I won’t describe the person involved, except to say they were about 18. Even that’s not overly relevant, but there we go.
Anyway, this person took a call on their mobile (or they might’ve made the call, I wasn’t paying that much attention at the time) in the restaurant, which- while it’s not something I tend to do, unless it’s really important (and this really wasn’t an important call) – isn’t really something that bothers me all that much. What I did find incredibly rude, though, was that this person then proceeded to wander round the restaurant, around a whole range of different tables where people were eating, while on the phone. I’ve no idea why they did it – it wasn’t like they were having problems getting reception, they just wanted to wander around while talking.
Personally, if I’d been one of the waiting staff, I think I’d have probably told this person to either sit back down with their family, or fuck off outside and take/make the call there, rather than the way they chose to do it. It was coming close to me just telling the person to fuck off anyway.
I just don’t get that mind-set – why the hell would anyone do that?
To PhotoBlog or not?
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 3 Comments »I’ve been doing some more thinking about the site for my photography that I was writing about yesterday.
Basically, the question that came up was this : Do I make it into a photoblog like Chromasia, DDOI et al, or do I have it as a simple portfolio site, just to show off what I can do, along with contact details, etc.?
I can’t deny, I’ve always kind of liked the idea of a photoblog (I hate that word, but can’t come up with a better one at the moment. Hey Ho) although it does have the potential downside of not updating every day, or – to my mind even worse – the intention of adding a new shot every day, but never quite managing to do so. Combined with that is the part of me that worries about diluting “the brand”, or similarly of diluting the strength of some of the images by just having one every day, so some are great and others merely so-so.
As for having it as “just” a portfolio, that quite appeals too. It’d certainly be simpler, and (in theory at least) a lot less work than a constantly updated site with new photos all the time. This is of particular relevance at the moment, where I can’t deny that my motivation is pretty rock-bottom and merely ticking over, and also where I’m away from home for four nights a week. While this should give me the time to get a lot of stuff done, I can’t deny that at the moment it’s leaving me a bit numb, and slightly “CBA” about the entire thing.
So I think that for now it’s likely I’ll leave the site as “just” a portfolio site, where a selection of my better/favourite photos can be viewed, rather than doing stuff for it every day.
Although, of course, that doesn’t mean that at some point in the future I won’t add in a PhotoBlog section…
Joggers
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, General 3 Comments »How to upset people in the morning. An occasional series.
Number One. Walk past a jogger who is puffing, panting, but still jogging. Make it look as effortless as possible.
Poor sod looked so demoralised.
And yes, I do walk very fast. But it still amused me to be overtaking joggers.
Holmes Place
Posted: Tue 17 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Health 7 Comments »So yes, Holmes Place, the snivelling bunch of bureaucratic tosspot scumbags. I really can’t begin to emphasise just how gobsmacked I am by their attitude to customers, but I have to say, I wouldn’t ever recommend Holmes Place to anyone ever again.
Fair enough, I understand, they have a minimum contract, and they make their money from the people who sign up in January in a fit of the New Year resolutions, do maybe a month or two, and then don’t come back. That’s where the profit and cream comes from for the business – after all, if people have to pay, but choose not to use the facilities, that’s their choice.
What I object to on just about every front, though, is their attitude when this isn’t the case, when you’ve moved (or, in my case, am primarily based) somewhere else, where there’s no Holmes Place within a radius of 65 miles. I can’t help that, and it’s down to the company not having a facility in the area. If there were a Holmes Place in the area, I’d be using it, and I would’ve transferred my membership over to that one. But there simply isn’t the facility. Yet I’ve still got to pay for four months where I can’t use the gym, not where I decide not to.
I’m still going to find the name of their customer services director, and write another snotty letter to them. In the meantime, well, it’s time to get D4D™ into the top ten on Google for a search on Holmes Place. Currently I’m only at about #15…
Macro Lens
Posted: Mon 16 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Photography Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I gave in to temptation, and ordered myself the Macro Lens I’d been thinking about.
So, I’m now the proud owner (well, I will be when it arrives) of a Canon 100mm EF f2.4 Macro Lens – and no, I didn’t order it from Jessops, but their site had a decent page that described the lens, rather than the appaling site of the place I did buy it from. I’ve used them before, and the service I got was fine, despite the site, so on this occasion I’m going to go with them again.
At the same time, I also ordered a second battery for the camera – I figure it’s best to have two, which’ll keep me going whenever necessary.
So, that’s one resolution out the way, anyway.
Recidivist
Posted: Sun 15 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »I was thinking the other night while out for a meal, in some ways I really am an incredibly sad 80’s throwback.
And what caused it? The fact that, no matter how sad it sounds, I actually do like a prawn cocktail. Proper decent Marie Rose sauce, good sized prawns, the necessary greenery? Yep, sometimes I’m very easily pleased.
Binge Drinking
Posted: Sat 14 October, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 2 Comments »So I see that the Government is releasing a ‘hard-hitting’ advert to show young people the risks of binge-drinking. Oh dear God, here we go again. Yes, OK, it’s actually quite a strong advert – particularly at the end, where the guy has fallen off the scaffolding, and is just laying there twitching. Will it work? No, almost certainly not.
