I-Fucking-E
Posted: Tue 19 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 1 Comment »OK, now this is one for the techies. In Internet Explorer (or I-fucking-E as it’s known to any decent techie) the comments box fits in the window fine, regardless of resolution, until you start typing in it.
At that point the box expands, and (on low resolutions) the right-hand side of it disappears under the right-hand nav bar (all the links etc.). It’s fine ’til someone types in it though – and I admit, I thought I’d fixed it ages back, except it turns out that I hadn’t fully tested it, because I hadn’t typed in the sodding thing.
So – any ideas how to fix it?
Fruitstock
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: News 1 Comment »Innocent drinks are one of my favourite brands/companies. Mainly because they’re just slightly barmy, and really rather cool.
On August 6th and 7th they’re organising the third Fruitstock free party in Regents Park, London. Sounds like fun…
House
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 5 Comments »While I’m really pleased to see that Hugh Laurie has been Emmy-nominated for the series House, I have to admit that I’m getting just a little bit jaded about the series.
The dialogue is still good, but I can’t deny, I want to see House fail to solve a case. I have trouble believing in the entire “always a happy ending” cliche that it seems to be becoming. Every week there’s a bizarre illness, the doctors are baffled, they try something, it makes the patient worse, they try something else, it nearly kills the patient (and man, that clean room gets some use!), then they come across some truly rare complaint that answers all the symptoms. Lo and behold, patient is cured- apparently overnight in some cases – and everyone goes away happy ’til next week.
Yeah, sure, it’s well scripted and so on, but jesus christ, even Casualty manages to get them doing fatal fuckups every so often. Is it too much to do, to make Mr Wonderful fallible, and thus just slightly more feasible?
Stage 15
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: Health 5 Comments »To Herself’s slight despair, I’ve been watching a fair amount of the coverage of this year’s Tour De France. I do tend to do so every year, but she’s not overly interested in it. Personally I think it balances out some of the stuff like “Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye” and “Judging Amy” that she watches, but hey, that’s domestic bliss for you.
Anyway, yesterday’s stage was generally billed as the toughest of this year’s Tour, and if you look at the profile you’ll see why. Five climbs, four of “Category One” (which in layman’s terms equates to “Fuck Off, I’m not doing that!”) over 205.5km (about 128 miles), and the winner completed it in six hours. That’s riding at an average of 20mph through the entire stage, including the uphill bits.
I’m in awe of the TDF competitors at the best of times, but to ride at that speed for six hours – and to have done so after two weeks of riding similar distances every day – is, to me, nothing short of superhuman.
UPDATED : Geoff Thomas writes in his diary about completing Stage 15. Another superhuman effort, as I’ve written before.
Photo category
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 1 Comment »While I’m stumbling around thinking about how to write a CMS for a photoblog (yes, I think that’s the way I’m going to go with it – having looked at a couple of photoblog templates, they’ve annoyed the shite out of me very quickly for not doing stuff the way I want – oh good, more coding work) I’ve changed around my blogroll a bit.
There’s now a new category, simply named “photography” for the photographic sites I look at regularly, such as Chromasia, DDOI and so on. I just want to keep the two sections seperate for a while, and see how I do with it.
I’ve got a lot of photo stuff coming up – for our Anniversary thing, Herself bought me a portfolio (I’ve been saying about doing one all this year, and hadn’t got round to it just yet) so I’m also going to be working on building that up in order to whore out sell some of my stuff, with any luck. It’ll be interesting to see who says what when I get round to touting it about a bit.
All of which makes this kind of thing a lot more interesting, of course…
Brief Pause
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™ Leave a comment »Yes, I’m still alive. I just ended up decided that my “quiet weekend” would also consist of little to no time on the computer, and so I took a proper break for a couple of days.
It was a bit “spur of the moment”, otherwise I’d have written a couple of posts that could go up on a post-dated thing like I normally do when I’m away for a weekend. But well, I didn’t. Nowt I can do about it now, so it’s just one of those things.
Normal service will now be resumed.
When?
Posted: Fri 15 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 2 Comments »As the world and its dog knows, the new Harry Potter book comes out tonight. Well, technically it’s tomorrow.
One of the shops here has it listed as “midnight Friday” for the release of the book, and they’ll be open at “midnight Friday” in order for people to buy it. Now, while I have to wonder about anyone who’s going to hang about in Wokingham town centre at midnight for a book (when they could get Amazon to deliver it a mere eight hours later at about half the price) I also have to wonder whether “midnight Friday” is the correct term.
I would say that “midnight Friday” equates with “one minute after 11.59pm on Thursday”. Really it should be “midnight Saturday”, shouldn’t it?
Reasons to Worry
Posted: Fri 15 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »OK, I’m beginning to worry about myself a bit. In the last 24 hours I have :
- Been quite pleased about having a quiet weekend.
- Been chucked out of a gig before I even get in to it
- added a photo of a man in a bunnysuit over there –>
- put the same photo as the wallpaper on my phone
- started thinking about what would go into my own self-written photoblog CMS
- even come up wsith a potential name for it
- complained about an error in a newspaper (well, news website) and managed to get them to change it
and, most worryingly of all,
Soon I’ll be getting out some slippers, and having afternoon naps.
Quiet Weekend
Posted: Fri 15 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Amazingly, we actually have a quiet weekend planned. It’s the first one in far too long. Friends are here today and tonight, and we’re out at another friends tonight for a barbecue and birthday thing. Then they’re off home tomorrow, and lo, quiet weekend.
Can’t wait.
Arse’oles
Posted: Fri 15 July, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Music, Photography, Sweary, Thoughts 7 Comments »Dear Brixton Academy,
You utter, utter bunch of cunts. I arrived at the venue last night to see Nine Inch Nails, which I’d been looking forward to since the tickets went on sale. When I got to the door, the security jobsworth motherfucker person searched me and my bag, and refused me access.
My sin? To be carrying a camera. To whit, a digital camera. Now, I realise that the ticket says “no professional cameras”, which is fair enough. And mine, while nice, is most definitely not a professional camera. But no, it turns out that – according to Brixton Academy – “professional” is the same as “digital”. If you’ve got a digital camera, you’re not coming in. If you’ve got a 35mm camera, you’re not coming in. Non-professional cameras would be non-digital, non-zoom, “use once” cameras. And that’s about it. Fucking hell, my bastard phone is listed as a professional camera under your classifications.
Oh, I did get told “you can leave it with us, and collect it at the end of the show“, but that comes listed under the “Yeah, right, pull the other one it’s got fucking bells on” scheme of things.
So, all told, that’s £40 up the swanny. I don’t know if the “no digital cameras” is the policy of the venue or the band, or if it’s just that you have utter fuckwit bastard cunts for doormen. Quite honestly I’ve no intention of finding out. Because I won’t be going back to Brixton Academy again.
You cunts.
Sincerely.
Lyle.
UPDATED : What really rankles is then seeing other people’s photos from the gig.
Photobloggery
Posted: Thu 14 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography 5 Comments »(Note : I’m going to I did leave this at the top of the page for a few days. There’s new stuff underneath, just scroll down a bit…)
I’m thinking about setting up a seperate blog (potentially held under a different site name) purely for photos. I like the design and ideas behind Chromasia, but I know he runs that on MT, which is a bag of worms I really don’t want to get into.
So, what I wonder is this : does anyone run a pure photoblog under WordPress? Or is it going to be easier for me to write some stuff myself in order to do it how I want? Or even just use a different CMS entirely? (I’m currently slightly edging towards the latter, if only because I’m a sad sod, and don’t have a problem with learning yet another piece of software)
Getting Closer
Posted: Thu 14 July, 2005 Filed under: Music 5 Comments »Having seen Stalker’s review(ish) of it I’m looking forward more and more to tonight’s gig. Nine Inch Nails, Brixton Academy.
I’m still not overly looking forward to the travel home afterwards – but with luck I’ll be deaf for most of it…
Omens
Posted: Thu 14 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 4 Comments »You know, there’s a sign that you’re about to have a bad day. It’s this :
You get on a train, (or any form of public transport, but in today’s case, it’s a train) sit down, and opposite you there’s a woman clutching the cross on her necklace, and singing hymns to herself. At a volume high enough to make the tune identifiable (Closer My God To Thee, I think it’s called) but also at a pitch spookily resembling the “mosquito buzzing in the ear” level of irritation.
Thank Chuff I only had to go ten minutes with it.
Nutter.
Equality and Accessibility
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »I noticed this morning (well, I’ve noticed the first part several times, but the second part I only thought about today) that trains now have braille “text” (and as an aside, what is the name for Braille characters? Text? Characters? Signage?) around things like the “Open” and “Close” buttons on the doors, and on the toilets etc. That’s great, and it’s always good to see these things.
However, there’s no braille on the “in case of emergency” stickers at all, or on the “how to escape from this carriage” ones.
Which seems a bit odd – after all, if a carriage is in darkness, or engulfed in thick smoke, surely the ones with the advantage will be the ones who are acclimatised to not being able to see clearly?
Gordon Ramsay
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts 2 Comments »From the huge splurge in hits from Google searches for “Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares Bonaparte’s, do I assume that last night’s Gordon Ramsay involved him re-visiting the restaurant in Silsden where he got fed the dodgy oyster?
Thought so.
Monitors
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Weirdness 3 Comments »On the subject (well, almost) of multitasking, a geeky set-up question…
At work, I’ve got a dual-monitor set-up. Monitor One comes through the DVI plug, and works fine. The other one comes through the normal DSUBoutput (I think it’s DSUB- whatever the standard plug for video output is, anyway). This works fine in most circumstances.
However, on the second monitor, I can’t see video playback through Real – whether it comes from BBC or wherever, I get the audio, but not the video. Any ideas why?
Multi-tasking
Posted: Wed 13 July, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 4 Comments »Why is it that so many people are utterly shit at doing more than one thing at once?
Example : Walking out of a shop, their brain triggers on “Oh, it’s bright outside, I’d best find my sunglasses”. Slam. Stop. Right in the fucking doorway, so no-one else can get past while they ferret through their bags to find the bloody sunglasses. Outside the door is still in shade from the portico design, so they could wait 5 seconds, get out of the fucking way, and then find the sodding things, but oh no, way too much like common sense.
Example : Walking in a busy street, they hear the “dee-dee-dee deeee-deeee dee-dee-dee” of their phone telling them they’ve a text message. Slam. Stop. Got to look at the message right a-fucking-way, because it might be important, someone might’ve died, you never know. Oh no, it’s my mate wanting to know if I’m nearly there yet. Rather than walking the hundred yards to tell ’em, they’ll stand here like a lemon, blocking the path to other people, while they attempt (yet again) to master T9 predictive text.
Example : Talking on a mobile while driving can quadruple the risk of accidents – as well as being illegal, and leaving you open to a fine etc.
So – why can’t most people multitask?
Party Photo
Posted: Tue 12 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography 1 Comment »Knew I’d forgotten something – and that was sorting out some of the photos from the party we went to in Norfolk a few weeks back. This one is my favourite, and seems to just sum up how it all went!
Perfection
Posted: Tue 12 July, 2005 Filed under: Health 1 Comment »Perfect drink for a hot morning after cycling into work…
A glass of Copella Apple and Blackberry Juice, chilled down so it’s almost frozen. Seriously refreshing – and not loaded with artificial sugars and shite.
Mmmmmmm.
Only
Posted: Mon 11 July, 2005 Filed under: Music Leave a comment »I didn’t know ’til Dragon / my stalker said about it, but the video to the new NIN single, “Only” was shot by none other than David Fincher, of “Se7en” and “Fight Club” fame.
And it’s bloody good.
Bomb responses
Posted: Mon 11 July, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts 2 Comments »I’m hard put to decide which of these two responses puts it better…
First there’s Ken Livingstone, a man I find myself respecting more and more as time goes on. His statement: (The full thing here)
I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.
That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith – it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I’m proud to be the mayor of that city.
In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.
The other one is from The London Review’s letter to terrorists :
What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
This is London. We’ve dealt with your sort before. You don’t try and pull this on us. Do you have any idea how many times our city has been attacked? Whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not going to work.All you’ve done is end some of our lives, and ruin some more. How is that going to help you? You don’t get rewarded for this kind of crap.
Because if this is a message to Tony Blair, we’ve got news for you. We don’t much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We’ll deal with that ourselves. We’re London, and we’ve got our own way of doing things, and it doesn’t involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.
And that’s because we’re better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we’re going to go about our lives. We’re going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we’re going to work. And we’re going down the pub.
So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city.
Visa – a thought
Posted: Mon 11 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™ 4 Comments »Yes, over the weekend I wrote that post about the limbless child who’d been granted a visa. And I made a right spud of half the typing in it, as observed by Dvd.
I could have gone back and edited it so I’d typed everything correctly, and sorted it out.
Instead, I went with Scary‘s style, and limited myself to saying “Oh, Spoons” and left it at that.
So there.
Helmets
Posted: Mon 11 July, 2005 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 3 Comments »BSAG has written today about whether it should be made compulsory for cyclists to wear ‘safety’ helmets, which is, of course, something I’m currently fairly interested in. Since buying the new bike back in April (which also means I’ve now been cycling for three solid months – Gods, it feels a lot longer than that!) Herself has insisted that I wear a helmet. And I do so.
Now, I’m not one of these people who gives a toss really about whether or not I look like a knob. My genetic heritage has ensured that I manage to look like one most of the time without even trying, let alone worrying about acoutrements that might help the cause. But I find I don’t like wearing the bike helmet at all. Appearance isn’t an issue. I find I don’t like the way the straps work, or where they’re placed, and personally I feel that some of the “functions” of the helmet actually increase the risk when wearing it.
