Today was another fairly uneventful day in my life, get up, work, come home, write this. That pretty much sums up my day to a fair extent, although of course there were slightly more activites present than just those 5.
the previous days banging from next door has ceased, and i managed to get decidely more than the 4 hours kip i managed yesterday. All hail the silent hammer when someone invents it.
I booked hundreds if not thousands of bottles of water in today at work, hence the title of this part, bloody water, why don't people just drink tap, its a damn sight cheaper and probably better for you too.
Ah well, i'm far too tired to continue, i'm going to retire and hope tomorrow is slightly better.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
Wasted
Why is it every weekend that passes i feel as if i've just wasted it? No matter what i do, or whats gets done, i always feel as if i could have done more with it.
Still never mind, there's always next weekend.... although i'm working the saturday....balls
perhaps it would help if i actually got up at a reasonable time, instead of about 2-3ish, then i would have some hours in which to do stuff, although i don't have that much stuff to do, so again we whirl round in a quagmire of everdecreasing circles, cos the more we think about what we are going to do, the less time we actually have to do them. And the more time we actually spend doing chores, the less time we have to fit anything else in....
On another happy note, i feel ill, and sources reckon i've got a cold, not helped by the slightly wacky/feverish dream i had last night of piloting a alien craft around at work in the dead of night whilst everybody worked on as if nothing was wrong. I know it was feverish because of the way things panned out and the way i kept flicking between things, i never do that in a normal dream. Normal dreams for me usually have one storyline and things run at a normal speed in a measured order and pattern, much like everything is preplanned and i just set it in motion. Feverish ones tend to run at twice speed, or in slow mo, with people doing exaggerated movements or speaking very deliberately at me in a patronising manner. It's hard to explain, but very easy to spot.
Hopefully i'll be feeling somewhat improved tomorrow as i've just taken some paracetamol, so that should give me a good nights kip if nothing else.
Still never mind, there's always next weekend.... although i'm working the saturday....balls
perhaps it would help if i actually got up at a reasonable time, instead of about 2-3ish, then i would have some hours in which to do stuff, although i don't have that much stuff to do, so again we whirl round in a quagmire of everdecreasing circles, cos the more we think about what we are going to do, the less time we actually have to do them. And the more time we actually spend doing chores, the less time we have to fit anything else in....
On another happy note, i feel ill, and sources reckon i've got a cold, not helped by the slightly wacky/feverish dream i had last night of piloting a alien craft around at work in the dead of night whilst everybody worked on as if nothing was wrong. I know it was feverish because of the way things panned out and the way i kept flicking between things, i never do that in a normal dream. Normal dreams for me usually have one storyline and things run at a normal speed in a measured order and pattern, much like everything is preplanned and i just set it in motion. Feverish ones tend to run at twice speed, or in slow mo, with people doing exaggerated movements or speaking very deliberately at me in a patronising manner. It's hard to explain, but very easy to spot.
Hopefully i'll be feeling somewhat improved tomorrow as i've just taken some paracetamol, so that should give me a good nights kip if nothing else.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Home of the disheveled, lost and lonely
Right well here it comes folks, the ever promised Office 12 beta review. Hang on to your socks in case this takes you by surprise.
Having freshly installed Office 12 last night, I set about having a quick flick through it. First app I opened was word, and you can get a nice view of what it looks like here. Now first impressions of that are usually, what the hell happened here then, some daft sod has decided to plonk a whacking great toolbar at the top of my window! Where's the normal one gone? In true quick look fashion, I don't know where its gone, but I think its gone forever, so first thing to note is that if you don't like the toolbar, and I mean you really don't like it, then you'll not be using this software. However its worth just considering two things before you run off and scream blue murder at the nearest office user.
1: The new toolbar suprising enough, is quite easy to work with on everyday sorts of things such as bold, italic underline, font sizing, etc etc. Things like headers and footers can also be found under the Insert tab at the top, on the new menu bit. All in all, suprising enough, I'm finding myself not exactly liking the new menu, but its not something I truly hate either.
2: This is still a beta, there may well be an option in the finished version to toggle back and forth between the two menu systems, so we'll wait and see on that one. Also its worth nothing that in fact the new menu system probably only takes up about another 5% more screen space than the old one, although it looks a lot more on first glance.