At the end of the day, there are a couple of things that are actually needed. Adverts about the risks doesn’t come on that list. Neither does the other (incredibly dumb) idea that there should be health warnings on bottles of wine and spirits. Because, let’s face it, if you’re going to try and change the minds of the people who’re seriously binge-drinking, wine and spirits ain’t on the list. It’s beer and the inevitable ‘alcopops’ that appeal to that particular market.
But the two things that are truly needed are :
- A government that doesn’t get involved in all these bollocks sound-bites, and renaming one thing as another. ‘Binge Drinking’ is just the new government/media title for “Getting Pissed”. Binge Drinking? It’s drinking 6 (for women) or 8 units of alcohol (for men) in one session. That’s – um – about three pints of semi-decent lager. Figure it out for yourself. A pint of Grolsch (my preferred ‘general’ beer) is three units. So if I have three pints, I’m a binge-drinker.
- Instill the concept of personal responsibility. I’m sorry, but if you can’t control yourself when you’ve been drinking, and don’t know your own limits, you shouldn’t be fucking drinking. I can understand (to a degree) a one-off “drank more than I usually do” episode. I just truly don’t get the thing about going past your limits and being a twat every weekend. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I’ve always preferred independent thought instead of caving to peer-pressure.
Personal responsibility is the biggie though. It’s about saying “I’ve made that choice”, rather than absolving one’s responsibility to the power of drink, drugs, whatever. The entire “It’s not my fault, it’s because of x,y and z” philosophy where basically everything is the fault of something else.
Maybe if we started working on that idea, we’d have less issues with ‘binge-drinking’ , addictions, and the like.
Or maybe I’m just full of bollocks. I’m sure you’ll let me know what you think…
Watery
Posted: Fri 13 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 4 Comments »Every morning this week, the hotel I’ve been using has done scrambled eggs. It’s another buffet-style breakfast thing, similar to last week’s Travelodge effort, but with some kind of attempt at being better than a Travelodge, of course. After all, it was £30 more per night – there must have been something to define it as better. (Although I have to admit to being slightly stumped as to what that improved index of value perception might’ve been. Lack of rattly air-conditioning, perhaps?)
Anyway, scrambled eggs are – in general – fine. But this place somehow managed to make them watery. And I just don’t know how. I’ve made scrambled eggs on many occasions, and on at least a couple of those occasions I’ve made a complete bollocks of them. Burned is possible. Squash-balls of scrambled egg is possible. Bits of shell is possible, if unlikely. Undercooked is possible, if even more unlikely than the bits of shell.
But watery? Nope, never managed that. These were cooked OK, there was no possibility of under-cookage (is that a word? You know you’ve been involved in marketing departments for too long when you find you’re making up words, or not sure whether it’s a real word or not. Impactful, I ask you. Feh. Still, that’s a rant for another day) and I’ve never used water in the production of scrambled eggs, so where the chuff did it all come from?
Is there some kind of catering invention that’s like ‘instant’ scrambled eggs – just add water? Is that even remotely feasible?
Interactive
Posted: Fri 13 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the best lines I’ve heard in a while came up on last night’s “Mock the Week” on BBC2.
Talking about North Korea’s nuclear test this week, Hugh Dennis said
“I first heard about it on BBC News 24, and they said ‘for more information about Korea’s nuclear detonation, press the red button now'”
Brilliance. And a joke that would be completely forbidden in North Korea…
Friday 13th
Posted: Fri 13 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »Friday 13th? And I’m supposed to be travelling?
Oh dear…
D-4D
Posted: Thu 12 October, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Weirdness Leave a comment »Ah, knew there was something I was going to post, but then forgot.
When we went down to Poole the other day, it caused me some amusement to know that I was in a Toyota Land Cruiser with their D-4D™ engine…
Maybe it’s just me, then.
Crustless
Posted: Thu 12 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts, Weirdness 4 Comments »I can’t find a link to it, but I have to admit, I think that the idea of Kingsmill bakeries selling a loaf without crusts is utterly bizarre. Genius in a way – knowing the way that some children refuse to eat bread crusts, for some godforsaken and unknown reason – but still bizarre.
And I wonder what happens to those crusts? After all, the bread must (I assume) still be baked and get a crust, which must (again , I assume) then be trimmed off before the loaf is packaged up. So what happens to it?
Are there just a whole parade of very fat ducks waddling along outside the Kingsmill bakeries, stuffed full of fresh bread crusts?
Reverting
Posted: Thu 12 October, 2006 Filed under: Music 1 Comment »Recently I’ve been resurrecting, and in some cases re-buying on CD, some of the music I used to listen to a lot. One example of this has been the older stuff by Depeche Mode, who for a long time were one of my favourite bands.
Last week I finally got round to re-buying “Black Celebration” and “Violator“, which were the albums I used to love the most. And they’re still grand.
“Black Celebration” in particular is just a fantastic album, with a rather darker tinge than most of their other early stuff – and funny enough a trait that was revisited in some ways for “Violator”. It’s been fantastic hearing them again – and of course I’ve now got them as MP3s too, so I can listen to them wherever.
Parties
Posted: Wed 11 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season 1 Comment »The malaise is spreading. The festering season™ approacheth. Yay verily, it does.
