The fundamental feck-up-ness of the whole damned shebang

I have been treading a fine line for a while politically. I fall into nowhere space in the US because of the partisan system it inevitably is. For example, I supported the war in Iraq whether WMDs were there or not (the whole regime was intolerable to a modern world), yet I openly support gay marriage. You see the dilemma here?

Ms Luminous's account of her experience with the NHS in the UK just further confuses my pathetic intellect. In principle, I'm all for the NHS. In practice, it is a black hole for tax payers. I've probably said this before but I'm going to say it again anyway; the UK discourages treatment for anything since it costs while the US will find the slightest thing wrong with you because they know they can bill your insurance company. Come on people, somewhere twixt the two lies a sane compromise.

There's a part of me (that blogged the other night but was censored by another part of me the following morning) that seriously thinks we're on a path to economic meltdown. The madness that is the stock market, the fact that people don't like paying for electronic gizmos, the reliance of the economy on service industries, employers' lack of willingness to take risks, the burden that we are increasingly placing on the next generation to pay for the sins of the fathers, all of it, is a massive pointer to the fact that the market economy may be the best thing we've come up with so far, but it's not a viable long-term philosophy. Maybe, and I put this forward as only a maybe, instead of spending millions a year on developing people who analyse the markets and create wealth for the already wealthy, we need to stand back and look at this from a purist point of view. There's a problem here that we are trying to solve using known techniques when in fact we should be 'thinking outside the box'.

It started with goats and land and has escalated to a ridiculous level. As a teenager, I read Karl Marx and while I sympathized with the equality aspect, I realised that it was not practical. Hell, I could go to the pub on a Friday evening having worked 60 hours that week and recognise people in there who had received their giro the day before and who had never worked a day in their lives. In fact, I know a guy who is a couple of years older than me who has never worked in his life, prefering instead to sit with his copy of the Daily Express in his parents' house, issuing judgements on the economy, workers' rights and criticizing the establishment. That is why puritanical socialism doesn't work. Because some people are lazy. Hence the realism that communism would never work (aside from the nanny-state arguments).

And while I'm at it, nanny-states are not the sole property of the formerly or currently communist block. The US and UK are just as bad. Do not smoke, do not drink. In the US, bars are hidden because they are shameful dens of iniquity. In the UK, your social life pretty much revolves around the local pub, but being caught there is a sign of social inferiority to those of the respectable classes (who sip port in their dining halls).

Maybe I'm just disillusioned with it all due to my current circumstance (I needed $5 to pay airport tax on a flight to CA that I had booked using my airmiles but none of my cards have that left on them - I nearly cried, but didn't - I'm English and we don't do emotion) but it all seems to be completely mad to me at the moment. The whole shebang seems to be on a downward spiral and the partisan conventional wisdom only accelerates it as the left take on the right. What a pathetic battle that is.

If people did what is right rather than what is politically correct, oh how much richer our lives would be. In the meantime, if you happen to find yourself in England with a gammy ankle, I have an angel of a cousin who you should look up. She has just chopped her mother's wait down to a paultry four months, from what could have been a life sentence.

Yatesdisillusioned out. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

The lunatic fringe lives

In a two party system, things like this can do nothing but harm. Not that I have anything against feng-shui, but a law to enforce it? That's as mad as the late Screaming Lord Sutch's Monster Raving Loony Party manifesto to turn the EC butter mountains into ski-slopes. Ah, I do miss Screaming Lord Sutch - that was when politics were fun and I actually cared. SLS would have got my vote any day of the week. And had proportional representation been in effect, the All Night Party would have been my second choice. Come to think of it, I haven't voted since 1996 when I helped rid the UK of nearly twenty years of the scumbag Tories and install El Tonio Blair and his three adverb compulsion. Finally, unequivocally and ultimately.

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Is it May yet?

What started off as a joke has now gone way beyond that. At 08:30 this morning, the temperature here was -31°C (-24°F). Extrapolating the daily temperatures, I feel the need to keep an eye out for liquid oxygen burns during February. Hell, even the dogs don't want to go out; no sooner have they been let out, they're back shivering at the door with icicles dangling from their whiskers.

I'd try the old trick of throwing a cup of water into the air, but that wouldn't work inside and I'll be buggered if I'm going outside. Maybe I'll clean the fridge instead, you know, for the heat differential factor.

In others news, there was a touch of unpleasantness abounding chez nous this morning. I awoke to the sound of a crying Bean. Naturally, I got up to find the cause of said wailing. Now call me Mean Mr Grouchy Pants but I do not accept the fact that the TV is not on as a justification for screaming the house down. Oh no. All that says to me is that we are rapidly turning into a spoiled child who has too much, is TV-dependent and has no imagination. I swiftly pointed the Bean back into her room. That TV is off all day today; it's not like she'll lose the plot of Dora or Blue's Clues. So there you go; yet another reason for you to be thankful that I'm not your father.

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January 29th 2004

Straight to the top of the class

Goes Occupied Country. Tell me this (scroll down to the entry about his son being 30) isn't the prime of Manchester. Straight to the top of the non-Minnesota blogroll for you. Bloody hilarious. Sorry you're a City fan though.

Still, it doesn't do to fuss does it?

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The injustice

You know, if the news networks want to compete with WCCO or whatever the channel is (I think it's 4 on the cable here), they should choose their moments more carefully. Last week, I tuned into the Debate, such as it was, and to be honest, it entertained me about as much as a Bowflex infomercial or an Eminem video. Hell, even The Apprentice was more entertaining (and that was going some given that they had a whole 2 seconds on strategy and tactics, but reserved the rest of the show for mindless studies of the participants' assessments of each other).

So why, oh why, oh why, are they pitching this week's Debate against CSI? Why? Given the choice of a bunch of answer-avoiding bellicose twerps or a good CSI, what kind of human being would opt for the former? You'd need to be a special kind of masochist to put yourself through that torture for a second week running. Now, if it were up against, say, American Idol Meets Genghis the Fear Factor Turtle on a Desert Island Survivor Jeopardy I would understand the schedulers' logic. But CSI? Please.

Tonight you will find me in the command center at yatescentral, watching CSI, while Natzoid suffers another round of The Weakest Link starring a bunch of no-good hacks asking sensationalist questions of non-presidential contenders. I'm sorry, I know I should take more interest, but my excuses are that I cannot vote anyway and that I would inevitably end up screaming the answers that should have been given. And anyway, at this moment in time, W's tax laws are what are keeping me going, and also at this moment in time, I cannot afford to have principles.

CSI it is. News is always depressing anyway.

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It's like Greater Manchester buses

You can stand there waiting for hours in the terminal Manchester drizzle, soaked to the skin, and never see even the outline of a bus. Then one will appear in the distance, grow steadily larger and then whizz past you at the speed of a bus, just allowing you to read the word 'Private' on the front. You'll wait another hour or so and then ten of them arrive simultaneously, all going to the same place (which is half way to where you really want to go but it will have to do because you've no idea how long the next bus to where you really want to go might be - it has been recorded in life-times).

So it goes with jobs. Nothing surfaces for months and suddenly a slew of very appropriate positions pop up in days. I am sat waiting for a phone call that might hail another interview about 10 miles away from the first.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get there. It figures that the bank's estimated clearing of the check (cheque Z) falls two days after I have to be there. Nothing is ever easy eh?

If I'm lucky, I'll get three interviews in while I'm there. Which is kind of like catching all the buses at once. Now I need to decide which of them is the most attractive bus to be sat on. Dilemmas, dilemmas.

PS - For those among you who follow the SCO vs Linux thing, take a look at this (via Solonor). I'm convinced it must be someone who used to work for SCO in the olden days, probably someone from the old IXI team in Cambridge.

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Oh yes, you will be mine

I have an interview for the job™. I will say no more for the moment. I now need to start putting together an Kenny sales pitch and to reacquaint myself with which side of an iron to plug in. More later after I've finished screaming from the rooftops.

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Bliss

I couldn't let this pass without a comment. Football season extended? Can it be? Could we all be so lucky? Can you imagine being able to sit outside in the garden, sipping a beverage of your choice, while watching the FA Cup Final in June? Tilt.

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I'm still a stranger

I've just been outside to deposit a check that my parents had sent me. Given that we are rapidly approaching 0°Kelvin and that peoples' limbs appear to be snapping off as they try to reposition them, I made the audacious decision to do the drive-through thing. The reason that it was audacious is that I have never done it solo before, I've always had Natzoid on hand to issue instructions. I operate on a need to know basis so have summararily forgotten all that I know about the drive through windows at banks. All I knew is that it would (a) avoid any form of direct human interaction and (b) avoid me having to leave the car (and endure the associated insufferable wind chills).

