Let the nonsense descend
Sunday, March 22, 2009 ~ Comments Off
aka, you have been warned.
Random thoughts pepper my day. The would salt it if they knew how but then would lack sufficient bite and leave me parched. Random thoughts hate leaving someone parched so they pepper rather than salt. Simple.
The unfortunate fact is that I don’t like pepper, preferring the prickly build of a chilli than the all-consuming thwack of a pepper. Another unfortunate fact is that I need to watch the amount of salt I consume, given that it raises my blood pressure, and, having cut back a great deal, it’s surprising what an impact it has on ones tastebuds.
Outside it is a glorious day, the morning fog has burnt off and the sky is a lovely powder blue. Not sure why I wrote that.
Since getting a laptop at work my back is noticeably sore, it’s the crouching over to read the screen, need to get a screen stand but not a pressing issue really. It’s a familiar pain, as is the people who sit in the outside lane of a dual carriageway even when they aren’t overtaking anyone.
How much water do you drink a day? I drink a few cups of coffee, a can of diet juice, and a couple of glasses of diluting juice most days.
I once had a daydream that was so lucid it took me some hours to realise it hadn’t actually happened. Yet, like most dreams, I don’t remember the detail, nor even a broad sweep of what it involved, which is a shame. There was a rhythm to it, an incessant drum being beaten, and everything was a similar shade, but beyond that the detail is lost.
What to do when you can’t
Friday, March 20, 2009 ~ 5 comments so far
It was a normal evening. Arrived home, fed the cat, started dinner, ate dinner, watched a bit of TV. Ordinary, staid, perhaps even boring.
With a couple of things to do I turned on the PC. I checked my email, skimmed some RSS feeds and pondered what I’d do next. Perhaps a blog post, perhaps I’d see if the writing muse had bothered her pretty little arse to turn up, or maybe I’d push on with my current mini-project (er… noodling about in Photoshop trying to rework the banner graphics a little).
At this point I turned to my current “what can I do that will divert my brain from the fact that I’m still not sure what I want to do” service. You may also know it by its proper name, Twitter.
It was at this point that everything came tumbling down, the lights dimmed, the room vibrated with the tremor and, somewhere, the sound of a helpless baby crying could be heard. Trees were uprooted, cars overturned and lumps of debris were launched into the air, terrorising all as they landed with sickening crunches and thumps.
I had no internet connection.
The eery silence was unsettling at first, punctuated only by the incessant click click clicking of a mouse button and the almost silent cursing of a man who knows some rather choice swear words.
I checked the flashy lights on the modem, the other flashy lights on the wireless router, and I even turned on the strobe light just so I could check another flashy light. After realising that the strobe was just giving me a headache and didn’t, in fact, have any impact on my lack of internet connection (and for the sake of clarity it also has no impact when I do have an internet connection) I turned it off and checked all the cable connections.
Everything LOOKED a-ok so I fired up a web browser to go and check the status page handily provided by my supplier. It’s a great idea, it shows any outages or planned maintenance across all of the services they provide. With a quick click I can check whether I have broadband or not. Brilliant.
What I did do at this point was connect my iPhone to a certain Wifi connection that could, may, possibly, be coming from next door and which is open to the world. Lo and behold the status page showed a red dot (this is a bad thing) next to the word BROADBAND. Next step is to phone and be told, by recorded voice, “if you are in the ML postcode area, you may be experiencing broadband conn…”. I hung up at this point.
And you know what I did then, dear reader?
I read a book. Ain’t NOT having the internet wunnerful??
More, more, more
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 ~ 3 comments so far
For the past few days I’ve been noodling about in Photoshop, trying to come up with a revised banner graphic for this blog (and, subsequently a theme I can take across the other two ‘one man’ websites). It’s been quite educational, mixing general research with photoshop tutorials on what is probably pretty basic stuff but is all new to me.
Whilst the change won’t be radical it will add another colour to the theme, and generally make the website a bit richer. I’m all for minimal but I do think the design needs something … else … a little more … oomph …
I’ve also been playing about with Yahoo Pipes, largely inspired by http://www.gregorsmith.com/. If nothing else it’s something to do with my name domain website (that’s www.gordonmclean.co.uk, if you were wondering).
What all of this means is that, for the moment, my writing mojo is in short supply. I do have a couple of things drafted I want to publish but I don’t think I’ll be doing that here in the first instance, mainly because I’m determined to publish something to the excellent Writer’s Bloc; you have been to visit, haven’t you? Some wonderful, wonderful writing there.
In fact, it’s a little daunting, submitting something to another website in the hope that it might get published. What if they said “No, it’s rubbish, you are rubbish, never go near a keyboard again your horrid horrid word mangler you”? I don’t know if I could stand it.
Perhaps I’ll just go back to faffing about in Photoshop, it’s much nicer there.
Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 ~ 4 comments so far
The varied pace of life has, once again, caught me off guard. From a fairly slow, languid week last week (not without its moments mind you), the past few days have been a helter skelter rush of getting things done.
