The Wrong Domain
Saturday, March 13, 2010 ~ No comments yet
For a few years now I’ve randomly been checking the WHOIS records for the mclean.co.uk domain, and throughout that time it’s sat there, holding nothing but adverts and any attempt by me to contact the owner with a view to purchasing said domain for a “reasonable” fee have fallen on increasingly deaf ears.
Yes, it’s pure vanity/ego at play but I did have plans to offer email addresses to my entire family (and a few cousins too) so it wasn’t entirely unselfish. My Mum and Dad have done a lot of genealogy research which was something else I had toyed with hosting under that domain name.
And now, it’s gone. Bought (for a stupid fee no doubt) by a record company.
I’m a bit pissed off about the whole thing to be honest.
Yes I know the person who originally bought the domain name was entirely within their rights. Yes when you visit this very site you will see that I have adverts here although I’d counter that with the small fact that I provide content as well (even if the quality is rarely all that high), and yes he didn’t have to sell it to me just because I wanted it.
I get all that.
It’s just… well, it’s fucking annoying. Alright?
Never fear though as I have a cunning plan. I’m going to find a domain name that no-one has yet bought, purchase it and change my name! Ha ha! That’ll teach those annoying domain squatters.
Yours,
Gordonisawesome (c/o www.gordonisawesome.co.uk)
Why blogging is good
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 ~ No comments yet
The blogs I read are written by a reasonably diverse group of people. Naturally I steer clear of people who have hateful views, or from which I’m not going to learn anything except that they like the sound of their own voice, but on the whole I read interesting posts written by intelligent people.
When people ask me why I blog, what I get from it, why I bother, I tell them this. I tell them that, whilst there is a level of chaff which you need to sort through (that ‘Next’ button in Google Reader is a lifesaver at times), there are times when you get a series of blog posts on a particular topic that really make you sit back and think.
I quite like being challenged, being made to think, so I consider this a good thing.
And so it was recently when Clay Shirky wrote a piece titled A Rant About Women, which tempted Tom Coates out of hiatus to write a post titled Should we encourage self-promotion and lies?, which was followed yesterday by a piece from danah boyd titled whose voice do you hear? gender issues and success.
Such things are an example of why blogging is a good thing. Someone states their opinion in a fairly even handed way and people respond like adults (the downside of the internet can be found in a lot of the comments, Twitter posts and other ranting nonsense that erupted after Clay posted his article).
As for the issue being discussed in these posts I have to agree with Tom, particularly when he talks about how arrogance and confidence have a place in your “personality toolbox”, but the person who only has those tools is all the poorer for it. Unfortunately society, and certainly the workplace, still seem to favour people with confidence when what we should be doing is cutting through the noise to see what substance lies underneath.
Interestingly I did have in mind a post about how men objectify women (which I’ll still write up for another time) but got sidetracked by danah’s article. Well worth reading all three of them.
Fatefully conspired against
Friday, September 25, 2009 ~ 2 comments so far
I have returned from my time in Derby. It has been an eventful and exciting week in many ways and yet, despite my best laid plans, fate decided to remind me of my position in the universe.
As I mentioned previously I was travelling down to Derby (Mickleover to be precise) where I was attending a conference at which I was delivering a presentation entitled “Why Blog?” (you can see my slides and notes on my other blog. I’ve presented at something similar once, and considering the topic I was reasonably comfortable with my knowledge of the subject matter. I’ll be writing more about the conference on my other blog, although some of the cognitive psychology stuff will probably fall here too, it’s fascinating!
As I was in the area, it transpired that, after many years of reading him and recently delighting at watching him dance on the plinth in Trafalgar Square, I would finally meet the Troubled Diva (aka mike) himself. All good. THEN he said that I’d also be able to shake hands with, and congratulate on his recent half-marathon (for which he helped raise over £3k!) the only and only SwissToni well I was delighted. THEN he mentioned that Sarah would there as well, and as she was one of many Tweeps that shared the delight of the pointy fingered dancing on the plinth that evening well it was looking like a nice evening.
THEN they mentioned we’d be seeing a gig by a Norwegian band named Ungdomskulen and… yeah.. I wasn’t sure. As it turns out they were good, big and noisy and a little “prog”, although the CD that I purchased after the gig is a lot … hmmm … more indie sounding than the live act.
Anyway my over-elaborated point is that I had several reasons to be excited about my trip.
The journey down on Tuesday evening was uneventful and very short, flying from Glasgow to East Midlands airport (the cheapest option!) was all of 40 minutes, and the first day of the conference nicely played out along the theme I was using as part of my presentation on blogging first thing on the second day (the whole “be part of the conversation” thing, you know).
Roll on Thursday morning, the second day of the conference and at 9am I stepped up and 35 minutes later I finished, took 5 minutes for a few questions and ended bang on time. I missed one or two little things but hey ho, it went very well from my side and a few people spoke to me afterwards saying they had enjoyed it so it seems to have been well received. The video of the presentation will never ever see the light of day. I had to kill the A/V guy after my session to make sure, so apologies to any dog-walkers in Mickleover who stumble over the body of a young man, strangled by several microphone cords.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur and all of a sudden I’m in Derby and heading towards the building where all the noise was coming from, and next thing I’m shaking hands with three people who I don’t know but have known (collectively) for many many years. Fab! It also whittles down my list of “bloggers to meet” to around 4 or 5 (no, no names). I originally thought the number lower but well you lot are just too fab.
Alas the excitement had to end so this very morning at something around 4.50am I woke up and not being able to get back to sleep got up and started the last of the packing. I jumped in the taxi when it arrived (late) and by the time I got to the airport (including 2 trips round one roundabout!) I was a little tight for time.
