Bonfire

Can anyone suggest a good place to have a small but highly significant bonfire? I've decided that as it is clear that my husband didn't want to take his marriage vows seriously, that I should burn that great symbol of my betrayal - the wedding dress. Once I know of a good place to have the cremation, I'll post a follow up with invites to bring a bottle and help me drown my sorrows. I might even put the wedding photos on the fire as well. It should be an interesting night.

And the manipulation goes on...

Charlotte is still trying to keep her claws in my husband. He left a bag of stuff at her flat and he still has a few bits of hers, and she is refusing to let us arrange a swap of these items by a neutral party. We all know that this is so that she can start emotionally blackmailing my husband into getting back together with her. She is also trying to make herself out as the victim in all of this.

Will somebody please talk some sense into this silly little girl?

Onwards and upwards to reclaim my life...

Well as people will now be aware my husband was having an affair with Charlotte . This is the same Charlotte who came into my home as a "friend" and is now feeling hard done by because the married man she sank her hooks into decided that his wife meant something to him. The same Charlotte who thrust a shit load of her problems on to me whilst I knew, but couldn't prove, what was going on and then proceeded to manipulate me and my emotions to the point that I was suicidal. Then even whilst I was reaching for the blades to slit my wrists was emotionally blackmailing my husband to leave me alone and "keep her company cos she wasn't well"

And now she feels hard done by and won't let go. Someone please tell her to get a life and her claws out of my husband.

I have become Lady Diana

Tonight has been very eventful. It turns out that my husband has been having an affair since before we were married with someone who then masqueraded as being my friend. Of course, we had the long drawn out argument, the recrimination, the blame etc thing and realised that we didn't really want to split up so the other woman has been told to sling her hook and leave us alone. Whether she will is another matter, and this might actually go some way to explaining to people why I had a very public blow up at this woman on livejournal earlier this year. Knowing about the affair but not having definite proof of it was also the reason why I was feeling so suicidal earlier this year, because if I'd confronted them with nothing to support my accusation they would have humiliated me further by denying it.

England's World Cup Prospects - A Legal Opinion

This is completely plagarised from a colleague who had it sent to her from a student.

Moore v. Griffiths (Inspector of Taxes) [1972] 1 WLR 1024. Following the 1966 World Cup the Football Association very generously decided to pay £22,000.00 divided equally between the 22 players in the England football squad.

The Inland Revenue subsequently sought to tax those payments as income.

A Mr Robert Frederick (Bobby) Moore challenged that decision on the basis that the payment should have been treated as a (tax free) testimonial payment. The Judge found for Mr Moore, inter alia on the basis that "the payment had no foreseeable element of recurrence."

Fame at last!

Well for my old house at least! Greater Manchester Police have released the footage from the police helicopter flying over the city centre on the day the bomb went off. See BBC news story here.

The still on the story page doesn't quite show where I lived but is quite close, though the actual footage does pan around a bit more so you can see the entire Cromford Courts development. If you look at the still to the left of the column of dust is the Arndale Tower, just below and to the left of the tower you can see two dark coloured blocks (they stand out a bit as they have sloping roofs whereas the rest of the Arndale has flat roofs). Got them? When you've identified them look at the video. Now as the camera pans out beyond the point where the BBC took the still you will see another two blocks that are mirror images of the first two. Got them? I lived in the bottom left block. Fortunately not at the time the bomb went off, but we still had to put up with the structural vagaries of a bombed building.

Lecture

One of the professors is retiring so I went along to his valedictorian lecture. A very interesting look at the Renaissance and the way it continues to influence, in particular the way he demonstrated the roots of Brando's performance as Don Corelone in The Godfather to his performance as Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar (with wonderful mimicry to drive home the point) and for the encore recited Richard of Gloucester's speech at the end of Henry VI Part 3 Scene 2 before moving seamlessly into Verbal's end speech and exit in The Usual Suspects.

I suppose that proves that the Renaissance is still relevant.

Bulls*** Broadband

We were suckered into signing up for Bulldog broadband and have had nothing but trouble since. They have their own forums but the security is so poor that you could drive a bus through some of the holes. Plus if you complain too much the sys admins delete your posts and then ban you.

If anyone comes to this list after being banned by bulldog's little hitlers then leave a message in the comments with an email addy. Comments are screened so only I can see the address and I'll remove it before publishing your comment. There is also a forum were we can speak without fear of the bulldog biting at:

http://bbulldogcustomersspeakfreely.runboard.com

Hey! Mr Bisson if you want a full technical rundown about the security issues in bulldog I can point you to a Lunatic Italian who has worked out what a lot of the vulnerabilities are. It might make a story for El Reg.

AUT Action

We have exam boards in 1 week.

We have no marks.

Chaos?

You bet.

Horror Vision Song Contest

I have seen it all now. Instead of the usual bland nonsense that usually wins this year the runaway winners were heavy rockers Lordi from Finland. They looked like extras from the Lord of the Rings too. There is hope for the Eurobore.

Sad I know to be really proud of hitting targets in a game but given the length of time I've been playing Vampires! The Dark Alleyway I think I deserve a bit of pride in reaching the Blood Royal rank. Only another 15000 blood to go to be in the very top rank. I did also notice that I'm ranked 86 on the Bloodpoints database but as that is updated manually there could be high ranking vampires missing from that. So right now my next target is to get 25600 total blood so that I can gain an extra movement point and then on to 40000 blood to get the next rank. After that it's just trying to beat the blood totals of the other high rankers.

This is how it works: Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your journal, including an explanation what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

Live journal user random_redhead gave me S

Soporifics. Which I need at the moment because I'm having another massive bout of insomnia probably because I've been feeling

Suicidal. To a point that the doctor doesn't trust me with too many meds so I have to go to the pharmacist every few days to be doled out more.

Students. Enough said

Stitching. As in counted cross-stitch and needlepoint. Evidence of my addiction is here.

Shopping. I have expensive shopping habits £400+ for a business suit and £200 for this scarf or may be this one I can't make up my mind.

Synthesizers and

Sequensers especially when used by the likes of Paul Nagle, Der Spyra and the guys from Airsculpture to name but a few.

Spectacular the only word I can think of to describe Venice. Pictures here just in case you don't believe me.

Space especially the luxury of having space after being cramped in a tiny place for way too long.

Sleep If only I could without the aid of pills. "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause"

Interesting

After reading my journal entries, one of the guys I know on IRC said that I wrote like an American who is living in the UK. I'm wondering if this is a good or a bad thing. Answers on a postcard to...

Boston Legal

I'm just starting to enjoy Boston Legal. It's not at the must see point yet, but if I notice it whist channel hopping I'll watch it:

Last night I ended up watching the repeated showing of the episode "Too Much Information" the basic plot being that a woman escaping from an abusive relationship goes to a refuge but because her HMO makes information available on the internet, it was possible for the husband to track her down to her regular medical appointment, lay in wait and murder her. The HMO's defense was that they were using industry standards of internet security. This led Alan Shore (played by James Spader) to make a closing speech that is one of the best non-technical arguments I've heard for the need to tighten internet security. I've transcribed the entire speech below.

"When I was 11 years old there came a time when the temptation to explore the more secretive recesses of my older sister's life became more than I could resist. I started by poking around in her room. I ended by reading her diary. In my defense she kept it right out in the open - under her mattress and the little metal clasp on it was simply no match for the paperclip and the screwdriver. I was eventually caught, prompting my sister to have a lock installed on her door. The only consequence of the invasion of my sister's privacy was the temporary loss of her confidence and trust. The invasion of Jackie Hayden's privacy lead to her being stabbed and left to bleed to death in the street. Privacy, and the safety and security that that word has always implied, has, with time and technology, become an illusion. The National Security Agency has access to all our email the world over with it's Echelon system. Virtually every website you visit installs a delicious cookie onto your computer which is in fact a spy to track your every move. There are predators out in cyberspace collecting data on your children while they innocently type away in chat rooms, and that little waiver you signed in the doctor's office most likely allows physicians to share your information on the internet with insurance companies, the government, your employer and the courts. Make no mistake access to your information is easy. All you need is a person's five digit zip code, gender and date of birth to uniquely identify 87% of the US population. That is how vulnerable we are. How vulnerable you are. Well-Benefits says they could not have possibly foreseen the actions of an abusive spouse intent on causing his wife harm. Let me tell you what Jackie Hayden could not foresee. That after years of cruel and violent debasement at the hands of her husband, after she finally found her way out of the shadows she didn't foresee that the people she most trusted with her health and well being would lead the darkness right back to her door - and now she's dead. Well-Benefits made it easy for Ned Hayden to find his wife. As easy as looking under a mattress."

Discuss.

Photos

I now have almost all the photos of Venice on-line at flickr I just need to go through and add relevant comments. It's amazing that 2 years on we can still remember the routes that we walked around the island and were we got boats, etc. Of course, the photos are a great aide-memoire and help us to work out the details that we might otherwise have forgotten.

Next job will be to get some of the wedding photos scanned so that they can go on-line.

