NYE and the texts

Over at The Register, there’s a piece about the number of text messages sent in the UK on New Years Eve. The figure is reckoned to be 100 million text messages. That’s mind-boggling. Of course, as per every other New Year, the mobile phone networks couldn’t cope with the demand, and locked up for up to four hours. Aren’t modern communications great?

The end of days

Call me a putrid old Scrooge, but I must admit to feeling a lot lighter in mood since the poxy Christmas decorations and lights are starting to come down. The infamous World’s Shonkiest Shopping Centre™ (also known, for some godforsaken reason, as The Spindles) has lost all things festering, so now we’re back to marimba and panpipe versions of Boney M’s “It’s a Holi-Holi-Day”, as opposed to the delicate joys of glockenspiel and tuba versions of Christmas Carols. Trust me, you’ve never heard Slade ’til you’ve listened to it in a version designed for triangle and bagpipe. (Well, that’s what it sounded like).

So, Twelfth Night is almost upon us, and thank fuck for that. Only 300ish shopping days to Christmas.

Moooooooose!

Well, as promised, proof that the collection has grown. As well as Rutt and Tuke (I’m sticking with their Disney names, due to a combination of simplicity and current lack of imagination) there’s finally a (very bad) picture of Scaramoose, Scaramoose, and Fandango, as well as another gift addition, Infa.

And yes, I realise it means I have two called Scaramoose, but to be honest I just don’t care. They’re identified as a set, so it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway.

New-ish Year

Amazing as it may seem for a Sunday, I’ve been doing some thinking. One thing in particular has been bouncing round my head a bit, which relates to the entire New Year thing.

Now, while I’m the last one to agree that greetings should be reciprocated without thought – I’ve never been into the “sending someone a card because they’ve sent me one” school of thought – I do feel that things change slightly between people who are supposedly friends. Feel free to add in the comments if you think I’m being unreasonable on this one – I actually want to know if I’m seeing this one entirely wrong.

When you’ve sent a quick “Happy New year and all the best” message to a friend, is it unreasonable to think it’d be decent to send a reply? You know, sometime in the four days since sending it. Is that unreasonable? Or is it – as I’m beginning to think – a decent way of saying “Oh fuck off, I really can’t be bothered even to do friendly greetings” ?

Bad Domestic Joke

Yes, today’s been domestic again. As well as domestic shopping for the week, I’ve also been planting bulbs with a compost of rodent and sugar.

Yes, I’m going to be growing Tulips from ‘Amster Jam.

Kaboom and indeed tish.

Manchester Blogmeet III

While I remember, Lori has revealed details of the first Mancunian Blogmeet of 2004. Thursday Jan 22^nd at the ever-present Fab Cafe. If you can make it – or if you can’t – leave her a message here. We’ll also be looking at other venues for the new year – Kro₂ has already been mooted by Yours Truly, but others may be suggested too.

Utopia

At long last, a day completely off. A trip in to the city centre, a wander round while the weather attempted to snow (and failed abysmally) and some small purchases. Can’t be bad.

One thing I was really pleased with was to finally find the St Mary’s (Hidden Gem) church – I’d heard about it, but hadn’t managed to find it ’til today. Ok, fair enough, I’d hardly been looking intensively or anything, but I’m still pleased to have found it at last.

Oh, and the moose collection has had two additions, as I wrote before on d4d™ the latest Disney movie “Brother Bear” has two Moose characters, Rutt and Tuke, both of which the Disney store stocks. So now I just need to take photos of them to add to the Rogues Gallery. Sad, but true.

Other than that, just visiting a couple of shops, and a truly quiet pleasant day. Pax Festivicus.

And so that was the festering season™

Ah, thank God that’s over and done with. Only another 300ish shopping days ’til the next one. I wonder if I’ll be any more prepared for it in ’04?

There’s a lot to be said about this festering season™ just passed, and also one hell of a lot that I want to change before the next one. I’m not wanting to lay myself down targets of what to do, but there’s a definite feel for things I don’t want to do, so we’ll just have to see how it all works out.

I’m undecided about what to do for the festering season itself next year – three options really raise their heads for consideration.

1. Go somewhere sunny – and possibly non-christian.
   Now this one appeals, knowing my need for sun, and my desire to avoid as much of Christmas and it’s traditions as possible.
2. Go somewhere snowy
   Prague still really appeals, and the entire thing of going somewhere that’s capable of a “proper” christmas
3. Stay home, and work a soup kitchen or similar
   Done it before, and I’m pretty sure I’ll end up doing it again. Maybe not in ’04, but definitely before long. We’ll see though.

So – that’s the choices so far. As yet I’m not sure which I’ll go for, but first thing on my list is to take about a week off and just collapse and die. Definitely a good idea.

NYD

Over and done with. As always, a sense of let-down, of being annoyed with myself for hoping that this one will be different. No matter how much I try to expect absolutely nothing from December 31st, and all the hype and bullshit surrounding it, there’s still always a way for me to have been expecting too much.

I don’t know why – but yeah, in some way I buy into NYE each year, the entire “people getting in touch with those they care about to say ‘Happy New Year'” and so on. And it never really works out at all. I think that at the end of ’04, I’m going to leave my phone alone, and see who actually bothers to send anything. Yeah, it’ll be an acid test – and that’s why I’m going to leave this as a reminder, both for me and for others, so that I can refer back to it in a year’s time.

Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but I fully expect to receive nothing, if I leave it to other people to make the first move. Happy New Year.

NYE

Well, it looks like ’04 is going to come in with much the same sense of occasion let-down and anticlimax as 2003. People ask why I loathe New Year’s Eve and all the shit that goes with it – it’s because the entire thing is (for me, anyway) a colossal let-down, a constant reminder that hope and optimism get dashed.

So here’s to you, 2003 – in some ways you’ve been a good year, and in others you’ve been a complete cunt. Cheers.

Addendum

Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday and lots of other sideways stuff for Peter over at Naked Blog. Not just a birthday, but another anniversary too. All the best for what looks like being a pretty arduous day…

Review of 2003 or
Thank fuck that’s over and done with

Well, most places seem to be doing their summing up of 2003, now that we’re on the final day of it. I’m not sure I’m quite going to go down the path of “best and worst of ’03” nor simply some “best bits“

2003’s been a bloody busy year here – as well as two blogmeets, and the now infamous change of domain name (thanks Wileys) d4d™ shot past the 100,000th page impression without even blinking, and had a load of content added all over the place. It’s been an eventful year for sure, although looking back at what I wanted to happen in 2003 and comparing it to now makes me realise I’ve achieved precisely fuck all of the hopes listed. A couple started, and then got put on hold again, and rather than buying a house I just moved to a different rented property after the two break-ins at the old place.

Things have changed a lot in the last year – mainly for the better. Now I just want to get today and tomorrow over and done with, then I can get on with the things I want to work on. I’ll probably add more odds, sods, and thoughts during the day, but for now – well, I hope everyone else has the New Year they expect/hope for/want, and all the best for 2004. Me, I’ve got a couple of friends and a dog, and we’re likely to be staying in, avoiding arseholes, and not doing much at all. Sounds like a plan to me…

Cooking with Lyle Craddock – part 2

Ah, now that’s much more like it. Another steamed sponge, this time with sliced apple on the bottom, and stewed apple (OK, before anyone thinks I’m way too domesticated, I cheated and used a tin of apple pie filling) then a standard sponge mix, with some added cinnamon. 25 minutes in the steamer. A quick prayer to Delia and Fanny, followed by flipping the pud onto a plate.

The finishing touch? Demerara sugar, blowtorched into caramelisation. Yummy.

And on and on it goes

It gets better. The response to the email below is as follows…

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk.

I hope you’ll understand that we do our best to ensure that all of our customer orders leave our Fulfilment Centre as close as possible to the availability and delivery estimates that are listed on our website.

We are sorry that your shopping experience at Amazon.co.uk has been so disappointing.

Please know that your business is very important to us. We hope that you will allow us another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in the future.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk.

I bet this won’t be the last thing I write to the incompetent motherfuckers….

OK, this situation is now beyond farcical. Is there any chance of Amazon managing to send a reply to my queries that _isn’t_ a form response?

In response to an email saying “you’ve lost a customer”, the reply says “we hope you’ll give us another chance”. Frankly, if I got any response from a person as opposed to a glib form-letter, I might consider it.

So far this problem has now carried over no less than seven emails. Absolutely none of them have addressed the problem that we are dealing with here – namely that Amazon has utterly failed to deliver the ordered goods at the expected time, and has then utterly failed to manage my problem at all.

When Amazon is capable of either a) sending me a personalised response from a customer service manager, and b) manages the obviosuly impossible task of calling me on 07729 60xxxx to explain why the entire process has gone wrong on this occasion, then I might consider coming back to Amazon.

Until those occurrences, then I will not be shopping through Amazon again, and will in fact go out of my way to direct people to other online stores instead of Amazon.

Congratulations – not only have you lost a regular customer, you’ve also hacked him off enough that he’ll tell all his friends and colleagues not to use them. An impressive achievement, for want of a simple explanation and “sorry”.

Useless bastards

Way back on the 12th December, I ordered two books from Amazon for part of my parent’s christmas presents. Various complaints have ensued, but today’s one was the final straw. First we have Amazon’s reply to my previous email…

Dear Customer

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk with your enquiry about your
order #202-9848300-35xxxxx.

First of all let me apologise for the delay you have experienced in
the dispatch of your order.

Having checked your order, we can now confirm that it was sent from
our Fulfilment Centre in the UK on 30 December via Parcelforce 24
using the following tracking number RR470xxxx.

Here is the delivery address for your order:

xxxx (deleted delivery address, for obvious reasons)

In addition to our large selection of goods, one of the benefits we’d
like to offer our customers is convenience, and I realise that we have
not met that standard in this case. I hope that you will give us
another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in the
future.

We do want to make sure you receive your order. Thank you for
shopping at Amazon.co.uk.

Which resulted in this being sent back to them…

Frankly, to receive an email saying “one of the benefits we offer to customers is convenience” is quite insulting in this situation. Damn right Amazon haven’t offered convenience in this instance.

I placed this order on the 12th December – plenty of time for a company that says it will deliver within two days. (as the order said at the time) In fact, we’re now 18 days down the line, and they’ve finally been dispatched. Because of Amazon’s blatant incompetence, I’ve had to field arguments from (understandably) hacked-off parents who’ve thought I didn’t get them anything for Christmas. To receive things a week late is better than never receiving them, but not by much. In this case, apologies don’t matter a toss – with my current feelings about Amazon, I may use them for my convenience, but I’ll never trust them to deliver presents to anyone else again, and nor will I recommend them to anyone else.

The simple fact of the matter is – Amazon didn’t fulfil their part of the agreement. There’s been no explanation of why, and the requested phone call has (as expected) never happened. The level of customer service and complaint investigation is appalling, and I currently wouldn’t recommend Amazon to my worst enemy.

Many congratulations on the almost-certain loss of another customer.

Which seems reasonable.

Wow

Thanks to a small obsession (i.e. regularly, but not every five minutes) looking at my referrers, I’ve discovered that d4d™ has it’s very own Googlewhack. How geeky pleased am I?

Cooking, by Lyle Craddock

One thing I did get for Christmas was a steamer for a different form of cooking. I’m pretty impressed with it too – one thing it’s exceptional for is steamed puddings, sponges and the like. So far, my score on the sponges is one-all – the banana one came out really well, but the chocolate one was slightly shonky, as the chocolate hadn’t melted. We still don’t know why – it was warm enough, but the stuff just didn’t melt. The sponge wasn’t quite perfect, but it was OK – the entire thing was edible, but the chocolate made it look rather more unpalateable than it actually was. Ah well, it just gives me an excuse for keeping on making them ’til I get them right…

Oh, and Pewari, the recipe’s the same as for a normal sponge. (I need to buy scales, so bear with me on this) … According to Tony my haute cuisine advisor on these things, cream together 100g of Butter and 100g Sugar, add in two eggs (one at a time), followed by some vanilla essence, a teaspoon of baking powder, and about 50g of sieved self-raising flour. Line the bottom of the bowl with – for example – some golden syrup, or jam. Then put the sponge mix over the top, and cook in the steamer for 20-25 mins. Flip the bowl onto a plate so that the pudding comes out. Bingo.

Here endeth today’s domestic lesson.

Work

I swear it should be illegal to have to work between Christmas and New Year. There’s nothing going on, and to call this lot a skeleton crew would be a misnomer. Still, I suppose that at least I’m getting paid for doing fuck all. Could be worse… *Grin*

Jodrell Bank

Yesterday was a geeky day out in many ways. The friends I’ve got staying are very into things as esoteric as canal boats and astronomy, so it seemed like a good idea to mix the Anderton Boat Lift at Northwich and then troll a few miles down the road to Jodrell Bank Observatory, particularly while it’s also involved in trying to find Beagle 2.

Anderton Boat Lift was OK – interesting to see but bugger all to do – particularly as the Vistor Centre is closed from 22nd December to 7th January. Handy, when it’s possibly somewhere that sad geeky gits people would want to visit during the Christmas Break.

Jodrell Bank on the other hand was wonderful. A princely sum of £3 (for car-parking) gained us entry to the visitor centre, a 15 minute 3D film of a fictional journey to Mars (fictional, but factual, with plenty of footage of Mars landscapes including Olympus Mons and the Mariner Valley) and also a 40 minute talk on the Beagle Mission to Mars, as well as it’s European Council parent project. Well worth the money, and a truly fun day out, improved only by the wonderful views of the dish itself.

Aftermath

Well, thank the lord that’s over for another year. Come Christmas ’04, I think I’m either going to go back to helping out at a soup kitchen, or helping the Samaritans, or I’m heading off overseas for the season. Any of these options will be fine with me, although I must admit that I find myself rather fancying the idea of a Christmas in the sun, where no-one can find me. In fact yes, that sounds very seriously bloody appealing.

Seasons Bleatings

Unaccustomed as I am to this, Merry Syphilis and a Happy Gonorrhea to all my regular readers. Let the Festering Season™ commence/conclude (depending on your perspective) productively.

In the meantime, I’m off to get well and truly leathered. Spirit of Christmas, and all that jazz. My spirit of choice being vodka. *Grin* *Hic*

Asda, Moscow Manchester

In a fit of true genius, I’d agreed with my guests for the Festering Season™ that going shopping for food etc. at 1am would be a good idea. How fucking wrong can one person be?

Unshockingly, I’ve ranted about this before, but Jesus Christ, how long are the shops actually shut for? Two days at most? So why the blue blazing flibberty fuck do people pretty much empty the shelves of anything they think they might vaguely want/need? Even things they’ve never needed before. Mad panic buying – and yeah, it’s only two days of closure, and even then there’ll be stores that are open. I just don’t understand the mindset.

And Asda. What the chuff possessed me to think that would be a good idea at any time, let alone around Christmas. *Shudder*. Coming out left me actually glad that we do have gun laws in this country. Otherwise there’d have been a Macdonalds-esque bloodbath in Aisle 14, blood sprayed over the empty shelves of tampons. Because, like so many festive decorations can be made from them – either that or the entire female population of Manchester is due on – heavily – on the 25th December.