Microsoft has taken the step of, to some extent, defaulting the page layout to one which they think most people will use. What I mean by that is the line spacing, paragraph formatting, and general layout of the document is slightly different from older versions of word. Not bad, but I liked it how it was, and in this beta it won't remember settings once I've changed them, so that's a bit of a niggle. They have also decided to bang cleartype on as standard. Now I think cleartype is a good idea if you are using a flat panel monitor that's not set at its maximum resolution, and things appear either slightly blurred, or a little fuzzy. Cleartype, under these circumstances, can work wonders for text, and can really make things more legible. However on a normal CRT monitor, or a flat monitor at max res, cleartype doesn't really have much bearing on how things look, and can even make them look worse, so I'm not entirely sure if this setting takes into account the type of system you are running it on, and adjusts it accordingly, or if as I suspect its a bog standard setting. If it is, I'm afraid one or two of you may find yourselves turning it off. Again though this is personal preference and not a huge problem.
The only "menu" that remains is the File menu to some extent, and even this has changed drastically from the one we know and love, clicky Next to the file menu, you will find the Quick Access Toolbar, which suprisingly enough mirrors the quick launch toolbar and lets you do the same sorts of things. i.e. whack in some icons that you use a lot, eg. spell check, so you don't have to rummage round for them. Helpfully enough the save function is already there from the off, but I would prefer the spell checker there by default as well, but you can't win them all.
As the two most used applications in office as far as I know, aside from outlook, excel was the second program that I looked at. Here is a screeny.
As you can see, its much the same sort of story here again, with the new menu at the top, orange highlighted cells for this version, which makes a change from the blue of old. Again though most of the common excel funtions, currency, autosum etc can all be found on the first menu, without any digging. Useful again for the novice user, but for the more advanced functions a little digging is required, although most can be found fairly easily and quickly.
You get the feeling that somebody has spent a bit of time thinking over this new menu system and to be honest, I can see the point behind it. Its not just window dressing this time, like the teletubby theme of xp, there is real purpose behind what's been done, and it can help you. I really wanted to not like this from what I'd read and seen of the early preview builds and people saying how much space they would be losing to the massively bloated menu. True you do lose a bit, but its not as bad as you think, and overall it can make your workflow faster and more effective. Little touches like after you have selected some text in word, you get a little popup that appears just above your cursor, which if hovered over becomes active and lets you select bold, italic, underline change text justify etc. If you don't hover over it, it disappears and is only 50% opaque to start with so isn't obtrusive, but when you do use it, its almost as quick as using the keyboard shortcut, as the buttons are right underneath your mouse cursor without you having to trek across the screen to click the button on the main bar.
Some programs like publisher have had an overhaul, but still retain the classic drop-down menu, and that's nice, hopefully Microsoft will have the sense to put the option in to revert everything back to standard should you so wish in the final version, we shall have to wait to see what comes of it.
To sum up then, not a completely interesting review, and not one of the most indepth either, hardly touching on any new features in the office suite of which I'm sure there are some, but mainly I wanted to cover the point that is in everybody's mind. Here are some other screenshots of the other apps you can get and I may do a better review when the office 12 final comes out later on this year, or early next.
Outlook
Access, Access 2
Powerpoint
Publisher
Having freshly installed Office 12 last night, I set about having a quick flick through it. First app I opened was word, and you can get a nice view of what it looks like here. Now first impressions of that are usually, what the hell happened here then, some daft sod has decided to plonk a whacking great toolbar at the top of my window! Where's the normal one gone? In true quick look fashion, I don't know where its gone, but I think its gone forever, so first thing to note is that if you don't like the toolbar, and I mean you really don't like it, then you'll not be using this software. However its worth just considering two things before you run off and scream blue murder at the nearest office user.
1: The new toolbar suprising enough, is quite easy to work with on everyday sorts of things such as bold, italic underline, font sizing, etc etc. Things like headers and footers can also be found under the Insert tab at the top, on the new menu bit. All in all, suprising enough, I'm finding myself not exactly liking the new menu, but its not something I truly hate either.
2: This is still a beta, there may well be an option in the finished version to toggle back and forth between the two menu systems, so we'll wait and see on that one. Also its worth nothing that in fact the new menu system probably only takes up about another 5% more screen space than the old one, although it looks a lot more on first glance.