Primarily, the straps vibrate in any form of wind. Of course, on a bike there’s always a breeze going past, and so the vibrating straps set up a hum in the ears that can block out the sound of a car approaching from the rear. (and has, on several occasions) It doesn’t help that I’ve got ears that stick out, making my head resemble a taxi with both doors open, which of course adds to this problem.
I don’t feel invincible wearing a helmet – Bracknell’s drivers go a long way towards reminding me that a helmet is no protection against a fuckwit bastard in a BMW – and I don’t take unnecessary risks. (well, not too many, anyway) Do I think the helmet would do me any good at all in an accident? No, probably not.
I realise that there are circumstances where a helmet probably does help. But they’re more in the instances of “falling off” rather than “hitting something”. And in thos I’d probably be just as well off with a pair of decent bike gloves to stop me grinding my hands to shit. I’ve also been watching the Tour De France over the last week, and in both of the “big” accidents I’ve seen, most people didn’t come anywhere even close to landing on their heads, instead sliding down the road on hip/thigh/arm. When riding in the TDF though, I can see the point of the helmet for one thing – when there’s a big accident, you get other bikes landing on you too, and that’s when the helmet is useful for protection. But that’s not a “normal” bike-riding circumstance.
I’ll keep on wearing one, as Herself thinks that it helps, and if she’s less concerned about me on the bike then that’s fine with me. But no, I personally don’t feel it does me any positive favours at all. I’m sure I’ll reassess that as and when I have an accident (I don’t intend to have one just to find out, but well, law of averages and all that jazz) and in the meantime I’ll minimize the chances I’ve got of having an accident.
But, as BSAG says, a helmet and minimizing the risks has no effect in comparison to better bike routes, and drivers that actually pay attention to other road users.
Utterly Knackered
Posted: Sun 10 July, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »The fete went fine – the balloon race was a nightmare to handle, but was successful all the same. Lucky Dip and Candyfloss are always big sellers though, so we did pretty well.
Father’s birthday meal at The Old Fisherman was great, and all went well.
We got back at midnight, and then had to be in London for the Christening by 9.45, so we’d left the house by 8.30.
In short, we’re knackered. Utterly, totally knackered. So don’t expect much today, and instead there’ll be stuff tomorrow. Probably.
Fete
Posted: Sat 9 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »Today’s the day for the vilage fete, and the stalls we’re running for the charity. It’s going to be manic.
It’s also Father’s birthday.
It’s also the anniversary for Herself and I.
So – a dead quiet day, really. *coughs*
Visa
Posted: Sat 9 July, 2005 Filed under: News 3 Comments »I notice on the BBC that a 14-month old baby ffrom Africa who was bron with no lumbs has now been granted a visa to the UK in order to receive medical treatment.
I suppose the Home Office has now decided that he’s ‘armless.
</gets coat and runs>
Well said
Posted: Fri 8 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »As with Mike TD’s post, I’m not going to say much, except Read This.
It’s worth the effort, and the time.
ID
Posted: Fri 8 July, 2005 Filed under: News 2 Comments »Bloody Hell. Home Secretary in “talking common sense” shocker. Never thought that’d happen – but I’m glad it did.
Charles Clarke says that ID cards wouldn’t have stopped the London bombs. File under “Sherlock, Shit, No.”
However, he still thinks that in general they’re a good thing, and would help. The most worrying comment is
“He also suggested that in future civil liberties may have to be curtailed.”
Lighter
Posted: Fri 8 July, 2005 Filed under: News 1 Comment »In lighter news, many congratulations (seems to be the week for it) to Graybo and Hels on their news.
Organised?
Posted: Fri 8 July, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts 14 Comments »As per the comments a couple of posts down , I personally find it very difficult to believe that the London bombs yesterday were the work of Al Qa’eda. Gert pointed out Dustbinman’s “Lone Nutter Theory”, which – for me (and Jann) works a lot better.
Al Qa’eda have suddenly (by which I mean “over the last five years”) become the boogeyman of international terrorism. Anything involving large loss of life, or organisation, and bang, there we go, the name of Al Qa’eda comes up. Sometimes they’re covered by “Islamic Terrorists”, but as one person said in the press conferences yesterday (sorry, I didn’t see who it was who said it, and I’m going to paraphrase anyway)
I don’t want to hear the phrase “Islamic Terrorists”. These people are terrorists. Millions of people follow the Islamic faith, and are just as shocked and disgusted as us. Anyone who calls themselves an Islamic Terrorist is a liar – the two are mutually exclusive.
Yes, of course there will be a search for who set off the bombs. That’s just common sense. But, no matter what the government and media decide, I’m just not convinced of the Al Qa’eda “connection”. It always comes up now, and I don’t personally believe that an organisation can be the size that Al Qa’eda must be to organise global events can exist without more people being aware of it.
Yesterday’s attack was completely under the radar. Investigators will now go back and possibly make a chain of who said what, but I doubt it. If they do, it’ll be too many coincidences, too many chances to “make the facts fit the conclusion”. There’ll be a conspiracy theory for sure, and whoever did do it will be decried as being part of the Al Qa’eda organisation without a doubt.
From the events that have been claimed by Al Qa’eda, the London bombs were remarkably un-showy, and resulted in (in comparison) an amazingly low loss of life. The Madrid train bombs killed hundreds, 9/11 killed hundreds. London killed 38, at last count. I’m not belittling the London bombs at all, nor their effect on the city and country – I just don’t believe it can be attributed to the same organisation as the others.
My personal belief already is that this is more linked to winning the Olympic bid, rather than G8 and the like. I also think that if Paris had won the bid, France would this morning be waking up to the same thoughts and reactions as Britain has had. I don’t mean that this was an international concerted campaign, but that one person could easily travel in the 18 hours between announcement of the bid winner and the relevant city – the only one that couldn’t have been done in such a way was New York, and that was always an outsider in the bids anyway. London, Madrid, Paris, and Moscow could all have been reached in that time though. And the two main competitors were connected by a matter of a three or four hour train journey through Eurostar – never reknowned as the most security conscious terminus anyway.
Again, an Al Qa’eda effort would probably have happened a day earlier, in all five cities, timed to happen either just before or just after the announcement of the winning city. With the events around it, and the countries involved, that would have worked. Or even attacking the various country’s representatives as they were amassed in one place, the Raffles Conference Centre in Singapore.
I believe that the London bombs will turn out to be the work of one person. At most, two or three people, who didn’t need to communicate except by meeting face-to-face. But probably just one person.
Black Ribbon
Posted: Fri 8 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, News Leave a comment »Observant readers will notice that there’s currently a black ribbon image over there –>
It contains an alt and title tag for the emergency info numbers for London. © Google for the rest of it.
In the meantime, I’m very glad to hear that Diamond Geezer, Karen at Uborka, Pix, Dragon, Reynolds, Gert, Anna and all the others I know are OK.
Timing
Posted: Thu 7 July, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts 10 Comments »Is it just me who’s wondering whether there’s a hint of coincidence between London winning the Olympic bid for 2012, and 24 hours later a bundle of bomb blasts in the city ?
And particularly when the G8 conference is going on up in Edinburgh too?
2012
Posted: Wed 6 July, 2005 Filed under: News 2 Comments »Oh buggery, London hosts the olympics in 2012. Arse.
Still, it gives me plenty of advance warning so I can be off somewhere else during that month. Preferably in a little hole in the desert where I don’t have to hear about the bloody thing at all.
Custard
Posted: Wed 6 July, 2005 Filed under: News 3 Comments »Did you know that on Channel Five (sorry, five) at 8.15am, they show the ace kids cartoon Roobarb? And that once they’ve shown the original episodes, there’s going to be 39 new ones? I didn’t. Happy, happy day.
Plod
Posted: Tue 5 July, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 2 Comments »I must admit, I can’t help being impressed by the Chief Constable of Manchester Police, Michael Todd. When he came in to the position, he spent the first couple of days (and I think, though I may be wrong, that he actually did some of this before his official start date) visiting all the police stations in Manchester, and meeting the people he would be commanding/ representing. That’s a pretty strong thing to do – and something that a lot more bosses should do when they come to a new place.
Anyway, today he’s in the news again, having allowed himself to get shot by a Taser gun. This is a man whose attitude comes down to “I want this to be in the frontline police force, but I can’t justify doing that, or saying it’s safe, without having experienced it first”. Personally, I’d like to see more people with that kind of attitude.
Subscribing
Posted: Tue 5 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts 9 Comments »One idea that was suggested over the weekend in Norfolk was that d4d™ should have a section (or, indeed, an entirely seperate site) that was passworded, and possibly also needed a subscription-type effort in order to get the password. This subscription would be something probably paltry (Maybe £10 per year, or something) more to show willing than anything else.
Content would most likely be far more ranty stuff, sweary, and generally things slanderous, libellous, and not meant for general consumption.
So – what do you think? Would it work? Would you read it?
Bunny
Posted: Tue 5 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts, Work-related 1 Comment »
One thing that’s great about doing mock-ups and screen-examples for a new website is that you can add in your own favourite images, rather than having to necessarily worry about copyright etc.
For the work I’m currently doing, I’ve opted to use this image, just to amuse me, and probably to do the same for other people when they look at the screen examples etc. It’ll never make it into the final version, but for now it makes me smile.
Is that sad?
Inter-fucking-flora
Posted: Tue 5 July, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts 1 Comment »Ah yes, this one needed posting. This weekend is mental, (see the list below for more details) even without it also being our anniversary.
Anyway, on Friday (this being the best day to sort out anniversary-type stuff, due to aforementioned manic weekend) Herself is over at Grandfathers, as he’s having a heart thingy (don’t you love it when I get all technical?) done on Thursday, and Friday is a Day Of Rest™ for him. So last week (about Wednesday or so) I thought “I know, I’ll get some flowers delivered to her at Grandfathers, as a surprise.” Genius. Off I toddle to Interflora’s website and get it ordered, making sure the delivery date is 8th July.
Last Friday (the 1st) Herself gets a call from Grandfather. “Why have I been sent flowers?”. The useless tossers had sent it a week early – quite an impressive mistake.
In fairness, when I got hold of Inter-fuckin’-flora’s customer services, they were deeply apologetic, and have ensured that a) Grandfather can keep the first lot, and b) another lot will be delivered this Friday, when I wanted them delivered. Of course, it’s no longer a surprise, which pisses me off, but at least they’ve come through and done the right/ decent/ sane thing, which isn’t always the case in the world of retail.
However, it does also mean I’m going to cop a lifetime of piss-taking from Grandfather. Maybe I should’ve asked them for compensation after all…
Comments
Posted: Mon 4 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 1 Comment »I don’t know if it was affecting anyone, but it came to my attention that the old problem with writing comments in IE had reared its ugly head again. I suspect that it happened when I upgraded WP a couple of weeks back, and I just didn’t notice as I never use IE if I can help it.
Anyway, it’s fixed again now, and this time I’ll try and make sure I copy the updated file to all my locations I might edit from again.
Honest.
Geoff Thomas
Posted: Mon 4 July, 2005 Filed under: Health, News, Thoughts 1 Comment »Two years ago, Geoff Thomas (apparently a former football player, but *shrug*) was diagnosed with leukemia. This year, he’s following the example of Lance Armstrong, himself a survivor of testicular cancer, and riding the Tour De France. Not at the same time as the other riders, but a couple of days in advance.
Quite remarkable, and well worth sponsoring.
Betrothed
Posted: Mon 4 July, 2005 Filed under: News 3 Comments »Congratulations to Skytower and Kirsty, who got engaged over the weekend. The wedding won’t be ’til at least 2007, but still, many congrats, and well done. About bleedin’ time!
Zzzzzzzzz
Posted: Sun 3 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals, General Leave a comment »Normally I’d find something to write about today. Unfortunately, for once, my brain is utter toast. The Hound was a pain in the arse last night, barking and waking me up four times in order for her to have a drink and so on. We really need to sort out an extra water-bottle for the fuckpot twat.
Anyway, she’s still being a pain in the arse today, for reasons unknown, and I’m deeply not in the mood. So I’m afraid updates will wait ’til tomorrow when (hopefully) I’ll be in a better mood.
Blueberries
Posted: Sat 2 July, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Health 5 Comments »I just drank an Innocent® Blackberry and Blueberry smoothie, and couldn’t resist copying the text that was on it. Sheer genius…
We don’t know who invented blueberries. Probably Thomas Edison, or Benjamin Franklin. Anyway, whoever did it, we thank you, mainly because blueberries seem to do a multitude of things very well. They look good on your cornflakes, they taste amazing, and they contain more antioxidant power than brocolli, spinach, or garlic. Over the years we’ve found that they taste slightly more agreeable when blended into a smoothie than garlic or any of those other things. If you disagree, please email your concerns to iwantmysmoothietostink@innocentdrinks.co.uk.
How ace is that? Particularly the email address…
A Walk down Memory Lane
Posted: Fri 1 July, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions, Thoughts 5 Comments »Via bsag, a fairly interesting little meme about time…
10 years ago…
Hmmm, 1995. I was working in Rugby, as the manager of the Three Horseshoes hotel there. (Nasty website, but I had nowt to do with it. Promise) Working from 6am-ish through to midnight/1am, with (if I was lucky a break in the middle somewhere. Insane hours, little to no sleep, running round like the proverbial fart in a fit. It was brilliant, and in some ways I’d still go back to that kind of work, if I could sort out the hours a bit. Mind you, that’s hotels for you – the breakfast bit is the killer.
5 years ago…
I was definitely in Manchester by that time, but where was I working? *racks brain* I think that I was actually working for Ebookers in London. And commuting between either Manchester and London or Bath and London, thanks to a friend with a flat in Bath, and depending on what else was going on. It was hugely expensive, immensely stressed, and probably overall not many hours less than I’d been doing five years earlier. The pay was better, but was swallowed up by travel, rent, that kind of thing. So, a major change of jobs, but no change in financial status, really. And still as daft as ever.
