Unshocking “news” in that Enetation appears to be stuffed yet again…

Freeview launch sponsored by washing powder manufacturer

Quick quote from BBC News about the launch of Freeview :

“…but some households will have to upgrade existing ariels at their own cost.”

I think they mean aerials. Or can we change our Persils and Surfs at the same time?

Update – bah, they’ve changed it on the site. Still, I thought it was funny

I’d just like to wave a quiet hello to whoever was the person yesterday who got the 9,000th page view.

I know it’s hardly a bigtime thing to notice (and probably shows I’m still at the juvenile stage of paying attention to logfiles/log analysis (which always sounded more like something a proctologist would do)) but all the same, this blog thing has only been going for three months, and prior to that there’d been a grand total of 2000 views in the prior four months. So – 7000ish page views in three months is something I’m really quite chuffed about. I suppose I must be doing somerthing right – although quite what, I have no idea.

Still, it’s fun. And roll on the 10,000th, probably in Nov sometime at the present rate.

Considering that they deal with incontinence products, should Tena really say that they’re “number one in the world” on their TV adverts?

Alabama 3 – Power in the Blood

Yes, a new album from Alabama 3. I can’t deny it, I love their stuff anyway, and at risk of being a geek, I’ve got all the released albums, plus a couple of limited release ones from the concerts. So knowing that a new album was on the way, I was in the shops to get it on the day of release.

Was it worth it? In a word, yes. The progression through the albums is interesting – the basic roots stay the same, but there’s still a progression. Power in the Blood is the 3rd full album, and it’s bloody good. Sticking it through a decent stereo system always helps, the bass clomps away in a fashion familiar to the other albums, and although there’s a touch more of the synth and techie side, it’s still far more based around proper instruments – never a bad thing…

A couple of the tracks are actually ones that they’ve played several times at concerts already, and it’s (in general) a real pleasure to hear them again, only this time done in the studio. BulletProof is a bit of a letdown – purely personal taste, but there we go, I prefer the version from gigs (and on one of the limited release Cds) to the album one.

Listening to the album has made me look forward to seeing them in concert again (on the 19th, if memory serves), and for me, that’ll do. It’s a good album – as with all the others, it’ll take time to localise onto favourite tracks and the like – Alabama 3 (they’re not from Alabama, and there’s a lot more than three of them) aren’t a singles band, they’re in it for the long haul, the album is the thing, and that’s what I love. Now, can we just have a new album in less than 12 month’s time?

Now this is a cool desk. Basically, a desk with a PC built into it. Very geeky, but all the same, definitely high on the “I want” list…

And this morning the real comedy value comes from seeing who forgot to turn their clocks back. Thankfully, most of my stuff now does it automatically, which is nice. *grin*

*Update* And yes, it looks like Blogger did it automagically as well…

Reveal you have a micropenis and get off scot-free on all charges. To face a life of ridicule after having your story published in the paper, and on the internet, linked to by as many cruel and nasty people as possible.

I’m sure everyone knows already now, but Peter of NakedBlog fame/infamy is now sitting at http://nakedblog.blogspot.com/ on a temporary basis while his current ISP gets the DDOS kicking of it’s life, and he heads of to pastures new and ISPs unDDOS’d.

Dumbledore kicks the bucket and Blogger gets hacked. What a day…

Although in fairness (and in reference to Tom’s point re Blogger) I should point out that in a way we do get an export of blogger – it’s the archives.

In another logfile moment, I’m amazed to say I’m 2nd (out of 2,180,000) in google for why you need to sleep?. Not bad – I’m sure it’ll change in time…

I’d also like to know who LookSmart are, and why every single search I get from them is for bangedup.com. I get two or three searches per day for it, from that site, and it’s always for www.bangedup.com or some derivative of it. Weird.

Nice to see that Enetation’s living up to it’s reputation, and is down again.

Sooner or later I’m going to sort out that comments system thing…

I’m just waiting for this to be protested about by the Society for Prevention of Abuse to Mimes. ( SPAM )

They’re a silent majority, apparently.

Thanks to Iain pointing out this story (well, actually the pic of the paratrooper looking slightly overweight, gay and blue) I couldn’t help spotting the pic on the left below, and wondering why Peter Kay was in Russia.

Ah, the joys of spam. I’ve finally received my own copy of the infamous nigerian scam. And thought I’d put it on the site, just for the sheer hell of it. I can’t believe people actually fall for this crap. But they do, time and time again.

Obviously the greed mode runs in the same space that logic mode normally occupies, and thus overwrites all common sense…

OK, I know I said I wouldn’t blether on about earth tremors etc., but it looks like I’m now living in an earthquake zone.

Cool.

Ah, thank you insomnia. I thought I’d got you kicked, but no, a full return to form. Laying awake last night, all night, brain racing at Mach 1, while the body screamed for sleep.

And God, it’s hit me hard. I haven’t been sleeping well for years, although this year has been worse than most. I’ve been on pretty much the minimum necessary sleep for months – but at least I’ve been getting the minimum.

But last night, zero, and it’s left me dead on my feet. The brain resembles nothing so much as toast at the moment. Not ideal, as I’m working with databases all day – something that at this stage really needs a brain that’s at least capable of stringing words together (and ideally SQL commands too) without a major “Huh?” in the middle of them.

Of course, now it’s getting later and the awkward bastard is doing better, waking up and generally coming alive. I think the body will get the better of it tonight, and I’ll sleep, but jesus it’s been a crap day.

The thing is, when I’m this low from lack of sleep, it hits my depression as well, and leaves me just completely wrecked. I feel like a failure for not being able to sleep, for failing in such a basic human task as going to sleep. It hits me hard, I can’t deny it.

But for now, well, I’m exhausted, I’m not going to write any more today, in fact, I’d said earlier to myself that I wouldn’t write anything at all today – so chalk that one up as a human failing too.

Other than that, I haven’t really been all that talkative today, because I’ve had a pounding headache.

Maybe it’s me, and my brain doesn’t work on the “drag and drop, click’n’drool” methods that Access uses, but oh boy, I fucking hate Access with a passion. Yeah yeah, sure, it’s supposedly a powerful tool and blah blah blah, but at the end of the day, it’s a keffing shed. I’d like to meet the person who developed it, and give them a swift kicking in a dark alley somewhere.

Actually, I’d like to mete out the same treatment to the numbnuts who created the Access shedbase I’m having to correct/update/fix at the moment.

So anyway, I’ve spent half the day trying to get the Access version of this shedbase (I like the word, so I’m going to keep on using it) with no joy at all. Hence the headache. I then moved onto the laptop, (which, distubingly, is more powerful and easier to use than the desktop PC provided by work) converted the entire database and tables over into MySQL, got it to do everything I wanted, and started on an ASP version of the database and it’s input forms etc., all in less than 90 minutes.

And that’s what seriously bugs me about Access (and many other bits of kit designed by the Beast of Redmond – while they’re supposed to be all cuddly and user-friendly, you can’t actually see what it’s doing. Try doing a simple command in Access and it decides it knows what you really want (no Spice Girls jokes, please). Do it in MySQL and it works perfectly first time.

And that’s the difference between a shit piece of software that gives me headaches, and a decent bit that leaves the headache alone.

Bollocks, I’m off to have an aspirin or two. Reyes Syndrome, here I come.

I despair. The BBC have this story about the fact that under 16s are now being advised not to take aspirin, because it may cause Reyes Syndrome.

OK, that sounds reasonable. If it can possibly cause Reyes Syndrome, then it’s a good piece of advice. I mean, loads of people must be becoming prone to it, surely?

Um – no. 1 to 2 cases per year. Not even 1 percent of 1 percent of the people who take it every year. Literally, a one in a million chance of picking it up. (Although, as Pratchett says, million to one chances come up 9 times out of ten) Not even that, actually. But no, it’s now being advised not to take it, on the grounds of 2 cases a year. Maybe it’s me, maybe I just don’t see the bigger picture or something.

At about 8.45 this morning, Manchester had a minor earthquake – nothing special, about 3 to 3.5 on the Richter scale, depending on who you believe/read. (The two aren’t always the same, after all) About four hours later, there were two very brief (less then 10 seconds apiece, probably closer to 5seconds each) aftershocks (Update : turns out they were extra quakes – but still, not that special), follow-on tremors, whatever you want to call them. Again, nothing special, maybe the same kind of level on the Richter, maybe a bit less.

So why has it been the major source of conversation today? Fair enough, I’m no doubt propagating it now, by writing about it at all – but it’s people’s reactions that have surprised me more than the events themselves. Maybe it’s just me, but I simply don’t see that type of thing as really all that much to write home about, let alone bang on about for the rest of the day.

Yeah, big deal, it’s kind of weird (well, for us in the UK anyway) to sit in a building and feel it move. I’m on the 8th floor of a tower, and feeling it sway afterwards was novel – nothing overly special, but novel. And after that we’ve had people belting on about how there should be someone wo should be in charge when we have an earthquake, (that’ll be a good job – one wobble per decade or so) that we should be warned when this sort of thing is going to happen, and various other things too retarded and cretinous to even bother storing in my own short-term memory.

Now, maybe it’s me that’s at fault, who should be all excited and so on about this – but I’m not. I don’t know why, it’s not like I’ve been involved in many myself, I just don’t see the point in wibbling on mindlessly about an event that wasn’t all that momentous anyway, and is in the past, stuff all anyone can do about it, and much the same for any similar event in the future. Therefore, what’s the point in giggling on about it?

I’ll shut up about it now too.

On a total tangent, has anyone else noticed that in the latest TV advert for the Tesco credit card (where they are on a trip to some stately home or other) the woman in the kiosk swipes the credit card the wrong way round?

(Conveniently keeping the card upright and right way up for the TV camera, but missing the swipe stripe totally)

Yes, I need to get out more. It’s true. I hang my head in shame for noticing such things – but hell, I thought it was funny.

xXx

I was going to see xXx (Or Triple X, whichever you prefer) on Thursday when it was doing previews, but decided that it wouldn’t be fair to anyone else (like me in another timezone, or Vicky) in the cinema – they might be used to crunching of popcorn etc., but the presence of a full-on snot factory might have proved distracting.

So it got left til today – finally, snot production has gone down a couple of gears, although the voice is still definite 0898 material. Sat in a nice big cinema with about 20 other people in a keffing huge screen – sounds good to me. Well, sounds good except for the bastard aircon/heating which rattled through the showing, but that’s a side point. If it’d been properly silent that would have been dead weird, so I should probably be thankful for some white-noise interference.

But anyway, the film. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. Then again, my brain was still wrapped up snug in bed, and didn’t have to do anything complex throughout the film. It strikes me as amusing that in the age of 12A certificates, we’re now treated to more gratuitous topless shots of Vin Diesel than we are of the female mebers of cast. not that I’m complaining, not one little bit, but I can see the Daily Mail ranting in a few years about “the constant homoerotic flow of film imagery that’s corrupting our children” or somesuch garbage.

Actually, for all it’s explosions, action, smart one-liners and so on, it’s very much comic-book stuff. The thing I personally find most offensive in it is Hollywood’s new anti-smoking ethos – from a media that glamourised smoking for many years, there’s now a holier than thou attitude and piety about the subject that reminds me of TV preachers caught cheating or embezzling. The underlying message of “guns, explosions and high speed cars are cool, but cigarettes kill you” leaves (pardon the pun) a bad taste in my mouth.

As expected from a film of this type, the storyline is really only there to try and string some setpieces together, but for all that it’s no more or less bollocksy than a Bond film, for example. The scripting between Cage and Gibbons (Diesel and Samuel L Jackson, reprising the same role he’s played in every film in the last decade) is snappy, smart, and occasionally quite fun. The czech accents waver between OK (Czech actors help (although having just checked, the main “czech” was born in New Zealand – go figure)) and utterly risible (American actors don’t), but that’s pretty much de rigeur from Hollywood. And the stuntwork, well, the stuntwork makes the film. Now if only we could get John Woo directing something like this instead of shit like Mission:Incomprehensible 2, we could have a fun film.

As a sheer no-brainer fun film to watch, I loved it. Very “james bond for 2002” in some ways, it tries to be more hip, more fun, louder, faster, you name it. Could the franchise last 20 films, 25 years, whatever? I very much doubt it. But I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts, along with the (already confirmed) sequel, imaginatively titled “xXx 2“. From there, just see how it goes.

On a cold day, when it’s pissing down with rain, and you’ve waited half an hour for a bus, with body temperature only just starting to come back into the realms of normality, there’s very little that’s nicer for the soul than toasted muffins with melting butter.

Unhealthy as hell, but man, what a pick-me-up.

The Queen of Morning Goods has spoken…

And, in a grand finale for the day, a quick flurry of links and things.

I’ve added another rant, following a weird day. There’s a couple of others in the pipeline today, but this one is the first for a while.

On a total tangent, the Guardian has a stunning interview with Donna Tartt today. I read Secret History, her first book, when it came out, and loved it. OK, I confess, it took me two attempts, because the first half moves with the speed of a turtle through molasses, but I went back to it, and loved it. Now I read it about once a year, and still enjoy it – it’s like meeting up with an old friend.
Now, ten years later, her second novel, The Little Friend is finally being published, hence the interview. And yes, it’s already fallen onto the wish list. *Grin* (That was a blatant plug, but fuck it, I can do it that way if I want)

Further to Green Fairy‘s post on this, I’ve been looking too at the 100 greatest Britons of all time and trying to knock it down to a list of ten. The problem is, I’m on 15 before I even get to the Ms. So instead, well, I’ve got three “top 10s”.