I shouldn’t be let out

Of course, the bad bit about getting paid plenty all at one is that it leaves me deeply in the arms of temptation. What that means is that yes, I’ve upgraded my digital camera. Maybe I’ll regret it come the sales, but I got it for a decent amount off the RRP anyway, so *shrug*.

Fly me to the moon Alps

I must be in a good mood, or something. Maybe it’s the fact that in less than a hundred hours, the Festering Seaon™ will be over and done with. Woo and (repetitively) Yay indeed.

Anyway, a little email flittered into my inbox from Sapientum – and wow, can he creep *Grin* – asking me to draw some attention to his plea for emergency crew on a hot-air-ballon trip to the Alps. Typical NHS, 18 month waiting list, and as soon as the person’s needed elsewhere, #bing# to the top of the list they go. So – if you’re free and fancy a trip in a cramped capsule to the Alps, give Peter at Sapientum a yell…

Paid

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but one thing I still love about being self-employed is seeing the invoice get paid for the work I’ve done. (Yes, particularly when it comes in at an opportune time, like today) It makes all the hassle and grief worthwhile, and even after being self-employed for five years (on and off) there’s still that big smile that appears on my face, that feeling of “Yeah, that was work that was worth the money – and they thought so too”.

Blinding.

Shortest Day

Yes, we’re past the midway point. The 21st was (or at least should be) the shortest day, AKA Winter Equinox Solstice (corrected, thanks Peter). So now the nights will start getting shorter, and we’re over the big hurdle for another year. Woo, and indeed Yay.

Autumn Photos

Ooops. As always, I’d forgotten about some shots I took a while back on a trip to Derwent Water. They’re now online and loaded into the Photos section. Also, I’ve remembered to update the index page for the first time in three months or more. *Sigh*

UPDATED : Yes, OK, I’d chuffed up the pages, so some of the text wasn’t readable in IE5 and 6. Mea Culpa. ’tis fixed now, though.

Antisocial

I’d just like to say that if my neighbour’s burglar alarm is still going off when I get home, I’m going to take a fucking hammer to it. All bloody night the knacking things been whistling it’s way into my subconscious. The thing is, even when the police say “there’s nothing we can do”, they’ll still happily nick you for criminal damage and – oh, sweet irony – “breach of the peace” if you go and disable the fucker.

And what does the owner get, for having an alarm that doesn’t comply with the standards about turning off after 20 mins, and that’s basically bloody annoying? Sweet F A. Nothing. There’s a logic in there somewhere, but shit if I can find it.

Return of the King

No plot-twists were harmed in the writing of this piece. So yes, at last we come to the final part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Two films that – in the inimitable words of my brother – dont even have proper endings. (Yes, he’s going to see this one – after wasting five-plus hours of his life watching the other two, he wants to see how it ends) At three and a half hours, it’s no short film either. If you go and see it, make sure it’s in an auditorium with comfortable seating, and decent legroom if possible. Otherwise you’ll just be uncomfortable by the last hour.

Not that that’ll damage too much. I’ve heard it said elsewhere, but this is a film that suffers from a surfeit of endings. Fr too many of them – and some done in amazingly mawkish Hollywood-friendly fashion. By the end of it, even I was praying for the bugger to finally display the words “The End”.

Overall, the film’s still stunning. The effects and visuals are amazing, particularly Helm’s Deep, and Minas Tirith – truly impressive. A couple of effects are slightly shonky, particularly the ones where the hobbits are in shot at the same time as those of “normal” size, but that’s pretty forgivable. Shelob is fairly grotesque, and Gollum is rendered exceptionally well. He’s an integral character and part of the film – and there are no real occasions where you disbelieve his existence within the world of the film. As a computer-generated actor, it’s at least a generation above anything else – even Dobby the House-elf.

Overall, thoroughly enjoyable – but it could do with finishing about 30 minutes before it does, and without all the mawkish bollocks that goes with it.

Surviving the Festering Season

Many thanks to both GF and Ionicus for giving me these links.

First of all, Ionicus recommended the BBC’s “How to avoid christmas” page – some fun suggestions of how to not appear to be a Scrooge while still disliking the Festering Season™. “Pretend it isn’t happening” is kind of difficult to carry off, “Spend it in Jail” sounds worryingly promising (I wonder if you can get a commuted sentence for killing people out doing their Christmas shopping?), and “Do Something Worthwhile” has been done by me for several years prior to this. But for me, I think the plan for next year may well be “Leave the country“. SOunds like a plan – disappearing somewhere that’s a) hot and b) doesn’t do much for Christmas. Perfect.

Green Fairy’s contribution, however, appeals even more. Well, this year anyway. The Christmas Resistance Movement – complete with block-art WW2-style posters and propaganda. Absolutely excellent. They have my support, that’s for sure. And quite probably my membership in future years…

Scam

Because I’m self-employed, I have my own limited company. It’s been useful, and continues to be so. However, today I got a piece of not-quite-junk mail from the Data Processing Protection Corporation (they have a domain here but it’s just a holding page) telling me that I need to be registered with the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Now, I know I don’t, and I’ve heard plenty about these scamming bastards who try to charge £95 for registration – which the IC does for £35. In short, it’s a con, targetted at the many company directors etc. who don’t have a clue. A quick Google search for the DPPC revealed a whole host of results, none of which were – shall we say – exactly flattering or complimentary to the scam-merchants. Also, the Information Commissioner has a list of the known scammers to date.

The moral of this story? Know what you’re talking about, and don’t believe anything from these conning bastards. I know Neveratoss got one of these letters recently too, so there’s obviously a resurgence of them coming out just in time for the festering season…

Scapegoating

Well, it’s come as no particular shock at all that Ian Huntley has been found guilty on two counts of murder. The shock (for me, anyway) was that he’d been accused no less than three counts of rape, one of indecent assault, and four of underage sex – and yet had never reached court on any of them. Each time, either the accusers backed down, or the CPS decided they couldn’t be sure of a conviction. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what judges and juries are for? Rather than some bunch of pen-pushing bureaucrats?

(On a slight tangent, the CPS’s “What does the CPS do?” page answers the question with several photos of people, and fuck all information. How very apropos.)

In the bunch of scapegoating and “how could this happen?” hindsight that’ll ensue, it looks like background checks are going to be the main victim. But how can a check into the criminal record of an applicant be properly vetted if the court system, CPS, and police apparently cosnpire to make sure that people aren’t even cautioned, let alone accused? The “blunders” that allowed Huntley to work as a school caretaker can be laid directly at the door of the CPS and the relevant police forces for failing to prosecute on any one of these accusations. But instead we’ll end up with a specialist police unit based on the FBI which’ll still prove to be fuck-all use, because the Crown Procrastination Service will still fail to prosecute unless they’re pretty sure they can get a conviction.

Linkage

Would someone who’s viewed this site after coming from some discussion board on wilwheaton.net please tell me why I’m getting linked? The poxy message board won’t even let me read the posts, let alone say anything. I’m waiting to be authorised for a log-in so I can read it, but for now I’ve no idea whatsoever.

Thanks.

Allergic? Psychotic, more like.

via Gordon, a story I’d missed on the BBC about people who are allergic to christmas.

This will come as a surprise to some people, but I think this is absolute bobbins. People seem to use allergies as an excuse for many things now, in a similar way to how depression is an excuse for just about every work-shy sickie-puller on the planet. True allergic reactions can be bloody nasty – I’ve seen people have major ones to things like nuts and seafood, and they never joke about “being allergic to work” or anything else.

So yes, I can see that people who are allergic to latex would have problems with festive balloons, etc., and that dust-allergic people might have a reaction to a fake christmas tree that’s been in the loft for 11 months. But allergic to Christmas itself? Get a grip.

There are many ways I could describe my feelings about Christmas. Most of them would involve a large selection of four-letter words, and probably some frothing at the mouth. But I’d never say I was allergic to it. I don’t even have a phobia about the Festering Season™. I simply dislike it. (Well, OK, bloody loathe it – but that’s still not a phobia)

Mayfly

Looking back on it, my 2002 Mayfly Project entry was this :

Split up, pissed about, started d4d, found work, read logfiles, wrote loads, avoided Christmas. Good year.

A year in 20 words. Quite a challenge – so, what am I going to put for this years? I’ll add it in here when I’ve decided…

Well, I’ve done two – one for the site, one for me. Maybe that’s cheating, I don’t know. D4D™’s one was :

Ambled along. Fought Wileys. Lost. Huge support. Changed URL. Carried On. 100,000th visitor. Thought about redesign and MT. Strange Year.

Mine, on the other hand, has been slightly more challenging, and has now been decided on as :

Dental work. Loads of it. Met friends. Lost friends. Stayed working. Two breakins. Moved. Manic. Huge SAD fit. What’s Next?

And that’s that. Roll on 2004.

In the meantime, add your own year to the Mayfly Project. Thanks Meg.

Pissed Off

While I was in HMV yesterday, I spotted a long-time favourite film of mine, Nikita, on DVD – brilliant. However, it’s the bloody dubbed version, rather than the subtitled one – it’s still a good film, but I bloody hate the dubbing. It’s so annoying, watching lips move and not match the words.

Gnomes

Ah, the joys of a failed sense of humour. I love the idea of sending a letter to gnome owners threatening eviction of said gnomes because they’re in violation of planning laws. Having done my fair share of gnome kidnappings, along with a couple of “world tours” for the hostage gnomes (including sending postcards home – I like having friends on round-the-world journeys!), the idea of an eviction notice just makes me grin evilly…

Reminiscence

I was looking over some of the older stuff here on d4d™, and it’s occurred to me that I really haven’t done much on the other sections in the last couple of months. Hopefully come January that’ll be rectified. I’m currently working on a piece for the Thoughts section, primarily about looking back over 2003, what I’d thought I’d do, and what’s actually happened.

In that context, Depression, and it’s Seasonally Affected cousin can be quite interesting – they make for interesting background voices when looking at hopes for the forthcoming year. Maybe I should put the “what I want to do” part on hold ’til March or April, allow the sunlight to sort me out a bit first – but where’s the fun in that?

So there’s a new Thoughts piece being written, and I haven’t ranted in bloody ages. I’ve got a set of photos that I really should sort out – maybe I’ll do that tonight. They’re from ages back, and I just haven’t got round to doing anything with them. So there’s stuff in the offing, I just need to get my finger out with it all. Fun fun fun.

Piss

I knew there was something I’d forgotten about this Festering Season™. Now I know what it was – presents need to be wrapped. And yes, I’ve no focking wrapping paper. Bugger. Ah well, that’s the purchase list sorted out for lunchtime today, anyway. And I thought I’d been so organised, yet it’s the basics that chuff me up yet again. Arse.

UPDATED : There, fuck-up sorted. I now have enough bloody wrapping paper to (hopefully) do everything I need to. And not a santa or snowman in the lot. If I’d been more organised I’d have sourced the black wrapping paper I got last year. Against all my best intentions, it actually looked really good, particularly with Silver pen being used.

Spirit of Christmas

Oooh, that’s worrying – two posts about the festering season, and nary a swearword between them. I must be mellowing. Maybe it’s this flummin’ headache…

Anyway, pop over to Uborka and read Pete’s heartfelt letter to Santa, along with the replies in the comments box. Very silly, but it’s made me laugh. Now, all I need is a darkened room…

Perfect Present

Ideal for Scary, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the iDuck. You couldn’t make it up.

Surely some mistake

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but the story about Saddam Hussein being arrested by Coalition forces today left me more than slightly confused. Weren’t they supposed to have killed him three months ago?

So how do we know that truth is being told now? In short, we don’t. Instead it’s yet more turns of the propaganda screw, and no-one really knows what the hell they’re up to. Then again, I don’t really think that they’ve got any idea either…

Godsend

Unaccustomed as I am to being nice about Christmas shopping and so on, I have to say that today’s shopping “trip” has been bloody fantastic. Amazon, EasyArt, Trainline.com, Go Places and MicroDirect. Everything ordered and sorted – and delivered to the correct people. No crowds, no hassle, no stress. My kind of shopping for the Festering Season.

I’d also like to say – and yes, I’m referring to you, Postershop and Leather Bean Bag Co– that I can’t believe there are some stores who have an online presence and e-commerce system that either a) doesn’t accept Switch, for fuck’s sake, or b) uses e-commerce that actually just emails the details to the shop – no stock-checking, nothing. Sacks of shite.

Snap Happy

via Slashdot, I found an article from Fortune magazine about the future of digital photography. More to the point, would Ansel Adams have used digital cameras if he were alive today?

Ansel Adams was always one of my favourite photographers, and provided many inspirational shots of nature, and natural phenomena. And yes, having seen the results that even my shonky little camera can come up with, I have no doubt at all he’d have used a digital camera if he could’ve got his hands on one.

The other part of the article that interested me was the idea that apparently digital photography and image manipulation are seen to be very much the same thing. I find that odd – maybe it’s because I’m not a professional photographer, or something, but it’s rare that I twonk about with images at all. About the most I normally do is crop an image, or adjust the brightness and contrast – which is what a “traditional” photographer would do too. Perhaps I’m just a realist – I don’t like the feel of images that have been messed about with, no matter how professionally. I’d rather leave a lamp-post in a shot (for example) to provide contrast. Life isn’t perfect : photos shouldn’t try to be either.

Modern Communications

Sometimes words fail me. I’ve just received a call from someone in another department, telling me they’ve sent me an email. It’s not the first time either – this is a weekly process, a document that gets changed every Friday. Every week I get an email of the document, which goes up onto the intranet. Every week this moron calls me to tell me she’s sent it. No matter how many times I tell her I don’t need a call, come the next Friday she still calls.

Now, call me picky, but if you’re going to send an email, just send it. There’ll be a bounced message to say if there’s a problem with it. I don’t need a fucking phone call to back it up.

Gimp

Since writing the piece below about SAD and how hard it’s hit me, something suddenly occurred to me. When I moved in September, I didn’t take my daylight-imitating lightbulbs with me. Well, that’s some kind of proof that they work, I suppose. What a complete twat.

Ups and Downs

I wish we could get some dotty old whackjob to invent a time machine. It might allow days like today to draw out a bit so I’m not utterly swamped with stuff. It might also allow the next month or so to disappear into the past without affecting me quite so much on the SAD front.

On the high points of today, I’ve finally finished a big dollop of work in PHP. Considering that six months ago I knew PHP in the same way that I know the ins and outs of local morris-dancing customs in Mongolia, I’m quite ridiculously chuffed with myself. Yes, I’m sure a hardened PHP coder would look at it and wimper, but my concerns were that a) it works, and b) it’s easy to use. Both criteria have been well and truly fulfilled, and I’ve got a load more confidence in the stuff now. Of course, that means that it’s time to get Projects #2 and #3 off the ground, which are rather more complicated. Rod for my own back, and all that jazz.

Also on the high points, I’ve been getting in some new work, which will keep me busy for a while. There’s also a couple more bits on the horizon (although not – as yet – the website for that “web designer” talked about below) which look promising, as well as one huge dollop of on-spec work which may or may not result in a steady regular income.

