Quiet
Monday, May 22, 2006 ~ Comments Off
Dropped Louise off at the airport at 3.30am on Sunday morning. Wide awake when I got home so I upgraded WordPress, everything went very smoothly indeed (or you wouldn’t be reading this!).
By 7am I was wilting and fell asleep on the sofa for a couple of hours kip, something I think contributed to my stiff back today. I spent the rest of the day going through weird phases of high energy and complete lethargy. Most odd.
And this morning I awoke with the beginnings of a monster headache. One of those “please stop tightening this metal band around my skull” types… and the painkillers aren’t budging it.
2 questions, 1 comment
Saturday, May 20, 2006 ~ Comments Off
Question 1. WordPress users – all of a sudden I’m getting loads and loads of spam comments — 536 overnight. This is despite the fact I don’t USE WordPress for the commenting here (yet). I’m still on version 1.5.2, which spam plugin is best?
Question 2. XP users – I think I have a virus. The internet ‘outage’ I experienced the other night may have been a symptom and there is SOMETHING that is using a variety of outgoing TCP Ports. But I can’t figure out what it might be.
I’ve udpated and run AVG Anti-Virus, SpyBot and Ad-Adware. My firewall is Symantec and isn’t reporting anything odd, it’s only when I call up netstat via DOS prompt (“netstat -s”) that I see the number of “Active Opens” rising. I’ve just re-booted the PC, fired up Firefox and started typing this post and already the number is at 61.
I’m stumped. I can’t even think of what to look for, and if my anti-virus can’t catch it, the firewall isn’t flagging it (despite changing settings to ask for every teeny tiny movement in and out to be flagged), what else can I do?
The comment: Andy and I have swapped emails and I’ll happily state here that he did not mean anything nasty. Looks like it was a combination of bad days and misreadingness. All is well with the world again (bar the above, obviously).
Snippets
Friday, May 19, 2006 ~ Comments Off
What to start with, what to start with…
Ohh come on, you know fine well. Love it or loathe it, the carnival/freakshow that is Big Brother has kicked in and what a marvellous piece of car-crash casting it looks to have been this year. From the campest gay in Glasgow (Shahbaz AKA the “wacky Paki poof”) to “the one who may just be the most normal” Bonnaaughhh (Bonnie), the Vickey Pollard-esque (Nikki) to the geezer-ish wideboy (Sezer – rhymes with Caesar) it’s probably the most outlandish group they’ve come up with so far. And that’s before you consider the fact that they’ve included someone with Tourette’s Syndrome (Pete).
I’d imagine a lot of the initial focus will be on Pete, and I hope that they at least TRY and play safe. It would be too easy to reduce his condition and play him up as a laughing stock, although I fear the ratings may have some influence on this. Only time will tell.
I have to agree with Jason, this year the NBA playoffs are all about the team (baby!). In the past the focus has always been on the individuals, the Michael Jordans, Shaquille O’Neals, Kobe Bryants and so on, but this year whilst the superstars are there the focus is switching to the best team. It’s been a gradual process with the Pistons leading the way and forcing the NBA machine/marketing department to start lauding teams over single players. I’d suggest that is simply because, whilst they are without a doubt the best team in the league over the past couple of season, they haven’t ever signed a superstar name, and even the league’s best efforts to try and pull some of their players up into that ‘stratus’ has failed because.. well… Big Ben just ain’t that charismatic.
What would the world be like without the internet? OK, what would MY world be like without the internet?
I got a scary glimpse into the past last night as BlueYonder had a few connection glitches. Only lasted about two hours but it was slap bang in the middle of me trying to get some work done and, you know what, I couldn’t. I was stuck on one piece of coding and had nowhere to go to look it up! PANIC!! EEK.
Thankfully normality was restored and the first thing I did? Look up the BlueYonder support page and WRITE DOWN their telephone number!
And finally, if you are bored here, scroll on down and pick a site from the list on the left. They’re all quite good and don’t feature as much “dross” as I do. Apparently.
Ach. To be honest I really REALLY don’t care if someone doesn’t like what I’m posting here. It’s very VERY simple, don’t read it. You don’t HAVE to visit here, you don’t HAVE to read all this. I’ll still post it anyway so there is little point in complaining. Ohh yes you may think this is a democracy but let me assure you of one thing, whilst I’m very very stunned and amazed that so many nutters of you keep coming back, what I do with and what I post to this site is none of your business.
Shocking stuff to end on but, frankly my dears, I was THIS close to “hiating” for a while. And for me that means this site closes until I’m ready to come back. The fact that you are reading this can be taken as a two-fingered salute to both my own attitude (which sickens even me sometimes) and to the fact that I don’t run this site to please anyone else bar me.