The Clash

Just got in from the after work seminar and reception where amongst other things we discussed academics as media whores (David Starkey, Simon Schama, et al), general inability of students to put their name/matriculation/examination number on assessed course work, students lack of understanding that if they weren't given a handout at a lecture then perhaps there wasn't one, William Wallace's diplomatic efforts to secure the restoration of King John's monarchy, and UCEA refusing to have the previously agreed talks with the AUT to resolve the current dispute and ensuing boycott of assessment and examinations, (as you do).

I just started my media player and the first thing it played was Bankrobber by The Clash. Perhaps it was the dispute conversation that helped to bring back John Otway's alternative lyrics of:

"John he was a trainspotter
But he never hurt nobody
Now he's the Prime Minister
Don't you think that's funny

He spends his day from nine to five
Screwing up the nation
Then he takes his note book out
And goes down to the station"

I remember at the time there were lots of other examples of this kind of witticism, but I don't really see it at the moment. Political comedy at the moment seems to be too angry, too determined to have it's pound of flesh, become too much like the Socialist Worker Party who don't care who's in power but knows that they're bad BECAUSE they're in power and starts campaigning for change the day after the election.

Does anyone have their own favorite examples of 80's political humour?

Dentist

I had another appointment with the dentist today! This was the worst experience I've had at that dentist which is a shame because the dentist herself was really nice and tried to prevent any discomfort for me. It was even worse than the root canal work that was done a couple of weeks ago!! What could be worse that root canal work? How about full impressions. The tooth that is to be crowned is the very back tooth on the top left side so the impression had to go so far back that I was having the gag reflex and as a result started to choke. The dentist used acupressure to try to stop the gag reflex and also did her best help me through the experience, because if she hadn't got a clean impression it would have had to have been done all over again. Anyway the impression was a good and I wasn't too traumatized in the end. So in two weeks time I get my nice new white crown to cover the horrible grey amalgam filling.

Clearing up a point

Someone has said that I was being unfair to Charlotte blaming her for my suicidal state. Can I say for the record that I am not blaming her for my state of mind. It seemed it was the only way to get through to her that I was unable to cope with her problems, and despite telling her, and indeed having posted in my LJ that I wasn't coping with "life the universe and everything" a post that she commented on, still having her off-loading her problems was too much. To then have her refuse to either acknowledge that I had a problem, using behaviour patterns (whether consciously or unconsciously I don't know and will not speculate on as it doesn't help either of us) that were making me feel guilty for not having time for her. I think the final straw was her telling me that she didn't have time for my problems, and flat refusing to even let me voice my mental discomfort whilst she has ignored me saying the same thing to her. Basically, the rant was a cry for help, a final attempt to say I'm struggling too, so if you won't listen to my problems don't off load your problems onto me and don't take away my only support when you have so many others who will support you. It didn't come out like that but that's what it was.

End of subject

UPDATE 24 June 2006

As will be coming out over the next few days the real reason for my blow up was that I knew about Charlotte's affair with my husband. So there I was with my husbands bit on the side (a) driving me to a suicidal state (b) trying to keep my husband away from me whilst I was in a suicidal state and (c) trying to get me to help and sympathise with her issues.

Under the circumstances I think I was very restrained in my handling of the situation.

I'm supposed to be at a wedding tonight.

We've had the invitation to go to a wedding today for ages but I really couldn't face going. My hubby has gone over to Glasgow to show his face and I'm sitting at home not knowing what to do with myself, because nothing interests me enough to overcome the whole "why bother" feeling that I have at the moment. I've tried reading, doing some needlework, watching "Invasion: Earth" on the Sci-Fi channel, and non of it is helping me settle. Bordom and near suicidal depression do not make a good mix! My husband seems to have made sure there are no large quantities of pills in the house and I already know from last week that we don't have any knives sharp enough to cut flesh so I'd have to get the motivation to leave the house to do anything and there is precious little motivation around here at the moment. The pills I'm taking aren't doing any good because they are supposed to help me sleep, but they don't and they are not supposed to give me the groggy hangover effect but they do. I'm getting to the point where I can't even function properly at work because the pills are leaving me dull-witted. I'm seeing my GP tomorrow so hopefully he will give me something better.

Just as I expected

Interesting to find that certain people don't like attention being taken away from them. Thank you Charlotte for all your sympathy. Pushing your own problems onto me and my husband whilst ignoring the fact that I was getting suicidal as far back as November. Oh and for getting me and my husband to run around for you whilst you were unwell even though we couldn't cope. Sorry that the one time I looked for some support from you you weren't able to give it because you couldn't cope with other people's problems.

I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO COPE WITH YOUR PROBLEMS OR THE FACT THAT MY HUSBAND HASN'T BEEN THERE FOR ME BECAUSE HE'S BEEN BUSY SHAGGING YOU. NOW I'M READY TO KILL MYSELF. IS THAT WHAT YOU REALLY WANT COS IT SEEMS LIKE IT FROM HERE.

Depressed..? moi..?

There's a point in your life when you realise just what worth you have in society.

I finally acknowledged, after years of denial, that I have absolutely no worth whatsoever. I've know this for a while really - the way that my husband was able to stand by unnoticing whilst I was slipping into a suicidal depression, yet when a friend hit a crisis was able to see it coming and dropped everything (probably because he was shagging her) - the way that I've been expected to hide what I'm feeling because it might upset others - the way that in most situations people who I had though were my friends seem to bearly acknowledge my existance. In fact I've just realise that if I were to kill myself, there is absolutely no one who would give a damn.

Unsolicited marketing calls

I was mad with my mobile phone provider, but I have to a degree forgiven them. The reason I'm mad at them is that I seem to be inundated with calls from various marketing companies who are trying to get me to renegotiate my contract with them. Fair enough....

Except.

1. When we signed the original contract we checked the little box that said no marketing calls, and


2. My mobile number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service and


3. The contract isn't in my name so I can't do anything with it anyway

Today I got a call from one such company. I let the guy go through his opening spiel and then dropped the bombshell of the above three points. Most telesales-droids have at least half a brain cell. They are the ones who apologise profusely, make excuses and promise to get the number removed from whatever database they used. I usually let those ones go. Unless they do it again so quickly that I remember the company name. Yes, yes, I should keep a note of them so that I can make complaints if they call again but it's too much hard work for the low number of sales calls that I now receive.

But I digress. Today's specimen from the dungeon levels clearly didn't even have half a brain cell as when confronted with someone who is anything but pleased to hear from him and has said so, launches into a tirade of abuse. I hang up - no problem I have his employer's name. Cue call to Orange to complain about the company and the staff they hire. However, before I get a chance to do that the mobile rings again I answer to be confronted by the same guy. Does he apologise? Try to sell me anything? No... He says, and I quote, "do you suck cocks for rocks?". I snap the phone shut (as an aside, Motorola clamshell phones make a very satisfying noise when snapped shut in anger). Actually I was snapping the phone shut from about cocks so I'm not 100% about rocks, it certainly rhymed with cocks but it could have been jocks if anyone knows the actual phrase could they let me know. He calls back. I answer and in my best phone voice say "This call has been forwarded to Orange mobile and is being recorded for possible police action" before hanging up. I've dialled Orange before he calls again. I switch lines to answer and switch back to customer services, what the hell, it's idiot boy's dime, and by this time I have thoughts of calling the police so the more times he wants to call and sit on hold the better.

I get through to Orange actually ready to tell them I don't want their poxy service anymore but I'm connected to the sweetest, most helpful guy you could imagine. Half an hour later he has given me all the details of the marketing company so that I can make a formal complaint to TPS. He has spoken with his supervisor about putting a complaint to TPS from Orange as well as a formal complaint to the marketing company, he has told me that I need to speak with their malicious calls bureau (MCB) so that they can identify the number that the calls were being made from and what strategies could be used to identify the individual, and whilst I'm beginning to think calling the police is an over reaction the customer services guy is most adamant that it's not something that should be ruled out and that he'll contact the MCB and will if necessary testify in court that I was upset and distressed.

So, yes Orange made a major mistake somewhere when they released my data to marketing companies, but the steps that they've taken when someone acting in their name behaved like a moron has been excellent and at least they are looking to find out how my details were released. Still, I'd have rather not had to go through it.

Most Haunted

Am I the only one who thinks that Derek Acorah is a complete fraud? That the whole show is a sham?

There's always a silver lining

I was ill over the weekend. Of course, I managed to be ill whilst my husband was away visiting his parental units. I spent two days in bed knowing that I can't get anything unless I stagger down the hallway to the kitchen and feeling too awful to want to spend the energy so I'm in absolute dire necessity before I even get up to get a drink. Not that it mattered anyway. Sunday night he got home and fed me tlc which revived my spirits if not much else. Monday I was a little bit better but not really well enough to get out of bed for too long. Sitting upright made me feel nauseous, walking required support as two days in bed leaves your legs a bit weak and shaky, but at least I had the motivation to get up regularly to make sure I had enough to drink, and in the evening I did manage some chicken soup. Yesterday, I felt quite a bit better generally, though I was still shaky and weak, I was able to sit up without feeling as though I was going to throw up, which was the first indication that I was on the mend and was likely to be back at work. So to summarize a completely wasted weekend.