It was like a Hugh Grant movie. There I was the pleasant and jolly English dolt, trying to pass at being Mr Cosmopolitan while committing errors of Mr Bean like proportions. What does that red button do? I can tell you that it doesn't do what I expected it to. Vacuums roared and tubes flew, so much so that I wasn't sure whether this wasn't some form of surgery. The bank teller talked me through the complexities of sending the weird tube thing back to her and I dutifully failed to follow her instructions. Never let it be said that I do not learn from my mistakes; I can repeat them exactly.

The lady in the mini-van behind me was very much enjoying this. After ten minutes of fumbling around with the bizarre mechanics, the teller went off into the usual confused tailspin that ensues every time I attempt to deposit a check in foreign monetary units. There's the ritual quizzical eyebrow as they try to determine what a £ is. That having been ascertained though not understood, there follows the incredulity that £1 is worth more than $1. After the realité bounces off them and they manage to perform whatever mind numbingly banal process they have to follow to deposit this funny money into my account, they then explain that it will take 10 days to clear and that I cannot withdraw against it until it has cleared. A full twenty minutes has elapsed and the poor lady in the mini-van had died of hypothermia, not before her ears had snapped off as she adjusted her ear-muffs.

I finally drove away, back in the black in principle if not in the eyes of the cash machine, hair neatly coifed, old-boy jollity at full-blast, Eton tie precisely centered in the V of my sweater, to go find a transexual prostitute who would take an IOU. Funnily enough, they all seem to have taken the day off in Coon Rapids. Maybe I'll check out Anoka later when the wind chill isn't tattooing a permanent red cheery glow to my cheeks.

You know, I love being sunburned.

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Random list

In the style of Natzoid's triply patent pending random lists I offer you:

When I got up this morning, the temperature was -21°C or -6°F. No-one in their right minds can look at that and not cringe (even you). It is a degree (no pun intended) of misery that cannot be rivalled. Boil me in oil, fry me in Crisco, but don't let me shivver in my own home with the heating cranked as high as it can be.

SCO (if you can get to their web-site) are offering a $250k reward for the naming of the author(s) of the latest virus MyDoom or Novarg. It appears that someone has it in for the litigious SOBs. Their business model seems to be becoming clear; if you can't make money out of Linux, sue those that can. I look forward to their bankruptcy. Oh, and if you are running Linux, once again you'll be chortling at the rest of the world as they battle with anti-virus updates.

On the above topic, it takes two minutes to secure your sendmail and SMTP servers. ISPs, take note.

Tony Blair has been vindicated over claims that he sexed up a dossier on Iraq's weapons capabilities. He has also been cleared of any governmental responsibility for Dr David Kelly's suicide. The Beeb doesn't exactly come out of it smelling of roses though. And someone has been exceptionally naughty and leaked the report to that most prestigious of mindless gossip rags newspapers The Sun. Strange how the government has ethics but the BBC seems to be losing theirs. If this had been Margaret Handbag Thatcher, someone would be impaled on the railings outside Buck House by now. It will be interesting to see how old TB handles the leak.

It appears John "Single Issue" Kerry won the New Hampshire primary. In an ill-advised reference to US politics, might I offer some advice; if your aim is solely to remove Dubya from the White House, your cause is flawed. The whole point of elections is to choose the best man for the job, not to defeat the guy you like the least. Protest votes are for teenagers. Grow up.

Billy Corgan is said to be working on a solo album. We at yatescentral know that whatever he does, Stevie Nicks will have done it better. You remember that whole thing? Well the battle rages on chez nous.

Apologies for this morning's caustic vitriol; I don't know whether it's due to the fact that I got up too early or because I have to leave the house in this soul-destroying temperature. Whichever, hopefully I'll mellow during the course of the morning and normal platitudes and good humor will return.

Please feel free to continue to rave on.

Update: at 08:50 CST, it is now a balmy -23°C or -9°F and according to Yahoo, our high for the day is -19°C. We need to move.

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January 27th 2004

I'm like a thing possessed

I have been obsessive today. The job that I found yesterday will be mine. I have contacted upwards of 20 industry colleagues who may have an "in" to said company with at least five of them responding that they don't know anyone there. I am yet to hear from the rest.

But not to worry, as well as applying for the job, I have sent their MD my resume and unashamedly blown my own trumpet (isn't contortionism great?). I have very articulately explained that for the good of the species, not to mention their company, they need me. I stopped short of suggesting a press release announcing my appointment. You have to draw the line somewhere you know.

So right now, in a world blog first, we're going to conduct a little experiment to benefit science Kenny. You are all going to adorn yourselves with the most comedic vegetables you have in your abodes (hint: tins are not comedic), turn West, raise your hands and chant as a mantra "the world needs this" over and over. All the while, you will be concentrating hard on a man reading an email and then his hand reaching for a telephone to dial a Minneapolis number, specifically mine. Your reward, little hoppers in the grass, is twofold. You will cause great cosmic karma and receive the associated sleep of the just. And the bonus, because it's Tuesday and the Great God of Garbage has been sighted vanquishing Nic's diapers, is so special, you could auction it on ebay. Yes siree, I might stop blogging about the bloody employment trail. Isn't that worth it to you?

Go find those gourds and artechokes, and help in this great experiment into prismic governance. 72.5 virgins await ye. And none of them are from Wigan. Oh yea...

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January 26th 2004

I dare not speak it by name lest I jinx it

I think I have found an ideal job. Not only would it utilize all of my generally applicable skills, it would use some of the more specialized ones. And the beauty is that I probably have several ways in to the company through contacts. I dare say no more. Fingers, toes, nads and all other sundry crossable bodily bits crossed. I dearly hope I get it.

Amazing what a new attitude can buy you, n'est-ce pas?

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Non-epiphany

It's Monday and time to play your favorite game of Who is Kenny This Week?

Is he morose? Is he ambivalent? Is he suicidal? Is he ecstatic? Is he bolshy? Is he crushed?

Well the answer is that, this week, he will toy with being assertive. My brief interaction with religion was at junior school which was a Church of England establishment that inflicted bible-readings on a daily basis (I have often wondered how I ended up there considering I have never been christened). All it did for me is to amplify an already over-developed sense of humility. By the time I was eleven, I was convinced that I was but a worm and should be grateful for the fact that I had been given an opportunity to re-cover the class bible and practice reading it in assembly.

So in exactly the same way that I deemed religion to be a load of idealistic, war-promoting bunk, so too will I treat the corporate tip-toeing. Rather than offer my services in my usual humble manner, I'm going onto the front foot (obscure cricket analogy) and am going to demand audiences with menaces while screaming from the hilltops that while that particular position may not be an ideal match to my multi-faceted, tremendously valuable skills, your organization can't live without me and you know it. Yes, you may be able to get people for less money, but look at the value proposition here...where else do you get a software engineer, support guy, sales puke and marketing god all in the same package? Hire one of each and let's see how much that adds up to.

So your business turns over less than a couple of million a year eh? Let's see what we can do to triple that in the next twelve months. Local? Pah. National. Domestic? Boo for boring. Global. Let's face it, who couldn't do with me on staff? Soup to nuts, that's what you get.

So Who is Kenny This Week? could be summarized as supremely overconfident, vastly over-qualified for anything you might have and mindlessly optimistic.

One of these days, I'll use some combinatronics to calculate which of my multitude of psychoses is the correct permutation. I'd do it on paper but it's multi-dimensional so I'll probably need to write some code to monitor and optimize the process.

Damn this coffee is good. Or maybe it's all the different types of meat pies I've been eating. Maybe I should start spelling in English again to prove my literacy?

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January 25th 2004

Awwwww

First thing this morning Zoe came on tip-toes and whispered to me "I love your cake. Can I please have some cake?"

Of course I wanted to oblige her but the sensible parent in me told her that she should have cereal for breakfast, not cake, but she could have some later. She has been waiting all morning and has just returned to say "Please daddy, can I have some cake now?"

Who am I to say no, lunchtime or no lunchtime? Melts your heart, I tell you.

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Sophistication? I've been to Batley.

Via Ms Luminous, where have I been?

create your own visited states map

And...

Maybe I'm not as well travelled as I thought.

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You don't want to be me

One of life's unwritten rules is to never wake Natzoid before nature does. I did and I am paying the price. Even though I have provided coffee, I have been remotely subject to a multitude of insults from the bedroom.