Phew. That feels better already!
UPDATE: Me and my big gob
OK, as ever I’ve jumped in with both feet. Yes one comment that was left yesterday irked me, but hey such is life. If I’m honest the comment isn’t that big a bother to me, and I was probably focussing on that as an excuse. What I should really do is take a break from this site. Which I will sometime soon, if only to provide a gap in which to upgrade WordPress, get the spam plugins sorted (lots of trackback stuff all of a sudden) and whatnot.
A true story
Thursday, May 18, 2006 ~ Comments Off
I usually get into the office around 8.30am. I use the first 30 minutes of the day to check email, have a coffee, and plan my day. I usually hit a couple of websites as well.
For a long time one of those websites was metafilter but I find it a bit hit or miss these days so I’ve replaced it with DIGG (still hit or miss but easier to read) and Lifehacker. It was a visit to the latter that sparked this story.
Lifehacker covers a lot of topics, from productivity tips to useful software, useful websites and, as it did this morning, some silly/fun stuff, namely it linked to an article on how to play the spoons.
My initial thought as I skim read the post was… umm.. ok.. and on I scrolled to see what else had been posted. Pretty soon I’ve forgotten about the post and my working day begins (and I won’t bore you with talk of document management systems).
Now, around 9.30 I’m usually heading for a cup of coffee and that was no different this morning. A couple of co-workers were already in the kitchen, and we start chatting about… well, nothing in particular. Then one of them says:
“You know, I think I need to get a new hobby… I’ve always wanted to be able to play the spoons.”
Honest. You couldn’t make it up.
Freaked me right out that did.
Destiny
Thursday, May 18, 2006 ~ Comments Off
Because sometimes the resonance never ends.
On a clear day
I’ll fly home to you
I’m bending time getting back to you
Old moon fades into the new
Soon I know I’ll be back with you
I’m nearly with you
I’m nearly with youWhen I’m weak I draw strength from you
And when you’re lost I know how to change your mood
And when I’m down you breathe life over me
Even though we’re miles apart we are each other’s destiny
Smorgasbord
Wednesday, May 17, 2006 ~ Comments Off
Only a couple of weeks after mentioning my dual monitor setup at work and what happens? They buy us all 19″ LCD screens, no more old flickering CRTs.. woo hoo…
AND I get a RAM upgrade for my laptop (2GB now).
AND tonight is the Champions League final.
In other news, it looks like Louise is off to Spain for a week. Her flight leaves at stupid o’clock in the morning middle of the night, and she’ll be joined by her sister and our youngest nephew. Which means that I get to fend for myself for the week. Needless to say the immediate thoughts of “yeah… party!!” are replaced by “but who will iron my clothes and cook my dinner?!”.
I bet you think I’m kidding…
Her Dad is really chuffed, and I know it will mean a lot to Louise to see him again as we didn’t really think we’d be able to get out there until later in the year. And hey, it also means cheap booze for me! A litre bottle of Southern Comfort for starters…
Ohh and a question for you all. Professionally I know a few people in my industry but would never claim to have a network of contacts. It’s not ever been something that’s bothered me overly as, in my profession at least, it doesn’t make a huge difference. In fact, if I’m honest, the entire “networking” thang has me a bit perplexed. Other than collecting contact details for large numbers of people you probably won’t contact until you need something from them (which seems a little… rude?) is there more to it?
Do you “network”? If so, any tips?
Random
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 ~ Comments Off
Why buy a domain name if you have no plans to do ANYTHING with it and, as it’s been sitting there for over four years now, it should be obvious that no-one is going to come along and offer you a fortune for it. I want www.mclean.co.uk goddammit!! (and yes I’ve asked what the price would be, still no movement).
Car Insurance time again, and if my current insurers — Direct Line — give me a competitive quote I’ll probably stick with them. Just can’t be arsed with all the faffing about to save £12 … ohh and that reminds me, need to get the road tax renewed. How much is a year again? Brilliant, not even June and I’m spending that months wage already! grumble grumble
In other news, I’m looking for a good Windows font application that will print out a nicely formatted font sample sheet. Typograf might do it but it costs and I’m cheap. Anyone know of a good freeware alternative?
Red Hot Chili Peppers new album, Stadium Arcadium. Meh. Disappointing. I think they’ve had their ‘moment’.
And finally, I’m in a meeting all day today (offsite, so at least I’ll get lunch on the company), so don’t expect much in the way of posting. Not that that will make much of a change.