I grabbed a paper (The Guardian in which Mike had an article), a coffee and hustled to Gate 23.
Sidenote: There is a sign in Derby airport that states how far gates 18-23 are, 180m from the sign apparently. Now, whilst I can, now, figure out roughly how long that may take me to walk, does anyone else think it odd they didn’t at least have a diagram, or indicate how long it might take someone to walk (1-2 minutes)?? Just me, ok as you were.
At the top of a metal escalator as I reached down to grab my bag, my foot caught the edge of a step and next thing I know I’ve fallen forward, banging my injured knee (long term, tendinitis), my shin and my arm as I try and keep hold of my coffee, the paper and my luggage. It hurt.
I was very tired, mainly because whilst conferences are great they are intense, as there is a LOT of thinking that goes on both in the sessions and in the chats afterwards, and because I’d spent the previous (very enjoyable!) evening on my feet. I hadn’t had breakfast, and it REALLY fucking hurt. I think it’s the closest I’ve been to crying about falling over since I was a child.
Needless to say the escalator was still moving and a split second later I realised I would have to get up or try and negotiate the end of the stairs and I painfully managed to get to my feet just in time to stagger forward and fall down again.
I’m rather thankful there wasn’t anyone else in sight.
Looking back it seems a bit silly but given that I spent the first 20 minutes of the flight pale, sweating and shaking so much the stewardess stopped to ask if I was ok I guess the adrenaline rush was a little too much for my tired and aching body to cope with.
All that at the end of a wonderful week, meeting interesting people, making new friends, learning new things, enjoying new music and meeting someone I’ve ‘known’ for longer than anyone outside my immediate circle of “real life” friends (they don’t blog, I can call them that). Regardless of all the good things that happened this week, the shock of that simple little trip will be what I recall when I mention the conference or “when I met Mike”, and that, my friends is why I’m feeling mostly conspired against.
So, I’m going to focus on the positives and, as I limp home, remind myself that this was just a little bit of balance, that’s all. Both reminding me that while life can be fantastically good, it can also tip you over. Literally. On a metal escalator in an airport near Derby.
On blog comments
Friday, September 4, 2009 ~ 9 comments so far
I always get excited when I see an email in my inbox with a subject line that starts “WordPress:…” as it means someone has commented on one of my blogs. Such a simple delight I know but hey, you take pleasure in the little things I guess.
Sometimes that delight is instantly crushed when I realise it’s a spambot that is trying to add a comment containing a link to either some ‘enhancing’ pharamceutical, a flirty comment from a hot chick, or just complete nonsense accompanied by a phishing URL.
However there seems to be a rise in the number of “real” spam comments these days, and that is hugely disheartening. These comments are left by, it seems, real people who have taken a fraction of a second to search, for example, for “Olympics” found my blog post from a couple of years back and added in a perfectly unoffensive comment, with a link to their specialist Olympic Boxing in 2012 website.
And in a weird way that, to me, is worse than any automated spambot. The fact that there is (again, it certainly seems that there is) a real person that has left the comment makes the whole thing feel tainted and dirty.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hugely precious about this blog but really, this new development in comment spam is just ugly. But then it’s always the few that spoil it for the many.
Why can’t I own Englishmen?
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 ~ 3 comments so far
There was a bit of a stramash in the Scottish press yesterday, when a fairly high profile Reverend in the Church of Scotland coming out of the closest and declaring himself a big gay (those may not have been his exact words…). As many of you will already know, religion and homosexuality don’t mix very wel at all, with homosexuality being stated as an “abomination to God” by some.
Yes, don’t worry, it really is 2009.
Big Rab picked up on this news as well, saying:
The whole thing reminded me once again of the excellent “Why can’t I own a Canadian?” letter and the episode of the West Wing on which it is allegedly based. I don’t know if the letter is genuine but it sure covers all the relevant points.
I’m not going to repeat the entire thing here but it’s funny and pointed and you can read the full thing on his blog:
Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?
Calling all international Scots
Monday, April 27, 2009 ~ No comments yet
Spotted on the little red boat, head over there for the full details.
There’s a lovely artist I know by the name of Steve Raws, who creates things with enormous letters and colossal words. They’re very beautiful. So. He’s doing this gigantic banner of a Burns poem, that will be displayed in Edinburgh. All the information is here.
The way that Steve works is that he encourages people to get involved, and so is touring Scotland getting people to paint giant letters, which will then get worked into the banner. But he’d really really like contributions from Scots overseas as well, so if you are one, or know of any, can you pass this along? Or at least the link to the blog about the banner?
Go one, it’ll be fun!
To hell with what people think
Monday, April 27, 2009 ~ 2 comments so far
I had a long post planned but, ultimately it was really just a way to some how gain approval that buying a new iPod was the right solution.
I had planned to waffle on at some length about the size of my music library (stop, phhnarring at the back you!), and about how I listen to music at work more than most places but can’t store all of my library on my work PC and how slow and cumbersome using a separate USB drive is and how HARD it is (ohh woe is me, I know, I know) to have to sync the USB drive with the home PC and goddamn I wish iTunes had an easier way to switch libraries as I really need my own as well as a larger “everything” library and wwwahhh wahhhh wahhhhh.
And then I read this post over at Swiss Toni’s and realised just how lucky I am and all that stuff.
As the old adage goes, I might have MS, but MS doesn’t have me. I’m not going to NOT write about it because I’m worried about what people might think of it and of me. Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing that MS Week is trying to change? I think it is, and so over the next few days, I’m going to write about pretty much nothing else but MS, and to hell with what people think.
To which I say, quite bloody right Mister!