On the low side, well, it’s December. The SAD is hitting harder and harder, but at the same time I know it’s nearly time for the recession to start. In eleven day’s time, to be exact. Roll on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Once that’s done, the nights can start getting shorter again – and not a moment too soon, because this bollocks of getting up while it’s still dark, and then coming home while it’s dark too is really whacking me out this year.

So, this time machine. Any ideas?

Oh Dearie-Me

Sorry, Pogo, couldn’t resist the title. As the observant may have noticed, I’ve taken Dearie-Me off the Blogroll, because some cunt called Max Cady has hijacked a decent blog in order to host his own sack of shit. No links, because he doesn’t deserve them.

Hopefully, Pogo’ll have a new address as soon as poss, and can work from there. The link will be on here when he does.

It’s a Question of Tact

Hard as it may be to believe from d4d™’s appearance sometimes, but as most people know, I do a fair amount of website work, databases and the like. Yesterday, one of my clients forwarded an email from a “website designer” who had written to them on spec.

This dweeb is creating sites that don’t work on half the browsers, can’t even do simple tasks like remembering background colours for the page, aren’t standards compliant, and – frankly – look shit. For these, he’s charging £450.

His own homepage, supposedly an advert for how great he is, consists of exactly one page, with in-page links to different sections. It’s bollocks in it’s purest form – and as yet I haven’t decided whether I should put the link here, because people would only ridicule pity him – although in that context (along with piss-poor english) it’s quite funny.

Now, the question is this : Do I reply to his email, and offer to design his site for him so that it at least works? Or should I stay quiet, and simply up my rates? *Grin*

Sack of Shite

For currently unknown reasons, Blogger’s been an absolute cunt today. Hopefully we’re now back to situation “normal”. But come January, when (*please GOD*) things are slightly calmer and less socially intense chez Lyle then I’m going to be cursing installing MT.

Spearhead – Manchester Academy 2

I didn’t really know what to expect from the Spearhead concert, to be honest. I’ve been a fan of Michael Franti’s for years, right back to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and then also when he formed Spearhead. Most of their music is very political and intelligent rap/hiphop, so that was kind of what I was expecting, if I could be said to have any real expectations at all.

First semi-surprise comes when it turns out that a good 99% of the audience is white – OK, we’re in a Student Union Environment, but considering their material, it still came as a small surprise. Noticeable, if nothing else.

The support act was a very strange – and incredibly talented – single performer. Initially I wasn’t that impressed, but – like herpes – he grem on me. I’m hoping that Peter from Sapientum can remember the bugger’s name, because I can’t. Something like Kelley Williams, but that’s not bringing up any valid results on Google.

Spearhead themselves were obviously determined to have a good time. Bouncing all round the stage, bringing a true party feel to the crowd. Franti himself towered above the audience – helped by the stage, obviously, but he’s no shorty anyway – and quite obviously just loves being on stage, and performing his music. Well – his own music, and also Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, the Clash’s Guns of Brixton, and even Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song (Hey Mr Tally Man). The supporting voice of Radio Activ, the “beatbox” was stunning – some of his solo performances were nothing short of stunning.

In conclusion, Spearhead managed to get all their political points across in a pectacular fashion that managed the clever trick of not sounding like preaching – it was a party with meaning.

The imperfect cards

Blah. Last night was the first particular brand of festering season business I had to get through. The much-loathed writing of cards. After all, once you’ve got to the thirtieth, what the hell do you write? It gets boring as fuck writing the same thing (albeit with minor variations) in each one, but writing something new for every card is a strain on the creativity. Many have a comment about “the joys of the festering season” – there’s no way people would know they’re not from me.

Am I horrendously early in getting them out and sent? Maybe. But considering here in Manchester I’m still waiting for the postman to deliver an item to me that was sent last Wednesday, I think it’s not unreasonable either. Also I ahd to get one of them off to a friend in Gibraltar, and keff only knows what the last posting date for BFPO addresses is, so better early than late.

Anyway, it’s all sorted now, and all the cards are in the indelicate and scabrous grip of Royal Snail. Now I just need to figure the few presents I’m buying. *sigh*

The perfect card

via Wherever You Are, the truly wonderful Lance Arthur has been busy designing some Christmas cards. And I think I’ve decided on this one as my card of choice.

All of them are pretty good – and match up to my feelings on the Festering Season™ without too much hassle. It’s always good to know I’m not the only one…

Parting

Regardless of whether he’s on your normal “daily read” lists, go and see Troubled Diva today. A notice of departure – and all the best to Mike on the next phase of the voyage.

Aaaaand Relax

Well, that was officially A Busy Weekend™. Hence no updates. It’s back to being calm again, and for once my week isn’t booked solid with things to do, which has to be a good thing. I know, most people would prefer to be socially booked up etc., but after the last couple of weeks, a few days off is just what’s needed…

Various updates will (probably) be added through the day today, but highlights of the weekend included:

• High Point : Seeing Spearhead in concert on Friday night
• High point : A visitation from the parents for the weekend
• High point : Visiting the European Markets in the city centre.
• Low point : the fucking crowds of idiots, particularly with prams/pushchairs/dogs
• Low point : Attempting to book a table at one place I like, which turned out to be full.
• High point : Vaguely recalling a good review about another place, calling on the off-chance, getting a table, and ending up in a place far better than the original idea.
• High point : My brother making a flyingish visit on the Sunday
• Low point : Brother taking the wrong turn onto my road, attempting to turn road, and getting hit side-on by a pissed fuckhead who then drove off
• High point : the three witnesses, who all got the pisshead’s number plate, and stayed ’til the police arrived, thus meaning the pissed cow got nicked anyway.

Other than that little lot, once the parental units had gone home, thirty minutes later two friends randomly dropped in for coffee before going on to a concert at the MEN. I didn’t stop all weekend. It’s been good – if busy.

Ratty

Having spent ten minutes in a queue, and being barged into each time I move forward – by the same person each time – on the last five occasions, when the sixth occurrence happens, is it really all that unreasonable to turn round and say to the woman “If you slam into me again, I will break your fucking leg” ?

The reaction of the incompetent twat (I’ve never dealt with someone in need of lessons in how to walk before) would seem to imply that she felt I was in the wrong, and should perhaps enjoy being walked into, or at least understand how someone’s sense of spacial awareness can be that fucking flawed.

Temptation

So far I’ve resisted – but the rabid moose-collector in me (no, not rabid moose, but the rabid collector) is slowly breaking down. Disney’s latest, “Brother Bear”, while appealing to me about as much as herpes, has not one but two moose characters, Rutt and Tuke, and they’re available in either 15″ height or 18″.

Must…. Resist….

Besides, I’m sure plenty of people know I collect the bloody things. So maybe Christmas will be moosified. And in the meantime I’m just off to sue the subtlety school…

IWOOT

There’s not a lot I can say about this link that I’d forgotten yesterday. But if you want to see a purple dancing hippo, this is the link to click…

Eeek

In a fit of being horrendously organised (I’m yet to decide whether that means I’m exceptionally organised, or organised horrendously) I’m off after work to sign up for a proper little office unit thing for my company to operate from. It’s a complete pain in the arse that it’s happening now, rather than in a month’s time, but that’s the way the world goes, I suppose.

I’ve been wanting to seperate the company registered address from my home address for a while now. There’s a range of reasons for doing so – but the main one is just to be able to seperate work and home. 2004’s likely to be manic enough, without having that kind of thing to contend with as well. But christ, it’s all a bit grown-up and sensible.

Short Fuse

The office where I work has installed a new lock system on the doors. It’s not difficult – the swipe card we had anyway just needs to be waved in front of the sensor. Even the most cerebrally challenged should be able to open doors with it no worries.

So far, not one single person going through the door has managed to get it right first time.

So many people – bearing in mind that the door has always had a lock on it – are now trying to open the door without using the swipecard first, it’s really beginning to fuck me off. Every single one gives it a yank (Fnarr) before remembering about the new card. Then the card gets used, a *beep* comes from the fucking doorbox (and I can tell you now, that beeping little bastard is due for a fix a la windchimes) they give it a tug again (Fnarr again) before the lock’s disengaged. It’s not rocket science, but this bunch of fucking ‘tards still can’t get their heads round a new locking system.

The best one was a woman who’s obviously used to doors that just push open, who was completely befuddled by technology like – well – a door handle. I despair.

Shite

I was intending to blether today about a very silly piece of animation I got from a friend – only I’m utterly crap, woke up late, and forgot to get the URL. So I’ll add it in later tonight, when I finally get home.

Down

There’s been a lot going on in my head of late. The SAD has hit me harder than it has in years, and I’d tried to take the advice of someone else (for once) and keep myself busy this year. Well, that’s been a fuck-up of epic proportions. I’d thought it might be better to be busy, to be out and about rather than inside and in the throes of an SAD blot. How wrong could I be?

The thing is, I’m now in a position where I don’t really know how to break the circle. Not exactly a situation I’m used to, and definitely not one I’m comfortable with. I wish I were – it would make life a shitload easier than it currently is. Instead, my brain keeps racing at 200mph round a figure-of-eight racetrack, never quite coming off the track, but coming close.

One thing that’s not helping is the onset of the true Festering Season™. I’ve got friends staying here for it – and in all honesty that’s a first. I’ve absolutely no clue even where to start when it comes to the general Christmas Day thing, because it’s not something I bother with. I’m still not going to go over the top – but these are friends whose opinions I care about, so yes, the entire concept is preying on my mind. And yes, I feel like a twat for letting it get to me – but it is, so there’s not much I can do.

This Too Will Pass

Do you ever have days where there’s just nothing working right, and even if it were working, you still wouldn’t have the words to describe it?

Today is one of those days for me. I can’t think what to write, nor even how to string words together in an interesting way. So we’ll call this a one-day hiatus, a brief interlude, and keep quiet about it ’til tomorrow. At which point I’ll have hopefully managed to get some sleep, and not feel like utter, utter shit.

Calling a Spade a Manual Digging Implement

According to the BBC, Donald Rumsfeld has been given an award for speaking complete bollocks. I love the Plain English Campaign‘s annual awards – there’s normally something funny within them – particularly for the “Foot in Mouth” award (which is the one Rumsfeld received) for people who make absolutely no sense. The “Golden Bull” ones are quite stunning too.

A World Aids Day Christmas Carol

Today, it just seems somehow apt to bring you this utterly utterly non-work-safe link – I don’t know if it has sound (my work computer doesn’t have sound, so I’ve no idea ’til I get home) so be careful. via Green Fairy…

The 12 STDs of Christmas.

A Moral reminder for the Festering Season.

Current thoughts

Looking at the article in the Guardian, I have to say that I don’t find it surprising to know that hetersexual HIV infections now outnumber homosexual ones. What happened to the HIV/AIDS adverts of the 80s and 90s? They’ve all disappeared, sucked up into the air of apathy and “it won’t happen to me” that seems to abound.

When HIV first came out as “the new threat”, condom adverts and so on were everywhere. Everyone knew that condoms meant safety from HIV, as well as a range of other transmitted diseases. Now, if you ask teenagers – or even a whole load of adults – they don’t know, or more damningly, they don’t bother. Yes, we need a better programme of sex education – not just for schoolchildren, but for everyone.

The British HIV Association aims to improve education and knowledge about HIV – as does the National Aids Trust. But what the entire AIDS industry (if you’ll pardon the expression – I simply can’t think of a better word for it) needs is a vociferous spokesperson, a media-savvy entity that can push for the education, the advertising, the knowledge.

In March of this year, NAT started the “Are you HIV prejudiced?” campaign. Had you even heard of it? Have you seen anything about it, anywhere? Me either.

There are enough HIV information sites out there – now we just need to find a way to make them more visible, to put the knowledge out and force an apathetic and complacent public to take note.

It’s not just me

I’ve just had to laugh at the story from today’s Manchester Evening News about the christmas obsessive who’s had her Santa Claus kidnapped. People after my own heart.

Personally, I don’t have a particular problem with people who insist on doing up their houses in all forms of cheap nasty tacky decorations for the Festering Season. Well OK, I might take the piss, and despair a bit – but at the end of the day, it’s their property, they can do with it what they want.

However, when people put their external christmas decorations up on Bonfire Night, (5th November, for non-UK readers) that’s taking the piss. I can’t blame people for taking Santa hostage in order to make sure that (as detailed in the story) she turns off all the external lights etc. at midnight, rather than leaving them on all night. Seems reasonable to me…

World AIDS Day

Well, December 1 rolls round again. World Aids Day – and still there’s so far to go. A new policy has been announced to ensure another 3 million people get treatment for AIDS by the end of 2005 More information about it is available at the UNAids site. But at the end of the day, that isn’t likely to even cover the number of new infections over the next two years. Currently, there are about 42 million people in the world who are HIV positive – and the number is growing, regardless of initiatives, plans, policies, and charities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has a whole repository of information about HIV on a global scale. Even Weasel-Boy Blair has thrown in his ten penceworth of soundbite bullshit today. Not that he appears to give a stuff about HIV and AIDS at any other time of the year.

And that – as with many other special “days” – is the crux of the problem. HIV isn’t just something tobe talked about and thought about on one day a year. For 42 million people it’s there day in, day out – a constant reminder of mortality. For millions more it’s a reality, a life measured in six-month segments as they get regular tests, waiting for their own red-blood-cell lottery to come up, hoping it’ll beat the odds, expecting that one day it won’t. HIV is here to stay, and in common with every other virus in the world, we’ve no idea how to even begin curing it.

Fucking cunting Monday

Oh, it’s going to be one of those days. Two and a half FUKING hours to get into work. No reason, no excuse, and the GMPTE (the people who supposedly co-ordinate/organise public transport in Greater Manchester) both a) have no fucking clue why the entire of East Manchester is apparently served by two buses today, and b) don’t appear capable of giving a shit. Orbital levels of pissed off, that don’t even bear a vague resemblance to normality. So far as I’m concerned, just on the basis of today both Stagecoach Manchester and First Bus both now qualify for a world-infamous “Piss-Up in a Brewery” award.

Storm Damage – revisited

Since the now-infamous wind-chime incident (three people who’ve visited me since have stage-whispered outside “Are they the wind-chimes?“), I think my neighbour knows they piss me off.

She’s not just re-hung the ones at the front of her house, she’s put some at the back as well. Last night was windy. I wonder how long it’ll take before another “really strong gust of wind” happens?

Something tells me that the low numbers will win on this one…

Mysterious

Of all the weird things my current employer (for want of a better word) and it’s staff get up to, I’ve decided that I really don’t want to know what stroke of genius made one of the men drop the shell from a hard-boiled egg into the toilet today.

Merry Christmas Indeed

While we’re on the subject of the happy Festering Season™, ScaryDuck mentions the true festive joy that is My Miserable Christmas. Tales of woe and misery from the season, and I’m amazed that there’s only 80-odd additions so far. I’m willing to bet there’s a lot more by the time Santa gets on his sleigh and batters Rudolf with the whip again.

Travel through the Festering Season™

I know that I ranted about this same subject last year, so I’m not going to go off on one too much. But yet again, the fucking cretinous retards who make a housebrick look intelligent planning genii (that’s the plural of genius, I think) of the Rail companies have decided that they should do a shitload of maintenance work. In December. Between the 25th December and the 2nd January.