On the good side, though an inability to eat for the best part of three days I've lost 7 pounds weight (huzzah!). I was able to sit uninterrupted for an hour or so and managed to get some photos uploaded onto my flickr account I'm going to spend the next couple of days getting the rest of the honeymoon photos up followed by the photos of the flat. I've also given up on trying to design my own web page as I know that whilst I have the technical know how to do the html and the CSS I just don't have the artistic skills to make it look anything other than a mess.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling in cross stitch

I like doing counted cross stitch and I've done a couple of big projects, but I don't know that I'd dare start something as big as this.

The complete project is 40 inches x 80 inches or 564 stitches by 1,114 stitches which translates to 14 stitches per inch or 196 inches per square inch and gives a total of 628,296 stitches in total. According the information from the designer it was completed 3,023 days after the initial stitch was made and took around 2,872 hours of stitching, this is on top of the 800 plus hours creating the pattern.

I have to say I am pretty impressed with the dedication and perseverance and I'm tempted to buy the book of the pattern, just to get more of the details of this fantastic piece of needlework.

Quirky Search Engine

I've known about the liveplasma search engine for a while, but never really used it. I've always thought that I have wide, boundary crossing tastes. However, a few quick searches later I find that all my preferences are quite strongly linked, proving that I'm more of a mainstream bunny than I thought.

Well What A Surprise

Abu Hamza has been found guilty of inciting murder and stirring up race hate and sentenced to seven year in jail. Now I hate to rain on the law and order parade but this verdict gives me serious misgivings. It's not that I don't think that he's guilty as sin, it's that there had been so much press coverage including some of his sermons and speeches prior to his trial that is there not the possibility that the jury were not fair and impartial on the evidence given. It's not just a case of the law being fair but also it being seen to be fair.

On balance, and from I've read of the trial, I think it's probably unlikely that there was going to be any other verdict. But on the other hand, the rhetoric that has been used in the press had certainly put me in a mindset that had I been on the jury my decision would have been made before the charges had been read. This is the heart of my misgivings. How much information should the media give prior to trials, and how prejudicial is media coverage to the ability to have a fair trial? With journalists increasingly taking upon themselves the role of police investigators are we not in danger of having trial by media fueled public opinion?

Given the rioting that happened on Friday it makes me worry what scenes we are going to be seeing in the near future, and what the implications are for relationships within multi-ethnic communities.

UPDATE

Muslims react to Hamza conviction (BBC website).

This report eases my misgivings on the one hand but also emphasises some of the reasons I had them in the first place.

I don't usually do memes but...

rathgild -- [adjective]: Extremely extreme! 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Thanks lj user spride

Can't Sleep

This is very bizarre because on Thursday night whilst at my media studies course, I was having a great deal of difficulty staying awake. Friday morning I didn't get out of bed till ten past nine (which isn't good when you start work at 9am) and continued to feel like I was falling asleep all day. I arrived home fully expecting to pass out on the sofa, but no, not even "America's Next Top Model" could induce me to doze. I really don't know what is wrong with me at the moment. It could be stress related due to all the upheaval at work, (new professor, new head of subject area, restructuring the pay scale involving regrading, refurbishment of the building, etc); or it could be a virus of some sort; or it could be another manifestation of the depression that I seem to have drifted into. The latter seems to be the most likely based on past experiences though I'm not discounting that the other two options are playing a part. I'm still in the demotivated, "why do I bother?" frame of mind and if it wasn't for the two courses that I am doing (the other is "International Terrorism"), I don't think I'd socialise with anyone. I just want to lock myself away so that I don't notice people ignoring me. I need to dig myself out of this but the more I try the more I just end up overdoing it and winding people up so that they avoid me out of embarrassment, as has happened recently when one minute people are talking to me and the next they are racing to get out of my way.

Maybe I just can't cope with life, the universe and everything.

What a day!

Ikea came today with our furniture. The one thing I like about Ikea home delivery is that as soon as the van is loaded, the delivery drivers call all the customers to say where on the delivery route you are and then again as they complete the delivery before yours. The thing I hate about this is that they make the first call somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30 am. So just before 8:30 we got a phone call to say that we were the first delivery on the list and that they'd be with us in about half an hour. Cue mild panic. Since we moved into the new place we have been stacking the unpacked boxes in the hallway, these all had to be moved so that they stuff can get through the door. No probs my husband got up and started moving all that whilst I had another five mins in bed. Of course, five minutes turned into ten, so it was with slightly more of a panic that I surfaced and got ready. We were ready for the furniture just as the van parked up outside. Phew!

I have spent the day assembling various cupboards and bookcases, with a little help from a friendly Italian who called round. Hubby helped with some of the furniture building but he spent most of the day in the kitchen, sorting stuff in there, making cups of tea on demand, and also coming over occasionally to pass me a hammer or screwdriver that I couldn't reach because I had things balanced precariously. Moving books from the old half height bookcases happened at some point, only to be followed by putting them on the brand new bookcases. Most of this was done by the time we had a visit from Charlotte who helped with the ritual stomping on flat pack packaging aimed at getting it folded to a size that was easy to carry to the bin store. [peeve: our bin store has only one recycling bin which is for waste paper (not cardboard or packaging). Does anyone know the nearest recycling point to Haymarket station?]

After all the hard work was done I slobbed on the sofa whilst hubby made a super meal for us, and later we had some of the cake that Charlotte bought for us. All in all we had a successful day challenging the validity of gender based stereotypes.

By the way, we are pretty much settled in now so it's okay to visit.

Ikea

My husband and I had another trip to Ikea. We had a plan though, so without deviation, hesitation and only a very small amount of repetition we got through the maze in record time. We then had to find the items we wanted in the self-service area. First item, not in the location it should be, next place we look has the right item but in the wrong veneer finish. My husband goes off to the info desk to get revised locations. Comes back with new info and we try again. With only one minor mishap we make it to the checkout with almost everything we wanted and move on to the home delivery counter. I depart to the packing station at the other side of the exit to wrap our small items and after queuing whilst other people faffed around packaged the stuff and made my way back to deliveries to find my husband behind the counter looking at the computer screen. It turns out that the bar-code scanner wasn't working, the girl there had added items by hand and was in a muddle about what was being delivered - hubby was being helpful by matching the items on the receipt with the packing list on screen. That was done and the labels were printed so the girl then started sorting the payment with hubby so I got the labels and stuck them on all our boxes. This was the point that we were called the "most helpful customers she'd had". Anyway goods are delivered tomorrow so we will then have the wonderful task of assembling everything.

Anyway we survived with sanity intact and rewarded ourselves with a nice meal out at Chiangmai. Hubby is going to the pub but I'm staying in putting my feet up and getting on with a piece of needlework.

Oh No!

I knew we would have to do this again, but......


We're going to Ikea tomorrow.

*runs away*

Blah!

It's almost 7 am and I'm still awake, which had been the normal state of affairs since xmas. This means that I'm spending a lot of time on my own brooding which I suspect is not doing me any good. The current wave of introspection is basically a whole bucket load of self doubt, that I can't go out socializing because there is no one who would want to socialize with me, there is no point talking to people because they really don't want to talk to me, there is no point inviting people to the flat because they don't want to come around and spend time with me, etc, etc. Logic says that this isn't so, but in the early hours of the morning logic is on a hiding to nothing, and the feeling of isolation is making me depressed and the depression is feeding the thoughts of inadequacy.

Update on the move

This is the first chance I've had to write an update on the big move.

Despite all the assessments that were due and needed processing I was able to get 6 days annual leave from work. Hubby was supposed to be doing the same with the exception that he had to go into work for a software presentation one morning. We should in principle have then had a whole week with both of us, sorting and packing, making the job easy and stress free.

Things didn't go exactly to plan as can be seen from the saga below:

Monday, 12th Dec (7 days to go)

Hubby went to work to "quickly finish something", with added assurances that it wouldn't take long and he's be back by lunchtime. He arrives home at about 7pm saying he'll have to go into work the next day too. I head up to new flat to wait for a delivery of furniture - or rather for the replacements to the furniture that was delivered damaged, replaced with equally damaged goods, etc, etc. The replacements were fine. A friend calls around in the evening to help packing, but is very ill, so, though willing, is unable to help. Agreed that hubby will go with her to the doctor the following morning, going into work afterward.

Tuesday, 13th Dec (6 days to go)

Hubby goes to meet friend to go to doctor. I spent the day doing laundry and packing suitcases with fabrics (towels, bedding, clothes, etc) that were not going to be needed till we were in the new place. I get a call mid morning to say that GP has sent friend to hospital. Hubby has called into work to say he won't be there but that he'll be in on Wednesday to finish off. Despite all this managed to get huge swathe of stuff in the bedroom packed. Phew!

Wednesday, 14th Dec (5 days to go)

Hubby goes into work. This was the morning we knew about, but he still had to finish something or another. Can't remember which bit I did whilst he was a work. He arrived home mid afternoon, so after a very late lunch we rearranged the way the boxes were stored and went quite a way towards packing everything in the bedroom.

