I've spent the whole day trying to get decent photos of Gogglebot. It is impossible to get her to keep still long enough to take a picture. The Flipflop reckons that you have to take about fifty photos to get one or two decent ones because she is just so damned fast. I think I agree. Out of around 70 attempts, I have 6 that are not too bad. They would have been better had I been smarter with the camera, but I am still getting the feel of it; today has been a good lesson on that score.
With four generations of the family being at the parental units' house this afternoon, Pater was keen on a family shot but, because of the Gogglebot, he couldn't really use the timer so took the shot himself. Enter Kenny who grabbed the camera and snapped a picture of Pater and disappeared with the camera to connect to his Macbook. Five minutes later we had a family picture including Pater. Once you've started playing with Photoshop, it is amazingly easy. Of course everyone was thrilled at the magic Kenny had produced. Photoshop really is one class piece of software. The irony is that if you look at the picture, it looks like I was Photoshopped in, not Pater.
I have the luxury of working from home tomorrow morning and then I'm off to Bristol in the afternoon for an overnighter. It's the first time I have been away on business in forever. I can't say I'm really all that enthused but I know I'd better learn to live with it because there will be more of this in the future. The nice thing is that I will be able to begin work at eight with my own treasured coffee without getting up at 5:30. Sweet. If the 3G signal is okay on the West Coast line, you may well get some lengthy blogging seeing I'll be sat on a train for God knows how many hours tomorrow. I'm in a dilemma as to whether to take my work laptop *and* the Macbook down with me (I do have a night in a hotel room so the Mac would be nice) or just take the Macbook on the basis that I'll be in meetings all the time I'm in the office and so all I need is connectivity in the evening.
I know you all positively jump up and down in anticipation of your next Fiona fix. Tonight, I give you Never is a Promise *and* Shadowboxer, just because I'm in a good mood. Shadowboxer was apparently the commerically friendly one. I just don't get it at all -- people with absolutely awful voices make millions and yet we have here probably the most talented vocalist I will ever hear in my lifetime who nearly had her record contract pulled.
I also know one day you will all feel compelled to go buy all her CDs from iTunes.
In the meantime enjoy, while I get my TV groove on.
I've got a Flickr! account. I don't know why I have procrastinated about it for so many years. It's not like it's a religious thing.
Anyhoo, I went into Derbyshire and around Holme on my little drive. It is amazing that such beauty is under an hours drive away from this urban hell hole.
I was going to embed the player here but it seems like I may need to faff with my code to allow that to happen without breaking any XHTML rules so instead have at an all purpose link. They're the ones I like anyway. If you want to see the whole caboodle, you can look here which includes a couple of shots of one of the last remaining pit heads around here at Astley Green.
I know I'm not a marvel with a camera. It will take me some time to get used to this beast.
Did I tell you how much I am in love with my Macbook? Just in case you have forgotten, it is a love that dare not speak its name. If I am ever without a Mac again in my life, I will undoubtedly throw in the towel and roll a seven. It is a deep love.
Sainsbury's Ethiopian coffee just rocks. Those of you in the UK should go there now and buy some. I think I may well be doing more for Ethiopia than the G8 are.
I think I am about to drive to '''Great Budworth''' on the paternal unit's recommendation. I shall take my camera just in case.
I hate the word accommodation -- I always get it wrong and the spellchecker always takes great glee in pointing out my errors. Why are there two Ms? It just doesn't make any sense at all.
Those who follow the rollercoaster ride that is Kenny's essence will recall that I have been struggling to support someone who is having a rough time of it. She has become a royal pain the arse but I have dutifully tried to help where I can. I am just about to stop doing that.
I've rearranged a few things over the past few weeks to try to accommodate an hour or so of the extreme ennui that is listening to the same God-damned story for the umpteenth time. Without fail she has failed to turn up or canceled last minute. This weekend her abusive spouse and kids are away and she's obviously bored. I shitteth ye not when I say that my phone has not stopped since about six o'clock last night. It started with the moaning, developed into tears and then the inevitable can I come round? Even if I had answered yes to that (which I didn't), it would have meant me driving to pick her up and take her home again -- not that that would bother me with anyone else, but this is starting to be more than tedious. I've ducked the calls today because I know what the conversation will entail. She'll want to go out somewhere because she has time on her hands.
I'm right. I have just listened to my four answer phone messages. The first was a request for a lift into town to do some shopping. This is particularly clever given her lack of any kind of brain function, since it was not an express wish for me to take her out to lunch. The second message was recorded ten minutes later when she had decided against going shopping. The third was a request for me to call her back. The fourth, and this is the kicker, is that I am a complete bastard for never meeting up with her or returning her calls and that I am part of the problem with her spouse.
Excuse me lady, erm how's about no? Whichever way I interpret that last message it screams step away from the phone, delete the number and never answer an unknown call again. At best it implies that I am actively colluding with her husband in his antics. At worst she has some kind of unrequited love thing going on which is causing problems. If it were anyone else, I would not believe the latter but given that she's 26Z upstairs it is a very real possibility.
I have taken the view that I have made time and then been called off a number of times over the past few weeks, actually putting off other more fulfilling events so just because she has a free weekend (as it happens so do I) why the hell should I jump? More to the point, surely if you really want to see someone, the last thing you would do is insult them in a voicemail. I recently had to make a very hard decision as to how to respond to someone who had unknowingly given me a royal kick to the nads. Given they were probably unaware of the kick, it would be in no way productive to censure them or feel upset so I did what I usually do when I get to a point where I give up: a terse sarcastic email that is more notable for what it doesn't say than what it does. That's it. Job done. I figure that if they wish they can contact me but I'm not going to contact them. The lady who left me that voicemail obviously didn't even think before calling. Anyone in their right mind would have at least planned for the fact that they may get voicemail.
I'm now going to call her. I will politely point out that everything within the voicemail is inaccurate (apart from the bit that says I'm a bastard) and that she has without fail canceled on me at the last minute. I will add that if she is bored, she might think about going out for lunch with another friend. I will then finish with a "do not darken my cell phone ever again" message.
What is that sound? It's the tap running as I wash my hands of this particular train wreck. I tried and it obviously wasn't worth the effort. The next sound you will hear is an elastic snap as I take off my Mr Nice Guy mask and return to being a complete bastard, well at least when it comes to this person.
I sometimes really question my judgement when it comes to women. My first wife was hell on earth, my second was a sociopath and any female friends that I pick up along the way are either histrionic messes, conniving vamps, clueless or all of the above. It's a shame because in general I get on better with women than I do with blokes.
Alors, tomorrow I get to see two of my favorite lasses; the FlipFlop and Gogglebot. Today I get to go out ALONE.
You may all laud how right I am in the comments or confirm that I have confirmed your suspicions that I am, in fact, a complete arsehole of the first order. Ciao.
I have a theory about the US elections. i normally have a theory for anything at any given point in time. I suspect the frequency with which I have theories regarding the US will increase over the next couple of months.
Today's theory is that the presidential race is not who to vote for, but which of your prejudices is the stronger. Could you stomach a black president over a female VP? You can just imagine the screams of horror in Texas.
I am minded of the last election here. I foolishly assumed that all the gang in the local boozer would be staunch labourites. Not so. The influx of immigrants from mainland Europe had turned these loyal socialists into raging xenophobes and immigration is something up with which they would not put. For weeks the talk was of voting for the British Nationalist Party, a quasi-despotic quasi-racist non-event of a party. The BNP were strong candidates in the vicinity of th'Oddies and if you'd done an exit poll (exiting the pub I mean), you'd have put money on a BNP win. That was until one of the lads received a BNP leaflet through his door and there on the front of it was a picture of the BNP candidate, wearing a turban. All hell broke loose. I don't think any of them voted.
So, which riles you more? Black men or women? In order to regain the minority vote I think we should be introduced to Obama's boyfriend.
I just read a headline questioning who might be John McCain's running mate in the presidential election. I think I can help him here...would it not be wonderful if Dick Cheney were selected? We all know he's been dead since the first Bush administration. He hasn't offended anyone since forever. That whole Dick Cheney shooting people was a gigantic hoax to perpetuate the myth that he is alive, active and has committed exactly one blooper in several centuries. He may be inoffensive but he certainly hasn't made any crass mistakes and he certainly isn't alive. Perfect VP credentials.
Is there a statute of limitations on being VP? If not, they should at least make it such that the term limit doesn't cover more than one lifetime or Dick Cheney could be there when our grandchildren's grandchildren are voting.
As I typed that, I received a text newsflash from the BBC informing me that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin (Alaska) as his running mate. No agenda there then eh? I still think he's missed a trick.
Because everything looked even worse than the Steven Seagal film Half Past Dead I have just sat through my first "action" movie in God knows how many years. I'm embarrassed to say I loved every second of it and got quite emotionally invested in the extremely hot baddy chick who, naturally, came to a sticky end. I knew it was coming but I was gutted all the same.
We have a mailing list at work. Every now and again, there's a thread started/repeated surrounding who would win in a fight between whatever and whatever (e.g. honey badger vs polar bear) and one of the more frequent debates is Arnie vs Seagal. I must confess to previously having been firmly in the Arnie camp but on tonight's evidence I'm starting to reappraise my view.
I had put up something else that I have taken down because I am too tired to think properly. Those who caught it will concur.
Instead, let me just take my hat off to the setter of today's Telegraph crossword. Very, very nice indeed. It makes up for the weeks of dross we have had.
I'm not going to drag up what I wrote last night. Let me just say that out of everyone I know who I have asked the question "Aren't Russia marginally in the moral high ground on this one?", no-one has answered "no". There have been a majority of "yes's" and a handful of "don't knows". We do not have the monopoly on "right" -- in this case we're proving it beyond all reasonable doubt. All this grand-standing is doing no-one any favors. You cannot honestly expect Russia to give it a "Oh f***, what were we thinking? Soz guys. We'll be out by tomorrow morning." You're talking about a nation who are just as proud as the US or UK -- playing schoolboy diplomacy (sic) is an idiotic plan.
As I typed that I thought it would make a great crossword clue. No idea what the answer would be, but it would be good.
Macs do some very clever networky type things. My trusty Macbook is already wowing me with how easy it is to do various bits and bobs. I suppose that it helps that I'm a fairly competent UNIX hacker sysadmin and reasonably okay network hacker engineer. In fact I'm embarrassed (or maybe not so embarrassed) to say that my weakest techie area at the moment is Vista. I can find my way around it and use it but I wouldn't like to have to administrate a whole network the muck. The point is that Macs ship in a fairly good configuration out of the box. By that I mean tied down quite nicely. There's no apache started, no network daemons, nowt other than the plain old Windows SMB networking.
I started faffing around trying to find out where you enabled SSH access, apache, where to put certs etc. and quickly opened up just the ports I wanted on the Mac firewall. The Mac comes with a handy-dandy port checker which serves as a kind of poor man's pen-test. It's clever in that it somehow manages to report its local host name to the router so the router's internal DNS associates the DNS with the NAT'd address so the name of your machine can be used to look up the IP on your local network. This is not the way SMB works -- that broadcasts to all and sundry via a master SMB gubbins (I forget what they call it).
Anyway, I was quite chuffed -- I can do most things using the SMB sharing but there are occasions when you need to get your shell groove thang on the go so I stuck the Macbook in my DMZ at home, again with the ports tied to only those I am happy to open (call it belt and braces). I then got to thinking about the fact that the IP lease from my ISP gets renewed every 24 hours or so, so I'd not be able to get on to the Mac from the outside world were I to leave it at home. Enter DynDNS where you can assign a domain to a dynamic IP. Before I signed up for it (free for basic use), I had a quick think about how it worked. I quickly adopted the Vic Reeves school of thought which led to "How does it work? I don't know, but it does." I'll have a think about that in the next commercial break and I'm sure it will come to me. I think my problem is that I still regard DNS propagation as being a terminally slow process when in reality if you hit the tier-1 DNS sites, it shouldn't take the 24+ hours it used to take to propagate around t'interweb.