Natzoid: Hey Kenny.
Kenny: What?
Natzoid: You suck.
Kenny: Really?
Natzoid: Yes. Why don't you just stop sucking so much?
Natzoid: What are you doing? I can hear your space bar.
Kenny: I don't know. Maybe I'm writing an email, maybe I'm blogging your arse.
Natzoid: Hey Kenny.
Kenny: What?
Natzoid: What are you doing now?
Kenny: Same thing that I was doing last time you asked.
Natzoid: Do I need to get up and find out?
Kenny: No. Go back to sleep.
Natzoid: Hey Kenny.
Kenny: What?
Natzoid: What were you doing watching VH1?.
Kenny: After I had finished talking to Melly, there was nothing on so I put on some music.
Natzoid: You suck, bogarting my friends, watching VH-1. You really want to stop sucking so much.
Natzoid: Hey Kenny.
Kenny: What?
Natzoid: What was that beep?
Kenny: That was me hitting the wrong key in vi. It's kind of like a buffer overflow.
Natzoid: Why don't you just stop sucking so much?

And so it has gone for the past hour. For a Sunday, I feel remarkably ill at ease. I wonder whether United are on the box? At least that way I might have an excuse to scream at length without the cause being known.

Natzoid: Hey Kenny.
Kenny: What?
...

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January 24th 2004

Gallery of mischief and mess

I have managed to knock together a preliminary set of pictures from Zoe's little party yesterday evening. You will see evidence of what could be perceived to be a cake. I know, it's awful isn't it? Damn you Delia Smith and your 8" cake tin and no scaling instructions (even my extrapolation based on πr²h didn't work). As I said though, it tasted fine. And Zoe, as she asked for a second piece, very earnestly told Natzoid "that is the bestest birthday cake ever in my whole life."

So after the demon spawn darlings had gone to bed last night, I sat beating myself up about what a terrible father I was producing such a monstrosity of a cake, until Natzoid pointed out that her father and my father would never even have thought to try to make us a cake (let alone make one from scratch), and albeit bereft of style points for presentation, it might mean something to Bean later in life.

Anyway, once this cake has gone which probably won't take too long, I'm going to get back into the art of doing it well. It seems a shame I lost the touch through lack of practice. And what kind of a childhood is it if you never lick the mixing bowl cake gloop remains until you feel sick for just long enough to not eat until the cake is done?

PS - Does anyone know how to open up the aperture on a Fuji Finepix A303? Thanks.

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January 23rd 2004

Gulp

I'm about to do something dangerous. After my recent success in the kitchen, I have decided that I am going to chance my arm and make Zoe's birthday cake myself. I used to make good cakes but the last one I made was for my Grandfather's 61st birthday way back in 1984.

Again, this might ruin her day or it may be a screaming success OK. Wish me luck. While it is baking, I'll work on the excuses just in case.

Update: Bit concerned about the gloop height to circumference ratio but part 1 smells divine.

Update 2: Oops, sorry Zoe. Daddy will buy a cake next week. Tasted OK, looked like it had been dropped on its side and glued together with pink icing. I think I'll not do the cake thing again. Ever. If you ever read this when you're older, all I can say is sorry and that you should remember that it is the thought that counts. And the effort, there was a lot of effort trying to repair it. You should just remember mum's ice-cream. That was excellent.

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Sorry to have to say it

There isn't going to be a democratic president this time next year. Even though I don't get to vote anyway, I sacrificed CSI (what a hero) to watch the inaccurately named debate on Fox last night.

First, that was not a debate. It was an incomplete round-table discussion. I used to do that kind of thing a lot and it is a relatively easy thing to do if you know what you are talking about, much easier than standing up and giving a cold speech. None of the members of the 'debate' looked very comfortable and some looked downright amateur.

Taking a liberty, I'd like to map the various contestants into the types of people who used to participate in the round-tables that I used to do. The Reverand Al is your classic sales guy, knows nothing about that which he is talking about and sticks to stock answers, never daring to stray away. Complete duffer. Could be out-debated by a high school graduate.

Howard Dean? What can I say? He's your classic MBA marketing management who thinks he knows the party line but dares to believe that he can stray from it because he is convinced that he is smart enough to think on his feet. Wrong.

John Edwards? Channel sales person, manufacturer's rep. Never, ever say that you don't understand something. And better still, never bull-shit on things you haven't read and don't understand.

Kerry? Car salesman. "My widget is better than your widget. That's all I need to say. Single issue, avoid everything else because it's not talking about my widget."

Clark? He's your developer/engineer who has decided he wants to play in the commercial world. He may get the hang of it at some point or he may not. Either way, it won't be this time.

Lieberman? Been round the block so many times and worked for all the companies that sell the same equipment. So much so that when he contradicts his previous employer, all he can do is laugh it off.

Kucinich? Can't pigeon-hole him very well. I get the feeling that he knows his stuff but he needs to be appraised of everything in advance and isn't that great at thinking on his feet although if you gave him time to think, he would come to a well-reasoned answer.

Overall, I think I liked Kucinich's answers best but I liked his delivery least. Even if he thinks along the right lines, his presentation skills are lacking. And I suspect I know the reason why - he isn't the kind of guy who likes to talk for the sake of talking and would rather reflect on the right answer than to give an off the cuff evasive platitude.

Whatever, none of them struck me as being sterling candidates who will wipe the floor with Dubya. But maybe the forum was wrong? A debate it certainly was not. A round-table - maybe. A Q&A. Most likely. Bit of a let down really. With only populist and hystrionic questions and poor bullet-point answers. Then again, we live in a world of soundbites, which is exactly why Dubya will still be incumbent in the White House this time next year.

Sorry my DFL friends, but if I were voting this year, it wouldn't be for any of these guys. I would wait and see who else surfaces but the sad reality is that no-one will, so maybe I'm glad I don't have the responsibility this time.

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January 22nd 2004

Sad git that I am

When I saw this news, my first thoughts were of a tremendous loss but those were rapidly replaced with "damn, I wish I was on the team debugging it and trying to repair it."

Nothing in this world gives me more pleasure than being involved in fixing things like this. Since I read of the failure, I've been sat mulling what kind of communication protocol they are using and the potential problems. What kind of cameras are they using and what kind of interface? My ex-colleagues will probably concur that in the unlikely event that they use a firewire interface, that is most likely the problem. Are the cameras even digital or are they just high-res analog CCDs? How is the software architected?

It may seem strange but the system that we created in my last job presented many of the same problems that NASA had to solve. We needed motion control, we needed stereo vision (for depth perception and measurement), we needed image processing, we needed accurate image stitching to create photo-mosaics, we needed state machines that could function independently of the image processing and communication stacks. Bloody fascinating problems to solve.

Just call me Dr Science. And then tell me I'm a sad git.

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A legend in my own kitchen

I'm a legend in my own kitchen. What I mean by that is that the kitchen has never seen me so I am only a legend, not a reality. Until yesterday. For reasons known only to higher powers, I suddenly and quite extraordinarily decided that I was going to make a shepherd's pie. I had never made one before so where this idea came from is anyone's guess. Worse still, upon surveying the available ingredients in the house, I found we didn't have the appopriate foodstuffs so decided to improvise. Hysterical eh? The King of Boiled Salmon doing an improv. What's more it was a genuine Northern improv using proper ingredients like cream and butter.

The results, I knew, would either be disasterous or edible but could not possibly exceed edible. While in the final stages of the process, while Natzoid was getting increasingly excited about the smell and the fact that I had found the part of the kitchen that contains the stove, I warned her that were it awful, she was to keep it to herself (blogwise) and were it edible she should laud it from the hilltops. However it was to be, I knew there would be more calories per mouthful than was legal.

I have to say that it exceeded my expectations by several orders of magnitude. Even the kids liked it. The King of Boiled Salmon has graduated to the God of Shepherd's Pie.

And what's more, there's probably enough left over for dinner tonight (even though Natzoid had a double helping).

This small victory may lead to more experiments in the kitchen. This could be a good thing or it may transpire to be the worst bio-hazard this side of Baghdad.

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January 21st 2004

The state of the Union

My fellow Amiraqians,

Since the last time we assemblified here, the world has become a less dangerous and more demure place. The Amiraqian military have shown great courage and charicature in defeatifying a dangerous legume in Iraq. We have enacted legislationized to protectify and further recuse the security of our nation in the form of the Patriot Missile Act which is set to explode in 2005. This act must be extensified to continue to disperse terrorist cells and cease their assets. Allied International Bank have been conducing 180 raids a week against the evil legume of Saddam Hussein, his supports and other insurance-gents. The Amiraqian people will have sovereigns by the end of the Moon. Amiraqians have never been intimated by thugs and assbandits and our brave military have shown that Amiraq will not tolerize the threat of terrorism. Further more, we have succeedified in getting Libyans to disarm themselves through diplomacy and negotiatedness with our allies Grate Briton, Austria and Polskechnia, something that failed for twelve years with Iraq.

Since the attacks of September 11th, we have allayed with the UK, Austria, Tyland, Japan, Australasia and the Weatherbands to defeat terror. Amiraq does not need a pink slip to protectify our oil.

I will be sending you a bill with payment terms of 30 days net, introspecting the National Endowment for Democrats; I expect you to pay that bill.