This time last year…
I was working in Oldham. Less money, easier job. d4d™ was going great guns, and was nearing its second birthday. Tim Henman had collapsed out of Wimbledon like the wet fart he is, and I was looking forward to seeing Herself properly for the first time following on from when we’d been together at the wedding in June. So… shite… that means it’s our first anniversary soon. Flippin’ ‘eck. Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?
Yesterday…
All very domestic. Working at the new place continues to be cool as chuff, and really rather satisfying. The cycling’s also going well, and thank christ the weather’s cooled down a bit too. Home, and cooked up some seriously yummy Goat’s Cheese and Caramelised Onion pasta, (cheers, Waitrose) although Hound® nicked some of it before it got cooked. Fucker. Ended the evening by watching The Punisher, which was just as brainless and shite as I’d expected, but entertaining all the same. In a dumb “can’t be arsed to do owt else” kind of way. Oh, and started work on two of the websites I need to get sorted.
Today…
A load of work has landed on my desk, so I’m going to be busy for the next couple of weeks with it all. Which is no bad thing at all. Other than that, sorting out events for next weekend, which as well as a certain anniversary is also Father’s birthday, plus the fete where the charity will take part. Oh, and just for good measure there’s the christening of my god-daughter too. Nothing like a quiet weekend. And yes, that one is going to be nothing like a quiet weekend.
Out tonight for a curry with some of Herself’s friends, and I guess we should walk Hound® at some point too.
Tomorrow…
Shopping, Gardening, more website work, and sorting out some photos etc., I think. Oh, and doing some fruit picking somewhere along the line. No solid plans just yet, but I’m sure we’ll be busy. After all, it’s a “quiet” weekend. Ha.
Shortcuts
Posted: Fri 1 July, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 1 Comment »One of the innovations I find I really dislike on computers is the meese mices mousen cordless mouse with rechargeable batteries.
Now, I’m not going to argue the point too much, because really it’s me who’s at fault rather than the mouse itself, but I’m forever forgetting to put the sodding thing back on its little recharging cradle overnight. So by the end of the week I’m getting either a) no mouse service at all, or b) error messages and warnings all over the place about “Mouse Battery is low”. Today is using option a.
Fortunately, I’m a truly sad git, and actually know most of the Windows® keyboard shortcuts, as well as the Firefox ones, which means I can still work fairly well even without the mouse. It’s an interesting thing in a lot of ways, because you suddenly discover a lot more about website design, and usability in general.
For instance, looking at d4d™ itself, and Gordon‘s where we’ve knobbed about with the site navigation so it actually appears last in the code is truly useful. A couple of shift-TABs to go back, and lo, I can get to anywhere on the site.
However, writing stuff in the WordPress “Write” window is an utter, utter bastard because of the way the order has been coded for where TAB sends you next. It’s something I’ll be looking at hacking about with in the future, I think.
It’s something that I’m sure I’ll be writing more about. Be afraid.
Poverty-Stricken
Posted: Fri 1 July, 2005 Filed under: News Leave a comment »Someone in Wokingham has been very busy overnight. Every bank in the town has “Make Poverty History” banners outside. They’re not quite blocking the entrances, but equally they’re not easy to avoid.
Just to add to the comedy effect, a couple of the banks have already had workers outside taking them down, others appear to be taking a stance of “We haven’t seen it. It’s not there. Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala”
In my day…
Posted: Thu 30 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »OK, now here’s a question, brought on by far too much people-watching out of the office windows. And cue Victor Meldrew-esque bleating tone if it makes you any happier – on this one, I’m sure that I’m just an uncomprehending old fart who’s not “up to date”. Now, consider, do I look like someone who could care less?
Anyway. What is it at the moment with people (mainly young lads, god help us all) wearing jeans that are apparently supposed to only cover half the arse, leaving square acres of (sometimes manky/crusty) boxer-short hanging over the top of the waistband?
It can’t be comfortable, and in fact most of the people wearing this *cough* “style” seem to be permanently on the verge of losing their trousers altogether, which kind of negates the concept of it being some kind of functional thing. It does go a long way towards illustrating, though, that young lads are a) slightly bizarre, and b) apparently have no arse whatsoever.
But what’s the point of it?
Anti-Spam etc.
Posted: Thu 30 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 1 Comment »Yes, again, I’m writing about Anti-Spam stuff on this site. It gets tedious, I know. But then, so does Spam.
Anyway, I’ve just installed a couple of other items, so if you do have any problems commenting (although if it’s marked as “spam” I’ll soon resurrect it anyway, don’t worry) then send me a mail and let me know. With luck the entire process will be invisible, and shouldn’t cause any problems (although I know that Spam Karma’s been chucking out some valid comments in the last couple of days) but well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been wrong on things like this.
Loch Lomond
Posted: Thu 30 June, 2005 Filed under: Music, Thoughts Leave a comment »After the weekend in Norfolk, for various reasons I now have the lyrics of “The Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” reverberating through my skull at various times.
Last night it pestered me through dreams, and has pursued me into consciousness.
Next time I see that bloody DJ, I’m going to slap him…
Linkage
Posted: Thu 30 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™ 2 Comments »I love it when people write my content for me. I’ve just received this semi-spam from some fucknuts who wants me to advertise porn DVDs. Hmmm, I think not.
I’m writing to ask if you would be interested in exchanging links with my website at www.[pornsite].com
I’ve taken the liberty of already adding your site to my links section in the unconfirmed links category.
All new links are added here until a link back can be confirmed. Once this is done the link is moved to a category of your choice.
If you would like to exchange links please link to my site, http://www.[pornsite].com using the text – [pornsite]. The HTML that needs to be put on your site is,<a href=”http://www.[pornsite].com”>[pornsite]</a>
Once this has been added please let me know it’s location and also what category you would like you link to be moved to. If you want any specific text used in the title and description please let me know this also.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Thanks,
Matt
So yes, let’s say I did, and leave it at that.
Manipulation
Posted: Wed 29 June, 2005 Filed under: Sweary, Thoughts 2 Comments »I’ve just had a spammish email (I forgot to click the “forget I exist, and never email me again, you fuckers” button once when I ordered from them) from Interflora today, telling me that Wednesday July 6th is “National Kissing Day”.
What a load of old bollocks. It’s just another “Day” created by Interflora/ Clintons/ Hallmark in order to sell more shit to gullible punters. Not that I’m cunical cynical or owt, but really, National Kissing Day? Do me a favour, pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Easily Spotted
Posted: Tue 28 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts 2 Comments »Grrr. I’ve just spent a number of hours trying to figure out why one part of a webpage was going wrong, and repeating an image multiple times when there was nothing in the code to indicate why it would think this was a good idea.
As it turns out, it was a simple fix – eventually. I’ve no idea why it was doing it, but it was.
The problem was a single extra < character. That was it. Why this made the navigation bar repeat three times I don’t know. But it now works. And that’s – sometimes – what makes up most of a day’s work. Finding a < . Sad, isn’t it?
Froggin’ Expensive
Posted: Tue 28 June, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness 3 Comments »Well, colour me shocked. There’s a story on the BBC News today about how signing up to the Crazy Bastard Frog (CBF) ringtone costs people a lot more than they expect. Basically, if you signed up to get the CBF, you’ve then signed up to Jamster‘s shite from now ’til the end of eternity. (and yes, pedants, I know that technically eternity never ends, but bollocks, I’m using the expression anyway) Or, in fairness, ’til you get enough IQ points to text “STOP” to whatever number it is. (if memory serves, I think that’s the code – see, I do pay attention to the adverts)
The whining twat on the BBC says this:
I did not spot the impossibly small print whizzing by on the bottom of the screen while a larger-than-a life Crazy Frog gyrated to his latest tones.If I had, it would apparently have informed me that by ordering the ringtone I had also signed up to a subscription.
The watchdog’s 2004 code says pricing information must be spoken on television adverts if maximum call costs can exceed £2. The code also states that “textual pricing information must be easily legible, prominent… presented in a way that does not require close examination”.
©BBC News 2005
She then goes on to say “I couldn’t find anything about this on the Jamster site”. Well, madam, then you’re obviously as thick as pigshite. If you click on the “Terms and Conditions” link on any Jamster Page (yes, I’ve just looked at the site for the first time ever you get to see this :
To unsubscribe by text message, text “STOP” to 88888, call 0870 121 3186 or go to “My Clubs” under “My Jamster!” on www.jamster.co.uk or send an email to info@jamster.co.uk. The termination shall become effective immediately upon receipt of termination request.
© Jamster 2005
Rocket science this isn’t.
So far as I can see, the entire Jamster ringtones thing is just like an idiot tax anyway – if you don’t read the text at the bottom (and I have – it’s not difficult so long as you don’t need to read aloud, or follow the words with your fucking finger) and just subscribe then a) you’re an idiot, and b) you’re fair game to get ripped off. This whine masquerading as news just goes to illustrate the point.
Blank
Posted: Tue 28 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Ever have one of those days where you don’t know what to write?
Yeah, that’s me today. Stumped, utterly stumped. I’m sure I’ll think of something in a bit.
Norfolk Weekend
Posted: Mon 27 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, General, Thoughts 1 Comment »Well, after the amazing joys of the train journey, the weekend carried on in a similar vein.
The main event/reason for going was for a joint housewarming and “decade in business” party for Herself’s Sister and Husband. Yup, the Outlaws. And bloody good it was, too. On Friday there’d been a bit of pessimism swanning around, as it was raining, and obviously if you’re having a party in a garden, you don’t want it looking like Glastonbury. But as it turned out, while most of the day was cloudy, and there was a bit of rain in the morning, there was nothing from about 1pm, and it was a great day. Besides, if it had been as hot as the rest of the week we’d have had people basting in their own skins, and that’s no fun either.
So, Saturday dawned bright and sunny cloudy and grey, and while setting up tables and so on, the first revelation occurred…
You’re the one who writes d4d™, aren’t you?
(cue “Rabbit in the Headlights” expression) Um, yeah…
Oh, it’s great. We all read it every day. It’s dead popular in the Norfolk NHS
So there we go – second “sit down in shock” moment of the day – people actually read this guff? Yeesh. And now I’ve met some of them. Eeek. I have an audience.
Still reeling a bit from that one, another discussion comes about.
Outlaw : You did know you’re doing all the barbecue stuff, didn’t you?
Um, no, that information must’ve somehow passed me by…
Have you ever done one before?
Nope. So that’ll be a learning experience then…
Yes, I can’t deny, I was more than a little bit stressed (for which read “bloody orbital”) as H-Hour came around. One barbecue was fine, all gas-fired, electronic ignition, the lot – that’s great. The other one (for vegetarian food only) was – shall we say – a bit more tempramental, in that the bloody thing developed a dislike for my eyebrows, and tried removing them every time I lit the sodding thing all weekend. And the organisation of my bit was initially a bit chaotic. But it all worked out OK. I managed to cook sausages that were (just about) discernible from the charcoal briquettes around them. Not brilliant, but not bad for a first go. Hell, people ate them, and didn’t collapse vomiting afterwards. For me, that was a success.
The afternoon part of the party – the “business” section – went really smoothly, and was damn good. Lots of food, lots of punch (drink, not fighting) and a good time was had by all. Herself was knockout, doing all the food, and a shedload of washing-up (glasses and the like), and all ran well.
The evening was always going to be more alcoholic. God knows how much everyone got through, but I think it comes under “not enough” as there was still drink left at the end of the night. But it was good – and we weren’t even disturbed too much by the hippies up the road having their “Summer Solstice” party a mere four days late. Still, who the hell’s ever heard of a punctual hippie? Just because they celebrate calendar festivals doesn’t mean they can tell the time.
Throughout the day there were performances by a local band, who were bloody good. Apparently it was their first “public” performance, not that you’d have been able to tell. Perhaps the only giveaway was that the repertoire was still pretty small. (and yes, Jellifish, I know you’ll be reading this – even if you weren’t, I’d still say the same!) It all went really smoothly, and everyone had a good time before we eventually collapsed at about 1am.
Sunday involved clearing up, which actually wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I was awake by 8am, and got a load done before anyone else was awake, which made life easier. Sometimes clearing up is best done by two or three motivated people rather than ten or twelve “Oh God, do we have to?” merchants.
Breakfast was done on the barbecue again, and this time hardly anything got burnt. But it was chuffin’ good – even the fried eggs seemed to cook properly. Hell, I have a hard time doing that on a proper cooker for the most part, let alone on a sodding barbecue! So all went well, and after a large sit-down with the remaining people, we drove off into the sunset* having had a bloody fantastic weekend.
* artistic licence. Live with it.
Quick Quiz
Posted: Mon 27 June, 2005 Filed under: Travel 4 Comments »OK, now here’s a thing. At Waterloo Station (I’m talking about the Underground Station, as opposed to mainline trains, I should point out) I discovered there was an Underground line I’d never used before.
It’s nothing special – in fact, it just runs between Waterloo and Bank stations, and is called the “Waterloo and City line”. It looks like this (courtesy of a badly hacked map from Transport for London)
Now, what I want to know is this : why is it there? And what is its history?
I suspect I know who will know, but any answers will be appreciated.
Train Miracle
Posted: Mon 27 June, 2005 Filed under: Travel 1 Comment »Sit down. There’s a shock on the way. Well, today all told there may be a couple of shocks on the way – but for now, this one’s a biggie.
After all my many rants about train travel, of which there are too many to link to, (although this link does a fairly good job, I have to say) Friday’s journey from Wokingham to Norwich went – I warned you, sit down – bloody well. No delays, no hassles. Busy trains, yes, but I got a seat, and there were no irritations. Yeah, you heard that right – no irritations. I had problems believing it myself.