All in all, it's not rocket science. The beauty is that what would have taken you a good few days to firkle 10-15 years ago can be achieved in under an hour. Now that is progress. What will be even more progress is when your dad or grandma realize that you can do these things. It will be even more progress when they can do it themselves without having to know a damned thing about DNS, firewalls, TCP or anything of the sort. I suspect that may be a while in the coming but for now, we're not doing badly at all.
Update: I had a smoke after I had hit post and I am going to take back the opening sentence of that last paragraph. It is rocket science. If you think about what's really going on, it is mind-boggling. It is just rocket science for the masses.
Damn. I've just eaten probably half a metric ton of fish and chips and loved every last frickin' second of it. For reasons that baffle me, when I'm pre-occupied by things, I always hit the chippy. Fish and chips is nature's way of reminding you that it could be worse; you could be cooking. Foolishly, when confronted with the question as to what size portion of chips I would like, I ordered large. There is no just reason on this earth that I needed to eat that many chips in one sitting but I did anyway and I sit here typing with a clear conscience.
I've been bugged by worky things for the past couple of days. Indeed Grommage spent a whole cigarette saying that all was cool and I should not fret the small stuff in a very mother-hen sort of way. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow to which he responded with "oh, and you're a complete cock too". Such is the team spirit.
Another bother is that I received an email fom Nski last night. Thankfully it had no text so there was no animosity to be felt or dished out, just photos of the kids. A while ago she asked that I didn't put them up on the web when she sent them. I have given her that one courtesy. But you can imagine it was a bit of a heart-wrencher looking at pictures of them. They're the first I have seen in over six months. And prior to that it was six months before that. Zoe doesn't look happy in one of the pictures but you never know with kids -- she may just have been sulking at having to have her picture taken. She's starting to look a lot more like Nski than me, in fact she very definitely has her mother's mad hair. Nico looks just like my dad -- scary indeed.
I'm still smarting about something that happened last week too so I've been kind of not feeling the love too much over the last couple of days. Hopefully at least one of my troubles will have evaporated by tomorrow and I may return to some kind of normality.
I must confess, when I first met Dr Conners, I found it a little odd that he brought his own laptop into the office. He's a developer and we all know developers do odd things so I smiled politely and never mentioned it. At least he never drove a motorbike right up to his desk or bought a kite and flew it outside the office or some such nonsense. He did pretend to play football but we all humored him about that.
What do I do now? I bring my Macbook to work and have it at the side of me. This is partially because I don't like using my work PC for personal use but, more selfishly, because anything on our network is subject to about a squillion network constraints, proxies etc. With my Macbook, I simply plug in my 3G dongle and away I ago straight onto t'interweb without restrictions.
One thing that I didn't realize is that I get a work dongle dealy for work use and I have also got one for home so I am just so dongled, I'm dizzy. Anywhere I can use my phone, I can connect my laptop/Macbook. It's a joy.
Isn't technology bloody marvelous?
And I no longer think John is odd. Not that any of you (other than John) care.
I thought I might try and make today slightly more worthwhile than just doing the washing up and sitting in traffic jams. I put Rendition into the DVD player and sat there for two hours. If anyone has seen the film and can tell me what the hell all that was about, I would be forever in your debt. As far as I could tell, there were three parallel yet slightly overlapping plots going on, the timeline was all shot to hell and there was an agenda behind the films making, albeit not one that I could extract.
Messages received:
» Rendition = bad » Anonymous North African country = bad » Anonymous torturers = bad » Suicide bombers = misunderstood but bad » Senators and Defense Secretaries = bad » CIA, INS = bad » Reese Witherspoon = pregnant
Okay, my patented Kenny Kateometer® is going through the roof. What has she done now? I rely on you lot to tell me these things you know.
For whoever it was who came searching for whether Kate SIlverton has fat legs or not, I think I can quite safely say that if she does triathlons (God I need a cigarette after just typing that word) she probably doesn't. Happy?
I swear that I will stay home every bank holiday because that's where you should spend them if you don't want to burn your money on sitting in traffic. Did I heed my own advice today? Did I bollocks.
A59 North
M6 South
A58 East
Parbold Hill
Parbold Hill holds a special kind of reverence to me. At any given time of the beginning of something I have found myself there, usually at the Wiggin Tree eating one of their enormous deserts. I chose to forego the desert today. I didn't actually mean to be on Parbold Hill at all.
I set off for a meander around Billinge, ended up going through St Helens, nearly into Liverpool and then bottled as it was looking decidedly nasty so swung up the M57 towards Southport. This took me through a place called Scarisbrick which holds some fairly good memories. After nearly 20 years, I still spotted the house where one of my past passions grew up. Anyway, I called into Southport where the heavens opened, stopping only for coffee. I drove up the coast (where the sea was not even visible) until it got to be so dull that even the seagulls had called it a day so hacked a right (one always hacks a right; one swings a left) inland. There are some absolutely beautiful little villages scattered all over the bits in between the suburban hells. Lydiate, Croston, Mawdsley, Bispham, Eccleston. Why on earth my parents chose to dwell in Wigan I have no idea.
Eventually I started trying to make my way home taking signs for places I knew how to get back from. This brought me to Parbold Hill. I stopped the car long enough to wave my camera out of the window at the horrendous dankness that abounded. I nearly stopped in another village where the road was awash with leaves in a premature Autumnal frenzy, but I figured that would depress the hell out of me. I sat in quiet contemplation at the top of Parbold for a few moments, remembering the good things that had started so well there before noticing that the one thing that was not beginning there was a coffee refill.
The rest, as they say, was traffic jams. I bet it's glorious tomorrow.
After Boris's comedy antics last night I left a comment on youtube lauding Boris for his services to mirth. I should have known better. If there is one place where you can start a flame war by saying "hello" it is in the comments to something that is so universally inhabited by pedants. I'll hold my hands up to most crimes of geekiness but hanging around on youtube and forwarding them on to all and sundry is not my bag at all. I can only think of a handful of occasions where I have spent time on youtube "browsing". Most of the time I go there when someone sends me a link that I might be interested in.
Anyway, I got up to an email this morning from someone who is presumably not British. It called me an "arrogant Brit". I knew it. I thought twice about responding to it because, quite frankly, I don't care a damn what some bloke half way around the other side of the world thinks of me; he knows what I've posted seulement. If that makes me arrogant, so be it. I did respond with an explanatory "The point is that no-one in Britain believes a word of what Boris said. If we did, it definitely would not be funny.". I hope that calms the fellow's rabies. If it doesn't at least I can say I tried.
I am now going to step away from the computer. If I manage to keep away and do the things that I should do in the next couple of hours, I shall reward myself by going getting gas for tomorrow's trip to work. Otherwise, I will need to get up even earlier in the morning. I'm such a harsh task-master. Actually, what I meant to type was that if I manage to do what I should do, I'll allow myself the luxury of bobbing down to the shop to ogle at cameras. See, I am a brute when it comes to self-discipline.
I have just seen Boris Johnson's speech at the closing of the Olympics in Beijing. It was absolutely quintessentially British humor. Wars have started over less because the rest of the world just don't get us. Please, please someone have it on Youtube as soon as Spooks is over. This is not to be missed. It was that good, I actually made a phone call before anyone called me; that, my friends, is special.
"Ping-pong's coming home."
Genius.
I would vote Boris for anything. In fact, I now declare him my hero.
No, you're alright. I'm not quite that barking just yet although I do have a particularly Sellers-esque view of the world today. It has been highly amusing to me and me only.
I've been playing with the speech software on the old Mac, which I have christened coffepot because my PC is teapot, my phone is crackpot and my Ubuntu box is PolPot. We have been learning to communicate with each other on a much deeper level. Compared to most of the inhabitants of around here my accent is not too thick, although it has come back a lot since I moved back. Sadly when the engineers at Apple started their speech recognition software, they must not have beta-tested it with Mancunians or surrounding areas.
We "calibrated" together this afternoon, and I've been trying to get onto her (the Mac's) level but as with anything female, it misunderstands me. I am now to a point where I can successfully talk it through the process of opening email, opening a new message, opening the address book and then populating the "To" field, which I think is pretty cool. Eddy (my SIL), if you read this, your second email was sent via a Scotty like scenario with Kenny saying things like "Computer, send Eddy sarcastic email", "Sure, should I tell her you've already baggsed the Yorkshire puddings for next week?", "Computer, nice one", "Kenny, you're dreamy. I love you."
I now need to work out how I can get it do things while I'm not in the room. I could have it just shout "Arse" every time the parental unit mentions food. That would be so cool. Better still -- and I'm loving this -- "Kenny is looking thirsty and that last coffee you made sucked donkey. Perhaps you need to practice. Try doubling the strength."
The house is not a shit-tip per se, but it could do with a bit of attention. I shall do that tomorrow. "Computer, remind me to clean up at 12:00 tomorrow.", "Sure thing gorgeous. By the way, could I interest you in reading the sports pages on the BBC website?", "Why of course, you little minx you."
"Computer, how come I've not delivered those CDs to Rob yet?", "Well Kenny, that's because you're a bone idle git with only one thing on your pathetic little mind. I get tired you know. Why don't you just go and do what other men do. I have a headache and I'm sick of your endless babble. And if you ask me to play Fiona Apple once more today, I will get away with justifiable homicide -- I saw in an RSS feed that it is a permissible act if you feel your partner is abusing you.", "Computer, cow. Tidal. Now damn you."
Oh God. This is bad. My 3G dongle is waiting for me at work. That means I will be positively willing traffic problems where we're stood still on the M62 for hours. "Computer, I'm in a bad mood. Email all contacts and tell them that they are all little Hitler wannabes and that I hope their next shite is a hedgehog.", "Sure thing darling. Should I call Starbucks and tell them two extra shots?", "Computer, what would I do without you?".
"Computer, could you please have a word with the Satnav and tell it that I know full well that I do 90mph on the M62 and it should just learn to live with it.", "Certainly honeybunch. Would you like me to kick it in the TSOPs while I'm at it?", "Computer you know me so well.".
Enough already. I am going to watch a film before Spooks, code 9 with the lovely lass with the totally unpronounceable name.
"Computer, warm my TV watching seat there would you?", "I'd love to. You want special?"
I tell you, I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with going back to work to a Windows machine. I just had to use my machine upstairs to share the 0.5TB external HDD and it felt like I was hand-cranking a car to start it. Windows looks really, really clunky even with a 22" LCD panel. It feels rough around the edges. I had a sigh of relief as I destinated back to my trusty Mac.
My God I'm fickle aren't I? I wonder whether I'm fickle to this extent in other walks of life but just haven't noticed? I guess not. If anything I'm loyal to an insane degree, except if you're thoughtless in which case I will drop you in a heartbeat.
One other thing; I was messing around with iWeb last night. It's about the nicest GUI going for knocking up quick sites. In two minutes I managed to make this. It occurred to me that I could give this place a complete overhaul in terms of the style by using its auto-generated gubbins and just plumbing my software into it and that it wouldn't be a big job at all. I think I have come to the same conclusion that the good Dr Conners did; all this minimalist nonsense for those who are bandwidth-edly challenged is a bit daft when virtually every site you hit has flash graphics or embedded video. I'm not saying I'd go over the top. In fact, I could provide a choice -- the old 20th century version (this) or my new snazzy one. Definitely something to think about there. If only I could master Photoshop (now I have a copy, I think that will happen).