Thursday, 15th Dec (4 days to go)

A whole day together packing. However, we had an early start going to the new place and assembling flat pack furniture. On the way there, stopped in town to buy a towel rail, toilet roll holder and set of shelves for the en-suite bathroom. Lots of self assembly ensured. Went back to old flat and finished packing bedroom stuff. Emptied hall cupboard so that we could start storing some of landlord's stuff in there.

Friday, 16th Dec (3 days to go)

Had a late start. Cleared space in living room, mainly by moving packed boxes into bedroom. At this point I'm getting frantic that there is no way we are going to be ready for the removal firm. Realised that there wouldn't be time to stock the new place up for the hols, so spend the evening going through Tesco on-line and organising the delivery for the afternoon of the move. Didn't really achieve much but felt better.

Saturday, 17th Dec (2 days to go)

Hubby had a driving lesson, so I went to town and bought new sheets, pillow slips and pillows and took them to the new flat. Made up the bed so that all it needed was a duvet. Met up with hubby, had lunch, then back to packing. Shut down the rest of the computers, and boxed up cables, monitors, etc. Cleared desk and the workspace hubby was using. Packed most of stuff from kitchen. Realised that there was no need for Friday's fit of panic, so bought a film on pay per view and had a relaxed night.

Sunday, 18th Dec (1 day to go)

Started to pack last bits in living room and had a brainwave. Stripped bed, and threw duvet cover into washer/dryer. Went back to packing living room, disconnecting, tv, video, dvd, etc. Suddenly hit the point where we were moving bits backwards and forwards with no real point. Realised that we were done. Put newly laundered cover on duvet and made bed at old place for last time.

Monday, 19th Dec (Day of move)

Got up at some unspeakable hour as we couldn't remember when the removal men were due. Guessed at 8am but found out that it should have been 9am. No worries though as it meant we had time to get ourselves ready and then pack the things we'd been using to the last minute. Grabbed the duvet and stuffed it into a black bin liner and put lots of packing tape around it to (a) fasten it and (b) make it identifiable. Removal firm (Scotmove) arrived, gave stuff a once over and got right down to work. Because we'd been in a furnished flat we pretty much stayed out of their way whilst they were moving things out of the old place, just keeping an eye on what they were grabbing to put in the van. A few times I had to stop them from trying to pack landlord's stuff and every so often they'd check through with us what was left to go and what was staying. Loading the van seemed to take forever, but eventually everything was loaded. We headed up to the new flat and waited for our stuff.

Unloading the van was a different story. It seemed to happen really quickly. I think the removal guys were a bit bemused when I said to just dump everything into the living room, but as I explained, if we stacked boxes into the cupboard and spare room, we'd never get around to unpacking things, whereas if it was in the living room we have to unpack to get the place tidy. Logical when you think about it. At this point Hubby helped carry boxes into the flat, I started to organise their storage, grabbing things that had obvious locations, eg blackbin liner with lots of packing tape = duvet, so grab, unwrap, shake out and put on bed. By about 2pm we were all done and alone in our new home. We went off to get lunch (there's a starbucks nearby) and then I went to the old flat to wait for Telewest to pick up the decoder box and cable modem, and hubby went back to the new flat to wait for grocery delivery and the sky installation engineer (who didn't turn up).

By the end of the day we had the bookcases up and stacked with books, most of the crockery stacked on the kitchen worktops, and hubby had managed to get our old free-to-air digibox working, so we slobbed in front of the tv, and started planning our xmas.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


As is traditional at the start of the new year I have made a number of resolutions. Of course, tradition also dictates that these resolutions should be broken by the middle of January. I'm hoping that I will do better than that and keep up with these, hopefully to build on them next year. So here goes.

1. I will lose weight.


2. I will learn to programme.


3. I will recycle more.


4. I will give more to charity.


5. I will lobby my MP, MSP and MEP on important issues.


6. I will spend less time gaming on the computer.


7. I will read more.


8. I will not buy anymore books until the "to read" pile has been reduced to less than a single bookcase.


9. I will complete at least one piece of needlework before starting another.


10. I will blog more often.

I suppose I should keep a blog of how well I'm doing on all these resolutions and then I can be judged on my success (or failure), which would help me to keep number 10. But if that's the one I fail, how would anyone know how well I'm doing on the others?

Encouragement may be needed.

I have an account on Care2.com where I found this item on a friend's page. I make no apologies for lifting this text in full. Besides, I asked first (thanks Michael), as the issue of the US religious right flaunting rules to suit their own political agenda - or in this case having a political agenda when they shouldn't, is getting to the point that it looks corrupt.


A Call for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to Investigate Activities by James Dobson and Focus on the Family

On November 28, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against James Dobson's Focus on the Family. Naomi Seligman, CREW's Deputy Director, was delighted when Soulforce offered to launch a national drive to support this complaint. By signing the petition addressed to the IRS, you will join thousands of Americans who are concerned about James Dobson's growing political influence in Washington, D.C. and across the nation.

Focus on the Family is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization whose stated purpose is "to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes." In past years, Dr. Dobson has become increasingly shrill about his political beliefs (especially against GLBT people) on his daily radio program and through his fundraising letters.

For example, on December 1, 2005, Focus on the Family announced that it would end its long time banking relationship with Wells Fargo because of the bank's "ongoing efforts to advance the radical homosexual agenda."

Earlier this year Dobson promised to dedicate his life to amending the U.S. Constitution with a Federal Marriage Amendment that would make second-class citizens of Lesbian and Gay Americans in committed relationships and deny them their basic civil rights and protections.

Although his non-profit status bars him from electioneering, Dr. Dobson continues to use his considerable political muscle to support anti-gay initiatives and to endorse candidates for political office. In early April, 2004, Dr. Dobson endorsed Republican Representative Patrick J. Toomey in his race for Senate in Pennsylvania. In addition, it was reported that Dr. Dobson actively campaigned during a rally for Rep. Toomey.

Other candidates that Dr. Dobson reportedly endorsed in 2004 include North Carolina Republican candidate Pat Ballentine for Governor and Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn for Senate.

You can read more details, including the full text of the complaint sent to the IRS, on the CREW website.

Please sign the petition below to add your name to thousands of Americans who want the IRS to investigate the political actions of James Dobson and his organization.

Remove IRS Tax Excempt Status Of Focus On The Family Petition:
http://www.soulforce.org/petition/1

"I ____________ support calling upon the IRS to thoroughly investigate Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family for continued violations of their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status; specifically that although they are barred from electioneering, Dr. Dobson has endorsed candidates for political office several times. Such abuse of their status as a tax-exempt, faith-based, nonprofit organization can no longer be tolerated."

We've done it!

Way back in June I gave the marathon post about looking for a new place. Well we've found a new flat and moved in yesterday. I didn't want to post anything before (I know all about counting chickens). Anyway the new flat is huge, or rather it seems huge. We did a quick measure up of both places and the whole of the old flat would fit into the living room and kitchen of the new place with room to spare. We bought a king size bed from Ikea and it looks lost in the vast space of the bedroom.

We decided that the delivery men should put everything into the living room. That might seem a bit silly when we have huge space in the bedroom as well as a second bedroom and walk in storage, but it's not really. If we had put everything into the spare bedroom or the box room we would never have got to a point were we were going to sort through the boxes. if there are stuck in the living room we have an incentive to get things unpacked and stored in their right places. So it's not as daft as it might seem as first glance. We already have four bookcases of books, as well as the DVD and video players, half our stash of DVDs and most of the stuff for the kitchen unpacked and put away, which is great when you consider that we only started unpacking at 5pm and we were both at work today.

Tonight I'm going to take some pictures of the chaos so that when then flat is organised there is a comparison.

WooHoo

Subject to major disasters it looks as thought the boy wonder and I will be moving house sometime during the beginning of December. As a result we are having a massive clear out of stuff that we don't want to take with us to the new place. A bunch of this stuff, however, isn't ours and we don't want to schlep it to the new place if we don't have to.

A lot of this stuff was given as "long term loans" when I first moved up to Edinburgh and was part of helping me set up the flat here and includes things like:

• A cd player and amplifier


• A filter coffee machine


• Yamaha DX27 keyboard


• Computer monitor


• various other computer bits


• model airplanes

There are also things that are ours that we no longer need and that might be useful to others
eg our old microwave, a 17" monitor, that will go to the Bethany stores if nobody else wants them.

This list isn't complete and by the end of November we'll have a much better idea, but in the interim if we have anything of yours please get in touch to make arrangements for collection asap or we will assume that you don't any it anymore and make arrangements for disposal accordingly. Also because some of the items have value we can only give them back to the owners (if they want to give them to someone else afterward that's their business), so please don't send other people to us to collect your stuff for you.

Tao - Beat of the World

In the end it was only half of Tao (the other half were back in Japan performing at the Tokyo International Forum) but that didn't really matter. A stunning performance of traditional Taiko drumming with some very modern visual touches. To be honest I am totally at a loss has to how best to describe the show, other than perhaps the best performance of drumming I have ever seen.