Over the last three weeks, I’ve noticed more and more places advertising for people to book their Christmas parties. Fair enough, I suppose, it’s October, the time is nigh.
Although I must admit, I do have a teensy comprehension problem when the local ethnic Thai restaurant is advertising for Christmas parties. But maybe I shouldn’t think about these things too much…
Amnesiac
Posted: Wed 11 October, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, General Leave a comment »I’ve been looking at this “write a post” screen this morning several times, thought about something to write, then looked at other stuff, and bang, the idea’s gone.
It’s incredibly frustrating, but I’m sure I’ll remember what I was going to write at some point soon…
Away Day
Posted: Tue 10 October, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Travel Leave a comment »I’m away from the office (and indeed any form of useful connectivity) all day today, so don’t expect any more updates now.
I’m sure I’ll write more tonight when I get back to the land of the living. ‘Til then, though, D4D™ will go quiet.
Seeya tomorrow.
Photography Decisions
Posted: Tue 10 October, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions 2 Comments »So, before long I really need to get a couple of things for the camera – but the question is which should I get first?
I know I want/need a decent flashgun, but also with the stuff I do a lot of (and intend to get more done over the next few months) is the macro close-up stuff again.
I can get away with not needing a decent wide-angle lens for a while, as I’ve got the 18-55mm lens that came with the camera, and I can do a fair amount of work with that before I need to do anything else.
So really it comes down to : a) Macro Lens or b) Flashgun.
Which first?
Web Numpties
Posted: Tue 10 October, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, News, Security, Thinking About..., Weirdness 6 Comments »On the subject of numb-brained persons, and their inability to deal with common knowledge, is it really a shock to know that a large number of people are still total twunts when it comes to computers? No, not really.
Fair enough, this entire story is about “honeypot” PCs and seeing how long it takes them to be attacked – but by definition these honeypots are unprotected – no firewall, no anti-virus, and (most importantly) a complete numpty at the keyboard.
The survey found 17% of people had no anti-virus software and 22% had no firewall. A further 23% said they had opened an e-mail attachment that came from an unknown source.
I’m sorry, but if people can’t be bothered to use an anti-virus tool, and to activate either Windows’ own software firewall, or get one of their own, then they bloody well deserve to be taken for a ride. As for opening up email from unknown sources, I kind of wrote about this over the weekend, but still, nearly a quarter of people have opened random emails with (one assumes) a subject line that makes them think it’s OK to open? I despair. Mind you, again, people who do that just deserve to be ripped off – it’s like an idiot tax.
At home our broadband connection comes through a box with a built-in firewall and router. There’s also at least a software firewall on all the machines in the house. And all of them use AVG’s anti-virus as a matter of course.
After all, it’s not like it’s difficult to get a decent free bit of anti-virus software like AVG. And OK, while my favourite software firewall has now disappeared (thanks to Symantec, who always were a bunch of scum-sucking weasels anyway) it’s still not difficult to find and install the likes of Zone Alarm, or even to use the entire anti-virus/firewall combinations released by companies like Norton, McAfee, et al.. It’s just that the “Oh, it’ll never happen to me” attitude still prevails, and it’s likely to continue to do so for the forseeable future, and for one prime reason. People are numpties. Simple as that.
Personally I think that all broadband connections – be it ADSL, Cable, ISDN, whatever – should use boxes with at least a basic built-in firewall. I know Windows XP SP2 activated the software firewall by default, and I think that’s a good thing too. I would like to see new PCs come with a decent (and free) anti-virus scanner – although of course Dell et al probably get a huge dollop of cash for pre-installing shit like McAfee on the computers they provide – so that everyone has access to the basic protection, from Day One, without having to shell out extra money.
If PC makers, Broadband providers and so on simply work on the assumption that people won’t bother, and just provide these simple things as a built-in, then a whole load of these problems would go away. Most standard PC users don’t bother uninstalling what comes with the PC, they want to just plug-and-go. So give them the security straight away. Don’t assume that either a) people will know they need this stuff or b) that they’ll go and download and install it as the first thing they do. They won’t. They’ll leave it ’til the PC is a heaving festering lump of viral content, pop-ups, and email shite, and then complain…
The computer’s gone wrong! I didn’t do anything! It’s the computer’s fault!
Wrong Trains
Posted: Mon 9 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but I have to confess that I still find it amusing when people get on entirely the wrong train.
This morning it happened to two people in the same carriage as me. The service was a non-stop train from Kings Cross to Cambridge. It said so on the platform boards that list all the trains, times, platforms and destinations. It said so on the individual platform displays that tell you where the train currently at the platform is due to go, and when. It said so on the tannoy system on the train, before the doors closed and it pulled off (giving idiots time to get off the train first)
But no, still these two numpties had got on the wrong train. One of them wasn’t even going anywhere near Cambridge. The other thought it was a stopping service.
Really, how dim do you have to be to make that kind of mistake?
Coming Up Fast
Posted: Sun 8 October, 2006 Filed under: 2006 Resolutions, Getting Organised, Thoughts 1 Comment »So, in less than a month’s time, I’m going to be thirty-fucking-five. How scary is that?
In the time between now and then, I’m working on getting a few things set up so that I can get going with my plans for the next five year period, and start getting some of those ideas off the ground.