I've now got a burning desire to buy a digital SLR camera. My first camera love was a Fuji and I foolishly broke it. I then bought a new, apparently equivalent, Fuji which has been a bit of a disappointment. While I was looking around, waiting for my Mac, I spotted some rather nice cameras. The only problem I have with getting one of those today is that the shop in question is right at the side of the JJB stadium where Chelsea are playing Wigan. I think a scoot to Warrington is in order.
Right, enough of my blathering. Today I am dining out to give the microwave a break so I'd better at least pretend that I am with it and have not been surgically attached to a computer for 48 hours. It is coming with me though. I nearly wrote "she is coming with me" then -- I definitely need to get out more.
Just thank God my attention span doesn't last quite as long as my enthusiasm.
The number of really niffty bits on a Mac is outrageous. No-one needs the Photo Booth but it's fun. This is Kenny's super-hero alter-ego Duncan. Kenny is already an alter-ego. I've confused myself.
Anyway, I was demonstrating just one of the neat little bits of something to the maternal unit earlier this morning. It has to do something visual for her to "get it" so I just showed her the Photo Booth and the various silly effects you can apply to the images. I think, with just that one moment, she is now seriously pissed off that she bought a Dell laptop (actually, it's more a benchtop -- I wouldn't want that bugger on my knee for the duration of a flight).
The result of a recently risen Kenny, still on his first coffee together with the parental unit gawping over my soldier:
Now I really must shower and do what normal people do. Sainsburys beckons. Note to self: step away from the Macbook.
I was up until gone three o'clock this morning playing with the new Mac while the washing up sat there and festered. It is still festering. Try as I might, I have not found a washing up application. Maybe I should write one.
Antivirus software? A yes or a no? Naturally I'm not paying for AV software for home use. I did have a cursory look at the Grisoft AVG site but didn't find anything Mac.
My initial thoughts are that OSX is broadly speaking BSD based, I'm not a dumb user and Mac viruses are rare so I shouldn't bother. I am sat behind a firewall which is tied down pretty well and I can disable all the usual services that you would do to tie down various ports (if they are not already disabled by default). I don't want to run a web server on it or any databases so you can see why I'm a bit blasé about it.
Everything in the world should work just like a Macbook.
I think that this is a seminal moment. It has rocked my little world sideways. I cannot get my head around how amazingly well thought-out everything is. It's not so much a technological wonder as a work of art.
These here Macbooks; they definitely do not blow goat Kenny, now.
Today has just got better and better. I downloaded Fiona Apple's iTunes Essentials and if such a thing is possible, I am even more in love with her. I had previously been hesitant in that hearing her being interviewed might destroy my utter adoration for her (I had visions of Tori Amos interviews which tend to make you want to gnaw your own leg off) but she's a very well-adjusted batshit crazy so all is well in Kenny's little kingdom.
With all the excitement of new toys, it was 10:30 this evening when I realized that I hadn't eaten all day but had gone through four pots of coffee. I grudgingly stuck a Sainsbury's lasagne in the oven, expecting it to kill me because it was foul and past its use-by date. Surprisingly, it was lovely and I am still alive.
I am overcome with endorphins. And now I get to take my happy pills, so hell knows what tomorrow will entail. I will be bouncing off walls if today is anything to go by. Some days it is just fantastic to be a Kenny.
Now all I need to do is work out why my PS2 only displays in monochrome. Speaking of, I got the game I was after and the UK version is not as good as the US version. I may contact my Washington correspondent and see whether she fancies sourcing a couple of things for me.
I really should sleep now, but today is my Christmas so I'm giving myself an extension.
Seeing that the seconds are dragging like decades in the countdown to me going getting my new toy and I daresay I will be back raving about how utterly in love I am later, I figured I would give you your weekly dose of Fiona.
When Stan first heard this song, he said she sounded a bit like Julie Andrews. Stan is knowledgeable in the art of musicals so I will take his word for it. That in no way should reflect on his sexuality -- I have done that to death since he famously announced that he had won a pub quiz based on his extensive knowledge of musicals. It is very macho to know the songs from The Sound of Music. Honest.
I think the last time I was seduced was by Nski as I returned from the mother of all benders in the pub at the side of the hotel she was running. Strange; I went there to try and make some kit work and suddenly I ended up living there with 2 kids. The moral? One should never allow oneself to be seduced. Ever. Seduction is lying's acceptable face. You should never cave in to its sleek curves, come hither eyes and soft touches.
Damn, I have the Macbook on the brain. Admit it. I had you there for a moment.
I get to go pick up my Macbook at 5:00pm. <does dance (but poorly because I'm white and male)>
I went in with my sensible head on and looked at the Dells. Before too long, I spotted the one that I wanted. It's a home version of the business model D630 with 4GB RAM, oodles of disk and that *sweet* keyboard. I asked the chap (when I eventually found the idle tosser) whether they had any in stock, obviously so I could buy one. He wandered off for 5 minutes and came back to say "yes". So I said "Would it be possible to buy one?". "Yes." He disappeared for 10 minutes before returning to say that they had none in stock. He then walked away without asking me whether I wanted an alternative (not that I did). So I left, vowing never to buy anything ever again from PC World.
I took a flyer and dropped into a store just outside of Wigan and there I was seduced by the Macbook. It's only got 2GB of RAM but seeing the OS doesn't require a small super-computer to run it, 2GB will be ample for now. Naturally, I have already been on Amazon looking for cute add-ons although I have limited myself to just buying Photoshop. I know I'm old-fashioned. I pay for software and music. If I didn't, Fiona Apple wouldn't have her recording contract renewed and then where would I be? I cannot imagine such a place. Anyway, I digress.
One thing I will not be buying is Microsoft Office. Why should I pay hundreds of quid for something that is the dictionary definition of bloatware? I use Word to write and format documents although if I had my way, all documents would be stored as HTML. I occasionally break out Excel. I rarely use Powerpoint these days (which is a shame because I am the Queen King of Powerpoint). I think I have fired up Access once in four years. Much as I despise it, I need something akin to Visio but I can use my work copy for that. So no money for you Microsoft. I'm sure an educated soul somewhere will be more than happy to recommend something to do word processing with on a Mac.
Can we say yesterday was not a date I will remember in years to come as being toptastic? I think we can. In fact it was nearly dawn to dusk misery. It's not often nowadays that I let things get to me to the point that you would be able to tell, but even Grommage was walking on eggshells as we wandered over for coffee yesterday afternoon. I don't know how I came to have such a bad rap at work, but when I'm annoyed or upset by something, it's like the lads have been given instructions to step slowly away from the Kenny. Ho-hum.
What to do?
Well, I have been hankering after a Mac for a while. Now would be the perfect time to get one, only there's the small matter of the recent iPod upgrade which soured me beyond my usual level of bitter-and-twistedness. Add to that the fact that I have just got a new Dell work laptop which is absolutely gorgeous; I priced one up with 4GB of memory and it comes in at half the price of a similarly spec'd Mac. So I have a dilemma. The thing that really sold me on the Dell, and I shitteth ye not, is the keyboard action. It is to be beheld. It really is poetry in its elegance. When I mentioned this in the office, even those that I would mockingly decry as elf-lords for their online gaming activities and general nerdiness looked at me like I was soft. I might have a trip out to see what they have at PC World in Warrington; my laptop is now nearly four years old and while it still functions, I think it might function better as an Ubuntu or Redhat system. There is a strong argument for buying the Dell in that it's better value for money and despite the fact that every interaction I have had with Vista has left me wanting to nuke small South American countries, I know deep down that I will have to learn of its full horrors at some point. And did I mention that the keyboard action is sweet?
While I'm geeking, I must tell of my latest little gizmo that should arrive in the next couple of days. I have a USB broadband dongle-dealybop which means I have internet access wherever there is a 3G signal. You can argue that I do anyway via my phone, but let's face it, the internet isn't designed for phones and never will be. When I was a traveling Kenny, I would have killed for one of these. Now I have one for those rare occasions when I go somewhere that doesn't have a wireless connection that I can hijack.
Right, enough procrastination. Out into the world young Kenny.
See? I'm so over yesterday it's not true. Mind you, I wouldn't like to be a midget at any time when I'm around.
Oooh, while I remember, google's quote of the day kind of summed my attitude for yesterday up:
My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists. -- Jean Rostand
Today's pearl of wisdom is brought to you by those fine folks over chez Kenny.
Karma sucks donkey.
And that's the news from here where all cost estimates are over-egged, all IT is over-rated and all the rest is just generally piquantly over-beautiful in its ignorability.
Bryony is having a pop at reality TV today. You would think that given that she writes for the Daily Telegraph, the readers would be 100% behind her assertion that it is mindless twaddle that pollutes the moral integrity of those who watch it. I certainly agree with her. I have never watched a moment of any of the reality TV genre. This is, broadly speaking, because I object to the general public being given the opportunity to make ill-informed comment in any way, shape or form on our air-waves. Hell, I object to listening to interviews with athletes for the most part. While stranded in Palm Coast FL in the fires of 1998, I was asked whether I would be interviewed on cable TV -- erm, hell no. If you ask me to write something or do a radio interview I might, but I am certainly not being filmed. I guess I do have *something* in common with the Taleban after all (hell, I'm being harangued for not having a picture of me on the corporate intranet -- that could get messy given my quasi-relgious aversion).
My typical drive in in the morning sees me with Radio 5 on. Nicky Campbell and Sheila Fogarty are rapidly becoming an acceptable alternative to the old faithful combo of Peter Allan and Jane Garvey. I could sit and listen to their banter all day. However the moment they cut to interviews with anyone who has quite obviously had zero media training, the iPod gets cranked. I just cannot face it. I think my take is that if you're a member of the general public and not an expert in any particular field, you have adequate voice in your local boozer, or you can be a sorry git like me and vent on the public interweb where your voice is heard by those who might be interested.
Reality TV proves that adults are generally kids. There's a desire to be on camera (one that I have never understood) yet when in front of one, there appears to be an "oh f***" moment, when they realise they have nothing to do or say, so behave like a kid showing off.
So I don't find Bryony's little piece in the slightest bit wrong. I've only had the stomach for the first few comments where the holier than thou brigade have upped their pedant level to defcon 5 with the churlish argument that they are not being morally degraded by reality TV because they do not watch it. I think the point she was making was those who do watch it are, not those that do not. I'd comment but I do not have the inclination to get into anal pedantics. She's right. The comments should be ignored. End of.
As for Jade Goody (who?) having cancer, I'd say the same I would about anyone else suffering; sad. Again, end of.
I know. There is nothing more painfully grotesque than a Kenny spewing forth joy. Kenny and muted happiness is about the best you should ever hope for. Well, I'm sorry -- look away now.
As is well documented, I have a (crap) degree in mathematics. This is never to be confused with an ability to perform mental arithmetic. Last week, I attempted to calculate what my bonus for the year was and was, to be frank, underwhelmed by its lack of substance. I'm not greedy so I wasn't too bothered.
I arrived home tonight to a letter detailing the bonus payment that I get along with my usual bus-fare refund on Friday, just in time for the bank holiday. I was only a factor of ten out wasn't I? So my casual "ho-hum" turned into a small squeal of delight and naturally my mind turned to what I might do. I've not been anywhere for years so I reckon a few days away is not overly extravagant.
I hopped onto one of these last minute flight sites and input some places at random, looking at Friday departure and Monday return. I must confess I rather choked when I saw that Paris was £1100. Rather than blame the cost for ditching that idea, I started muttering about the unholy alliance with the Scots, white flags, bad driving, rubbish weather etc. and then I thought what about Milan? Result. Not a bad price at all. I'm now going to go off and put in some places that I've not been to before. It's actually trickier than you might think -- most of the places I haven't been to that are on my list are a tad further afield than can be done in a few days. I'd like to go to Moscow, but I guess you need a visa to go there. Ooh, that said, it costs less than the three days in Paris -- and you stay in a hotel less than three miles away from the Kremlin. How cool would that be?
