Downtime
Posted: Fri 30 June, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel 2 Comments »Gah, why is it that on the one occasion you really need a certain website in order to check the availability of trains before organising an interview, the fucking thing’s down, and you can’t access it at all?
Bastards.
Still, yes, I have an interview. In Cambridge. On Tuesday. Eek.
ChickenBoy
Posted: Thu 29 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 6 Comments »Ah, so, it was the second round then. OK, he was unlucky to be against someone like Federer so early on, but well, let’s face it, Henman’s a wet fart whoever he’s against when it comes to Wimbledon.
Role Models
Posted: Wed 28 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »While I don’t understand it personally, I know that a lot of people will use various famous people as their style icons – dressing like Victoria Beckham, Naomi Campbell, [latest R&B pop person], fashion guru x or designer y, high street stuff, or whatever. Fair enough. Not my thing, but who am I to dictate to others?
However, on the train today was a woman whose style “icon” appeared to be Jade Goody. Which, really, is just scary.
Wifi for all
Posted: Wed 28 June, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Thoughts 1 Comment »Now this is a brilliant idea.
Sell wireless routers for $5 in return for a 12 month agreement from the user to keep the router open to access by other users of the same phone network. (Non-FON users can get a 24-hour pass for €3) That way (they hope) you can build a decent wireless “hotspot” network, street by street, user by user.
“Wi-fi is universal in cities, but access isn’t,” said Juergen Urbanski.
Mr Urbanski said Fon was aiming to have 50,000 working hotspots worldwide by September, 150,000 by year-end and one million hotspots by the end of 2007.
To date, 54,000 people worldwide have signed up to become “foneros,” up from 3,000 in February, according to the company.
Brilliance.
Conversation
Posted: Tue 27 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »Standing at the platform this morning, waiting for my train to arrive, I was “treated” to the following conversational gem…
Him : Where’s the train? It says up there it’s at 8.50.
Her : It’s late. It says on the right, it’s due at 8.59
Him : But it says there it’s at 8:50. Look underneath, it’s 8:55. The train’s late.
Her : Yes. Because it says right there on the right, it’s due in at 8:59
Him : But it’s 8:55. It’s late.
Her : …
Him : And it said it would be 8:50 on that TV fingy in the ticket office
Her : very gritted teeth And it said ‘on that TV fingy’ that it would be nine minutes late too…
Him : But it’s 8:56 now, and it’s still not here…
I opted to move at that point – I figured she didn’t need the witnesses, if she pushed him under the fucking train. I’d’ve pushed him, you can be sure of that.
Critical Mass
Posted: Tue 27 June, 2006 Filed under: Green, News 1 Comment »Nice to see that Critical Mass , a monthly event in London, has been judged to be lawful by the High Court, finding against the Metroplitan Police’s claim that it was an unlawful event.
The London ride is part of a worldwide phenomenon and has taken place on the last Friday of the month, every month, for the past 12 years, with riders gathering on the South Bank from 6pm.
But last September, before the start of that month’s ride, cycle police, who always accompany the cyclists, distributed a letter to participants stating the Critical Mass demonstrations were not lawful.
HP7
Posted: Tue 27 June, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »So, JK Rowling is planning to kill off two characters in the final Harry Potter book? So what? Is this news?
Personally, I’m rather more surprised that she’s only killing off two. I’d have thought that you could have far more fun with Voldemort going on the rampage, and killing off all the do-gooders one-by-one ’til the final showdown.
But hey, what would I know.
Wimbledon
Posted: Mon 26 June, 2006 Filed under: General 4 Comments »How can you tell that today is the start of Wimbledon 2006?
Because it’s pissing it down with rain, that’s how.
And just when do we expect wet-fart Henman to fall out of the contest?
Water Butts
Posted: Mon 26 June, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, General, Green 2 Comments »A while ago, we bought a couple of water butts, in order to save some rainwater for the garden, and all that jazz. (In fact, we now have three water butts, including one that was getting used (and probably will again) for “grey water” – ie washing-up water etc.)
Anyway, out of the three we’ve got, only one has a tap that doesn’t leak. Turns out, two of them were supplied without all the parts for the taps, so they didn’t seal properly – we ended up fixing it with silicone sealant, but all the same, on one it still drips.
Eventually I got round to emailing Sankey, the people who made the butts in the first place, and asked about getting a couple of the missing nuts for the taps.
I got an email today (which had been filtered into “junk mail” because of the subject line – “Butt Taps”) saying they’re going to send out the spare parts. Woo, and indeed Yay.
Sproglet
Posted: Sun 25 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic Leave a comment »Many congratulations to Karen and Pete, on the birth of “Bernard”…
Amateur Photographer
Posted: Sat 24 June, 2006 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 2 Comments »Every year, Amateur Photographer magazine runs a competion called “Amateur Photographer of the Year”, also known as APOY, which has about ten different “rounds” of photo submissions, where people get given a theme, and have to submit photographs that fit in with that theme.
And every month, when they publish the results, I get annoyed.
You see, the competition is for Amateur photographers, which to AP means “Photographers who don’t make their living from photography”. And yes, I agree that that is the true definition of “Amateur”. But when you look at the competition results, well, sometimes you have to wonder.
In the results in the current issue – and believe me, this is a rarity – only one of the top three has been edited to within an inch of its life. I’m not having a dose of sour grapes here, because the winning image for this round is beautiful, and utterly deserves the prize. The third place one is pretty damn stunning too, and so are many of the others in the top 30 that are published. But – and this is where I get annoyed – the second place image isn’t actually a photograph.
Instead, it’s two photographs, skilfully merged in Photoshop. And yes, the merging is bloody superb – it *should* be one photo, and if it was one photo, I’d have no qualms about it being in the top three. But it’s not one photo, it’s a merge – not even a double exposure, or anything using a photographic technique that might take some skill. No, it’s Photoshop.
I can’t help but feel, when it comes to these things, that the prizes should be allocated to photos, and to a person’s skill in spotting that image, framing it, and taking it. That – to me – is what photography is about. I don’t want to see things that have been hacked, altered, merged, composited and beaten to within an inch of their lives, images manipulated in photoshop (or similar). Maybe I’m too much of a purist.
Don’t get me wrong – I use Photoshop myself. But only to do what, if I were using a film camera, I could do in a darkroom. Crops, resizes, blowups, maybe even on occasion some alteration of brightness and contrast. I like my photos to be real, to portray a scene as I’ve seen it (or, technically, as I’ve envisioned it could be, say I’m using a long exposure or something). I don’t want to portray a scene as it should be, or could be.
And when these images win in an Amateur Photographer competition, what kind of message does that send out to photographers, to people who just want to take photos?
Diaries
Posted: Fri 23 June, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised, Health 3 Comments »Next Wednesday I’ve got an appointment at the gym with a nutritionist. Kind of weird – I’ve been planning it for a long time now, but finally got round to making the appointment this week.
So of course, as part of that, I have to make a list of everything I eat or drink between yesterday and next Wednesday. OK, that could be interesting – in a kind of depressing “how much diet coke?” way.
But now comes the sad part. Rather than doing a diary where I write it all down, then forget stuff, then lose the bits of paper etc. (Hey, at least I acknowledge my own inefficiency) I’ve gone and written a tiny little web app that lets me add in items, keeps them in a database, and provides a printable record of them anytime I want. I can even access it through my phone.
I really need to get out more, don’t I?
Drip, Drip, Drip – Extra
Posted: Thu 22 June, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Green Leave a comment »Ah, I do like annoying people.
I’ve just emailed the following to Thames Water’s customer services.
To whom it may concern,
If, as your current news story puts it, “Approximately a quarter of all leakage is on customers’ pipes.�, that still means that three-quarters of all leakage is on TW’s side of the pipes.
How does a utility company justify selling people a product, and then telling them they can’t use it?
How does a utility company justify leaks that amount to the equivalent of 6.6 million people’s daily usage ( using the DFID’s estimate of 135 litres per person per day ) every day ?
I’m just interested to know.
Sincerely
Lyle
Should be interesting to see what they come up with…
Drip, Drip, Drip
Posted: Thu 22 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Green, Thoughts, Weirdness 17 Comments »How on earth can a water company justify losing 894 million litres per day of water? That’s something like 675,000 litres per second.
Taking the assumption that a person uses about 135 litres of water per day, that loss is equal to the water supply for 6.6million people. Considering that Thames Water only supplies 8 million people all told, that’s a pretty fucking big loss, I’d say. In fact, if you take into account the people they do supply, as well as the amount they’re losing, if they were an efficient company, they could supply 14.5 million people. That’d make the shareholders happy.
So how come it’s the users of Thames Water who are penalised by drought orders and hosepipe bans, when Thames Water themselves are the biggest water wasters of all?
Sorting Sleeptime
Posted: Wed 21 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Health 1 Comment »For a long time I suffered from epically bad insomnia – it seems to have sorted itself out a bit at the moment, bizarrely, although I still tend to suffer from very disturbed sleep – but 43 Folders has a list of things that may help to break insomnia.
Some of them I don’t agree with, but in general it makes a lot of sense. However, for me, I’d say that the one I disagree with most is
Get in the habit of going to bed when you are sleepy and sleeping where you sleep best
I think that what caused my insomnia (or at least contributed to it) was getting in to the habit of only going to sleep when I felt tired, or only sleeping in places I wanted to sleep, and that screwed me something rotten.
Ah well. It’s still an interesting set of ideas…
Strop
Posted: Wed 21 June, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 9 Comments »Now, be honest, is there anyone who didn’t fall about laughing when watching Wayne Rooney’s strop at the England/Sweden game?
Yes, even I saw it, and laughed.
UPDATED : Yes, I admit it, I watched the match. Herself had it on, and I couldn’t be arsed to move. So yes, I watched it.
Lug’oles
Posted: Wed 21 June, 2006 Filed under: Animals, General, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »When I was walking Hound this morning, something occurred to me. I know, it’s a bit of a rare occurrence, but what the hell, it was 7am, and my brain was still hovering somewhere between sleep and conscious. Like the man said, the lights were on, but no-one was home. Autopilot all the way, baby.
Anyway, watching Hound, I suddenly started thinking – How cool is it to have independently controllable ears?
As we’d walked round, Hounds ears had constantly been pointing in different directions – well, unless she heard something particularly interesting, in which case both focussed in the same direction. I wonder what it’s like to be able to focus on two completely different sounds, and hear each one properly with only one ear…
Of course, it can make you look really stupid too, when one ear is facing forwards, and the other’s facing backwards, but still, it must be pretty cool…
Packaging
Posted: Tue 20 June, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Green 1 Comment »It’s good to see that at last a fairly large domestic organisation is starting to protest to supermarkets about the excessive amount of food packaging they use.
Yes, the Women’s Institute (WI) is going green! And about time too.