Even then, there’s plenty of others who deserve special mentions – in fact, I think the 100 is a much fairer list than the top 10, considering how many of the top 10 are from merely the last 50 years. Once you’re trying to narrow 100 down to 10 of the greatest, it’s very much a personal selection really, and thus makes it difficult for anyone to say definitively “Yes, I agree with that list.” Still, it’s good for discussion for the next six months or more…

And yes, in relation to a couple of comments, Enetation‘s comments system appears to be down. Again.

Their own site says “no sites or users should be affected by this” – guess a-fucking-gain. I’ve checked a couple of other sites that use enetation, and guess what, no comments there either. One of these days I’m going to put Perl/PHP on here (and pay the extra for it, of course – happiness) and just go with a comments system of my own.

You could use the word “cunts”, but that would be an entirely personal choice. Needless to say, my neighbours know exactly what I think of the comments system. Then again, they decided to share with me (at great volume) about her pregnancy too (mid argument, audible through the wall), so fairs fair, and in the land of the terraced house, info-sharing is king…

Update – ten minutes later
It’s a plot – a fucking plot, I tell you. As soon as I make that comment, Enetation comes back online and lo, I’ve got comments again. The power of the word “cunts” is beyond measure.

OK, so I’m probably a complete saddo, but I was looking through my referrers on the logfiles, and came across Zygo BM – I’m intrigued by who’s using it, and whether an online bookmarking system is any more use than simply using bookmarks on a browser?

Why is it that the more I hear about the reactions to the bombing in Bali the more I wonder whether America would do such a stunt in order to get more revulsion and anti-Al Qaida feeling in the world?

I’m too cynical, I know. But there’s just so much “get on board” type psychology coming out of the US about it, and “we told you so” – and I don’t quite believe it.

It’s probably going to be slow to download for a while, but definitely fun. Boeing’s new (flying) design for a stealth fighter. Definitely a fun toy to play with.

OK, even in times of health we seem to produce more than enough snot. But when we’re ill, when a cold or flu bug infects the system, the body runs riot, and the snot glands are at the forefront of the onslaught. I know the medical reasons, that it’s produced to block the routes of infection or somesuch garbage, but let’s face it, the cold virus is just a snot production line.

And what does it actually do? Other than being chemically/scientifically perverse, not a lot. It’s the only substance I can think of that goes from solid to liquid as it gets colder. Ever noticed that? The colder you are, the more the stuff flows. It’s bizarre.

As far as I can tell, it never turns to a gas, either. According to the theory of the paragraph above, if temperatures get cold enough, in theory snot should become gaseous. Only it doesn’t, it just stays the same. Fluid. Or in extreme cold, it goes back to being solid, and freezes the sinuses. (I haven’t experienced this, as I don’t do extreme cold if at all possible)

I’m only thinking all this because I’ve got a cold, and it’s horrid. It also effects some weird changes on human morality, which I can bear witness to, having sat on a bus full of people hawking, sniffing, squelching, sneezing, hacking and spitting snot. Mobile snot factories. Surely there’s got to be some grand use for this stuff – it’s an easily renewable source, after all…

“A new age in digital security and online identity verification” say the makers/floggers of this little device.

Pity we couldn’t have a new age of literacy, considering this quote “There has been some serious problems facing UK businesses, banks and the government and we wanted to do something about it,” he said. “There has been some”??? Fuck me dead, what a way to ruin the language.

“Static Password are Dead! (that’s from here on the quizid site) So are grammar, from the look of it.

Other than the problems I have with the spelling/grammar, I’m just not convinced by the entire concept. I worked in a place with a similar system to this about four or five years ago now, and the system was a nightmare. I can’t honestly see that it’ll be much better with this one.

I need to think about it a bit more, and then I’ll probably come up with better reasons why I’m not convinced of the security of this device.

Possibly the most annoying/addictive game of the day. My maximum is about 6000 so far. I’m sure I’ll go back and get better at it though…

Blah. I could say I feel much better this morning.

I’d be lying.

What a day. Woke up, coughed, threw up. Had a drink of water, coughed again, threw up again. Decided “Sod that”, went back to bed.

Yes, I’ve picked up this crap flu bug thing for sure, and I’ve spent as much of the day as possible doing naff all.

I’ve decided that daytime TV is garbage of the highest/lowest order, that Eyes Wide Shut is (in my opinion) shit, and that in conjunction with Clockwork Orange (as discussed in Naked Blog) and Full Metal Jacket, they’re pretty conclusive proof that Kubrick wasn’t the genius most people said he was. Sorry, but that’s my view and I’m sticking with it.

And what with that, catching up on Dalziel and Pascoe (I’d put a link there, but the BBC doesn’t see fit to do a website for it) from Monday, laughing at security problems with pretty much every VW car on Watchdog, writing letters in email, and other general aspects of that industry known as naffing about, I’ve done very little of consequence, and am now going to bed.

Goodnight. *cough*.

Truly excellent, if slightly elementary. Sherlock Holmes gets given an honorary fellowship from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Personally, I think it’s thoroughly fitting that a man (fictional or not) who dedicated his “life” to science in such a way should be honoured. I’d have liked to see two fellowships, one for Holmes, one for Conan Doyle himself, but I suppose that’s pushing it a bit.

And considering the bit I put here yesterday, it’s a pity we don’t have more like Holmes at the moment, who might be able to make sense without scapegoating.

What a complete load of old bollocks

I’ve just been watching the BBC News (in reality, not the website, for once), regarding the bomb in Bali. They’re saying it was made from C4 plastic explosive “which is a sign that it was made by Al Qaeda”. Absolute bollocks. C4’s been around for 20 odd years now, more of it’s been nicked from Army depots around the world than has actually been used. You can even buy it online. This lot are flogging it for £15 per Kg. That’s right – KG, not gramme, not pound, but a kilo of the stuff. For less than a DVD from HMV.

Doing a search on google for C4 comes up with just under 500 results – not all of them are relevant, but certainly enough are. Take the quotes off the search and you suddenly get 2500 results. It’s not hard to find the necessary information, it’s only slightly more difficult to find someone who’ll sell it. So what is it that limits it to only being Al Qaeda that could make a bomb from it?

Or (at risk of being heretical) are they just going to be the scapegoats for every bomb and incident that happens in the next few years?

Wow. This person is stunningly good at origami – but 2 hours for one member of samurai infantry made from folded paper? That’s more dedication/obsession than I possess. Still cool though.

In other news, I’m 8th in google for “Working hell” which is fun, and somewhere around 20th (can’t be arsed to count) for sexism dress code. As so many other people have observed about their own sites, it’s weird what drags people here.

*shrug*

Thankfully, I still don’t appear on Google for an expression that Peter thought would get me loads of grief.

Didn’t blog much (in fact, didn’t do much of anything) yesterday – I feel crap, and would like to welcome the common cold back into my life. Bastard.

It’s been going round the office for the last couple of weeks, and has finally chosen me for a home. Whoopee doo.

So I’m going to go in and try to pass it to someone else. Infantile, unproductive, but hey, that’s me.

Ah, the comedy of looking at estate agent’s websites. Flaming useless, most of ’em. My favourite this evening (so far) is :

Watching lunatics running the Chicago Marathon on TV, I’m left completely in awe of the idiots athletes running it. Seeing Paula Radcliffe take a full 90 seconds off the world record time is a simply stunning achievement, and more and more I think she’s a stunning athlete.

But all the same, it leaves me with one question. Running marathons – WHY?

An apology beforehand for the use of the naughty word in the image below. All I can say is that I didn’t photoshop it on there – someone else may have, but a friend sent it in email to me, and I laughed. So I thought it was only fair to share. As for anyone it offends, well, sorry, but that’s the joys of a personal site….

On a total tangent to everything else, I found this really interesting – a scheme in the US to “jam” camcorders in cinemas, so they can’t be used to pirate films.

Personally, I’d still rather see jammers for mobile phones in cinemas – One local one has installed them, and it’s great. Now if only we can silence popcorn, and stop people talking to their mates during a film, then the world will be a happier place.

In totally unrelated (and more than slightly bobble-hatted) news, I’m amazed to observe that this site had it’s 100,000th hit yesterday. Now, I know, I know, hits are no longer the thing to go by, now it’s all page views and visitors (which is fair enough) but the page views are only just hitting the 10,000 mark, so that’s not quite as impressive. But all the same, I’m quite bizarrely pleased with that number. And I’m exceptionally pleased I don’t have to pay for bandwidth, as that figure would just make me want to cry.

And yes, I know this week I haven’t been adding all that much to this, nor any other pages to the site – I’ve been swamped with other stuff, one way and another, and well, I’m just not that efficient. Things should be back to normal after the weekend. I think/hope.

I have a theory – I believe conspiracy theorists are taking over the world. This person (Link via Elayne) is a grand high conspiracy theorist – I believe he/she is at level 15 or above. Truly impressive.

And in desperate need of finding a door in the theory so they can get out more…

I’m sure more blogs will comment on this before long, but what the hell, I’m still going to. The BBC News site has a story about the new film of the Magic Roundabout.

Robbie Williams as the voice of Dougal?
Kylie as Florence?
CGI Animation rather than “proper” puppetry & stop motion?
It’s either going to be superb or abysmal. I suspect there’s no middle ground – a total love or loathe moment.

Although I do like the idea of Richard O’Brien as Zebedee and Joanna Lumley as Ermintrude. Jim Broadbent as Brian the Snail could be fun too. It seems a pity that Emma Thompson wasn’t picked to do one of the voices, as it was her father, Eric, who voiced the originals. Still, that’s showbiz.

Now – who’s going to do the voice of Dylan?…

Looking through the joys of logfiles, I just spotted this search request – squrrel with weird bass line. I’m first in Google for it. Unsurprisingly. (On a minor tangent, I only come in the top 30 when it’s spelled correctly)

What really gets me is the spelling mistake though – I hadn’t even realised I’d made a mistake like that, and it’s taken Google to point it out. Well, Google and someone else with piss-poor spelling/typing. How bizarre.

So much for common sense day, eh? Ah well, that’s not for another 3 weeks or so. And there’s only 10 weeks of 2002 left – I spotted it when I looked at my diary earlier. Where’s the year gone?

Welcome back little phone line. You’ve been sorely missed.

Yes, it has to be done. Via Graybo (and originally Meg) :

What can I say? Nov 5th is as good a day as any. And I’ll be 31 then too, so what the hell – time for some common sense.

On a complete tangent, and mainly because I laughed (that, and no-one else I read has mentioned it) – Pete Waterman reckons Kylie Minogue’s “I should be so lucky” is based on Pachelbel’s Canon?

That man seriously needs to get out more. Or shut his mouth more often. Or something.

Oh, and BT still haven’t fixed the phone lines.

It’ll now “definitely” be tomorrow. “Or maybe Thursday. I’m sure it’ll be done by the end of the week. Yeah, should be Wednesday. Unless they get something more important to do (I assume ‘something important’ could be things like a satellite dish getting birdshit on it in Outer Mongolia or something) it’ll be done tomorrow. Definitely. Well, probably…..”

Don’t you just love companies that give definitive answers?

Sorry about yesterday. Just one of those days. Anyway, today’s been slightly more fun, and having seen it on good old Channel 4 news, I’ve decided I absolutely have to go and see the new installation at Tate Modern. The new installation hasn’t been listed on their site yet, *The link is now here. Sorry, but the site didn’t work properly in Opera. As per.* but I saw it on the news, and it’s awesome – filling the Turbine building completely. I’ll bung a link on here as soon as I find one – but I want to go and see it, because I don’t think pics will ever conjure up the image properly. It’s one that has to be seen to be believed.

I don’t even know why it’s made me think “I have to see that” as much as it has, but it’s an absolute definite on the go-see front. But it has, so I’ll see it. Not straight away – probably end of Nov, or somewhere around there. Sounds like a plan to me.

Poo. Soft Cell tour postponed while Marc Almond recovers from some nasty hernia type thing. Get well soon, Marc. Guess I’d best store that ticket in a safe place.

God, I hate days like today.

I seem to have spent the entire of it so far chasing up people who either can’t be arsed, or are too disorganised to do what they say they will. And I’m sorry, dear readers, but that pisses me off.It’s what used to be known as a “pet peeve” or a “bugbear” – now it just “does my fucking head in”. I’m not sure if I’m simply naive, or that I just expect too much from people, but I expect that when someone says “I will….” in the context of doing something (I will call you back, I will let you know, that kind of thing) that they will do that. Is that too much to ask?

Obviously it is.

First of all, the BT saga. As you may or may not know (depends if you’ve been a regular reader) last Thursday one of the houses in the street behind me went up in flames, which coincidentally keffed my phone line (and those of the rest of the street) by melting the main overhead line. So the entire street has little to no phone service. (On a tangent, I have no idea why my ADSL line still works, although it does drop the connection if a pigeon farts nearby) The fault with the line was reported to BT by 9pm on Thursday. Not just by me, but by plenty of people.

