After a conversation on the bus today I've decided that I'm going to become a cowboy. So anyone would like to buy me a horse, some cattle, a time machine or a mighty fine cowboy coat feel free to. Also, a gun would be nice, but I figure I might need to pick one of those up in the past. Or the future. Mmmmm space cowboys.
So I'm in Cambridge, and after a hard mornings theologizing I'm sitting in the park eating some sandwiches and I turn on my laptop to copy The Delays album to my computer. After all, I have my iPod and I want to listen to it now. So I turn on my computer, stick the CD in and it gets the track names. Except I realise that shouldn't work, because I'm in a park. And then it dawns on me. THE PARK HAS WIRELESS! Somehow the groundsmen have impregnated poor baby squirrels with wireless transmitters and their frantic scurrying is now powering my internet access. JOY!
Note to all, I have no idea what wireless network I'm connected to. But it's not computer fraud if you join a network left entirely open yes? Yes?
Note to all again, oh yes, the park is lovely. Flowers, leaves, birds, afformentioned squirrels.
Last Note to all, I have dirt in my iPod to Firewire connector.
In all the busy-ness of last week I realise that I have forgotten to tell you, dear reader, what exactly I've been up to in the last week. This is a bit of shame because the last week has been really quite interesting. For starters I was ill, not once, but twice! That's a whole lot of being ill! I won't bore you with the details, but I would like to say that in the upcoming mastermind "your specialist subject is the inside of your toilet bowl" special, I'm going to kick some serious arse. I also got to ring the police, deal with some rowdy behaviour, and give a statement. While this all happened in my offical capacity as a hip young gunslinging youth worker, it didn't involve any of my young people. Which is nice because that would involve a lot more paper work, and a lot less writing about. Plus y'know gotta keep 'em safe an all. I also finally got the phone issue resolved, but I'm sure I'll post about that later, for the sake of keeping my archives clear.
Finally, being off from church and with nothing better to do than watch all of T4 and Love Actually yesterday, I realised that Smallville is really really awful in light of anything done by Joss Whedon (Mr. I created Buffy) and The OC is absolutely awesome. Also Teachers is back on, which is also good news, apart from the entire staff seems to have disappeared. COME BACK SIMON! ALL IS FORGIVEN.
I realise I wrote finally above, and that means that that paragraph should have been the last, but humour me, I'm recovering from inverting my insides through mouth. The Green Day best of is excellent, you should all owe it. Other things probably happened. I'm not sure what. Lets all cope with it though.
Oh! And OH! How can I not mention almost getting thrown out of Cambridge University for computer fraud and only being narrowly being saved by not being a member of Cambridge University and not actually commiting computer fraud. Exciting days.
Curse you mac for releasing new shiny ibooks with a better spec than mine only 2 months after I bought mine! Curse you for giving the top range model a dvd burner by default! CURSE YOU! If it wasn't for the fact that I love you and want your children I'd be over there now. DESTRUCTION! I have no idea what I'm threatening, but you'd better believe I'm threatening something. MAYHEM!
My phone has not be fixed. It hasn't even be seen to. That's okay though sir, because we can fix it if you send it away for 2-3 weeks.
In the on going saga of my old phone being repaired at Phones 4 U, today I get the message that my phone is fixed, Hooray! Except that last time I spoke to them they said that they lost my phone, Boo! I have no idea what is going on anymore, but as they are two minutes walk from work, I figure I'll go find out. I ask some lady, who then disappears out back and returns with my old T610, and a really scrappy piece of paper. Apparently they found my phone again, have fixed it and are returning it. Except it doesn't turn on. Now in fairness, I've yet to charge the phone so I'm not really expecting it to, but here's the thing; the insides, including the area around all the screws and the area where the charger plugs in, are all covered in dust. I'm not dust expert, but it looks like about the same amount of dust that was in my phone when I sent it off. On top of that the paperwork that came with it (the scrappy piece of paper) has "unable to repair foreign unit" written on it. So, all in all. Quite good
When ordering food at KFC never pay the extra pound to gain one more piece of chicken, instead go for the extra three hot wings for only 99 pence option. Also never ever place a large order without first checking if they take credit card. While pretty much every sensible shop takes credit card these days, you never know when one might not and that can lead to all sorts of awkward situations that are very hard to get out of.
Things currently happening on my birthday:
w00t
First unable to keep their promises, now unable to keep hold of my phone. Which is all very good, because apparently if you lose a phone you have to replace it with a nicer one. This remains the case even when a courier loses a bag of phones. For all those travelling the roads of East Anglia, keep your eyes peeled, because somewhere out that there is A WHOLE BAG OF FRESHLY FIXED PHONES LYING BY THE ROAD.
For three and a half years I refused to buy Kid A, and while I canít excuse my behaviour I can at least try to explain it. I put it all down to the fact that it came out while I was indie enough to hate NME with a passion, but I didnít quite understand why. This left me unable to distinguish between the reviews that consisted entirely of brown-nosing (Hello Craig Nicholls!) and the reviews that actually consisted of reviews. So when NME gave Kid A one of their most positive reviews ever, I was immediately put off. I knew the buzz, Radiohead had gone crazy. Donít listen to the NME, they just want to get some loving out of Thom Yorke, Kid A is just noise and beats, letís remember them for The Bends and be done with it.