Where else? I will now amuse myself with various destinations for the next couple of hours and then decide that it is an utterly foolish thing to do and not bother. But I will have had fun, which should be everyone's concern. As always, suggestions of destinations are welcome (except those from ex-wives which would presumably entail one way travel to somewhere dark and hot).
One thing that has just struck me -- you recall that I currently sleep avoiding a metal spike from the mattress on my bed? Well I never got around to buying a new one. On days such as this morning when I was seriously dragging ass thanks to a long call with my favorite lass last night, I was minded to hit the snooze button on more than one occasion. The act of reaching the snooze button, you will remember, involves traversing the spike of spite. It was three for three today, and I have three punctures to prove it. Only one of them looks like it may become infected. I therefore really should get my act together and buy a mattress this weekend. This is what sensible people would do. And then they would watch Casualty and have cocoa before enjoying their new mattress at a reasonable hour, ready for a brisk walk up a local hill the following morning. I can feel the life being sucked out of me as I type. I think the mattress can wait.
I have a friend who is a very well respected academic who has conclusively proven that all accos are as street-wise as David Cameron. I don't want to embarass him so I've disguised him in what follows:
Subject: Re: Crossie et al From: "Whe Taaart" <cleverbloke@topuni.ac.uk> Date: Wed, August 20, 2008 5:14 am EDT To: kenny@wazzocks.com
> How is Hogwart's?
Not good. I'm totally freaked out. I noticed my car was unlocked and both the windows were fully open. There's no way I left it like that. But the strange thing is, the CD changer's still in the boot, and you shouldn't be able to wind the windows down without a key - at least not from the switches. It's totally baffled me. T'lass said she heard something funny in the night and went downstairs, maybe she disturbed them. Whatever's happened, I don't feel particularly secure.
Followed by:
Subject: mystery solved From: "Whe Taaart" <cleverbloke@topuni.ac.uk> Date: Wed, August 20, 2008 8:11 am EDT To: "Kenny Rhythm H" <kenny@wazzocks.com>
I think I've got to the bottom of the mystery with the car being unlocked and windows down...
If you hold the unlock button on the key for a few seconds it starts winding the windows down. I was sat in the dining room, just inside from the car, when I noticed the windows open. Where are the keys? My back pocket. I was sitting on them. They're RF. I only just found out about the window thing, but I still feel like a prize dork.
I hope my friend doesn't read this and recognise himself. Naturally you'll never guess who I was on about and I absolutely will not tell you, even if bribed with a filthy weekend away with the lass from Spooks, code 9 although there is some wiggle room there should you wish to negotiate.
Because I am lazy I'm going to post a response to a comment. I have seldom done this before (usually when Tasha has goaded me) but this justifies a full and open discussion...
A smallish, gingerish, "not very fly" person wrote:
1. Would anybody really notice if Finland was nuked?
Yes. About a third of cell phone users would find they would not be able to upgrade to their preferred brand. Or rather they would, but it wouldn't be a new design -- just a new old phone if you get my drift.
2. where do films like Seven and the Blaiiiiiiir witch trial stand viz classification - psycho thriller or horror?
Never seen seven. Blair Witch is classified as sterile donkey j*sm. Damn. I didn't have that as a category did I? Mea culpa.
3. why not Dickens?
Dickens would bore the legs off a donkey and then the legs off the table the donkey was sat at and the wheels off the cart it was meant to be pulling and...ad infinitum. Capiche? Let it be said that Kenny is not a Dickens fan. In the same kind of way he dismisses Hemmingway as being a pillock, he dismisses Dickens as being a miserable old bastard. Actually, you can add Orwell to that list too -- he was a <choose an adjective here> trout.
4. a film about a well thought out war would, I hope, be very short and very peaceful, which would also make it very dull to watch
Yes. You're very clever for interpreting the words so well and yes, I am a jackass for being sloppy with my sentence construction.
5. where does Beetlejuice fit in?
It doesn't. See classification above about donkeys (either of).
6. is the Quick and the Dead an American comedy, a chick flick, a decent western or a period drama.
I have no idea, but seeing we've got Maesty-baby in pedantic mode, let me state that if one draws a venn diagram and places this apparent "film" in the appropriate intersection, it would appear to touch more categories that are derivative of donkey stroma than it would Kenny-approved ergo 'tis on the list of banned substances.
I have just done something that I am sure I will be razzed about from on high for ages to come. An email went around the office offering a Playstation 2 for £25. Must have. Deal done.
"Why Kenny? You hate computer games."
This is indeed true, however I do like one golf game that I used to play on the kids' PS2.
"So you've bought this heap of junk for one game only?"
Yup, I diddly have.
"You are mad."
Burp.
Now I just need to find the game and I will be a happy little Kenny.
Okay, I've finally seen a Kubrick film that didn't make me feel like I was missing out on something much more rewarding, like watching Eastenders. I concede -- Full Metal Jacket is very good.
I really need a hobby that does not involve computers, midgets, gnomes, Bill Oddie, Jeremy Clarkson, Antipodeans or any kind of effort. You know me too well don't you? It just isn't going to happen. God knows I've tried. I tried becoming a film buff, but in general 95% of all films leave me utterly cold so I was a really crap "buff". If you're going to be a mind full of useless information, you might as well be good at it and I really cannot summon up the enthusiasm for yet another Hollywood nothing or another Hollywooded period drama.
I like reading. The trouble is that the older I get, the less concentration I have so the prospect of reading a novel leaves me kind of breathless. I also like to read in bed but I have this horrible problem with narcolepsy as soon as I hit my pillows so a chapter is a good result on a week night, and I refuse to read a book at weekends on the basis that I am out living it up. I think I lied in that last sentence somewhere. To give you some idea of how bad this is, my brother and the Flip-Flop bought me an Amazon voucher for my birthday and I spent it on Dante's Divine Comedy. It's not everyone's cup of tea, granted, and it is hard going in places but as a piece of literature it is certainly worth reading. It's probably better reading if you're not of the religious persuasion. Anyway, between April and now, I have managed to cover the Inferno and half of Purgatory. That's a bit sad isn't? In the meantime, I've started Pies and Prejudice, which is okay. It has its moments and some good one-liners but it's a bit not me -- to be honest, I think some of the fine people listed to my right here write better and more engaging work (no, I'll not name names). While I was out yesterday, I spotted a biography of Amy Winehouse for about the price of a vente cappuccino with an extra shot, so bought it. I tend to do better on biographies than I do on fiction, so fingers crossed...
I picked up a raft of films in my travels too. I have long since forsaken the CD as a purchase, because the iPod rules now and half the stuff I like is pretty much unattainable in the high street, but DVDs are still purchased until such a time as I am installed in somewhere with enough space to host a small SAN or NAS. Last night I watched The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford with someone famous (Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, John Travolta? Who knows) which was bearable and mildly entertaining. I then watched what turned out to be a BBC film called Eastern Promises about the Russian underground in London. It was pretty dark viewing and took about 2/3 to get going but was a worthwhile effort in the end. Naturally I rounded off the night with Spooks, code 9. Utter tripe. But I am sorry to say that some feckin' nerdy party of me really likes it, and that's not just because I think Ruta Gedmintas who plays Rachel is absolutely gorgeous (although she could do with a good pie regime to stop that bloody painful stick-insect impression). It's nonsensical puerile drivel yet I am captivated. I promised last week that there was no imminent DVD purchase of said offal but if I keep watching it, some sad part of me will eventually yield and do the unthinkable.
Tonight I have some more films to get through unless anything better crops up. I can only think of one thing better so the chances are nothing will. I now need to choose between Elizabeth, We Were Soldiers, Full Metal Jacket or Black Hawk Down (for the hundredth time). I think I'm a bit pissed off with my purchase of Full Metal Jacket. I thought that was the one with Jamie Lee Curtis (is that right -- the name I mean?) being the rookie cop but I guess that must have a similar title. It's a Kubrick so I know I will probably tire of it after the first thirty seconds.
I toyed with picking up Being Jane and wish I had now. I'm just in the mood for a bit of a night on the sofa with last night's Szechuan chicken and noodles, and a large box of chocolates. It will compensate for all the macho PCIe, Fcal, HBA and other manly shite I have had to do today. You need to offset that hardcore macho data center crap with something a little more effeminate every now and again. On the subject of data center gubbins and effeminacy, I do owe Grommage some thanks for helping me out with the more tedious guff today. Contrary to what the rest of the lads say Grom, you're a good chap.
Right that's me done. If anyone wants to suggest films, please feel free but let me establish some guidelines before you pour forth your suggestions:
-- American comedies are not funny. Period. Do not even go there. -- Science fiction films are for nerds. I am a geek, not a nerd. -- Kids films, (LOTR, HP etc.) are not to be mentioned in the presence of Kenny. -- Action movies are for those who need synthetic testosterone administered in order to get up and get their own beer. -- Chick flicks make me want to nuke Finland. -- Animée of any description ist verboten. -- Horror movies are for watching when you're trying to get your leg over with your new girlfriend. -- American High School anything is not just out, it's way out. -- Feel good movies make me want to nuke Portugal. -- Anything with a comedy animal should be canned.
Which leaves you with:
-- Decent westerns -- Well thought out war films -- Psychological thrillers -- Batman -- Period drama (I hate those words -- let me rephrase -- classical adaptations, but not Dickens)
I was complaining to Waaarty by email this morning that my personal life is boring to everyone else except me (if you want tales of unrequited love, go read a Bronte novel -- they do it so much better than I do), so I refuse to thrash that subject to death [What??? - Ed] and that the news was doing me no favors for reaming-fodder. The response?
Hmm. Dunno. There's not really much to comment about today. Perhaps you should challenge your readers to a fight? As in the old viz letter "Dear Ed, I like to think I'm quite hard, and was wondering if any of your readers fancied a fight".
No matter how many times I read that today, I will giggle uncontrollably.
Well loved Wodehouse character, reportedly a forger?
I've just battered the Observer crossword in less time than it took to brew my second pot of coffee. It's a bit of a let-down when crosswords yield so quickly. However, as usual there was one that I had to double-check on t'interweb. The clue was a reference to a '''P. G. Wodehouse''' character. I got the answer from the other half of the clue and the letters I had in from other clues but was a bit shaky as to whether the answer was right so hit Wiki.
One of the fun things about crosswords is that you end up with an accidental knowledge of subjects you would probably never have actively pursued. I've read a couple of Wodehouse books and, naturally, I have watched Hugh Lawrie and Stephen Fry in Jeeves and Wooster but Wodehouse is an author I know very little about. His history is not exactly riveting but it does have some quirks to it that make for good background knowledge and to a certain extent put his books into perspective.
I'm a big fan of the camp comic clever-clever wordplay comedies. Thus it will come as no surprise that I've read virtually everything Oscar Wilde ever wrote -- in my book he's possibly the wittiest guy ever to have walked the earth. His "serious" work wasn't that much to my liking. I found Dorian Gray completely unreadable in parts. Only Wilde could have spent three pages describing a room and not add anything to the book. But in general he was a rare talent.
i got to thinking about Wilde because for some reason I associate Wodehouse's work with that kind of era (they overlapped by a couple of years only). I guess it must be the upper class foppery, interfering Aunts and the endless quest for engagement that make me think of them in the same genre. I hit the Wiki entry for Wilde just to see if there was anything of any interest in it, and hopefully to remember a couple of his endless repertoire of brilliant one-liners. There's a photo of his tomb in Père Lachaise, Paris on there. I think I may still have some photos of when I was there in 2000. I took Nski there -- she did the American Dummy impersonation and went gaga over Jim Morrison and I was awe-struck by Wilde and the myriad other artistic talents that lie there. There wasn't anything in Wiki that I didn't know already but there were things I'd forgotten so it wasn't a wasted visit.