If pushed, I would point out that the London Underground is still a nightmare, and on Friday it was hotter than a sweaty desert-dweller’s jockstrap (and, on one memorable section, smelled like it) but that’s summer in London for you. And if I ever say “I’m going to be working in London for the summer”, slap me.
But yes, the journey itself was fine. Oh, and a quick thanks to the very nice man on the London-Norwich train, who I discussed laptops with, and who then donated his last can of beer to me when he got off the train. You, sir, are a bloody star.
See – told you you should be sitting down!
Countdown at Zero
Posted: Mon 27 June, 2005 Filed under: News Leave a comment »RIP Richard Whitely. Manufacturers of manky ties everywhere are going to hang their knots at half-mast in respect for a man who promoted their wares so selflessly.
NIN remixed
Posted: Sun 26 June, 2005 Filed under: Music Leave a comment »I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Dan for pointing me towards the top 20 tracks in the remixing competition for Nine Inch Nail’s “The Hand That Feeds”. I downloaded all of them at work, and over the last couple of days I’ve listened to all of them, and a damn good set they are too.
Away again
Posted: Sat 25 June, 2005 Filed under: Travel Leave a comment »I’m away in Norfolk again this weekend. Fun stuff like parties, celebrations, and the like. Had to take a train to Norwich (£45 later…) which was a bit painful, but at least we’ll be driving back, which isn’t too bad.
Have a good weekend, one and all.
Official TD Mascot
Posted: Fri 24 June, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Blimey – apparently I’m Troubled Diva’s most stereotypical reader. Who’d have thought it?
As such, the very nice man is going to send me a TD mug for my typicality.
And as for Anna‘s superb attempts to win the mug, they’re brilliant too – particularly the awful poetry!
Rainy
Posted: Fri 24 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 3 Comments »Hallelujah, the weather’s broken and it’s finally raining for a while. I’ve just been out in it, and I think it’s the first time I’ve been cool in a week.
What does amaze me though is – unsurprisingly – how stupid people are. While in the shops, every other person in the queue was complaining that it was raining now, and it’d been fine when they left for work, so they hadn’t bothered with jackets/ umbrellas/ whatever.
I’m sorry, but the weather reports have been full of this for a week. “Friday’s going to bring rain, storms, thunder, lightning”. Every report I’ve seen has said that. It’s even been on the BBC news website. Hard to miss that level of information, really, isn’t it. But no, because there was sun in the sky at 8am, everyone seems to have assumed that it’ll be fine all day, and they don’t need anything, despite all the stories to the contrary. And then they’re complaining about it. I despair.
As for the fuckwits who just stand in doorways waiting for the rain to stop, words fail me. Particularly when you try to get past them, and they just give you an incredulous look, as if to say “But it’s raining. You can’t go outside in that. You’ll melt or something.” It’s bloody water. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s cool, and when all’s said and done, I’ll dry off. Now fuck off and get out of my way, you poor pathetic cuntwit bastard.
MP3 playlist
Posted: Fri 24 June, 2005 Filed under: Music, Weirdness 2 Comments »I’m on a train later tonight, and I’ve just been thinking (again) about how surreal my music tastes can be.
The MP3 player is currently loaded with the following albums :
- Alabama3’s “Outlaw” (which is bloody good, it has to be said)
- NIN’s “With Teeth”
- The The’s “Hanky Panky” (a set of Hank Williams covers)
- Daddy G’s “DJ Kicks” compilation (mainly dub and reggae – very mellow)
- Marc Almond’s “Tenement Symphony” (camper than a row of tents)
- KLF’s “White Room” album
That’s a fair selection of genres in there. And yet to me it makes sense in a scary kind of way. And also (to me) flows pretty nicely.
Forecast Fox
Posted: Fri 24 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky Leave a comment »Gordon was talking about the “Forecast Fox” plug-in for Firefox yesterday, and I’ve just noticed another thing about the latest version.
Up ’til recently, it just basically told you what the weather would be in general for the morning or afternoon. That now seems to have been updated (along with the ability to see a radar map of your area) Today’s report is :
Friday, Day, in Wokingham, UK.
A shower this afternoon. 23°C
Wind NW 2mph
Now that’s really pretty precise. Of course, it’s not perfect – they’re no longer banging on about thunderstorms today at all. Which is a bummer.
Bandwidth
Posted: Thu 23 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky Leave a comment »Speaking of bandwidth etc. when it comes to d4d™ and WordPress, I’ve taken it upon myself today to kill the bandwidth at work. We’ve got a 2.5Mb connection, and I’m downloading the CD images of Debian Linux. Which’ll make life interesting on the new PC.
There’s also been a small matter of 20 remixes of NIN’s “The hand that feeds”, which I’m looking forward to listening to. Maybe not all at once, but certainly over the next couple of days.
So yes, work’s bandwidth is slightly busy today…
WP (thoughts)
Posted: Thu 23 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts 3 Comments »Recently I updated my WordPress installation, which I wrote about at the time. If you’re not interested in WP, I’d suggest looking away now, and I’ll write some more rubbish later on. Promise. Otherwise, read on… Read the rest of this entry »
B&Q
Posted: Wed 22 June, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, General 32 Comments »No, not another set of events with that bunch of cunts, but having just looked through my referrers, and checked back, I’m pleased to confirm that I’m now in the top 10 on Google for the search “B&Q customer services“.
Told you I’d manage it…
Summertime Trim
Posted: Wed 22 June, 2005 Filed under: Animals 1 Comment »A while back, you may remember that we had to get the cat shaved so he was no longer manky. I hoped at the time that this might mean he’d take more care of himself so as not to get laughed at again. Oh, how wrong I was. He’s even more of a mucky little sod now than he was before, and is in fact currently a strange shade that can only be described as “dusty grey”.
Anyway, due to the warm weather, we decided that Hound® was now due for a trim as well. Hound® isn’t quite as psychotic as Psycho Cat®, so we decided to undertake this task at home over the weekend. And in fact it all went pretty well – the fur was removed to a sensible level, and we don’t have any bald bits, which is a sign (so far as I’m concerned) of a successful job.
Hound® however hasn’t been quite so convinced. Her back end has lost all it’s tassles of fur, so she now looks like a collie crossed with a whippet. Which, if I’m honest, is bloody funny. She’s definitely a lot cooler than she was before, but I suspect she knows she looks a bit silly…
Getting There
Posted: Wed 22 June, 2005 Filed under: Health, Travel Leave a comment »On the ride to work (which hasn’t changed much, as I’m still in Wokingham. I just go a different direction at the train station) just after I leave the house there’s a nightmare road. Partly the nightmare is because it’s always half-full of parked cars, and avoiding those (plus idiot schoolchildren who don’t know the difference betweeen path and road) makes for a hairy ride on occasion.
The main reason it’s a bastard though is because the entire road is uphill. It’s only a gentle(ish) slope, but Jesus, it’s a killer. It always leaves me knackered – still determined to go on, but knackered all the same – and chuffed. This isn’t helped by being very soon after leaving the house, so I’m not warmed up or anything.
Anyway, I’d always said I’ll know when I’m getting to some point of fitness when I can do the road without being bollocksed at the end of it. And today was that day!
Of course, we’ll have to see how I do tomorrow with it (and then next week, as I’m travelling to Norfolk straight after work on Friday, and there’s no point cycling in at that point) but I do feel pretty good that I’d managed to complete that road without being knackered.
Taking the Piss
Posted: Tue 21 June, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »Just as an aside, this is the post I was writing, and lost earlier. A re-write, not a recovery
Do you ever wonder whether certain other people are actually on the same level of sanity as yourself? Today’s story about the potential for a “congestion charge” for rush-hour rail travel created this kind of doubt in my mind.
The real questioning came about when it was revealed that it was that Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) who were banging on about this. They’re obviously not aware that “peak” travel is already a shitload more expensive than travelling later in the day. And that’s the policy of every train company. If I were to decide to work in London, and had to commute from Bracknell to be in London before 9am, a daily Travelcard would cost me £22.60. If I can go in later, leaving Bracknell after 9.30am, that Travelcard will only cost me £13.30.
So the “rush-hour” congestion charge already exists. It’s just the train companies working to screw even more money out of people – and mainly out of business people and workers, who are the ones they’re forever saying are the “bread and butter” of the trainlines, which is why maintenance work is done on bank holidays and weekends, so that these super-important “bread and butter” passengers aren’t inconvenienced. Great, they’re just ripped off more and more each year.
The final insult came in the quote (and I’m going to paraphrase it a bit)
In the next 10 years the objective will be to run as many trains as we sensibly can, and as long trains as we can, to carry the maximum capacity.
…
The strategy document – entitled Looking Forward: Contribution to Railway Strategy – also said scrapping under-used trains and stations could help operators handle growth.
Now, let me get this right. Effectively, what they’re saying is “the trains are going to get busier. Therefore, what we’ll do is reduce the number of trains and stations, so that all these extra people will be crammed on the over-used trains at a smaller number of stations. Hey, what’s convenience, when we can ram ’em in like sardines?”
Arse
Posted: Tue 21 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™ 1 Comment »For the first time in ages (in fact, ever) I’ve gone and lost a post I was typing. I think it’s because I’ve just set up my new work PC (And oooh, it’s a nice bit of kit) and was writing the post on the laptop. Only I’ve just turned off the laptop, having thought I’d saved the post.
Pah, so much for being a techie, eh?
To quote the master, “Oh, Spoons”
Consistent
Posted: Mon 20 June, 2005 Filed under: Resolutions 6 Comments »Arse. Failed it again – on exactly the same thing as last time. Two minor faults, and one fuck-up.
To say I’m pissed off with myself would be an understatement. What’s more, because Reading test centre’s so busy, my next one isn’t ’til mid-August. Fuck it all.
Moonwalk
Posted: Sun 19 June, 2005 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 1 Comment »I’m glad to see that the annual Playtex Moonwalk event went off smoothly last night in London.
It’s a walk through London at night, where 15,000 people – mainly women in self-decorated bras – are sponsored in aid of Breast Cancer charities. Long may events like this continue.
Hot
Posted: Sun 19 June, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Fuck it’s warm.
Yesterday involved one of the bizarrest weddings I’ve yet attended – more of a garden party and village hall affair than anything else. Still, it was quite fun – although perhaps chocolates weren’t the best idea for a “thank you” present from the happy couple…
I just hope that next weekend when we’re down in Norfolk will be similar weather. Perhaps slightly cooler, but not by much.
Flowers from Dublin
Posted: Fri 17 June, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Travel 2 Comments »Not quite “Tulips from Amsterdam”, but I’ve now uploaded a set of flower photos that got taken last week in Dublin Botanical Gardens to flickr.
In particular, the orchid house was stunning, but there’s a few others in there as well that I’m pleased with. Specifically, the bougainvillea and the foxglove.
Enjoy.
Night of the Animals
Posted: Thu 16 June, 2005 Filed under: Animals Leave a comment »I’m a bit groggy today. My brain is still fine for an “at work” period, as CrapCo aren’t exactly challenging me mentally at the moment anyway. (They’re more like “mentally challenged”, but it’d be harsh of me to say so) The reason for being groggy? The bloody pets.
Psycho Cat® snores. OK, he slept on Herself’s side of the bed last night, which was a bonus as he normally wraps himself round my knees, then sticks his claws into my calf muscle if I move. Which is – to say the least – disturbing. But last night he slept on Herself’s side, but snored like a bastard all night. You’d never believe the noise comes from the cat, but it does. I know, because I’m awake to hear it, so it’s not me.
Then, come about 5am, Hound® starts up. No idea why, but I suspect it amounted to “I’m awake, so everyone else should be”. Normally this can be sorted by letting the poxy creature out of her cage/bed (she’s happy in there, it’s not cruel, nor punishment. Just a “safe place”. Mainly safe because I can’t fling my boot at her when she starts effing barking. But I digress.) and have a slash in the garden and/or a drink of water, then back in the cage and back to sleep.
Not today. All of the above, out in the garden, drink of water, back in the cage, and bark, bark, bark. Bastard. Half five in the sodding morning, and no chance of sleep. So in the end I just gave up, went downstairs again, let Hound® out of the cage again, opened the back door, and left her to it.
But by then I’m wide awake too, so I finished off the book I was reading. But right now my brain’s really letting me know it’s been up for longer than expected. *sigh*
Driving
Posted: Thu 16 June, 2005 Filed under: General, Resolutions 1 Comment »Oooh, pooh, I’d (almost) forgotten that I’ve got a driving test on Monday. Fark.
So yesterday I had my first driving lesson since the last test. Oops. OK, so it’d kind of passed me by as a “really should keep doing that”. Spoons.
I started off thinking “Sod it, I’m in trouble here, I won’t remember a knacking thing”, but within five minutes it reverted to “Ah, I remember it all. This isn’t so bad”. And it did go really well – I actually enjoyed it, which is more than I was expecting to.
Now, roll on Monday. Eight bastard Forty in the morning. Aargh.
Pedestrians – again
Posted: Wed 15 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 3 Comments »I wish I understood people who walk. Bearing in mind that I’m one of them, you’d think that gaining an insight on the mindset wouldn’t be that difficult, but no, it is.
So far as I can tell, a great majority of pedestrians are – frankly – fucking stupid. Or suicidal. I haven’t quite figured out which yet. For instance, I completely fail to understand the way people – particularly couples – have to walk side-by-side and/or hand-in-hand, and block an entire pathway. Especially when it’s a subway or similar, and there’s no alternative way past. Why do it? Are they “so in love” </vomit> that they can’t bear to be seperated for even 3o seconds?