Should be interesting, and more about it as the time comes closer, I’m sure.
Gullible
Posted: Sun 8 October, 2006 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’m intrigued – how many people actually open up those spam emails that have subject lines like “Necessary Notice of Default from Bank” ?
Is anyone really that stupid?
I mean, as Scaryduck pointed out earlier this week, there’s plenty of people who still fall for the entire “you’ve won a lottery you’ve never entered” scam, so I suppose there’s plenty of numpty twats out there who do open up those spam emails.
But really, its worrying to think that people still haven’t got the idea about these things, isn’t it?
Back to Normality 3
Posted: Sun 8 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Oh yeah, and the other real sign of coming back to domestic life for the weekends is that Hound wants to be walked as soon as she hears sounds of movement from us. And of course she has no real concept of weekends – so 7am through the week equates with also being 7am on the weekend.
Urgh.
Back to Normality 2
Posted: Sat 7 October, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel 1 Comment »Oh yeah, another thing about coming back at weekends – Hound thinks it means I have to make up four days of playing with her.
I keep on getting nagged to go outside and throw tennis balls for her. Strangely, while I’m away, apparently she doesn’t get Herself to throw balls at all. That’s my job, according to Hound.
Back to Normality
Posted: Sat 7 October, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »One of the geekier things that’s currently good about coming home is the ability to get back to a wireless network. (Obviously there’s a lot of other good things about coming home from the week at work, but I’m on a geeky thought process here)
It’s been very odd over the last couple of weeks, not being available online after work, and not having the connectivity I’m used to. (God, this is sounding more pathetic by the minute, isn’t it?) Admittedly not entirely a bad thing, as it’s given me the opportunity to catch up on some letter writing and so on, but all the same, very odd to not be able to mooch about online the way I’m used to.
Still, that’ll change from here, as I’m getting somewhere very posh in the coming week, and then the B&B I’ll be staying in will be letting me use their network, so all’s going to be cool on that score.
It just means I’ll need to be slightly more disciplined, and still keep up with writing letters etc. (and all the other writing projects I’m thinking about) as well as working on the websites and so on.
Accuracy
Posted: Fri 6 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Geeky, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »Do you ever look at an email that’s been “personalised” (i.e. data about your preferences, or the other things you’ve bought from the same company, has been used to modify the content so that it’s more ‘targeted’ towards you) and just think “Man, they’ve got that one so wrong”.
Today’s example came to me from those uber-twunts of the gig-ticket world, TicketMaster. The subject line, to get my attention, was – um –
Lyle, don’t miss Lionel Ritchie
Wow, how wrong can one line get?
Wet
Posted: Thu 5 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Note to self : The best location for one’s waterproof jacket is not back in the hotel/B&B/Travelodge.
I am very, very wet. (Hello, Google)
Debt-Ridden
Posted: Thu 5 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Thoughts 3 Comments »I don’t quite know why, but the BBC website’s diary pieces by this woman trying to sort out her debt situation have managed to annoy me quite seriously.
My husband Thomas owns a French restaurant in Holborn, London.
To buy the restaurant, my husband and I had to re-mortgage the family home and my two small buy-to-let properties.
OK, fair enough, in some ways her situation is pretty crappy – dropped from her contract job because of being pregnant, for example – but I find it very hard to find much sympathy for someone who has bought her London home (and remortgaged it), has two other buy-to-let properties on mortgages, and has invested in her husband’s restaurant business. So that’s three mortgages, plus her husband’s one on the business premises, and various other debts, loans, etc. Again, fair enough, she’s not spending money all over the place, but still, three properties? (Four if you count the restaurant)
I dunno, the entire diary just strikes me as being more than a bit whingy, with an overtone of “It’s not fair!” running through it.
I do think that the way banks and lenders deal with people who are in debt – particularly the ones who are at least trying to deal with it, and keep them informed – is utterly scummy, but the phrase “Banks are fiscal-vampire scumsucking leeches” is never going to be headline material. And neither is the fact that their entire systems are gauged at getting as much money out of people as possible, while preferably being deeply inefficient, and going “lalalalala-can’t hear you” at potential problems.
Eventually, I suggest a year-long payment holiday, with interest frozen until I return to full time work after my maternity leave.
But it also strikes me that attitudes like that displayed in the quote above are perhaps unrealistic, naïve, and actually quite self-centred. Yeah, sure, a payment holiday for a year is a lovely idea. But I can’t think of any financial institution that’s going to turn round and say “Of course you can take a break for a year. And of course we won’t charge you interest in that time! Hey, why don’t we bake you a cake at the same time?” They’re businesses – they exist to make money. They’re not charities. OK, it would be nice if they were more understanding of situations and so on, but frankly it’s not going to happen.
I don’t really know what I’m trying to say here, or what I’m trying to get at. It’s just the entire set of ‘diary’ posts annoys me.
I’ll think more about it, and probably most some more thoughts about it some other time.
Desperation
Posted: Thu 5 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »Another thing I watched on TV on Tuesday was a documentary on Channel Four about mail-order brides from Russia. It was an interesting thing, but dear God, I hve to say that I felt the blokes were pretty desperate.