Microsoft has taken the step of, to some extent, defaulting the page layout to one which they think most people will use. What I mean by that is the line spacing, paragraph formatting, and general layout of the document is slightly different from older versions of word. Not bad, but I liked it how it was, and in this beta it won't remember settings once I've changed them, so that's a bit of a niggle. They have also decided to bang cleartype on as standard. Now I think cleartype is a good idea if you are using a flat panel monitor that's not set at its maximum resolution, and things appear either slightly blurred, or a little fuzzy. Cleartype, under these circumstances, can work wonders for text, and can really make things more legible. However on a normal CRT monitor, or a flat monitor at max res, cleartype doesn't really have much bearing on how things look, and can even make them look worse, so I'm not entirely sure if this setting takes into account the type of system you are running it on, and adjusts it accordingly, or if as I suspect its a bog standard setting. If it is, I'm afraid one or two of you may find yourselves turning it off. Again though this is personal preference and not a huge problem.
The only "menu" that remains is the File menu to some extent, and even this has changed drastically from the one we know and love, clicky Next to the file menu, you will find the Quick Access Toolbar, which suprisingly enough mirrors the quick launch toolbar and lets you do the same sorts of things. i.e. whack in some icons that you use a lot, eg. spell check, so you don't have to rummage round for them. Helpfully enough the save function is already there from the off, but I would prefer the spell checker there by default as well, but you can't win them all.
As the two most used applications in office as far as I know, aside from outlook, excel was the second program that I looked at. Here is a screeny.
As you can see, its much the same sort of story here again, with the new menu at the top, orange highlighted cells for this version, which makes a change from the blue of old. Again though most of the common excel funtions, currency, autosum etc can all be found on the first menu, without any digging. Useful again for the novice user, but for the more advanced functions a little digging is required, although most can be found fairly easily and quickly.
You get the feeling that somebody has spent a bit of time thinking over this new menu system and to be honest, I can see the point behind it. Its not just window dressing this time, like the teletubby theme of xp, there is real purpose behind what's been done, and it can help you. I really wanted to not like this from what I'd read and seen of the early preview builds and people saying how much space they would be losing to the massively bloated menu. True you do lose a bit, but its not as bad as you think, and overall it can make your workflow faster and more effective. Little touches like after you have selected some text in word, you get a little popup that appears just above your cursor, which if hovered over becomes active and lets you select bold, italic, underline change text justify etc. If you don't hover over it, it disappears and is only 50% opaque to start with so isn't obtrusive, but when you do use it, its almost as quick as using the keyboard shortcut, as the buttons are right underneath your mouse cursor without you having to trek across the screen to click the button on the main bar.
Some programs like publisher have had an overhaul, but still retain the classic drop-down menu, and that's nice, hopefully Microsoft will have the sense to put the option in to revert everything back to standard should you so wish in the final version, we shall have to wait to see what comes of it.
To sum up then, not a completely interesting review, and not one of the most indepth either, hardly touching on any new features in the office suite of which I'm sure there are some, but mainly I wanted to cover the point that is in everybody's mind. Here are some other screenshots of the other apps you can get and I may do a better review when the office 12 final comes out later on this year, or early next.
Outlook
Access, Access 2
Powerpoint
Publisher
No smoking please
An update on the smoking situation at work i think. I aired my concerns to the boss, who unfortuntely didn't drag me into his office as i'd hoped for, but rest assured I got me point across, but in a nice polite fashion so as not to get fired...
It would seem however that the first complaint was deemed a bit of a joke, and wasn't taken seriously by all concerned. They took notice of the second complaint though, when i started naming and shaming those involved. Such speed i have never seen. People were being called in left right and centre, and it seems to have done the trick, apologies and people actually remembering to go outside for a smoke were abundant, so once again im a happy chappy. Quite how long it will last remains to be seen, but i'll make sure if the standards start slipping i shall be hot on the case once again.
Off to the hospital in a bit to see if i'm still working properly from a medical stand point, which i probably am, but safest to check.