In closing, I would like to say that tax cuts have creatified jobs that are walking. Also, the positron of this administry is that the sanctimoniusness of blissful dreadlock should not be diminished by the allowitizing of the marriage of haemophiliacs and the wasteful and floored medical safari suits; if necessissary a contributional amendment will be vetoed.

Once again, Gourd blessify Ameriraq.

Burp.

OK, I missed a few bits out but at the time I was listening, I was beatifying my diner.

Commentfications (), Permalink, 13:40 CST

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Apologies

OK I admit it; I'm a bit snippy at the moment. Apparently Melly and Natzoid Unpickled both think I rage. I don't really. I just tend to scream obscenities if I get woken or if one of the kids gets woken. That is all. I'm just a tad highly strung. A tiny bit. The slightest of soupsons. My apologies. I will endeavor to cease screaming "Jesus Christ" whenever the baby wakes up. Honest.

For rage, you want to see me watch Manchester United getting beaten by Wolves. That is rage!

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January 20th 2004

Crikey 'eck

It's all happening here. Last night, or should I say early this morning, the dogs got into it again over the slightest bone fragment imaginable, the second time in a couple of weeks such a scrap has occured. Sasha usually drops on the spot when she hears me shouting but Stella will not stop until you are physically within reach, and then she runs. I took chase after the little orange git. I aimed at her backside disappearing under a wooden table and let fly. Only her backside was underneath the remarkably sturdy and resolute table and as a result I managed to punish that table like it had never been punished before. Or is it the other way around? Yes, it is. My hand is currently strapped up and excruciatingly painful. I fear I may have bust the knuckle in my little finger but it maybe just be badly bruised. So at the moment I cannot write and can only type with two fingers rather than the usual three. Orange bastard.

Natzoid is out on the job-hunt again today and to be honest I have lost count of the number of times I have shouted "Nic, take that bucket off your head", "Zoe, I cannot control the output of Nickelodeon", "Kids, please don't poke the dogs' eyes" and "Sasha, if you belch like that again, you're going to be rapidly reassigned as an outside dog."

No word on jobs. t-59 days and a-counting. Zark.

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January 19th 2004

The joy of toddlers

Why is it when faced with a choice of being parallel to his parents in bed, he poo-poos it and likes to be orthogonal, thus stretching the limits of the blanketing and thereby denying the parent who went to bed later any form of cover for the night? People's exhibit 1 (except I couldn't get Paintshop to rotate the baby by 90 degrees):

Also, when faced with what I would consider a relatively simple choice of playing with a musical toy with flashing lights and bright colors or a filthy Shop Vac, the Shop Vac gets it every time. Or maybe the power chord. Or maybe the button on the top of the Shop Vac. One day, I swear I will plug it in while he's messing with the power button - that will teach him. It taught Zoe when she accidentally switched it on; she jumped about 6 feet into the air screaming in terror. What can you say? Life lessons eh?

I swear I'm gob-smacked any child makes it to adulthood.

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January 18th 2004

I have found religion

Owing to the fact that we have two small children, a larger one of the same genus and three dogs, our house is what would normally be called an absolute shit-tip. And while I have been whacked out Kenny, I haven't done much to refute the entropy that unfolds. That is until today. After cleaning the kitchen and dining room, I started vaccuming the area under the table where the remnants of some chewed wooden things lay, but out of the corner of my eye I saw all sorts of sticky hand prints and general ooginess plastered all over the wall. Now call me bizarre but the thing that sprung to mind was Oxyclean. I sprayed some on the ooginess and bang, there was a flash of light, a thunder-clap and then a visible lack of oog.

Absolutely oogtastic or what? I want a job on the commercials now. I can see me hitting the demographics of lazy men and Mancunians world-wide when I pitch the "Durnt just kleen it, Oxy-bloody-keen it - for all your oogy needs."

Me and Lysol are history. From now OC be ma' baby.

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January 17th 2004

Now you see me, now you don't

Having languished in my own internal basement for the past twenty-four hours (some might say thirty-four years), I have emerged unscathed but with a faintly unpleasant odour. All I can say is that the coming weeks will, no doubt, result in wild mood swings as I seesaw between desperation and my own personal brand of pathetic mindless optimism. I will attempt to regulate it but can offer no promises. In fact, you should all consider me completely schizoid until further notice.

And all I can say is Wolves? Wolves? Aren't they in the third division? I thought they were playing York City or someone today. Who let them play Man Utd and more to the point, who let them win? Do they not know the rules here?

Message ends.

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January 16th 2004

Caution, girly movie moment contained herein

It is one of life's uniquely mind-boggling anomalies that one can be transformed from a middle-class professional with a house and kids to being without a single dime to your name within months and in the course of it, be on an imminently departing fishboat back to dear old Blighty. Dear old Blighty where you will be forced into living in someone else's house while you send the proceeds of whatever job you get back to the US and worry about the tax implications. And by the way, you'd better make damn sure that you pay HRH a nice 45% of that stuff before you send it. Sounds like the plight of those Malaysian workers does it not?

It also strikes me as being seriously bizarre that you can only get at your 401k if you have a notice of foreclosure, which we don't because up until now, we have been able to pay the mortgage.

What confounds me the most though is how I ended up like this. When I left University, I did a contract as a software developer and when it finished, I spent six months on the dole. It was the most depressing time of my life. When I found employment, I vowed that I would never ever be in a position where I could be made redundant again, that I would work my butt so hard that I would be deemed invaluable by any employer. I expanded my skills, I worked even when I was at home, and went everywhere on the God-forsaken planet I was told to go. I was responsible for about $3m of revenue over the last couple of years, and I saved their butts technically on more than one occasion. All this while doing marcomms, market analysis, writing scripts to analyze measurement data and picking up the pieces of some very bad business decisions.

It is a travesty that I did not factor in the consequences of someone taking a decision to close the whole shebang down. How could I have been so stupid?

So I'm left holding the tattered remnants of a once financially secure existence, having been humiliated into asking my parents for a loan until my tax return comes through or until we get a foreclosure notice whereby I can access my 401k. Isn't that ultimately pathetic? 34 and I'm running to mummy and daddy. Is there any better way to utterly detest yourself? It's like a really bad movie.

Great bread-winner that I am, I have to send my wife out to face absolute fecking arse-holes who condescend to pay her feck-all for running the place. Worst of all, rich arse-holes who cannot even keep their manners in check. I will lick the streets clean before I let Natzoid take a job with the funkmaster.

I'm angry. You bet I'm angry. You can take the lad from Manchester but you can't take the Manchester from the lad. If your name is not Natzoid, Zoe, Nic or Sam, you'd do very well to avoid me today. 'Cos violence never solved anything but it sure does feel good and I'm all about the feel good factor.

Remind me not to type anything again until my blood pressure goes down. Pass the crack.

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NASA pictures discovered to be fake - horror

It is with great regret that I have to reveal that all the NASA pictures that I have been showing are fakes. This information came to light when this picture was published by that bastion of integrity, the BBC:

NASA allege that this image is from the Hubble telescope and that this is a picture of remote galaxies.

We at yatescentral are familiar with the source of this image. It was in fact created by Zoe in the Middle during a Paintshop Pro incident that involved some fairly brazen use of the spray paint button.

So NASA are a bunch of lying gits. It's all fake. The scousers, David Bowie and his alien, 42, everything. Except that whole Michael Owen thing. I believe that one.

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January 15th 2004

Nomenclature, thy name is Kenneth

It has been brought to my attention by a Warty type person, that although we are all grown-upified, Paul is still Bazz, I am still Kenny and Kenny is still Wart. These names all were born during our teenage years.

Kenny Horrocks was a local taxi-driver who was a legend in his own Avacab. Rumor had it that he was so enormous, he had to have his taxi modified to accomodate his bulk. He was a folk-hero to those of us at school and college. Kenny was married to Betty. Bear with me here as things are about to get a little complicated.

Somehow I earned the nickname Ken Yatz, Campbell was renamed Kenny Campbell, Bazz for some reason had always been Bazz. The Wart had his name given to him by a computer science lecturer who had once asked that a fellow class member "forcibly ejaculate that Wart from this room."

Wart's next door neighbor and occasional drinking partner was called Kenny "Rhythm" H but was deemed unworthy of the grand monicker Kenny. Even then, we were disparaging about him, so we christened him Betty, after Kenny H's wife. It turns out that this was a wise thing to do since he is an accountant now and all accountants should be called Betty for easier identification ("I see your name is Betty. No need to ask what you do eh?", nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

I have no idea when Stephen became Maestro but he did. Even his parents called him Maestro.