And yes, I know, there’s similarities between my feelings about it and the stuff in the previous post. But for me, I just don’t really get the entire “must get married” thing, let alone being so determined to get married – to anyone – that you’ll go to another country in order to find someone/anyone. Mind you, I also simply don’t get how someone could go through that route, trying to find a bride in Russia, and not make any effort to learn anything in Russian at all. That, to me, is just fuckin’ weird, and shows some major levels of selfishness, and – rudeness. If I were to be in that situation (and I truly can’t see that I ever would be) I would at least make some effort to learn. But then, I suppose the difference is that I would want to have conversation with a partner – and conversation, or companionship, didn’t seem to be the primary goal for the men in the documentary.
Just bizarre, really. Well, to my mind anyway.
Negative Influences
Posted: Wed 4 October, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I was watching a drama on BBC1 last night, “The Amazing Mrs Pritchard“, and something struck me while I watched it. Of late, there seems to have become a trend in these dramas for there to be strong female roles, and the women’s partners seem to always have a very diminished role, and be a negative influence on the women, providing a downside of everything, blocking the development, and wanting the women to stop their plans for [whatever]
I realise that drama needs conflict, needs that portrayal of issues, and that the protagonist being supported all the way through by her partner would (in theory, at least) not be dramatic or whatever, but I do find that these cliches are really becoming quite wearing.
After all, if a drama were to portray things the other way round, with the female character holding back the development or dreams of the male character, it would be portrayed as sexist, biased, and many other things. But when the “norm” of negative portrayals of men happens, that’s fine.
I don’t mind as such, and I’m not concerned about it on sexist levels. I do however, think it’d be better if both portrayals were allowed to happen, and for there to be balance, rather than bias.
Travelodge 2
Posted: Wed 4 October, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Travel Leave a comment »Well, the advised fix for the air-conditioning actually did work – and it’s amazing just how much difference it makes, not having that bloody thing rattling in my ears all evening.
The place is still a money-gouging extortionate sinkhole, though.
But at least it’s not rattling.
Next Week
Posted: Wed 4 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »So yes, after the Travelodge mistake, I’ve booked somewhere very different for next week. But at least it has broadband and wireless across the entire place. And my commute/walk looks like it’ll be about five minutes at most between hotel and office.
Mind you, they’ve got a fucking horrible website, and the booking procedure’s been a nightmare. Like I’m going to send my credit card details (particularly when they ask for card number, expiry date, and the security number off the back) through email. Dullards.
But still, it should be pretty swanky for a week’s stay. I love this expenses lark…
Mind you, following that I’m going to be back in the B&B I started with, and I’ve managed to wangle access to their wireless network now (Not something they offer as standard, it has to be said) so that makes it more likely I’ll stay there for the rest of the duration. They’re not the greatest place, but it does fulfil all the requirements – the only one it really missed out on was the internet connectivity, so now that’s sorted too, it should be fine.
The Travelodge Rant or Mistakes I have made (Part One)
Posted: Tue 3 October, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Reviews(ish), Travel 1 Comment »Well, I can honestly say that booking myself into the Travelodge this week was a mistake. An epic mistake, in fact. OK, I can write a lot of it off as “a learning experience”, which roughly translates to “Things I intend to only ever do once in my life”.
Put it this way – I now understand why they charge you upfront for the rooms. If they left it ’til the end of the stay, they’d be losing money.
Obviously, I understand that the entire thing is a business, and thus is there to make a profit. I’ve been in the hospitality business, and have been strongly considering going back into it in the long run. But that’s a post for another time. However, running a profitable business doesn’t – well, doesn’t to me, anyway – mean gouging every available penny from one’s customers. It also doesn’t mean “annoy the shit out of them with stupid unnecessary stuff”. Oh, and it does mean “get into at least the 20th century”.
Bear in mind, this Travelodge that I’m using is brand new. It’s been built less than four years – and I think, only in the last couple of years. But because of the “gouge as much as possible from customers” ethos, they still try to charge a minimum of 50p per minute for phone calls. And more if they can get away with it. Calling a local-rate 0845 number that should be dead cheap? 50p a minute please. Calling an 0800 (or whatever the bloody code is now) freephone number? 50p per minute, please. Yes, even freephone calls are charged. So internet access is chargeable, and at rates that would’ve been extortionate five years ago, let alone now.
I just don’t understand the ethos. If you let that kind of stuff go through, it’s not costing you anything as a business – and in fact it’s going to increase your business, as people will stay there because it’s allowing through the internet access without gouging you for it. But oh no, instead they’ll charge through the nose for things that people usually now take for granted.
In the same context, I don’t really get the “charge extra for breakfast” ethos either. The place I stayed last week was a flat rate, including breakfast (although still no internet access – can’t have everything) and still cost less than the Travelodge’s room-only rate.
Oh, and when you get to the room, you have to use your key-card to turn on the power, lights etc. And it turns on the bloody air-conditioning too. Not that I normally object to air-con. But in October? Is it really necessary? It’s incredibly loud too – and you can’t turn the fucking thing off. I spoke to reception about it, and got told “No, it’s not something you can turn off. It’s automatic”. (It turns out that there is a way to do it – if you have a spare card, or piece of plastic, or use the cardboard wallet the keycard comes in, fold it in half, and slot that down the left-hand side of the slot. Apparently, this turns on power etc. without activating the air-con. I’ll be trying it tonight, you can be sure) The only other way to turn it off is to pull out the keycard from the power box. Which, of course, means you don’t have any power or light. That’s OK when you want to sleep, but not during the evening!