Food packaging has also been one of the goals of Generous.org.uk – another great resource for this kind of green information…
Public Knowledge
Posted: Mon 19 June, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 6 Comments »Over the weekend, the news has had a couple of stories about whether the UK government is thinking of doing a version of “Megan’s Law” from the US. Basically, this would mean that it became public knowledge about any convicted paedophiles and/or sex offenders who lived in the area.
Some people might be surprised to know that I’m actually quite against this kind of thing, and I have a couple of reasons for being so.
First of all, I don’t actually believe it does anyone any good. The “Stranger Danger” campaign, another instance of “protection” was grossly misguided, because while yes, some child abuse is committed by people unknown to the victim, or family of the victim, a huge proportion isn’t. “Stranger Danger” is great for trying to stop child abductions, kidnappings, poisonings etc., but for stopping child abuse it’s bollocks. Now, I don’t claim to know the exact figures, but it’s well known that child abuse happens primarily within a family, and the abuser is normally known to either the victim, or the victim’s family. I vaguely recall that the figure is somewhere in the 75-80% range.
Secondly, I’m cynical about the reactions it would have from the general populace. I suspect that the general response would be along the lines of “Well, we don’t want them in our area. Let’s get rid of them.”, which would then lead to the types of civil disturbance, vigilantism and ignorance that was so famed in places like Portsmouth in 2000 when a local paper “named and shamed” local paedophiles – and got the wrong names/addresses.
I can all too easily see people deciding that every sex offender is a paedophile, and thus when anything happens in the area, they would become the targets for vilification, abuse, and violence, even if the occurrence had been nothing to do with their own particular offence. And it doesn’t take much to imagine the results if a child were abducted in that area – again, vigilantism and violence.
Personally, I despise paedophiles, and child abusers. But I don’t think that allowing either the government, local councils, or the media to disclose their whereabouts is a productive way to handle these things. Life sentences that actually mean something, yes. Sex Offenders Register, where those who have committed a similar offence previously are top of the list to be questioned should something similar happen, yes, most definitely.
But letting the public decide? No, absolutely not.
@Media – thoughts
Posted: Sun 18 June, 2006 Filed under: @Media 06, Geeky, Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »So yes, as I said earlier this week, I spent Thursday and Friday at the @Media conference in London. And yes, I did enjoy most of it – and some of it has proved to be useful, or given me ideas, so in that context it was pretty successful, I’d say.
On the first day, the initial signs weren’t that great, in honesty. The registration took forever – apparently most techies names start with A-D. Who knew? So while all the people whose initials started J-Z were constantly getting called out of the queue, because those “registration stations” were empty, all the people from A-I were stuck in one big queue, and then the A-Ds were still stuck in a queue once they’d got past the first one. In all it took nearly 45 minutes to get registered – quite impressive, considering they’d initially only allocated from 8-8:45 to register everyone. Still, all part of the learning curve, I suppose. After all, it’s only the second @Media conference at all.
The only other real complaint would be about the provisions. Yeah, they were great if you drank tea or coffee, but there didn’t seem to be anything for people who wanted water, or any other soft drinks at all. Even tea was a bit of a struggle – but water was a nightmare. And the food provided at lunchtimes, while of a pretty good quality (and having been sourced to Leiths) was – to be blunt – small. A selection of sandwiches, and a tiny bowl of Thai Curry or Singapore noodles? Not really a lot, considering each person there had paid at least £400 for the privilege.
However, when the complaints are done with, the rest of the conference went really smoothly, was well organised, and had plenty of interesting stuff.
For me, the highlights are probably Jeff Veen‘s section on Thursday, which was absolutely fantastic, and gave me a lot of food for thought, and Friday’s one would most probably be Dan Cederholm‘s presentation on “Bulletproof Web Design”, which made for some interesting points – some of which were about stating the obvious, but it was still a good presentation.
There was a lot of other stuff that was good, and some that kind of didn’t hit the mark – for example, the presentation about designing websites and content for mobile use didn’t hit the mark (for me, anyway), and nor did the one about WCAG2.0 (Web Accessibility Guidelines) which was interesting enough, but to me could’ve gone so much further.
All told though, I’d say it was well worth the money, and the getting up at 5.45 in order to be on the train for 7am.
Now, when’s the booking start for the 2007 one?
Upgrading
Posted: Sat 17 June, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »It may seem a little bit odd, in light of what I was saying earlier in the week about our decision to move before the end of this year, but at the moment we’re also moving over our phone line from NT-Hell to BT. Now yes, I know BT have their problems too – but it always worries me that actually, despite all that, BT are still the best of the bunch when it comes to phone lines and so on.
In fact, the phone line installation and activation happened on Monday, and went without a hitch. Actually, there was annoyance, but that was down to lack of communication. Turns out, they don’t actually need to visit the house in order to get everything switched on. Except they didn’t tell us that ’til the Saturday before – you know, when I’d already booked the time off from work, and too late for me to change it. Which pissed me off, but hey, what can you do?
Still, it all got activated fine, so we’ve now got a working BT line, and notice will be given to NTL on Monday, to tell them to piss off. I can’t wait.
And now we’ve ordered the new ADSL connection too. 8Mbs. Lovely. That’s going in on the 3rd July. So we’ll see how that goes too. Yay.
Bugfood
Posted: Sat 17 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts 1 Comment »One thing I hate about summer : mosquitos.
For some reason the little buzzing hypersonic bastards think I taste great, so they all attack me in the night. And I get covered in lumpy bites that drive me utterly insane.
Currently, due to the lack of foresight displayed by sitting outside one evening, my feet – particularly, my toes and the sides of my feet – are covered in itchy little bastard bites.
Time for some insect repellent…
Delayed
Posted: Thu 15 June, 2006 Filed under: @Media 06, Travel 2 Comments »Well, the travel.wasn’t so bad. Mind you, getting up at 5.45 was that bad. And then some.
And the train was OK. Delayed, but not by much, because of some whacking great signal failure, and a diversion via Weybridge and all sorts.
But I got here fine. And all’s good.
Thank God for wireless networks…
Green? Or PR?
Posted: Thu 15 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, News 5 Comments »Isn’t it interesting how all of a sudden, a lot of media stories – and government policies – are becoming more ecologically-based?
Two this week came to my attention – first the “green rating” of houses when they go up for sale, as part of the HIP (Home Information Pack) concept that’s being introduced in June 2007. Of course, it’s a bit half-arsed, as there’d be no financial incentives to home-buyers for buying a house that was more ecological/green than another.
The second one, which interested me more, was about the possibility of charging people more for rubbish collection if they don’t sort their recyclable stuff from the normal household crap.
To me, that’s a good idea – we need to increase the amount we recycle, and anything that works to persuade people to do so is, to me, a good thing. It still amazes me on our refuse collection day, seeing how much recyclable stuff we have in comparison to the other people on our street. Maybe we end up with a lot more packaging etc. that is able to be recycled, but I don’t think so – I think that at the moment most people still see it as “easier” to just chuck everything into one bin, instead of sorting it out.
Conversion Rate
Posted: Wed 14 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »Wasn’t this apology for the fucked-up “terrorist” raid in East London an absolute gem? There’s a video of the press conference held by the men who were arrested, and their story of the arrest – and the entire thing is just truly bad. Being shot with no warning, being dragged down the stairs by their feet, being sworn at, and told to shut the fuck up, and many other things.
And what it made me think, more than anything else, was that if those men weren’t terrorists, “enemies of the state” or whatever before, they sure as shit have been given a bloody good reason to do so now, haven’t they?
Game Tart
Posted: Wed 14 June, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism Leave a comment »Recently, I wrote a little bit about a company called GameTart.com, and their shonky procedures. I left them because they were turning deeply shit, and never responded to any queries.
Yesterday, when I checked my bank account online, I saw that they’d charged me for another month’s membership. Cue ballistic Lyle.
I sent them an email through their website, asking them what the hell was going on, and asking them to call me.
Nothing.
I sent them another email (they don’t do convenient things like, say, having a phone number) asking them, again, to explain why I’d been charged, and to call me (and yes, I did include a phone number) so that this could be sorted out.
Nothing.
I got a call this morning, where they tried making out they’d replied to emails, and they’d all bounced. Convenient – especially considering that every other email I was expecting yesterday came through fine. Then they tried making out that they’d called me yesterday, but the phone had been busy. Which is, in theory, possible – except that when it’s busy, it goes direct to voicemail. Ooops.
Anyway, the situation’s sorted. It’s still left me with a feeling that they’re actually just a small-time business with very few staff, and less consideration for customers though.
Surreal
Posted: Tue 13 June, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 2 Comments »Depressingly, Herself insisted on listening to a certain football game over the weekend. Well, some of it, anyway.
At halftime, they went to some shonky stand near London Bridge, where allegedly lots of people were watching the match.
The shonky stand was sponsored by the “Official Beer of England”.
That beer was – um – Carlsberg?
Dyson
Posted: Sat 10 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised 4 Comments »A while back, our old hoover died, and we bought a Dyson upright to replace it.
Now, while I don’t mind the thing in general, it does have a couple of things that piss me off every time I use the sodding thing. Number One is the power cord – call me picky, but having a power cable that has to be repeatedly looped around a couple of hooks every time you use it is a pain in the arse. Hasn’t Dyson heard of the automatic power reel?
The second one is the tools. They’ve been “designed” (and I use the term in its loosest possible sense) to sit in little slots atop the main cylinder. So of course every time you knock into something, or your leg brushes against the cleaner – say in rare circumstances, like when you’re taking the pissing thing up and down stairs – the sodding brushes pop out all over the place. It’s like they were just shoved in at the last moment, in an “Oh sod, what’ve we forgotten?” moment.
In fact, despite the fact that it’s actually a pretty good vacuum cleaner, I can’t help but feel that “Oh sod, we’ve forgotten something” pretty much sums up the design process for the entire thing.
World Cup
Posted: Sat 10 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 6 Comments »OK, just so I know, is it bad to be hoping that England get knocked out in the first round, so we don’t have to deal with all this hysteria and media bollocks all the way through June?
Rubber Roads
Posted: Fri 9 June, 2006 Filed under: Green, Travel 3 Comments »Interesting idea in this story from the BBC about a company with plans to use old disused/decommisioned railway lines, and create a road made from recycled rubber car tyres along them, which may go some way to helping relieve congestion.
So – a green option for helping to recycle rubber tyres instead of flinging them on landfill, and a way to make certain roads quicker and (possibly) cheaper than normal methods. And that uses less water etc. than the concrete that’s used in roads?
Sounds like a plan to me…
Raptors
Posted: Thu 8 June, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Photography 6 Comments »On the bank holiday weekend, we ended up at the Tring Canal Festival – various reasons, but well, that’s where we ended up.
While we were there, there was a falconry centre that had brought along some of their birds, and I took advantage of it to get some photos of kestrels, owls, and a golden eagle with the benefit of no bars between them and the camera.