What a stroke of stunning intelligence. I know – when are most members of the public likely to want to use trains? Between Christmas and New Year, so they can see family, travel to wherever for New Year, all that kind of thing. So let’s replace half the services with fucking buses, while still charging people the same as for travelling on a train. National Express must be pissing themselves with laughter. A bus service instead of train will take the same time as their service, only it’ll cost a shedload more, for fuck-all benefits.

Consider the difference – a sample journey from Manchester to London Victoria, travelling down on the 24th December, coming back on the 28th. I’m looking at prices when booked 24 hours before travelling. National Express – £30.99 Trains – £178.20 In fairness, if I book it further in advance, the train service comes down to &pound53.20 – but that’s still nearly twice as much as the coach service. Madness.

Glastonbury

Yes, Glastonbury will be going ahead in 2004. Great. What still confuses me though is why the people who protest about it every year insist on staying there. It’s been going for nearly 30 years – it’s not like people don’t know it’s there.

So – unless you actually enjoy pissing and moaning – why live in a place where there’s a festival every year?

Third Generation

Two months ago I bought a new phone (the Motorola A920, this time on the Three network. At the time I promised to write a review of it once I’d had it for a while. So here we go.

In general, I’ve been very pleased with both the phone and the network. Yeah, the little franchise shops are utterly shit, and their customer services department lives in India, but the phone service itself has been pretty spot on. When you’re in an area with no 3G service, the phone degrades to the O2 network, so you can still make calls, send email, write/receive text messages, and all the normal gubbins. But it’s when it’s in a 3G-covered area that the phone – unsurprisingly – comes into it’s own.

I’ll freely admit, I probably haven’t even used half the 3G facilities on any form of regular basis. The phone itself has GPS, and you can use this to locate where you are, and then tell you the nearest pubs, restaurants, taxi companies, cinemas, even cash machines – and a whole host of other services. And as time goes on, there’ll be more and more things being added. It’s surprisingly useful, particularly when (as I have been a couple of times since getting the phone) you’re in a place with no idea of local numbers etc.

The downloadable film-clips and music videos aren’t of that much interest to me so far – but I’ve checked weather reports and local/national news a couple of times, and I have to say that the quality is hugely impressive. (On an utterly geeky side, the future for this phone will also include being able to connect up to my TiVo, grab a film or recorded programme from there, store it on the phone and watch it while travelling.) The screen on the phone is big enough that it’s not a struggle to watch, and it’s another useful function.

For me and my uses, the feature of 3G that was of most interest to me was the ability to email and get web-access through the phone. And the email’s good – it’s been very handy a couple of times for sending messages to people without needing to break out the laptop and all the extra gubbins. The web access is – for now – not that good. Three has basically ring-fenced a small area, and that’s the only place you can play. They’ll be opening it up, but initially I think they’ve been trying to get people to use their own content rather than going anywhere else.

It’s not all been perfect – there have been irritations along the way. The connecting between phone and PC was an utter cunt, until I realised I needed to connect the power lead into the data-cable itself, rather than into the charger. That’s something that’s not detailed anywhere, and is a matter of trial and error. Once it was sorted though, the two have happily communicated and backed each other up. One thing I’d wanted in the new phone – and had been told this one had – was Bluetooth. It doesn’t – although allegedly it’ll be available in early 2004, with a firmware fix. I’m not holding my breath.

On occasion, the phone crashes too – and there’s no visible rhyme or reason to it. It’s frustrating, and it’s down to the phone rather than the user – the two other people I know with the same phone have similar problems. However, for a network that’s been in existence for less than a year, I can forgive most of these small problems.

In conclusion, I’d probably give Three about 7.5 out of 10 so far. The stuff they’ve got is pretty impressive – but it needs to be opened up for real-world access. Customer Services are good, if slow – however you look at it, there’s a language barrier when it comes to changing your billing address, for example. The Three shops themselves are – well, in general, shit. But there are some that are helpful, and some even have – gasp! – tills. The phones and battery lives are already improving, and will continue to do so.

Would I give a Three phone as a present this Festering Season? No – probably not. Next year, however – well, we’ll see.

Cleaning Day

Muppet that I am, I recently swapped over from Outlook Express to Outlook for my email. There was a good reason for this – amazing, I know. The Three phone I’ve got connects to the PC, and can back up it’s address book etc. – but only with Outlook, not Outlook Express.

Anyway, while I was at it, I discovered that I’d got a whole shed-load of duplicate addresses, or loads of records for one person, but all with different email addresses. So this evening I’ve sorted it all out, and it makes sense now. I should now get my phone nicked tomorrow…

The Countdown Has Begun

Can I just take this opportunity to point out that it’s now 26th November, and in one month’s time, Christmas will officially be over? In six week’s time, all the decorations will be burning merrily on a fire taken down, and the shops will be full of sales, Valentine’s Day cards, and Easter Eggs. Fantastic – some semblance of sanity will once again be with us.

Devious

Seeing the story today about Ian Huntley ‘admitting’ some of the things he’d done to the two girls it’s almost certain he murdered, I find myself wondering why he’s waited ’til now to admit these things. I’m admittedly cynical, but I wonder what game he’s playing – and I’m sure he’s playing a game with all the people around him.

I find myself thinking that he’s possibly just making the families and friends go through the entire thing again, having to stand up in court and face him so he can see their grief and loss. When it comes to the end of the case, I think he’s going to change his plea to guilty on all counts.

Zzzzzzzzz

Being a gobby git, I finally went to bed at 3.30 this morning. To sleep at about 4.30, and then was up again at 7. Having then been working on CSS gubbins all day, my brain is not strictly with it. I really need to sort out my body-clock and workload, as well as remembering that even when I’m not tired, at least laying on/in bed is a good idea.

2003/4 – Chinese year of the Geek

Blatantly nicked/followed from Meg and Gordon, the MSNBC online IQ test tells me my techie IQ is *blush* 187.

I am SO sad. I need to get out more.

Depressing

One section of d4d™ that started off with good intentions and never really got any further was the section on HIV and AIDS. Entirely my own fault – it was one of those “don’t quite know where to start” moments.

Even so, it still saddens and amazes me that HIV infections have risen 20% in the last year. That’s a scary figure – what’s happened to all the adverts that used to be on about HIV, condoms, how infection happens, so forth, so fifth?

With World Aids Day just round the corner, I suspect we’ll see more of these stories over the next few days.

Twunts

You’d never think it was rocket science, would you? All I want to do is buy a different case for my Motorola Three phone. On Friday I went into the little Three store (well, franchise, I think), waited quarter of an hour while the dumb twunt in the store tried to manage dealing with one customer (failing abysmally in the process) before giving up. Who’d have thought multi-tasking was such a strenuous task?

I tried again this morning. First thing – no customers, three members of staff. Should be a doddle.

Um no. They don’t accept cash. “Oh sorry, we don’t have a till.” I despair.

Linkin Park – MEN Arena

I was highly naffed off at missing linkin Park when they played the Manchester Apollo earlier this year, so when I knew they were playing the MEn I got tickets fairly quickly. I know, I realy need to get out less.

Support tonight came from Kinesis (who I missed *hangs head in shame*) and Lost Prophets, who were pretty good. The sound quality let them down massively, but they still managed to do well at warming up the audience. I’d never heard their stuff before, but I can see I might be downloading some test-tracks, see if they sound better when not in a shithole like MEN.

The entire atmosphere changed when Linkin Park came on though. The stage-set was impressive – and flippin’ huge, spanning the arena, and reaching out into the side areas where the audience were seated as well. More impressively, they made use of the entire stage – it’s not often you see an entire band as mobile and energetic as this one. Recently I’ve noticed a propensity for bands to go back to wired guitars etc., which limits the movement quite significantly. From what I could tell, all of the band were using radio mikes rather than wired, and so they were able to make use of the entire space, particularly the two singers, and the “roving guitarist”.

On this occasion, the photos really don’t do justice to the concert at all – on a total tangent, I’m getting more and more pissed off with the limitations of the current camera, and it’s going to be upgraded before long, I’m sure. The lighting throughout the show was superb, and the sound quality was spot on – hard to believe it was the same system that the Lost Prophets had sounded so (comparatively) shit on.

Linkin Park were only on for about 80 minutes total – but in fairness to them, that’s their entire two albums-worth, as well as a couple of new tracks, so I can’t really fault them for that. Also, from the sheer energy they put into the show, they must have been knackered by the end of it. It was a storming show, perfect sound and lighting, exceptional crowd response, and more energy than the local power station.

Oh, and anyone who doesn’t believe that Chester’s voice really can cover that incredible range – you’re wrong. It’s scary to see, and the only other person I’ve ever seen with an equivalent vocal range is Diamanda Galas – and believe me, that’s a complimentary reference. Hugely impressed.

Policy

Of all the tedious things to write, particularly on a day when the brain just wants to be back in bed, Privacy policies and the like are high on the list. Explaining things like IP Addresses and Cookies is no fun either…

The next breakdown will be arriving shortly.

Blah. I’m sure I could come up with a more descriptive word – but for now Blah will have to suffice.

Among many other things, I think I’ve hit a place where burnout is just about next on the agenda. Last night (well, technically this morning) seems to have been the proof of that. An unutterably lousy night’s “sleep”, which vaguely kind of started-ish at about 4.30am, and was then thoroughly disturbed during the next couple of hours until the alarm went off. Then two hours of semi-decent sleep, which unfortunately meant I woke up just before 9am. Ug.

As of now, my weekend is cancelled. I’m seeing Linkin Park tonight, then when I get home there’ll be wine and/or vodka, and then I have every intention of just turning off the alarm clock, and sleeping ’til whenever. (Hmmm – maybe I should turn off alarms before drinking?) I need to. Currently, curling up and dying seems like such a good idea…

Bloggius Meeticus

Well, the second Mancunian Blogmeet® went pretty well. It was good to see Jane and Adrian joining the motley crew. Damn, we must be getting organised or something.

Thankfully, Topper has maintained his reputation for an encyclopaedic (with, in this case the emphasis on “paed” *Grin*) knowledge of vile jokes, culminating in one about the difference between a pint of Guiness™ and Michael Jackson. Thankfully, from there the conversation happily climbed back up to gutter level, and included such diverse topics as James Bond theme songs and most embarassing concerts (and I don’t care what they say, someone admitting to seeing Mariah Carey three weeks ago runs pretty high on that list, although Chris‘s confession of seeing David Essex was judged to be the overall winner – oh, and Jane, the series was “The River“, and the woman was Katy Murphy *pats IMDB*). Along the way, the Magnum PI theme was played and identified, as were many others. Air instruments came up in conversation (including Air Accordion and Air Harp, all topped off by an exceptional rendition on the Air Bagpipes) as well as the fact that I still want to know what sound a bagpipe player makes when kicked in the knackers mid-rendition.

Some of the lightweights left early, but Sarah, Jane and myself stayed ’til 2. And yes, Sarah was hungover this morning, even having been drinking shandy all night…

We’re thinking about organising a Northern Meet for somewhere around the Festering Season™, although due to time constraints etc., it’s likely now to be mid-January before everything can be co-ordinated. So perhaps a Northern “It’s over for another year” Meet? Leave comments here, or at Lori’s place (when the comments aren’t kippered) if you’re interested, and we’ll try to figure out a decent date for a bigger meet…

Blockage

My brain’s on strike. I’ve been working with validating a site to XHTML all day – and now it finally works. Yay. But Ye Gods what a faff. And now my brain’s shut down and gone home, so work is even less of a priority. I really should be more responsible and less reprehensible – but like that’ll ever happen.

Blogmeet

Yes, another one. Tonight, 8pm, FAB Cafe (again). Should be good. And I’m pretty sure Adrian and Jane will be making it along this time too. Yay!

Westonbirt

As well as everything else that’s been going on today, I also finally got round to uploading a few of the photos I took on the weekend at Westonbirt Arboretum over the weekend.

There’s still loads that I could’ve uploaded, but I thought I’d gauge the boredom threshold before doing many more of them. Be thankful for small mercies.

Shite

Yes, while twonking and adding the Link and Think banner to d4d™ again today, I utterly stuffed the template for a few minutes. Bugger. Sorry about that.

In the meantime, click on the banner image, and transport yourselves to link and think. Only a couple of weeks now ’til World AIDS Day

Westonbirt

The visit to Westonbirt Arboretum yesterday was fantastic. The concept of trees illuminated at night may sound bizarre, but in reality it was fantastic. Photos will follow – I took about a hundred, but I suspect that a fair number of them are shaky enough to look like they were taken by a mid-fit epileptic, so they’ll be consigned to the Recycle Bin of history.

In fact, the only thing that had the potential to spoil the evening was the other people. Fucking whiny Welsh twats aside (and thanks, by the way, for leaving your red-eye reduction flash operating on your camera – the trees don’t have eyes, you tosspot, whereas the people around you did.) I’ve rarely seen more people in one area who all deserved a smack in the mouth. In fairness, I don’t mind the kids as much in this kind of situation – it’s pretty natural for them to run around playing and so on. What I do object to is the kind of foghorn-esque conversations about what Jim’s going to have for dinner when they get home, what happened in church this morning (If you go to church you should appreciate the strength of being fucking quiet while contemplating some of God’s Natures best bits), whether “they” really should pave all the paths, rather than leaving them uneven and natural (for fuck’s sake, if you don’t like it, don’t bother visiting gardens!), and I don’t give a blue blazing shit how cute Little Fucking Johnny looks when he’s running round the trees and jumping on their stumps.

Maybe it’s elitist, but personally I’d rather have paid twice as much, and only had half the number of people there. Whoever it was who said “Hell is other people” won’t hear any argument from me after last night…

Branding, Branding, Branding.

I wonder if the new logo for the London 2012 Olympic bid was one that came from the creative minds of What Brand Are You? ( as also featured in the piece about “some people took branding site seriously“.

Ooops

Well, it’s not just other people who are chuff-heads, obviously. I’d written a piece on the train so I could load it up to d4d when I got home. And I forgot. What a gimp.

The Answer

Yes, of course, it was Virgin Trains. Not really a shocking answer, I know. But there we go. And I’m back at their mercy tomorrow. Oh joy, oh happiness, oh lucky lucky me.

Extortion

Fifty minutes later than expected. A lot more money than it should’ve been. Utterly shit service. Fuck all food. Guess who I’m talking about?

Temptation to rant

Further to speculations about what else I might find that pisses me off between now and 2004, I’m sure there are plenty of subjects that’ll do it.

Transport (Sarah‘s bet)is pretty much a certainty, particular with the potential for strikes over the Festering Season™.

Council Tax? Ah, Peter, how little you know me… Since moving to the new area, the council tax is completely paid up – well, until April. Unless they’ve made a right bugger’s muddle of the entire thing. (OK, fair point, it’s probably likely that I’ll be ending up with a snotty letter before year end)

As for Jehovah’s Witnesses, Peter’s second guess, well – who knows. They don’t celebrate the Festering Season™ which puts them one up in my book, compared to the bloody Christians. Besides, when they come to the door I either tell them I’m just off to give blood, or try converting them myself. I love answering the door to them and saying “Hello, can I interest you in double glazing?” – just turning the tables on them is pure comedy.