Ah yes, power. For a hotel only built in the last five years (at most) you’d think they’d take things like power-points into consideration, wouldn’t you? But oh no, Travelodge don’t want to waste power costs on nasty things like customers. So there’s precisely one available power socket in the room. Nothing near the beds, it’s over on the desk. How tight-fisted can you get? Of course, you’re not going to want to , I don’t know, charge up a mobile phone overnight. Or use a laptop. Well, you might – but you can only do one at a time. And you won’t be able to charge anything overnight because – yes! – you’ve pulled the power card, so that the fucking air-conditioning doesn’t keep you awake!
In short, Travelodges are probably fine for a one-night stay, as just somewhere to crash and burn. For a prolonged stay, they’re just fucking horrible – and will try to charge for absolutely everything. Needless to say, I won’t be staying at Travelodge next week…
TV through USB
Posted: Tue 3 October, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Travel 3 Comments »Well, the USB Freeview thing works – just not very well. I’m not sure quite what the problem is: it finds channels, but not many of them, and then has real problems with displaying them. I think it shows maybe one frame in three, and just doesn’t seem able to update fast enough.
So I don’t know what the issue is with it, and it may just be that where I am is in an area of dodgy reception – but it could also be that the bundled software is ropy as fuck. I don’t know yet.
More investigation needed, I think, but in the meantime, well, I’ll just have to use the standard channels.
Yellow
Posted: Mon 2 October, 2006 Filed under: Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »Oh yeah, I was going to write a bit about my holdall, wasn’t I? (Well, I said I would, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it was going to happen)
The holdall I use is probably one of the best buys I ever made. It’s made by Caterpillar (whose boots I swear by), and is bright yellow ripstop nylon. Nothing fancy, not even a solid base or anything. But it’s tough as old boots, and has now seen me through eleven years of use. It’s fantastic. It’s been used along the way for laundry, general luggage, up to two weeks away from home, as well as being a general carrier of crap, clothing, CDs, DVDs, shopping, and anything else that can get stuffed through its zip.
But the best use for it at the moment is – to be blunt – scaring the shit out of people in London. Particularly on escalators. So many people flinch when they see this big yellow bag coming into their eyeline as I belt down the left-hand side of the escalator, it’s really funny. Mind you, I’d probably flinch at the same sight, if I didn’t know it was my bag…
Pink?
Posted: Mon 2 October, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Health Leave a comment »If you’ve never bothered setting a default colour-scheme for D4D™, then you’ll notice that the site is – for October only – using the excessively foul Pink colour-scheme instead of the standard bloody-horrid Yellow one.
There’s a reason for this – it’s Breast Cancer awareness month and as such a number of sites are going Pink for October. Live with it.
Or just change the default colour scheme to Yellow by clicking on it up there somewhere.
Wheels
Posted: Mon 2 October, 2006 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »Following today’s journey, I’m now fully convinced that everyone who uses a small wheeled suitcase should be summarily executed.
I don’t mind (as much) with the big “two weeks in Spain” type wheeled suitcases, but the littler ones that seem to be deemed “carry-on” are just a pain in the arse. Or ankles. People just seem to drag them without any thought or consideration, and definitely don’t realise that they’re suddenly three times as long as they normally are, and thus can’t squeeze through the same gaps in the crowd.
I find now that if someone does hit me with their poxy little pull-along toy, a hefty kick seems to get the message across. (Kicking the pull-along, not the person, I should point out) But all the same, summary execution seems to be a better bet. After all, if it’s only that size, the lazy fuckers can carry the poxy things. I’m carrying a week’s worth of clothing etc. in a holdall (of which more later, I suspect) and have no problem. In fact, I suspect that half the problem with these pull-along things is that actually the solid handle, base, and wheels actually make the things so heavy that it is hard to carry them. Whereas a backpack, or simple carry-on satchel type thing would be fine.
Frustrating
Posted: Sun 1 October, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Weirdness 1 Comment »The USB TV Tuner thingy arrived fine, and has been installed on the laptop. However, I can’t test it ’til Monday, as for some bizarre reason, Bracknell doesn’t get the necessary Freeview signal at all. So I’ll have to wait until tomorrow evening before I can check it all out properly.
Most bizarre. Bracknell gets Sky and Cable TV with no problem, but not Freeview. Strange.
Evenings
Posted: Thu 28 September, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Travel 5 Comments »One thing I think I’ve done more this week than I have in ages (and get your minds out of the gutter – pervs) is watching – or at least listening to – some really bad TV. The two B&Bs I’ve stayed in this week – the first one was already booked solid for Wednesday night, so I was in another one for that night – have both had the strangest set-ups of TV I’ve ever come across, with the channels all messed up (Channel 1 was actually Channel 4, Channel 2 was ITV, Channel 3 was BBC2 and Channel 4 was BBC1 – in both places!) and only four channels anyway. Channel 5? Not a chance.