The whole point of this rambling is that if, by chance, you end up being thrown back in time to 1985 or 1986, and find yourself in an ale emporium betitled the Ram's Head, The Horns or The Britannia, and there is a large group of 16 and 17 years olds there (which there will be, I assure you), do not call out "Hello Kenny, Kenny, Paul, Ian, Kenneth and Stephen". You will be ignored and remain unserved by Big Ron. Instead try a hail of "Oi, Betty get off that slot machine and go get some pints of Greenalls for the Wart, Ken Yatz, Kenny Campbell, Bazz and Maestro. And no you can't borrow a fiver ya bald git". You will win friends instantly and you too could earn the grandest of titles.

I wonder whatever happened to Kenny Horrocks and I wonder whether he knew of his celebrity status? Bazz still has close ties to the area (and even visits it, bizarre man) - maybe he can enhance on the man who was the myth who was the monicker.

It hasn't been changed since this was taken.
It's still in monochrome.

Comments (), Permalink, 15:45 CST

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Interesting experiments afoot

NASA really are pushing the boundaries of science. Look at this. Conclusive proof that even on Mars, Michael Owen couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

What will they do next? I'll let you know.

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Ah, the joy

Nothing says good morning like the sound of two 100 pound dogs kicking the ever loving hell out of a 40 pound dog. The yelps, the growls, the poop, the stench of adrenalin. The palpable fear.

For reasons best known to themselves, every now and again (it must be once a year), Sasha and Stella go for Bowie big-time. The poor thing must have done something heinous like looked at them the wrong way or laid down on the wrong bed.

The smell of fear is rancid and sickly and it fills your nose like only public lavatories can.

Poor Bowie will be even more neurotic than usual for the next few weeks. Especially since she'll need a bath now to get rid of the stench.

Happy frickin' Thursday eh?

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January 14th 2004

Random poem

For no other reason than this little gem has just popped into my head, I give you the perfect poem on cricket...

I ran for a catch with the sun in my eyes sir,
Being sure at a snatch, I ran for a catch.
Now I wear a black patch and a nose such a size sir.
I ran for a catch with the sun in my eyes sir.

I don't remember who wrote it and an exhaustive web search (ie I googled the first line) doesn't reveal an author. I think it's a work of art along side that wonder...

Late last night I slew my wife,
stretched her on the parquet flooring.
I was loathed to take her life
But I had to stop her snoring.

I think they are by the same author.

I think I'll return to happy land now.

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You do surprise me

Via Bazz Paul (we're all grown up now, so I'm not Kenny and he's not Bazz although this being grown up thing isn't all it was cracked up to be), the blatantly guilty, doing the blatantly obvious. Would you look at that? A scouser robbing a bank. They are moving on in the world. I thought it was just homes and cars. This must be the new elite cosmopolitan scouser.

Anyway, you hear that? That is the sound of the phone not ringing off the hook. And the gentle hum of the computer not receiving any email relating to employment. Absolutely feckin' dismal isn't it? As I say, this being an adult isn't up to much really.

I'm only blogging because I like your robot. That's not true but I wanted to say it. I'm only blogging because I like my robot.

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The obvious and the cloaked

By now, everyone will know that Natzoid was up very late again talking to the Unpickled One. It's a shame that you can't make 6 figures talking to bloggers in Texas while doing some serious damage to a bottle of wine, 'cos we'd be rich and an affidavit of support would be absolutely no problem.

It's weird seeing yourself quoted. As the Unpickled One states, I told her that her accent wasn't "tragically Southern". I don't believe I said that. It sounds far too clever-clever for me to have come up with it. I must have ripped it from a film or book, but I can't think of where. Maybe it was an unconscious Streetcar Named Desire reference, you know, the whole Southern Belle thing. Who knows.

That was the obvious. Late phone calls to Texas. Now, we hurry along to the cloaked.

I noticed from my home-grown stats tracking software that someone from a .mil domain read virtually the whole of my archives this morning. The actual domain is, apparently, a proxy for all .mil computers so it could be anyone anywhere. While I am flattered/concerned* that someone would go to all that trouble, I would hope that it is just a passing interest. The last time I looked, I wasn't a threat to national security and indeed have done work for the US Navy in the past (a really cool guy called Wing Commander Ca**). In fact, I would say I am a definite asset to national security, being that I am firmly behind pre-emptive attacks on anything that may look like it is a threat.

Anyway, that's the cloaked piece. I'm off to [yawn] guess what? Yup. Trawl the jobs boards.

* - delete as applicable

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January 13th 2004

Those olden days

The rest of the world can condemn Oasis, but they can all feck right off. Stand by me. Nobody knows the way it's going to be. Maybe I can see. But don't you know the cold and and wind and rain don't know, they only seem to come and go away.

My boys. They may be daft but I'm with them. We know the same things. We lived the same dream.

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Bright idea for the day

As I was doing my daily trawl through the job boards, I happened upon a job that was with a start-up software company in Texas and it got me thinking of something I have very often subconsciously considered but never formulated any formal position on.

The gist of it goes as follows. There are people who can be trained to install and support complex operating systems and applications. Those people tend to end up working for big software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle. Then there are other people who don't need training; they instinctively know what to do and how a product needs to develop. These people typically work in start-up companies.

Now having experienced two start-up companies, I have no qualms in saying that the environment is far more condusive to things getting done efficiently than any major software organization is. The problem is that when you're a small company, it is difficult to find those people who instinctively understand software unless they are previously known to you.

What should exist, or if it does, it needs to advertize itself, is a service for hooking up people who are of the instinctive persuasion with start-up companies.

To be honest, even working in small <$200m public companies does not really thrill me. I like the adventure of bleeding-edge things that are changing rapidly. I like solving things that haven't been solved before, documented and shipped out on a CD for some non-intuitive bozo to refer to. I like looking at a situation and blending technologies to do a job. I like seeing a gap in a product's functionality and being able to specify a remedy.

Basically, I want my old pre-acquisition job back but in a new start-up. Preferably one whose exit strategy is not to sell to some publically quoted mid-cap pseudo-behemoth.

It's truly amazing what you learn when you do these things. For example, in the last start-up I worked for, we made three fundamental errors from a strategic (spit) perspective. The first one I recall vividly; when asked whether we wanted 'a lifestyle business' or 'total world domination' we unanimously and simultaneously drank our own bathwater and voted for the latter.

The second mistake was that we chased the golden egg. We targeted one of the world's largest cell phone manufacturers who had an obsession with measurement and chased them with wild abandon. Rather than maturing the product, we concentrated on one facet of a product that had hundreds. Ultimately what that meant was it took too long to get to market and by the time it was ready to go to market, the electronics industry had tanked.

The third and most costly mistake was when we faced the decision whether to sell the company or whether to dilute the shareholder value by taking more venture capital. VC's being VC's, they wanted their profits. Ergo we sold. I should have known at that point, based on previous experience, that I should have left then.

Quite possibly a fourth mistake was during the proposal of a MBO, we wrote such a convincing business plan that the owners of the product believed it and thought "great, what a good idea, we can do that."

So there you go, you learn from these things and they serve you well in your next start-up.

We still need a service that hooks up interested parties with start-up companies though. And I'll be the first to sign up. I don't want to return to the dreaded cube-scape that offends the eye for over eight hours a day.

</idealism>

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January 12th 2004

I don't know about you

But it's about this time of the night that I like to fantasize about what I really would like to be doing. A nice bit of keepy-up with a soccer ball in space, that sounds just the trick. I too could be the first Martian Ryan Giggs.

Look at all that sand. A multitude of uses. You could make CPUs out if it. You could bury your head in it. You could take along a sand wedge to practice. You could not bother and just boil your own head in frustration.

80 days and counting until yours truly ends up being shipped back to the UK in a cargo freighter and is barred from re-entry into the US for three years. Feck, feck and more feck.

Anyway, in some astonishing news, I had a vist from Scaryduck today, a living legend and winner of the Guardian's best blog. I am not worthy. If you haven't been over there, do it now.

More inane warbling tomorrow. I'm off to get the golf clubs out. Hopefully, I'll miss the kids this time.

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Play nicely boys

Apparently the US Air Force has accidentally dropped a bomb on East Yorkshire. I'm a bit disappointed in them. I mean I know Hull is fair game but personally I would have started with London or Liverpool first. Or maybe even Reading. Let's hope they sort their priorities out and act accordingly.

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January 11th 2004

Shoot me now Billy

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to rant here. If you are a particularly sensitive soul or cannot stand criticism of people with good intentions, please skip this one; it will only offend.

My mother just called to inform me of some events in the UK. The conversation initially was along the lines of my dad having lost his temper because of something my ex-wife had done. No shit? She riled my dad? Like she did me for the duration of that apology of a marriage. You do surprise me. I bet my dad had every reason to get angry. The dialogue then went on to how my brother is too much like my father and a report that one night over Christmas, he had stood up, announced that the conversation 'was going nowhere' and had gone to bed. "He's so anti-social. He doesn't relate to anyone."