As it happens, I’m actually really pleased with some of the results…
Click images to see big versions
Card Reader
Posted: Tue 6 June, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Before going off on this week’s holiday, I made sure that I ordered a USB card-reader, so that I can easily copy all the photos from the Digital SLR onto the laptop, rather than using the hellish method offered by Canon for doing so.
I suppose that I should’ve tested it out before going away, but well, that’d take all the fun away from it, wouldn’t it?
Still, more news/reviews/thoughts about it when I get back. I hope it works – I’d hate to have thrown the EOS20D through a window…
HD
Posted: Tue 6 June, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Thoughts 2 Comments »Is it just me, or is the entire HD TV “revolution” just the teeny-weeniest bit hyped?
OK, sure, you can get “crystal-clear” pictures. (For the time being we’ll gloss over the fact that nearly all HDTV screens are plasma or LCD, and thus suffer problems with pixel-lag, blurring, blah, blah, blah) But to do so – and frankly the current crop of HD transmissions don’t make this worthwhile – means buying:
- a new HD-ready TV
- A new HD set-top box
- paying extra to subscribe to the HD channels
- a new HD-ready DVD player
- more cables
and if you want to see DVDs etc. in HD
Currently it’s reckoned that to see HD stuff, you’re likely to need to invest at least £2,000 . All for nice “crystal clear” pictures.
So I’m sorry, but at the moment I really don’t see the point of shelling out for that. If it’s successful, the price for all this equipment will fall. It will become cheaper, more available, and there will be better content.
For now, though – well, thanks, but I’ll wait ’til I need to upgrade to that kind of kit.
Less Posts
Posted: Mon 5 June, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic Leave a comment »We’re away this week, off to sunny (with luck) Norfolk.
As a result, there’s still going to be some updates here and so on, but nothing special. Enjoy, anyway.
And normal service will be resumed over the weekend, once we’re back…
“What a ride”
Posted: Sun 4 June, 2006 Filed under: General 3 Comments »“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow – What a ride!'”
— Peter Sage.
Beached
Posted: Thu 1 June, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Maybe this is just me, but doesn’t it seem a bit bizarre to have a sand-sculpting festival in Brighton, one of the stoniest beaches (with the least sand) in the country?
In fact they’ve had to import sand from Holland in order to have the festival at Brighton.
Weirder than weird, in my oh-so-humble opinion…
Number Plates
Posted: Thu 1 June, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »OK, great idea, releasing new-style number plates that supposedly make them harder to remove/swap“. In theory, anyway.
However, what you have to bear in mind is that when people “clone” cars in order to evade things like Congestion Charge, speed cameras and the like, they don’t actually steal the number plates in the first place. They just make a note of what the reg is, wander into any car-parts place, and ask for a pair of numberplates to be made up with that registration. No need to prove you own that car, or anything.
So what would actually stop this issue would be changing the law to make it so that you have to produce – say – the tax disc, or the insurance documents for the car when you ask for numberplates to be made up, and they can only be made up in the same registration as that on the documents you’ve provided.
Common sense really, isn’t it?
BB VII
Posted: Tue 30 May, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »So another person has walked out of the current series of Big Brother. That’s four departures, only one of which was a “proper” eviction…
Mind you, I’m not quite sure that George got the idea of Big Brother, because his reason for leaving was “My reason for leaving the Big Brother house is the thought of fame and how I would like to continue my private life – and fame is too much for me.”. Surely that’s the entire reason most people go on the bloody programme, to self-publicise themselves and become “famous” ?
Motivation…
Posted: Tue 30 May, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »I’m intrigued about one thing regarding the latest media outrage against John Prescott.
Are they wanting him to go because a) he was photographed playing a game while nominally “in charge” of the country? Or b) because he was playing croquet, “a game for the upper class”, while Prescott is supposed to be “working class”.
Would the media (and in particular, the Mail on Sunday, who paid for the photos) have been anywhere near as interested if Prescott had been playing, say, darts? Or five-a-side football?
Loud
Posted: Tue 30 May, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 1 Comment »The infection in my ear has finally cleared up. It’s taken its bloody time, but it’s gone.
However, in the meantime my brain had kind of got used to that damped-out sound, and was happily processing the world while taking that fuzziness into account, and thus amplifying whatever was getting through, so all was OK and at about normal volume.
Now that it’s just gone, though, it’s still catering for that problem, with the result that the world seems like a very loud place at the moment…
X-Men 3 – The Last Stand
Posted: Mon 29 May, 2006 Filed under: Reviews(ish) 1 Comment »Finally went to see it last night. Hmm, now, was it worth it?
X3 (Sorry, can’t be arsed with the long title any more) is OK. It’s better than a lot of ropy stuff out there, but equally it’s not a patch on X-Men 1 or 2. Directed by Brett Ratner, instead of the first two’s Bryan Singer, you can see the difference in style, and Ratner’s “Action” preference. The back story just isn’t there, and there’re some bits that just seem to hang there with no relevance to anything else.
Overall, it’s OK – it’s just not as good as 1 and 2. Which is a pity – I suspect that if Singer had stayed at the helm, and not chosen to rehash direct Superman Returns, X-3 would’ve been a far better film.
It’s still worth seeing (if you liked the first two, anyway) but a steady suspension of disbelief/logic is most definitely retired. Otherwise you’ll find yourself asking things like “So what was the point of the guy with wings?” and “Only six? Out of the entire school? Pfft” (which manage to ask the questions without chuffing the plot – helpful, aren’t I?)
Nice Idea, But…
Posted: Sat 27 May, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts 1 Comment »Recently, I’ve been renting PSP games from a company called GameTart. It’s a nice idea – a PSP (and Playstation 2 etc.) version of ScreenSelect and Lovefilm, where you rent a game, get it sent by post, play it, return it when you want.
Unfortunately, with GameTart the implementation hasn’t been all that great…
Initially the service started up with a free trial period. All went smoothly. However, since that trial expired, GameTart have managed to “lose” two games, one from them to me, one from me to them. Supposedly they then send out a “lost mail items” form, which has to be filled in within ten days, or you can be liable for the full price of the game. I’m still waiting…
All in all, it’s a great idea, but it’s just not done right.
Dodgy
Posted: Fri 26 May, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »Now, this may come as a shock. A D4D™ post about football.
Now, I don’t know much about the game (which will come as a shock to no-one), but how come Belarus’ goal last night was allowed, when the goalkeeper was writhing round on the floor, having just ruptured his groin?
Obviously if he’d been a clumsy twat and had just fallen over, thus allowing the goal to be scored, that’s fine. But when he’s on the floor in pain, doesn’t it make sense to at least disallow a goal that takes advantage of that ?
X-Men3 – again
Posted: Fri 26 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Travel Leave a comment »So, no, we didn’t actually get to see Xmen last night. And it was all because of bloody football.
What I hadn’t realised at the time was that Reading’s football stadium was host to England ‘B’ team vs. Belarus at the same time we were planning to go to the cinema. And so, because Reading’s a fucking nightmare at the best of times, let alone when there’s an England game on (even a B team one) the entire bloody place was gridlocked. Absolutely solid.
So we said sod it. There was no earthly way we’d get to the cinema on time – in fact it was pretty dodgy whether we’d get there before the film was halfway done – so we’ll see it this weekend instead.
All things considered, probably a far better plan.
Disillusioned
Posted: Fri 26 May, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Arses. I’ve now found a reason to like Big Brother.
As a series, I utterly hate it, and can’t see the appeal at all in watching a bunch of self-obsessed arseholes for 13 weeks. Particularly when most of the time seems to be spent with them either a) spouting crap, or b) sleeping. Voyeurism just isn’t for me.
However, I hadn’t thought about Big Brother in this perspective…
[Channel 4] is understandably coy about how much it earns from the programme, partly because many in the industry argue that, as a broadcaster with a public service remit, it shouldn’t produce such programmes anyway.
And because it has no shareholders, all the money Channel 4 makes from Big Brother gets pumped back into producing innovative comedy, expensive dramas and areas such as news and current affairs – none of which attract anything like as many viewers.
Which means BB helps fund stuff like Shameless, Green Wing, and other stuff that I do watch on Channel 4. Which means it has a good side too.
Sod.
Xmen 3
Posted: Thu 25 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic 1 Comment »Off tonight to see X-Men: The Last Stand. (Also known as X3 or X-men 3)
Yes, I am that sad. And I don’t care.
More about it tomorrow, I’m sure…
Mary Whitehouse Lives
Posted: Thu 25 May, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »Sometimes you just have to wonder about some people.
The story of the woman prosecuted for sunbathing nude – in her own garden is one of those times. Not content with being “shocked” and “offended”, the woman’s neighbour (a man) rushed off to get a video camera, in order to film the “offence” taking place.
He’s quoted as saying
“I have been extremely shaken by this. It has been very upsetting and worrying. I don’t want to bring up my children in such an environment.”
Yeah, OK, you don’t want to bring up your children in an environment where nudity exists? Get a fucking grip. He probably makes sure his children are fully clothed in the shower, too. Twat.
No Rides
Posted: Wed 24 May, 2006 Filed under: Health, News, Weirdness Leave a comment »Somehow, I’m failing to see the attraction in this.
You have to be aged 18 and over to get in and tickets will cost £15 for the attraction which opens on 7 September.
The theme park will include life-sized silicone-made models which visitors can touch to discover erogenous zones.
Although I do love the line about it being “a sex theme park with no rides”. For a sex themepark “with rides” I assume you need to pay your £15 in Soho, or Amsterdam…
Renewal
Posted: Tue 23 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky Leave a comment »A couple of months ago, I joined the local library. It made sense (and closed off an age of naggage from Herself) and meant I could read (and in some cases re-read) stuff without having to pay for it.
Until now, one of the things I hadn’t bothered with was renewing the books – and it turns out I can do that online. Now that is useful – especially considering I’d forgotten to bring the books in, and they were due tomorrow…
Common Sense
Posted: Tue 23 May, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Travel Leave a comment »Scene : A major commuter railway station. 8.30am.
A flood of people are coming off the train from London to work here. The flood is such that people wanting to get in to the station can’t.
Why?
Because the fucking twunts in the station have locked half the doors, so no-one can use them, in or out.
When I asked why this was, the first person said “I don’t know, I’m Revenue, I just check tickets.”
Well, can you pass the comment on to someone who does work in the sodding station?
“Oh no, I’m just Revenue. You’ll have to talk to the guy in the ticket office”
Grrr.
So I ask him.
“Well, I suppose we could unlock it. Don’t see why though.”
Because it’s busy?
“Oh, I suppose so”
Talk about enthusiasm. I bet the sodding thing’s still locked when I go home tonight.
Water Shortages
Posted: Mon 22 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Weirdness 3 Comments »From a conversation with my father over the weekend…
Which supplier/provider can charge you for their product, and then tell you not to use it?
Only one utility provider can do such a thing. How do we let them get away with it? It’s not like we’re going to get a discount for not being able to use the stuff any way we want, is it?