I’m more likely, actually, to rant about Morons Mormons on their Mission, or bloody fucking Hare Krishnas than Jehovahs, to be honest. And don’t even get me started on the sodding Scientologists…

So – who else do you think I’ll end up ranting about? Obviously shops and the Festering Season™ are no-brainers, transport’s pretty certain. Idiocy in the workplace is another high-odds enterprise, but what else is there in the Lyle Ranting pantheon? Or will there be new ideas for me to think about and go for?

Genius

The council I’m currently working for has just sent out a survey with it’s monthly payslips. This survey is to see how people feel about their employer, what they would like to see done to improve the workplace, that kind of thing. By necessity, this survey is anonymous, with no unique identifiers at all.

However, to encourage people to fill in the survey, each completed survey will be entered into a prize draw.

It was only today, once the surveys had gone out, that anyone thought to ask “how will we know who’s won the draw?“

Storm Damage

I would like to apologise to my next door neighbour. Actually, I wouldn’t – it’s all her fault anyway. Last night was – well, pretty bloody windy, and as such there’d been severe weather warnings (although whether that’s a warning about severe weather, or a severe warning, I have no idea) to say so. Gusts up to 60 or 70mph, blah blah blah.

And yes, for once they got it right – it was bloody windy. No idea on wind speeds, but it was gusty enough to be believable at that kind of speeds. And my neighbour has – well, technically had would be more accurate – wind-chimes hanging from the tree in her front garden.

By 3am it was beyond a joke. I think an extra-strong gust of wind must have broken the string holding the wind-chime to the tree. Not helped at all by scissors. No sir. I’m a good neighbour – wouldn’t think of doing anything like that. Honest.

Travelling

As Sarah astutely pointed out in the comments yesterday, it’s been a while since there was a decent (or, more accurately an indecent) piece about transport. However, I’m vaguely optimistic that the situation may be rectified tomorrow, when I’m travelling to Reading with – you guessed it – Virgin Trains. Oh goody, how lucky do I feel?

As it is, while there we’ll be visiting Westonbirt Arboretum for their “Illuminated Trail” – basically plants and trees with lights. Typically, their website has no bloody pictures, so I’ll take some of my own.

I’ll also try to add in a couple of longer pieces again – the joys of between six and eight hours on a train, plus late nights etc., although they may not get uploaded ’til Monday. We’ll see. And in the meantime, I’ll also be upgrading my Dreamweaver installs to MX2004. Which’ll be fun. no, really, it will.

Constructive

So far, today’s been an infinitely better day than yesterday. The PHP stuff is working much better – I’ve given up on using DreamWeaver for most of it, and just writing the necessary by hand. The learning curve is rather reminiscent of a cliff, but that’s nothing unusual either. Instead I’m finding the difference between = and == (and === , although I’m not planning on using that one) and I’ve already managed to get some of the necessary stuff written, tested, and working.

Various epithets have been used in the development process – like, there’s a shocker – but at the end of the day it’s worked and I’m happy with it.

Obstructive

If someone were to tell me that today is “a day of celebration for the unutterably crap” I really wouldn’t be surprised. It’s also a day that should be sponsored by the manufacturers of high-blood-pressure pills.

All day I’ve been cursing a combination of 34sp (the hosting company for another couple of websites as well as d4d™), Macromedia’s Dreamweaver and PHP. In short, the stuff I need to do is on a site hosted by 34sp, using pHP, and pox-ridden shuff-sitling Dreamweaver won’t farking connect to the site at all for PHP use. Pigging thing. The incredibly helpful error message of “an unidentified error has occurred” isn’t exactly helpful when it comes to fault-finding and trouble-shooting either.

Also in the running for the infamous “shitbag of the day” award are two crews of mentally deficient customer services people. First of all, say hello to Halifux. A week ago I contacted them about an account that had been fraudlently applied for in my name – at which time they promised to send out all the relevant paperwork. Luckily I didn’t hold my breath while waiting for it to arrive – so today I called them, gave them the address information etc., only to be told “we’ve no record based on the address. Haven’t you got the account number?” – frankly, no, I haven’t, because I forgot the bloody piece of paper. However, the address/postcode/surname combination should work, except that the cerebrally relaxed operator who took the initial details has obviously managed to stuff them up. So it’ll wait ’til I get home, and then I get to call the ‘tards all over again. Oh joy, oh happiness, oh lucky me.

Second, a big hairy extended digit to the customer services department of Three, the 3G phone network. I needed to change my address with them, and get another copy of the latest bill sent to me. Definitely nowhere near rocket science. Of course, it’s too complicated to have customer services details like that on the bloody website – why would anyone want to use that? So it’s on the phone to “333” , the Three customer services department. First of all, an incomprehensible automated system that’s supposed to filter calls, and actually seems more suited to “you’re not coming in” levels of security. Finally it connects to a human being. In India. Twenty focking minutes of call, just for two things. I ended up spelling the street name letter-by-letter, having repeated it eight times already.

Amazingly, so far I haven’t actually really sworn once. It’s chuffing tempting though…

Ideas

Another thing I really must stop doing – or at least do in a more productive fashion – is having ideas. While working away on other things today, my brain’s been planning out how to do a decent “to-do” list for another client of mine, where the on-line list can be accessed, items added, amended, deleted, or crossed off, as well as a selection of other useful functions. I’ve got the schematic for it in my head now – but I’ve had to be thinking about it today because it simply popped into my head while talking with the client, and they were – shall we say – rather more enthused than I’d expected.

So I either need to stop having ideas, or learn not to say whatever’s on my mind. I’m not sure which option is going to be the easiest.

Impulse

One thing I do need to now stop doing ’til New Year is the impulse purchase of DVDs and CDs on the day of release. Well, there’ll be one exception to that – when the Alien Quadrilogy is released, I’m buying it. Then again, it’s expensive enough that I wouldn’t expect anyone else to buy it for me – but all four Alien films, remastered, redone, extended, and in double-disc sets, plus another disc of interviews etc., well, it’s a must-have.

But having bought the X-2 DVD yesterday, I’m now going to make an effort to not purchase anything else ’til 2004. It’s probably inherently doomed for any number fo reasons, but at least it gives me some ideas when friends/family start saying “what do you want for the Festering Season™?” (and the answer “a months induced coma” is deemed unacceptable, as is “the ability to hibernate”, or “simple – a shotgun and unlimited ammunition”)

We’ll just have to see how it goes though…

Pub(l)ic Information

Again, relating to Bottom Live, if you’re in Manchester and missed the shows in the last week, they were advertising that there’s going to be another performance at the Apollo on the 12th December. So there.

ATMs

No, it’s not the pre-christmas season that’ll stuff my blood-pressure, nor is it the Festering Season™ in general. Even the bloody big-issue sellers and shonky market-stalls full of flammable tinsel won’t do it.

What’s guaranteed to do it though is the frinkhuffing bastards who still can’t use cash machines. They’ve been around – and utterly commonplace – for a good fifteen years now, yet still there are braindead parasite scumwads who’ve got stuff-all clue.

Today was a case in point. I wanted to take money out. No problem. There’s only one person in front of me. Typically, the other machine in the bank lobby is norked. So, no worries, she won’t take long.

Oh bugger, she’s trying to pay money in to the machine. Always a bit more long-winded. Christ knows why she’s doing it this way – for the first time in aeons there’s no queue on the counter, so she could be paying it in there. But no, she’s using the ATM. Bonus, she must’ve had the envelope all ready, so she should be organised. *cue the sound of the gods in a fit of hysterical giggles*

At this point I should observe that when paying in money, you have to type the amount into the ATM, on it’s little keypad. This keypad doesn’t have a decimal point. You just type the numbers – it’s about as rocket-science as putting socks on.

She types the amount. £120.00 – then tries to type the pence in, so we end up with £12000.23. Fair enough, it’s an easy mistake if you don’t do it often. So she clears it. And types the same again. £120.00. Clear. Types again. Exactly the same thing. Six times, this happens. Not even any variety – it’s as though she thinks the machine will eventually have pity on her for being a ‘tard, and will just give in and do it for her. The concept of no decimal point, just type in the numbers, simply never occurs to the dim bovine. It’s easier to keep on making the same mistake.

*Deep breath*

Look, just type in 12023. Nothing else.
*types* 1.. 2.. 0..
Now just the 23
*types* 2… 3…
Oh, I see. Thank you. *simpering grin* I’d have been here all day getting it wrong.
Oh, don’t I know it.

Is it unreasonable to believe that some people should just be not allowed out without minders?

Whistle while you work

Over on Naked Blog, Peter has been writing of his surprise that I (and others) use headphones and music in the workplace. It could all get horrendously self-referential here, but frankly, I can’t be bothered to do so.

As regular readers will already know, I’m currently working (and have recently had the contract extended for another four months) for a local authority, knobbing about with their website and so on. The work is – well, I’ll say uninspiring, and leave it at that. Watching continental drift would be more stimulating. At the same time, the other people I work with spend most of their time either not talking at all, or blethering about stuff that a) has no interest for me or b) sends me bananas because it’s stuff they should know but don’t. Section a) includes stuff about what happened in the soaps last night, or what respective offspring are doing in school. Section b) includes stuff wondering how to do something with (for example) a database that is a piece of piss, and considering they’ve been doing the same job for a decade really is something that should come as second nature.

So yes, on occasion I use personal music as an anchor to sanity. I use headphones for it, because I’ve also experienced offices where music was allowed on speakers, and nothing is more headache-inducing than 20 people all listening to different types of music, and all clashing at intrusive volumes. I use music to make a boring job at least verge on the acceptable. A case in point, in the last couple of weeks I’ve been adapting 500 maps to go on a website. It’s dull, repetitive, and about as intellectually stimulating as watching a month of Emmerdale. Music helps the time go past – and stops me deciding that the only other acceptable option is to hang, draw and quarter the social incompetent behind me who insists on humming his way through the day (in both an audio and an olfactory way) which other people in the office might take as being slightly antisocial. Then again, they might thank me for it.

Day Out

Not much has happened today – I’ve been in Chester seeing friends (well, seeing friends, and drinking in a lovely bar by the river) all day, followed by being incredibly sad and watching Little Shop of Horrors on DVD. All in all a pretty good Sunday

Oh, I forgot to say – at the Bottom show last night, I got a bright red T-shirt emblazoned with “Merry Fucking Christmas”. Perfect.

Bottom – Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour

Yes, I’m infantile. Yes, I identify with the swearing. And basically, my sense of humour is JUST that infantile. So another fun night ensured – seeing Bottom Live is always an experience, and tonight was no different.

Mindless violence, exceptional sound-effects, lots of swearing, a time-machine toilet (Yes, The Turdis), Y-Fronts, explosions, forgotten lines, a semblance of a plot (for once), it’s all much the same as the previous four stage outings – and still funny with it.

My ribs hurt.

Spawn

Along with everything else that I loathe about the Festering Season™, there’s one I’d managed to erase from memory until this week. It happens every year, and I manage to fume quietly. However, this year the little fuckers seem to be springing up everywhere, and as far as I’m concerned, death’s too good for ’em. The populate every town centre, every shopping centre, everywhere you look you’ll see the little bastards.

Fucking trainees. In every shop, brought in to handle the Festering Rush, the absolute pointy end of the wedge, the focus of consumer ire for another year. Ill-trained, ill-equipped – where’s the fucking wisdom in putting the people with two day’s experience on the tills so that every single customer is pissed off with delays? Fine, get in extra people – let ’em stack shelves, re-stock, and generally do gopher work. Don’t put them in a position where they have to handle trechnology like tills, or complicated concepts like loyalty cards, change, or even simple multi-tasking. Give them the shitey jobs to do – flinging the catalogues of Yuletide junk at prospective punters, or even packing bags so people can get through the tills quicker. Don’t stick them on the “customer services” desk, where all they’ll do is bug another staff member, because they’ve got fuck-all idea where any bastard thing is kept.

Even better, if you actually really want non-fucked-off customers, put the divvy little twonks in charge of keeping the walkways clear, rather than letting pestilential primate pram-pushers congregate in the narrowest parts of the customer flow, rather than allowing the town’s coffin-dodger convention to clog the throughfares of the shops and streets. Move along, move along, get the fuck out the way.

Just don’t put ’em on the tills. Or if you must, if you absolutely bloody bastard have to, then at least give them the training to know how to work the bloody things.

For Fuck’s Sake (again)

Unbelievably, the twunts in the shopping centre (see below for pictures of the crimes against humanity Christmas decorations) in Oldham have now started playing the interminable looped tape of Christmas Carols arranged for Pan-Pipes and Trumpet. I could cry. Or kill people. Or possibly both.

‘tards

Out of interest, why is it that when I’m sat at work, typing away, and with headphones in, do people still insist on standing behind or beside me and talking? Are the headphones not a clue that I can’t hear what you’re saying?

OK, some people would say I shouldn’t be listening to music through headphones while in work – and they’d have a point. But all the same, they’re pretty visible, but it’s not rocket science to get the attention first, wait for me to turn off music, or pull out a headphone, and then talk, is it?

The Matrix : Revolutions

So, only a couple of weeks after Reloaded went to IMAX, and then onto DVD, out comes the final part. The general let-down reaction to Reloaded seems to have had a knock-on effect on Revolutions, with seats still available in the screen/showing we went to see. Of course, being released into the wild on a Wednesday is possibly not the best move – but I’m not complaining, it was quite a birthday pressie for me. *Grin*

So – is it better than Reloaded? In a word, yes. Reloaded was burdened with a lot of the problems associated with being the middle part of a trilogy – it needed to track and link from first film to last, and as such was always going to be half a film in many ways. Revolutions is an easier film in that context, because it’s drawing the story to a close.

However, I think in some ways Revolutions doesn’t know what to make of itself either. Yes, it’s a finale, but there are so many threads to be tied, it can still come out feeling confused. Information overload – once you’ve seen the film, your brain still needs extra time to assimilate it. I’ve a feeling I’ll enjoy it more when I see it again – now that the basic framework is in place, there’s a lot more detail to be added in, I think. In all, I enjoyed it – it’s difficult to write a great deal without stuffing at least some of the plot details, so I won’t – and will almost certainly see it again. I wonder how well the trilogy will hang together if viewed in one session?

Oh, and one final point – I’ve found the ideal vehicle in which to do the christmas shopping this year…

Day One

And yes, the next year of existence appears to have started in a fashion that I only hope it can’t maintain all year. This morning’s post brought a letter from the Halifax building society bank bunch of financial fuckbags, telling me that my application for a new bank account had been successful.

Um, what? I haven’t applied for an account since starting up with my own bunch of fiscal incompetents, and definitely wouldn’t go for one with Halifux – if only as a reaction to the adverts with Howard The Twat – anyway. So what the chuff is this about?

Turns out it’s an application that’s been made from my old address. Oh goody. How lucky am I that I’ve got Mail Redirection to make sure stuff comes to me. So, I ring Halifux to tell them that the application is fraudulent. (And not even in the correct first name).