I can see the look on my brother's face as this happened. And I can visualise what he was thinking. And I know he was right no matter what the circumstances. If there is anyone in the world that I am guaranteed to side with in a decision of any sort, it's my brother. His logic is impeccable. And even though I might occasionally disagree with his actions when something surfaces, I always understand his thinking. He is a man who is both not to be messed with and who shows every virtue that I hold to be good.

Anyway, as my mother concluded her summation of all manner of day-to-day stories, she piped up "but then again, I don't suppose that you are interested seeing that you have much bigger problems, like that whole immigration and work thing."

Damn. You know I'd completely forgotten about those. There followed a half-hour conversation whereby I explained immigration law. To which the response was "Well XXXX went over there to marry her fiance and she's now a teacher."

Yes. She married a US national who met the criteria for an affidavit of support. "Well can't you get welfare?"

No. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. The whole point is that any reliance on the state is a major league no-no. This continued forever as I tried to explain to her the reality here. Eventually I gave up. Natzoid was in the background murdering dogs to keep her anger at bay. I was smoking at 50Hz and mentally about to explode.

She means well, but she doesn't understand at all. Do I sound like a teenager or what? She's trying to offer ideas, but the fact that her experience is limited to a 20 mile radius of Wigan means that any advice is pretty much irrelevant does not bode well when dealing with whatever the INS is called nowadays. I love her dearly but Jesus H God Damn Son of a Bitch Christ, anecdotal evidence does not an adjustment of status make. And I'm sure Tom Ridge is going to take my mother's word for what a nice boy I am.

Lordy, Lordy. As one of my mentors once said "Sympathy is only moderately useful."

How right he was.

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Today's daily drivel

The mighty red army were held to a goalless draw at home to the Toon army. Alan "walking-stick" Shearer could have earned himself a penalty had he not emulated an Argentinian Prima Donna and vastly over-exagerated the consequences of his contact with Tim Howard. That was evened out by a Utd goal being disallowed after a scuffle in the box that was more like handbags at twenty paces. Still, the mighty reds remain top of the table, if only by a point.

Some good news. I have three strong job leads in MN and 1 in CA. Thanks go to Mopsa for two of those.

Natzoid has just accused me of having CJD (the human form of BSE). Apparently it starts with anxiety and depression and then you start getting random pains in your body. Psychoses develop and then you're history. And here was I thinking I had plain old Lupus. Good to know I'm just about to progress from being one stick short of a bundle to being quite a few sticks short of a bundle. In fact, a single stick probably cannot be called a bundle at all. Mooo. The Lord giveth sanity and those lovely big, tasty cows taketh it away. Moooooo.

Alright, I'm off to do some haddock flossing. I knew I had something important to do today and here I am, wasting the day away.

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January 10th 2004

That sinking feeling

I've had a lot of those moments recently, what with cash being nearly depleted and no sign of any incoming in the near future, but one has just hit me square between the eyes, started rabbit punching my ribs and then finished with a classic right hook, rendering me a useless heap of quivering and incohesive atoms. What was this horrendous thought? It's the fact that very shortly, I will be traveling to California and I, wait for it, won't have a laptop. I have never traveled without a laptop, not even when we went on our trip to South Dakota. In fact, it is over 12 years since I last didn't have a laptop. I've been missing an arm for three months and have only just noticed.

Now I'm depressed.

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The loonies at the EU

If this is to be believed, and I find it entirely believable, the EU is sliding even further down the economic drain than I previously thought. Not content with mandating the shape of bananas, inflicting monetary policy and a bizarre constitution, companies may be forced to consult with their workforce on what kind of teabags they stock. But cheer up, you will get to vote on the carpet color and demand Kleenex Velvet in the lavatories.

I find it incredible that while power is being devolved in the UK (there are calls for a Northern England regional forum), the EU sits on its collective arse and mandates all kinds of rules and regulations. I find the EU to be a bit like ISO certification; nice to have but entirely pointless, and very expensive. How many layers of government do people need? I would hate to count the various tiers that are between the average Britain and the acting president (non-capitalized out of disrespect) of the EU. Douglas Adams summed up the conundrum quite nicely; no person who strives for power should ever be given it.

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January 9th 2004

OK, gloves off

Having been semi-jocular for the last couple of days, I'm going to get all intense on you now. We, in the West, have some serious problems at the moment and they need to be dealt with.

Unlike most of you, I have witnessed first hand the death of manufacturing. When I moved here in 1999, I could see the start of a migration of the electronics industry from the West to Mexico. From Mexico, it has gone to Taiwan and now Taiwan is too expensive and it's in mainland China. Many of the companies that are US based literally upped and offed. They fired their semi-skilled workers in the West and moved their million dollar plus capital equipment to China. Or they auctioned it; at one point you could buy a $500,000 machine for about the cost of a weekend in Wisconsin. Everything tanked thereafter.

Moving production to Asia achieved what for Asia? Well, the quality of the products improved. But that is because Chinese and Taiwanese employers feed their employees. A certain huge American subcontractor that I know very well used to suffer from operators fainting on the job because they weren't paid enough to feed themselves adequately. The only slightly unpalletable bit of this fairytale is that the people in Asia, while being fed, are treated as Automatons.

Let me explain. Take a Malaysian girl who has children, and show her that she can earn $20 a month by moving away from her kids to work in China or Taiwan. Her working hours are 12 hours a day, seven days a week. She is housed in a company dormitory and takes an hour bus drive each way to get to her employment. She doesn't have any free time and she sends her earnings back to Malaysia. Who benefits from this process? Her kids? No - they are doomed to emulate their mother's hardship when they have families of their own. The girl? Nope - wrong again. She is a virtual prisoner, slaving in a sweat-shop. Don't get me wrong here, these people are far more attentive to detail than the US operators I've seen, but it is through fear. Their whole existence is dependent on their job.

Not unlike us you might say. We are all dependent on our jobs.

Yes, we are. And when we decide that we want electronic gadgets that are cheaper and cheaper each year, we look to Bestbuy and Radioshack. LCD panel for $250, no problem. Portable MP3 player for $100, fine. Hell, it's only electronics.

So what are we perpetuating here? Lower priced electronics? The credit industry? A perception that we live in good times? No. We are feeding the stock funds of already comfortable people. I own stocks. I follow the market. I would not enslave someone to increase my own personal net worth.

I have grave misgivings about how all this will work out. I have been a victim of the migration from West to East (the official reason for my termination was that resources were being redeployed from the US to China). We hunger for profits, we adjust to make those profits, we are royally screwed by our employers (who pride themselves on being ethical) and we sit here in quiet contemplation knowing full well that they couldn't manage a piss-up in a brewery.

Thankfully, I am not one to lay down.

I chose to live in America with my wife and no matter what your laws, I will win. Your passionate love for profits might be assuaged if you did things like I would.

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I couldn't help it

I don't usually display the results of quizzes that pigeon-hole me as being the Ayatollah or Louise Brooks etc, but I had to show this one, just to annoy Steve because he is convinced I am a conservative clothed in a democrat's pelt. Via Les I present to you with which world leader I am...

What Famous Leader Are You?

Come to think of it, wasn't he dead by my age? And it does explain my sensational arrest last week.

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Because I am terminally lame

I have created one of those silly quizzes. It really does surprise me how little I know myself.

News from chez nous is that The Bean found a pair of scissors yesterday and decided to cut one side of her bangs off but leave enough there to make her look like something out of Oliver Twist. What on earth goes through their heads? "I have a pair of scissors and the commercials are on. Blues Clues is up next. Better be quick and cut off my hair before it starts. Man, that's a nice donkey."

And nothing says good morning to you like a friendly email from your lawyer reminding you that you are up shit-creek without a proverbial paddle. Thanks. I must do the same for them sometime. Forgive me while I just nip outside and commit suicide. See? You don't know me after all.

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January 8th 2004

Definitely not P.C.

For some reason, I started thinking about the English comic Viz a few minutes ago. Get on over there only if you are not easily offended. My personal favorites are Sid the Sexist and Roger Mellie, the man on the Telly. And then, just when I had gained control over my hysterics, I happen upon menwholooklikekennyrogers.com.

Guns don't kill people. Guys in sombreros who look like Kenny Rogers kill people Kenny.

Wise words indeed.

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Feckin' Nora - it's an alien

It might not be intelligent, but it is life...

Makes you glad to be alive huh?

Comments (), Permalink, 14:35 CST

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Eeh by gum, can your belly touch your bum?
Only on a Tuesday.

I have no idea where that came from.

It has become apparent that I am slowly but surely becoming (more) insane and generally irresponsible. For example, I went to bed last night perfectly functional yet awoke with a severely painful right leg. How does one injur oneself while sleeping without something untoward happening (like a building falling on just your right leg, which is what it feels like)? It could have been Natzoid assaulting me but I'm pretty sure the baby was between her and I. Maybe it was the baby? I will interogate him shortly. I have the technique down to an art-form.