It would seem however that the first complaint was deemed a bit of a joke, and wasn't taken seriously by all concerned. They took notice of the second complaint though, when i started naming and shaming those involved. Such speed i have never seen. People were being called in left right and centre, and it seems to have done the trick, apologies and people actually remembering to go outside for a smoke were abundant, so once again im a happy chappy. Quite how long it will last remains to be seen, but i'll make sure if the standards start slipping i shall be hot on the case once again.
Off to the hospital in a bit to see if i'm still working properly from a medical stand point, which i probably am, but safest to check.
Monday, November 21, 2005
A tinge of pink
First and foremost its nice to be up and running wirelessly again, thus allowing both of my computers and me sisters to access the interweb once again without having the mess of cables everywhere. True, wireless isn't the best thing in the world as it can be affected by microwaves and the sort, but still, its nice to be able to wander round the house surfing the web. In short don't buy anything cheap and cheerful for networking purposes, you get what you pay for, and in my case I paid for a cheap little thingy that has apparently blown up quietly one night and didn't have the decency to tell me, or even smoke a bit. Even a charred smell would have been better than nothing. My new Netgear access point sits smugly up the corner calmly handing out wirelessness as fast as its little antenna can cope.
Sadly the promised office 12 beta review will not be occuring today due to me being a lazy git and not being bothered to install it, maybe later....
Today saw the introduction of some fog across our little island in the sea, but even more interestingly was the fact that after about an hour, it magically turned pink! I'm sure those of a meteorological bent will be able to furnish me with a valid reason as to why this occurred, but quite frankly, I don't care. One of life's little joy's and I shall keep it as such.
So endeth yet another day, and another one will surely arrive.
Sadly the promised office 12 beta review will not be occuring today due to me being a lazy git and not being bothered to install it, maybe later....
Today saw the introduction of some fog across our little island in the sea, but even more interestingly was the fact that after about an hour, it magically turned pink! I'm sure those of a meteorological bent will be able to furnish me with a valid reason as to why this occurred, but quite frankly, I don't care. One of life's little joy's and I shall keep it as such.
So endeth yet another day, and another one will surely arrive.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Another day, another dollar
So they say, as i disappeared off to work for another saturday, earns me some more cash though...
On the software front, i've got me sweaty mits on the beta of the new Microsoft Office. Version 12 it's up to now, and all is looking a little dodgy with the fact that drop down menu's are a thing of the past and all you get now is a load of icons that you click on. Er ok, i'll post a full review later this week on just how that grabs me, and more importantly how it actually works in practise.
I bought me a copy of the new LMA Manager 2006 for ps2 as well. Have always liked the franchise and this seasons update seems another good investment with a overhauled match engine, tranfer system and overall more stuff to do and fiddle with. Only cost me £23 as well, instead of the £30 most internet sites wanted. It pays to shop around i find....
Managed to curl a beautiful free kick over the wall and into the top corner last night on pes5 as well. Happy? i was delerious, waving me hands about and generally celebrating. Was still happy even though i lost the match 3-1..
On a bad note, me wireless interweb access point decided to give up the ghost last night and refused to allow any sort of connection at all with either of me computers. (sigh) so i promptly went online and found a new access point with lots of positive reviews and purchased that, and duly received an email today saying it had been posted. With any luck then i should be fully up and running again either monday or tuesday.
Back to playing games i think, and then staying inside and keeping warm. Far too cold outside lately to think about doing anything else. Have fun, and stay safe
On the software front, i've got me sweaty mits on the beta of the new Microsoft Office. Version 12 it's up to now, and all is looking a little dodgy with the fact that drop down menu's are a thing of the past and all you get now is a load of icons that you click on. Er ok, i'll post a full review later this week on just how that grabs me, and more importantly how it actually works in practise.
I bought me a copy of the new LMA Manager 2006 for ps2 as well. Have always liked the franchise and this seasons update seems another good investment with a overhauled match engine, tranfer system and overall more stuff to do and fiddle with. Only cost me £23 as well, instead of the £30 most internet sites wanted. It pays to shop around i find....
Managed to curl a beautiful free kick over the wall and into the top corner last night on pes5 as well. Happy? i was delerious, waving me hands about and generally celebrating. Was still happy even though i lost the match 3-1..