I’ve never dealt with people who were so amazingly uncaring, inefficient, and really couldn’t give a shit. I hope they all get their ID’s nicked, and thousands of pounds of debt rained upon them. It’s what they deserve. They’ve blocked the application (the bank account was ready to open, just needed some ID to be produced) and will send me out some paperwork about how to keep an eye on accounts so I can be sure it doesn’t happen again. I’ve requested a complete copy of the application, and written details of their investigation into this, but I’m about as confident either of those will happen as I am of Michael Howard becoming the next Prime Minister of the UK.

Time to write a shitty letter, methinks…

Plans

No, I haven’t got much planned for today/tonight. I’m going off to see Matrix:Revolutions – I know, geeky or what? – at Manchester Printworks. Other than that, some drinks will be had, and food may also be had. All very random. Which suits me just fine.

Birthday

32 Years ago, at exactly 3.05am.

Still Crazy After All These Years
©Paul Simon

I met my old lover
On the street last night
She seemed so glad to see me
I just smiled
And we talked about some old times
And we drank ourselves some beers
Still crazy afler all these years
Still crazy after all these years

I’m not the kind of man
Who tends to socialize
I seem to lean on
Old familiar ways
And I aint no fool for love songs
That whisper in my ears
Still crazy after all these years
Still crazy after all these years

Four in the morning
Crapped out
Yawning
Longing my life away
I’ll never worry
Why should l?
Its all gonna fade

Now I sit by my window
And I watch the cars
I fear I’ll do some damage
One fine day
But I would not be convicted
By a jury of my peers
Still crazy
Still crazy
Still crazy after all these years

Plenty more years still to go – and I still love this track.

Bloody Fucking Decorations

Look, it’s the first week of November. That’s not the time to be putting up all the bloody things for Christmas!

NT-Hell

via Meg, comes a stunning letter of complaint to NTL. While not particularly sweary, it sums things up wonderfully. I bet it gets no response at all…

Ey. You. Yeah, you.

Farewell then, Brookside. Now, let’s hope that Eastenders, Corrie and Emmerdale all follow suit.

Fireworks

According to the BBC, this will be the last year for certain fireworks before they get made illegal. The Fireworks Act will restrict sales of fireworks to a three week period around November 5th, make it illegal for under-18s to have fireworks in their posession, and a range of other measures. Yet it’s stopped short of a ban on selling fireworks to members of the public. Why?

Personally, I love fireworks – so long as they’re done safely. I’d far rather see it made illegal to seel fireworks to the public, and the money saved every year on safety advertising campaigns etc. could be used instead to find government sponsered safe firework displays for the public. Too many people get hurt because of fireworks – whether through their own stupidity, or through the stupidity of others. Yes, even public displays can go wrong – I saw one in Weymouth do exactly that – but they’re still safer than Joe Chuffwit in the back garden wandering back to find out why the rocket hasn’t gone off, or Wayne Scallie blowing off his own hand, or damaging someone else’s face “because it’s a larf, innit?”

Yes, fireworks can have a Darwinian “survival of the thickest” effect – anyone dumb enough to be fucking about and treating explosives like toys deserves to get their hands blown off when it all goes wrong, and I have no problem with that – instead, I have a problem when they’re used and “accidentally” harm other people that I have a problem with it.

All in all, I’d rather they were illegal to be sold to the public. While it would be a pity to lose some of the smaller displays, I think that there would be significantly less people hurt each year – and that makes such a legislation worthwhile.

For Fuck’s Sake

Over the weekend, Oldham’s main shopping centre has put up all it’s snurf-hurfing christmas decorations. Santa’s grotto, poxy bloody tree (including poxy reindeer), lights, garlands, twinkly frigging fairy lights, the whole galumph.

I hate to have to point this out, but it’s the first week of fucking November. Not December. Bah, bastard humbug. As it is, I’d only got the phone with me today, so the shot below is slightly shonky. Tomorrow I’ll take in the digicam, and capture the centre in all it’s festering glory…

Surprising

Sometimes I do like a quick random wander around somewhere like HMV. Today, for instance, I had wandered in looking specifically for the re-released Johnny Cash single “Hurt“, which wasn’t in stock. So instead I plonked about, had a look at the DVDs, and discovered that Peter Gabriel has released a DVD of the ‘Growing Up’ tour, the one I went to back in May. So yes, I bought it, and I’m already looking forward to watching it tonight. I think the stereo may just get a work-out with it too…

Work’s Christmas Do

Yes, I’ve avoided getting myself lumped into the Work Christmas Do this year. Again. In fairness, until last Monday I didn’t even know if I was going to be here for the Festering Season™, so that’s a pretty good excuse for not booking myself in. Well, that and being a passionately anti-Christmas-Do-type person anyway.

But I did have to laugh at the email that came round work today from the organiser of said Do, complaining that only 15 people had responded, it was a Christmas Thing not a wake, and to sign up and pay up as soon as possible.

Oops, deleted that one too. *Grin*

Update

I swear, weekends are getting too chaotic for words. Another unintended hiatus, consisting partly of “can’t think of anything to write” and partly of “too knackered to string words together”. Neither of which are entirely optimal for writing d4d™.

Saturday was manic, in a relaxed fashion. It was the day of the two birthday things where one wasn’t to know about the other. Amazingly, and by no small amount of luck and timing (Rule of Life #1 : It’s better to be lucky than good ) it all went well, no clangs were dropped, and everything can now amble on it’s way again. The purchase of a birthday present from Pyramid Glass is, so far as I can tell, always going to be a bit of a winner, and it was a good day.

Having left Friend #1 (she was going back to meet her beloved after the football), I grabbed a taxi home (ah, the exuberance of youth!) and just as it was pulling up at the house I got a call from Friend #2 saying “we’re running a lot earlier than expected, see you in about twenty minutes!”. Talk about timing…

As it was, everything went well. OK, it was a good night, but my god, it pissed it down. Following the meal, we were goingt o go to a couple of bars, but by the time we got there, the mood was more “sod that, let’s go home” than to keep on, and so one taxi ride later, there was brandy coffee for all. Not a bad way to thaw out, it has to be said.

So fortunately no-one got embroiled in a “you said you’d be there” kind of incident, and all went well. Everyone left on Sunday morning, and I was left to my own devices, most of which were either not working, or couldn’t be bothered to start. So a quiet – dare I say much-needed? – day was had, including watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on DVD – a particularly good way to spend a vegetative Sunday.

Normal service should now be in the process of being resumed…

Busy Day

More later

Evanescence – Manchester Apollo

Evanescence seem to have swan-dived into 2003, for some reason. The music fits in with the general “nu-metal” style of bands like Linkin Park et al, only with female vocals. I’ve enjoyed the album over the last six months, so I was interested to see how they did on their first (to my knowledge) appearance in Manchester.

First, of course, we had to get through the support acts. First on the list were Apartment 26, who were OK, but nothing special. Second were Finger Eleven, who were much better. I haven’t yet worked out if they were serious or taking the piss though – the guitarist has definitely taken on the excesses of guitar-godism, although at least he provided some comedy moments while attempting to apparently kill himself with his own guitar strap.

Evanescence themselves though were bloody good. They appeared to have managed to fit an entire arena-level stage set into the Apollo – god only knows how. It was impressive. The sound quality was exceptional – with some very impressive bass lines that still rattled joints at the back of the venue. I think they played pretty much the entire album, as well as a couple of tracks I hadn’t heard before.

Some wanker was braying about how when he saw them somewhere else they’d got twice the people on stage, proper string section blah blah frigging blah, and yes OK, you could tell that the strings etc. were sampled on this occasion. But to my mind it was still a good concert – and it’s pointless comparing seeing them on a huge stage in front of 50,000+ people to a small 3,000-4,000ish venue like the Apollo. Vagaries like stage size and so on also play a part.

For myself, I’d go and see them again happily – but only once they’ve released another album, and built up some more material. All the same, well worth seeing, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Upromise

I don’t know why, but in the last couple of days I’ve suddenly started getting a shedload of spam from some bunch called Upromise. It’s bloody annoying, yank-centric, and has now been added to my spam filter.

Seven Days

This time next week, I’ll be 32. Not that the age bothers me – it doesn’t – but it’s the precursor to the thought process that’s been going on. This time last year I’d been broadcasting it around the net, Mike was wearing a special shirt as part of the “shirt off my back” project, and I was being about as unsublte as it’s possible to be, short of coshing someone round ther head with a breezeblock.

This year is slightly different – I’m not going out of my way to publicise it, but nor am I going far out of my way to tell all about it either. It’s one of those things – I want to see who remembers it of their own accord. Needless to say, in a state of cynicism, I’m not expecting much.

So there we go. A fairly memorable date, particularly for people in the UK, and I’ll be interested to see who’s got it in their memories.

Well, it pays the rent

Oops – I knew there was something I’d forgotten to do. I need £450 in my pocket by the end of the day, so I can pay my rent on time. No worries – I’ve got the money in the bank account. Bollocks, I forgot the cheque book – that means I’ll have to use the cashpoint. Arse-wit. Still, not to worry, I’ve got the cashpoint card with me, so all’s well. Ah look, there’s a machine, and it’s even one owned by my own brand of banking fuck-heads.

You have £xxx.xx in your account. You can take out £450 today Excellent, that’s what I need, so that’s what I’ll ask for.
Your request cannot be fulfilled. This machine can only dispense a maximum of £400.00. Please retrieve your card.
So why the fuck do you say I can have more than that, you piece of everloving monkey spunk? Not even an “Is this OK?” option – just bang, can’t give you the cash you requested so fuck off, tonto. Luckily there’s no queue behind me, so I feed the card back in, go through the bullshit about what I can take out, and get £400 instead. No problem.

Off to the next one. Available cash : £50. Fine, I’ll have that too. No problem. So now I’ve got the rent to pay – hope the office is open by the time I get there tonight.

Equality for All

I must admit, today’s news that an umbrella ‘Equality for All’ body may be formed by the government comes as no surprise whatsoever.

About two years ago, I worked on a contract for the Equal Opportunities Commission, and also got involved with stuff for Disability Rights Commission and Commision for Racial Equality. It always struck me as slightly bizarre that there should be three organisations, all with their own little fiefdom of responsibility for some form of non-discrimination. Three seperate teams of people, three call-centres, and none of them would deal with the problems of another commission – so for example a black woman facing harrassment at work would have to deal with two completely different organisations in order to deal with both issues.

It makes a load more sense to put all of these commissions under one roof – and also hopefully expand into other areas of discrimination – even though Committee for Equality and Human Rights is a bit of a wanky title for such an organisation…

Down

Why is it that people assume that I’m capable of telepathically connecting with remote sites, and ascertaining any problems on a minimum of information?

By the way, the intranet webmail appears to have been down for the last three days. Any ideas?

Frankly, no. It’s been working for me. An extra dose of clarity with regard to “down” might help, some kind of idea of symptoms. If I could work properly and trouble-shoot from that level of information, i wouldn’t be doing this, I’d be winning the fucking lottery every week.

Ill

Ah, the sensuous splat of snot-laden tissue in metal bin. The hacking wrack of a decent lumpy cough. The voice that could double for “sexy Nadia” on 0898 thingummy whatsit. The throat that feels like I’ve been gargling with razor-blades and following it with a dollop of Scotch. The head that feels like someone’s repeatedly hit it with a sack.

It must be a cold, and it must be a good ‘un.

Excellent

Not all Monday mornings are bad. I’ve just come out of a meeting with the manager of the IT department, and they’ve decided to extend my contract ’til the start of April 2004. Yet more money for old rope. *Grin*

Yes, the job has it’s low points – what doesn’t? – but at the same time, I’m still sat here, writing stuff for d4d™, and getting paid for it. Not a bad way to be. An extra 18 weeks, and there’s still the chance of a further extension past then – this one just takes me to the end of the financial year.

Seasonally Affected

Down in the comments on Friday, Pinky asked “How do I know if I’ve got SAD?“

Basically, the following sums up how to tell :

• regularly occurring symptoms of depression (excessive eating and sleeping, weight gain) during the autumn or winter months.
• full remission from depression occur in the spring and summer months.
• symptoms have occurred in the past two years, with no nonseasonal depression episodes.
• seasonal episodes substantially outnumber nonseasonal depression episodes.
• a craving for sugary and/or starchy foods.

© NMHA’s advice on SAD

The SAD Association for the UK also has some helpful advice on symptoms and suggestions on how to help deal with it, although the site is bloody nasty.

And now that the fecking clocks have gone back (about which there may or may not be a mini-rant later) it’s only going to get worse – we’ll be going home in the dark, and soon the mornings will be back to being murky, then dark as well. And all topped off with the rigours of the Festering Season™ – what more could you really hope for?

Winter Time

Scaryduck reveals the other name for UTC, itself the successor name to GMT. Thanks scary, I laughed so hard I coughed.

Additions

God, one of these days I think I’ll need to undergo some therapy for impulse purchases. Going shopping with friends, we ended up in Marks and Spencer at one point. They’ve got their cuddly toys for the Festering Season™ in store – cows (ahem, Lori, they’ve got bigger versions of the one you have), monkeys and – God help me – a trio of meese/moose/mooses. Yes, Moose in three sizes. They had to be purchased. I’ll do photos of them later. I’m tempted to name them Scaramoose, Scaramoose, and Fandango. But that’s not confirmed yet.

Thursday

Sod – I forgot to put this online too, but Thursday night’s sunset was absolutely spectacular. Enjoy.

Customer service

Yes, last night was the infamous Lyle “Kill or Cure”™ method of curing the cold. However, the following conversation pretty much summed things up…

“Hiya, I’d like three treble Stoli Raspberry please”
“I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to serve triples”
“OK, can I have three double Stoli Raspberry on ice, please, and three singles?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”

Oh, and it doesn’t appear to have killed me, nor cured the cold.

Bugger.

SAD

Regular readers/viewers will have noticed that over the last couple of weeks d4d™ hasn’t been at it’s normal levels of dry brilliance, sarcasm and modesty. I’m not sure myself of quite everything that’s been going on, but a lot of it has been due to the joys of SAD, coupled with generally feeling crap. The cold bug that I’ve picked up is one that specialises in being anti-social, particularly with regard to not letting me sleep all that well. This week it’s felt like my lungs are trying to escape through my rib-cage.

But that’s not been the major contributor. That really has been the general “down” period as nights draw in. It’s hit me fairly hard, although not as badly as some other years. But it’s meant that in general I haven’t felt like writing much, and so I haven’t. Simple as that really. I will, however, be writing more on the subject soon.

Frosty

Sometimes a site comes to my attention that’s just so silly it’s excellent. Frostywelcome is one of those – remember making up messages from magnetic letters on fridge doors? This is the electronic equivalent – including buidling a snap and being able to send it to friends. Perfect silliness for a friday.

Blast from the Past

I was planning on writing a post tonight about depression, SAD, and a whole load of other things. However, I’m now not in the mood to do so – silly, isn’t it?

Instead, I’m actually smiling. I’ve just spent 90 minutes on the phone with a friend who I hadn’t spoken to in at least two years. About a year ago I wrote to her, letting her know new address and phone number etc., and left it at that – we’d had our ups and downs over the previous year, and so I left it up to her to make contact. It never happened, and I’d pretty much written it off, never expecting to hear from her again. Such is life.