In a packed program tonight, I have some nudes news. One of the guys who used to nominally report to me (even though he was based in Skipton and was sent globe trotting by everyone except me) is now working for a company based out of Minneapolis and is currently here for training. Astonishingly (or not, as the case may be), the former VP of HR at my old employers is in their HR department there. And in a curious coincidence, they have a position open that is ideal for me. The intangible in this is how the former VP views me. We'll see.

What else was I going to burden you with? Ah yes. My mother, for those of you who don't know, is an artist (i.e. hippy peacenik who paints and draws). And an exhibition of her art has just opened at Leigh Library in Lancashire. You should all go see it. And buy art. Originals. Lots of it.

She is considering selling art through the internet and I have volunteered to help her out if she goes ahead. She also does portraits if you need one done. End of advertisement.

Time to load up on the caffeine. A single pint of tea is no way to start a day. If you're really bad, I might return later to continue to numb your senses and deny you the privilege of humor.

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January 7th 2004

Geek alert

Today I have surpassed myself in geekiness, becoming overjoyed at the fact that I can ditch Netscape altogether. I strongly object to Time Warner for the sole reason that they own AOL but had been forced into using Netscape as the best of a bad bunch. I had noticed that Netscape was using way too many resources and was suspecting a memory leak. No more! First the browser went in favor of Firebird. I tried to install Thunderbird as a mail client but the version of Redhat I use is too old. However today I discovered a gem. Sylpheed is a sweet little email and news reader that is really lightweight. And what's better is it took me all of a few minutes to migrate all my email and contacts over to it.

Geek heaven. I apologise again. Normal delusional clap-trap (be that stupid pictures or manic depression) will resume shortly. Thank you for choosing yatescentral.com for your thesis on maniacal geeks with Linux fixations. Piccard out.

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One last one and I'll stop, I promise

Someone is trying to tell us something.

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This really is answering a lot of the big questions

Who next? Lord Lucan? OBL?

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January 6th 2004

Apologies

I apologise profusely for the frequency with which I have spewed forth my drivel today. I will endeavor to curtail it. I put this sudden light humor down to something I ate so I am assuming it will pass in the next 24 hours. Then we will return to your usually scheduled Marvin the Paranoid Android programming.

In the meantime, I'm noticing hits from a certain company in Minneapolis whose name is a month of the year (and is loosely associated with my former employers in that they have some of my ex-colleagues) and that is located just off 494 in Bloomington. Could the perpetrator please own up and be vetted before I have to 403 the whole domain? Merci beaucoup mes enfants.

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Sorry to the US folk

I should explain what a Scouser is. From the OED:

Scouser [Skaü-sir]: One who hails from Liverpool in the Northwest of England.

1. One in posession of a nasal twang and incoherent language due to their birth in Liverpool, "He's just a poor little scouser, his feathers all tattered and torn, he makes me sick, so I'll hit him with a brick and now he won't sing anymore."
2. Master of car theft, petty crime and grevious bodily harm, "the bastard scouser stole it."
3. When wearing a suit and tie, a Scouser is defined as "the accused", "ey la-a, I didn't nick it, I found it in mi driveway."
4. One in possession of a shell suit, curly perm and Skol or Carlsberg Special Brew lager {vernacular}
5. One whose matrimonial ceremony is highlighted by the taking of the bride and groom's parents onto the dance floor to initiate the evening's fighting.
Plural: Scousers [Skaü-sirs]: the population of the largest open air prison in the UK, team of men wearing red shirts who play football badly and fall over blades of grass frequently insisting that the opposition are cruel and violent, losing side in a game of football.
Literary references: Keats - "In your Liverpool slums, you look through the dustbin for something to eat, find a dead rat and you think it's a treat, in your Liverpool slums. In your Liverpool slums, your mum's on the game and your dad's in the nick, you can't get a job 'cos you're too f***ing thick, in your Liverpool slums...etc."

Please ask if you need further information. I know, it's complicated. I can put it into layman's terms.

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Incredible insights into the origins of life

This is barely believable.

Intriguing. Either the Scousers made it to Mars first or the Scousers were originally Martians. Wow. Whodda thunk it? Indeed is this the infamous Carlsberg Event Horizon colliding with the Sunny Delight particle causing the end of the Universe as we know it and the ensuing parallel universe in which Liverpool win some silver?

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Good news

For Sasoozie

I've got a packet analyser intercepting the stream. I'll be the first to let you know of any other developments.

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Feckin' Nora - it's David Bowie

Surprised the NASA bods missed this...

I know, I have too much time on my hands and an unhealthy habit of hacking NASA's mainframes. Bad Kenny.

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Conversations while job surfing

Natzoid: Am I a wetlands expert?
Kenny: No.
Natzoid: What about when the basement flooded?

Natzoid: Am I a Japanese cuisine expert?
Kenny: No.
Natzoid: But I've made a lot of different stuff.
Kenny: None of it was Japanese. You don't even like Sushi.

Natzoid: Man, this fund-raising job requires a Bachelor's degree. Should I just tell them I have a BA from Mishwauke?
Kenny: I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Natzoid: Well, what's the worst that can happen? They might check and find out it isn't true. At which point I could retort with "well it must be a typo - I'm not very detail oriented."

The worst of it is that having a Bachelors degree appears to be the bare minimum for scraping turkey poop into turkey-poop-to-electricity convertors. That's the thing with this education for all malarchy...every Tom, Dick and Harry goes around getting BScs and BAs, leaving those of us with them significant only in the fact that our names are different to the next man.

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The bells, the bells

Natzoid has mentioned before that her cell phone plays The Cure's Let's go to bed as a ring tone. Well at about 09:30 this morning, it rang. I didn't recognise the number so ignored it and went back to the eternal Job Search™ at the computer. Now my computer has a fan problem (it is going to give up the ghost at some point in the near future) so is exceptionally noisy and varies in its tone. Somewhere in the modulation in tone, I can hear Natzoid's ring tone. Constantly. In my head, there is a monophonic rendition of Let's go to bed playing incessantly. I've twice walked back to her phone fully convinced that it was ringing again. Is it wrong to hear fictional digital ringing in your head? Should I be concerned?

Ba da da da Ba da dah, Ba da da da Ba da dah.

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January 5th 2004

Ouch, my eyes

After yesterday's uncharacteristic levity, today was back to job trawling. Monster, CareerBuilder, Hotjobs and many an email to contacts that I have developed over the years. Applying for jobs is harder than having one. Twelve (yes, T-W-E-L-V-E) hours of trawling. How many did I apply to? Six (yes, S-I-X). In twelve (yes, T-W-E-L-V-E) hours. That, for those who are either too stupid or too lazy to work it out, equates to 2 hours per job lead. And how many were in Minnesota? One (yes, O-N-E). Thus far I have contacted about 40 industry colleagues, in both the SMT and software industries and I have two or three credible leads. Unbelievable. To be honest, I have had more leads through people that read this than I have through my esteemed ex-colleagues. So I thank you all.

In other news today, there pretty much wasn't any other news. Other than the fact that Steve may have been murdered by Marvin and Maynard in a piano dispute. Either that or the poor bugger had to take time out from blogging to earn a crust or file some frivolous lawsuit against an unsuspecting prey. Either way, it's been metaphorically quiet (Nic has been literally deafening - have you ever tried writing a cover letter to detail your fundamental net worth to a company while a baby claws at your leg screaming?).

It sounds like Zoe has just emptied a container of something somewhere so I'm off to survey the damage and find the insurance agent's number.

I would leave it there, but I feel I must comment on the fecking weather. With wind-chill, it is -40°F out there. Utterly dire. Maybe the fact that most jobs I am qualified for are based in CA, FL, NC or TX is not a bad thing. Perish the thought of my kids growing up used to this and me having to visit them once I've made my millions and moved to more temperate climes.

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January 4th 2004

Bin groovin'

As Rita, the BBC and the elitist scumbags have reported, there's a new OBL tape out. I was at the mall at 04:30 this morning, queuing to buy it. And I can tell you it was worth it. My reward for the wait was not virgins as far as the eye can see. It was a beautiful fusion of jazz, hip-hop, wanton rhetoric and frostbite. Separately I abhor them all but combined, they are a joy to behold. I'll give you my review; I literally haven't stopped spinning it since I got home.

Track 1: No Rest for the Wicked - a gutsy little number informing all the little OBLs that they should be getting jiggy with their governments. Careful dischords abound as the thrash saxophone duets with the reverb sitar. A classic for weddings, funerals and Bar Mitzvahs.