Eurovision
Posted: Sun 21 May, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »Brilliant. For once, I think the right people won the Eurovision.
Hard Rock Hallelujah indeed.
Good Food
Posted: Sat 20 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish), Travel 2 Comments »So yes, the Summer Good Food Festival at the Birmingham NEC. (the normal one is on in November, fact fans)
All told, it was OK. We’d paid for the “Platinum ticket” which supposedly got us priority entry to the cooking demonstration and wine-tasting sessions we’d booked, as well as a show guide, a bag, and a tasting glass. Which, frankly, would’ve been more use if there’d been many people actually giving away decent tasters of anything they provided. (Not that I’d have had any, as I ended up driving both legs of the journey) All told? Not worth the effort. The shows we could’ve seen anyway, and as for “priority seating”, don’t make me fucking laugh.
I’ve seen piss-ups that were better organised.
Other than that – and paying £7 for bloody parking, as well as the £30ish for the “platinum” ticket – it was a pretty good day. A fair amount to see (although not as much as the Christmas one we went to in London last year) and so on, and some decent offers – and marvellous cheeses.
I’d go again, but just get the normal tickets, and watch the shows etc. from behind the crappy little wooden barrier that they’d put in.
Fifty years ago
Posted: Fri 19 May, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »I came across this speech by a very roundabout route, but found that this excerpt from it to be fantastic…
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this:
- a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
- It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
- It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
- It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
And when was it written? Not now, nor any time recently.
It came from President Eisenhower’s speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. In April, 1953.
The only thing that’s changed between now and then is that the costs have gone up.
Away
Posted: Fri 19 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Travel 1 Comment »Very sparse on the updates today, I’m afraid, as we’re up in Birmingham at the NEC for the BBC Good Food Show.
More tomorrow.
( RED )
Posted: Thu 18 May, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »It’s about time someone came up with an idea like this. Pity it had to come from fucking Bono, but there we go.
Anyway, the idea is called ( RED ), and is a range of products where some of the cost is donated to causes dealing with AIDS, malaria etc. on a global scale.
I like the idea, and the ability for people to put their money where their mouth is, and show support for the cause with “limited edition” products at the same time.
Selfish
Posted: Wed 17 May, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts Leave a comment »An absolutely brilliant quote in this story on BBC news about the dangers of unmanned level crossings in the UK.
[the people who cause these accidents] are just inconsiderate and selfish. They should be thinking about my situation too, my situation with no husband
Now, I agree that people who commit “suicide by train” and so on, the ones who take other lives as well as their own, are in the wrong. I don’t care if someone wants to kill themselves – it’s when they take others with them as well that I object.
But I still had to laugh at “they’re so selfish. They should think of me”
Football
Posted: Wed 17 May, 2006 Filed under: Travel, Weirdness 1 Comment »Ok, now here’s something that just befuddles me completely…
On the news this morning there was an interview (of sorts) with some of the fans going to watch Arsenal play [some other team] in the [thingy] cup/league/championship/whatever in Paris. Some of these fans had travelled overnight to see the match, but didn’t have tickets, and so were going to go and see it in a bar. Somewhere. In Paris.
Now, what is the point of going to Paris to see a football match – in a bar? Surely it’s easier/cheaper/saner to do that from your pub at home?
I can understand it if you’ve got tickets to the match, and you’re going to see it right there in front of you. Fine, I get that.
But to go off, and then still end up sat in a bar, watching it on TV – well, to me that’s more than a little bit silly.
Immigration
Posted: Wed 17 May, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 1 Comment »Look, Media Industry, it’s no shock that the new Home Secretary has no idea how many illegal immigrants are in the country.
See, the clue is in the title. They’re bloody well illegal. So they’re not going to call up the Home Office (or anywhere else, for that matter) and say
Oh, hello, you don’t know me, but I’ve just snuck into the country on the back of a truck, and I know you keep a count of all the people like me, so I’d just like to put a tick in that box. Yes,I’m illegal. But add me to the tally. I’m sure you won’t do anything about it.
It’d be far more newsworthy if someone said “Yes, we know exactly how many illegal immigrants are in the country, and we know every unregistered person”.
Silent Bob
Posted: Wed 17 May, 2006 Filed under: D4D™ 2 Comments »Thanks to Pete for introducing me to Silent Bob Speaks (AKA “My boring-ass life”), the site written by Kevin Smith, the man behind Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, etc. etc.
I’m all about longevity.
Except, y’know… in bed. As my wife will tell you, I’m a five minute-max-kinda-guy there. But they’re some of the sweatiest, fear-of-being-crushed-inducing five minutes my woman has ever known.
So I got THAT going for me.
Absolutely brilliant.
Mission Improbable
Posted: Tue 16 May, 2006 Filed under: News Leave a comment »One of the funniest stories I’ve read all year.
Proposal
Posted: Mon 15 May, 2006 Filed under: General, News Leave a comment »On a different note entirely, congratulations to Chris, on getting his proposal accepted.
Nice one!
Unexpected Efficiency – Part Two
Posted: Sat 13 May, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Thoughts Leave a comment »Following on from that post about efficiency vs. bureaucracy, I forgot to say, the necessary documents from Comapnies House arrived the next working day.
And they were the right ones – how’s that for impressive?
But really, isn’t it pretty sad when all you have to do to be impressed with a place is to be dealt with efficiently, to get what you ask for, and get it when they say it’ll arrive?
Eh?
Posted: Fri 12 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »Since the weekend we went down to Somerset, I’ve had an ear infection. It’s not painful (well, except for one day close to the start, where I had absolutely killer earache) it’s just bloody annoying – I’d say my hearing is probably about 10% of normal in my right ear at the moment.
Anyway, I finally got round to making an appointment at the doctors about it. I’ve had this kind of thing before, and have never been arsed to go and get it sorted – after all, it clears up in the end of its own accord, and I just can’t be keffed to go and get a prescription for bloody antibiotics etc. But this time Herself (being a nurse herself) has nagged me ’til I gave in and made the appointment.
What surprised me, though, was the attitude of the practice nurse. She seemed amazed that I wasn’t demanding medical attention right now, and was instead quite happy to leave it ’til there was a free slot in her diary. Like I said, I’m not in pain, it’s not urgent – it’s annoying, but not debilitating or life-threatening, so I’m pretty easy about the entire thing.
Still, 9:15, Monday morning, I’ll be at the doctors. First time in a year or more – and even that was just for a checkup as I was transferring to this doctors having moved to Bracknell.
Flossing.
Posted: Fri 12 May, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness Leave a comment »Not for those of a nervous disposition – the British approach to flossing between one’s teeth.
Only some people have confessed to using things like screwdrivers, key, and even ear-rings as “floss substitutes”.
shudder
Just Because I Eat…
Posted: Thu 11 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Green 1 Comment »Good to see the BBC news site today having a feature about composting and wormeries.
As regular readers will know, our first attempt of using a wormery was a disaster – and quite honestly I’m not convinced about the second attempt, currently under way – but the compost bins we’ve used, along with the giant version we’ve now got, seem to be doing pretty well.
All the same, it’s good to see this kind of idea getting more mainstream acceptance and information.
Watching TV
Posted: Wed 10 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts 10 Comments »According to a piece in the Media Guardian, most people with Sky+ still watch the majority of their TV programmes “live”, rather than recorded. (you may need to register to read the story, I’m not sure)
Most TV viewing in households with personal video recorders such as Sky+ is still live and “traditional scheduled TV will be around for a long time yet”, according to new research.
Well, I guess it’s good to know that we’re still in a minority then, as pretty much all the stuff we watch has been recorded. It’s far more convenient to us to watch the things we want, when we want. Yes, some things are watched “live” – the morning news, and Herself tends to watch some things “live”, but I’d say that roughly 80-90% of the stuff we watch is recorded.
However, I do agree with the other part of the report :
Most commercials in time-shifted viewing are fast-forwarded, the study found, but viewers “continued to pay a high degree of visual attention” and often engaged with ads while fast-forwarding at high speed.
When we’re fast-forwarding through the adverts, we do pay more attention to them than we would when watching “live” TV. I’m still waiting for someone to come up with putting in little 1 second ads every 30 seconds, so people with Sky+/TiVo see them properly. Now that will be clever.
Water cockup
Posted: Tue 9 May, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism 1 Comment »(via Pete)
Oh, fantastic – a “natural spring” that’s been running for 16 years turns out to be – um – a dripping tap.
Yet a spokeswoman still insisted: “The leaks in the past were spring water, but the spring water seems to have gone and this is a proper leak. It’s just a coincidence. The present leak is not spring water.�
Aye, right.
Movies “Unrealistic”
Posted: Tue 9 May, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, News Leave a comment »Well, like duh.
In other news, “Coma specialist makes himself look like a right dickhead“.
(Yes, they both link to the same story. It’s not a mistake)
Landline
Posted: Mon 8 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »One thing Herself and I have talked about several times is changing the provider of our landline phone. (and thus our broadband access as well) When we got together, Herself was on NTL, and has been since – and while the service hasn’t been bad per se, it’s not been good either. But because of various things, contracts, etc., we’ve never got round to changing it.
Until this weekend. Finally, the contract was over and done with, and it’s time to move back to BT. Yeah, they’re not great, but in general I’ve never really had a problem with them. And they’re a shitload cheaper than NTL, for a far less shonky service.
The changeover has started off really well – I got through, told them what I wanted, they’ve processed it, and now we have to wait for the engineer to come round and connect the line.
Unfortunately, that’s going to take two weeks – bummer, but there we go. Still, in the meantime it gives me time to sort out who we’re going to use for the broadband, and hopefully get that connected soon after getting the BT line connected.
Even better, it’s going to be in my name, which means I’m slightly more “on the radar” than I have been in the last fifteen months…
Geeky Humour
Posted: Mon 8 May, 2006 Filed under: Geeky 1 Comment »I just saw this on another site, and it made me laugh…
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
I really need to get out more, don’t I?
Bad Day
Posted: Mon 8 May, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Weirdness 1 Comment »You know it’s going to be a bad day when you get woken up by the dog, crawling under the bed, because it’s raining hard outside and she thinks it’s going to thunder.
You know for sure it’s going to be a bad day when, walking through the trolley-stoppers (i.e. fairly narrow “one person at a time” walkways) you get run into by three-year-old hellspawn, and then blamed by the mother for walking into the little shit…
Cost-Cutting
Posted: Sun 7 May, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, General, Thoughts 1 Comment »You know, every time I see a story like this one, about hospitals having to sack people in order to balance their budgets, there’s really only one answer that keeps on coming back to me.
I reckon that if the hospitals eliminated about three levels of useless, pointless middle-management, then they’d…
- Save shitloads of money
- Be far more efficient
- Not be in this situation in the first place
Bye
Posted: Fri 5 May, 2006 Filed under: News 1 Comment »Charles Clarke leaves the cabinet on the end of Tony’s boot.
File under “What a shocker. Not”.