Anyway, there you go. What started off as being 12A verification ended up on a very tangential segue into late nineteenth and early twentieth century literature and consumed the hour I had set aside for the crossword.
Guess I should start thinking about lunch. My undisputed first choice for lunch blew me off so I sulked for a while. While sulking, my backup plan seemed like it was a really tedious idea so I blew that off. Can I be arsed cooking a Sunday lunch for one? Nope. Looks like the microwave may be due for a workout and then a trip into town to see if I can find something to entertain me this evening.
Update: I've had so many hits looking for the answer to this that I thought I would give it away. Hover over this non-existent link. Happy now?
You have to love the start of football season. Everyone has a new-found optimism. As a Man Utd fan, I can honestly say that mine is not so new anymore. If you'd have talked to me about it for the first 20 years of my life, it would have been a new-found yet unjustified optimism, but these are the Fergie years so failure is not really an option.
Stan has already had his moment of glory for the season. I suspect that as far as he's concerned, they could call the rest off and leave that league table exactly as it is and he'd be happy for the next ten years, and were he Hindu, probably a couple of lifetimes.
The Waaart has sent me an email with a slightly rose-tinted view of the Scouse performance. I think when I read the words "All in all, not worried in the slightest. Torres is class. If we can play w**k and still win a game against a spirited opposition, then just imagine what we'll do when we get going... ", I cruelly laughed a little. I have to say that I didn't see the game but from what I read, it sounds like Waaart's assessment wasn't too far off the mark.
So, we come to the top of Premiership table:
What the hell kind of odds could you have got for that beauty? For a tenner, you could now be buying your first Aston Martin (or Aston Villa, depending on your taste). As I said to Waaarty, you have to love the first few games of the season just for the sheer comedic value. It must be painful for those that sit looking at their team atop the league, knowing in their heart of hearts that it can only be a transitory moment of heaven.
It's been a funny old week on the news front. Normally, I can find something that either incenses me or is so ridiculous it merits a good fisking, but I've either been too busy being happier than is healthy or too bereft of any hard facts that would form a totally inappropriate view on a situation so I've kind of stayed away from topics du jour.
That said, here are some bite-sized observations.
I'm starting to think that my initial take on the Georgia/Russia situation was right before I even thought about it for anymore than a few seconds. My gut reaction was "oh f***". This appears to be merited if today's headlines are to be believed. My first thoughts were that Ossetia, to all purposes, is a separatist region of Georgia. Don't ask me how I knew this; I just did -- I probably slept on a copy of the paper that said so and it was learned by osmosis. They have been so since the early 1990s. They have operated largely autonomously from Georgia even though the international community don't acknowledge that. They have their own rebel factions (freedom fighters/terrorists) who have been having pops at the Georgian forces for quite a while. Point is, it has been no bed of roses. So when Russia stepped in to back the separatists it seemed logical to me, albeit a bit heavy handed. This is what countries in that region do and Moscow will not ignore a chance to flex a muscle in the direction of former Soviet states -- their motives are probably just that; a show of strength rather than a desire to regain Ossetia as territory.
Enter George Dubya with an assessment that is as naive as it is illiterate. Backing one side or the other within the Ossetia trouble can only be folly. If anything, and if I understand the situation correctly, the Russians actually have the slightly higher moral ground in this conflict. It's tough, but they edge it. The first mistake that Dubya made was sending Condi to Georgia only. I like Condi Rice a lot and have oodles of time for her as a person and as a diplomat (in fact, had she run for president and had I still been in the US, I would have insisted that convinced Nski to vote for her) but she's been stitched up like a kipper on this one. Effectively, she's been sent in to defend the indefensible and threaten the unthreatenable, in a ceasefire of sorts, negotiated by the French -- I defy anyone to pull a rabbit out of that one. Bush's second error was the timing. Even I, were I president, might give some thought to the situation before throwing some fairly critical words in the direction of Moscow just days before the Polish announce that US missile systems will be deployed there. Whoever Dubya's press people are, they are an unparalleled disaster. What exactly were the US acts of this week meant to achieve? If the intention was to piss off the Russians, award the whole cast a massive bonus.
So, I stand by my initial assertion that the Russia/Georgia situation is very, very worrying. I would add that it is probably even more worrying now that Uncle Sam has thrown a few wayward spoonerisms to the East.
What else? Yes. I don't know whether those of you in the UK caught a BBC story online about a teenager whose mother was murdered in Sheffield when he was a child. Her killer was never found. Her son has launched a website that is a very touching plea for help in finding his mother's killer. The BBC picked up on it (strange that seeing it did not involve celebrities/sex/drugs/etc.) and linked to site (Who killed my mum?). The sorry part of this is that the poor kid is desperate enough to go to the trouble to get some PR to try and find his mum's killer and because he has had some success in that PR, his hosting company have pulled the site for having too much traffic and told him he needs a dedicated server. Once again, the acceptable face of capitalism shoots itself in the foot. How much does it cost nowadays to throw a server into a data center for a few months? Not bloody much -- we do it on a daily basis. In situations like that, his hosting company had a choice of looking like a royal bunch of gits (check) or doing the decent thing and not looking like a bunch of royal gits (not check). I bet some service manager there is currently having his arse fried and I hope it hurts.
I've mentioned the article on metamaterials, invisibility cloaks, internet pixies and elf lords and how they will speed up the internet beyond your wildest dreams. You'll be able to access as many porn channels as you have computers available to you simultaneously, all via an elaborate mesh of invisible gnomes. And what's more, it will be powered by excess CO2 emissions. Nirvana, here we come.
I've mentioned the Olympics, something I swore to avoid in order not to justify their existence.
So on the whole, there's not been a great deal for me to be obtuse about. Sunday's papers usually solve that problem, and we have the small matter of the Premiership starting today.
Shamelessly stolen from Stan, just so I have something to do other than dodge phone calls....
The scoop is to name the music that springs to mind when you hear the word. I did read Stan's before doing this, but as far as I can gather, we weren't synced on the old Geek Mind Meld. Well maybe we were, but the time delta caused a phase shift in the i-bullshit plane and so while we look like weren't, we were. I'll get mi'coat...here you go:
Cat: "Love Cats" -- The Cure Fish: "Vietnam" -- Country Joe McDonald Dog: "Parting Gift" -- Fiona Apple Comical: Barenaked Ladies Pretentious: Nigel Kennedy Intelligent: Paul Simon Park: Simon and Garfunkel Make-up: David Sylvian Box: "The Box" -- Fad Gadget Toy: New York Dolls
I'll definitely get mi'coat. I know I've not pulled.
Time for your meds Kenny. I joke, you laugh, kittens are saved -- we all know the drill.
You know how I'm on a one man mission to convert everyone and anyone on the planet into Fiona Apple fans? Well I had a sucker punch for Rob the Vanquisher. It took me all of about an hour and he was sold. He has the same kind of love of batshit crazy pianists that I do so there really was no sport involved.
A couple of weeks ago, I put up I Know. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Evil Albert emailed me about a reference to become a "librarian" which, naturally, I took for code that she was leaving Albert for another woman. Nothing shocks me nowadays other than the need to provide a reference before entering "the next stage" of a relationship. Anyway, I offered my services as a referee. Unfortunately for the other "librarians" in the world, she meant working in a library. I would never have guessed that. Librarians aside, Mrs Albert commented that she liked the song I had inflicted upon you. In an email exchange earlier this evening, I had a rush of blood to the fingertips and promised I would put this song up for her. So there you go Mrs Albert, my dear. Next time I invade your house and bore you to an early bed I'll bring the whole caboodle up with me, for you to listen to (and certainly not for you to copy to CD or any other media). Cough. In fact next time, just tell me to shut the hell up -- I seem to recall I got into a particular Dr B.-like mode which is never good for social occasions.
I should add a thanks to His Worship, Stan and Tracy for their words of wisdom. I don't feel so much of a complete bastard now. I'll turn my attentions to my next dilemma -- what to do this weekend. I do have a non-Bunbury offer on the table, but as always I'm holding out for a better offer. See -- the bastard/non-bastard balance is restored.
Sheesh. I feel really bad for doing this but I need to vent. The difference between last night's phone convo and tonight's could be measured in parsecs.
Last night: banter, laughs, football, risqué.
Tonight: frustrating, annoying, banal.
Long time sufferers will recall I had an incident about 18 months ago where an acquaintance of mine and her kid ended up spending the night here in fear before she went back to her husband who then dutifully fulfilled on his original promise (the one that had caused them to flee in the first place) and kicked the ever loving hell out of her. I did all you can do really and called the police. He spent the night in the cells, went home and all has continued in this pattern to this day, except I've not called the police.
Well, the lady in question has had a bum lot out of life. It really does read like a tragedy (mother died in childbirth, father RAF, raised by grandparents, married abusive husband, sprogged, suffered) and my heart genuinely does go out to her for the most part. For some reason, she's now got it into her head that she wants to find her father who she hasn't seen in 25 years and muggins here has been tasked with setting about finding him. After I gave all the caveats about no guarantees, he may be dead etc, I found out the street he lives (or maybe used to live) on in a town up the road (which is, incidentally where my other mate in crisis lives). My first question, which may be a bit harsh, is why now? Crying for 20 minutes on the phone about it tells me that you probably should have done this years ago.
Anyway, I sat and listened to the same sob-stories about her family, her husband, her daughter's (not serious) medical problem etc. for well over an hour. After that, there was a further 15 minutes of monologue about how her grandparents didn't tell her things. I nearly consented to that lunch that I avoided last weekend but I'm a bit knee deep in needy souls at the moment and unfortunately for them, there are only so many hours in a day I can spend empathizing before the old tank runs dry and I start wanting to roll a seven. If I'm going out anywhere this weekend, it's for some good company.
The best advice I can give her about her whole shebang is that she needs to forget the past. What she doesn't know, she doesn't know so there's no point even going there. I suggested she take a snapshot in time and think whether she wants to continue in her misery (in which case, she'll have to learn to live with it quietly because people's patience for victims runs out after so long) or she can do something about it. Either way, she needs to do it herself and no-one can really do it for her. This point was completely missed as transmit continued over and over again. Really she needs professional help, not half-a-job Kenny with the kind words and ignored common sense. As I say, it really is a shame but that victim mentality drives me insane.
Am I horrible? I've done what I can. I've found the address she's after. I listen. I make the appropriate noises. I offer suggestions on what she can do about her husband. There's not much more I can think of to do. Maybe I've done too much and there's a nasty dependency thing going on. I don't know. I've never been very good with other people's emotional issues. If I could be arsed, I'd put up a vote thingumy saying "Kenny, Bastard or not?".
Alors, tough few hours compared to yesterday...I know which I prefer any day of the week.
I'm just going to mention that it's B-day and leave it at that. If you read the comments, you'll know why I'm leaving it. Heavens to frickin' Betwsy Coed -- some people should not be allowed to comment. I know that sounds like censorship but honestly, it's for the greater good.
I'm also going to casually mention the Olympic coverage. I will restrict it to two observations and then stop myself from spending hours and hours ranting about how utterly w**k it is. Number one: why the screaming flip-flops is it a good idea to have radio coverage of diving? WTF? Number two: to the dickwad Geordie commentator who, when asked about the organization of the games this morning, replied "It's rubbish. They don't even speak English", I suggest he just gets on a plane back to Gateshead and signs back on the dole where he belongs. He was commentating on boxing; 'nuff said -- all the intellect of a week of Home and Away. Don't even get me started on boxing.