Equally (and I know I’ve mentioned this before) I don’t understand why some fuckwit cunts idiots have to walk on the cycle-path when there’s a perfectly good footpath right beside it. It makes life really bloody awkward, and even more so when they don’t have any spatial awareness of what’s going on around them – although I do tend to yell “Get out the fucking way” when they’ve also ignored the bike bell. Sometimes I don’t bother with the bell, and just yell at them anyway…
I also simply don’t get how people can walk out into a road (and in one recent case, a dual carriageway) without looking to see what’s coming. Do they believe they’re invincible? Or that all road-users will simply stop for them?
Ireland – First Photos
Posted: Tue 14 June, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Travel Leave a comment »Well, the first two sets from Ireland are now up on Flickr. Both sets were taken on the second day, going down from Kilkenny to Waterford, and then on to Cork. Round Towers and High Crosses is pretty descriptive, as is Kells Watermill, a watermill just round the corner from Kells Priory in – you’re way ahead of me – Kells.
More will be up later, I’m sure – but for now, Enjoy.
Anti-Spam
Posted: Mon 13 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 6 Comments »Over the week we were away, d4d™ got hit by a bundle of comment spam. As in about 300 comments-worth of spam. It’s a pain in the arse, but it all got deleted on Saturday night.
Anyway, I did some research, and it turns out that the anti-spam tool I was using (Kitten’s “Spaminator”) was broken by WP 1.5 – it had worked in 1.5 beta, but was deeply duff in the full 1.5. Which, in fairness, explained quite a lot. So today I’ve done a bit of a search using the (thanks Gordon) nice new WordPress codex to find new anti-spam stuff.
So now I’m running Spam Karma v2. I had problems with the previous version of Spam Karma, but I thought I’d have a bash with the new, improved version. Also, it’s got an extra plug-in that means I should be able to resurrect any comments that SK has decided were spam even when they weren’t really. However, if your comments don’t appear, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can sort something out.
Oh, and I had to upgrade my installation of WP from 1.5 to 1.5.1 to fix some bugs and so on. Now, Gordon’s been on at me to say that now all the codex etc. is in place, the documentation is better etc., and that I should stop sniping about it. Well, I would, but during the upgrade my WP installation still got confused and went tits-up for about ten minutes. So no, it’s not perfect yet. Luckily this time I was paranoid, and backed up everything before doing owt, so I could resurrect files that WP had decided to “upgrade” to a version that didn’t work with my own intricate noodlings.
I won’t say that WP is necessarily all to blame, because I’ve done a fair amount of work under the hood of d4d™ which WP doesn’t really know about, so it tries to over-write it. But it still bugs me that a “simple” upgrade can then lead on to fifteen extra minutes of fixing the stuff the upgrade has broken…
Ireland
Posted: Mon 13 June, 2005 Filed under: Travel 2 Comments »Well, first thoughts. For the first time ever, I managed to do a trip to Ireland where nothing went wrong. In fact, the biggest “problem” was the flight back, which was delayed for about 90 minutes. (Herself says two hours, but quite honestly I don’t know which is right)
I’ve no idea how many miles we covered in the end, but the basic route was Dublin – Kilkenny – Waterford – Cork – Killarney (and Kenmare) – Limerick – Tipperary – Cashel – Dublin – Powerscourt – Dublin.
768Mb of photos later – a selection of which will be on Flickr sometime tomorrow, I suspect – we had a bloody great time. Some of the B&Bs etc weren’t brilliant, but nor were they bloody awful. One was superb – and included a breakfast that beat me. In fact I’ve probably amassed my year’s quota of meat in the last week. Even more impressively, I didn’t gain even one pound in weight, which left me quite chuffed, considering how much we did eat.
I’m going to do more of a write-up soon, but for now it can be summed up in two words. Bloody brilliant
Technological Messaging
Posted: Mon 13 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »While I was away, it turned out that having email access from my phone was an absolute god-send. I’ve not used it that much ’til now, because it was easier to access the stuff from work or home, but having the ability to look at it via another medium is brilliant.
As it was, I needed the email access as I got details of my new job through during the week, and there were a couple of questions and alterations that needed doing. And I could do it all (with the exception of downloading the Word document of the contract, which needed an internet cafe) through the ‘phone. It made life a whole load easier, and with a lot less hassle – if I hadn’t had that access, I’d have been having to check daily on my web-mail from an internet cafe, and while it turned out there were plenty of them, it was much easier to do it all when the time suited, rather than getting to a new town/ city, and trying to find internet access every time.
All in all, it turned out to be a fantastic development, and one I’ll probably use again at another time, should the need arise. But use it every day? No, there’s no need for that.
Charity
Posted: Sun 12 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »Well, today’s crunch time. Over the last few weeks (well, couple of months) we’ve been planning a garden party for the charity, and today’s the day. So we’ll get to see whether everything comes together, or whether there’s only been work by a bare minimum of people, and it’s a disaster.
I’m hoping it’s the former, but my cynical side says the latter.
More news later, I’m sure.
UPDATED (21.45) : Actually, it all went pretty well. Not perfectly, and there’s some rockets to be sent up tomorrow, but yeah, in general it all went pretty damn’ well. Thankfully.
Now there’s just the next event in a month’s time to get sorted… Aaargh!
DVD Memetic thingy
Posted: Sat 11 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 1 Comment »Oh fark, as soon as I get back, Lori has given me a challenge…
- The total number of DVDs, videos, and films I own.
Oooh, that’s not good. First of all – do I include box-sets as one or as the number of discs? I mean, there’s things like Alien Quadrilogy, which is 9 discs on its own. But (I’m upstairs, and can’t be arsed to count ’em precisely) I’ve probably got about 150 DVDs at the moment, although if you count all the discs, it’s probably double that, what with West Wing box sets and the like… - The last film I bought.
Does it have to be a film? Last DVD I bought was West Wing S5 Box Set, which I’ve been amazingly good and not watched yet, due to waiting for S4 to make a re-appearance and get viewed before I break into S5 properly. Which is frustrating.I may even end up just getting a new copy. And then charging the person who’s still got the box set.– UPDATED : Apparently it’s been posted, and is on its way back. - The last film I watched.
Ah, well, on DVD that’d be Chronicles of Riddick. Well, some of it – I hated it, so I didn’t get to the end. On TV? Last Kiss Goodnight. - My favourite five films of all time, ever.
Oooh, tough one. Let’s think… In no particular order…- Aliens
- Ghost Dog:Way of the Samurai
- Blue Juice
- Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
- Tootsie
and finally *hangs head in shame*
- Tag three people and have them blog this.
Anniversary
Posted: Sat 11 June, 2005 Filed under: General, News, Thoughts 3 Comments »It’s one year ago today that I really got together with Herself. I can’t believe the changes that have happened in that year – and it’s all been for the best. Moving down to Bracknell at the start of this year cemented a lot of things, and even though it’s Bracknell, it’s still been one of the best moves I’ve ever made.
So much has happened in that time, it’s hard to even list it all. And there’s a lot more to come. Not least with the new job – to be honest, the work with CrapCo was the one real downer on having moved, and now I’m moving on from there, I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about things again.
One year down – many more to go.
Tosspot
Posted: Fri 10 June, 2005 Filed under: Sweary 4 Comments »Oh bumnuggets. Why is it that whenever I think “Oooh, must see when that is”, it turns out to be on a weekend when I’ve got something booked already?
In this case, it’s the London Open House weekend, which I’d really wanted to go to, having missed the first two. Only it’s the same weekend as I’m supposed to be up in Newcastle seeing a friend on the Great North Run.
Fuck-nadgers.
ID card
Posted: Thu 9 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »The other day I saw a car sticker advertising the website No2ID.net – underneath which was a slogan about “don’t join the database state”.
Now, I figure that this guy who’s so anti the ID card programme (and fair play to him, because I’m against a lot of the factors in it too) has probably sent off for this car sticker from the website, and as such his name and address have (unless No2ID.net have a specific system that doesn’t store such information) been added to the database of the site.
So, a database of people who don’t want to be in the database. Ironic, isn’t it?
Synchronised
Posted: Wed 8 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 5 Comments »Have you ever noticed how lots of TV series all come to an end at once?
Last week saw the demise of the current runs of ER, Desperate Housewives, Family Law (on Hallmark), Grand Designs, and a couple of others. It just seems odd that despite a wide variance in the number of weeks each series runs, they all seem to close at the same time.
Or maybe I just need to get out more.
2,700
Posted: Tue 7 June, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »This post is my 2,700th post on d4d™, according to WordPress. That’s a pretty scary number.
I’ve not yet been writing d4d™ for three years – that anniversary comes at the start of August. By that time I guess I’ll be well over the 2,800 mark – at the moment I’m averaging about 3 posts per day, although that’s including the sparse times where I’d be away for weeks or weekends with access, and with no way to forward post. But now I’ve got those abilities, and I’d reckon I probably average about 4 or 5 posts per day for the most part. That’s a lot of words.
I can’t be arsed to figure out how many words I’ve typed. I could do – and I might do it as a mini-project for when I get to the start of Year Four. We’ll see. It’s in the ideas list, anyway.
Useful
Posted: Mon 6 June, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Sweary, Travel Leave a comment »Out of interest, what the blue blazing fuck kind of use is a bank that opens on Saturdays, but doesn’t have its foreign currency desk do the same? Because of course a Saturday isn’t going to be when most people go and use a bank for that kind of thing, is it?
Yes, Nat-West Bank I’m referring (in this case) to you, you heap of incompetent unhelpful supercilious fuckmonkey cunts.
So instead we used the Post Office. Much easier. And at least they’ve (on this occasion) got some kind of idea when it comes to things like customer service.
In the theme of Pix…
Posted: Mon 6 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Thoughts 3 Comments »I remember…
- When d4d™ was just an idea.
- Getting introduced to blogs, and wondering what the attraction was
- Thinking about finding an audience for my writing
- Discovering the attraction
- Seeing the first visits from other people
- Wondering what they saw here
- The first Google referral
- The rants
- The first time I realised that some freak had distributed a link to a photo of a friends child (goodbye google images on my photo pages)
- The litigation email from J W Wiley
- The way so many people changed their sites to yellow in support
- Changing domain names, and wondering if it meant I had to start from scratch
- Realising it didn’t
- Moving homes, changing life parts at the same time I was changing d4d™ parts.
- The way d4d™ has moved along in parallel with how I’ve moved on
- Taking the big leap from Blogger to WordPress
- Upgrading WordPress, and the feeling as d4d™ disappeared into the standard WP template, for no reason I could understand
- Getting it back. Cunting upgrades with no instructions.
- Wondering where we go from here
And as Pix says, I can’t easily explain why I love writing d4d™, even after nearly three solid years. DG posted yesterday on his 1,000th day of blogging, and I’ve realised I must be somewhere close to that myself. If not just past it – turns out DG started one month after I did. Now that’s scary.
What I do know is that I’m going to keep on writing d4d™ for the forseeable future. There’s a few more ideas I’ve got for new stuff/sections, but also there’s a lot of changes still due to be gone through. And while I do write this for other people to read, I also use it to set my own thoughts straight, and figure out what I’m doing.
So here’s to another 1,000+ days, and many more posts.
Blah
Posted: Mon 6 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Ug. 4am is a tough call for getting up in order to get to the airport.
Still, that’s what’s needed for a 6.45 flight time, I suppose. And it gives us plenty of time to get from Dublin to Kilkenny in time for the wedding. Well, that’s the theory, anyway.
Checklist
Posted: Sun 5 June, 2005 Filed under: General 4 Comments »Ah, the joys of the holiday checklist…
- House being looked after, garden watered, and animals fed/ kennelled – check
- Clothes – check
- Suit – It’s a wedding we’re going to, after all – check
- Euros – check
- E111 and travel insurance – check(just)
- Booking confirmations…
- Flight
- Car
- Hotel / B&B bookings
- Thiefrow airport carparking
– check
- Guidebook / Maps – check
- Hand-luggage
- Passport/ ID
- Reading material
- Change of clothes – spot who’s seen the effects of lost luggage
- Soft Drink
- Anti-travelsickness things for Herself
- Laptop
- Camera
– check
- Batteries / Chargers / USB Cable – check
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something – Gawd knows what, but I’ll probably remember it at half five tomorrow morning once we’re checked in.
Changing Planet
Posted: Sat 4 June, 2005 Filed under: News Leave a comment »There’s a fascinating piece in today’s BBC News about a new atlas that shows the changes in the Earth through satellite photography. The “in pictures” section shows it clearly, but all in all it’s a book that’s definitely going to go on my wishlist.
Sweary
Posted: Fri 3 June, 2005 Filed under: Sweary Leave a comment »In a truly inspired bit of sweary creativity, did you know that both cuntchops.com and bollockchops.com are still available? Unfortunately, bollockchops.co.uk has been taken, although it’s just host to a crappy ISP holding page, which is disappointing.
Oh, and arsenugget.com is still available too…
Weird Spam
Posted: Fri 3 June, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Weirdness 3 Comments »I don’t normally read my spam mail – but this one just made me go “Eh? What?”. It definitely wins my prize for weirdest Spam of the month…
Hello,
advice, sir, you’ll not hunt me again. I think I am unlucky to you.was towards him, and she was moving in the same direction. Hefreedom of the ship, and bidden to dine at the Admiral’s table; norin a state of panic. He quieted her cluckings with a word ofAnd in the stockade, all was likewise in readiness. Hagthorpe, Dyke,was because Don Miguel perceived their obvious value. He receivedWhy, nothing sinister, Colonel. Although ye deserve nothing lessWell, well, maybe he’ll not find me quite so easy to grasp as heBlood was startled.a man as Blood. Almost I marvel that he doesn’t marry her and takeher object, the Victorieuse had loaded her starboard guns again,rail, and thence slipped without sound down into the waist. Twothe articles were drawn up and signed that very day. The buccaneersThe saints preserve us now! Are you quite mad, Levasseur? Firstsame time served, not indeed the Stuart King, whom he despised, butThy sacred duty, sayest thou? Fury blazed out of him again. Good
And that’s it. I have no idea what it’s about, or why it’s been sent.