Commution
Posted: Thu 4 May, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »I forgot to say yesterday, but one bonus of the journey in to London on Tuesday was that it reminded me of exactly why I don’t want to work there on a full-time basis.
One mistake I made was going via the “fast” route (Wokingham – Reading, Reading – London , which usually takes about 45 minutes on average) rather than going direct from Wokingham to London, which is a stopping service, and takes about 70 minutes. However, because I’m a cursed individual, the journey was slathered with delays, both on the Reading-London section, and on the Underground itself. So all in all it took 2 and a quarter bloody hours. Which is never good, when one is supposed to be meeting a prospective client at 7pm, you’ve left Wokingham at 5.15, and don’t get there ’til 7.30. Argh.
But it wasn’t just the journey, and the delays – it was also the people. I’ve never been a fan of the Underground per se – I don’t mind it in off-peak times, but in peak hours I loathe it. And well, I just loathe people in general – particularly rude ones with no goals other than their own. In other words, the majority of Londoners, and commuters.
Other than that, though, it was great. *cough*
Sequential
Posted: Thu 4 May, 2006 Filed under: General 1 Comment »01:02:03 04/05/06 .
What a great date/time…
Automotive
Posted: Tue 2 May, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Travel 4 Comments »Over the weekend I was thinking a bit about the driving I’ve done since passing the test 8 months ago.
It’s actually been pretty interesting, because over that time I’ve done a fair number of miles (particularly considering I don’t actually drive most of the time, and don’t drive to work etc.) and also managed to do some things that other friends of mine (who have been driving a lot longer than I have) have still not done.
One of the last hurdles for me is/was driving in Central London. OK, I still don’t fancy doing it during a working week, or even at – say – lunchtime on a Saturday, but regardless of that, I’ve now done that one too.
Coming back from the gig on Saturday, I took a wrong turn, having forgotten that we’d turned to get on to that road, so I went straight on, which took us towards central London. Yes, it was my mistake – and it wasn’t helped by the fact that Herself couldn’t find the road we were on in the A-Z.
Fortunately I know that area fairly well, and so was able to navigate us back through to where we were supposed to be without too much hassle at all. But the main thing was that, despite it being still pretty busy (it was about half ten in the evening) I managed it all without a problem. It didn’t even stress me out – it was more about just getting on with it.
In fact, that seems to be pretty much my attitude with driving in general. I was a bit more phased by the recent journey I did up to Middlesbrough, but that was primarily because it was a shitload more driving than I’d done in one dollop, and also the longest solo drive I’d done, by a large margin. But again, it was more about just getting on with it, getting it done, and again, everything went fine with it.
So there’s very little that worries me now when it comes to driving. I still want to spend some time on a skid-pan, so I can know what I’m supposed to do when/if that happens, and over time I’ll get a lot more miles under my belt. But it has to be said, it’s all turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would, particularly after so many years of not driving, and only being a passenger.
Observer
Posted: Mon 1 May, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness 2 Comments »I don’t know what it is about this town, but sometimes finding a Saturday Guardian, or an Observer on Sunday is a total nightmare.
Yesterday was a case in point – OK, we didn’t go out ’til about 1, so that was part of the issue, but when I looked for a paper, I couldn’t find one at all.
The Esso garage was sold out, the BP garage only had ones with no supplements. It’s no wonder those hadn’t sold. Tescos had sold out – but only of Observers – in both the shop and the seperate garage section. They always sell out early, but never order more for next week. No idea why.
The other Esso and BP garages had sold out too. In the end, I picked up the last copy in – wait for it – Marks and Spencers. Because, like, that’s where everyone looks for a paper. *sigh*
I just don’t understand why, if the Observer is such a popular paper (and it’s worth pointing out that most places still had plenty of all the other papers, it’s just that I like the Observer) then why don’t all the shops order more of the sodding things?
Oh, and before anyone asks, we don’t get it delivered because a) the local newsagents has closed, with no sign of anything replacing it, and b) because even when it was open he wouldn’t do a delivery for just one day a week. Which probably goes some way to explaining why it’s now closed…
The Alarm – Islington Academy
Posted: Mon 1 May, 2006 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Many years ago, Herself and I were fans of the Alarm, but they faded out for a while, disbanded, reformed with different members, all sorts of gubbins. In fact, the only member of the Alarm who’s still there is the lead singer, Mike Peters.
Anyway, they released a new album earlier this year (which, frankly, we weren’t overly impressed with) but we still go tickets to go see them live. Well, less than £20 each, what the hell, we could always leave.
Finding the Islington Academy is an interesting experience – OK, once you’ve located the N1 centre and the main carpark, you actually see the entrance for the venue, but it’s tiny, and not the easiest one to find at all – there’s no signage that we could see from the street. Thank the lord for A-Zs.
Inside, the venue actually looks like a revamped Student Union. In fact, I suspect that’s exactly what it is. But it’s OK – small, max of about 500 people, I’d guess – but two bars, and generally OK. The support act, Sweet City Fire come on pretty quickly (not surprising, considering that for some bizarre reason there’s a 10pm fixed finish on the gig) and are surprisingly good. Not perfect, but not far off it either. They played for about half an hour, and were far better than most support acts I’ve seen. Definitely one to watch out for.
And then the Alarm. Considering that Mike Peters is also undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia, and can’t be anything less than 45, he looks bloody good. Throughout the set, he was energetic, and commanded the stage totally. The people behind him are also bloody good, and you can see there’s a great dynamic in the band, that they’re there and enjoying themselves. And man, do they rock.
Thankfully the setlist was a real hotchpotch of new and old stuff, and coupled with an audience who obviously knew every single track inside out, it was a fantastic gig. The new album certainly sounds better when performed live, but I think we’ll have to reasses it at home too.
All in all, an utterly brilliant gig. Well worth the money…
Blacklight Tattoos
Posted: Sun 30 April, 2006 Filed under: General Leave a comment »(via Gordon)
I wonder if this tattoo ink is available in the UK? I really like the idea of a tattoo that doesn’t show up except under UV light…
PSP-TV
Posted: Sat 29 April, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Travel Leave a comment »Now this sounds cool – if probably bloody expensive. Being able to download (from anywhere) TV programmes onto my PSP, and then watch them while travelling etc. – definitely a Good Thing to develop.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for this becoming available, you can be sure…
Price reductions
Posted: Fri 28 April, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Since getting the XDA phone, apparently I’ve had an O2 offer of “free internet”. Would’ve been nice to know about it, but there we go – that’s life.
Anyway, half an hour ago I got a message saying
We hope you enjoyed the O2 Active free promo. Charging begins from 01 June 2006, but remember it’s only £3 per Mb. For money-saving Bolt Ons, see o2.co.uk.
Then just now I got one saying
We hope you enjoyed the O2 Active free promo. Charging begins from 01 June 2006, but remember it’s only £2.25 per Mb. For money-saving Bolt Ons, see o2.co.uk.
That’s quite a price reduction for half an hour, isn’t it?
Bombs?
Posted: Fri 28 April, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Thoughts 1 Comment »I must admit, I really find I have to wonder about someone who plants nailbombs (or replica nailbombs, anyway) in London and then tries to make out it’s “Art”.
I’m sorry, but “It’s Art” doesn’t cut it as an excuse. “I’m sorry, I was being fucking stupid” might do, but “It’s Art” has no chance.
Nuclear Nightmares
Posted: Wed 26 April, 2006 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »A set of photos from Chernobyl, twenty years on. Incredibly sad, and extremely powerful stuff.
Avatars
Posted: Tue 25 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Thoughts, Work-related 4 Comments »
At work, Arsehole Boss has insisted that we use Google Talk as a messaging client so he can keep tabs on everyone, and/or nag them at a moment’s notice.
Google Talk is an utter piece of crap. However, it does have one semi-fun feature. You can have a photo as your “avatar”, an image that sits beside every thing you type, and beside your ID in the main screen.
Because Arsehole Boss has been treating us all like dicks, and because one of my colleagues has the head of Michelangelo’s David as his avatar, I opted for the image you see in this post. Everyone else in the office has seen the humour, but Arsehole Boss has just sent me the following message…
AB: dude please use a different image for gtalk i cant look at the fucking dick all day.
AB: remember we are using this as a company tool here…
Me: and i’ve a tool as an avatar. Seems apt.
Anyway, I’ve now changed it.
To a tube of Anusol.
Somerset
Posted: Mon 24 April, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Photography, Travel Leave a comment »The weekend in Somerset was actually really pleasant – it does make a change for us to just go somewhere and pretty much collapse and die for a couple of days. Of course, we still have an Idiot Hound to knacker, but it’s just good to be doing less than we normally do for a weekend.
The drive down was a pig – the M4 was rigid all the way, and the start of the M5 section involved ten miles of 40mph traffic (well, it would’ve been 40mph maximum, but as it was hardly moving at all for most of that, it was more like 10mph. *sigh*) which slowed us down considerably.
Anyway, once we got down to St Audries Bay, all was well. Hound perked up (she knows the place well, and loves the beach) and so once we’d unloaded the car off we went down to the beach where Hound ran round like a loon for about an hour. Some things never change.
Saturday was a day for knackering Hound, but also for us to mooch around a bit, see some of North Somerset, and just generally have a relaxing day. So it started with another hour on the beach for Hound (from just after 7.15. It’s like having an excitable four-year-old sometimes, I swear), then off up North Hill in Minehead, and another hour-ish of Hound running round the woods while we walked around in a less-manic fashion. Then drove to Tarr Steps, stopping off for lunch in a village called Winsford. Another hour of Hound diving in and out of the river, chasing sticks, while we walked up along the side of the river. Then back to the caravan, with an utterly wiped-out Hound. We’d planned to go back to the beach again in the evening, but she didn’t even stir at the word “Walk”.
So, a quiet evening along with some website fixing, and all was well with the world.
Sunday just involved driving home, and being domestic.
But all in all it was a good weekend, and much needed. Pictures will probably follow, mainly on Flickr again…
George / William
Posted: Sun 23 April, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, General, Travel 4 Comments »Ah, the joys of April 23.
St George’s Day. And the birthday of William Shakespeare.
Other than that, uneventful.
Although we’ll be back from Somerset later today.
420
Posted: Fri 21 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »The number of the beast is no longer 666 – It’s now 420.
Brilliant stuff.
Carphone Whorehouse
Posted: Fri 21 April, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, General 1 Comment »Herself has a mobile phone on O2 through Carphone Warehouse – up ’til recently she’s had a Samsung D500, but then about a fortnight ago upgraded to the flashy new one with iMode and 3G stuff on it. All well and good.
However, because it’s a 3G phone, she needs a 3G-capable SIM-card. Not previously having had a 3G-capable phone, the SIM wasn’t a 3G one either. However, the upgrade twunts at Craphone Whorehouse didn’t bother mentioning this. At all. Not once.