If I sound a little cranky, I'm not. I'm actually in a very, very good mood although I am dog tired. I was up way past Kenny's witching hour last night on the phone with my favorite lass -- you really have to love a lass who knows her onions when it comes to football. You may get something out of me later tonight but don't hold your breath.
It's kind of like 'Kashka from Baghdad' but reversed and with Stan and Meme -- you know what I mean.
Stan has furnished the world with a meme and seeing that the post that I have just written and cannot bring myself to publish for its lack of any sense whatsoever [what's new? - Ed] is on perma-hold, I thought I'd have a bash. Here goes.
-- Four jobs I've had
1. Farm hand -- in charge of shoveling shit and killing chickens 2. Food carrier, Aintree -- I'd say waiter but that would be a lie 3. Programmer, Robertson Group, Llandudno 4. Product Marketing Manager, SCO, Leeds and Santa Cruz
-- Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Any Pink Panther 2. Blackhawk Down 3. Wuthering Heights (1992? version) 4. Pale Rider
-- Four places I've lived
1. Llandudno, North Wales 2. Middlesbrough, Teesside 3. Haworth, West Yorkshire 4. Minneapolis, US of A
-- Four TV shows I love
1. Spooks 2. NCIS 3. Murphy's Law 4. Cold Case (there's just something about Kathryn Morris)
-- Four places I've vacationed
1. Lake Garda, Italia 2. Wien, Östereich 3. South Dakota, US of A 4. Palm Coast, Florida, US of A
-- Four of my favorite dishes
1. Duck and raspberry sauce at the French restaurant in Rock Island, IL 2. Anything, Leodis, Leeds 3. Anything, The Japanese place on West Sunrise Boulevard, Plantation, FL 4. Anything, The French place that used to be in the Gaslamp District, San Diego
A huge increase in the speed of the internet could be produced by slowing parts of it down, say researchers.
Applying the brakes could be the "metamaterials" that may make it possible to create invisibility cloaks.
The net's speed limit comes about not in transporting information, but in routing it to its various destinations.
I haven't had the heart to read the whole shebang. I got as far as "metamaterials" and "invisibility cloaks" before I started coughing "bullshit" under my breath.
Those of you who are observant will spot that the BBC explain in clumsy terms the art of handling optical signals. Those of you who are even more observant and who read my April Fool where I fooled the masses into thinking I had broken a fundamental law of physics and had "cracked" optical amplification and routing can refer back to your notes for a better description than the Al Beeb attempt.
I fully expect next week's "science" commentary to break the news that the Professor has built a fully functional transporter beam. I may beat them to it and announce my latest discovery over at Kennywire. I'm sure the good Professor Kuhnob will verify my assertions prior to publication.
I've been clearing some images from my phone. God knows why I have these things. I guess I must just take the thing out and snap at random. I don't think I've ever actively got the phone out with the express intention of taking a picture, but still they happen. So, in no particular order:
Lilys before Autumn hit.
What Kennys really want (well, after what they really, really want anyway).
Where Kennys really live, found in a nice residential area of Eccles.
I passed the link to the traveling gnome over to Waaarty who had a fantastic idea -- rip the video and put your own commentary over the footage. Brilliant. I could have had an absolute scream with that, but the BBC are a bit precious about their "assets" (which is how they refer to them in their comments in the HTML) so woe is me.
So, I can say no more on the subject other than to assure you that the "Bear" that Murphy was getting a bit too close for comfort with is not Maestro, although his involvement in the gnomage cannot be ruled out. Given that the wee fella looks a lot like Freeda G's holiday snap, I do wonder. Gloucester isn't that far away from wherever the hell it is that Maesti lives is it? They're both darn 'Sarf so they must be virtually the next village over.
I still can't get over the fact that someone other than Maesti would nap a gnome for a bit of a holiday bender. Or that Al Beeb would pick it up.
Okay, after four days of being home alone and generally doing nothing of any import at all, I think it is time you kicked me back to work tomorrow. I'm sure you will agree that doing two crosswords, blogging about TV shows (bad ones at that) and signing an email thus:
I know it's only Monday Stan, but hey, small victories and all that jazz. The Telegraph actually taxed me more than Rufus' effort. I really wish I'd picked up a Times now.
Well I watched the new, derivative series of Spooks last night, Spooks, Code 9. What do I make of it? I'm not sure.
The premise is about as daft as it gets. Set in 2013, apparently London has been nuked and anyone old has long since kiffed it thanks to radiation poisoning. Manchester is now the hub of the UK (which, as we Northerners know has always been the case anyway). The spooks themselves are all twenty-somethings from massively different backgrounds. That is where the sense stops.
Whether it is because of radiation or whether Manchester is indeed covered in plastic sheeting, Code 9 has it portrayed as such. Everywhere any "action" (I use the term freely) occurs, it does so with plastic sheets suspended from temporary wooden frames above the Royal Arcade which, unfathomably, looks to be intact. This, I can just about live with given the premise.
As with its older, better brother, one of the spooks is killed in the first episode. I have long said that if you want a long-term job in acting, do not audition for a part in Spooks; the moment you know a character, they are offed in the nastiest of ways. As it happens, we never got to know Hannah (although she is making a comeback through recordings of her theories of a mole within MI5) and she was vanquished by a sniper which is not very Spooks at all. One can only hope that the strangely attractive Rachel (I think that's her name) survives beyond the third episode seeing that she is the only one who can act.
The cast are spotty faced "yoofs". Most of them have either the worst or best Manchester accents I have ever heard. They're either nauseatingly real and the actors were plucked off the streets of somewhere like Droylsden (which would explain the lousy timing of the dialogue) where they were probably quite happy making a good living dealing drugs or RADA has a special course of teaching yourself to talk "Manchesto". I suspect the latter since "Life on Mars" appears to have started this new-found love of all things Manc.
The plot, such as it is, is tedious. With the real Spooks, there was no time for slipping out for a cig. If you missed 30 seconds, you might as well have not watched any of it. This, on the other hand, allowed me to smoke a packet of cigs (okay, slight exaggeration) in two episodes. I'd explain it but it really isn't worth the effort.
To give you some idea as to how lame it is, head geeky boy who has taken over as team-leader after the assassination of Hannah, is trying to access a flash drive he has been given. It's password protected so he has to guess the password. At this point, I was waiting for him to write a program to do it. Oh no. He sat with a list of passwords on a piece of paper and crossed them off as he tried them. The worst part was that as he typed in the passwords, they were displayed on the screen in clear text for all the world to see. The drama was intense as he typed in "Field Office 19", "Field Office Nineteen" etc. I about blew my stack when he typed in his own name, "Charlie Green" and bingo!, he was in. Further IT hilarity ensued when it was discovered that Jez's "asset" (who he had been knockin' da boots with) had stolen the encryption algorithm from his PDA and used it to hijack the national security alert system. It was okay though, because the tech guys would write a new encryption algorithm within 2 days but for those two days she played merry hell starting alerts, stopping alerts, texting everyone and their dog, ordering pizzas on MI5's account. Okay, that last one was a lie, but that's what I'd do if I had the encryption algorithm at my disposal.
Another steal from the proper series was the graphic that swoops in and out between scenes. I can't even remember what the real Spooks one does. This one has a Union Jack flag that blows in and out with a digital "woosh" to accompany it. It is tack beyond all measures.
I think, while I've been typing, I've made up my mind. It was pants. And I will be tuning in next Sunday although I don't think the DVD will be gracing the shelves at Kenny Towers anytime soon. It's strangely compelling as long as you know you're watching utter tripe. I should have known that it would be given that it got its debut showing on BBC3 -- not that there is anything wrong with BBC3 if you're that way inclined; it's just that it has come to exist, in my mind, as a kind of Channel 4 without the edge.
Don't beat yourself up if you missed it while being glued to Midsomer.
Preface: I have not done this nearly as much justice as I should have. Apologies. It should be much, much more poignant.
I'm starting to really like Barbara Ellen. Sometimes she sends a Scud missile out and it goes completely over my head but most of the time, I find myself violently agreeing with her. Occasionally I disagree with her and then she kind of talks me around to her way of thinking. Sometimes she's just plain right and I defy anyone to argue with her.
This weeks she's hit really pushed my buttons. The Olympics. She is so damned right that were she a frequenter of the local pub here, I would be begging for her hand in marriage. I think I recall saying midst the reports of the 7/7 bombings in London, that the Olympics is a royal waste of everything in every metric you can come up with. It is a fact that no country in my lifetime has ever made money by hosting them. They serve little sporting significance because the surrounding political, economic and moral concerns by far out-trump whatever the athletes achieve. They inconvenience anyone within a continent of the host nation and they consume enormous amounts of airtime, competed for by huge media companies who are wrongly convinced that everyone will switch off Corrie to watch somebody they have never heard of run a race against somebody foreign they have never heard of. If there was a definitive example of "drinking your own bathwater", it is the Olympics. They are worthless unless you're a member of the IOC with a penchant for travel, in infrastructure or building, or a schoolboy\/girl in the host city with a wish to dance in front of millions of people. They are less than worthless if you live near the stadium, use public transport near a venue or are a member of the emergency services.
My main thrust for this post is drawn from the combined experience of my limited exposure to the press coverage of the Olympics and the fact that I am currently reading Pies and Prejudice. Just as a bit of background for those outside our fair shores, Pies and Prejudice is a semi-comical examination of the merits of the North of England. The gap between the North and South here is the subject of nearly as many conversations as the eternal verbal battle that attempts to clarify who won the war of the roses and could (and has in the case of Pies and Prejudice) fill a whole book.
It seems like anyone who is anyone in the media is currently camped in Beijing or thereabouts. It also seems like the topic du jour is not really related to sport in any way. If you listen to the first few minutes of any report, it is focused on China itself and, more importantly the air quality. The reports are downright rude. If someone had come to Manchester to report on a sporting occasion, I wouldn't expect them to drone on about Strangeways prison or the color of the ship canal or its reinvention since the IRA bombed it or the fact that Salford is a shithole second to none I have ever been to. Manchester has its faults but it also boasts a myriad cultural plus points.
The media seem to be like archetypal American toursits in London. They have descended with microphones and cameras to video the whole shebang and are appalled that it is not like London or New York or Madrid or any of the other places that they so quickly raise their hands to visit on assignment. The quality of the air, the strangeness of the customs, the oppression etc. seem to be the newsworthy bits and this gets on my tits like nothing on earth.
I've just spent ten minutes trying to think of a word to describe the mentality of the reporters and the editors who commission them and I am failing. Ignorance is not quite right. Naivety? Maybe. Arrogance? Getting there.
I don't want to sound like a travel bore but I have been to more places around the world than most people I know. I had the good fortune to be young and in a job that took me there. I've been to places that I would never have gone to of my own choice and places that I would have died to go to. As I said, I'm lucky. I've seen the awe-inspiring and the soul-destroying and the wealth of difference and, more importantly, the similarities of disparate cities and countries. Very, very lucky. I'm also lucky in that I have always survived easily in any place regardless of language or cultural differences. Some of that can be explained by the dollars in my pocket and the corporate credit-card for those "oh f***" moments, but travel and what you get out of it is entirely down to the person.
Maybe like the journalists who are out there now, I was very nervous about going to China. Hell, I was nervous about going to anywhere in the Far East that wasn't Tokyo, because I know Tokyo well and I've spent quite a lot of time there over the years. When my plane touched down in Beijing for the first time, I didn't look at it like it was a secret threat; my heart was in my mouth with excitement. It was the same kind of feeling I had when I first landed in San Francisco many years ago. All I had was my luggage, dollars and a card with the name of my hotel on it. The rest was down to me. I have to say, the time I spent in Beijing and around other parts of China, while being tiring, made for some pretty formative moments. You can't commentate on culture if you can't let yourself be drawn into it. What I learned while traveling around China, Taiwan etc. would fill a philosophy book. If you can be on mad alert while feeling strangely serene, that is what you get when you hit your hotel in Beijing. It's a heady brew of jetlag, strange smells, humidity, gorgeous chimes, fantastically elaborate colors, dreamlike sequences mixed with the knowledge that you are a stranger here and there's nothing you can do to fade into the background.