I would certainly recommend seeing this show if you get a chance and I believe that there are still some tickets available.

I like Orange.

Now that Paul is up here we are learning the benefits of being Orange users - 2 for 1 tickets to the cimema on a Wednesday. Just been to see "King Arthur". Without giving too much away it is part of the mongol hoard doing Braveheart on Hadrian's Wall against an invading Saxon army (heading southwards?). Okay so it isn't Excalibur but it doesn't suck that much either plus it has Clive Owen looking moody, Keira Knightly looking elegantly manic in a costume that doesn't cover much, and Ioan Gruffudd smoldering as Lancelot. Oh and Ray Winston is in it too.

Put your brain into neutral and go see it.

Frazer's Golden Bough

I just happen to have a copy of the full 12 volume version of Sir James Frazer's "Golden Bough" in pdf format. As far as I know this version is not available on the web (yet) and I'm currently trying to get Volume 1 converted to text for publishing. Anyone want to help?

To make it easier a certain Italian friend created a script that will automatically process all the pdfs into png format, and then set the OCR software onto the png to create a txt file. There are a few places where it doesn't work properly but these are usually due to the scanning process (I didn't always get the book square to the automatic process is confused). All that is needed is proof reading the txt file against the pdf.

Before anyone asks it appears that the 12 volume version is out of copyright, though in the worst case variation it is in copyright for another 3 years. However, I think that 12 volumes would probably take in the order of 3 years for me to complete. As not only is there proof reading the main text but there is cross referencing the not inconsiderable index making the links to the various pages in the text. Then I have to decide how to deal with the enourmous number of footnotes. As you can imagine it is going to be a mammoth task.

I get the feeling that I am going to be busy.

Times change

Scanning through the BBC news pages I find this little snippet:

Pink was a boy's colour while blue was thought better for girls - a "generally accepted rule" according to The Ladies Home Journal in 1918, which described pink as "more decided and stronger" while blue was "more delicate and dainty".

followed later on the same page by:

The colour pink gets its name from the jagged-edged dianthus flower, commonly known as a pink, which in turn got its nickname from pinking shears, those serrated scissors used by seamstresses.

Having just gone through months of telling people that white is not actually a "traditional" wedding colour and that Victorian brides would have just worn their Sunday best dress, usually in a serviceable colour, so no there is nothing wrong in having a black wedding dress, it was nice to see a reference to an accepted colour association being changed just to prove that it wasn't me making things up.

I've been touched by His Noodly Appendage

I have been hoovering the cat at work for the past half an hour or so. I've just completed my end of year accounts returns so I feel I have earned the right to loaf for a bit. Anyway I used the time to look up an interesting concept that was mentioned in the New Scientist magazine recently.

In line with christian fundamentalists insisting that their faith be taught as science a young chap in Oregon has written to the Kansas School Board to have his ideology taught on equal terms with intelligent design and evolutionary science. However, his ideology is that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster and also includes such 'beliefs' as global warming has a direct inverse relationship to the number of pirates in the world. I have to say that I really like this and I hope that the chaps campaign is successful.

Check the website http://www.venganza.org to get the full story

Just back from WorldCon

I had a great time at Interaction, well for most of it anyway. Went to lots of panels, spent lots of cash in the dealer room, adopted a beeble-bear (picture here), got some great ideas for making cross stitch designs in the art show. I also met lots of great people who I hope that I can keep in touch with, as well as meeting up with people that we had lost touch with a number of years ago. There were a few problems in that so many of the panels were very popular and so you had to get to the room early to be sure to get in, but then the rooms would be overfilled and get very hot. There was also a lot of concurrent panels on similar topics so frequently you had to make a choice as to which you preferred, and then, of course, hope you could get in. I made it into most of the panels I was interested in. There was only one that I left through boredom. The evenings on the other hand were a non stop round of parties.

We didn't go to the first night parties, opting to be sensible and go to bed. This resulted in not being able to get any ribbons, but we made up for it on the the subsequent nights (first rule of fandom don't miss the scandinavian parties). The Hilton Hotel were initially charging over the odds for the specially imported real ale, but very quickly dropped the price when they realised just how much alcohol they were selling.

The main gripe we had was with our hotel, the Corus on Argyll Street. The double room was tiny, didn't have a proper wardrobe just a pole with four coat hangers that was awkward to access, and we were supplied with only one hand and one bath towel even though the room was booked for two people. I've stayed in hotels that were much better and cost half as much. Fortunately, it was just a place to rest our heads so it wasn't that bad, but under any other circumstances I would have made a complaint.

We're Not Afraid

I rare that I've been involved with something big right at the start, but it seems I've managed it this time. In the wake of the London bombings some moblog friends and I have started a website We're Not Afraid. The discussion thread where this site originated is here and alfie's image that has been in all the press is here. At the moment the team are working our butts off processing the images. We have lots of really great images and they are coming in faster than we can add them the to the site. Unfortunately there are many that are not the inspiring images that we wanted but are too gung ho or inflamatory. It's amazing that by a little after 3 pm I'd indirectly made the suggestion, by 3:45 someone else had come up with a name, and by 5 pm alfie had registered the domain, organised the hosting and was getting volunteers on line to help with the organising. The press coverage has been fantastic and we have issued statements to media in several countries.

Now to get some sleep after the hard work.

London

It's taken me a while to get this done as I've been following the news of the London bombings on moblog.co.uk. One of the guys took a photo whilst he was trapped in the tube and SMSed it as soon as he got to the surface. The photo has now been picked up by a number of the news sites. I've done sod all work today just spending the time watching the news and following the news and blog sites. I just can't believe this is happening, it reminds me of the height of the IRA stuff when you never knew who was going to be next.

War of the Worlds

Just been to see War of the Worlds. It was absolutely brilliant. Okay, so Spielberg has played with H.G.Wells plot slightly, but it doesn't matter. What is important is that he has kept the main elements of the story, which after all is about a hundred years old. So what if he has taken english, middle-class victorians (from Woking, which apart from the McLaren Factory, would be vastly improved by an alien attack) and turned them into working class americans. The most important thing is that for just short of 2 hours it kept me in my seat, with my eyes glued to the screen - and it scared the crap out of me.

See it. On the big screen. If you don't you will regret it later.

Look what we missed.

I completely missed the annual borefest that is the Eurovision Song Contest and from what I did hear about it I'm rather glad I did. However, it seems that one counties entry was disqualified. The competitor from Molvania was arrested on arrival "at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport and immediately deported".

Okay, okay. I know that Molvania doesn't exist and that the travel guide is merely a spoof. However, this joke is taking on a life of it's own, now taking the micky of trashy Europop. What's more the parody is superb. It has all the elements that we expect of a Eurovision entry - bad english, innuendo, cheesy outfits, etc. Check out the molvania eurovision site http://www.molvania.com/eurovision.html and if you are feeling brave look at the video. Just don't blame me if you hurt yourself falling off the chair.

Saturday

The boy wonder and the italian lunatic are in the tenement stair fixing a bicycle. I keep going and supervising once in a while but generally just laughing. If this had been someone fixing a car I would have known better than to laugh at the silly little things that happen, but cyclists do have a better perspective on things and do think that making something squirt/splash in your face accidentally is funny. Meanwhile, I've gone back to murder and mayhem by reloading Red Alert 2. I'd forgotten how tactical you have to be with this game so I'm relearning how to defend the battle lab in the Ural Mountains without losing my ore miner to some damn sneek attack. This may take some time.

My office is being redecorated.

Yes indeedy. The powers that be have decided that I can get my office redecorated. I have to say that it's about time. There is paper peeling off the ceiling and the walls look filthy in places from years of people leaning against them. As I'm getting my office done, and the boy wonder and I are looking to move house. It seems that now is the time for upgrading, refurbishing and generally making things better. My web presence is no exception, so over the next few months I'm going to be looking at redesigning my web pages, trying to get everything, this blog, the livejournal, the moblog and various other things tied together in a unified fashion. I've asked the chap who worked with me on the Deadhead Comics project to help me out as he is a superb graphic artist and we do tend to bounce ideas off each other really well.

Progress reports will be forthcoming.

Moblog launched!

Moblog is up and running at http://moblog.co.uk/blog/rathgild. It isn't going to replace this blog but will be a suppliment until blogger decides to sent a code to my phone. First photos are just ones that were sitting on my phone that I've used to test things were working. I'm actually surprised that they have turned out as good as they have because I'm notoriously bad at taking photos. Anyway at the moment there is a photo of Edinburgh Castle and a couple of pictures of a friend's cats.

At least with this will give me something to do during the day whilst at the office. Now that the exams have finished and the students have gone home everything at work has slowed down to a crawl. I spent today going over the accounts for the main departmental budget so that I know how much we still have to spend over the next month or so. Tomorrow I will start doing the same with the research accounts. It doesn't fill my day though. I could have spent some of the time doing the reading for my course but the problem is the balance of doing what you have to do against doing what you want to do, which is also partly the reason that I've not done any of the web page updates that I promised. I will do it honest. In fact I've spoken with the friend who worked with me on the Deadhead Comics project at Net Resources and he's going to help me with the design. So there will be some improvements in the future. Just don't hold you breath.