On Friday, we were promised it would be fixed on Saturday. On Sunday I was promised I would be called back by the gimps in fault-fixing/reporting. Come today I call again (no phone service goes piss me off – sad, but true) and “It doesn’t appear to have been authorised for repair yet. I’m not sure why. I don’t think they’ve got enough cable. (This is in the middle of a city. It’s not like I’m miles from anywhere – we’re talking about a maximum of 50m of cable needed)Yes, I’ll call you back when I know more. I’ll call the engineers now, and let you know within 2 hours what’s going on”. Five hours later I call back – “Oh, we’re still not sure what’s happening. It won’t be fixed today, that’s definite. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely by the end of the week.” Stunning levels of service. The really grim bit is that, shit as they are, BT are the best telecoms company I’ve dealt with. NTL are mind-bogglingly crap and don’t even have their payments system sorted out yet. Telewest are supposedly OK, but don’t cover where I live. As for the rest, they’re just as bad, in my experience.

Thing is, it wasn’t just the one company that were a bag of shite today. I’m just starting a new contract, dropped on me at pretty short notice, and the agency I deal with still haven’t figured out what hourly rate they’re going to ask the client for. I’ve been chasing that all day too, with accompanying “I’ll call you back within the hour, just let me speak to them” promises from the agency. Needless to say, they still haven’t called.

I hate days like today. So I’m going to go off, cook something nice while upsetting the neighbours a bit by playing (fairly loudly, although not at eardrum bursting volume) Saturday’s Radio 1 Essential Mix by one of the modern music god Djs, John Digweed from Bedrock. No, not the Flintstone’s Bedrock. I’ll write more later.

Maybe.

Not really a busy day today, mainly domestic stuff, doing some thinking (most unnatural for a Sunday, but such is life), and adding some stuff to the about me page on this site.

And that’s about it – words, pics, and thinking. I’ll probably bung more on later in the week. But a quiet day, and not much to say. So I won’t say anything.

Happiness – my first pic goes into the mirror project. Not bad for a first attempt – I’m sure there’ll be more. In fact, I’ve got a couple of ideas already…

Other than that little lot, not much happening. I’m 31 in a months time *sob* Yes, November 5th, and I’m another year older. (And seeing Pink in concert, but that’s a different matter).

But because I’m supposed to be getting more sensible (I’ve just had to retype that three times – if I can’t even spell it, what chance have I got of being it?) I thought “I’ll list some stuff through Amazon for people to see”. So I have. If it goes the way of all other concepts like that, I’ll get absolutely keff all from it, or buy the stuff myself. But it might be useful to remind me on that score too. We’ll see.

Other than that, I’ve been reading Anna’s stories of her return to the mainland from her island. Good to see her back online.

Morcheeba – Manchester Apollo

Yes, another gig. People told me I need to get out more, so that’s what I’m doing. I also found out that digital cameras really don’t like gig conditions, and they tend to be all wobbly and not happy. Of course, maybe I should read the instructions, but that’s no fun.

It was the last night of the tour, so obviously Morcheeba were in party mood too – and it showed. Tons of energy, and they were visibly having a good time. Can I book my ticket for the next tour now, please?

And now of course, I’m awake. And have been since 7am. Joy. Happiness.

However, Fark has a lot of people who’ve been playing with Wil Wheaton images (I can’t be a proper techie, I had no idea who he was til I looked on his own site) Thankfully, the images are quite fun even without knowing he was on Star-Trek. (Oh shit, sorry, Star Trek : TNG for the picky ones) Don’t try the page if you’re on 56k modem though – it’ll take forever. (The page is about 3Mb, according to Opera)

I hate my body-clock. But I’m sure it hates me too.

All week I’ve not been to bed before 1am, and not got to sleep before about 3. So now, on Friday, I’m shattered, and want to go to bed now. Which I’m going to do. Pathetic, isn’t it?

To join in with Meg, Mo, Graybo and Vaughan’s plea…..

SEND IN THE NUNS!

And yes, each word has a different link/picture on it… (Thanks Google)

Truly bizarre, and almost quite sick. The LifeGem – a diamond formed from your loved one’s ashes. I hope it’s a joke site, I fear that it’s not…

I’ve been looking around at other blogs, (and also in reference to one of Vicky’s posts from a while back) and looking at how the pages are put together. Lots seem to use CSS tables now – and yes, while they’re very convenient, and fairly easy to do, I must admit that I’m obviously an old git, and still stick with tables for this site.

In many ways I suppose it’s odd to keep using them, but when I started with HTML, the only design/development tool around was Notepad, so I’m used to hand-coding things now – OK, I mainly use DreamWeaver now, I got dracked towards it kicking and screaming, but I do tend to use it for a lot of things, but still, when it comes to sorting out problems, out comes the trusty TextPad. But I still use tables. If I put borders round every table on here, it’d look like crazy paving, but for me they work. All the CSS tabled sites look similar, which isn’t something I’m particularly into. Let’s face it, good old d4d looks keff all like anything else, and that’s the way I like it. Even with the eyeball burning yellow.

So I think I’ll stay with the tables now (even though they’re a pig to sort out on occasion), and maybe play with CSS tables, see whether I can use them and not look like every other CSS-tabled site in Christendom.

Why did I start writing this? Oh yeah – because my project for the weekend (which hopefully won’t take too long) is to sort out all the 404 Page Errors I get in the log files where DreamWeaver’s keffed up the image references. It’s nothing overly important, because it all still seems to render nicely, but it’ll be nice to get rid of the errors all the same. So that’s the project for the weekend, when I’m not doing things like seeing Morcheeba gigs. Not that I’m looking forward to it, or anything. *grin*

And on a totally different note, SwishCottage has a beautifully written piece about life, as he remembers the anniversary of his family moving to South Africa 30 years ago yesterday. Well worth a read.

First of all, I promise not to do this too often – it’s WAY too tedious normally to write this kind of thing, and the tale will be massively abbreviated. So bear with me.

I had the weirdest dream last night. (Stick with it, I said. I can’t stand people who write about every dream, but thankfully I don’t remember mine all that often. The problem is I dream in something called “hyper-reality”, where in general I can’t tell the difference between real and dream when I try to remember them afterwards. ) I honestly have no idea about the origins of it, or even where most of it was going, but it ended with me in an office being told by a female voice “Come on, hurry up, there’s three blogs need to be writted today“. And that’s where my conscious mind caught up and went “Eh? What? WRITTED?“.

Now I have no idea if this was my subconscious having a laugh, or it’s portraying a speech mistake for a reason, or if my subconscious is just a wee bit dyslexic. But it’s stayed with me enough to write about it this morning. Go figure.

Other than the visitation listed below, it’s been a kind of weird evening. I got no closer to sorting out the HTML on here, although I really must do it fixed the problems (or it looks like I have – all comments on this gratefully received). The house across the back alley from me got burnt out – thankfully no-one was in it, but it appears that the excessive heat has done something weird to the phone lines – my phone line is dead, yet the ADSL connection’s still there. *Shrug* The general theory is that the fire was caused by little bastards with fireworks, but I don’t know – only saw it when it was already going.

Actually, I maybe need to get out more – that was the closest I’ve been to a house fire, and I’m actually quite amazed by the speed and ferocity of it – I could feel the heat of it through closed windows, which seemed quite impressive. Also, the extension type thing that most of the fire started in had a felt roof, and I was totally amazed by the speed and intensity of the flames through that too. I suppose I shouldn’t be, as it’s all flammable bitumen etc., but all the same, it did surprise me.

But thankfully no-one was hurt, none of the other properties were in danger, and all is well. And that’s it. Not much to say for an evening really, is it?

It had to happen, I suppose

In my online webstat today – I spotted that I’ve been visited by The Beast of Redmond.

In the meantime, I’ve just laughed myself silly at this story of a fairly important ooops by the BBCs Home Front programme. Watch the prog on Oct 10th to see what they did, and read The Grauniad (and any other paper, I’m sure) for any more news on the planning problems.

For anyone who got wet last night while waiting for a bus because there was no shelter, the BBC is reporting a shelter with no bus route. And also yet more weirdness with quantum cryptography. (Quantum cryptography in this case not meaning “well, we might have cracked the code or we might not – that depends on the result“). In a Green Fairy-esque moment, there’s also a story that teenage girls are most at risk of sexually transmitted diseases. In fairness, I’d have thought that the boys were pretty prone too – just because they don’t go to the doctors (18 boys were involved in the study, as opposed to 144 girls), doesn’t mean they’re not carrying. In fact, I did think that chlamydia in particular was carried by the boys, but that could just be me being wrong. It’s not unknown, after all.

And finally, in the surreal world, a symphony of mobile phone ringtones has been performed. And that’s the roundup for now – more later.

Ah, the joys of keffed comments systems. It’s up the spout again, and returning errors on me all over the place. Piece of Shite. Of course, as soon as I posted that, the comments system came back online. Maybe I should be snotty about it on a daily basis, just to keep it up and running

Also, yes, I’m going to be working on sorting out the alignment problems of the graphics on this page. It’s weird, IE has a problem (and it’s only on this page) so I’m kind of thinking it’s something Blogger itself has added into the page (process of elimination, if nothing else) and so does Nutscrape, but Opera sits there, shurgs, and renders it all fine. So I’ll go through the code for it tonight, probably.

Obviously, if I succeed then the results will be immediately visible. If not, well, they won’t. We’ll see. But that’s my job for tonight, anyway.

Howard Marks at The Lowry

I’ve been a fan of Howard Marks (AKA Mr Nice) for a fair few years now, and read his autobiography, “Mr Nice” several times, so it was always going to be on the list of appearances to see, so off we went to see it/him.

And well worth it too. On a minor tangent, The Quays Theatre is a really nice little venue, with fairly comfortable (if exceptionally orange) seating, and what looked like good views from all seats. The show itself was an odd combination of talk, reading, comedy, video bits, and even a couple of musical bits. (As in “woman with guitar performs song”, not “hits from oklahoma”) In different parts it was funny, informative, slightly political, but generally just bloody entertaining. Slightly messed up only by the woman with a laugh like a spatchcocked squirrel, but she managed to annoy pretty much the entire audience by the end, so there we go.

But well worth a night’s entertainment. The tour page lists the dates and venues. Catch him if you can. The police couldn’t, for years.

I will write about the Howards Marks gig/concert/live appearance I was at tonight, that I’ve just got home from. But later, when I’ve had some sleep.

Sorry

And on yet another total tangent, this story from Kodak is really interesting. Well, it interested me, anyway. Basically, it’s about the way photos get transmitted and displayed when using mobile phones etc. to do the picture taking/transmitting. Slightly techy, but interesting stuff.

Nice to see the US showing their inherent racism and paranoia again.

My favourite quote in the story is “The system would require ‘non-immigrant visitors’ from countries deemed to be of highest terrorism risk to register with the US Government and be photographed and fingerprinted. “. Now, considering my earlier post re thieving bloody postmen, it’s not going to be difficult to get (for example) a UK passport for someone, or even a US visa or similar, and lo, the golden gates of US Immigration swing wide open. That’s how I’d do it anyway.

And just where is the wisdom in telling people how the new system works?
<George W Bush>
“Those goddamn Eye-rak-ees won’t know how to read websites or news stories – thay’re all too busy buildin’ bio-weapons”
</George W Bush>

“Most problems occur when mail is delivered to the wrong house by mistake.“ – a huge amount of the rest goes due to dodgy fucking postmen nicking stuff.

I’ve lived in enough places (and oh boy, have I lived in enough) to know it’s a national problem – there’s a fair number of people who work in the Post Office who are thieving gits. I’ve lost passports (along with all relevant ID including Birth Certificates – it all turned up at Amsterdam Airport in the property of a Nigerian person), cards, paperwork of various varieties, bills, had cheques and postal orders go missing, and not once does Royal Mail accept responsibility.

If another company did a similar level of service without the thieving bastards, I’d go there in an instant.

I wish I were into mainstream things, like TV soap operas and football. Instead I end up finding myself watching things about house renovation projects on Channel 4, followed by documentaries on narcolepsy. Never before have I felt so pleased to have insomnia instead of the opposite.

Anyway, while waiting for the one on Channel 4 to start, I did a quick surf of the soaps, and found that they’re actually quite fun to watch if you turn the sound off, and then make up your own stories, to pretty much go with what they’re saying, and the shots etc. at the time.

Am I the only person who does this?

Sometimes, working environments just amaze me.

At the moment I’m working on a normal sized desk, but the actual free space on it is maybe (if I try really really hard) 2 square feet. I don’t know how people can permanently work in such an environment – but here there’s just so much shit and extra paperwork that they obviously can’t be arsed to sort out properly, and I know it would utterly do my head in to work in such a space for anything more than a few days.

Still, it’s only a few days, so I won’t complain too much. If I can be bothered, I might stick up a photo of it tomorrow (if I bring in the camera)

I also forgot to say, the inside of the mouse is disgusting!

Yuck. I’m as guilty of gunge in the keyboard as the next person (the first laptop was a prime victim of it, I have to say) but all the same, yuck. As for ATMs and the stuff on them, even more Yuck.

I feel quite ill now.

Another day, another dollar/pound/yen/whatever.

Well, yesterday ended up with a weird combination (enough so that the guy in HMV looked at me in a confused fashion) of the new Soft Cell album, and Blade2 on DVD. Not quite a standard combination of purchases, I assume.

The Soft Cell album is great – definitely a good purchase, and one that will be listened to again and again. Haven’t decided on favourite track or anything yet, but I’m sure I will.