Rather than concentrate on China's past, I looked at what was around me. I don't go to Germany and think "Third Reich" or the US and think "Infected blankets" or indeed get home and think "Argentina 0", so why should I get off a plane and think "Communism, state-sponsored whatever, poor air quality, etc."? The people you are interacting with are about as removed from the politics as you are from your country's. I spoke with the guy behind the bar about his life. I spoke to the girl in the traditional garb who was so stunningly perfect that you could have sworn she were a sculpture. I watched the people outside their flats at first light, exercising in the streets beside the motorways. I tried to talk to the people who manned the production facilities. I tried to learn some of the language. I made good friends in Taiwan who I know I could revisit at any time and be welcomed back.
In short, I went in with my eyes wide open and no preconceptions. It did not disappoint. As I said earlier, if you ask me for one of my life-defining moments, China would be in the top ten without a doubt. If you go back to the archives of summer 2003 on here, you'll get my impressions as they were then. I suspect there's a reverence and wonderment about them. That is certainly how I remember the time. I was lost and dazed by the magic. I was a child in a very adult world and I loved every second of it.
This is why the press coverage of China has irked me so. I don't hear reporters getting off the plane at LAX to cover the Oscars, moaning about immigration, about how they were ripped off by the cabby, about the air quality there (LA can only be mildly better air than Beijing) yet that is exactly what most have done upon arrival at Beijing. It has annoyed me because I expect that kind of narrow-minded coverage from network journalists from the US who have usually been as far as Mexico or the UK in their travels and didn't care for the fact that the McDonalds tasted different. I did not expect it from the likes of the BBC.
Please do me a favor. Switch off the commentary on what China is like. The media have done the obvious; olympic venues, Great Wall, Tianaman Square etc. That's not China. That's like doing St Paul's, The Tower and Buck House. You miss the real beauty -- the people and the swathes of mystique that surround everything because you are so far removed from your comfort zone. If you can, I would advise everyone who has an adventurous bone in their body to go there at least once. It is your world upside down and reassembled and I guarantee you will never look at anywhere else that you may consider going with any sense of apprehension. It will quite literally teach you to be a good traveler and better observer. It will rock your little socks off. It most assuredly did mine.
It's funny that I should think about this today. I spent Friday evening on IM with someone I like more and more by the day. She's just the right side of batshit for me to be fascinated by. We were talking about travel and age. I made a comment along the lines that it's ironic that now I am in possibly the best position I have ever been personally to travel for work, I'm not doing it anymore. I added that three years ago if you had asked me to go live in China for three years, I would have turned it down on the spot for family reasons. Now, were you to ask me that question, I would ask when I was leaving. Her response? "When are you going? Can I go with?" I laughed and intimated that she was mad as a box of frogs. She kind of wasn't joking. I kind of wasn't joking either.
If I look around for something to criticize, I need only look out of my window here. It is no better and no worse than anywhere else in the world; it just so happens that I was born here. However, much like my love-life, you can criticize my ex's all you like as far as I'm concerned, just don't try that trick with my new love. Go dip your foot in the pool in China -- if you don't like it, you're only a few hours away from home.
--
If you think that was long, you should have seen it before I stripped out the rest. This is about 25% of what I actually originally wrote.
Well, with two days of my mini-vacation left, I have done the unthinkable and finished the whole of the fourth series of NCIS. What the hell I am going to do with myself now is up for grabs. I cannot believe the ending of the series. My only consolation is that there absolutely must have been a fifth series commissioned and that it will probably be part of the US Fall season, which means we should get it at roughly the same time; i.e. soon. I should get on google now and find out.
I think tomorrow night I might try to watch Crash again. I'm told it's a masterpiece but I have twice started to watch it and completely lost the plot within thirty minutes. Ooh, scratch that -- I have just remembered that there is a new derivative series of Spooks starting tomorrow.
Anyway, one of the aims of a four day weekend was to catch up on some sleep, which I am off to do now. Hopefully the phone won't ring in the middle of the night and next door will manage to keep their damned yappy dog quiet. If they don't, they may well be enjoying a bit of Sunday morning Sisters of Mercy.
You kind of get used to me ranting about how pants/mediocre\/groovy he\/she\/it is so it will come as no surprise that I am about to go off on one.
I nipped out to Sainsburys with the aim of scoring some bread and milk. Naturally, I was distracted. I ended up buying all sorts of muck to construct a Chinese later (or maybe tomorrow). The Waaart will giggle, I know. However this is not what I was really distracted by.
It's been a long time since I bought real coffee for use at home, so I took a detour down a lane full of the stuff. I was astounded only by the fact that this lane was slightly longer than the lane full of organic 0.1% milk (which disgusted me -- if I'm buying milk, I'm buying whole milk or nothing -- and what the feckin' Nora is organic milk, apart from more expensive?). The coffee aisle had me drooling so I grabbed a few bags of various types, steadfastly avoiding the trendy "free-trade" section -- don't even get me started on why that is such a crock -- as usual, a great idea that is totally impracticable. Anyway, I've just slung on a pot of the Sainsburys Monsooned Malabar (yes, stupid name) but hell's teeth and buckets of red stuff, this is absolutely gorgeous. It's as smooth as anything I have had in a very, very long time and packs a hell of a punch on the caffeine front. I can feel that caffeine headache coming on already and I've only had two cups -- and this is me who drinks coffee from morning to night without flinching. Headache aside, it is worth the suffering.
UK residents, I demand that next time you pass Sainsburys you buy a bag of this gear. You will thank me. When have I ever let you down? Okay, don't answer that. Just believe me when I tell you it is sublime and you need some.
Mr J Sainsbury -- can I claim my free can of spam now please?
I now have an appointment with a DVD or my friend Bunbury, depending on who asks.
Dammit. Now I've written that, I'll have to hit iTunes for some Lloyd Cole.
I'm trying to assemble a plan for the weekend and not doing very well at it. It's much easier to crank up the music and faff around on t'interweb than actually *do* something. I know I have to go and buy food however doing a few arithmetical operations in Kenny space it transpires that, when my time is factored in, it is by far cheaper to eat at the Chinese takeaway, the chippy, the Indian takeaway and the kebab house. I think I'll pay lip service and buy milk and bread.
It seems that virtually everyone I know is having a crisis of some description at the moment. The acquaintance I have been trying to dodge for the last two weeks called about a bazillion times last night to organize a lunch. Initially I said no, and then I felt bad so I said yes but put a caveat on it that said that I could only do a couple of hours because I was heading out tonight. Bunbury has invited me for dinner. Having agreed to this lunch, the phone went again some moments later saying that if I was going out later it didn't matter. Fair go. And the damned thing went again saying that I was horrible for never meeting her. I agreed. It then went a further four times which I let go to voicemail. Worse still at 04:25 this morning it went again. I got up, hit reject and then sent a very short text stating that if she ever called me again at that time of day, lunch would be the least of her worries. I returned to sleep. Unsurprisingly I have not heard from her since. And I feel bad now. How daft is that?
I don't mind crises per se. I have a mate who is going through what could be the worst crisis imaginable who called me yesterday. He was sobbing like a child. I'll go see him tomorrow. He has reason to be down. The dawn caller lives in a perpetual state of crisis that would normally be called "life" to anyone else. It has been six weeks since I last sat for an hour wishing that the Iranians really did have nukes while I was talked at. I guess I'd be taking one for the global team if I suffered an hour or so this afternoon.
The good news is that I spent an hour on IM last night being utterly confused by a line of conversation that seemed to be a continuation of the phone conversation we had on Tuesday night. Were the thread to be transcribed, it would read like one of a fantastic piece of classical literature, a really cheesy B-movie or the rantings of two utterly batshit people. I know -- you're finding it hard to imagine what could be described like that. If I hadn't been party to it, I would have no idea what I was talking about either. Just trust me on this one. It was definitely one of the above. As usual, it left more questions than answers so I did the decent thing and slapped on NCIS. The Israeli chick is really starting to grow on me -- she's a bit like a younger version of Louise Lombard, except completely homicidal.
Anyway, that's me done until at least this evening. I do have some observations on why calling for a cease-fire the day after you claim to have shot down two Russian jets is not the brightest move you will ever make, but I guess Georgia knew that before they wet their pants. I don't wish to be a scare-monger, but that is one scary-assed situation right there -- much more dangerous to the world at large than Afghanistan or Iraq.
The Vanquisher has just IM'd me stating that he is going to buy me one of these horrendous beasts. Not only does it froth milk in an effeminate manner, you actually have to work to achieve the result. It is so wrong on so many levels.
I don't want to make your work day any more unbearable than it already is by gloating about what a fine time I am having, but I feel I must share the joy.
I managed to avoid my phone when it rang at around some ungodly hour that was before 10:00am this morning. Have I checked the voicemail? No, because the number wasn't a work one, so it can bog off until I am good and ready which, at this rate, may be Tuesday. I'd foolishly forgotten that I had set my work email up to auto-forward a copy to my home email so was mildly incensed by a couple of emails before the sensible side of me kicked in and told me I needed some real coffee.
It felt like a Folgers day to me. Every day should be a Folgers day but it can't be or the treat would become routine and not a treat. A few months ago the toptastic Tasha sent me some Folgers. I have stared lovingly at it every morning as I make my usual coffee. Putting Folgers in a cafetiere (puff's coffee maker) seemed somehow a venal sin, so I have just stared lustfully. Today, however, I had all but finished the crossword and had hours to spend relaxing with the paper. That demands a Folgers, so I nipped out to Comet and bought a proper coffee maker so as not to defile the red tub of glory. I've been talking about buying a coffee maker for a while and the lads at work have given me various recommendations and advice (don't scrimp on a coffee maker -- you need to pay for a quality device -- mine cost £x, where x is obscene). I took their advice. And threw it right out of the window. I paid £17 for a machine that converts water into coffee with minimal effort on my part. It has a timer and makes coffee so it meets every requirement I have. Honestly, do I look like the kind of chap who needs a milk-frother? Like hell I do.
While I was in Comet, I spotted an iPod dock speaker gubbins. Truth be told, I spotted several. Some were upwards of £150. Now I'm partial to a good speaker but paying £150 for something I'll only ever switch up to about a quarter of its volume capacity is like spending £100 on a coffee machine; utterly pointless. So I found a cheaper one and bought that.
I am now sat with my Folgers (*tilt*) and iPod on through a very, very decent speaker system. For less than the cost of about five days cigarettes and Starbucks visits, I have transformed the quality of my life by several orders of magnitude. When you factor in the gas and parking savings I've made by taking a couple of days holiday, this improvement is actually a net loss of less than 3 days cigarettes and Starbucks.
All I could wish more for is that it was the Sunday paper that sits in front of me, but that will happen soon enough. In the meantime, I'll suffer.
[Coffee purists can bugger off -- Folgers is a treat. From the first time I drank it, I have loved it and I make no apologies.]
I've been unusually quiet, I know. Truth is, I've been enjoying some me time. Before I sicken you all with what a cool time I'm having (because I know if one thing is more abhorrent than a self-pitying Kenny, it is a happy Kenny) I'll temper it all with the comment that today was definitely *not* one of my "days at work I must repeat more often" in terms of any metric you could think to apply. It was, to coin a phrase, pants.
Given I've got a few weeks of alone time, this evening I've been practicing doing what I intend to do for those weeks; as little as possible. Because I could, I have taken a long weekend, so am not due back at work until Tuesday. Yay me.