I know I'm not exactly built like Kate Moss, and I know I've got a fat arse so I dress accordingly. So here is the warning girls. If you are of a larger build do not under any circumstances wear hipster jeans. Especially do not wear hipster jeans with cropped tops. The sight of a wobbly, fat belly pouring over the top of the waistband is not pretty, in fact it looks disgusting. So stop it. NOW!

House hunting

When I moved to Edinburgh I got a furnished flat to live in. That basically means I've been living in a place where I worry about every spill on the rug and marks on the sofa. It's like being in a hotel room with no maid service. The main reason was that the boy wonder and I had a flat full of our own furniture in Manchester, the flat I was in was going to be temporary and as soon as I had a good job (TM) he would move north and we'd get a nice unfurnished place. That didn't go to plan. Firstly, Prudential Property Management, who had purchased the Manchester Arndale Centre from P&O Properties announced their plans for the redevelopment of the shopping centre about two weeks after I moved. Their plan involved knocking down one side of the Mall and rebuilding it in such a way that they could create a "high profile" store in that area. The plan also involved demolishing 60 apartments one of which I had a considerable stake in. It took three years to get a deal out of Prudential that didn't involve being screwed and believe me for a company who spend millions advertising themselves as a company who value communities they sure as hell tried to screw us and our neighbours.

< Biased opinion>Front page news - Prudential are just another bunch of lying, tight-arsed, money grabbing bastards. don't trust them to tell you the truth and don't trust them with with your hard earned cash< /Biased opinion>.

All the time this battle was going on the boy wonder was getting on well with his job so there was no immediate rush for him to move. He was looking for work here but not being in the area didn't help him.

Then we had all the upset of finding that my mother had lung cancer and the aggravation of my aunt hogging center stage as though she were the most important person in my mother's life and all the time trying to write me out of family history. Well given that her kids (my cousins) are a screwed up lazy jerk who spend more time with his mates than his wife and kid and a psychotic bitch who is only one step from the lunatic asylum, she's bound to have it in for anyone who is normal. She enlisted help from Ian the youngest of my uncles and they tried to take all sorts of moral high ground which I thought was prize especially as it was Ian's wife having an affair with my step-father that broke up my mother marriage.

After being taken completely out of the loop of the funeral arrangements, being told I couldn't speak with my step-father MKII and being physically threatened by Ian and getting verbal abuse from the psychotic bitch cousin, and seeing how boy wonder was standing by me I actually asked him to marry me. (It was more like "do you think we should get married?" I mean, hell, we'd been living together for 10 years at that point and separating would have been as painful as a divorce anyway).

Stay with me, this story does go somewhere. Eventually.

So moving on a year we got married. First day back at work after the honeymoon, he is taken to an office and told that he will resign, or else... The or else was a bit vague, in that it was we will put you through the disciplinary procedure and you don't have a chance, but no mention of what they would discipline him for and he couldn't think what in the hell he could possibly have done that would result in instant dismissal. On reflection we don't think there was anything that he had done but that the employers would have found something if he'd called their bluff. We decided not to do that as they were going to pay him his month's salary in lieu of notice (garden leave) and a nice hand out of three months salary tax free. So with no more ties to Manchester boy wonder moved up to Edinburgh. Into my furnished flat. With all our furniture from the place in Manchester!
To say that we are currently cramped is the understatement of the year. There is so much stuff in the flat that we have very little floor space to walk on and we have to negotiate passing places to move around the flat. It's like that game where you have to shift blocks around to make space to move other blocks. I'm not kidding.

So now that we are both working in nice well paid posts, we're looking for something else. Somewhere we don't have to worry if we get two visitors at the same time because we have space for the chairs. Somewhere we can actually have a dining table and not have to eat dinner from folding tv tables so that they can be stashed in a cupboard once we've finished using them.

We viewed a lovely flat on Friday and by the time I rang this morning to say we would take it we had beaten to the draw. Damn. There is another flat that we are interested in, but we aren't holding our breath, and we are going to look at some new build (yuck but needs must and all that) tomorrow.

Wish us luck

A Very Late Update

The year has been a mad rush.

I got married (Yay)

Had honeymoon in Venice (Yay) (photos forthcoming... maybe... hopefully... one day)

I started a new job (Yay)

Hubby lost his job (Boo)

But he was then able to move from Manchester to Edinburgh (Yay)

I started evening classes ... (hmmm)

... and got a 71.75% pass on my first module (Yay)

Earning lots so just got new mobiles ... (Yay) (moblogging here I come... maybe)

... and a nice shiny Samsung Syncmaster 910N 19 inch TFT screen (Double yay with a back flip)

Plus I was made moderator on a big mailing list for a game (Yay)

which may lead to a place on the game's High Council (fingers crossed)

So as you can see I've been very very busy. Honest. :-)

No comment

Make up your own mind about this one.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/utah_grounds_santa/

Good News

I've managed to get myself a job at the University. Woohoo! Go Me!

I've been temping in the Department since May (and within the University for even longer). I was so surprised to be offered the post because I really thought I'd done appallingly at interview.

I don't officially start until I come back from honeymoon, so it's all worked out really nicely.

Just need to get the other half a job now.

Wedding Plans

Are all going well if somewhat late....

I've just got the invitations back from the printer so they will finally be going out this week, and I have to go and see the Registrars to finalise the legal notices.

The dress is coming along nicely, and I even have a very basic wedding site at http://www.netresources.co.uk/~jan30/wedding.

All in all I'm very pleased with how things are going. Not stopping me panicing though.

New game

For those of you that play the Vampire The Dark Alleyways, there is a new variation called Gothador. This is a little bit more dungeons and dragons based and is undergoing serious development as people are joining the game and letting the developer know what features they'd like to see.

Enjoy

UPDATE

Well that was good for a while. The game developer has now implemented lots of features that the first round of players asked for and promptly started charging for them. Not amused. On top of that everytime anyone says anything even slightly bad about the game on any of the lists (which the game developers are making a point of owning) they are pounced on with abuse by one of the list moderators and then find that the posts "vanish".

My view of this lot has completely changed from a bunch working to get a game going for the hell of it (which is what it appeared at the start) to a bunch of money grabbing control freaks asking for "a small $5 USD / month donation (approximately £3 GBP)" to "gain access to all current advanced features and also new features that non-supporters will never get access to".

Make your own choice, but I've quit the game and asked the owner to remove my details from the database (which they still haven't done).

Arghhhh!

Trying to make a combination of the wedding dress and clothes for the honeymoon and the sewing machine has decided to seize up on me.

I now have to find a place that will do house calls to old Singer treadle machines.

Poo

A nice relaxing weekend... not

The boy wonder came up for the long weekend so we used the opportunity to get various bits and pieces done. Of course, making the wedding dress was completely put on hold as I had to hide everything to do with it away, but that was a minor sacrifice. Firstly, on Friday night we went to the pictures to see Shaun of the Dead. It's brill. Go see it NOW!

Saturday started well with a leisurely lay in, but the need for food soon had us running out to get bacon rolls and coffee, then on into town where we ordered the wedding rings. I also took my mothers rings with me to get them resized and also to have the eternity ring restored. The jeweler commented that it was an old ring with a lot of wear so I think that Val got in a muddle and gave me one of my gran's rings by mistake. Not that I'm complaining because if that is the case then in her attempt to grab the valuable stuff for herself she has inadvertently given me one of the more valuable rings. I'll wait to see what the final report on that one is. Shambled around town a bit which was nice and ended up in HMV, where were picked up some of the DVDs we've been looking for in the sale, then home, food, and on to the pub for a good night out with friends.

Sunday, we made a tailors form in my shape, using cling film, and lots of duck tape, which was fun to start but got very uncomfortable after a while due to being sweaty and sticky. Then watched one of the DVDs we'd bought before finishing all the invitation designs and working on the wedding website (it still has problems and I can't seem to fix them - damn cross browser incompatibilities) so that will be going on-line in a day or two.

Monday he went home, and I didn't even get to do the tearful goodbyes at the train station as I was working. *BooHooHoo*

So now the dress will be brought out of it's hiding hole and that is going to be the big priority until he comes back in a few weeks when we have to make time to go to the Registrar's Office to submit the legal Notice of Intent to Marry and after that it's just finalising various bits and pieces.

It never seems to end though.

Ha!

Last night I went to the pub. She who is trying to make out that she is being maligned behaved as though my being there had spoilt her whole night. Went to the pub tonight she stood on her own at the bar having done a u-turn upon seeing me. Do I look like someone who cares? Yeah your right.