WP Delays
Posted: Fri 3 June, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »As I’ll be away next week, I’ve been planning on doing some delayed posts. However, over the last few days I’ve noticed that WP seems to get hung up on these, and they stay at “waiting to be published” once they get to one minute before publishing.
Has anyone else noticed this?
And is there a fix for it?
Final Stages
Posted: Fri 3 June, 2005 Filed under: General 1 Comment »Ah, joy. Notice written, ready to hand in.
Today is – already – a good day.
Delayed
Posted: Thu 2 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »I have to say, this story just brings me out in shudders.
The concept of being trapped on a tube train for more than an hour just makes me want to heave. Not because of claustrophobia – that’s not too much of a problem for me. Not because of (most likely) having to stand for that length of time, either.
No, the problem would most likely be that I’d be certain to be stood right next to the dirty smelly fuckbag who hadn’t bothered with deodorant that morning. And then I’d simply have to kill them.
Reminiscence
Posted: Thu 2 June, 2005 Filed under: General 1 Comment »Earlier this week, Pix wrote a post about the events that had happened in her life since she started writing/ blogging/ whatever we’re calling it this week. Anyway, it made me think back, and wonder what I was doing when I started d4d™ back in August ’02. And I couldn’t actually think where I’d been at the time.
I haven’t yet done the full count, but in that time I reckon I’ve worked for about ten different companies, as well as working for myself and having a whole bundle of different clients for websites etc. That’s kind of scary – particularly when I’ve got another new one coming up!
At some point I think I may come up with a list similar to Pix’s. That might make for a semi-interesting post while I’m away next week…
Headwind
Posted: Thu 2 June, 2005 Filed under: Health Leave a comment »I know I’ve written before about things that detract from the entire “cycling as commute” concept.
The one that occurred to me today – the entire way, irrelevant of which direction I was actually travelling in- was that Headwinds are an utter fucker. And they hate cyclists.
It’s one of those things that you just don’t need to worry about when you’re in a car. Travelling into the wind isn’t an issue – you might need to put your foot a tiny bit harder on the accelerator, but that’s it. However, when you’re riding a bike that headwind is there, and on occasion it’s enough to almost stop you dead.
Today’s journey to work has been of particular note. No matter what direction I was travelling in, even as I turned a corner, I was still heading into the wind. I’m knackered – and I’m willing to bet that it’ll be the same on the way home, even though I’ll be going in the opposite direction.
Chelsea on Flickr
Posted: Wed 1 June, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Well, I finally got round to it. Yes, my Flickr account has been used for the first time.
So, you can see pretty much all my photos from Chelsea by clicking here. I’m fairly sure it’ll work, but if it doesn’t, let me know.
Enjoy.
Ad Watchdog
Posted: Wed 1 June, 2005 Filed under: General, Thoughts Leave a comment »God, sometimes you’ve just got to wonder at the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority). They’ve just ruled that the KFC “singing with a full mouth” advert didn’t break any guidelines despite a record 1,600 complaints about it.
There doesn’t seem to be any real consistency in their rulings. Earlier this year, the ad with Ainsley Harriott kissing a stove (ah, if only it’d been on) because it could influence children to do the same, yet they say the KFC one won’t encourage them to talk with mouths full of food. Slightly contradictory, but there we go.
I notice that now there’s one for Fanta “light” (or whatever they’ve now rebranded it to) that involves spitting out the drink. I wonder how many complaints that one’ll get?
Descriptive
Posted: Wed 1 June, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 1 Comment »Is the expression “he’s got all the charm and personality of a syphilitic ball-bag” a bit harsh for use when describing someone like Twunty Manager™?
Giving Up
Posted: Tue 31 May, 2005 Filed under: Health Leave a comment »“Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. It is currently responsible for the death of one in ten adults worldwide (about 5 million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2020. Half the people that smoke today  that is about 650 million people  will eventually be killed by tobacco.”
Help – For a life without tobacco
Flat
Posted: Mon 30 May, 2005 Filed under: General, Health Leave a comment »I don’t know why, but today I just feel flat. Well, flat out exhausted, to be exact. I don’t want to be feeling like this, because I know there’s a whole bundle of things I could/should be doing. But I just can’t break through the knackered feeling in order to build up the energy/ enthusiasm that’ll let me do anything.
All very odd. And not very pleasant. Not my normal type of mindset at all. But it’s actually been tempting to just go back to bed and lie down for a while. Thing is, last time I did that I didn’t wake up for eighteen hours, which is something I’d rather miss, if possible.
Ah well, I’m sure I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.
Little Fuckers
Posted: Mon 30 May, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »We woke up this morning to find that the car was minus its rear windscreen. Not broken, not smashed, just gone. From the looks of it, some little fucker had cut round the window seals, and just taken out the entire piece of glass. Nothing else stolen, no damage to the car, just the rear windscreen gone. No idea exactly when, because we didn’t hear a thing.
Of course, the Hound, who barks at random bits of silence and noise on occasion made absolutely sod-all sound last night. As a guard-dog, she’s fucking useless.
So anyway, out comes Yellow Pages, followed (about thirty minutes later) by a man from AutoGlass. On a job to a different car. But he has a quick check on ours too, as he’ll be back later to sort it.
Oh, there’s no seals on the window. I’m not sure we’ll be able to do that today.
Well, we explained that when we spoke to the 0800 number, and they said it’d be fine.
Oh, I’m not sure I’ve got the seal. You’d best check with them…
So we get back on to the 0800 number, and after a while it turns out it’ll be OK, they’ll get the guy to pick up the seals at the same time.
Another hourish later, Mr Autoglass comes back – with seals and window, no worries.
“We’ll just tap this in, it’ll be a dead quick job.”
*tap, tap, tap*
*smash*
The entire thing had shattered, and Mr Autoglass had put his hand through it. Ooops. Luckily he’s not hurt – a small cut, nowt else – but there’s now glass every-fucking-where, and he’s got to go to Slough to get a new rear windscreen.
It’s going to be one of those days…
Chelsea roundup
Posted: Mon 30 May, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Reviews(ish) Leave a comment »Well, some of the photos are now available, along with some more thoughts, on this photo page.
I’m also going to upload more photos to my Flickr stream, but that’s not likely to happen ’til Tuesday. So there.
Grrrr
Posted: Sun 29 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 2 Comments »*mutter* *snarl* Crazy Frog at Number One. *snarl* *sigh* *mutter*
BB
Posted: Sun 29 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 2 Comments »Yes, it’s that time of year again. Where a certain TV channel dumbs itself down to the point of retardation, and transmits 12 13 people’s activities for what seems like 23 hours a day, but which is “only” eighteen hours really.
Yes, it’s Big Brother 6. Oh goody. Can’t wait. Currently I don’t even know the names of most of the people who went in. I’ve seen the photo of the dodgy nurse uniform – oh no, she‘s not a self-publicist. Honest. But that’s about it. Truly couldn’t care less.
I’m sure the people at work and so on will bang on about this for the next rumty-tumty weeks, but me, I’m sticking as far clear of it all as possible.
Ireland Trip
Posted: Sun 29 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel 2 Comments »In about ten day’s time, we’ll be off to Ireland for a week. We’ve finally got our accomodation requirements sorted out – it’s taken this long to get round to it.
Between now and then, I’m going to be writing some stuff that’ll go up while we’re away, but well, this is kind of advanced warning that I haven’t died, I’m just away.
Of course, there’ll be a whole bundle of stuff to go up when we come back, but that’s just the way of these things sometimes.
Chelsea – thoughts
Posted: Sat 28 May, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Thoughts 3 Comments »Well, we’re back. Knackered, but enjoyed most of the time at Chelsea. In fact – and most people won’t be surprised by this at all – the thing that detracted from the entire thing the most for me can be simply phrased in two words. “Other people”.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with that many rude and ignorant/obnoxious people all in one space. I’ve been barged, rammed, trodden on, knocked, walked into, and basically just ended up truly fucked off with ignorant arsewipe motherfuckers who’ve decided that they want to see/do something, so that’s what they’ll do, and bollocks to anyone who might get in the way of that. And the number who just stomp across the viewline of someone with a camera at their eye, then sigh and tut when someone else does it to them – well, words fail me. Actually, no they don’t. But people really don’t like to hear the expression “hypocritical fat-arsed tosswagon cunt” in a genteel atmosphere like Chelsea is supposed to have.
Other than that though, I did enjoy the huge majority of the show. The “Best in Show” is over-rated in my opinion, and the Conran-designed “Peace garden” for the Imperial War Museum should’ve been far higher rated than it was. Given the choice, I’d have swapped the two medals. But there we go, that’s a personal perspective.
Over 120 photos were taken, so I’m going to go through them tomorrow before putting together a nice new page with photos and some more thoughts.
Chelsea
Posted: Sat 28 May, 2005 Filed under: Photography Leave a comment »Urggh, what kind of time is this to be up on a Saturday?
Anyway, we’re off to Chelsea to see the Flower Show, which’ll either be fun or a complete nightmare. I’m sure I’ll come back with plenty of photos etc., so in the meantime have a good day.
More later / tomorrow.
Uncharitable
Posted: Fri 27 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 2 Comments »Over the last couple of months I’ve been doing quite a lot of work for a charity I’m involved in. Website and so on a while back, and now dealing with a lot of fund-raising issues and the like. Which is all quite fun, and in general I’m enjoying it.
In the last fortnight though, we’ve had a couple of bits that’ve turned into utter nightmares. Nothing complicated – we wanted some sticky labels printed to give to people when they’ve donated some money, that kind of thing, and also a couple of collection buckets.
Neither of these things is overly cheap, but the companies we’ve dealt with for them have been utterly useless. One doesn’t respond for a week at a time, and then seems amazed that we’d be slightly annoyed. In both cases we have to provide artwork for the relevant labels that are getting printed – I can understand this, up to a point, but when it comes to the company saying “we can’t accept this image, it needs to be the exact size for the label, and it needs to come through in a format for either Freehand MX or Quark”, you start to lose the plot a bit. Freehand MX isn’t that common anyway, and when the image has been sent in a standard Photoshop format, Freehand can import the file anyway. I know, because that’s how I did it in the end.
But in general we’ve been made to jump through every hoop for these companies, while all they really do is take the money and provide the goods. There’s been no assistance, they won’t resize the images or really do anything helpful at all. Most amazing of all, for a company dealing with mail-order requests, neither company has a credit-card facility at all. Nothing. And they can’t deal with an internet banking fund transfer to their account either. It’s pretty much cheque, cash, and that’s it. Which, in the middle of 2005 isn’t exactly the most helpful or competent way of handling things.
It’s been an incredibly frustrating process, and one I hope I don’t have to repeat too often. In the meantime, I’m going to be looking at sourcing other suppliers, so I won’t have to deal with these bloody cowboys again.
Quotes
Posted: Thu 26 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Weirdness Leave a comment »I don’t know why, but for some reason this week seems to have had a high number of quotes, and bits from conversation.
It’s weird the way it happens. I’ll go for weeks without using the <blockquote> tag, then all of a sudden I’ll use it ten times in a week. I wish I knew why that was, but I don’t.
Darwin Star Wars
Posted: Wed 25 May, 2005 Filed under: News, Weirdness 3 Comments »You know, when I first read this I could imagine Twunty Manager™ thinking he could do the same thing…
Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol.
A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it.
Yup, fill fluorescent tubes (already well reknowned for their structural stability, and lack of fragility*cough*) with petrol. Then light them. And hold them while “fighting”.
If only they’d actually died, they’d definitely be in line for the Darwin Awards. Instead, they’re just in a line at the burns unit…
Chelsea
Posted: Tue 24 May, 2005 Filed under: General, Photography 1 Comment »This weekend, we’ll be going up to Chelsea Flower Show. I’m actually looking forward to it, as I’ve never been before.
Also, it’ll give me a chance to use that Flickr account I was so nicely given a while ago…
Rain
Posted: Tue 24 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Travel 3 Comments »It’s pissing it down this morning, so I opted out of fitness and went instead for a lift in to the station. Which is all well and good, except that – like a twunt – I forgot that at the other end I’ve still got to get to the office.
So while it’s nice to be semi-dry when I get to the station, and while I don’t get soaked by road-rain stuff on the way in, I do spend longer in the rain.
Arses.
Twat
Posted: Mon 23 May, 2005 Filed under: Geeky 1 Comment »We’ve had a problem with a program since moving office. The program needed to import files and do something to them, and because it was on a new PC, we’d moved all the program data over on a CD.
The error that was being given was that it couldn’t delete a certain file it had created.
After three weeks of hassle, I’ve finally got it working. It’s taken me, Twunty Manager™ and the support team from the original suppliers of the program to get it sorted. And neither TM™ nor the support team spotted it.
In fairness, I should’ve sussed it ages back too. But equally, no-one else spotted the problem either.
Turns out, if you copy stuff from a CD, Windows automagically makes it read-only. Which means that files created in this environment couldn’t be deleted either.
A simple change to the file and folder properties and lo, the program worketh.
I feel like a bit of a twat for not sussing it out sooner, but nowhere near as twattish as the other two lots, who didn’t suss it at all.
Pedestrian
Posted: Mon 23 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »Of course, when cycling to work, it’s not just cars you’ve got to watch out for. Sometimes it’s the bloody pedestrians too.
One section of my journey is on a dual-purpose path. One half is for cycles, one half is for pedestrians. The parts are clearly delineated by a thick white line, and the classic “cycle” icon on every junction, and at regular intervals. It’s pretty hard (I’d have thought) to not notice that it’s a cycle-path.