Track 2: Not a Pretty Girl - in which OBL breaks it down for us. The burkas are lauded as an implausibly high falsetto accompanies a rousing chorus of incoherent spitting. Deemed unconventional by some of the less liberal music press, this is sure to remain on Angry FM's play-list well into the next millenium.

Track 3: The Girl is Mine - a sensuous ballad detailing the sorrow OBL felt when long-term partner and chanteuse, Britney Spears informed him of her marriage to a Capitalist pig. The canto is so morbid, it is faintly reminiscent of an early Wayne Hussey. This one will have you dripping salty tears into your hip flask, as you camp outside the drive-through in Vegas on that cold park bench, reliving the day you too lost Britney.

Track 4: Two Tribes - OBL camps it up big time in this cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood. As the cover shows, OBL is dressed in a genuine Liverpool shell suit. Faithful to the original, OBL has interspersed subliminal messaging predicting the end of the world due to the failure of communication between Presidents Reagan and Brezhnev. A point may be all you can score, but OBL is amassing them with fury.

Track 5: Not a Pretty Girl (Reprise) - OMG, OBL is OTT. The sorrow intensifies as he discovers that his first wife, Christina Aguelira has not only become a brunette but has gained 50 lbs overnight. And her burka has been ripped by a piercing that appeared just after his last release. A gutteral performance, heavily adjuncted by what are listed as wailing walls but sound, to the listener, like triangles with heavy portamento.

Track 6: If Rachmaninov had Read the Koran - a deeply philosophical piece decrying the fates that await good men. Tortured vocals accompany a cacophony of vintage lutes in a track that only the Chosen will appreciate. The devil really is in the detail of this most convoluted yet appealing melody.

Track 7: He Smells Sanctuary (Acoustic Version) - not the headbanger that you would expect OBL to finish with, but none the less a classic. A subtle yet rousing call to arms. We know the cry. OBL's hostility to Bono (as documented in the East/West gangsta feud) comes very much to the fore with the lyrics "We don't need no edumucation", a veiled Simpsons quote that both parodies the late Pink Floyd but leaves a no-nonsense message that infidels certainly should be watching their backs, especially at this time of year.

Overall, even despite the duration of about 20 minutes, I would give it a nine out of ten. Get down to your local CNN outlet store and give it a try. Then rip it to your MP3 player and get it up there on Kazaa...the world needs to hear this; it's important, a statement from the youth bewildered feckwits aged of today. No more hippy music for me. Joni Mitchell is evil. OBL be da bomb.

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January 4th 2004

Weekend round-up

The highs and lows of English football are well known. Reading reports of Liverpool struggling against Yeovil is definitely high on my list of prefered activities. Unfortunately the story is spoiled by two goals late in the second half that mean Liverpool go into round 4 of the FA Cup, seemingly their only route into Europe next season. I know it's cheap and low, but scouse-bashing is about as fun as life gets at the moment.

Actually that last statement is not entirely true. Going mental with a Shop Vac is pretty entertaining too. Nic has a predeliction for onions. Don't ask me why. He opens the cupboard where they live and liberates his little round friends, leaving a nasty trail of onion peel from one end of the house to the other. Approximately thirty seconds after I had finished vacuuming his last liberation remnants yesterday, another bid for freedom was launched and thus the sad remains of recaptured round friends once again litter the kitchen floor. Such a sensitive kid.

As of 09:00 this morning, the temperature here in the permafrost was -17°C or 3°F for those of you who fool themselves into thinking that just because it's above 0° it isn't too cold. It's a good job I don't need to go anywhere today or I'm sure you people would be subject to the mother of all rants about the misery that is Minnesota in January.

Just to continue this mornings theme of entirely discontinuous rambling, Natzoid and Samantha have a serious addiction. The bloody Playstation. Sam ping-pongs between that and her computer SIMs, occasionally taking time out to generate dishes for me to wash and I caught Natzoid still playing Harry Potter at 05:30 this morning when I got up. If it weren't the only functioning DVD player in the house, it wouldn't be functional, if you get my drift.

Anyway, I suppose it's back to the job-boards and endless emailing as of tomorrow as the world starts again after the holidays. I may be back later depending on whether or not I recover from my bout of unemployment-induced brain-death.

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January 3rd 2004

My apologies

My Yahoo Instant Messenger for Luddites Linux apparently stopped working some time over Christmas. It appears that my connection settings need to be set to negotiate my firewall, which is daft seeing they were fine for 18 months. So if you sent me a message between Christmas and now, I have only just got it. For those of you who are now scrambling to open YIM, I will let you into a little secret. My YIM is andy_yates01. Those of you using AOL IM, you're SOL - get with the program and step away from the AOL. I also have andy_yates that I signed up for in about 1994 but by the time I got back around to using it (when the rest of the world discovered the internet), I had forgotten about that so use the 01 fella. Absolutely rivetting eh?

In an unprecedented catastrophe today, I managed to crash my Linux box (shock, horror). While trying to get the mouse wheel working, I messed up my XF86Config file and the damn thing needed a reboot. Twice before I twigged as to what I had done wrong. I can see the headlines now..."Man crashes infallible operating system, Windows users reboot to read headline." Speaking of headlines...

This is not me. I know, I'm lame. You don't have to tell me.

I'm off to beat myself to death with a celery stick.

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January 3rd 2004

Ugg

I'm not equipped for multi-tasking when I first wake up. My mind tends to focus on the raw essentials of life; the bathroom, a cup of tea and where are my damned cigarettes? So when morning hits me like a freight train, I tend not to be prepared in the classical sense.

Now Natzoid is definitely not a morning person at all. In fact some may argue that she is not an afternoon person either. She has a God-given ability to get up, fill the baby's bottle (and start him on his first gallon) and then go back to sleep. I however am awake from the first scream.

Rather than focus on what I want to be thinking about, I have three dogs running rabid, wanting to get outside, a three year old who is demanding oatmeal with menaces, a one year old who is intent on decoupling Natzoid's knitting and prone to picking up any glass/bowl/prohibited potentially lethal object. All at once. First thing in the damned morning.

And just to add some excitement, every Saturday morning my mother calls while I am in the middle of it all.

I've just finished my second pint of tea and am pretty sure that I am now suffering from post-traumatic stress. If I had a cat, I'd be kicking it right about now. And the pièce de resistance just to add a couple of notches onto my blood pressure is that the whole of the upstairs is thoroughly trashed again (not 48 hours after it was last sand-blasted).

Stop the world. I'm getting off.

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January 2nd 2004

Yikes

I'm in two minds. On the one hand, Steve has embarassed me no end by revealing a drink that I have never tried. On the other hand, I think I have had it with pan galactic gargle blasters, or as they are known on Earth, Natzoid's dirty martinis.

Last night, as I practiced my chipping with a plastic golf ball, a sand wedge, a small children's recliner and several of said gargle blasters, Natzoid's phone rang. As per usual, it was past the hour of eleven so it must be Melly. Foolishly, I tried to stay awake beyond the duration of the phone call but failed terribly (ref said gargle blasters).

This morning, as I tried to pretend that it wasn't morning and that the dogs could cross their legs until I felt like letting them out, Natzoid's cell phone rang again. It was the mechanics delivering the diagnosis on the truck. Thankfully, it was not the alternator. However remedial work will cost of the order of $500. Feck.

So we have the dilemma...real life really isn't up to much at the moment so a couple of gargle blasters of an evening (while chipping golf balls around the front room) are a much needed pain-killer. However, as Douglas Adams wisely pointed out, you really shouldn't drink them unless you are a twenty ton mega-elephant with bronchial pneumonia.

I await your collective wisdom.

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January 1st 2004

Nothing compares

It is a well known fact that nothing on this earth compares even remotely with a good pea and ham soup. It is the only form of soup that is worth the calories required to eat it. I don't often rave about food, and in fact have recently had an encounter with a very disappointing Double Gloucester cheese (I'll have to keep a look out for some Red Leicester) which has soured the whole eating experience for me. But can we hear a "damn"?

There are only two people on this earth who can do a pea and ham soup any justice. And I'm related to both of them. They rank equal top on the table of Gods of Pea and Ham soup. The missus uses a simmering technique which produces a mixture that transcends culinary ecstasy while my father uses a pressure cooker to mush it like a Mullah. Divine.

I am in hog heaven (no pun intended) and may well revert to the "live to eat" camp that I foreswore about 18 years ago.

And no, you can't have any. It's all mine.

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Happy frickin' new year (part two)

Happy new year to you all.

On top of the car situation, I have awoke to the fact that there is no Premiership football on today. And we're dangerously low on milk which means that we all have to watch Nic like a hawk for fear of him losing it and doing a Hungerford with the water gun. Also, the local Enterprise car rental office is shut today so there's no chance of renting a car.

I ask you, what use is new years day with a homicidal one year old and without football and a functional vehicle?

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