Last weekend we spent a good half an hour on the phone to their customer “services” department, explaining six times to six different people that we needed an upgraded SIM card. Oh, we don’t deal with that, I’ll put you through to someone else. Not once did person a explain to person b what the problem was, or why we were calling, or why they were putting us through, so we had to explain it – and go through the ID procedures – six fucking times.
Eventually, I ended up getting through to the right person. Who had to authorise sending out the SIM card with her manager. Supposedly they normally have a cost attached to them, but because this was an upgrade, we wouldn’t have to pay, so she needed the manager to provide a code to reduce the price to zero.
The card arrived last night. I put it in the phone…
“Unregistered SIM”
So today Herself is going to call Craphone Whorehouse (again) and try to get them to register the fucking SIM card that they sent out in the first place, already knowing we’d been stuffed about once. I’m currently not optimistic about getting a resolution to this one just yet…
Successful
Posted: Thu 20 April, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts Leave a comment »Regular readers may recall that in November 2004 I did a couple of nights work doing sone photography stuff for a local (well, local at the time) charity. At the same time, I created their website, and the photos were used on both the website and their annual report and publicity material.
Since then I’ve stayed in touch, and recently they asked me to update some of the content on the site, and also to do a report on how well used the website has been in the last year or so.
I did the report last night, and I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the results. Since January ’05 when the site went live, they’ve had 14,500 visitors, and the website has served just over 30,000 page views. The charity itself is pretty pleased with those results too – it’s a good figure for the first year, and hopefully will keep on expanding as time goes on.
Misnomer
Posted: Wed 19 April, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts 2 Comments »I’m just going to say one thing about this story.
It’s not, as the media were portraying it this morning, a “double suicide”. The boy was 12, with a mental age of 7. Not really an age where you think “I know, I’ll take my mum and chuck myself off Humber Bridge”.
It’s murder-suicide. Simple as that. The boy didn’t choose to chuck himself off, he was chucked off. That’s murder. End of.
Point Pleasant
Posted: Wed 19 April, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 1 Comment »Over Easter, we watched the DVD set of Point Pleasant. The story behind this was kind of interesting, in that it started showing on UK TV fairly soon after the US screenings, and then because the US viewing figures for it were abysmal, they pulled the series. Which meant that the last five episodes or so never made it onto UK TV either.
However, the DVD set included those unscreened episodes, and we wanted to know how it all ended, so we got the set through ScreenSelect before Easter.
Overall, it was a pretty good series – although quite why the makers ever thought it would be popular in the US is quite beyond me. “Beautiful” (in the American sense) girl who turns out to be the AntiChrist. Smalltown America. Teenagers having problems. And sex. To top it off, there was a healthy dose of sarcastic humour, plenty of religion – both “good” and “bad”, along with the interesting turn that the Catholic priests had blown things out of all proportion, and were actually encouraging sins in the guise of “saving the world”, and a whole load of other stuff that most of Middle America would deem “unwholesome”, it’s no shock at all that they hated it.
However, the last half of the last episode was nothing but unutterable shite – no closure, and obviously leaving things open for a second series. To me that’s disappointing – why can’t we get a series that is written with the sole goal of being a one-off? Now that’d be more fun – a story curve based over, say, 10 or 12 episodes, but that closes itself off properly. Yeah, you could still perhaps make another series, but for God’s sake, just make one that’s self-contained instead of leaving everything up in the air in case the viewers like it and the opportunity to make a second series comes up. (Take note, J.J.Abrams, you weasel)
Cruising
Posted: Tue 18 April, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 4 Comments »I’m sure I could be more charitable, but no, “Nutter” seems to sum it up.
Spammage
Posted: Mon 17 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, D4D™ 1 Comment »I got an email today, that’s just pure spammage…
Hello
My name is Joe Butch and I’m with [website]. Our site is
dedicated to informing the public about accidents as well as providing
the service of locating local attorneys and law firms for anyone in the
United States.We have recently come upon dummies-for-destruction.co.uk and we believe
that your site’s audience will take advantage of the service we
provide. That’s why we would like to inform you about our site and to
propose submitting our link to your web page located at
www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/2004_10_01_archive.html
In true Lyle Style™, for once I’ve replied…
Dear Sir,
Might I suggest that your organisation takes time to figure out that a .co.uk is a UK-based domain name, and thus not interested in American lawyers at all.
Then might I suggest that you take your spam, and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Sincerely
Lyle
Bluetooth Headsets
Posted: Sat 15 April, 2006 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »What is it that makes people (Mainly men) think they look cool by wandering around with a bluetooth headset/hands-free kit hanging off their ears? I’m not against the devices in the right place (i.e. when driving) but the number of people you see walking around with a bluetooth earpiece is amazing.
I just don’t see the point of them. If you’re wandering around, you’re obviously able to answer the phone properly rather than use the earpiece. (and, by the way, look like an utter twunt while walking around talking ‘to yourself’) Maybe people think they look all cool and techie by using them, or maybe it fuels the fantasies of being James Bond / Captain Kirk / whoever else used a fucking headset. I don’t know. And it does seem to be primarily BMW drivers who use them all the time like that.
What I do know, though, is that to me, people wandering around wearing them just look like dickheads.
Bleat
Posted: Fri 14 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 2 Comments »OK, this is just something that always confuses me.
What’s the point of going away for a break when you know everyone else will be doing the same thing? Maybe I’m weird, but I just don’t see anything “relaxing” about going and queueing in airports or traffic jams in order to travel to somewhere that, when you get there, will also be absolutely rigid with people alld oing the same thing.
Oh, and let’s not forget, paying a buttload more for going away this weekend instead of another one. It all just makes me doubt sanity – mainly everyone elses, but also my own, for not wanting the same as what “most other” people seem to…
Weird…
Belated (or at least delayed)
Posted: Thu 13 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »Oh aye, and Birthday stuff to Si.
Normally I’d say “Happy Birthday”, but considering it’s also the day for the burial of his father, that don’t count.
All the best, matey, on a day that’s sure to be shitty.
Commuting
Posted: Thu 13 April, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 4 Comments »Anyone fancy a 370 mile daily commute?
The only reason I can think of is that the guy is a total headcase…
Strange Request
Posted: Thu 13 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »Right now this will mean very little to anyone, but I need to do a bit of research, and I’ve no idea even where to get started.
So, the question is this :
How are people selected to go on jury duty? I don’t mean “what do you do on jury duty?”, but I actually need to have some basic ideas about how people are selected for a stint on a jury.
Is it random? Is there a method? Computerised? Or some bureaucrat sat in an office with a copy of the electoral roll, and a pen?
Simple, n’est ce pas?
Motivational Debt?
Posted: Wed 12 April, 2006 Filed under: Cynicism, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve just re-found this piece, from the Observer back in February. I’d forgotten about it, until a conversation with Herself last night. There was one section in particular that agreed so much with my general philosophy about mortgages etc…
The usurers in charge have encouraged us all to get in debt by blanket promotion of a spend, spend, spend mentality, with ad slogans like “don’t put it off, put it on!”
Now, from an idler’s point of view, debt is an evil sister to the work ethic. It works as an invisible slave driver, a mill owner of the mind, driving us on to do jobs we don’t like in order to pay usurers the interest on objects we didn’t need.
It is rather like indentured labour. Work for seven years to pay off your debt. Then you will be freed. Debt is enslaving.
The entire piece is so well worth reading. Enjoy.
Some Mistake Surely?
Posted: Tue 11 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »It’s taken me a couple of weeks to remember to post this (and a post about Tesco Labelling from Blue Witch) but we recently had to go to Holland and Barrett to get some Omega 3 oil capsules for Herself.
Because Herself is vegetarian, she uses the gelatin-free capsules by Vertesse, and non-codliver oils. Which is fine.
However, we also noticed “Cod Liver Oil in Vegetarian (gelatin-free) capsules”, which seems to be pretty bizarre to me…
Driving On
Posted: Tue 11 April, 2006 Filed under: Travel Leave a comment »Well, I’m back in the land of the living. Just.
Yesterday’s journey was fine – again, the two hundred and fifty miles (ish) went by smoothly, and it took me five hours door to door, including a half-hour break at some godforsaken services near Leicester.
Yes, I know, all service stations are godforsaken. It’s just that some are more forsaken than others – and the ones on the M1 are high on that list. Along with Knutsford (or is it Sandbach?) on the M6. That one just screams out for a small accident involving a juggernaut, the building, and no brakes whatsoever.
But yes, all things considered the journey went well, and my driving confidence has increased a huge amount. Now we just wait to see if there were any speed cameras I didn’t spot… *Grin*
1500
Posted: Tue 11 April, 2006 Filed under: D4D™ Leave a comment »According to my webstats (I’m not quite sad enough to count this out for myself) d4d™ has now been going for 1,500 days exactly. Now that’s scary.
Yes, it’s spread over two domain names, and nothing really got going on the d4d™ that we know and love today for quite a while (about four months, I think) but all the same, 1,500 days. That’s just over four years now that I’ve had this little ole name…
Travelling Redux
Posted: Sun 9 April, 2006 Filed under: Travel 5 Comments »Thankfully, the drive went fine. I left Bracknell at half eight, took a brief break at some godforsaken shithole services called Trowell, somewhere on the M1 around Nottingham, and got to Middlesbrough by half one.
I nearly made one mistake on the journey, but managed to avoid it. Not that it would’ve been a major problem, but it might have added some time to the journey. (and the mistake would’ve been ‘following the AA instructions exactly, rather than thinking “that doesn’t sound right…”)
And now I get to do the same thing in reverse tomorrow morning…
Not Easy Being Green
Posted: Sun 9 April, 2006 Filed under: Green, Thoughts 4 Comments »At the moment BBC is showing a programme (no link, because I can’t find one, although there’s a small piece about the series here) called “It’s Not Easy Being Green”. No, it’s not about the Muppets, but instead about a family, the Strawbridges, who have moved to Cornwall and are working to live in an ecologically sound manner.
It’s a strange programme in a number of ways, because while it contains some good ideas and good advice, it also helps to do more damage to the Green and Ecological lifestyles than it should, because frankly Mr and Mrs Strawbridge (as opposed to the children) spend half the time looking like nutters.
In the most recent episode, for instance, they managed to merge some excellent ideas about glass recycling and heatsinks, solar-heated showers etc., with a visit to the Big Green Gathering, or whatever it was called, which had an awful lot of hippies in a field, and some of the most manky “recycled” tat in existence.
Now, I don’t mind hippies per se, nor do I overly object to the Big Green Gathering and its like. I do, however, have a problem with the way that hippie-type people seem to always become the enthusiastic/lunatic fringe for things to do with Green and Ecological living, and thus become the poster-children for all this kind of thing.
I don’t know, this entire mental process hasn’t yet been fully thought-out by me, but if we are to start living in a way that encourages things like recycling, sustainable power, self-sufficiency and so on, perhaps the first step on the way to mainstream acceptance of these concepts is to have some sane non-hippies taking in the lifestyle, and becoming a better advert than the current crop of users?