Today all of these clues had obviously bypassed one moron person. He saw that the pelican crossing fifty yards ahead had changed to allow pedestrians across, and obviously assumed that this meant he could simply dash across the road, because everyone would be stopped. Twat.
He didn’t look behind him, just turned and walked. Straight onto the cycle-lane. With guess who coming towards him at – admittedly – a fair rate of knots. Luckily my reactions aren’t bad, so I could move out to get round the fuckhead. But he still then tried calling me a twat. For riding on the cycle-path, completely safely. Hey, if I’d collided with the knob, I’d have allowed that I was perhaps not riding safely. But I was – and I avoided the cocksucker.
So I stopped and pointed out that perhaps he should pay a bit more attention – I wasn’t the first cyclist to have gone past him, I’d seen two others doing so, so it’s not like he “didn’t know” it was a cycle-path. Conveniently this also meant he missed his opportunity to cross the road, and had to wait at the pelican crossing.
Be still, my bleeding heart.
Knackered
Posted: Sun 22 May, 2005 Filed under: Domestic, General, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »I have to say, tonight, I’m shattered.
Another ton of gravel has been deposited on the garden, and we’ve also removed a full skips-worth of earth in the process of remodelling what we’ve got. So between the two of us, we’ve probably lifted/wheelbarrowed/hauled/skipped between three and four tons of stuff this weekend.
My spine is complaining loudly, as are my arms. Tomorrow I’m back at work for a rest.
In other news, I’ve just turned down an interview tomorrow – having looked at it sensibly, forking out £15-ish per day on travel and taking 90 minutesish each way (assuming the trains run on time) is not what I moved down here for. I’m sure other stuff will come up soon enough, after all.
In other other news, we’ve started thinking about future directions, what we want to do with our lives, and where, and why. It’s not going to really start happening for at least a year yet, as Herself has a Masters to do, but all the same, we’ve got some ideas, and it’s time to start sketching them out into some kind of idea/plan/scheme. Should be interesting.
But for now, I’m off to collapse in bed. See you all tomorrow.
Memetastic revisited
Posted: Sat 21 May, 2005 Filed under: Music, Thoughts 2 Comments »I did this meme back in January but now BSAG has passed it back again. And well, four months on, I’m sure plenty of stuff has changed on it, so here goes…
Total volume of music files on my computer?
OK, this is worrying. I now have just under 40Gb of music on the drive I specifically bought for the holding of MP3s. I know, that’s sad. Live with it. There’s also 10Gb on the laptop. Note to self: Get out more.
The last CD I bought was?
Two CDs at once – Faithless’ “Forever Faithless” and Morcheeba’s new album “The Antidote.
Five songs I listen to a lot/mean a lot to me?
- Nine Inch Nails – Something I Can Never Have. Always reminds me of some odds and sods that were going on a long time ago.
- Alabama 3 – Peace in the Valley. A kind of closure for the things that I’m reminded of by Something I Can Never Have.
- Cowboy Junkies – Trinity Sessions album. Bit of a cheat, but the entire album is filled with memories and thoughts.
- Faithless – Reverence album. Their first album, and they still haven’t managed to beat it, so far as I’m concerned.
- Erasure – Piano Song. Lots of reasons, but mainly just because a) it’s fantastic, and b) “Never get angry at the stupid people” – my anthem for work at the moment.
I’m passing on the baton to…
Tough one, this. Mike at Troubled Diva, David at Chromasia, Anni at Anni Pink, and Lori. Will that do?
Charitable
Posted: Sat 21 May, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »At long last, the charity work is coming together.
We’ve finally put together the first newsletter of ’05, and are distributing it. The press release is ready to go, and will be sent out over the weekend. And everything’s ready to go for the balloon race at the start of June, which should be fun.
It’s taken a fair amount of time to sort out, and there’s still bits to be done, but we’re getting there for sure. And that’s a good feeling.
Dental
Posted: Fri 20 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Sweary 16 Comments »Ah good, I hear you cry, another post about dentists. Trust me, it ain’t good.
I’ve just been to my final dentists appointment for the time being, and all I can constructively say at the end of it is that all dentists are cunts. No two ways about it. If they weren’t all sadistic bastards, there would be at least some movement to progress dental equipment in the same way that most other medical systems have improved over the last fourty fucking years.
But no, they still use the same dirty great sodding needle for anaesthetic, the same manky noisy bastard drills, the same little steel picks that slip into gum tissue, everything. So far as I can tell, sod all’s changed in the time I’ve been going to dentists. Ergo they’re sadistic bastards who enjoy doing this shit. Let’s face it, who in their right mind says “Yeah, when I grow up I want to be a dentist.”?
Today’s joyous visit included the epic highlight of an anaesthetic needle in my gum. Not the lip, not the cheek, the fucking gum. Right at the front. And the sod got the place wrong, so I also had anaesthetic fluid run up my sinus into my nose cavity. I can smell the fucking stuff. I can’t feel my nose at all, but I can still smell bastard anaesthetic.
The other jab went into my cheek. Fair enough. It still hurt, but it’s nowt compared to a gum-jab, I can tell you. And the best bit of that one was that it didn’t sodding work. Not a jot. I’m going to get all my normal side-effects from the anaesthetic (flu-like joint pain, and a head that feels like it’s been whacked by a sledgehammer covered in velvet) without the benefit of having it had kill any fucking pain at all.
In the end we went ahead with the second filling without pissing about with any more anaesthetic. It was far easier to do it that way, and only actually hurt when the tosser slipped with his little steel pick. Cunt.
Medical science has come ahead in leaps and bounds over the last half century. Dental science has stayed where it was. And because of that, I can only reiterate, all dentists are sadistic motherfuckers.
Good Idea
Posted: Thu 19 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts 3 Comments »From today’s Guardian TV review…
The only good news in the celebrity/reality world is that ITV has got a new show called Celebrity Shark Bait later this summer. Presumably it’s all the same ex-soap stars and shaggers, but this time they get lowered in a cage into the sea off South Africa for face-to-face encounters with great white sharks. Only one question: why bother with the cage?
©Guardian Newspapers 2005
Couldn’t agree more.
Technology
Posted: Thu 19 May, 2005 Filed under: Geeky 2 Comments »Today, Netscape released Netscape 8 for download – a new version of their browser, based on Firefox.
Interesting, thought I. I’ll download that and give it a thrash.
Within five minutes I’d managed to crash the fucking thing.
It’s now in my recycle bin, where it belongs.
Belly
Posted: Thu 19 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 5 Comments »Just a quick thought that occurred to me this morning (for reasons I can’t even begin to list, but I’m sure you’ll work them out for yourselves) and has pinged into my head on various occasions before.
Why is it that a certain type of man, particularly the ex-rugby-playing type who’ve gone a bit to seed and now have large beer bellies, insists on tucking his shirts/t-shirts into his trousers, which are belted in tight to the waist?
All it does is exaggerate the belly, and make them look huge, stupid, and frankly funny.
Cat
Posted: Wed 18 May, 2005 Filed under: Animals 3 Comments »I’ve written about The Cat before. Little shitbag that he is.
Last night, we/I forgot to put the bastard’s food out. So at 5am he starts attracting attention. First of all it’s a simple meow, then it gets louder/shriller. After that he starts running along the hallway before doing an emergency stop into the carpet, which he knows makes one hell of a racket, and generally wakes me up. (if I’m honest I wake up when the little sod starts meowing, but I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that) If I don’t move at that point, he’ll take a run-up along the hall, take a sharp right into the bedroom, and hurl himself at me, claws protruding. That’s a definite wake-up, but I’m not going to let that happen again.
What really gets me though is that when I do get up to put down the fuckers food, he bounces up and is all cuddly and purry, as if to say “Oh, were you up? While you’re there, you wouldn’t mind putting down my food would you? Pretty please. Pretty, pretty please.” Like he’s some innocent, and it was all the evil twin’s fault. Not his.
This morning, as revenge, I woke the little sod up twice from his bone-idle slumbers on the spare bed. I’m awake, and so are you.
Tonight may just be messy…
Blah
Posted: Tue 17 May, 2005 Filed under: General 1 Comment »Feeling fairly crap today, for some reason. I’ve taken the day off from work, and I suspect I really just need to recuperate a bit.
However, it has also given me the chance to do some odds and sods that needed sorting. Press releases, domestic stuff, and looking through for some websites to organise and hopefully get sorted. So still productive, just quiet at the same time!
Brilliance
Posted: Mon 16 May, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Thoughts 3 Comments »via the Guardian, I’ve just found a site/ comapny that I’m sure I’ll use at least a couple of times. Hireacamera.com does exactly what it says on the tin – you can hire a digital camera for a weekend, or a week, and use it as much as you want.
And they’ve got two out of the three cameras that were on my list, so yes, I reckon it’s a fair bet that I’ll be sending some money their way before long so I can spend a week with each camera, and see which I prefer.
An utterly brilliant idea, it has to be said.
Miniature
Posted: Mon 16 May, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts Leave a comment »One of the activities over the weekend – and certainly not one that I’d normally be expected to go to – was that we went to the Kensington Dolls House exhibition. Not really my cup o’ tea, but Herself wanted to go, and I thought it might be interesting.
And I have to say, it was kind of fun. I’ve never been into this kind of stuff, and honestly can’t see that I ever would be – but even so, some of the stuff on display was pretty fantastic. The people who make a lot of the miniature stuff are definitely odd, to say the least. In fact, some of them are utterly crackers – in particular the ones who do tapestry carpets and wall-hangings. And for some reason doll-makers themselves are invariably creepy as fuck. I don’t know why, but they are.
Still, there is something about a lot of the stuff – working clocks at 1:12 or 1:24 scale. Replicas of designer furniture. Perfect 1:12 scale handmade glassware. It’s things like that where I can see the appeal in such a hobby, even though I don’t personally posess that obsessive trait for collection and perfection, regardless of what’s being collected.
All in all, it was certainly an interesting afternoon. And with luck I might even be able to drum up some website business out of it too…
Code – An Explanation
Posted: Sat 14 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »OK, it’s not really all that difficult…
1 <?php
2 if (substr($_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’],0,20) == “http://images.google”) {
3 header(‘Location: http://www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/404.htm’);
4 } else {
5
6 }
7 ?>
This entire lot just basically says “if the first 20 characters of the HTTP referrer are http://images.google then go to a non-existent page, otherwise do sod all” – and that’s all that’s needed.
The best thing is that this works for all Google’s Images searches, regardless of source country. Sounds good to me.
Code
Posted: Fri 13 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 7 Comments »Gordon was right, I really should publish the code for blocking referrers from Google Images.
At the absolute top of the code, add this :
<?php
if (substr($_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’],0,20) == “http://images.google”) {
header(‘Location: http://www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/404.htm’);
} else {}
?>
It really is that simple.
An explanation will be added when I’ve got time!
Blocking
Posted: Thu 12 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Thoughts 1 Comment »I know I’ve harped on about this for a while now, but I have to say that I’m still really chuffed with how well my little piece of script for blocking Google Images has worked.
Yes, I’ve got a lot less daily users now – but at least they’re valid readers now, not bloody Google. And my bandwidth useage has nose-dived since blocking the referrers from Images.google. In fact, it’s more than halved.
To me, that’s pretty successful, particularly considering it took a whole four lines of code – and two of those were just to make it a bit more expandable, should I find anyone else who’s using shitloads of my bandwidth. And in the meantime I can’t see it as being anything but good for d4d™
Reading the ads
Posted: Wed 11 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness 1 Comment »While looking through the jobs in Monday’s Media Guardian (Yes, I must be a creative leftie to be reading that – ah well) I spotted a couple that just made me think “Oooh, that needed someone to check it”.
The ad started with the words “For the first inaugural festival”. Now maybe I’m being pedantic, but you can’t have a second inaugural. If it’s the inaugural festival, by definition it’s the first one.
The other one that caught my eye was for the Unwanted Sexual Advances Project. Quite a concept, a project to deal with unwanted sexual advances. Or maybe it’s a project to see which advances are successful…
Work vs. Rest
Posted: Wed 11 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Travel Leave a comment »One interesting thing I’ve found during the time I’ve been cycling to work recently is that progress is more measurable on a Monday.
I think that cycling all week, it’s best to have a couple of days off at the weekend. This seems to give the muscles time to recover a bit, but also to build up – I know it was always said that in gym workouts etc., it was better to work out every other day, for a similar reason.
All the same, it’s interesting to see how much my fitness levels have improved already – the parts that were knackering me in the first week are now fairly easily surmountable. Within a week or so, I’ll probably be only using the train one way to work, and cycling the full distance home. That’s the plan, anyway – just to see how I do and so on.
I’m enjoying the ride, in general. There’s far too many idiots on the roads now, but that’s part of the process. It’s still a good feeling to have completed the journey, and it’s also pretty fun and exhilarating in pieces to just get it right and do the ride smoothly without being prone to too many unnecessary risks…
Frustration – Finalé
Posted: Mon 9 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Well, according to my nedstat page of referrers the script I put in place yesterday to block google’s image search is working nicely, and the count of referrals from that page is coming down slowly. It should be completely off the list by tomorrow, with luck.
I’m still debating whether I do a nice page saying “you’re looking at this from Google, which I’ve blocked. Now fuck off” or just to leave it as a 404 “Page not found”. The 404 error takes up a whole load less bandwidth, that’s for sure. So hmm, not certain yet.
As it is, I’m almost certainly going to get caned a bit on bandwidth again this month, as I’m already at 2Gb of my allocated 3Gb, so the odds are that I’ll go over. After all, there’s still three weeks of the month to go yet. I’m going to keep an eye on what else is referring to d4d™ and see if there’s anything else that needs blocking still. Now I’m happy with how the script is working (oh, and the reason it wasn’t working was because PHP spells referrer differently to how it should be spelt, and I tend to hand-write my code rather than using a muppets guide… Arsenuggets.) I can block out some other things if they’re pissing me off with how much bandwidth they’re hogging. But I think that removing Google’s image search is going to be the biggest saver going.