As for Blade2, well, I definitely love the film. It’s odd in a way – very similar to Alien vs Aliens, asequel that keeps the main idea, but runs with it in an utterly different direction. It’s not really all that possible to compare the two films because of this – they’re both great, but for different reasons. I haven’t waded my way through the second disc yet, with deleted/alternative scenes etc., but I’ll report more as I do wade through it. (Probably tonight)

Other than that, not much news for the moment today. So I’ll naff off, and look like I’m doing something at work for once…

Big shock. Some streets/areas in the UK are filthy. Hardly a “stop the presses” type revelation. (On a complete tangent, do the web news services now shout “stop the servers!” when a really important news story comes along?)

I do, however, think that this final paragraph – “As a result of the survey, the government has created a new Performance Indicator so that every council taxpayer knows whether their local authority is up to scratch when it comes to cleaning their patch. ” is hilarious – as if the people who pay the keffing council tax won’t already know whether their area/district/council/whatever is up to scratch.

Road to Perdition
Wow. I’m hugely impressed with this film, and even though obviously a review (or whatever the hell it is that this forms) is a personal perspective on it, well, I think it’s just stunning. And I’m trying to write this without too many superlatives in it, but it’s still a stunner of a film.

I loved American Beauty, so the decision to see the next one by the same director was always going to be a no-brainer. I’m not a fan of Tom Hanks in any way at all, yet even his presence is impressive in this film, even though to my mind Paul Newman steals every single scene he’s in.

On the technical side, the film is simply stunning. There were several scenes where I found myself thinking “how the hell did they light that in such a way?” – there’s no doubt, Genius was at work in this film. The lighting, the way the scenes are shot, the script, and the direction, all of it comes together to make something truly impressive. Even the story – which has plenty of opportunitys to turn into epic Hollywood vomit-inducing schmaltz works really well.

It’s odd, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a film where I’ve thought simply “wow” at the way it’s done, but that’s now two films this week that have made me think that. Both Insomnia and Road to Perdition are truly impressive, and both by British directors. I wonder if there’s some kind of corrollary there, about the way Brits shoot films as opposed to how Americans do it?

Anyway, the film is fantastic. Go see it.

God,it’s now the period for gigs, shows and other stuff, so this will probably become Review Central as well as everything else. I’m going to see Road to Perdition this afternoon, then seeing

• Howard Marks on Wednesday
• Morcheeba on Saturday

and then, in no particular order :

• David Gray
• Soft Cell (with luck)
• Pink
• Firework displays for my birthday
• Alabama 3
• Nina Simone (ooops – knew I’d forgotten one, thanks H)
• several others I can’t remember just now

So it’s going to be a fun time, that’s for sure.

On a complete tangent, why is it that when there’s a narrow piece of path or whatever, there’s always – but always – a pair of cretins who’ve decided to stop right there and have a conversation, reminiscing over the last 50 years or whatever?

And why is it that even when you ask them in a fairly civil manner to “Excuse me please” (I think the “you shithead” at the end must have been implicit, even if silent) you get given a filthy glare, as though it’s you who’s in the wrong for even speaking to the idiots with prams, pushchairs, shopping trolleys or whatever else is sitting around them in the pathway to freedom?

Yes, I’ve edited that last sentence. Peter was right, it wasn’t fair to limit it to older people. My bad phrasing claims another victim.

Further to Green Fairy and Elayne’s comments (and partly due to the fact this comment system doesn’t appear to like HTML) buggies is only a euphemism (to my knowledge) for pushchairs (child carrying devices). and the triangular ones are similar to the image on the left.

OK, it’s come from a variety of sources, but this optical illusion has just made my head hurt totally.

And yes, I am a total sad object, and checked it in Photoshop.

It’s Links time, I think

First, mainly for sheer humour and caffeine addicts everywhere, I bring you OpenCola including a recipe. (The link dies on Oct 31st, apparently).

Then there’s the person who’s made a tiny PC/monitor combination – cute and fun.

On SlashDot there’s this story about eye-scanning devices to identify regular fliers in Canadian airports. Minority Report comes one step closer…

And my laptop has some serious competition now from this Sony one should I decide to upgrade at any point soonish. Then again, I’ve only had the Libretto a year… I need to get out more, I think.

God, what a laugh. Supposedly Edwina Currie was boffing John Major for four years. Excuse me while I vomit at that image.

And frankly, who cares? Is it news? Only because it’s just been published as part of her diaries. Is it history, and not worth worrying about? Hell, yes. Is it a set of vile images, particularly unsuitable for earlyish on a Saturday Morning? Oh my god, yes, yes, yes. See, the imagery has even translated into my words now. *shudder*

So basically, it’s a complete non-story, all the involved people know about it already, and it’s all dead and gone, just hype for la Currie’s diaries, to try and make more people read them. Do I want to know if it’s got more details? No. Do I care? No, not really. Will other people? Pass. But somehow I doubt it, yet I guarantee it’ll be on all the news programmes, and probably headlines on Sunday papers, and/or Monday ones. The world’s bizarre sometimes.

A very quiet day today – not much happening at all.

In fact, I spent most of it in a sweltering office, sweating like a paedophile in a playground. It’s the one thing I would consider having plastic surgery (or cosmetic surgery, whatever the hell it’s called) to sort out – simply cutting the nerves to my sweat glands. It’s horrible and I hate it – but the only reason I won’t do the surgery is that there’s some risk of also losing the nerve cluster that goes to your arm – and that’s not worth the price, to be honest.

I think the post-delivering person must have hated me today. Not just two loads of stuff from Open University, but also two (different) sets of info I’d asked for from MenCap about their fundraising events including sponsored treks in Japan and New Zealand, and a cycle ride in China. All of which appeal, but require a large amount of finger-out-ness. Oh, and a letter from a friend in Cambridge, and another one from Australia. Snailmail can be a wonderful thing, in the right hands.

Of course, everything coming at once does rather make you/me wonder if they’re not hording it at the Post Office ’til it’s worth the effort of delivering, but that’s just paranoid.

It’s been brought to my attention that there are some things that just make you go “I want one”, and several of them end up getting put on here.

And in that tradition, I bring you – the ultimate workstation. From those nice (if slightly odd) people at Poetic Technologies.

Do you ever get the feeling that some people really need to get out more? Mind you, it’s a stunning story (and pic to go with it)

Oh, and if anyone’s interested, I got a call this afternoon and didn’t get the job I interviewed for. Second out of two interviewees. I knew it was a sod-up of a day. *sigh* Hey Ho.

Right, following on from Gert’s post and NakedBlog, my dinner list is now here on my site. I put it on the site because it’s a big page, and I couldn’t be arsed to curse Blogger with it. Enjoy.

Oh, and if you feel the need to comment on it, do it here, because there aren’t any comments on the individual page. So there.

Added to, thanks to Vicky’s comment
And then just to brighten my mood, I went to le site du Bird avec Vodka, who’s normally got something fun to say. And she’s got this link to “talent” from the new McCrossroads soap on BBC Scotland, “River City”. And he reminds me of no-one more than a member of the Mcgann clan (ooh – nice rhyme). You decide…

I think that says enough…

I tell you, there are some days that you just KNOW are going to be shot to shit. Today’s one of them.

Leave for the interview with 2 hours to get there – dead easy – it’s only a 10 minute bus ride and then a 20 minute train journey. Piece of Piss. I could get there by pushbike in 2 hours.

And it turns out that’s exactly what I should have done. The train I was on broke down just outside the station – well, more accurately still at the station, because the doors of my carriage were still on the platform, which just added to the farcical nature of what followed…

Train breaks down at 8.50. I’m supposed to be at the interview for 9.30, so it’s not too traumatic just yet, they’ll fix it, or transfer us to the next train (the service seems to run about every ten minutes) or even just replace the engine. Simple, no? Not exactly rocket science.

Except for the little quirk that they won’t let anyone off the train, because it’s not fully at the platform. Some fuckwit might try to get out the wrong doors and fall to the track and hurt themselves. “Natural Selection and Darwin Awards” says I. So we sit for 40 fucking minutes while they decide what to do. By now I’ve called the people I’m seeing, explained (in no uncertain terms, but not quite as pithily as here) that the train company, and particularly the employees on this train, are epic fuckwits of the sort that get teased by amoeba for being thick. And that I’m going to be late for the interview.

Eventually I persuade the train chimp to let me off, because I’m at a door with platform under it, and not going to fall or hurt myself, (although I may consider hurting the chimp) so let me the fuck out so I can get a taxi the 8 miles to my interview. It’s now 9.40. I have that look of homicide in my eyes, gauging the range to the train chimp’s throat. So they let me off. Fifteen minutes later I’m where I was supposed to be 25 minutes earlier, I’m £15 worse off, and I get into the interview.

Which actually went pretty well, I think. So we’ll see what happens, and wait for feedback. Fingers crossed anyway.

The train ride back was pretty uneventful too, except for the grinding of locked on brakes on one axle, and the smell of smoke throughout the journey. Could’ve done with that posse of nuns from last week. So now I’ve just got to see what’s next in the Day of Shit. Oh, and write a stormingly shitty letter to the train company, who seem to run a better service when they’re on strike.

Nice to see the Church of Scientologists are being arseholes again. (Lets see them piss and moan about this site *grin*)

Other than that, I’m off to an interview this morning, which should be fun. But as I’ve said before, I really really hate wearing ties. What’s the point? But still I’ll wear one, go in, look like I know what I’m talking about, and see how it goes. With luck, that’ll be the last time I have to wear a tie in a while. I hate them all, those keffing useless lengths of material with no purpose except to tie a knot in them.

*shake of head* Ah well, I’ll write more later. Along with (probably) more mutterings about ties and how pointless they are.

One other thing about going to the cinema – why do so many people have a problem with going on their own?

Even the people flogging the tickets seem to be a bit surprised when you just want one ticket to see a film, and I’ve spoken to several people who are really weird about not wanting to go on their own because they’ll look “sad and lonely”. Maybe that is how i look, but to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t give a fuck. I’m watching a film I want to see, and that’s it really.

Now, if only I could get more people to go on their own, so they wouldn’t chat with their mates all the way through the film. And maybe nachos and popcorn with built-in silencers.

Yes folks, it’s Review Time

I finally got round to seeing Insomnia tonight. I love Memento anyway – it’s a film that you people either love or loathe, and me, I think it’s superb – and so I wanted to see how the director followed it up.

And what a follow-up. Al Pacino and Robin Williams against the absolutely awesome backdrop of Alaskan scenery. It could almost have been sponsored by the Alaskan Tourist Board (if there is such a thing) for the way it showed the bits of Alaska. Set in the wonderfully named Nightmute, it’s a story of a murder and the detective who comes to help solve it.

I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else who still hasn’t got round to watching it, but to my mind, it was amazing. I’m already looking forward to it coming out on DVD, even though the sheer scale of the landscapes etc. will be lost to some degree on the small screen. But I definitely want to see it again, and probably several times, just for the hell of it.

Additional bit, having thought about it
I should say also that if you’re one of those freaks that likes a smiley happy-clappy ending to a film, then this is NOT a film for you. The ending is right for the film, but it doesn’t suddenly change it’s mood in the last five minutes to be all upbeat and shit. Be warned.

Definitely a top film, in my humble estimations.

Why is it that Diet Coke from different countries tastes different? The shop I go to at lunch time has diet coke from Germany (don’t ask why – I don’t) and it’s totally different (and really rather vile) in comparison to UK Diet Coke. Weird.

Thanks BBC for this story about what’s in coffee?

I’m going to see Insomnia tonight, at long last, so I’ll bung a review of it up here when I get home.

And that’s it – it’s a slow news day, or at least seems to be. Have fun…

Sometimes you just have to laugh at people’s gullibility. It’s either that or beat them to death with a big stick. The Register (and several others) are reporting this story of a woman who fell for the infamous “Nigerian Scam”, to the tune of $2.1m. Of her employers money. Ooops.

Yes, Davezilla has the link too, but I thought I’d still put MintyAss up here for people to shudder at in abject horror. The worrying thing is, I don’t even think it’s a joke. But I could be wrong.

It’s not unknown, after all…

Well, that’s about the most domestic I’ve been in a month or so. Shopping, Laundry, Ironing, Cooking, Cleaning – I even cleaned up some of my desk, and that’s a job I wouldn’t volunteer anyone else to do either.

Other than that, I’ve moved some of my plants to new pots, following the mass suicide of a few weeks back. What can I say? There were some vacancies. *Grin* The rubber plant is looking dead happy, the ivy’s kind of OK, but may need some more work, and the bamboo-like thing is still going ballistic – I may move that to a decently big pot next week. And yes, this does mean that next weekend (or one evening this week, depending how I feel) I’ll be off to B&Q or similar to rebuild my collection of weeds. So that’ll be fun – I may even take pics of them when I’ve bought them. Who knows?

Oh – and yes, I did feel the earthquake because I was still awake at the time. I know 4.6 isn’t much in the great scheme of things, and Californians probably wouldn’t even notice it, but here in the UK, yeah, I did notice it.

Ah joy, it’s obviously a domestic day chez moi today. The washing machine’s on the go (I still love having one, after years of going to laundrettes etc., although I do miss hearing the local gossip as much), the shopping’s been done (and Christ I hate shopping, but it’s not too bad first thing in the morning (well, 10am on a Sunday) when most of the gimps are still asleep.

One of the big changes in my life once I’m driving (yeah, I know, I know, 30 and still not passed the test – hey ho) is that I’ll shop in the 24hour supermarkets, and do it at the most antisocial times (Insomnia has it’s good points, you just have to work to find them) so I don’t have to deal with crowds of cretins and their screaming bastard brats. *Takes a deep breath and calms down again*

And now I feel more relaxed, as my fridge is filled (god, I’m sad sometimes) so I’m going to read the paper, and vegetate a bit before doing other domestic stuff like hoovering and cooking. Maybe even have some breakfast. Now there’s a thought….