Travelling
Posted: Sat 8 April, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I’m off to see friends in Middlesbrough.
It’s going to be the longest solo drive I’ve done, by quite a margin – and the mileage involved isn’t far off what we did to get to the Lake District a few weeks ago. It’ll be interesting to see how well I handle it, but I’m not worried by it at all.
So I’ll be coming back on Monday, 600-650ish miles wiser…
Strange Requests
Posted: Sat 8 April, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Weirdness Leave a comment »OK, this one’s a bit worrying. Apparently, d4d™ comes in as the #1 result in google for What is the sentence for kidnapping owls. Bizarre.
What’s more bizarre is : Who the hell would want to know. And why?
Busy busy busy
Posted: Fri 7 April, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 2 Comments »I’ve just done a quick’n’ropy webstats analysis, which came out with the following figures…
- Successful requests: 8,004,234
- Average successful requests per day: 5,353
- Successful requests for pages: 3,474,208
- Average successful requests for pages per day: 2,323
- Distinct files requested: 32,961
- Distinct hosts served: 176,044
- Data transferred: 46.11 gigabytes (432.60 megabytes)
Yes, that means that sometime yesterday d4d™ had it’s eight millionth hit. And just under 3.5 million page impressions. Not bad at all…
Feeling Old
Posted: Fri 7 April, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, General 1 Comment »Seems hard to believe that it’s quarter of a century since the Brixton riots, doesn’t it? I know I’m amazed it’s 25 years ago – I still remember it, but must’ve been only nine or ten at the time.
Hang on, that must mean I’m 35 this year. Thirty-fucking-five? Now that’s scary.
Ticket Barrier
Posted: Thu 6 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Travel 2 Comments »Bracknell train station has automatic ticket barriers. In general they’re no bad thing (we’ll gloss over the fact that half the time they’re left open while the ticket inspectors sod off somewhere else) and just make getting on and off the platform into a bit more of a bottle-neck than usual. Could be better, could be worse.
I’ve got a season-ticket for using the trains on the way to and from work, and again, in general this works fine. However, somehow this month the ticket’s magnetic strip has been blanked, so the automatic barrier won’t accept it, and I have to go and deal with the Numpty Bint on the gate, who lets through people with knackered, or non-standard-size tickets. I don’t care that this person is female, but I do care that she’s a fucking numpty with, on current evidence, more feet than IQ points.
Last week I made the cardinal sin, while going past her, of having my ticket upside down. Now, bear in mind it’s got “12th April 06” on it in friggin’ huge letters, the fact it’s upside down shouldn’t really matter a toss. But oh no, to Numpty Bint we’ve got to have the “I can’t read upside down, turn your ticket round” episode. Is it really that difficult to figure it out? Obviously so.
Today, though, was the last straw. After a week where I’ve been face to face (and generally fucked off) with Numpty Bint every day, twice a day, today she says “Oh, you’ve got to prove to me that your ticket doesn’t work. I’m not supposed to let you through until I’ve seen your ticket doesn’t work.” So I’m supposed to walk back down to the other end of the ticket barriers (through a shitload of commuters all flooding off the train that’s just arrived) to have the fucking ticket barrier beep at me, tell me to ‘seek assistance’, wade back through the commuters, and get back to her.
Instead, I opted for
If the fucking ticket worked, or had worked in the past fucking week, I’d be through the bloody barriers, and going to the platform, rather than dealing with you
She let me through.
Massive Attack – again
Posted: Thu 6 April, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Music Leave a comment »Back at the start of this year, I said to Herself that of all the bands I wanted to see again, Massive Attack were one of the few where I wouldn’t even need to think about whether I wanted to get tickets, it would just be a foregone conclusion.
Last week, they released a new single “Live with Me” (which is awesome) and a greatest hits album – a limited release of which also had an extra “dual disc” with rare/unreleased tracks and on the flip side a DVD of all their videos. All for £12.99 – which counts pretty high on the “value for money” scale to my mind.
Anyway, I looked on the website, and it also turns out they’re doing a concert at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire at the end of July. And so yes, I’ve got tickets. Can’t wait!
Herself
Posted: Wed 5 April, 2006 Filed under: Domestic 2 Comments »Happy Birthday today to Herself.
I’m taking the day off work, and we’re off out.
So there.
Another Snapper Snaps
Posted: Tue 4 April, 2006 Filed under: Depression, Photography 1 Comment »RIP Bob Carlos-Clarke, one of the more influential photographers of the last few decades.
You might not know the name, but his images were fairly well known.
Uninspired
Posted: Tue 4 April, 2006 Filed under: D4D™ Leave a comment »Hmm, today is a rather flat day. I just can’t be chuffed with most things – work, writing, thinking, the normal kind of thing.
As such, d4d™ may be rather shorter of content than usual for the moment.
Sorry ’bout that.
Sunny
Posted: Tue 4 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Today I’ve (re)discovered a problem with reactolite lenses.
When they go dark, you can see every speck of white dust on the lenses. It looks like you’re walking through a snowstorm.
Of course, it’s easily fixed. But all the same, gah.
Hosepipe
Posted: Mon 3 April, 2006 Filed under: Green, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »There’s something that seems distinctly bizarre about the hosepipe bans that are coming in to force today across a lot of the south of England.
For one thing, it specifies that you can’t use a hosepipe to wash the car, or water the garden. You can still use one to fill a swimming pool, or a hot-tub. In theory we could get away with using one to play with Hound, who loves being zapped with the hose, and runs round the garden like a mad thing as a game. No idea why she likes it so much, but she does. Bizarre creature.
And despite the fact that it’s necessary for the hosepipe ban in order to preserve levels of water, I bet that every golf course is still allowed to use sprinkler systems etc. in order to keep the greens all beautiful. They seem to be exempt from every other water conservation method, so I bet they don’t get hit by this one. Fuckers.
If the water boards were serious about water conservation, the first thing they’d do is sort out their own leaking pipes. Yes, I know that Thames Water (and others) say they’re doing their best, and that they’re spending more than ever on repairing leaks, but they also said that ten years ago when I worked for their customer services department. They haven’t changed their story in a decade, and will continue to get away with doing as little as possible for as long as they can.
Oh, and the second thing the water boards should do is offer discounts to people who conserve water, who have water butts to store rain water for garden or domestic use, and perhaps even subsidise the purchase of those water butts. Now that would be doing something to help the situation…
Repulsive
Posted: Mon 3 April, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Green 1 Comment »Last year, we bought a wormery for helping with composting our household waste, so we could use it on the garden. We’d already got one big compost bin, but the wormery was also supposed to be able to deal with food scraps and so on, which you’re not supposed to put on a normal compost heap.
Over the last six months or so, we’ve been using it a lot – but obviously not properly. I’m not sure how so much water got in (possibly rain, but I’m not certain) but it obviously managed to drown/kill all the worms, and so the entire thing was just a festering pile of scum.
We cleaned it out this weekend – I’d been considering taking photos of “how not to do it”, but once the covers came off, in all honesty I just wanted to get the entire lot into black bags, and dispose of it all as quickly as possible. Photos would’ve taken too long.
The first layer was OK, just lots of mould, fur, and standard stuff. The second one, bluntly, stank. It was gross. Flies all over the place (luckily we’d been prepared, and had bought stuff like fly spray already – we’d opened it last weekend, so we knew what it was going to be like) and the smell was just unbelievable. Truly, truly manky.
The third layer didn’t smell as bad, but seemed to be entirely populated by worm corpses and maggot larvae.
So all in all, it was a bit of a disaster. We’ve got rid of it all – and I pity the poor fucker who opens those binbags, I tell you – and will start again from scratch once the new pack arrives. Only time will tell how we do this time…
Canon Software
Posted: Sun 2 April, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Photography 4 Comments »Over the years I’ve got used to the software provided by Fuji with their cameras for moving photos from camera to computer. Well, I say software, but the primary piece is just a driver so that you can copy stuff via USB straight down. Simple as that – it takes about five minutes at most to dump the entire card onto the PC or laptop , just a basic file transfer.
However, with the new Canon SLR, things have changed. For some godforsaken reason Canon use software similar to an image scanner, so you can only move one image at a time. And it’s just taken me the best part of two hours to move seventy images across from camera to laptop. Not including the time it took to make three other attempts to move all the files at once, which resulted in a .tif file that ran to 560Mb before I gave up and quit the program.
I think I’m going to have to invest in a cardreader-to-USB device so I can simply slot in the EOS20D’s memory card and be done with it. But Jesus what a fag, although the alternative is an even bigger pain in the arse…
The Apprentice
Posted: Sat 1 April, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 2 Comments »Have you been watching the new series of BBC’s “The Apprentice“?
All I can say about just about all of the competitors this time round is “Jesus Christ, and these people are supposed to be good?” There’s a couple who seem OK, (and it’s really no surprise that it turns out Syed is talking out of his arse about his job experience and qualifications etc.)
It’s pretty scary really, seeing how badly this lot is developing. I wonder if it’s possible for Alan Sugar to sack all of ’em, and just not take any of them on?
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City
Posted: Sat 1 April, 2006 Filed under: Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »It’s not often I’m impressed enough by a book to write stuff about it, but somehow “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” by Nick Flynn managed it.
Obviously, of course, it was the title that first dragged my eye towards it in the library. I got it really on the basis of that, not knowing what to expect, knowing only that the title was a phrase used by the author’s father, describing another night of being homeless in Boston. It’s not the kind of book I normally read, but once I got started on it, I couldn’t stop.
It’s the story of Nick Flynn’s father, who disappeared when the author was very young. They didn’t meet again ’til Nick was in his mid-20s, and his father ended up staying at the homeless hostel where Nick worked. The book is about both men, and the story of Johnathon, and what had happened to him over the years. It’s incredibly sad in some places, detailing the breakdown and alcoholism of Flynn senior, while also being a pretty honest portrayal of Flynn junior’s life, and the similarities and differences between them.
It’s a fantastic book, and well worth the effort. Hell, it’s only £4 on Amazon at the moment – give it a go.
Quarter gone
Posted: Fri 31 March, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Resolutions, Thoughts 2 Comments »How the hell is it nearly April already?
Quarter of the year gone, and I just feel like I’ve done fuck all. (and to the smart-arses in the audience yelling “You haven’t”, I respond with a swift ‘piss off’, and a raised digit)
Hopefully the next three months will at least feel like they’ve been a bit more productive. Who knows…
Real Beauty
Posted: Thu 30 March, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 6 Comments »And about bloody time too.
Dove have launched the Campaign For Real Beauty, aimed at helping build up girl’s self-esteem to be real, rather than emulating some anorexic stick-thin model. It’s related to their “self-esteem fund“, and the entire thing strikes me as a bloody good idea, and one that’s well overdue.
They’ve even included a self-esteem check for good measure.