But she called tonight – and it’s like the two years hasn’t happened. Straight back to stupid conversations, idiot jokes, and completely Sweary Mary phases. Absolutely excellent. We’ll be meeting up before long – she doesn’t live overly far away – and it’ll be good to see her again. But for now I’m just all smiley anyway. And after the last couple of weeks, that’s a good thing.

Winter on the Horizon

According to the BBC’s weather site, the temperature in Manchester today is going to be about 9°-10°C. OK, that’s not the same as some of the summer temperatures we’ve had, but nor is it sub-zero freeze-the-bollocks-off-a-brass-monkey weather. Even with the added wind-chill factor, Mr BrassMonkey is still going to be OK to father other little monkeys.

So why is it that everyone else seems to have decided it’s now officially winter, that it’s time for scarves, gloves, big thick winter coats, and anything short of walking around covered in buffalo hide? I’m sorry, but to me it’s just not that cold. Wandering through the town centre, looking at the people around me swaddled up against the “cold” like Smiffy from the Bash Street Kids, all I keep on finding myself wondering is just what these people will do when it actully does get cold?

Men just can’t help acting on it

As today’s been remarkably linkless, I thought I’d just say that the first man to go over Niagara Falls unprotected and survive is incredibly lucky. I wonder if he really did act on an impulse, or if there’s more to it?

Friends and family say he’d been planning the stunt for months, so it remains to be seen whether he’ll be found guilty of performing an illegal stunt. It was definitely a cunning stunt though. (with apologies to Dr Spooner)

Ouch

One day I’ll learn.

Note to self : While in the throes of a cold, it really fucking hurts to sneeze in the middle of a (muted) burp caused by fizzy drink. I’ll write more when my eyes have stopped watering.

Diary Blockage

I knew it was going to get confusing. Two friends, both of whom have their 30th birthdays within a week of each other. They were going to share a birthday do, and then it all got horribly complicated, so they decided not to. I no longer know if one knows that the other one is still having a birthday celebration – allbeit a smaller one than initially planned. And here’s where it gets confusing.

Chez Lyle (AKA the flop-house) is being used by one friend and her other guests as a sleeping place. That’s fine. The other friend is having a day with food and cinema. That’s fine too. Except they’re both on the same day. I need to organise myself so that I can say to the one with people staying “when are you arriving, because I’m busy during the day” without dropping anyone else in it about birthday things that either are being kept quiet, or are just chaotic. And of course the one with the daytime do is now away ’til Friday. Aaargh.

Thankfully, neither of them read d4d (to my knowledge) so I can blither aimlessly about it for now. I know I’ll figure it all out, but it’ll involve running round like a blue-arsed fly.

I think that for my next hobby I’m going to start pogo-sticking through minefields. It’s fun, and sounds safer and easier.

Yawning

Why is it that all meeting rooms have their heating turned up 10 degrees higher than anywhere else? It’s not enough to be stuck in a tedious yawn-inducing highly stimulating and informative meeting, but it has to be warm enough that it hits the cerebral snooze button too…

God only knows how I stayed awake through the last 90 minutes. It came so close to sleep that I feel quite grouchy and “woken-up” again now. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Schadenfreude

I know, I know, some people are just born to be unlucky. And I’m sure I’ve observed on this some where in the past – but I can’t be bothered to look through the archives to check.

However, regardless of whether someone’s unlucky in life or not, it has to be said that it is still utterly hilarious to see someone who’s not paying attention, and watch them walk slap bang into a glass wall. I can’t help it – it’s just funny. The one today was even better – walking slap-bang into the glass pane of a motorised revolving door. Maybe she’d got her timing wrong, maybe she was just unlucky. She wasn’t hurt, just surprised and embarassed at looking like a prat. But it brightened my whole morning.

Bah, Humbug

Now there’s a date to miss. Manchester’s christmas lights will be turned on at 6pm on November 16th. By Brian Conley. Would it be unreasonable for me to start praying for a thunderstorm on that day? And ideally for Conley’s fashion adviser to recommend tinfoil hats as this season’s alternative to the umbrella?

Thankfully I’ll miss it – I’ll be travelling back from Reading on that day. But all the same, November the bloody 16th for Christmas lights. My festering season™ cup runneth over.

Blair in medical shocker

I suspect that, like me, more people were shocked to discover that doctors reckon President Blair actually has a heart than that he’d been admitted to hospital with an irregular heartbeat.

What are the chances?

According to the BBC, Princess Diana ‘feared a plot involving a car crash’. Fucking hell, if she was that prescient, you’d think she’d never have got into a car with a pissed driver and belted through Paris roads tunnels at high speed without thinking “Oooh, I’ve suddenly remembered this premonition I had where I might die in a car”.

I don’t use the word often, but Paul Burrell is a complete charlatan, and items like this “that he’s kept secret for ten years” just make me think of the Hitler diaries.

Absolute bollocks.

Groggy

Well, yesterday was definitely a Day of Sleep™. Unfortunately, the main side-effect of that much sleep is that today I feel absolutely abysmal. Curling up and dying has rarely seemed as attractive an option as it does today. Alternatively, I hear that a certain transparent bed is now available, so I might consider using that.

Other than that, the DNS service through BT Broadband has been giving me shite all weekend, so if it’s still up the creek when I get home, then – what a shocker – BT are going to get another snotty call. Of course, their ‘technical help’ pages amount to being as useful as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest, and won’t even tell the happy user which servers are up, down, or just plain fucked. I wonder if I can wangle it to just cancel the BT contract and go back to Zen.

Day of Sleep

This weekend has been driven by the need for sleep. Over the last few weeks, I haven’t been sleeping well, and coupled with a heavy dose of cold, it’s left me pretty drained. Thankfully this weekend was a quiet one anyway – my last free weekend ’til 2004, disturbingly enough. And so the body has taken over, and insisted on sleep. I feel groggy as hell, really not at all with it, but also a whole lot better for having regained some sleep.

Now all I need to do is work on the stuff I was planning to do this weekend, and catch up a bit. Joy. Oh, and remember to turn the alarms back on for tomorrow morning…

Good news

One of the best pieces of news so far this year concerning the Festering Season™ is that MPs are now saying that shops should stay closed on December 25th. Good – halle-fucking-lujah, in fact – there should be at least one day a year where the materialistic bastards are closed.

Small world

One strange thing (among many) last night was discovering that Lori actually hails from a place less than 20 miles from where I grew up. Strange, but true.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems odd that people can meet up in a city 200 miles from their home towns, and have originated from the same area, yet neither one knew it. I’ve done it so many times now that I suppose I shouldn’t find it surprising any more, but I still do.

However, it’s my parents who (so far) have the prize for “small-world”isms. While visiting my brother in Finland, they also took a couple of days in Stockholm. Having walked around for a while, they sat on a bench, and were heard to be speaking English by a guy from – as it turned out – Nepal. He knew someone in England, and wondered what region they were from. When told “Oxfordshire“, he asked if they knew Thame – which is where they live. The man who was known by the Nepalese guy was my father’s doctor.

It’s times like that when you realise that the Gods occasionally just have a day off, kicking back and having a laugh.

4am revisited

Following on from yesterday’s post, no, I don’t know what it is that wakes me at 4am, other than the body clock going “time to be awake!”. It’s not the only time I wake up during the night, but it’s the only one that’s consistent.

It’s hard to explain – 4am is when my brain feels it’s right to wake up – it’s not a sudden waking on hearing a noise, it’s a full waking process. (yes, I’m being careful with my typing there…) In general I’m lucky to get an indisturbed hour of sleep anyway – the joys of being on an insomnia cycle of disturbed sleep, as opposed to not going to sleep, or waking up early – but the 4am thing is just weird because it’s not part of the “normal” (oh, how I laugh to describe it as such) part of my sleep pattern. Oh, and yes, it is a pain in the arse.

Neal Stephenson, Waterstone’s Deansgate, Manchester

I’ve been a reader of Neal Stephenson’s books since ’94, when “Snow Crash” was released on an unsuspecting audience, hooked on a novel involving hacking, a close future, neurolinguistics and – um – Ancient Sumerian legends. Just my kind of book, really. After that, “Diamond Age” covered manners, 23rd century Victoriana, mediatronic paper, communications and a cracking story. There’ve been forays off into the fixing of Presidential Elections (“Interface“, and Iraqi bioweapons being produced in Iowa (“Cobweb“), and then the last biggie ’til now, “Cryptonomicon, concerning cyphers and codes, Alan Turing, the Enigma Machine, data havens, and 21st century business practices.

Now, three years later, Stephenson’s released “Quicksilver“, the first of his “Baroque cycle” trilogy, all prequels to Cryptonomicon. Well, dynastically linked to Cryptonomicon, if not actual prequels. As part of the “promotion” of this, he was in Manchester last night doing a reading and signing. (Guess what I’ll be reading this weekend? *Grin*)

Readings are a difficult thing to write about really – they’re pretty much how they sound. It’s interesting to get the author’s voice, the intonation to their words, and while some are good readers, others are abysmal. (William Gibson is one who’s awful at doing readings) Neal Stephenson’s somewhere in the middle – he seemed uncomfortable in the suit he’d chosen to wear, and was quite fidgetty. When I saw him last time, doing a similar event for Cryptonomicon, he was in jeans, boots, and shirt – and far more comfortable and relaxed. Some people just don’t seem to be designed to wear suits (whereas others appear to be born in them) and Neal’s one of them.

All the same, it was good to see him, interesting to hear the answers to some of the questions asked by the audience, and (of course) get the new book signed as well. Considering that the event cost £3, and if you buy the book at the event you get £3 knocked off it, it was good value, and an enjoyable 90 minutes or so.

4am Eternal

I don’t know why, but over the last three weeks my body has decided that I need to be woken up. At 4am. Every day. Without fail.

I’ve no idea why 4am is so important, because there’s naff all happening at that time, except for the sounds of pigeons farting across the road. Yes, pigeons fart – and snore. The fuckers.

Fortunately, the insomnia isn’t quite in full effect at the moment, and I manage to get to sleep after about fifteen to thirty minutes. But it’s still enough to stuff up the sleep I was getting, and leaves my eyes looking like they belong to a sleepwalking raccoon. Hopefully I’ll be able to batter my body-clock into submission sometime soon, because this 4am waking is beginning to annoy me now…

Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like bananas

Well, time has flown past, and the Manchester Blogmeet is still on for tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow – it doesn’t seem like a fortnight ago that it was two weeks ’til the meet. (I’ll let you lot work that one out)

And yes, fluffy toys are still a requirement – well, for the first few, so we know where we all are. It’s not completely confirmed yet (in other words I haven’t decided) but I suspect that the moose of choice for me will be Scrooge Moose, as per the mug-shot to the right. And yes, he does still play “rudolph the red-nosed reindeer” (so far), mainly because I haven’t been arsed to open the little sod up and re-record his voice chip.

“Ho fucking Ho” is current favourite. Any other suggestions gratefully received.

Morning Glory

The first thing I saw when I opened the curtains this morning was this set of glorious sky colours. Not a bad way to wake up…

Quiet

I don’t know why, but the last couple of days I’ve just not really been in the mood for writing much. I’m hoping it’s related to feeling crap, and that normal service will be restored as soon as possible.

For now though, I’m off to bed. G’night.

Snotty no more

Thank the lord for that – finally after two weeks of snottyness, the cold appears to have admitted defeat and naffed off back into the ether. Also, the lab-beagle cough from yesterday is an abeyance, so I generally feel much better.

I’d also like to point out that Strepsils are absolutely fuck-all use for anything except practice hockey-pucks for midgets.

Bigotry

Travelling home tonight, the seat in front of me was occupied by two people who I can only assume had been kicked out of the KKK for being too right-wing. The outright bigotry and bile spilling from the seat in front was vile – anyone walking past was fair game, anyone getting on the bus was equally fair game.

The bus stopped beside an inter-racial couple, doing absolutely nothing to anyone. Simply being together. Yet they attracted a stream of muttered invective – luckily they were outside, and couldfn’t hear it.

What’s the deal with things like that? While there are still bigoted cunts like that about, really, what hope is there for an integrated society?

Wooooaaaaahhhhh, Geek Out!

For those of you not entirely braindead about news of Matrix:Revolutions yet – it will be premiered on IMAX screens on Nov 5th in London and Bradford (at the bottom of the page), as well as normal screens worldwide.

Second

Well, the results are in over at MBIAT, and yours truly came in second. Ah well – I’m glad Peter won – he deserves it far more than I. In fact, out of the two, I voted for Naked Blog. How’s that for sporting? *Grin*

Introspection

Ah, normal service will be restored today. A weekend of travelling the arse-end of nowhere© (AKA North Wales) where GSM’s barely been heard of, let alone GPRS, or broadband. Couple that with plenty of introspection time following on from that piece in TD, and it all led to a desire for down-time.

During the next week there’s also seeing Neal Stephenson doing a reading/signing from Quicksilver, and the Mancunian Blog-meet (Still at the Fab Cafe, to my knowledge) on Thursday.

The days are just packed.

Legally Sane

I’d managed to miss this story ’til it was pointed out over on Greenfairy, but those wonderful caring people at the US Supreme court have decided that it’s OK to force convicted murderers with severe mental health problems to take medication that makes them legally sane, and thus executable.

To me, that’s just fucking disgraceful. As if it wasn’t cruel and unusual punishment to incarcerate someone in conditions where they slowly go insane (the case in point, Charles Singleton, has deteriorated to such a state that he believes his victim is still alive, that authorities had placed a device in his ear, and that the jail cell was under the control of demons) it’s now legal to drug them back into “sanity” just to kill ’em.

I’ve never been a particular advocate of capital punishment, and even less of the death penalty, but America seems happy to take these things to ever increasing lengths, and to hell with costs and damage to the Bill of Rights.

Keff

Ok, “normal” service is being resumed. For today at least. I would also, just for the record, like to thank Anna of Little Red Boat for being the main cause of my adopting the word “keff” as an alternative to various other epithets, including “fuck”, “bugger” and “cunt”. Keff is the d4d™ equivalent of Scary‘s “Twunt!” (and that mug is going to be great in the office) – and of course sometimes there’s nowt better than calling someone a Keffing Twunt.

Announcement

Missing.

One will to live. It’s been under a bit of stress lately, and the final straw appears to have been the resizing/cropping and editing of 500 images.

If found, please return to Lyle, c/o d4d™.

Thanks.

UPDATE : Gordon found it

Sweary Mode in 5.. 4.. 3..

According to Vodkabird, this week is National Customer Satisfaction Week. You’d never guess it, if you had to deal with B Keffing T. (Yes, it’s another in that series…).

The brief precis of what’s happened.

  A week ago Monday, BT were supposed to connect me back on to ADSL after three weeks on two baked bean tins and a length of string a 56k dial-up. The ADSL modem’s sat on the shelf, powered up, waiting to be connected. And waiting. And waiting. The connection doesn’t happen. So I ring BT, and try to find out what’s happening.