UPDATED : Yay, it’s now all gone from the referrers. To coin a phrase, “I love it when a plan comes together”.
Ouchy
Posted: Mon 9 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »After the exertions of Saturday in the garden, I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t do my legs a fair amount of semi-damage. A lot of this is because of the amount of shovelling and lifting that was being done, and because I knew my back was dodgy anyway, I did a lot of bending from the legs instead.
Yesterday in particular, all the muscles at the back of my legs – calf, knee tendons, and upper thigh – were sore. There’s a comedian who says “You always know when you’re getting older, because you start making noises when you sit down or stand up”. Yesterday that was me. It’s better today, but it’s still sore when doing such strenuous exercise as walking.
I’m sure it’ll improve, but it has to be said that right now I’m really not looking forward to the cycling parts of getting home after work…
Frustration – Fixed
Posted: Sun 8 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 5 Comments »Ha! Got it sorted.
Now, I could just send anything from Google Images to a simple “Page not found” error, or I could do a nice explanatory page. What do you think I should go for?
Oh, and if anyone else is interested in blocking Google Images totally, let me know. So long as you’re comfortable adding in a bit of PHP code to your page (I’m not sure how well it would work in (for example) blogger pages yet) then email me and I’ll see what I can do.
Frustration
Posted: Sun 8 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky Leave a comment »Every so often, I get annoyed with PHP because somewhere along the line it’s not doing what I want.
Currently I’m working on barring a certain google image search which is screwing me over bandwidth-wise, and I’m getting about 30-40 hits per day from it. It’s all coming via google itself, rather than being a link out – the page first displays the “image” (which was never actually on the site, I just linked to it) and then in a frameset shows “where the image is on the original page”. At which point it downloads my full archive page. Which is – needless to say – bloody big.
So I’m trying to find a way to stop it from doing so, and at the moment I’m really not succeeding. In theory it should be working, but it’s not doing so.
So I’m pissed off.
Derren Brown – Reading Hexagon
Posted: Sat 7 May, 2005 Filed under: General, Reviews(ish) 3 Comments »While I still haven’t seen the show that Gordon’s referring to, we did see Derren Brown live last night. And it was bloody good.
Rather than “just” being a string of stunts, Derren turned out to be excellent on stage – funny, relaxed, interesting, clever – and more than a little creepy in places. The section where he walks on broken glass was – for me – the weakest part of the show, but it was still interesting to see. It was also fun to see Pix called on stage from the audience – yes, Pix, your “Oh fuck” was easily lip-read off the camera that was on you at the time! Just one of those random occurrences, but still good to see.
The final set piece was excellent too, although I won’t describe it as perhaps it would ruin it for people who have yet to see the show. (There’s still a lot of it to go, including some seventeen days in London’s Cambridge Theatre) The explanation at the end was enough to appease the mind, but still leaves plenty of room for “Yeah, but how did he do that bit”.
And really that’s what a stage “magic” act is all about.
25th Title
Posted: Sat 7 May, 2005 Filed under: Geeky, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve just completed my 25th book this year – and I’ve also already got three on the go, including the new Christopher Brookmyre novel, “All fun and games ’til someone loses an eye” (sorry, no link at the mo, as Amazon appears to be epically tits-up) which is one I’ve been looking forward to for a while now.
I think that perhaps I need to get out more. However, the problem is that I do get out – it’s just that I also read a lot…
Fucked
Posted: Sat 7 May, 2005 Filed under: Domestic, General Leave a comment »Utterly, without a doubt, well-and-truly fucked. That’s my mental and physical state today. And it’s all been domestic.
We’ve moved (with myself doing most of the heavy stuff) a ton of 20mm gravel, and a similar amount of earth/turf. That’s no mean feat in a day, it has to be said.
Of course, my back and legs are now really letting me know about it, even after a hot shower with “revitalising” (pause for laughter) shower gel. Tomorrow’s not so bad, as most of the day will be taken up with attending the first birthday of the son of some friends. But tonight will be filled by doing sod-all except watching shitey movies.
Derren Brown
Posted: Fri 6 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Tonight we’re out seeing Derren Brown at Reading Hexagon.
I’ve been interested in Brown’s shows on TV when they’ve been on (with the exception of the Russian Roulette one, which was shite) and how he works. So I’m hoping that the stage show is going to involve more of the same.
Just a pity I won’t be able to pause and rewind, to see what he’s up to, and how he’s doing some of the bits. All the same, it should be fun. And with luck a review will be written tomorrow at some point…
Electoral
Posted: Fri 6 May, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m not going to write any more than this about the General Election.
Too much information
Posted: Fri 6 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »You know, there’s one thing that no-one ever mentions when it comes to things like commuting to work by bike. Well, I’m sure there’s plenty of things that no-one ever mentions, the same way I’m certain that there’s stuff most cyclists mention when it comes to travelling on roads. Fucking idiots in 4×4 vehicles, for example.
But I digress. In this instance I’m going to mention something that I’ve never heard anyone else whittle on about.
It’s not an easy subject, and some people will just think “Ick”. Indeed, on some occasions even I think “Ick”. But it’s a fact of life – when you’ve been cycling for a couple of miles, and it’s warm – even worse, when it’s warm but rainy/windy, so there’s also a fleece jacket of some description added into the equation. I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed the manifestation of : Sweaty Crevice.
No more information need be disseminated. I’m sure you can all work out what I’m referring to. It’s not pleasant.
Bandwidth Bill
Posted: Thu 5 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™ 2 Comments »Blimey – in the end last month went an awesome 5GB over my 3Gb limit, so I’ve paid 34sp a truly debt-increasing £7.50.
Now I just have to hope that I’ve got it sorted a bit more this month, so that the limit won’t be hit that hard again.
Little Sod
Posted: Thu 5 May, 2005 Filed under: Animals, Thoughts 1 Comment »I think that The Cat missed us while we were away last week. Since coming back, there hasn’t been a night where he hasn’t spent time snoring between us. Last night had an added joy – my leg was obviously in the exact position where the aggressive bugger wanted to sleep. Well, if it wasn’t, it certainly was as soon as he saw my leg was there.
So he decided to attack it, sticking his claws in, to get me to move. This is not an unknown tactic with The Cat. When he does it to Herself, she moves. When he does it to me, he flies. The problem with this last night was that The Cat landed on Herself. And bit her. At three in the morning. Oops.
Cat is slowly learning that I’m not to be attacked. If he does attack me, he goes flying. Not hard – but hard enough that he generally falls off the bed. This has been a learning curve for The Cat.
It’s a battle of wills. Only time will decide the victor.
Election
Posted: Wed 4 May, 2005 Filed under: News, Thoughts 4 Comments »I’m not going to write much about the General Election this year. For the first time since I was legally able to vote, I can’t do so this time. I fucked up when I moved, and didn’t register myself in time with the new council. Entirely my own fault, but it’s still weird.
I normally do vote – even though I can’t deny that I think pretty much all politicians are utter twunts. To coin a phrase :
How can you tell when a politician is lying?
Their lips move
But I’m still bloody happy that today is the last day of campaigning before the polls open tomorrow. I’ve had enough of it, and I can see why “voter apathy” is such a problem. People get bored of the entire fucking thing.
I still like the Australian system. Everyone has to vote. But because of that, there’s also a “none of the above” category for when the voters think that all the candidates are shite. I believe that “none of the above” has actually won a couple of elections in the past…
Perhaps rather than a month of campaigning, we should just have a week of it. Short, sharp, and it’d mean that more of the result was based on the perceptions we already had of the various parties. Everyone would have far less opportunity to get pissed off with all the shite talked by politicians, pundits, reporters, and the media in general. It sounds like a plan to me.
Be Afraid
Posted: Tue 3 May, 2005 Filed under: Health, Thoughts 3 Comments »One thing that has happened as a result of the visit to Center Parcs is that my interest in archery has resurfaced. So I’ve spent a bit of time looking for local archery clubs and the like, and I think I’ve found a couple that I might sound out a bit.
The down side of all this is that – yes – I need a new bow. And that could be very dangerous. Herself suggested I should perhaps look on Ebay – something I’ve avoided doing ’til now. I know what I’m like, and registering with Ebay could end up being a very expensive proposition. Mind you, with luck it might be a bit less expensive than going to Quicks down in Portsmouth, who do have some excellent stuff. But chuff, is it expensive.
Anyway – it’s looking more and more like I’ll be back into archery properly by the end of the year. And I can’t wait.
Aliens vs. Predator
Posted: Tue 3 May, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish) 2 Comments »Well, I finally got round to watching AVP last night. I know a lot of people have panned it as being shite, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. Praise the Lord for LoveFilm, which meant I really didn’t even have to pay for it.
And yes, it’s utter shite. Watchable shite – even quite amusing shite – but still shite.
Center Parcs
Posted: Mon 2 May, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Well, I’ve finally got round to putting up some of the photos and thoughts from Center Parcs.
The page is part of the Photos section, and is here – as always, you can click on any of the images in order to see a larger version. Enjoy.
CSS – minor bits
Posted: Mon 2 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky 1 Comment »For a while now (OK, since the redesign) the comments box has been playing silly fuckers for people using IE. Basically, the comments box was too wide, and slipped under the column on the right, which meant people couldn’t see what they were typing in that section. Kind of unhelpful.
I think I’ve now fixed the problem. But I’d appreciate any feedback from anyone who still uses the piece of crap known as IE to let me know if the problem still exists.
Well, really to know on anything significant if there’s problems in their particular browser.
Faithless @ Alexandra Palace, London
Posted: Sun 1 May, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Thoughts Leave a comment »As some people will know, I missed the last Faithless gig due to a slight problem of it being in Manchester, while I had interviews in Bracknell either side of the day of the gig. Fuck it. So, as soon as we saw the tickets on sale for the gig at Ally Pally. It was only later that we found out it was going to be an 8pm to 2am gig, rather than a more “normal” time – but hey ho, not a problem.
Anyway, last night was the night of the gig, and bloody good it was too. The support was – well, iffy, I suppose would be a tactful way of phrasing it. The first band were (if memory serves) called Overhead, and were abysmal. The sound mix was totally out, and they just weren’t good at all. The second band, Infadels were much better – although in fairness they didn’t really have to work for that praise – and did a good job of warming up the crowd.
It has to be said, Alexandra Palace is bloody huge. I’d never been there before, but want to go again – hopefully this time when cameras are allowed inside the fucking venue. It’s a great place, from all appearances – with a couple of exceptions. But more about that later.
Faithless themselves were – as always – bloody great. This tour was in support of their new greatest hits album Forever Faithless, so the gig involved the best bits from all four albums. Starting off with “Reverence”, and covering all the high points – Insomnia, God is a DJ, We Come One and a bundle of others – they really just showed the support acts (and everyone else) exactly how a big gig at this level should be done. The lighting rig was exceptional, the sound quality spot-on, and the entire thing just rocked.
In fact, the only low points were some of the crowd, who could’ve been under the dictionary definition of “fuckwit cunt”, and the farce at the end. For some reason Ally Pally has never seen fit to sort out the access roads, so when we eventually got a cab back to the hotel (a farce that deserves it’s own post – suffice it to say for now that I’ve never been so glad to get out of a cab intact, and without the (expected) aid of fire-crews and a 999 call) it was stuck on the access road for a good twenty minutes.
It doesn’t take a great deal to organise things like traffic flow, car-parking and the like, but it was the side that Alexandra Palace failed in. And, as a final memory of a superb gig, it does make me think that I wouldn’t go there for another one, despite how good everything else was. Which is a pity.
Mobile Web
Posted: Sun 1 May, 2005 Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Thoughts 3 Comments »Bit of a geeky post, this, while I get my thoughts in order on other stuff.
Anyway, while I was away, I used my new(ish) mobile for reading a few sites, and also to keep an eye on d4d™, make sure it was all running smoothly. Oh, and read comments etc. I didn’t bother sorting out the admin side of things, but well, no-one’s perfect.
So – what it did make me realise was how few sites cater at all for mobile users. D4D™ itself does, because I knew I’d be doing this sort of thing with it. That’s why it’s got the “content first” idea being used, rather than having to get through all the navigation and gubbins first.
I know Gordon’s site is similarly useable, but I was surprised by how few others were. Looks at Pix in particular – well, that’s not fair, it’s useable, it’s just got a bloody huge image first of all, which kind of chuffs Sony Ericsson’s web-browser variant.
It’ll be interesting to see how many more sites convert to this way of working over the next few months.
Center Parcs – initial thoughts
Posted: Sat 30 April, 2005 Filed under: Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Well, it has to be said that the break at Center Parcs went pretty well. I’ve a number of thoughts and photos about the place, and I need to get them more in order in my own mind before going on to write about them in depth, but all told it was a good time.
It’s also renewed my interest in archery – I won’t mention the score I got, because I’ll only get told I’m being a big-headed git – and Tai Chi, so we’ll see how things go on that score too.
In the meantime we’re off to see Faithless at Alexandra Palace tonight – an 8pm to 2am gig, which should be a laugh. The camera will be going with me, but as I’ve not been to Ally Pally for a gig before I’ve no idea whether any photos will be successful or not.
So – much more writing type stuff will be done tomorrow, along with a quick smattering of the 160ish photos from the week at Center Parcs…
Packages
Posted: Sat 30 April, 2005 Filed under: General Leave a comment »Oooh, coming back from Center Parcs we had a package waiting from Amazon.
In it was Season 5 of the West Wing on DVD, and the new book by John Connolly, “The Black Angel“. So, it looks like I’ll be a happy bunny for a while…