Relating to one of my own earlier (and very short) additions to this blog, and also to Gert‘s comment, I’m glad that these two have been jailed, him for 12 years, her for 10. Of course, with our wonderful jail system, they’ll both be out within 5 years – and she’ll still be of breedable age. She’s only 20, so there’s plenty more opportunity for her to do the same again.

I’m sorry, but when I read paragraphs like “It took two hours for pathologist Dr David Rouse to list all 64 of Ainlee’s injuries – which included 10 cigarette burns and scalded feet where she had been made to stand in hot water. ” I start thinking that maybe people who do this should have their reproductive organs removed as part of the punishment. I’m sure that’s inhumane, but fuck that, so was what they did to their own child.

I’m going to paraphrase from the BBC story, because the paragraphs (well, more accurately the content of them) infuriate me.

[She] had been cautioned by police in 1999 after neglecting another child…
By 2001 the social services file was closed on the family because [the parents] refused to co-operate…
two home visits by doctors had been made under police escort…
But there was no evidence of any ill-treatment towards the child up to the point when she was last seen in August 2001…
[The Head of Newham Social Services] added: “When you have families who are deliberately setting out to deceive you and manipulate the situation, unless you concentrate on the child, it is very difficult to protect the child and sadly we did not maintain these standards in this case.”

The other thing that really gets to me is this sentence : “The couple’s other two children are now in the care of Newham social services.“. So why did they pick on their third child? And the other children are now in the “care” of the same Social Services section that didn’t spot a child with 64 injuries. The same social services that “failed to protect” (by their own admission).

And this story got pretty much missed, as expected by Gert, because of Yasser Fucking Arafat, Milly Dowder, a countryside march, and rumty-tumty other things. I’m not going to link to them individually, but hell, if you want to read all that crap go read the news.

Yes, it’s Sunday, and yes (in reference to Green Fairy‘s comment yesterday, it’s not even half past seven and I’m awake.

Gee, thanks Insomnia.

Hope everyone else gets a decent sleep/lie-in.

OK, I’m back. The ADSL is back working – at last. No explanation of why it was naffed, or anything like that. And I discovered that “customer services” as well as “tech support” for Zen seem only to work Monday to Friday 9-5 – which must be nice, but it’s fucking unhelpful, to say the least.

Anyway, I was productive, and spent the time sorting out the logfiles my webspace provider nicely sends me every day, and I kind of look at properly when I can be bothered and/or when I’ve got nothing much better to do. Today being the latter kind of day, I sorted them out (*blush* – I need to get out less, I hadn’t sorted them since 1st July…) and ran them through an analysis tool.

And now I’m really pretty pleased. Little things, little minds and all that, but in the 7 months I’ve had anything at all on the site (I’d had it since September, but that was a moment of “like the name, now what the feck can I do with it?” until March) it’s had just over 65,000 hits. Not in the same league as yahoo or google, but for a little old site, I’m pleased with that. Of course, 46,000 of those have been in the last two months, since the blog really started, and that (I’m almost sad to say) is making me smile more.

Anyway, that’s been the majority of my day, with no internet access, and spent just naffing about with logfiles. Well, that and wanting to kill people in central manchester, but I’m always like that when I need to go shopping etc on a Saturday, particularly when it’s warm and all the fuckwits come out to play/shop/dawdle around uselessly/get in my way. So I came home and naffed about even more with websites and some new content. Most of which I’ll finish tomorrow.

And that’s it, the saga of another busy Saturday…

Ah, they joys of keffed ADSL. I’m with Zen ADSL, and it all seems to have gone tits up since about 9pm last night. What a bastard. So it’s back (briefly – FUCKING briefly) to dial-up access. Which is already making me want to scream.

In other news though, The Guardian has this story about a hermit-in-residence (Umm – hermit in residence? – isn’t that just a tad paradoxical?) who’s going off for a week to be on his own. Sometimes the world is weirder than we ever dared imagine.

OK, so I’m a techie – but I love this alarm clock. One of the better ideas I’ve seen recently.

Recently, I’ve been thinking of doing a course with the Open University – which is probably a good thing to do. I know I want to do some kind of course, but not certain yet just what it is I want to do. So I asked for a brochure/prospectus on all the courses, to see what’s around.

Filled in the online form, name, address, age (no idea why, but there we go), all the standard garbage. Get the message back “OK, you should get that in 5 days or so” (I’m paraphrasing). And nothing arrived. I tried again. Still nothing.

So I’ve just called them up, asked why I haven’t received anything. And I got asked “Did you live in Weymouth?” – which I did, about four years ago. I confirm that yes, I had lived there, once upon a time, but now I’d moved. Turns out “the computer system got confused” and has sent both prospectuses (prospectii?) to – you guessed it – my old address.

Now, I didn’t fill in the old address (obviously), I filled in the address I live at now. That’s where I wanted the keffing prospectus sent, so that’s the address I gave them. So why did it send stuff to my old address, just because that’s the one they’ve had on file for four years? Am I not allowed to move? Does the OU want people to stay put for their entire lives, just so it doesn’t keff their database?

And it doesn’t reassure me in the least about doing a course with them. I know I won’t be staying where I am for the next three or four years – it’s an absolute certainty that I’ll move at sometime in that time period. So what happens then? Will I lose the course materials somewhere along the line, because their system doesn’t register that I’ve moved? What’s the deal? And yes, I think there may just have to be a shitty letter off to the OU about the same thing.

Sometimes there are things you see and just have to shake your head, going “did that really just happen?” closely followed *blush* by “I’ll have to put something in the blog about that“.

Today, walking through the concourse of the station, I was stopped dead by the sight of what appeared to be a complete coach-load of nuns in full regalia, heading for a train. The woman at the front of the – what the hell is the collective noun for nuns? – group (that’ll do) was (I assume) the Mother Superior, and she looked like a truly fearsome person, one secure in the knowledge that God is With Her (I capitalise to emphasise the strength of her convictions (can nuns get convictions?)) and Always Would Be. And then there were the 40 or 50 lesser nuns following behind her, two by two, just like a parade of schoolchildren on a daytrip.

But what it made me think of most wasn’t a school trip, but more something out of a US Army film, half expecting one of them to start singing a cadence as God’s Army went out to recce a bunch of sinners. Going out on patrol into a world full of sin and danger. (They were probably travelling on Virgin Trains – sorry, that’s an abysmal pun, I’ve just realised – I was actually referring to the danger, and then thought of… No, it’s fairly obvious, I’ll shut up now.) Anyway, that was what it all made me think of – and it was a bizarre enough sight to make me want to write about it. Well, that and a thought of “I really must buy a little digital camera, for snaps like that”.

I just wanted to say a quick little thanks to people like Vodkabird, Gert, Not You The Other One, Elayne, and a couple of others who’ve added lil ole me to their reading lists recently. ( there’s links over there >>> to get to their sites too)

As I’ve said in other bits of the site recently, I’m really pleased to see the way this thing is growing, being read, and (perhaps more importantly) returned to. It’s kind of reassuring, knowing that there’s something here that appeals.

So thanks.

Well, supposedly a “better thing to do” is play with blogrolling.com which should now be on the right hand side. Let’s hope…

I was going to go and see Insomnia tonight, but I’ve been suffering from it myself all week bigtime, so I think I’ll give it a miss, probably see it tomorrow or over the weekend.

I’m sure I can find better things to do…

Update on Nectar.

Nice to see The Register reporting here that nectar is now totally titsup.com. Big shock. It’s been keffed since Monday, and still shows no signs of recovery. You’ve got to love it, haven’t you?

In a totally different vein, and normally more Davezilla than me, I’ve just laughed myself silly at these mad sods who are willing to take your car, and drop it out the back of a plane. Parachutes are optional. Read the last paragraph for an example of pure class through lunacy.

Say what you like about water, about how healthy it is, how good it is for you, all that stuff, I’ve got to say, drinking it in place of anything else really is fucking boring. Normally I don’t mind too much, but the stuff in the place I’m working at the moment is supposedly purified blah blah blah and all it tastes of is, well, water. Cold tap water at that. I’m not sure what it’s been purified with, but it’s definitely not like one of the bottled mineral waters.

See, the path to lower caffeine intake may not be paved with good intentions and/or the skulls of the people who get in my way while I haven’t got a decent caffeine supply, but it’s definitely verged with boring substitutes, and the tinkling sounds of mineral water springs in the fields/ditches to either side is beginning really to get on my tits now…

Like VodkaBird I’m in an area dominated by Stagecoach Buses.(and I can’t believe I know their URL without even thinking about it – I need to get out less) So I’ve just spent 20 minutes standing up (or at least trying to) on a Bus where the driver seems to only know two speeds – Fast as Fuck or Stop. And spends as little time as possible transitioning between the two.

Now, F1 drivers might be used to braking and acceleration up to however many G’s, but frankly, they’re not standing up on a keffing bus. Having watched one woman try concussing herself against the metal poles (pleasantly unpadded) during the bus’s throwing an anchor out the back to stop ASAPbraking and various other people wobbling dangerously far from vertical towards horizontal during both approaching lightspeedacceleration and braking (never seen someone at a 45 degree lean? Ride a stagecoach bus), it’s been a fun-filled journey. Honest. No really, it has.

On a slightly related thing (they were both on the BBC) I watched a tiny section of Breakfast Time (or whatever they cal their Morning TV now), and they’re reporting on “Cracking Crime day/week (whatever)”.

The film goes to some dodgy area of Bristol, and starts with the standard shots of low-rent prostitutes, skimpy clothes and that fog to obscure their faces that makes it look like they’re either heavy smokers, or have just sneezed. The voiceover starts off about “this is an area of prostitution…” (like, no shit, sherlock, I’d have figured that if I were deaf) and then continues “… and cheap drugs” with images of Kebab shops, Halal meat merchants (butchers), Cornershops run by Patel et al, and a Sari shop.

Um – what??? Is there some kind of weird correlation here, that drugs are cheap in areas run by the Asian section of the community? Are Kebabs an illegal narcotic? (And if they are, why not include Macdonalds in the montage – I’m sure they put some kind of addictive additive in their food – I can go for months without wanting Macdonalds, but if I have one, I want another the next day. But that’s a rant for another day, I think) Is Halal meat addictive? Or do you have to be on drugs to wear a sari?

It just seemed quite racist in a way, attempting to portray areas of ill repute and poverty as primarily Asian – and I can’t think of any other link between words and pictures, except to attempt to propagate that idea.

Nice to see our Conservative Party trying to get on top of things again. However, I don’t quite think Tracking paedophiles by satellite is going to be the way forward. It’s all a bit Mission:Impossible, isn’t it? Besides, what are they going to do after that? Put in some AI and a laser weapon, so that if the paedophile commits a criminal act, they get zapped on the spot and burned to a crisp?

At the end of the day, trying something like that would require some form of surgery in order to implant the chip (or whatever) that responds to the satellite signal and says “coo-ee, I’m here!”. Would that surgery form part of the punishment for a prior offence? And OK, you might be able to track them after the first offence (with emphasis on the might) but how do you track them before you know they’re a paedophile in the first place?

Lots of bugs in that system, I think. Probably means it’ll be happening within five years, and scrapped in ten.

God I’m feeling optimistic today…

And no-one noticed this at any time?

The real joy of stopping an intake of caffeine, or even of a drastic cutting down of the caffeine intake, is just how crap you feel without it. I know, that’s the basic form addiction takes, and anyone who knows me properly knows I’m a complete caffeine junkie at the best of times.

But right now I’ve been good, and had an absolutely minimal amount of caffeine for two days, and the headache of withdrawal is beginning to become a real pig. I know it’ll get better, but right now, all I want is a nice mug of coffee to take the edge off it. I’ll wait til I get home though – there are some things I won’t put my body and/or tastebuds through, and one of them is *shudder* Nescafe. Or any of the other instant coffee’s that abound in this office block.The only instant I’ll really use is Carte Noire which is about the best I’ve found for instant coffee, although let’s face it, we’re still talking instant rather than proper coffee through a semi-proper machine at home.

Hmmm – I wonder if these would do me any good? Probably not – I know what I’m like after I’ve eaten a few of them.

Thanks are due too to the Guardian, which should receive a special award in stating the flaming obvious.

Oh, and relating to the previous post, it turns out the Catholics haven’t listed a patron saint for insomnia, although they have one for Piles. Go figure. Maybe more Catholics have a pain in the arse than can’t sleep. I notice there also isn’t a patron saint of paedophiles, which is surprising considering some of their priests. And yes, each of those links is for a different story.

Thanks to Dave at Davezilla for drawing St. Isidore to my attention. I never really thought that Catholics had a sense of humour (well, except for that “contraception is a sin” thing) until now. Maybe they still don’t. But it made me laugh. And the additional comments within his added to that humour with the Novena for Reliable Connection.

Much needed dose of humour there. Now, I wonder if there’s a patron saint for Insomniacs? St Wakey of Bedworld or something….

Why is it that Insomnia, having chosen to release me from it’s grip for just one blissful night of sleep, decides to do it on a weekday, so I still have to wake up and go to work?

Would it be too much to ask for – just once, just keffing once – to be released from the grip on a Friday or Saturday night? Is that so unreasonable, for just one really good night’s sleep to happen on a weekend?