So I’ve ended up having on some background noise, and it’s been bloody awful TV. Things like Channel 4’s “How Clean Is Your House” , and whatever the thing is with the poo-inspecting obsessive fuckwad twat Gillian McKeith, for example. It’s amazing just how much really really bad TV can be made to fit into four channels.
Anyway, I’ve ended up making a decision, and ordering myself a little USB TV/Freeview receiver which should at least allow me to a) get more channels and b) record them if I want to. I’ve just had the email from Amazon telling me they’ve sent it out, so I should be able to install that on the laptop this weekend, and then we’ll see how it works out next week. Should be interesting, if nothing else.
Gideon
Posted: Thu 28 September, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »What on earth makes the Gideon people believe that people in hotels or B&Bs will want a bible to look through?
It’s something that’s always befuddled me, and the point is just getting reinforced yet again this week. I’ve never wanted to read a bible while in a hotel. OK, come to that, I’ve never really wanted to read a bible.
But if someone’s enough of a believer to want to read a bible in a hotel room, surely they’re more likely to have brought their own one with them?
Or am I missing something?
Comment Problems
Posted: Wed 27 September, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »OK, I don’t know why, but currently D4D™ is having major problems with a couple of bits. Commenting is the primary problem, and is currently down and out for the count.
It’s something to do with the server at 34sp.com, but currently there’s nothing showing about it on the status page, which is a bit of a worry.
So for now don’t try commenting. I’ll update as and when I get the chance.
[UPDATED : – Fixed the problem – for some reason the comments table had locked itself up in the database, so when I could finally log in this evening, I fixed the damn thing. Yay]
Stanislav Petrov
Posted: Wed 27 September, 2006 Filed under: General, News, Weirdness Leave a comment »Amazing, the things you find out sometimes.
Twenty-three years ago today, Stanislav Petrov saw multiple missile launches reported by his early-warning satellites and waited, knowing the satellite had been reported faulty, rather than reacting instantly to those American missile launches by launching the Soviet nuclear missiles under his control. He’s since been awarded two “World Citizen Awards”, and can be seen as pretty much saving the world from World War Three.
Hand and Foot
Posted: Wed 27 September, 2006 Filed under: General 2 Comments »One thing that’s very odd at the moment is that because I’m staying in a B&B , and having meals every night, I’m not actually doing any cooking or really anything for myself. And that, to me, is very strange – I’m not used to it, and I’ve never been overly keen on the entire “being served” concept in life.
Obviously I don’t mind on occasion, or when an event requires it. I don’t object to restaurants and waiters, for example. But I’m just not used to not doing stuff for myself on a regular basis. I wake up, get breakfast done for me. The room at the B&B gets cleaned up, hoovered etc. while I’m away at work, and then when I get “home” to the B&B, I then go out and have a meal somewhere. Yeah, it’s great for purposes of Wheres Good, but on a personal basis it’s bloody weird.
I think a lot of people would say that’d be their ideal lifestyle – always being looked after and cleaned-up after. For me, I’m too independent to be comfortable with it, I suspect. All very strange.
Bah Fuckin’ Humbug
Posted: Tue 26 September, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season 5 Comments »You know, it really is very easy to go off some people particularly when they decide to go all bloody festive and remind me (and, of course, the rest of the world – or at least the subsection of it that reads his blog) that there’s “only” three months ’til Christmas.
Personally, I prefer to go with the fact that three months from today, it’ll all be over with for another year. And bloody good riddance too.
Bah, humbug.
Upgrade?
Posted: Mon 25 September, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Hmm, now this might just constitute “overkill” when it comes to upgrading my camera(s).
A 160Mp digital camera? That produces images 6″ x 17″ ? Oh yeah, that’s something to aim for. Maybe one day…
Trains
Posted: Mon 25 September, 2006 Filed under: Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »Amazingly, the journey to Cambridge today went really smoothly. Although I have to say, I was right when my now-ex-employers moved to the London office, and I really truly couldn’t handle the commuter train to get in to London before 9am. OK, getting on where I do helps, as there’s normally still seating, but then halfway through the journey it’s still jam-packed like the Black Hole of Calcutta. Fuckin’ horrible.
All the same, though, it was OK. I got to Waterloo, onto Tubes that were busy but nowhere near full, in to Kings Cross, and then up to Cambridge. All on time, (in fact I even got an earlier train to Cambridge, and thus arrived at 9.30 instead of the planned 10.00am) and no problems at all.
No-one is more surprised than I.
Gone Quiet
Posted: Sun 24 September, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »Not a lot happening here today – just having a quiet day, before disappearing off to Cambridge tomorrow.
The bag’s packed, most of gubbins I’ll be needing is ready (I just need to sort out the laptop and the power packs for laptop and mobile phone) but I’m pretty much ready for tomorrow.
For today though, well, it’s going to be quiet.
New Link
Posted: Fri 22 September, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Still on the subject of photography, I came across a blog yesterday that I didn’t know existed, but that has been added to the photography section of my links straight away.
I didn’t know that Dan Chung had a blog – he’s one of the main photographers for The Guardian and I think a lot of his stuff is fantastic. Don’t believe me? Check out the first couple of shots here, or the shots of the famine in Niger.