“It’s connected. We’ve got it on the system that it was connected and completed.”
“Guess again. The modem’s ADSL light is flashing, saying it can’t find ADSL at all“
“Oh. Ah – our system says you ordered the connection, then cancelled it again. So it’s on the system as completed.“
“Eh?“

Turns out that (hold me before I collapse in shock) their system can’t handle a request to change suppliers – which is what I was doing. If I’d stayed with the same supplier, allegedly it would’ve been easy. Anyway, Tuesday passes, still no connection. Wednesday ditto, although of course it was the day of THAT call. After that I was so furious I left it ’til Saturday, when I had all morning to fulminate, if necessary.

Saturday

90 minutes of talking to BT retards, who can only follow a script through the problem. Highlights…

“Well, our system says you’re connected, and were connected on Wednesday“
“Trust me, it’s not. I’ve tried it on three different ADSL modems, on two different PCs, and none of them are finding ADSL“
“Well, our system says it’s connected“
“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr“
…
“Have you checked your ADSL connection at a friend’s house?”
“Um, how the *pause* will that tell you whether the connection at my house is keffed?“
“I don’t know. It’s just another step on the script I’ve got to go through before we can report it as a fault“
“Ok then, <lie>Yes, I’ve taken it round to a friends, and the ADSL works there</lie>“
…
“Well, we’ve been through all of my script, there’s nothing else, you’ll have to call our technical faults people and see what they say.“
“Naff off, I’m on this call, and I’m not letting it release until this problem is sorted. Let me speak to your supervisor. Now, please“
3 minutes later
“Ok, sir, we’ll put you through to Technical Faults, and stay on the line so we can hear what’s being said“
“Fine“
“Technical faults. [5 minute blah repeating the problem] Oh yes, our system’s saying you’re not connected.
*first customer services person*”What? Our system says it’s connected.”
“Nope, definitely not been done.”
*first customer services person*”Oh. Shit“

Two hours later it was connected.

Last night

Finally, perfection in action.

(on answerphone)
“Hello, Mr Lyle, this is BT Broadband Faults Department. We’re calling to see if you still have a fault on your line”

Is it me, or shouldn’t it be them that know if there’s a fault on my bloody line?

As pointed out by Peter, you’re right, this isn’t actually a very sweary post. I never got to the point of exploding at them – purely and simply because the poor gonk I was on the phone to would’ve simply curled up and cried, and would’ve done chuff all else of use. When it comes to B Focking T, I want to curse and use lots of interesting words and spur-of-the-moment offensive expressions, but at the same time I don’t necessarily want it to be like Tourettes for Dummies. Well, not all the time, anyway. *Grin*

Once Upon A Time In Mexico

Robert Rodriguez directing the last in his El Mariachi trilogy, “Once upon a time in Mexico” – how could I resist? Antonio Banderas reprising his role, along with Jonny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Mickey Rourke, and Danny Trejo, as well as the potential for Enrique Iglesias to do a Jon Bon Jovi and get shot before the end of the film. Unmissable.

And yes, it’s enjoyable. Thoroughly enjoyable. Not quite as slammed together as it’s predecessors, ’92’s El Mariachi and ’95’s Desperado, but still majorly fun. Jonny Depp appears to be undergoing a real renaissance, which is definitely no bad thing as far as I’m concerned. Willem Dafoe has still cornered the market in looking evil and being bad. Mickey Rourke is impressive – to my eyes he looks one hell of a lot better than he used to in the 80s – although I acknowledge I’ve got lousy taste and still love “Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man” – he’s looking more relaxed and, well, lived in. I’ve no idea what Danny Trejo did in his life before acting, but god, he’s got some scars – and I love seeing him on film.

So all in all, even without the rest of it, we’re talking about a film full of eye-candy. There’s a story-line of sorts, there’s plenty of set-pieces, and it’s just utterly fun. More double-crosses than a Mission:Improbable film, and visually stylish as hell. Totally enjoyable – just don’t expect high-art, or anything with the same excesses as Desperado. It’s a more introspective film, with a brain and a heart – it’s got passion, rather than testosterone. And fair play to it in that respect – it would’ve been far easier to simply make Desperado 3, but that hasn’t been done. Well worth seeing.

Not quite taking the piss

On a completely non-blog-related subject, I’ve just had to laugh at the news about Linda Robson has apparently been mugged for – um – her dog shit. Priceless.

Manifesto

Fark – I’ve no idea what would go on this. In relation to Zoe’s popularity contest, it appears that Peter has already written his manifesto. Apparently I need to write one too. OK – here goes…

• All umbrella owners/users must have a certificate of proficiency before opening the bastards. Anyone who uses one without a licence should expect to have it shoved up their arse. And then opened.
• Anyone who walks past wittering inanities should expect to be punched. This is not assault, it is justified. Particularly heavy beatings will be permissible upon expressions such as “Smile, it might never happen”, “that Diet Coke’s bad for you, you know” (Yeah, and so is being a fucktard. *Boot*)
• Before typing text messages into phones while on the move, people should first learn to walk in straight lines, and be aware of the people around them.
• Public transport should be made efficient, cost-effective (for the user, not for the shareholder), and run on time.
• Prime Ministers and all high levels of UK government should be forced to spend at least one week a month in public stocks and pillories. Rotten eggs and vegetables will be supplied at no extra cost.

and the absolute winner…

• Christmas gubbins should only be allowed onto shop shelves etc. from December 1st until December 26th. No other times are acceptable. If you want to make it a shorter timespan, that’s even better – but no longer than the 26 days.

Popularity

Oh dear lord. As if it wasn’t enough stress this week to be guest-blogging and thinking up stuff for two sites (as well as helping qB fix the site when she buggers it up with naffing tables!), now that evil Belgian wench Zoe (My Boyfriend Is A Twat) has put me head-to-head against Peter (Naked Blog) in this week’s edition of her current blogger popularity contest. At this rate I’ll be a wreck by Sunday.

Still, at least the hits are ramping up again. Not that I’m some log-checking hits-whore at all. Oh no. Content is king here, honest. No, really, it is.

And at least it wasn’t me who whacked a giant golden knob onto Mike’s site. *Sigh* Some people, no sense of propriety.

Governator

So, we now have Governor Schwarzenegger. Great. I’m not sure how I feel about it – I wonder whether we’ll see him now standing in the next Presidential elections. Even then, I don’t think it can be any worse to have an actor in the White House, now they’ve had a horse’s arse for a few years.

Kindness of Strangers

Ah, there’s always one thing I forget to change address on. Luckily, that’s what mail redirections are for. Many thanks to Gordon for the surprise package of Gaiman and McKean’s “Signal to Noise“. Utterly unexpected, and hugely appreciated.

Moose!

Yes, the new moose (unofficially already named Scrooge – and yes, he’s a reindeer instead of a moose, but he’s receiving identity counselling now) did get purchased yesterday. It was just irresistable. The batteries have been removed (I can’t stick too many renditions of Rudolph the red-nosed bastard reindeer) so I’m happier now. I still want him to be reprogrammed with “Bah Humbug” or similar, but we’ll see.

Pictures of the complete collection are available here – and yes, I do need to get out more.

*fanfare*100,000

As predicted, the 100,000th page impression happened on Sunday (and yes, I forgot to do the logfile upload on Monday) – not bad for less than 14 months.

Broadband/wireless Gubbins.

OK, if you’re not into techie stuff, just look away now. There’s a slightly funny observation about Ian Duncan-Smith on the next post down, so just skip this one.

There, that’s the non-geeks sorted. For anyone else who’s interested (this means you, Gordon), the new ADSL modem and wireless networking gubbins are now all in place. The router is a job by Netgear, and the wireless gear is all by Belkin – wireless laptop card, PCI card for the main PC, and ethernet/wireless switch with 4 Ethernet ports. It’s 802.11g (the 54Mbps version) and works nicely, even when I’m also using the digital cordless phone.

As it is, the Netgear router does most of the firewall duties, as well as the IP address translation. Should anyone try hacking through it, both PC and laptop also have their own personal firewalls, and the wireless point between them has encryption built in and working too. I’m never going to say it’ll never be hacked or anything, but if it is then the little darlings will have had to work for their fun. The wireless gear’s lovely – I’ve halved the number of cables drifting around the floor, which is always a good thing. There’s no ethernet cable hanging around – the ADSL routes straight to the wireless network, which then connects with both PC and laptop. I’m much happier – and the hazard of tripping over stuff at night is much lessened.

Perfection

Sometimes I can say no more than what’s been given me. It would just ruin it. The Guardian managed one today…

Kosheen – Manchester Academy

Ooops. What with everything else that was happening yesterday, wireless network, bookcases etc. (of which more later) I completely forgot to do a quick write-up of Kosheen’s concert in Manchester on Saturday. Mea culpa. So…

Looking at the stage-set, we could see something wasn’t normal. Then it clicked – the drum riser was encased in what appeared to be a soundproof box, similar to in a recording studio. Ok… Might be interesting.

The support act hadn’t been advertised anywhere, and I’d never heard of them anyway when it was revealed that they were called Lockdown Project. However, they’re now definite additions to the “keep an eye open for” list – they were bloody good. My first feeling about them was that they were very much what the Streets should have been. “Urban” style, with a healthy dollop of ska-style sound, and acoustic guitar – very different to what I’d expected, and well worth seeing.

Kosheen, on the other hand, I’m still undecided about. They played pretty much everything they’ve recorded, and it was fantastic to see it done with a proper drummer instead of a bastard drum-machine. Regardless of what anyone says, live drums are an immense improvement on automated shite. But there was still something missing. Yes, it was a good concert, and they were excellent on stage – but somewhere in the middle I found most of the music kind of merged into one sound, tracks becoming virtually indistinguishable from each other. I’ve liked both albums they’ve released, and it was good to hear the crowd-pleasers and so on being performed – but somewhere along the line there’s just needs to be some variety.

Oh, and that soundproof box? Turned out it wasn’t soundproof – but needed to be drumstick proof. More than slightly manic – particularly when he was needing to do some serious work in order to keep up with a drum-machine generated original – and yet he managed fine each time. However, it looked like there was some experience of drumsticks making a connection with other members of the band, hence the protection. Bless.

 
 

Responsibility

Yes, it’s true. As well as writing all my normal bull for d4d™, this week I’m also one of Mike’s first guest bloggers at Troubled Diva. One whole week of coming up with stuff for both sites – talk about stress! *Grin*

Oh, and there’s likely to be (yet) another addition to the moose/reindeer collection by the end of the day. I saw it first thing this morning, and it needs to be done. A signing moving reindeer, that apparently sings “Rudolph”. I suspect the batteries for it may have an “accident”, and I may feel the need to hack the voice recording – the idea of a scrooge Reindeer really appeals, for some surreal reason.

Fark

Oops – when moving, make sure you keep all discs of drivers and so on in a safe place. I thought I had, but the gubbins for the wireless networking router appears to be AWOL. Joy. Downloading all the drivers etc. – still, it’ll be good when it’s all done.

At Fucking Last

Finally, after another hours call which ended in deep sarcasm and epic apologies from the fucktard script-following bint with less clue than an amnesiac crossword compiler, I’m finally back on ADSL. Wooo me.

Next step – wireless networking. But for now, I’m off to see Kosheen in concert. So there.

Another Note to Self

Following a night with friends, when coming down the next morning and grabbing the glass of “coke” that’s on the desk, it’s best to remember it also had vodka in it BEFORE draining the glass in one. It’s quite a shock to the system, shall we say?

100,000 (part 2)

That 100,000th page impression is just round the corner. 98,567 is the current total (well, the total at the end of yesterday), and yesterday on it’s own had just under 900 page impressions. So I reckon that by Sunday we’ll be well over the 100,000. Not a bad achievement at all…

Poor old sod

According to the BBC, Catholics around the world are preparing for the death of the Pope. He’s been getting steadily worse this year – personally, I kind of doubt he’ll make it into 2004, but he’s a tenacious old sod, so who knows.

I find it amazing that he’s been Pope now for 25 years – quarter of a century in a role like that would be enough to exhaust anyone. Technically, he could resign (I didn’t know this, but apparently it’s true) although it’d be pretty radical, as the last pope to resign was Celestine V in 1294. However, his view is that God gave him the job, God’ll take it away. To me, that’s a sign of the commitment that this Pope has always shown – despite my (much-publicised) dislike of organised religion in general, and Catholics in particular (not through sectarian reasons, but simply through personal experiences of Catholicism in all it’s “glory”) I think that he’s done an immense amount, both for Catholicism and Christianity. When he finally does pop his clogs, John Paul II is going to be a hard act to follow.

Oops

Oh, what a clumsy twat I am – I appear to have deleted my invite/confirmation for going to my work’s office Christmas Lunch. Alas, Alack, and Woe is me. How shall I live down this terrible trauma to my social life?

*Grin*

Mancunian Blogmeet thingy

Completely forgot to say, due to majorly sweary day – Lori has pretty much agreed that Thursday 16th October, 8pm at the Fab Cafe is going to be the time/date/venue. Anyone with comments can leave ’em here, or on her post for 25th September (Permalinks are, of course, keffed to within an inch of their life)

Bring a soft toy, so you can be recognised…

Or Not

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

Aaaaaaand Relax.

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

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

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

Internet Exploder

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

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

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

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

Bollocky Bastards

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

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

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

Ug.

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

You have been warned.

Donna Tartt, St Anne’s

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

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

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

Poodle?

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

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

Readings/Signings

Yes, tonight I’m seeing Donna Tartt doing a reading/signing for the paperback release of “The Little Friend“. It should be interesting – rather than the more normal location, of within the Waterstone’s store, this one is to be done in St. Ann’s Church, which I’ve never been inside before. All in all, it should be interesting. It’ll also give me an opportunity to see if the camera on the new phone is any good, which is a bit geeky, but there we go.

Fucking useless bastards

One day – one fucking day – BT will be organised, efficient, and able to communicate. Unfortunately, that day wasn’t yesterday, and won’t be today either. The cunts.

No, the broadband wasn’t installed – well, they don’t think it was. They’re not sure. One system is saying that I somehow managed to order ADSL and cancel it on the same day, one is saying it was installed yesterday, and one’s saying it was uninstalled. As per usual with BT, no-one fucking knows. I compounded the problem, by wanting to be awkward and keep the same phone number I’d had before. Big mistake. Huge, epic, ten-commandments-level fuck-up. Never again. Because the number had ADSL on it through a seperate supplier, and I’d wanted to move everything over to BT. So I organised with Zen to remove the ADSL – which they did on the 25th, no worries. However, that appears to have crossed lines with the system for installing ADSL, so it’s now saying that the BT order for ADSL was uninstalled, and is thus complete. I despair.

I’ve got to call them again today, find out what the fuck they’re playing at. I could cry.

Broadband

With luck, by the time I’ve got home BT will have finally pulled their finger out and connected my number to ADSL (although this time on BT Openworld) again. I haven’t heard any confirmation of this yet, but still, fingers crossed.

Scary Twunt

As exclusively revealed in his comment here Scaryduck is going to be cashing in on his own infamy launching a mini branding exercise with mugs based on the design I re-did for him. And I have to say that I’m deeply chuffed that he liked the design, and I’m on the “definite purchaser” list already.

Ah, vanity vanity. Help him cash in Order the merchandise (when it’s been costed) on on Scary’s site.