On a bad note, me wireless interweb access point decided to give up the ghost last night and refused to allow any sort of connection at all with either of me computers. (sigh) so i promptly went online and found a new access point with lots of positive reviews and purchased that, and duly received an email today saying it had been posted. With any luck then i should be fully up and running again either monday or tuesday.
Back to playing games i think, and then staying inside and keeping warm. Far too cold outside lately to think about doing anything else. Have fun, and stay safe
Thursday, November 17, 2005
No Problem....
I'm in a very laid back mood today and really just couldn't care less about anything, plus im really hoping somebody tries to give me a round of fucks tomorrowat work and tries to whinge at me, cos im bloody ready for that. Let me tell you why....
Everyday on me lunch break i go outside and kick me football round for a bit, its silly really, most people would do it and not think twice about it, but i find it helps me chest, and clears all the crap out of it, so i do it. However when i had had me fifteen minutes of exercise and me dinner had finished i toddled back into the office. Now there is something you have to understand at our place, the office is a non smoking area, mainly cos of me and me chest, but also cos of the other non smoking people there, and fucking damn right its a no smoking area. But when i wandered in today i find the office bit where i work full of cigarette smoke and people puffing away. Great i thought, thats just about the last straw, i keep reminding them despite the fact there are signs everywhere, i keep telling them about it and pointing at the signs but obviously they've chosen to 'forget' again, but no cos as soon as i wandered through the door there was a cry "Fuck me, he's back, bollocks, ohhhh fuck off and play football for half an hour whilst we finish these". Fucking bastards, but as im in a calm mood, i said "Yeah, ok, no problem", and off i went.
Half an hour later i toddled back in, to find the said office deserted, goooood, but the air was still thick with smoke and it fucking stunk, and i mean reeked. So i went round and opened all the windows in the office to try and clear it, then toddled off again to play more football.
Half an hour later on i went back to find the office had cleared of smoke, still smelt a bit, and was now freezing cold too, but i really had to do some work due to the amount of people waiting for stuff, notes etc.
Needless to say, i wasn't in any rush to catch up with the hour i'd missed, after all i don't think i should rush when quite plainly it wasn't my fault the office was unusable for that hour. When the chap came in at ten o'clock to take over from me, he found rather a lot of work still to do, i went bang on ten, thought fuck it, why should i stay and help him, he's a miserable cunt anyway, and off i went.
Now comes the interesting bit, when i go in tomorrow i'm gonna be waiting for someone to call me into a managers office somewhere and say
"Er, why did [chap] walk into loads of work last night"
"Very simply, its a non smoking office, people were smoking, they knew they shouldn't be cos of what was said to me, and i've had enough. I'm not sitting in a smoky office putting my health at risk and going home stinking like an ashtray because people can't obey a simple sign. The feeble excuse they always give is, 'it's cold outside, you should try standing out there for 5 minutes and see how cold it is, im having my fag in here' well sorry but no, if that office has smoke in it again, then you'll find the same thing will happen, i refuse to work in a smoky office, its been made more than clear to you before the reason's why, my health is far more important that anything else to me right now, and either you sort it out, and that office stays smoke free, or sorry but you'll be walking into work every single day, cos if the office has got smoke in it, i'll go somewhere else until its cleared and the smell has gone."
We shall see... haha, i do love a good bit of shit stirring
Everyday on me lunch break i go outside and kick me football round for a bit, its silly really, most people would do it and not think twice about it, but i find it helps me chest, and clears all the crap out of it, so i do it. However when i had had me fifteen minutes of exercise and me dinner had finished i toddled back into the office. Now there is something you have to understand at our place, the office is a non smoking area, mainly cos of me and me chest, but also cos of the other non smoking people there, and fucking damn right its a no smoking area. But when i wandered in today i find the office bit where i work full of cigarette smoke and people puffing away. Great i thought, thats just about the last straw, i keep reminding them despite the fact there are signs everywhere, i keep telling them about it and pointing at the signs but obviously they've chosen to 'forget' again, but no cos as soon as i wandered through the door there was a cry "Fuck me, he's back, bollocks, ohhhh fuck off and play football for half an hour whilst we finish these". Fucking bastards, but as im in a calm mood, i said "Yeah, ok, no problem", and off i went.
Half an hour later i toddled back in, to find the said office deserted, goooood, but the air was still thick with smoke and it fucking stunk, and i mean reeked. So i went round and opened all the windows in the office to try and clear it, then toddled off again to play more football.