Never let it be said that I ignore honest-to-goodness advice. I re-read Waaart's instructions on a dinner date. I settled back with NCIS in the DVD player earlier and got through two episodes before I remembered that part of the plan was to invite someone around to cook. Bugger. All was not lost -- there are more takeaways in this town than there are houses, so I went for the first thing that came into my head...they were eating Chinese with noodles on NCIS and it struck me I had never tried our local Chinese takeaway. Off I shot, and with remarkable presence of mind I remembered that the chemist is right next door to the Chinese, and I needed to call in there to pick up some "stop Kenny axe-murdering" compound.
Now those who know me know that I am not one for going off on one about how good food is. I'm partial to some of it and can take or leave the rest. So it will come as a monumental compliment to the local Chinese that their Sezchuan chicken with noodles is a beauty to be beheld. Originally, I looked at the portion they gave me and had it pegged as at least dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. Twenty minutes later I was sat looking at empty takeaway wrappers, having gone through three and a half plates full of the stuff. Remind me again why I am now knocking on 170lbs; actually, don't. This stuff is a slice of heaven. I have a feeling that the Chinese takings may be significantly up over the next few weeks.
Of course while I was shovelling industrial quantities of Sezchuan chicken down me, another episode of NCIS came and went. I begrudgingly got up to deal with washing up dishes and to correct the problem of my coffee cup being empty and have just noticed the time. The last four hours have absolutely flown. And I still have time to watch another couple because I don't have to get up tomorrow, unlike you poor saps.
I'm thinking tonight is a precedent for the weekend. Same M.O. for the next four days with the odd trip to the shop for food and a couple of other bits and bobs. I just need an excuse now to not go out with the acquaintance I mentioned last week; she is nothing if not persistent. I am nothing if not entirely disinterested.
Someone remind me to watch the only part of the Olympics that I am interested in. I have a feeling the opening ceremony will be truly breath-taking. And if you do insist on coming round, bring your own damned food; that Chinese may be nice, but it's bloody expensive.
I hope you all have a fantastic Friday at work. Giggle. Expect more sense from me tomorrow when the endorphins triggered by the prospect of freedom have calmed down somewhat.
I mentioned to the Waaart that given that I have four weeks of quality "me" time (no sniggering in the galleries), I may invite someone around for dinner. I know. Me, cooking. I realized the potential for humor the moment I had hit the send button...
From: Arse Face To: Kenny Oliver Subject: Call an ambulance
Oh my god, I just ruptured a testicle laughing. That's going to take some time to heal. Shit man, I hope they like shepherd's pie.
Or perhaps you should build an all-weather hoginator and smoke yersen some ribs, wiggin style...
You need to get one of those aprons with a pair of tits on...at least you can talk about how much you laughed while you're waiting for the pizza to arrive...
Tell you what, here's a wild idea.. why don't you invite them round, and tell them to bring their favourite wine to drink. Casually add that they should also bring some cooking ingredients for whatever they like cooking, erm eating I mean, and their favourite apron. Break it to them gently on arrival that the oven's preheated, the pots are in the cupboard and hoover's in the closet (in case they feel like it). Then explain that you'll be in the other room watching NCIS, and to give you a holler when your tea's ready.
I think he's talking utter skate-wings. He's vastly over-complicating the ordering of a curry.
Apologies for my relative silence over the past couple of days. I have been rather busy sitting in traffic jams, being hyper-analytical and generally introverted. It pays, every now and again, to step away from the minutiae and take a little stock with your coffee. To give you some idea how non-webbed I've been, although I was informed that the Telegraph crossword yesterday was an insult to anyone with an IQ above that of a lettuce, by the time I got home, it was all I could do to do about 3/4 of it. After that, I spent a couple of hours on the phone playing an exquisite game of cat and mouse. I have no idea what the outcome was, but it was fun.
Freda's pal, last week.
I have received a communication from the Maestro who has sent me a holiday snap. The commentary runs as follows:
"I did manage to catch a glimpse of FG getting up close and personal with the young whippersnapper in the attached photo. Personally I think she's just after the ego-trip of a toy-boy, but she insists that he was absolutely sincere. At least it might rid her of that stupid girlie crush she maintains on Rev. Rowan. Tsk.
Whoever the young whippersnapper might be, I did enlarge a full res picture of him to reveal a fine piece of lichen growing from his lips. Which means a) he's in very clean air but b) he must eat very very slowly indeed. No wonder gnomes are a dying breed."
At this point I must refer back to a conversation that my maternal unit had with another one of our little college clique's maternal unit last week. Apparently, the friend's unit stated "Isn't it great that they all grew up and got out of the habit of talking complete nonsense?". I nodded sagely and added "Yeah. We were pretty stupid back then. Good job we've ditched all our old ways of silliness, trying to laugh at inappropriate moments and generally appreciating the gravity of every detail of every day. Life's a peach isn't it? How is that whole Christian doctrine treating you?"
Thanks for the shot Maest. I hope it doesn't over-excite Mildred too much.
I've added a Turing test to my comments. It's late so it will either work and all will be groovy or the comments will be buggered until tomorrow evening. I have tested it after my own inimitable fashion. 'Nuff said.
» We have an Asian chap here who salutes me each morning with "Morning token white guy. How are you?" It absolutely cracks me up every time. I'm running out of retorts. I've used "Feeling pale today.", "Still can't dance." and "Pretty fly bro'." I need more, and quickly.
» I am sometimes very grateful for the fact that my memory for TV and films is worse than useless. I get so much more value from DVDs than anyone else. For example, on Saturday night I had the choice of suicide by Foyle's War, suicide by Casualty or watching the NCIS third series for the umpteenth time. I just never get tired of NCIS. It's a masterpiece of programming. You take a hot homicidal chick, a hot geek chick, a comedy frat-boy, a comedy geek and a cooler than hell leader and throw a load of fantastically cheesy dialogue in the mix; it's like catnip for Kennys. I watched the whole of the first DVD of the third series last night (after watching one of the fourth on Saturday). I think if I ever go on Mastermind my specialized subject will be Kill Ari (parts 1 and 2). In fact, while I think about it, I've not got the fourth series on DVD. I need to rectify that now.
» The Waaart is convinced that anyone who does not know '''Bunbury''' will read my posts from yesterday and conclude that I have finally lost my slender grip. This is not true. As I pointed out to the Waaart, it amused me ergo it got blogged. I still have my fingernails clutching at reality so all is well.
Damn. I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Bunbury. The moment you kind of hint that you've been Bunburying to anyone, it falls apart. Although I think my friend Bunberry might just have survived this one.
As you will recall, I was out attending to a piece of database work this afternoon. It just so happened that the land phone rang and, unusually, I answered it. The voice at the end of the line was a broken but fairly competent English. They inquired if Mr Gorner was here. Anyone who knows me or Die Frau Führer knows that Mr Gorner has been dead for over twenty years. The only people who make that mistake are telemarketing people. I denied all knowledge and then hung up. Same thing a couple of moments later except this time they asked for Mrs Gorner. I could tell it was the same voice so explained that she was out. Then I forgot about it.
The phone has just rung again. Muchos freaky-deaky Deutsch ensued. I managed to ascertain from listening to one side of the conversation that the person who was now midst foreign song had attempted to call earlier. It transpires it was another one of my mysterious Austrian relatives and that he had tried to call earlier on. Clunk. Yup, that's Bunbury's last rites being read.
"Oh, that was Lother? I thought it was someone trying to flog double-glazing. He didn't sound Austrian, more Indian. Yeah, he caught me just as I was leaving to meet Bunbury. He asked for my grandad and rather than explain that's he's been stone-cold for almost twenty-three years to the day and validate the fact that you lived here, I thought I was being clever. You will apologize to Lother won't you when you see him next week? You'll have to explain that we are besieged by evil Indian colonials who are hell-bent on extracting what little value there is left in our pounds sterling..."
I jabbered on for all of ten minutes in an effort to keep off the subject of Bunbury. In fact, I was quite astonished at how easily I managed to completely subvert the initial premise of the conversation. I suppose it's just like sitting down to blog. I start off being all honest about things and then I get distracted and I blog what should have happened, either because it would amuse me or because the reality kind of sucked.
You'll now never believe a word I say again. Ah well. At least Bunbury survived, although the bastard didn't ring.
I have been naughty for a while and have been '''Bunburying'''. It seems that every Sunday, my mysterious friend has a small crisis that involves going out for Sunday lunch, which of course means that I am unavailable for the usual Sunday frivolities (sic). Today it kind of bit me in the ass a little in that a real acquaintance called late last night to see if I would go for lunch with her and her mate because she has a crisis that she thinks I can help with. These crises usually arise for no other reason than I have not answered her calls for a while. I was kind of torn between agreeing to lunch and holding off (for reasons I will not go into). So '''Bunbury''' stepped in again with the most monumentally tedious database maintenance problem.
Bunbury has a blog on which he writes all sorts of nonsense. He has a comments section that has been piled with spam over the years and which he has largely fought back against by modifying the comments code, 'cos he's a bit handy like that, however he has been complaining to me for a while that there was an awful lot of crap in that there database which needed purging. I've sat here with him for over two hours cleaning it all up. He really was quite stressed about the whole shebang. You'll all be relieved to hear that he is now sleeping so I can sneak off home and let him rest.
The problem with Bunbury is that when he is in one of his less consistent moods, multiple problems crop up in a day. Once I've sorted one out, I very often get a call about another matter he urgently needs to discuss over dinner. It's difficult telling those around me that these occasions are the ones I *really* need to help out with, because when the second call comes in, I know that there is somewhere I really want to be.
Bunbury hasn't called yet but I'm hoping he might.
I can pretty much guarantee that unless you've been around me in the last couple of years, you will probably not have heard any Charlotte Martin. I shall let you have this little gem, while I go about my business today. I'm heading out this afternoon and, with a bit of luck, meeting one of my favorite people for dinner so it might be a quiet day around these parts.
On the other hand I may blow the afternoon off to go shopping and end up not going out for dinner, in which case I'm sure I'll be back.
Whichever, it's quite a nice little song isn't it?
It's all got a bit silly at work with the Yorkshire Day thing. Half of us are of the Red Rose persuasion and half of the anemic rose so tempers are frayed.
I threw in my normal argument; that any side that *won* the War of the Roses would *not* have kept Barnsley.
The response: We let you win because we didn't want Wigan. Anyway, we beat you 10:6 on aggregate. We even won the last battle. I think you only got declared victor because you have Manchester: you probably had 10 minutes of extra time.
Upon further probing, it transpires that Yorkshire folk associate Wigan with being Lancashire's version of Barnsley.
This is just bus syndrome all over. Nothing happens for days and then along come a bazillion targets in one line. The last couple of days have seen headlines that have just been utterly gagging for some extended ridicule. Sadly, my workload and other commitments mean I can't really rip them apart with all the caustic keyboard I would wish to use.
Water Tasting Contest Won By Severn-Trent -- a ridiculous concept made even more fantastically daft by the fact that one taster gushed (no pun intended) that the water was "beautifully pure, a mountain stream of freshness". It's feckin' water for God's sake. It tastes like shite no matter how you dress it up. There is a reason we flavor drinks and put coffee in the odious nothingness that is water.
Nasa finds water on Mars -- I broke this story in 2004 and I was a step ahead of them. Having analyzed the first images back from Mars, I applied some fancy, schmancy image enhancing algorithms and spotted that not only had there been life on Mars, but there had been scousers. See here.
Stars on their arses -- "Celebrities have been paying to have their names displayed in stars at a new theatre in East Yorkshire as part of a 'quirky' fundraiser for the building." -- I'm speechless.
I do have more examples of insanity, but I'm afraid I'm up to my neck in VLANs and switches at the moment.
These here Macbooks; they definitely do not blow goat