Mockups for a new website were sent off, designs for another were started, and requirements for a 3rd and 4th have all started to trickle into my inbox. Yet, such was (is!) the efficiency of my inbox handling I even managed an entire day of Inbox Zero (hint: for those using GMail, the Archive button is your friend).
I’ve even managed to renegotiate my car insurance – and I’ll pause here to thank the excellent Customer Service team at Elephant.co.uk, very efficient – and I have even started reading a book, American Gods by Neil Gaiman if you must know.
Ohh sure, I’ve not done any exercise for a week and, after bingeing somewhat over the weekend, I have put on several pounds but in the midst of everything that is going on I’m willing to take that as an acceptable byproduct.
Naturally I don’t blog about everything that happens in my life (frankly, dear reader, I’d scare most of you, disgust the others and if anyone did hang about after that… well I don’t think I’d really care who they were or what they thought…), but suffice to say that things are moving forward as life is wont to do, and, as ever, I’m taking a perverse pleasure from the bumpy ride.
How to maintain a healthy level of insanity
Monday, March 16, 2009 ~ 1 comment so far
Yes, this was forwarded to me by a friend. No, I don’t post these very often. Yes, number 4 made me laugh the loudest.
1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
I’ve sat in a white car with a camera which had a big lens on it (the camera, not the car), same effect. And no I didn’t do it on purpose!
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don’t disguise your voice.
How many offices still have an intercom?
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
Ahhh so this list originates from America
4. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
This is evil. And I started doing this one this morning.. day 1 of decaf
5. On all your cheque stubs, write ‘ for marijuana’.
What’s a cheque stub? It’s 2009!
6. Skip down the street rather than walk and see how many looks you get.
7. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
But… I’ve seen bottles of diet water, they do exist!!
8. Specify that your drive-through order is ‘to go’.
9. Sing along at the opera.
10. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can’t attend their party because you have a headache.
11. When the money comes out the atm, scream ‘I won! I won!’
12. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the car park, yelling ‘run for your lives! They’re loose!’.
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In other news. There is no other news. As you were.
RSS Feed updates
Saturday, March 14, 2009 ~ 5 comments so far
I’m in the midst of doing a little tweaking to this, and the other ‘one man’ websites. Part of that means rejigging the RSS Feeds.
There are two changes to note.
- The miniblog feed is dead. I haven’t had a miniblog for ages and, since deleting the feedburner feed for it, it appears to have been taken over by a chinese website. I’d suggest you unsubscribe!
- I’m planning on change the main feed for this blog. Yes it’s a pain, and I’m sorry but it’s the last remnant that needs changed to complete the move to the ‘one man’ domain.
So if you are subscribed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/Gordonmcleancouk then this is the last post you’ll receive from there.
From tomorrow, the RSS feed for this blog will be http://feeds2.feedburner.com/onemanblogs.
Apologies for the hassle.
And, finally, for those following the Super Duper Trough of Information (the one which includes my del.icio.us links and Flickr photos, don’t worry, that one ain’t changing!
Dry your hands
Saturday, March 14, 2009 ~ 3 comments so far
Just like the Commode Story in Reservoir Dogs, the hand dryer rages and obliterates all other sounds in the room. Unlike that scene I’ve not got a bag of drugs under my arm and there aren’t four rather camp looking, moustachioed American cops with accompanying police dog loitering by the sinks. I think this is mainly because they’d stand out quite a bit given that I’m in the office, which isn’t based in, or even near, America.
That and I don’t go many places where there are camp, moustachioed men dressed up as cops. Honest.
As I slowly drag my hands through the hot air, I marvel at the way my skin ripples and moves as the thin blast of air shrieks across my hands. Soon they are bone dry despite which I still move them back and forth a few times more just to enjoy the sensation.
With my hands dry I step back, the hand dryer whirls to a stop and I turn back to the sinks to wash my hands. I make sure they are completely wet before returning to the hand dryer once more. I slide my hands into the opening and gently move them up and down.
I should, perhaps, rephrase that last sentence.
Once again my skin is pushed to and fro, and once again I take just a little bit too long to dry them. Then suddenly I remember a past conversation and giggle. I turn and check behind me but there is no-one there, I pause and then decided against it.
I fear I may be addicted to drying my hands. Let me explain.
We’ve just had some shiny new Dyson Airblades installed, you see, and they are bloody awesome. Slowly moving your hands through the gap, watching the thin jets of air ripple your skin and then.. suddenly, you realise they are dry. Properly dry, not the way normal hand dryers leave your hands, when you still feel slightly damp. It’s quite an unusual experience to be honest, definitely something new.
Of course, being in an office full of, mostly, men, the installation of a new gadget (and make no mistake, this is very much an ‘engineering gadget’) starts various conversations. So, for the avoidance of doubt, I can confirm that I have not tried to stick any other part of my body into said machine.
Honest.
So, if you are in Glasgow, near Central Station, and want to experience the hand drying power (HANDS! perverts…) of the Dyson Airblade, then spend 20p and nip into the toilets there.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, a rather camp American cop wants to buy me a coffee…