Obviously it is…..

Ah joy – another period of dropping my caffiene intake. Just what I wanted. Mind you, it’s kind of worrying, knowing that it’s taken ’til now before the withdrawal headache has started to kick in properly. And no, I shall still hold out and see how long I can go before cracking completely.

Update 5pm
That’ll be about now then.

Sometimes you really do have to laugh. It’s either that or kill someone.

So, today, Sainsbury’s, Debenhams, BP and a couple of others have linked together to form their new rewards scheme, Nectar. So you pick up a pack, and go to the “easy convenient” online registration.

Except that, of course, the site is fucked. Not in a weird browser, but in IE. They’ve stuffed the Javascript to submit details, and go on to the next page. Not even .asp, but bastard Javascript. How impressed am I? Not very.

OK, so the web registration’s fucked. Fill in the form and go via snailmail. Fill it in. Do all the necessary ticks, squiggles, and personal info that these places know and love so much. Try to seal the envelope to post it.

Um. Where’s the glue? Yes, the envelope has no stickiness to it – it is a glueless envelope. I’m cursed, I’m sure I am. Either that, or Sainsbury’s have been as impressively organised as ever…

I’m sorry to be horribly provincial, because it’ll mean absolutely keff all to anyone outside the UK, but I’m beginning to find the ads for the Halifax a complete pain in the arse. I could tolerate them intiially, but now they’re just tedious. Use the link here to register your disapproval on their web logs… (Nothing will come up except a 404 error on your browser, but it’ll point to a missing page that their logs will show up)

Sometimes you just have to laugh. The Jesus Video is one of those times. Reading the about us page is enough to reduce me to giggles, I’m afraid.

And then a search on good old Google (God love it) produced – among many others – the Jesus licence plate, Jesus merchandise at www.jesus.com (I couldn’t make this up, more’s the pity), and still my personal favourite for pure vomit-induction pictures of Jesus and your loved ones. (more examples, including an 11/9 memorial edition) at this page

One day I’ll learn.

I’ll learn that me and Absolut, particularly the Mandarin flavour (and especially following ahem pints of Budvar), get on very well, but it does absolutely stuff all for my balance. So when I then go walking across grassy areas where dew has fallen, and slip into some kind of dip in the ground, I hit that ground like a sack of shit, twisting my ankle to buggery in the process. Einstein I’m not.

Of course, the fact it was in front of a shitload of people, and must have looked like a comedy sketch, disappearing behind the hedge thing like that, well, that’s entirely a side bonus.

But at least I didn’t smash it to shit like I did a few years back, twisting it so badly that the tendons pulled out of their anchors in the bones of my ankle. That one really did hurt. This time it’s just a light shade of mauve, and swelled up last night, but it’s OK today.

All the same, I feel like a cretin for doing it. I’ll learn, one day.

And after that big rant Levis with radiation shield mobile phone pockets made me laugh like a village idiot.

I’m going to put in a quote from THAT site again, because the more I think about it, the more it bugs me.
Before we go any further, I just want to point out that yes, I was a gimp, and yes, this is a satire site. It _is_ well written, and very satirical. My personal feelings are that it’s just a little too believable, and still probably accepted by other people as being valid, but yes, mea culpa, I bit. For that, respect is due.

What do we want?

We want the law changed to make it illegal to murder children and bury them in woodland. We want it to be made illegal for adults to work with children. We want an end to the ridiculous process of ‘criminal trials’ for suspected child killers.

Point one : We want the law changed to make it illegal to murder children and bury them in woodland. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s already illegal to do this. Nice try Einstein.

Point two : We want it to be made illegal for adults to work with children. OK – so no adults working with children. What about things like schools? No teachers allowed near children? Police can’t come near a child no matter what, or the police break the law? Nannies/child minders become a black industry because what they’re doing is illegal. No schools, playgroups, playschemes in the summer. What about Childrens TV? They’re adults who work with kids.

Lord of the Flies, anyone? (and a link to the video, just for the hate mobs with a short attention span)
About the only good part of this one is that I suppose it would also be illegal for the parents to have contact with the kids, so that’s a bonus.

NEXT!

Point three : We want an end to the ridiculous process of ‘criminal trials’ for suspected child killers.
So what do you want instead? Hate mobs picking on the wrong people, vigilante lynchings, and the odd simple beating to death?

Criminal trials are fallible, yes – but to my mind they’re the best option. They could be improved, but given a choice between a fallible court system and a lynching based on rumour and hate, I’d go for the courts every time.

And before “concerned parent” gets on his little “have you read the site?” soapbox, or decides I don’t know what the fuck I’m on about, I’ll tell you now, I was abused for three years, the person who did it wasn’t a family member, and I still wouldn’t want to see him lynched by a mob in the street. I’d rather see him in jail for a long time, but that won’t happen either. But vigilante mobs bring out the shivers in me – if they come in for one crime, what’s to stop them becoming more popular, until you get a screaming mob stoning to death shoplifters, gays, dopesmokers, and anyone who doesn’t fit “what’s right” in the minds of the mob?

Go for it, “concerned parent”, I want to see an intelligent comment or explanation. Because at the moment you’re breaking the law of the UK yourself by inciting violence and hatred. Nice move, Genius.

So AMAZINGLY wrong, it’s really quite impressive.

because i thought this picture was pretty, laura of mewing.net told me this: “you enjoy sitcoms, popcorn, horses, and perhaps surfboarding. you lost your virginity either very early (under the age of eleven) or very late (over the age of thirty). you take politics and religion very seriously, and when you were a kid, you had a penchant for getting lost in shopping malls and/or amusement parks. your favorite color is most likely blue or green, and you are terrified of spiders.”
whatever will laura tell you??

That is actually pretty much the total opposite of me – maybe Laura needs a kick in the head, or just some good healthy ElectroShock Therapy because I tell you, she’s fucking crap at people analysis…

Additional – 21:20 12th Sept
Something’s just occurred to me, looking at that picture on the page again – it’s actually very close to the d4d colours too. How sad is that?

What can I say?

“Sun readers against paedos” – now that’s got to be a headline somewhere along the line. Or “Rent A Mob” – truly scary.

Of course, the petition has it’s detractors, and it’s actually quite amusing to read. But the vein of the rest of the site leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

With a mob mentality and group IQ like this, Paediatrician’s everywhere should be very scared indeed.

Update 22:30 12/09
Thanks, Concerned Parent, for your comment “You’ve read the site, right?” – Yeah, I’ve read the site, and rent-a-mob vigilante dickheads always worry me. Last time they tried it, you had mobs going after Paediatricians instead of paedophiles because of the ignorance of the mob. The fact you’re trying to organise mob rule is enough to make me see the flaw in the plan, let alone anything else.

NEXT!

Playlist

My thanks to the green fairy for bringing this list to my attention. It’s the list of all the songs that weren’t to be played during September 11th on US radio. And she’s right – some of them are brilliant. It’s virtually a radio show in itself.

My personal favourites? The bangles “Falling for the First Time”, Chi-Lites “Have you Seen Her”, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by anyone who’s covered it, Three Degrees “When will I see you again?”, Van Halen’s “Jump” and my ultimate favourite, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'”.

But how come they missed things like Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”, “War (what is it good for)” by anyone, Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song”, Bloodhound Gang’s “The Roof is on Fire”, or Steve Earle’s “John Walker Blues”, which (as Elayne pointed out) was played on one of the radio stations (by someone who probably wants to get sacked, admittedly). A story on CNN is here.

What other ones could/should go on the banned list?

Some respect to NBC. I just remembered that in last Friday’s Will and Grace (yes, I watch it – so sue me) Jack mentioned his website www.justjack.com. So being a sad pedantic person, I thought I’d try it out. And what do you know? It exists. Not as perfect as it could have been, but at least it exists and is relevant.

Sometimes – just sometimes – I find Americans really annoy me. Not all of them, not by a big way. That link there though is a prime example of the ones that do infuriate me. Insular, self-centred, dumb, no idea of their own country’s history, let alone of world history.

I don’t even know if it’s worth drawing this person’s site to other people’s attention, but there we go.

Had to laugh at this :

I am 57% Tortured Artist

Art is significant in my life, people are scum but I have the capicity to deal with it. Give it a few more years and I will either forget about art or hate the world.

Take the Tortured Artist Test at fuali.com

Do I remember where I was?

Hell yes, I do remember. I was sat halfway up the Arndale Tower in Manchester. Not the best of days to be in a tower, obviously, but there we go.
I remember being the person everyone was coming to for updates (I didn’t have much else better to do that day, to be honest).

So yes, in some ways it did affect me. And so has the aftermath. But it’s also increased my cynicism (some people thought that wasn’t possible, but it was, that’s for sure) about things, and even about the way things have sometimes been hyped out of all recognition by those events. When you see the Stilton Cheese Makers Association wittering on about how “sensitive has been our watchword since 11/9” you know a lot of it is overhyped bollocks.

Yes, the deaths involved are saddening. It was a shock to see something happen on that scale. The entire event actually fulfilled it’s premise – it changed the world. It’s an event that will always be remembered. I just hope that time remembers it for the right reasons – the 3000 dead, the world-changing event – and not for the huge bullshit-mountain that followed it.

And that’s all I’ll say on the subject today.

Thanks, Elayne, for making me laugh. It’s going to be one of those days, can’t you just tell…

Sometimes there are things that happen that just make me laugh at people. Unfortunately, it’s normally something that makes them look stupid, and I end up laughing at them, to their faces. Ooops.

For instance, this morning. Walking through Piccadilly rail station, the woman in front of me tripped slap bang over something in her way that she hadn’t seen. In itself, this wasn’t funny. The funny thing (in my opinion, and it wouldn’t have been funny if I’d done it (actually, I probably would have seen the funny side of it all the same, but I’m weird like that)) was that the item she tripped over was waist-high, dayglo yellow, and marked (in big black letters) “Trip Hazard“.

So yes, I laughed. Unfortunately the woman thought I was laughing at her, which I wasn’t (well, not really, except for being blatantly unobservant, and not really paying much attention to her surroundings – but who pays attention at 8.30 in the morning?) but actually at someone/anyone tripping over a sign that’s warning them about something else they could trip over.

The woman wasn’t amused. She wasn’t hurt either, but that’s by the by. So I walked on, and went to work, still quietly chuckling. Schadenfreude? Maybe. Sense of the absurdity of the world? Most definitely.

Fucking bloody comments systems. I’ve been trying to install one that’ll work using Perl or PHP (I’ve been playing with one of each, before any smart-arse tries to be clever) from one of my other sites where I’ve got them installed.

Basically, I’m totally pissed off with shite like enetation playing silly buggers, so I’m going to end up with one held on one of my own sites. It might make things a little bit more complicated, but in the long run it’ll be for the better I’m sure.

Just bear with me on it, OK?

Does anybody else find they have problems with enetation‘s comments system?

I keep on finding it’s either fucked off out of the page completely for no good reason (it’s there in the source, just the link isn’t appearing), the server’s busy, or some other thing, and I’m lucky if it’s working 25% of the time. Maybe I’m cursed – netcomments fell off the face of the earth within days of me signing up, enetation’s a POS at the moment, and YACCS has seen the light and won’t let me sign up. Bastard things, comments systems.

I’d get one of the Perl-based ones, but my webspace host charges me extra for it. Then again, I don’t pay for bandwidth, so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts really.

I’m going to see Nina Simone!
I’m going to see Nina Simone!
I’m going to see Nina Simone!

Roll on 8th November.

I know this is probably ultimately sad to admit, but Monday nights now just aren’t the same without “Six Feet Under” being on C4. (That’s our fourth terrestrial channel, Elayne and any other non-UK readers.) It’s been a quiet night – the joys of not going to bed ’til 3.30 this morning (walking people home @ 1am is yet another way my body has of re-waking up at inopportune moments, so it took ’til then before I was tired again.) so in theory at least, I’m planning an earlyish night.

And thank frig I’ve finished the book on my reading list – Mandrake by Paul Eddy. What a sack of shite. I know, I’ve belted on about it on the main page too, but Jesus H Christ on a floppy pine trike, it’s bad. So now I can read something nice and simple, which is all my little braincell can cope with right now.

Goodnight – I hope.

Note to self : No matter how tired you are, how little sleep you’ve had, going to sleep while shaving, in fact going to sleep while the “safety” razor is in contact with your face is a REALLY bad idea.

It’ll stop bleeding soon, I’m sure.

RIFSP (Rest in Flaming Shattered Pieces) Baroness Young. Tributes are pouring in? Not from me, they’re bloody not. She was an evil cow, and should rot in hell with every other bigot. And yes, I agree with Peter Tatchell’s comment here about the old bitch.

The world is a better place now she’s gone.

Sometimes I read something that just HAS to be passed on to more people. The Chronicles of George is one of those sites.

I can’t say more without giving it away – but you know when you call an IT helpdesk for the second time about an issue, and the person says “can you just run through it from the start for me”? George is the kind of person you maybe unlucky enough to speak to first, so no-one else knows exactly what’s happened – and these are some of the case notes he leaves before your second call…

Happy Day

Ah, sleep – that’s been good. Six solid (OK, solidish, I woke up a couple of times) hours of sleep. I feel almost human. Most unnatural. But I do feel good for it, I must say.

And then I walk downstairs, and there’s a box on the floor that’s obviously come through the letterbox. (Impressive – not even a scrape on it – so why do the tiniest letters get scrunched up, and a fuck-off box gets through fine?) It’s a box from Britannia. A box with Lord of the Rings on DVD.