It's getting to the point where she is looking like a complete prat, and people are actually noticing this and commenting that she is behaving like a five year old. And I just sit there and smile and ignore her. You see I have learned that I can hold my own with people, I don't need to make other people look small to make myself look big. I grant that I have a nasty temper that wise people do not get on the wrong side of. More importantly, I've decided that I am going to have a social life and if some psychotic attention seeker wants to fantasize about my being a threat to them then okay. If they want to lie about me - fine. I know the truth, the people that know me know the truth, and it isn't actually hurting me. The person who is behaving like a brain dead twat is on the other hand starting to get bad press as people notice the stupidity. Lets face it, if you insist on being the center of attention when you're actually a complete bore, people tend to be glad to see the back of you.

Beware - rant in progress

Today I arrived home to find an email from a friend. He and his partner had been up all night with their blind, ailing, geriatric puss, who had sadly died this morning. Didn't help that it was my friend's birthday. After I had been around for a visit to commiserate for their loss it was decided that we would go to the pub for a "wee dram" or three. So there we were a rather forlorn group of four people sitting in the pub, but the ale soon lifted our spirits, and one of the group, who had recently returned from Nigeria was telling us about life in North West Africa. During the course of our evening a couple turned up and suddenly things turned very sour.

Basically, the female of the pair was a friend of mine for many years, but about a year ago decided to spread some lies about another friend in, of all places, her Livejournal. The other friend, lets call her Mrs A, was very upset about this and asked for a retraction of the lies and received abuse in return. Mrs A's husband then tried to get a retraction and he too had abuse hurled at him. He, however, was defending his wife's reputation so didn't back down at this point, hence their argument spilled over into my livejournal comment space. I told them both to stop it and grow up, where upon I got an apology from Mr A but abuse from the other woman. Now I have put up with this woman's tantrums for a number of years and to be honest they were growing thin. She seems to think that behaving like a petulant 5 year old is a virtue in a thirtysomething year old woman, which to be frank, it isn't. By this point she was slandering Mr A in on line forums by making people believe that he had had some sort of breakdown and had become a dangerous lunatic who was putting her health and safety in great danger.

Having had this argument thrust into my face and deciding to draw a line in the sand, which she very quickly crossed, I told her to grow up and act her age, to which her partner then started telling me that she was "unsocialised" and "didn't know that her behaviour was unacceptable" and that "I was responsible for her bad behaviour by not telling her it was wrong". When I pointed out that when you tell her her behaviour is unacceptable you get a torrent of abuse I was told I was "being unreasonable".

I was supposed to be the matron of honour at this woman's wedding but I told her that I wouldn't bestow such an honour on someone who though being abusive to friends was a good idea and I broke of contact with her. At this point her partner started telling anyone that would listen that I was "spreading obnoxious lies" about her. Of course, as the only things I had said about her were backed up by emails and other independant witnesses people soon got tired of hearing this. And so for nearly a near this couple have been trying to make the world believe that I am a dangerous lunatic.

Tonight was the last straw. They have made unsubstantiated accusations against people that I know just on the basis that they are talking to me. They are saying that they cannot even be in the same pub as me as I pose a physical threat to their safety (which bearing in mind that I was in the same pub for two hours and didn't even look at them) is patently fabricated, and this on top of telling people over the past year that I am a psychotic receiving psychiatric care (I'd like to see them prove that one in a court of law). I am so angry at the moment but I know that there is very little that I can do. Or at least there is very little that I can do that doesn't take me down to the same sewer that they live in.

Maybe I should just get my solicitor to issue a summons of slander against them. There are enough witnesses to prove my case....

Panic Stations!

Wedding day is getting every closer and whilst we have most things in order there are a few little details that need doing.

The darling boy needs to hurry up with the design for the official invitations otherwise we are not going to be able to send them out in time.

I need to get on an do the information web page, because I don't have time to go looking up stuff for everybody as they request it. So things like, map to the venue, link to tourist board B&B index, wedding list, alleged order of day, etc, will be there for people to check up on at their own convenience.

Trouble is I want a nice picture of a victorian style wedding dress that has a long train, and is a nice size to put on a web page and I can't find one. They are all either photos taken at the wrong angle to be useful, too small, or too fuzzy. The graphic artist that I was working with is busy too so he doesn't have time to create an image for me.

On the other hand I have the model of the dress almost done so I'll probably be wearing that all day next weekend so I can see where the pattern will need to be adjusted. This weekend I'm looking for a suitable veil, saw a nice simple two-layer one but I can't get it in black. That's another thing that is brewing - my future mother-in-law is convinced that I am joking when I say that the wedding dress is going to be black and keeps making suggestions of "suitable" colours. I keep telling her that I'm going for authentic but... Maybe I should see if my friends (the film producers) can put me in touch with one of the costume designers so I can get evidence to prove my point, not that it's likely to work though.

It's Official

Blueyonder are complete F***wits.

They have introduced some antivirus thing or another, which is clearly configured incorrectly, because so far all it has bounced has been innocent mail from a MODERATED mailing list that I have been on for about six years and that doesn't allow attachments. Now forgive me if I am being naive, but how in the name of the devil's illegitimate spawn can plain text email with no attachments be spreading viruses? More importantly when will the "tech" support tards at Bluechunder get a clue as to how to run a system? FFS

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I finally got to sit the CIW Foundations Exam. Time allowed 90 mins but I did it in about 30 and I passed.

So I am now a Certified Internet Webmaster Associate.

The thing that had me most worried was the section on Internet Fundamentals, as I have been struggling to get my head around the OSI Reference Model and where protocols and network devices fit into it, yet I managed to get 92% on that section.

If you see a half crazed woman bouncing about Edinburgh celebrating like a loon then that will be me.

Linux Games Petition

Like a number of others I'm getting fed up of having to run a second computer in windows just so I can play commercial games. One of the guys in a chat room I'm on has started a petition to show the games manufacturers that Linux is an untapped market, and that it is in their economic interest to provide the linux community with ports of the top selling games.

The test of the petition is:


To: EA Games

We, the Linux gaming community are feeling alienated by companies that, in face of huge demand for our choice of operating system, still refuse to provide proper client-side ports for major games.
Although this petition is focused primarily towards EA Games, (who became a powerful force in gaming due to their commitment to providing native ports to a variety of operating environments) the writer of this petition also believes that such companies as Blizzard (who deliberately SHUT DOWN an open source native port project for some of their games, which did not infringe on their intellectual property, called freecraft) deserves special mention.
This petition aims to make the following points:
1. Emulation is not a native port, and native ports are what is required by the linux-driven consumer.
2. Our numbers and buying power are great enough to warrant such projects as a transition from directx to opengl, for instance.
3. We believe we are the future, and this is an offer to make peace with this community, before we are further alienated, and you really need us to stay in business.
4. Native server ports without client side ports are offensive, and unacceptable.
5. We are no longer willing to run a Windows machine, or buy a gaming console just to be able to play games. (Thanks to the insight of such companies as Atari, among others, we don't have to)
Thank you for reviewing this petition.

Sincerely,


You can view the petition and sign it here:



http://www.petitiononline.com/linux260/petition.html

Crazy people

I spotted an interesting article on the BBC's web page today.

An American Airlines pilot asked Christians on his flight to raise their hands to identify themselves, prior to calling all non-Christians crazy. He also suggested that the non-Christians should speak to the Christians about their faith. Needless to say reports are that passengers were terrified.

The full story is here on the BBC's news site.

This, of course, does raise the question as to who actually is the crazy person here.

Woohoo

Somebody likes me. I just got an invite to orkut.

Ice Cold in Omsk

It's nice to know where the Russian army have their priorities, and if this story is anything to go by it's more in having a good time that in fighting wars.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3414593.stm

"Six divers, 10 men with electric saws and a tank pulled the beer kegs - but not the truck - to safety."

That's dedication to a cause.

Tis the season to be... erm... tortured?

Trawling the web as you do when you are supposed to be getting on with lots of work. I found this little story. Well okay I didn't find it but one of the guys in the chat room I hang out in found it.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8060210^13762,00.html


Enjoy

I'm currently working my behind off on the end of course project, on top of that I'm running around like a maniac doing things for the wedding, and I'm studying for the CIW Foundations exam. Not to mention the Gutenburg project that I'm heading up. I really need to have each day in the order of 40 hours long to be able to get everything done.

Any donations of spare time, extra strength caffeine, etc would be gratefully accepted. :-)

How do you deal with a person who will not listen to anyone's opinions and seems to get their self esteem from belittling, patronising and ignoring other people, or by riding roughshod over any ideas that aren't their's? Especially when you are supposed to be working in a team with said person?

BTW, punching them in the face is not an option.

Update
This person and I have had a blazing row due in part to the wasting of time by redoing work that I had already done. Of course, they were doing this in front of someone who does have the chance to write references and reviews. I just asked why the work as being redone, and the answer was correct in as much as it is information that the team needs. So I pointed out that I had done it and emailed the team with the results and some questions that we need to ask our client. The response... "Oh I haven't read your emails".

Needless to say everything got worse over the day so the first thing the following morning I went into the management team and said that I cannot work with this person. I told them everything that had bugged me over the entire project cycle so far. The telling me time and time again that I am not able to do this, that or the other without this person's help, the constant undermining of the work that I am doing and so on.