So yes, I’m pleased I came across his blog, and intend to keep an eye on it from now on.
Bizarre
Posted: Fri 22 September, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Weirdness Leave a comment »Yesterday I had a sudden thought. Not a common occurrence at all, but anyway.
Why not have a look to see if Cambridge has a Camera Club?
Thought I.
So I did a quick search, and lo, Cambridge Camera Club hoves into view. Great, that’ll be a good way to spend an evening once I’m there next week.
Um, no. Membership is now closed ’til September 2007. So what’s the point of that then? Photographers are only allowed to join once a year? Not even get a chance to see if they like the place?
Bag o’ crap.
Travelling again
Posted: Thu 21 September, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel, Work-related 1 Comment »Depressingly, I need to go into London tomorrow in order to finalise a couple of things with work. Bit of a bummer, although it does mean I can go and have a drink with the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) who’s become a good friend over the last year, as it’s his last day with the company too.
It’s actually been quite surprising to me just how much my stress levels and so on have dropped this week since sorting out leaving the company. This week has been almost a holiday, particularly in comparison to the last couple of months. I’m still getting up at the same time and so on – no point getting in to bad habits when I’m only doing this for a week, after all – and I’ve still been doing a lot of work, but at the same time, wow, it’s just nice to not be stressed or annoyed by dealing with idiots.
And yes, having Hound around has (in general) been quite relaxing too. OK, she can be a barky pain in the arse on occasion, but for the most part this week she seems to have quite enjoyed having me around as well, and she’s been calm, sleeping under the desk or in the corner of the office, and been very little trouble at all.
Synchronised Data
Posted: Thu 21 September, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised 2 Comments »One thing I’ve spent some time doing this week is sorting out my addresses, phone numbers, and all that gubbins. I’ve written about this before, but the situation is the same I had last year. Until recently, I kept all the address information I had in my Filofax, and that was it. I don’t like duplicating the data for birthdays and so on from one year to the next, but that’s still probably the easiest way of doing things.
However, this year I’ve got the XDA phone, which has a lot more versatility and data – hell, it’s a PDA with phone functions (and Herself will say “Told you so” when she sees me saying that) – which means that I can also store addresses, birthdays etc. in it. So that’s what I’ve been doing over the last couple of days, synchronising all the addresses, birthdays, anniversarys (where I remember them, or have noted them down) and all that, copying it over from the Filofax into Outlook, and from there into the XDA.
The good thing about this is that – in theory at least – I won’t have to do it all again. Ever. Of course I’ll still have to copy through the birthdays etc. year on year in the Filofax, but at least now I’ve got a good backup of them as well. Outlook will keep a copy in Contacts, and the XDA will be there too. In fact, if I push myself, I could even print out a full list of the birthdays, and just write them in the right places, rather than flicking between [Current Year]’s pages and [Next Year]’s ones.
In fact, My God, that’s now all almost organised!
Rechargeable
Posted: Wed 20 September, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, News 1 Comment »Absolutely Brilliant idea. Batteries you can recharge through your USB port. Fantastic.
I’m going to order some, I think.
Footwarmer
Posted: Wed 20 September, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »One thing I’m discovering I quite like about being based at home is that I get to spend some more time with the idiot Hound.
Currently I’m at my desk, and she’s asleep on my feet. And has been for most of the day. I don’t quite know what we’ve done to knacker her out (or maybe it’s just normal Hound behaviour, but we don’t usually see it) but she’s been zonked for most of the day, with the exception of when we have had people delivering stuff to the door. (Which has been several times, due to Herself having gone bananas on EBay)
The only real downside of Hound sleeping on my feet is that she’s resting her head on my right foot, and it’s now completely numb. (As is her head, but we’ll gloss over that) And every time I try to move it, she growls in her sleep. Which, while very funny to watch, is still quite distracting.
Libraries (Again)
Posted: Wed 20 September, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Getting Organised Leave a comment »So, after Saturday’s arse-about with bureaucracy, and the sending of a snotty email, I still hadn’t had any response. So I thought well, what the hell, give them a call.
Twenty sodding minutes later, I’m a member of the library in Cambridge. But not before going through three different people, two of whom insisted that I couldn’t actually join the library because I don’t live in Cambridge. Irrespective of the webpage about who can join the Cambridgeshire libraries that specifically states
Question:Can anyone join the library?
Answer:You can join the library at any age if you:
- are a permanent resident of Cambridgeshire
- work or study in Cambridgeshire
- are visiting Cambridgeshire
the first two jobsworths insisted that I could only join if I lived in Cambs. But that’s not what the web page says. Well, sir, you still can’t. Fuckwits.
Eventually I got through to someone who had at least two braincells active, who went through the procedure no worries. Maybe she was the rocket-scientist of the three. I don’t know.
But at least now all I have to do next week is provide proof of my ID (breaking out the trusty passport and/or drivers licence again) and job done.
Daytime
Posted: Tue 19 September, 2006 Filed under: General, Thoughts 1 Comment »OK, it’s only Tuesday, but I have to say, Jesus God Almighty, daytime TV is truly abysmal.
Even with shitloads of channels, it’s utterly pisspoor.
Thank god for music, laptops, and a DVD collection, that’s all I can say.