Now – this is weird – no WAY would I have ordered it on DVD yet, because I’m waiting ’til November when the special edition biggie DVD comes out. Oh, and by the way, I’m not a member of Britannia. Check the box again – nope, it’s addressed to me, so that’s OK. I just didn’t order it. Look at the price. That can’t be right. £1.47??? Ah well, I might even pay that for it, and still get the Special One – I can always flog it to one of the gits on the market, if nothing else. Or give it to my brother to bore his pants off again. (His comment coming out of the film was “I wasted three hours of my life on that shite, and it doesn’t even End?“)

But why did it come to me? I didn’t order it. Technically I didn’t even want it (yet). But for that price, well *shrug* why not? But do companies like Britannia and so on do that? Just send stuff out randomly, or according to some weird mailing list, and see who buys it, who sends it back, and who just doesn’t say a word?

And if I do buy it, does that mean I go on the “suckers who buy shit they didn’t order” mailing list, so I’ll be plagued with more bizarre shite til the day I die/move…?

I’m pissed off. Over the last couple of weeks, about half my decent plants have pegged it. And I don’t know why.

The clivia (she of the orange flowers) is no more.
The leopard lily (she of the nice leaves and weird flowery bits) has popped it’s clogs.
The boston lily (it of the mad growth patterns and odd stubbly mace-like flowers) has shuffled off it’s mortal coil.

And the only common factor I can find is that they’ve all flowered recently. None of my other weeds (WEED = Plant that grows) have flowered and they’re all still doing fine. In fact, the rubber plant is making up for the three dead ‘uns.

But they’re dead. So I’ve got some empty pots, and I’ll buy some more weeds to go in them soon. Along with earth, and all that other gardeny shite. I may even plonk on some photos when I do it, depending how bored I am, and if it’s a slownews day.

The Friday Five
1. What is your biggest pet peeve? Why?
Probably either Virgin Trains or people who wait ten minutes to get on a tram/bus to travel two stops, in a journey they could have walked in <5 minutes. Actually, probably idiotic or lazy people in general. And Virgin Trains. 2. What irritating habits do you have?
Snoring. And most people would probably say breathing too. Oh, and thinking about things too much. Which is odd, because I’m not thinking too hard about these answers at all.

3. Have you tried to change the irritating habits or just let them be?
I’ve tried sorting the snoring, with some success (now it depends on how I sleep, and doesn’t normally kick in badly.) I tried stopping breathing too, but then decided that it would make too many people happy, so I continued breathing.

4. What grosses you out more than anything else? Why?
BO. Smelly people in general. It’s vile, and blasts itself into my space too.

5. What one thing can you never see yourself doing that other people do?
That depends on my mood. Sometimes it comes down to something as simple as “having a proper job”, “getting married/ having a partner” or “having a family”. Other times it gets more out there, and comes down to things like “being happy.”

OK, I know, I know, I’m a techie beyond all reasonable expectations of the word. But I see things like this digital camera and I just go “oooooooohhhh”. I want one. But then I’d need a laptop with Bluetooth to go with it.

Dear Santa……………………..

And I’ve just laughed myself comatose at this story ( © BBC as per ) – flatpack furniture made fool proof. I bet my father could still naff it up though. A man who thinks something is level because the bubble in the spirit level is at the same end all the way round….

Out of interest, why is it that Angela Lansbury (and whoever the character was she played in Murder She Wrote) never got suspected of murder herself? How come that never happens? It would make so much fun for the detective to be accused every so often. In Murder She Wrote, wherever the cute doddery old pensioner goes, Murder soon follows. But no-one ever accuses her. WHY? She’s the only common factor in all the killings, for christ’s sake. And the way the killer is revealed is always one step short of a set-up. Why isn’t it that she’s just framing other people all the time?

It’s the same in the UK with Midsomer Murders – actually John Nettles was in both that and Bergerac, so he’s doubly accused – there’s more killings and death in that one little part of the world than in all the major cities put together. And no-one suspects anything. It’s weird, I tell you, weird.

I don’t know what makes Wee Bull and Bob so appealing, but I’ve just gone through the flash files one by one and laughed at all of them. Bizarre, but suits my humour just about perfectly.

Yay – at long last I think I’ve sussed the POS archiving. Next all I need to do is make a link to the proper archivey things. Or something.

I can’t be arsed to understand it at this time of night/morning. So I’ll leave it til tomorrow. Or whenever.

There are times where I just come to the conclusion that Americans are weird. This story from the BBC doesn’t do anything to disavow me of these ideas. Why the hell would companys like Macdonalds and PespsiCo NOT advertise on the anniversary of September 11th? Were Pepsico thinking of doing an ad where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre are replaced by fuck-off huge bottles of Pepsi Max along with the slogan “almost as good as the real thing™”? No. Were Macdonalds going to do an ad of Ronald Macdonald dressed as a US Marine huinting down the Hamburglar dressed as Osama Bin Laden? I doubt it

To be brutally honest, yes, it’s a day where lots of people lost their lives. But do Japanese advertisers worry about the anniversaries of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Nope. What they have is this “July 6 – Every year, in Hiroshima, Japan, people float lanterns with prayers, thoughts, and messages of peace down the rivers in commemoration of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Until this year, the only way to join this celebration was to go to Hiroshima personally.” Now that sounds much more how it should be done.

I’ll admit, I think that “Boeing, the maker of the four planes that crashed on 11 September, is in negotiations with NBC to sponsor a special “concert for America”” (© BBC again) is a pretty dodgy and sick concept, but I can also see that if one company needs to be seen to be “doing something for America” on that date, it’s the manufacturers of the planes, and/or the airlines that had such pisspoor security checks. However, the airlines involved aren’t doing any ads that day – that I can understand more than companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi bailing from advertising.

Maybe they should just show the entire first run of Six Feet Under on Sept 11th, or have adverts for funeral homes all day. That’ll be more in keeping with the mood that seems to be desired.

But I’ll stick with the primary concept of “Americans are fucking weird sometimes”.

Fucking hell – a working comments system : and it’s been tested in IE as well as Nutscrape 4.7 & 6.2 and Opera. So there.

The BBC has been busy. They’ve done this quiz about people’s usage of Earth’s resources etc., and it’s quite cool. Six bloody pages, mind you, but it’s not like it’s rocket science or anything.

Anyway, if everyone lived like me, apparently we’d need 2.4 planets. Allegedly, this is a good score. Which makes it all a bit more worrying than perhaps it should, but there we go, such is life.

According to The Guardian’s latest quiz, this is me :

You scored 8 out of a possible 11
Fortissimo
Impressive – you can tell your Traviata from a trattoria, and probably know where the music you hear on adverts comes from, but disdain to buy classic ads collections.

I can live with that. It’s odd considering my own father still thinks I’m a pleb when it comes to classical music, knowledge of composers and the like, but obviously the knowledge has rubbed off somewhere along the line…

I just read this story on the BBC, and I’m sure they’re wrong, that I remember years Ago either Waitrose or Safeway (probably Waitrose) doing a photo-degradeable plastic carrier bag.

Of course, they were shit, and on hot summers days weakened before you were halfway home so your stuff fell through the bottom. But that’s the price of progress, isn’t it?

I thought I’d also quickly put this link in, because it’s one of the better UserFriendlys of recent times. Kind of sad, because it used to be regularly good, but appears to have lost the plot a bit recently. Still, that’s comedy I suppose, never going to appeal to everyone all the time.

Project for the day? : Recovering from the weekend. As usual.

In fairness, it was a pleasant weekend, spent in Nottingham. Even the trains ran on time. Even the club we went to was OK, although more and more I realise how little I’m into the clubs that really should be renamed as “late night meat markets” – it’s more drinks, pulling and playing current charty-type stuff, or at least the dance remixes of it. This time it was the Nottingham Palais (which I remember from two revamps ago when I used to go there, but that’s ancient history now).(and then there’s this link, just for Si and Rach to laugh at) And yeah, it was OK. Although it got better at about 1.30, 2ish when they started playing stuff the way I prefer it – not so charty, more just serious beat, have some fun and bounce around a bit.

I think maybe I’m just getting older or something – then I realise I’ve been going clubbing for half my life, and I’ve always hated the late-night pulling joints, so it’s keff all to do with age. It’s more to do with music, with attitude, with lots of other stuff too. But not to do with age. Weird, isn’t it?

But I love the pure music, feeling the bassline belt through your chest cavity, feeling it in the long bones of the legs and arms, and letting it get inside me. Hell yes, it’s noisy, and probably destructive to eardrums – in fact the Palais had signs before going in warning about the volume, strobes and smoke machines (which is a fair point, because it’s very rare that smoke machines aren’t a pain in the arse/sinuses/mucus membranes/eyes) which is indicative of what a wanky bunch some people really are – what the funny fuck else do you expect from a nightclub? Then again, they didn’t have a warning that half the place would be filled with pissed dickheads, hen-nights and twats in St. Trinian’s style outfits. And that was FAR more traumatic than the volume or the strobes. Ah well, there appear to be far more people who find women dressed as schoolgirls attractive than people who go to clubs because they love music, so I suppose I’m the minority in this situation. And the Dj’s who talk over the music just remind me of Secondary School discos.

As it is, I’m used to places like Heaven and Bedrock, places where people go to enjoy the music, not really to get pissed out of their brains or pull. Of course, if you do end up going back with someone that’s fine, but it’s a bonus, not a mission objective.

All the same, it was a good night. Taxi’s were bloody expensive, but a) that’s because we were staying WAY out of town and b) when aren’t they expensive? But between 5 in a taxi, it’s still not bad – less than £3 each, so what the hell. It was a good night.

Except for the lack of sleep. Most of that was personal choice though, talking to Sky instead of sleeping. But he’s fun, so it was a good way to work through a night. Sam was crashed out completely (I’d never seen someone sleep in the recovery position before – but she does), Dave was awake, Mick, Rach and Stace were conscious (which is as fair as it gets) and Sky was wide awake and disturbing in his knowledge of 90s chart hits. VH1 were playing all the Number 1s of the 90s (and some were more Number 2s, but that’s beside the point) in chronological order – Sky could tell us which track was coming up next. Which is kind of scary, and immensely sad and bobble-hatted. If he got out more, he’d probably be a trainspotter.

But it was a good weekend. The Sunday involved me ending up doing six Tarot readings – two for Sam, one for Rach, one for Marie, one for Stace and one for me – and I’d forgotten how much they do take it out of me. There’s no physical reason for them to do so, but bloody hell, they really do knacker me. And of course doing it on minimal sleep was a really smart decision. Leaving Nottingham at 7.30 in the evening and getting home at 10pm didn’t help really on the lack of sleep score.

However, I really do think that Chinese take-aways should be nominated for a group OBE for services to the public, particularly those gimps among the population who don’t get home til 10pm, can’t be bothered and/or can’t find the energy to cook, and the lovely people at the Chinese are still working to cook food. They’re saints, each and every one of ’em.

The funniest thing I’ve read in a while about haircuts. Considering I need one bigtime (probably tomorrow, at this rate, it will happen). (If I’ve done this link wrong and you have to scroll down, it’s for Thursday August 29th or so)

Dirty rotten bastard. I’ve just looked at the blog with IE for the first time in ages, and the bloody frigging thing isn’t putting the comments in. It works in Opera and Nutscrape. Just not in IE. Pigging thing.
So that’s my work for the day/evening. Working out either a) another fucking comments system ( the one I used initially seems to have fallen off the face of the web) or b) fix this one which is only not working in IE. Or simply saying sod it. Some of which is likely to depend on how I feel by the time I get home.

Updated
OK, I’ve found one that looks pretty good, signed up for it, and I’ll slap it into the blog when I get home. That should sort it out. If it doesn’t, then “Sod It” shall be the decree, and it shall be heard throughout the land…

Well, I’ve recovered a bit now – so I might as well list the activities…

Saturday dawned bright and early (don’t you just love not sleeping?) so I pissed off to the train station. For 7.45 in the morning. Caught the train – well, actually the train that should have left 75 minutes earlier, but with Virgin being their normal cuntish selves it was late before it even started, so I got the 6.30 train to Oxford, starting at 7.45. Go figure.

3 and a halfish hours later, I got into Oxford. Not bad journey all things considered. One of the “nice” new Virgin trains, the Voyager (I think – could be the Enterprise, or even the DS9 *shrug*) and it was OK – better than the old sheds anyway. Plug sockets for laptops and mobiles, decent seats, quiet trains, no guards to check the tickets – it’s all an improvement. Not even too many knobheads on the train – I think they were still in bed, as opposed to previous journeys although it was still populated by one incredibly smelly person…

Anyway, got to the parental home just in time to help them set the place up for the first of the parties – a bunch of 25 friends. Had this been mentioned prior to my arrival? Of course not. Hey Ho. Still, a trip to Chiltern Brewery netted some decent beer which would help the weekend float past. Leaving the blackberry liqueur @ the parent’s wasn’t smart, but then again I never did get IQ awards…

Anyway, the party went well, and ended up with my father asleep inside while everyone else was still drinking outside.

Sunday was much quieter, involving a very hungover father (I wonder why), and seeing some friends, which was pretty cool.