Not sure what happened after that, if someone had words or what, but things seem to have settled down, so I am able to get on with the things I should be doing without hindrance. The question is for how long?

Happy News

I'm getting married. The boy wonder and I are tying the knot on 24th July 2004 at the Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh.

The frightening thing is that despite having eight months or so to go, we have almost everything arranged or at the very least in hand.

All we need to think about doing is getting the rings, the gifts for bestman and bridesmaids, and the bridal favours. We can't move ahead with the catering until we get the prices for the different altered menus back from the hotel. This, of course, holds up paying the deposit to the hotel, which in turn holds up getting the form for booking the Registrar, but everyone is aware of the sequence and the time scale and so there are no worries.

Well some of you will have already been told this news and I excpect many others will have heard it on the grapevine. After what must be the longest engagement in living memory (11 years in February) the darling boy and I are getting married. Plans are already being put into place so the details are as follows:

Date: 24th July 2004
Wedding Ceremony: Carlton Highland Hotel (Sutherland Suite) all welcome.
Wedding Breakfast: Carlton Highland Hotel (Highland Suite) Family and close friends only.
Evening Reception: Carlton Highland Hotel (Highland Suite) Everyone else we know that we remember to invite.

What is really frightening is how organised we are. All that needs to be done now is sort out the dress and we have to choose/buy wedding rings and the gifts for best man and bridesmaids. I need to ask one friend if she will be a bridesmaid and we need to speak to someone about the evening entertainment but that is in hand. I even have the wedding cake and favours sorted out.

I'm just having a moment of panic wondering what I have missed and what will go wrong.

Well blogging has been somewhat slow. The main reason is that I am currently on a web development course, which is rather intense.

It's even less likely that I will be doing updates before Christmas because not only am I studying for the CIW Foundations exam we are in the project phase of the course.

The project itself is really interesting. I am working with a guy whose back ground is graphic design (the team designer) and a woman who has experience of running a web company (the team's project manager) to redesign from scratch the web pages for Deadhead Comics in Edinburgh. The ideas are really flying around and we already have some good ideas that we can put to our client. This is a really exciting project with lots of potential for fun so we are all working our collective butts off.

Maybe I should try to keep updating this to let you all know how we are getting on.

Is that the time?

I can't believe that it has been two weeks since I last did an update. Time has been flying to the point that I don't have enough hours in the day. I don't know what I will do when I get a job, but I have been in this situation before and I know that it will all work out in the end. Actually most of the workload is from a Training for Work scheme so if I do get a job that will end, and that will remove a large chunk of the stuff that is keeping me busy. Web design project work on very tight deadlines in not conducive to having a social life, and I passed the assessment test to get onto the CIW Foundations course, so that has put another load of study work onto my shoulders. Do I hear the words stressed being muttered somewhere?

As if all the stress from that isn't enough I'm having to start running around and fix dates and venues. Most people will have heard already but my other half and I had decided that 11 years is long enough to be engaged and we will be getting married next year.

Final details are to be confirmed but at the moment it is looking as though it will be at the end of July at the Carlton Highland Hotel. I just need to get the date confirmed with the Registrars Office.

All I need now is the groom to follow tradition and let me get on with deciding what I want.

Colour madness.

I have a few little pleasures in life. One of them is the regular mailing from Hermes. I bought a scarf at their store in Manchester not long after it opened and as a result ended up on their preferred customer list, so I get invites to special showing of new collections, exhibitions and stuff like that. Not to mention the quarterly magazine, full of wonderful images (I'm sure Sandy would appreciate the photos). Anyway I've just received the latest bundle including a catalogue of this season's ties, which are separated by colour associations. So there's a section that describes orange as "...surreptitiously, with the slyness of genetic mutation and the power of an incoming tide, yellow swerves towards red." Pale pink is "... reserved for babies, more often than not those of the female sex. Can one conceive of it ornamenting beard and muscle?" As for purple, apparently "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who wears only mauve is to be mistrusted."

Perhaps it is a French foible that colour should be described in such living, breathing terminology, as though the colours themselves we independent, sentient beings. Or is it perhaps that exclusive fashion houses describe things with such artistic ways? Whichever it is, I like it.

Guns and Roses

Not much of an update I'm afraid. I'm just too busy at the moment doing studying and other such stuff. However, I came across this web site. It's an old project but I thought it was pretty neat.

The Cult of Father Darwin

It would seem that a local teenager decided that he should Darwinate himself.

Edinburgh Evening News Story here

Whilst it is sad that that the young idiot lost his life at least we can all sleep safely in the knowledge that yet another strain of the stupidity gene has been exterminated prior to reproducing itself.

Life is beginning to settle down again so hopefully I will be blogging a bit more regularly.

Keep looking, you never know when I might get inspiration.

Long time no blog

Well there has been a huge amount going on in my life including my mother dying so if you don't like it that I haven't updated since February - tough!

Couple of news points. I have a Live Journal account here. I have also started a web design course
so have web space here though as yet there is nothing to see. Keep checking though as things will change. There were problems with my ISP mangling all my html into frontpage-ese so the webpage in the links section is currently dead. At some point I will fix the links section, but like I said I'm busy so it might take a while to get a round tuit.

Also, Edinburgh has been a nightmare this year during the festival, so if you are a festival tourist, here is a frustrated local's message to you.

FUCK OFF HOME!

It's not that I have anything against the tourists and the revenue that they bring to the city, I just wish they wouldn't block entire pavements so that those of us with only one hour for lunch can't get anywhere. Just remember that although YOU are on holiday here, there are some people that aren't and they are trying to live their lives as normally as possible.

Hello....

      ...(goodbye)

Well not really. For the people that have emailed asking where I am, I am still around but I'm feeling intermittently depressed and/or anti-social. If you've mailed and I've not answered, I haven't fallen out with you and I'm not ignoring you because you've upset me. It's just I can't be bothered and besides I don't feel like talking/mailing anyone. If you've missed me at the pub (or wherever) I was too depressed/upset/antisocial (delete as applicable) to be arsed. Nothing personal, it's not you, it's just something I'm going through. It will pass. Time will heal. Etc.....

Anyway, as I finally motivated myself to update this I thought I would pass on the two little snippets that I have found recently.

Firstly, if you are into having trendy Chinese or Japanese words tattooed across your body make sure you have a trustworthy Chinese/Japanese speaking friend with you. Otherwise the results may not be what you expect. Story here

Also, in light of the current SCO mess any Linux geeks watching might be interested in here.

Normal service will be resumed... Eventually... Sometime... Maybe... Well probably. Though what is normal and does anybody ever achieve normality anyway?

Bad day at the track

Some people will know that I used to be a motor racing marshal until an unfortunate incident in a gravel trap left me with a badly injured knee, making track side work impossible. I still like motor racing and watch races whenever I get the opportunity and I keep as up to date as possible with the rule changes, etc.

So today I was watching Formula One on TV. It was the British Grand Prix, which I have only done spectator marshalling at (directing traffic to car parks and stopping people from lighting barbecues next to wooden grandstands). Silverstone is a lovely circuit, which was greatly improved about 10 years ago went the track layout was altered to facilitate the building of new run off areas for the race cars and grandstands for the spectators. It's still a power circuit with a sequence of fast corners leading to the main straight which terminates into the "new" complex of slower corners that were designed to increase over taking. Cars exiting the fast complex will be doing about 130 mph, accelerating up the straight to 200+ mph before breaking hard. It's the fastest part of the circuit and compares with the Parabolica at Monza or the old Tamburello at Imola - where Ayrton Senna was killed in a high speed accident in 1994. So imagine, the shock it was to see what could only described as a lunatic with a death wish (click on the image to get an enlargement) calmly jogging along this straight down toward the fast complex of corners at Becketts. The yellow Jordon that can be seen exiting the corner is doing about 140 mph and about two seconds after the picture had passed the nutter. Added to which the guy was trying to wave protest placards in front of the cars, on only one occasion did he try to get out of the way, in most cases actually moving toward the racing line of the cars. It was only the skill of the drivers in avoiding him that prevented his death, though had one of the cars hit him it would likely have killed the driver too. By the nature of that part of the circuit no marshals were sent to retrieve him until the safety car had been deployed and being in the early stages of the race with the cars were still fairly bunched up a safe gap was quickly forthcoming for the marshals to deal with him, and knowing the mentality of the marshals they wouldn't have been gentle with him, I know if I was dealing with him I would managed at least one surreptitious kick with my steel toe-capped boots. The worst thing is, this guy is only going to be charged with aggravated trespass, which his lawyers may be able to argue around by virtue of him having a ticket, but why not add on attempted murder. After all there is already evidence that a formula one car hitting a person at speed will cause the death of the driver, as Tom Pryce was killed in 1977 when he struck a marshal who was crossing the track, and F1 cars are much faster now that they were 26 years ago, plus this whole issue was discussed in 2000 after a disgruntled Frenchman breached security to make a track side protest again Mercedes-Benz.

The timing of this couldn't have been worse. The whole future of the British Grand Prix is in question, and an incident like this could be all it takes to have one of the great sporting institutions of the summer erased permanently from the calender.