Iím not sure when I started to realise that Radiohead were the greatest band in the world ever but I know the moment the fact crystallized in my mind. A few weeks after Radioheadís 2003 Glastonbury performance Steve Lamacq played the set again on Radio 1. The set closed with a live version of Karma Police that remains to this day the most spine-tinglingly beautiful song I have ever heard. The idea that this song sounded so much better, after all their experimentation got to me. Obviously Kid A couldnít be that bad if it had produced such good results.
I only finally got around to buying Kid A last year and it sounded exactly how I feared it would, but for some reason that sound was the best sound in the world. On days where I believe the common man exists, I wonder if Iíve lost touch with him because I rate Kid A so highly, but then I think, stuff the common man, he doesnít exist and this album is fantastic.
I feel I should say something along the lines of ëgreater than its partsí but thatís misleading. Its parts are fantastic, just fantastic as a whole. That said, I havenít a clue what on earth they were thinking when they left Tree Fingers on the album.
From The Dane:
Further, Piper is right when he says that to travel against oneís conscience is sin (essentially saying that to ignore that which your gut tells you is wrong is, in fact, wrong). This is proved by the example that if I believe dancing is wrong and yet I dance despite my belief, though dancing is indeed acceptable, I chose to do what I believed to be wrong. The fact of choosing wrong is in itself wrong (regardless of the overall moral import of dancing).
Everyone with a Mac and a bluetooth phone shoud download Bluephone Elite. All I can say is that when someone just rang me, it flashed up on screen and upon clicking answer it paused iTunes. On finishing the conversation it immediately unpaused it again. This is on top of it's ability to display your sms's on screen so that I can read and write text messages while sitting in lectures with my phone in my pocket. All you loosers with PCs, weep.
REM to play Portman Rd!
Or to put it slightly more personally, REM to play three minutes walk from my house.
If you want to come, buy a pitch standing ticket now. My house has room for you all to stay over.
On yeah July 8th people. July 8th.
There is this poster for sitting in the back corner of our lecture room for some "I fratelli blues", The tag-line is "L'accoppiata piu' devastante dopo nitro glicerina". That's "L'accoppiata piu' devastante dopo nitro glicerina." I have no idea why the poster is there, but I really feel that I'm missing out by not watching Spanish translations of films.
Iíve decided that Iím going to become a professional liar. Obviously I wonít tell people that for a living Iím a professional liar as that would spoil things slightly, but I might start applying for jobs relevant to the position. If you think that my lack of qualifications for the job might hinder me, then you probably havenít grasped the nature of the job. I imagine qualifications might be a bit of a hindrance, I mean, you donít want to have anything to brag about that actually exists. As a professional liar Iím mostly looking for jobs in the newspaper business, not as news editor as some might cynically think, but as a features writer. Iíd write long and compelling pieces on the grand silence that descends during football matches as both sides of supporters, unable to bear the tension, sit transfixed by the thought of losing and winning. Iíd write articles describing the beautiful patterns rainbows make when they hit the earth and sparkle off the morning dew. Iíd expound the benefits of rubbing chip fat into your skin to improve looks and of not walking anywhere to improve health. Eventually Iíd be sacked, but being sacked by a national newspaper is a step up from my current qualifications and probably enough to land me a book deal, which given how successful my first book would be would do me for the rest of my career. This is of course, pure fiction.
Before anyone tells me that the poll vote on the side is broken, I know. The moose of yesterday has reappeared this time bring ftp problems with him. This wouldn't be an issue if I could code I'm sure it's all temporary but untill then the poll is closed.
On an unrelated note, I'm nowhere near number one if you search for Mark Walley on google images. To correct this henious mistake Mark Walley.
I had a clever train of thought today, a good train of thought that lent itself to the witty writing of, something that made me think 'hey I need to write this down, if not for anyone else then at least so I can say 'hey me, you know you think some clever and witty things sometimes, well done''. However I was rudely derailed from this clever and witty train of thought by the large moose on the line that was the internet in work failing in a spectacularly unique way. Now let me get this straight, normally I'm all in favour of running over mooses, after all tons of huge speeding metal versus flesh and fur and bone isn't much of a contest, but this moose was very resilient to even the strongest and most determined trains of thought my mind could muster. No matter how hard I tried to push this moose out of the way (or under the wheels) it just stood there and looked stupid, or possibly at me stupid. So I gave up, decided to get off the train and do whatever had to be done to move the moose. Someone once said something about pushing analogies too far and then breaking them, but the way I see it is what's life without breaking things? So with that analogy pushed far beyond the boundaries of sense and decency I'll get back to the problem.
Port 25 doesn't seem to want work. This doesn't sound like much, but port 25 has special privileges, in that port 25 is the all hallowed SMTP port. If it throws a hissy fit, no e-mail gets sent. Port 25 breaking is a BAD THING. Port 25 on the network server breaking though, is even worse. If regular port 25 thinks it's something special, then server port 25 has got so much arrogance oozing out of it that's on a level with the most blingest of hip-hop stars. If server port 25 throws a hissy fit, everyone knows. Port 25 sulks and so whille e-mail comes in, nothing goes out. And as well all know, it's better to give than to recieve, so as we're pretty much stuffed for giving and we're only recieving, we're pretty much screwed for any good stuff today. So there goes me fixing it and the chance of anything productive done today.
Here's a tip for all you budding web developers. When you go live with a site that runs off a database, make sure you clear the database of all the made up entries you used to test the thing. While filling the details in for October's Halloween related event with lyrics from Iron Maiden songs maybe fun, your line manager may be slightly curious as to why the event is called 'Bring your daughter to the slaughter' and what exactly 'Selling them whiskey and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old' has got to do with anything.
Mary? (1.1mb)
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