Monday involved 30 members of the family. What a joy. Honest. I can’t deny it, I fucking hate most of them – in fact, pretty much all relatives. If I could, I’d do the kenny everett method, round ’em up in a field and bomb the bastards. But I can’t, so I have to put up with them. So all I can say is “thank christ for alcohol”. I won’t go into details of the day – they’d only mean anything if you’d met the family members, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

And then back up to Manchester on the Tuesday. To 600ish emails. I’m exhausted, but it’s been OK.

Oh, and it was good to get a letter from a friend in Oz today. Posted on the 26th August, so that’s not bad at all, really. Not a patch on email, but there’s still something about receiving a letter rather than an email.

Ah well, time to be travelling…

Right well, I’m now off to Nottingham to have a weekend with friends instead of family. Sounds like a much better deal, to be honest. I may get more chance to bung something on, but don’t hold your breath.

I’ve made a decision to not worry too much about missing days on occasion from the blog, it’s not like it’s an enforced diary or anything, so what the hell. And because of that I may or may not write stuff. So there.

Utterly shite day – lack of sleep leading to hallucinations all the way through work, which is never a particularly good sign. It’s left me completely shattered, yet now it’s quarter to midnight, and I’m wide the fuck awake.

God has a sense of humour, and at the moment is pointing at me and laughing.

OK, there’s now a new comments system in place. It means the Facking Northern Monkeys have lost all my earlier comments, so my apologies to anyone who’d left them up til Bank Holiday Weekend, but they appear to have dived into the ether…

And thanks to my brother for reintroducing me to the phrase “Facking Northern monkeys” from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It’s an expression that’s kept running through my brain since I got back to Manchester.

I also used it in conjunction with the comments system, which appears to have gone tits-up. Joy.

Crap Towns – I’ve lived in a few, and visited even more.

But for me, Coventry is still the out and out winner, with Bedford coming a close second.

Three days away. 600 spam emails. 3 minutes to delete them all. Life is good.

Oh, and the weekend was OK too – weird to see people getting older and all that stuff, but it all went OK. I’ll write more about it later, I think.

Not in the mood right now – I’ve just spent fourish hours in the joyous company of Virgin Trains. But I will write more later. Honest.

Project for next week : Figure out what the fiddly fuck Blogger is doing with the archives. I think it may just need a major kicking.

But that’s for next week. In the meantime, I’m off to have fun. Or at least see the family. Byyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Oh, and one final story of silliness to be going on with. I was going to add it into the previous bit, but couldn’t be arsed.

Well, it looks like the Gods of Insomnia have obviously deemed my sacrifice of sleeping hours sufficient, because last night was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages. Now I just need to work out what I did different that meant I slept like that.

Oh, and a hearty slap to the neighbours somewhere on my street who decided to have a full-on domestic ending with breaking glass, screams, and four carloads of fucked-off police at 3am. I heard it, woke up (or maybe that’s the other way around? *shrug*), thought various rude words, closed the window, and went back to sleep. Nothing short of amazing.

Other than that, it’s 6.30ish, so I’m away to Oxford, whistling a happy tune and lugging a bag that feels like I’ve packed it for about a month of away-ness. Have a good Bank Holiday weekend, hopefully not one that’s too wet, and I’ll be back in a couple of days. Unless something fun happens, or I decide to bung something else on here from Chez Parents. Have fun.

Checklist for the weekend:

• Train tickets  Check
• Clothes  Yup
• Laptop  Definitely
• Digital Camera  it’s there
• Power leads for laptop and camera, plus leads to connect the two  Yes, Mum
• Mobile  In Pocket (as always)
• Charger for Mobile, plus mental note to buy one with decent battery life.  Yeah yeah yeah
• Books  Yawn. Of course you’ve got ’em
• Washbag  Does it ever leave that bag?
• Sort out playlists on Lappy’s version of RealOne  Nope, haven’t done that, but I’ll do that in the first ten mins of the train journey. And yes, I do call the laptop Lappy. Don’t ask, OK?

There’s something I’ve forgotten, I just fucking know it. I’ll remember it when I’m somewhere around Birmingham Fucking New Street (which it turns out is it’s official name)

Nice to know that – yet again – Microsoft are shit.

I know I’m still using 2000, but the day is coming (and probably before the end of 2002) when this PC becomes a friend of Linux.

So, it’s not long now til I have to travel down to the parent’s place in Oxford. Lucky me.

Whether I’ll update after tomorrow for a few days is totally unknown – a lot depends on whether I can be bothered. But I’ve got four hours each way on a train to pplay with other stuff, so there’s likely to be new content (and possibly a fair amount of it) after the Bank Holiday.

Have fun…

Note to self:

When making chilli with jalapenos (for that little bit of extra kick) DO NOT then rub your eyes afterwards. (The onions were vicious too, made my eyes water, and I rubbed my eyes – I know, about as smart as a concrete block)

My eyeballs now glow in the dark. This is NOT cool.

Cunts. Absolute total fucking cunts.

“Who?” I hear you cry.

And lo, the answer bellowed forth “United Utilities” or “UU” as they like to be known. (I’m not the only one who thinks this stands for “Utterly Useless”)

I’ve just had a shitty solicitors letter from them saying “we’re suing you for the money which you haven’t paid us”. Pity that the entire amount got paid on the 1st July, and the useless fucking bastards have conveniently lost it. And when I ask them whether they “lose” the money of people who’ve complained about the utter shiteness of their so-called “service”, the phrase “Oh no sir, we’re not that petty” doesn’t exactly ring true.

And now I’ve got to wait til Tuesday to find out anything more about where my money has gone to in the wilds of UU’s bank account, because they’re useless fuckers. Obviously Friday isn’t a working day at UU. Come to that, I wonder if there is such a thing as a working day for them.

And yes, this should have gone into my own rants section, but fuck it, I couldn’t be bothered.

I’ll write more when I’ve calmed down a bit, and the keyboard isn’t bouncing across the desk with every keystroke.

Updated, 21.50 23/8/02
  What a surprise. Got a call – they’ve found the money I paid them, there’s now no need for a solicitor’s letter etc., and the rest of this year’s water rates has suddenly been knocked off my account by way of an apology. Amazing what can happen when you’re pissed off, isn’t it?

And another archive/set of changes to the home page of the site. God, you can tell I’m a techie, it’s forever changing, “improving”, and generally being tweaked. Still, it’s fun, and it’s better than sitting around watching effing soaps and the like.

Well, that’s not bad. Two permanent jobs applied for. Two interviews. One next week with UK space/rocket nuts for a Web techie, and one tomorrow with the people who do shitloads of psychometric testing. Who also need a Web Developer/Techie. How apt, the original psychometric test fucker-upper, interviewing with them. I wonder if they’ll make me take one of their tests?

Updated 23/08/02
They didn’t. And so far the supposed call-back hasn’t happened either. Hey Ho.

Maybe this is just my warped view on life, but during the ITV news, where they were saying about a man being arrested for murdering two children, (obviously it wasn’t on the BBC news, but that story was the first one I found the link to) was it really all that tactful to have a Birds Eye advert with Captain Birds-Eye surrounded by kiddies?

Isn’t it just a teeny-weeny bit dodgy to have an advert of a grown man surrounded by children? Or do I see too much into these things sometimes? But he seems like the paedophiles role model, living in a situation like that.

(Actually, it’s quite fun to use this Google search to look at all Captain Birds-Eyes different sites.)
Anyway, I’m sure it’s just me thinking into things too much. Hey Ho.

Ooops – thanks to H for pointing out I’d fucked up the link on the previous post – ’tis fixed now though.

And also for pointing out the CCS CSS fuckup when links highlighted in IE. My apologies, I hadn’t realised it looked that shit. It’s changed now.

That’ll teach me to check things in IE won’t it. I only use Nutscrape and Opera. Ah well.

Some people are too odd to be properly listed as anything other than “pretty fucking weird.”

In Other News, Sleep Deprivation and Insomnia have finally caught up with me, kicked my arse, and left me with some very weird hallucinations throughout the day. How blessed do I feel? Still, it meant that a day in the Data Entry department simply flew by. OK, I think my brain took 20-second naps on occasion – but it appears I continued typing during this phenomenon, so I got away with it. Not even “Falling Asleep with Nodding Head Syndrome” to lay claim to.

I’m going to check this link again tomorrow to make sure it’s not another hallucination. The idea of tree seeds being taken to the moon, brought back to Earth and then planted simply MUST have been dreamed up by some insomniac in the US Forestry Service – God love ’em.

Thanks Paul for pointing out the internal memos site. Much needed after a crappy day.

And True Porn Clerk Stories are invariably good for a laugh.

Yes, it’s official, I need to get out more.

Well, what a day. Season ends for both The West Wing AND 24.

And what was BBC1’s response? Mission:Impossible. I kid ye not. Perhaps it’s some kind of humour from the beeb, saying it was impossible to beat those two for ratings. But I doubt it. I was unlucky enough to go see M:I at the cinema – I nearly got chucked out, I was so abusive about it. So I put on the first 20 minutes to see if it was as bad as I recalled.

You know when they say how women’s bodies “forget” the pain of childbirth? Turns out my brain had done the same kind of thing with M:I. It was worse than I remembered. I didn’t think this was possible, but yeah, it was. Jesus, what a pile of horse-shite. Hooray for Hollywood indeed.

There are times when I despise Photoshop with a passion. I’m working on some graphics for a website idea, and can I get it do a nice simple equilateral triangle? Can I bollocks. I’m sure there’s a piss-easy way of doing it, but can I find it? Can I bollocks.

I’ll get there. To be fair, I love Photoshop when it gets to the more complex stuff, but for the basic piss-easy nobrain stuff, it sucks the farts out of dead dogs. I’d rather use MS Paint.

Right, it’s sad to even admit watching this, but I’ve just watched Parenthood on BBC1 – weirdly enough, it contained a line I’ve used a couple of times while not remembering where it came from, but now I know again. Anyway – they cut out the scene with the blowjob in the car. WHY? It’s fucking midnight, and they still feel the need to cut scenes from films? Aren’t we big enough and ugly enough to make our own decisions on these things any more?

OK, I know I’m so amazingly smalltime when I write this, but I’m happy with it anyway. The site’s been up less than two months, and today I’ve gone past 250 hits. I know, it’s pathetic, but all the same, I’m happy with it. Blah Blah, everyone has to start somewhere.

So there.

And in an additional “Now there’s a shock – not” story it appears that MPs don’t like using email.

Personally, I’m amazed more didn’t go “Email? What’s that? I’m from Yorkshire, and when I get post I go “eeeeeeeh! Mail!” Is that the same thing?”

Ah, the joys of Saturday morning. A combination of reading about upgrading the Internet 2 backbone (and if you’re wondering what Internet 2 is, go here ) followed by Internet enabled automatic lawnmowers.

However, I do love this idea – it’s one of the ones that you think “That’s so simple. Why did no-one think of it before?”

Still, that’s the results of an hours knobbing about today. Ho hum. I’m sure I’ll write more later.

OK – Top of the Pops tonight – Def Leppard AND Status Quo? The 70s revival is alive and kicking, obviously.

OK, fuck all happening today, so I can’t find much to report on or write about. My brain resembles a pile of crumbs on a breadboard – totally frazzled. Something to do with people using spreadhseets for jobs they’re not designed for.

But It means I’ve had enough of PCs today, so I’m not in the mood to do much. Hey Ho.

OK, now that Channel Four is having a seasons of films based on some VERY loose themes (“Teenage Flicks”, “Friends on Film” etc.) I got to thinking about obscure seasons you could possibly have of films.

Of course “Original and remake back to back” would be fun (Showing El Mariachi and Desperado, Nikita and The Assassin, Cage Aux Folles and The Birdcage, and Open Your Eyes and Vanilla Sky are the ones that spring to mind immediately), but then I came up with one for the real bobble-hats out there – Films that share the same location. Obviously just about every Western known to Man has featured Painted Valley in (I think) Arizona, but there must be some streets or something that several films have been shot on….

Just an idea, anyway

I’ve just been watching Apt Pupil, the film from the Stephen King novel with Ian McKellen in it. It’s nasty as hell, but I have to say that the more stuff I see McKellen in, the more amazed I am by his talents.

  But frankly, what the fuck is it with David Schwimmer? How can any casting director worth a toss in a brothel put him with someone of McKellen’s stature? He just can’t act worth shite. I’ve never seen him act a character as anything other than “David Schwimmer”. He’s abysmal – but then again, so are most of the cast of Friends, if not all of them. Actually, it struck me as kind of funny that Schwimmer had (to be way more complimentary than he deserves) a bit part in Apt Pupil, yet Channel 4 classed it as “Friends on Film” – maybe all his other stuff is even worse. Come to that, what the hell do I mean “Maybe”?

And having just sorted a fuckup on the rollovers (thanks Dreamweaver, for not putting in the preload images, and yes, OK, I should have effing checked), I now note that they’re not working on this page.

I’ll try and care tomorrow. I’ve had enough of HTML today. What more do you want? Blood? The comments system has fallen in nicely, Blogger’s working smoother than I expected, the preloads are sorted on every page (How I love bulk find/replace) and frankly the rollovers on this one page can go and whistle for now.

So there.

Right, I think/hope this is just me hallucinating, (and it’s also weird in connection with this post in Wherever you are) but I’m sure I’ve just heard Nine Inch Nail’s track “The Perfect Drug” as a background to a Vodafone ad about texting… I’m sure there’s a social comment there, but as per usual, I can’t be arsed. It’s just it seems weird, hearing a purportedly anti-corporate bunch on the backing track for Vodafone. Or maybe that’s just me too…