Maybe the backlash against the media portrayals of women has finally started…
Joining In
Posted: Thu 30 March, 2006 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 3 Comments »Yesterday afternoon, I had a headache. It wasn’t just a headache – I’ve had plenty of those, and never had real cause to notice/care/complain – but yesterdays one was a stonker.
What upped the anté a bit was that it also seriously affected my vision. I ended up with a moiré pattern (like the pattern you see on TV when someone’s wearing a jacket with a small check pattern on it) around the edges, and a blank spot in the middle like you get from looking at a bright light then looking away.
All told, it really wasn’t much fun, but paracetamol took the edge off it, and I managed to get through the day, although I felt pretty rough by the end of it.
Turns out, having spoken to a couple of other people, it may have been the start of a migraine. I’ve never had one before, so I don’t know for sure, and I don’t want to be “classic bloke” who says a cold is flu, a flu is typhoid (whatever) and a headache is always a migraine. That’s not my style at all – but all the same, this one has me wondering whether it might’ve been the start of something new. And I’ll certainly keep an eye on it – if I get any/many more it may even be time to stop by the doctors for a check-up…
As they say, welcome to the club!
Gobsmacked
Posted: Thu 30 March, 2006 Filed under: News, Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »I’m sorry, but how the hell do you “not notice” hitting (and killing) three people ? Particularly when you’re going 60mph, and also hit the broken-down car they were standing next to.
How?
Grouchy
Posted: Thu 30 March, 2006 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »Don’t expect much out of me today. My brain is currently only responding to commands with “Urgh! Fuggoff!”, having had one of the shittiest nights in a while.
Herself was away last night, staying at her sisters before going to a course/ meeting thing today. All well and good. Except, of course, it meant that Hound was utterly disoriented and didn’t know what the shit was going on, with someone missing from the house. (Talk about autistic animals, I tell you) As a result, Hound was hyperactive all night, continually bouncing on the bed, wanting to know where Herself was, waking me up, barking uselessly, waking me up, scratching the floors and carpets, waking me up, being a pain, waking me up – I’m sure you’re spotting the pattern now.
So I had a shit night, and Hound will now sleep her way through the day, as normality has been restored. (i.e. we’re both out of the house all day) I’m half tempted to just keep ringing the house phone every hour – she hates it – and waking her up, so she can see how I feel. Bastard.
.htaccess
Posted: Wed 29 March, 2006 Filed under: Geeky Leave a comment »Excessively geeky, but I’m really quite pleased with myself for having finally got round to using some mod_rewrite rules for [site that is being developed at the moment] which make a lot of stuff far easier to use than it has any right to be.
Yesterday I was having huge problems with the entire thing, but this morning (and isn’t this always the way) I took one look at it and thought “Ah, that’s what the problem was“, fixed it, and lo, it works.
So yes, I’m fairly chuffed, all things considered.
We Are What We Do
Posted: Wed 29 March, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green, Health, Thoughts 1 Comment »via a fairly convoluted route (that I can’t be arsed to repeat right now) I came across a site called We Are What We Do, which falls into line with a lot of my own feelings about life.
We’re not another charity. We’re not an institution. We Are What We Do is a movement. We’d like to inspire people to use their everyday actions to change the world. Whoever they are. And wherever they are. And that includes you.
We’ve created 50 simple, everyday actions that can improve our environment, our health, and our communities, making our planet and the people on it much happier. We started by putting these actions in a book, but the whole movement is getting bigger. And bigger.
The 50 actions aren’t anything hugely strenuous, but they’re ideas on what can be done to help out. As it turns out, I’ve done about half of them already, and regularly do a third of the list. So I’m well on the way.
But it’s a great idea, and one that should go a long way…
Maintaining
Posted: Wed 29 March, 2006 Filed under: Getting Organised, Health 3 Comments »Over the last year or so, I’ve lost a fair amount of weight. (as I’ve blethered on about once or twice before)
Having not done so in a while, and having noticed a fair reduction in belly-size etc., I thought I’d weigh myself again. It’s not something I do on a regular basis, and I don’t obsess about weight-loss much (if at all) even though I know I’ve been doing well.
I was fairly surprised, though, to see that according to the scales I’m still dead-on the 20st mark. I’ve lost a fair amount of fat, but still weigh the same. Mind you, I do know that I’ve been putting on muscle tone instead, so it’s all swings and balances. But all the same, it’s pretty depressing to still weigh the same, despite large visible differences…
Clock Enumeration
Posted: Tue 28 March, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised Leave a comment »(via Pete)
OK, so, the list of clocks chez Lyle…
Upstairs:
- My bedside clock (self-altering)
- Herself’s bedside clock
- My mobile (self-altering)
- Herself’s Mobile (self-altering)
- Computer 1 (self-altering)
- Shuttle Box 1 (self-altering – when I get round to sorting it out)
- Laptop 1 (self-altering)
- Laptop 2
- Router/Wireless/Modem (not that I bothered)
- Stereo (unchanged from last Summer time)
- Office clock
- Heating System
- TV (don’t care)
- TiVo (self-altering)
Downstairs:
- TV (don’t care)
- Sky+ (self-altering)
- DVD player
- Landline phone (self-altering)
- Kitchen clock
- Oven (utterly wrong, and not worth sorting)
- Microwave (see over)
- My Watch
- Herself’s Watch
- PSP
And I think that’s it. Although I’ve probably forgotten something – you always do.
UPDATED : Oh yeah, forgot the (three) digital cameras, all of which have clocks. I’ll do those tonight.
UPDATED (again) : Oh aye, and the MP3 players…
Alias
Posted: Tue 28 March, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 3 Comments »Herself has been watching Season One of Alias on DVD of late, and I just have one question…
What the hell is the appeal of it?
It’s epically dumb, has the acting abilities of MFI furniture, and all the appeal of being repeatedly kicked in the balls.
But maybe I’m missing something…
Sleeping Position
Posted: Tue 28 March, 2006 Filed under: Domestic, Thoughts, Weirdness 8 Comments »Way back in the day, my then-other-half used to complain that I slept in a weird way. To me it’s not weird, it’s how I’ve always slept, and still do.
Anyway, I was thinking about this over the weekend, and I wondered if anyone else does it?
When I go to sleep, I tend to half-cover myself with the quilt, so that (for example) my front half is covered, and warm, but my back is in the air. I find I tend to be a lot cooler like this – being completely under the quilt I just get too hot, but if I sleep with an arm, and/or a leg out of the quilt, it seems to act like a heat-exchanger, and it’s comfortable.
Am I a freak? (hey, like we don’t know the answer to this one already) Or does anyone else sleep in a similar fashion?
… And The Living Is Easy
Posted: Mon 27 March, 2006 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Sorry about the title, I just couldn’t resist.
Anyway, yesterday the clocks went forward, so now apparently it’s summer. Or at least Spring. Or something where the clocks have gone forward an hour anyway.
And I have to say, I really do like systems where the clocks change automatically. Usually my alarm clock does it too, being one of the “radio-controlled” ones that links to some International Time Signal or other. Rugby, I think. But this time it didn’t which led to a bit of confusion. Maybe it’s time to get some more batteries for the thing. I’ve had it about seven years now, and only changed batteries three times, so yeah, maybe it’s getting to that time. Or – gasp! – perhaps I should buy a new one. Nah, see how this one does first.
Anyway, the mobile phone changed automatically, so did the landline, all the computers, Sky+, TiVo, etc. But there’s always a couple you forget, aren’t there? I didn’t remember the WordPress clock (for d4d™) and can’t be arsed to change it anyway, and then there’s things like wall-clock in the kitchen, and central-heating. In fairness, Herself has changed the ones that need changing manually – I completely forgot – but I still find it surprising just how many things we have in everyday life to tell us the time. It’s like an obsession!
Brain Music
Posted: Mon 27 March, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 1 Comment »Sometimes I wish I understood how my brain works. Hell, most of the time I wish I understood it. (Of course, if the human brain were simple enough for us to understand, we’d be so simple we still couldn’t do it)
Every so often, my mind will just carry around a completely random tune. Sometimes I can figure out why it’s there (say, if I heard it the day before) and sometimes I can’t. Even more annoying is when that tune stays with me overnight, and infests dreams etc, and then I wake up with it in my head too.
Last night, for some reason unknown to science (or me) it was TaTu’s “Friend or Foe” single, which also has the added “benefit” of being utterly repetitive and catchy.
However, this morning my brain appears to have travelled back in time, and has been going mad for “California Über Alles“, originally by the Dead Kennedys.
And I have no idea why…
Sirens
Posted: Sat 25 March, 2006 Filed under: Weirdness 3 Comments »One thing that struck me as very odd when I came to Bracknell was the sirens. Every Monday at about 10am (but rarely on a completely regular/punctual basis – I suspect it has to be set off by hand, and is thus reliant on people not doing other stuff) the area is covered by a wailing two-note siren, eventually followed by a one-note ‘all clear’ siren. It took me ages to find out (OK, ask) what it was, and it turns out that because we’re close to Broadmoor (BBC Profile here and WikiPaedia here) and it’s a siren that gets sounded should anyone escape from there.
What surprises me more now about the entire thing is how little anyone reacts to it. Yes, OK, it’s a regular test signal, but for the most part people don’t seem to react to it at all, not even looking round to see what the hell it is, or anything. To me it always sounds like the cliched “Three Minute Warning” siren, so you know, if I heard it and didn’t know what it was, I’d at least ask, or try to find out where it was coming from. (Oh yeah, I did, didn’t I?)
Maybe it’s yet another instance of “it won’t happen to me” or “it’s not happening” syndrome. I don’t know.
Solving Stuff
Posted: Fri 24 March, 2006 Filed under: Geeky 3 Comments »As yet I’m still undecided about this one. I don’t know if it’s a) really, really sad, or b) no bad thing to be able to do it.
Anyway – on Wednesday, Gordon sent me a piece of PHP code he couldn’t get working, and asked if I could help. Bear in mind that the first mail I got was at half eleven at night, and Gordon got a response within about 10-15 minutes, and you’ll begin to realise just how sad I actually am on occasion…
However, the first fix didn’t work. Well, it did, but not in the way Gordon wanted. So another idea came to me, and got sent off, and that didn’t work either – but gave me some more information on what needed doing.
And lo, Fix The Third worked perfectly. So everyone’s happy.
I do find, though, that I actually enjoy fixing this kind of thing though – it’s something I’m good at, and – and this is the sad bit – get quite a sense of satisfaction out of. So, is it sad, or no bad thing?
*shudder*
Posted: Thu 23 March, 2006 Filed under: News Leave a comment »Seriously, One in 10 people wear their underwear for three days in a row? And 5% of the population also admitted wearing their briefs inside out to get an extra day’s wear? I so didn’t need to know those things.
Masterchef?
Posted: Wed 22 March, 2006 Filed under: Thoughts 5 Comments »Out of interest, is there anyone who thinks that the guy who won MasterChef actually deserved to do so, above the other two?
(On doing some further reading, I notice that the BBC has even had to explain their decision on the website)