Half an hour later on i went back to find the office had cleared of smoke, still smelt a bit, and was now freezing cold too, but i really had to do some work due to the amount of people waiting for stuff, notes etc.
Needless to say, i wasn't in any rush to catch up with the hour i'd missed, after all i don't think i should rush when quite plainly it wasn't my fault the office was unusable for that hour. When the chap came in at ten o'clock to take over from me, he found rather a lot of work still to do, i went bang on ten, thought fuck it, why should i stay and help him, he's a miserable cunt anyway, and off i went.
Now comes the interesting bit, when i go in tomorrow i'm gonna be waiting for someone to call me into a managers office somewhere and say
"Er, why did [chap] walk into loads of work last night"
"Very simply, its a non smoking office, people were smoking, they knew they shouldn't be cos of what was said to me, and i've had enough. I'm not sitting in a smoky office putting my health at risk and going home stinking like an ashtray because people can't obey a simple sign. The feeble excuse they always give is, 'it's cold outside, you should try standing out there for 5 minutes and see how cold it is, im having my fag in here' well sorry but no, if that office has smoke in it again, then you'll find the same thing will happen, i refuse to work in a smoky office, its been made more than clear to you before the reason's why, my health is far more important that anything else to me right now, and either you sort it out, and that office stays smoke free, or sorry but you'll be walking into work every single day, cos if the office has got smoke in it, i'll go somewhere else until its cleared and the smell has gone."
We shall see... haha, i do love a good bit of shit stirring
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Winter's on the hunt for fresh blood
As someone put it today, "We need a good harsh winter, gets rid of the old whinging pensioners" and i can't really take issue with that. A good point, and well made.
Aside from that it was another boring day in the existence, foreign drivers who speak no english, and me, who can't speak foreign. So lots of gesturing and hand waving basically, and in the end give up and just let him do whatever he wants and hope he gets mown down by a passing forklift. You can but hope.
Anyway's in the light of fuck all else to write about, i think its time to churn out another chapter in the story "Rocket? My Arse!" for which the first part can be found way down the bottom of the page somewhere.
Part 2 - Interstitial Rifts
Having rung trev's doorbell, it suddenly occured to John that he wasn't really sure what he'd come here for, a garbled text message on the phone had told him he needed to come round during the day, but never really explained why.
Trev's form of late hadn't been the best, there were several times that he'd done things and nobody could work out why, the most extreme of which had been the time he'd claimed to have invented a cure for blindness. His early experiments had yielded little in the way of success and eventually the RNIB got wind of his activities, and had prompty shut down his operations. Undetered though Trev continued to work hard in his vault, and was always keen to make a name for himself.
Suddenly the door swung open and John was presented with a rather dishevelled looking Trev, complete with dingy lab coat and ruffled hair,
"Ah good, you're here, come in, come in"
"Whats this about, you didn't say why im here"
Too late, Trev has scuttled off towards his vault, clutching something in his hand, although the exact nature of it remained a mystery as he disappeared from sight round a corner.
Heaving a large sigh, John stepped inside and shut the front door. Old biscuit crumbs and cake wrappers littered the hallway and having picked his way through the debris he found himself in the front room, with Trev heaving at a small bookcase in the corner.
With an almighty effort the bookcase swung back to reveal a small inset door with a numberpad on it. Trev hunched over and entered several buttons in quick succession, swore softly, and entered more numbers. A triple bleep indicated the presence of the correct combination and the door unlocked,
"Come on, don't stand there gawping, there's work to be done"
"Yes i'm sure there is, but isn't there anyway we can do it up here, i don't fancy going down all them stairs."
"No, i cannot have the work brought up here, there is too much and i can't rearrange my plans just to suit you"
"Well, lead the way then"
A single bulb hanging from the passageway ceiling was all the light that was allowed on the way down to the vault, Trev was a great believer that too much light caused an imbalance in the neutron radiation, and his vault would be discovered by the government. He'd painted the walls with archaic symbols and none of them made any sense to John as he wandered past them, some sort of code he wondered, but Trev was nowhere to be seen, so asking him was out of the question.
Once he'd reached the vault, he found Trev standing next to a bubbling test tube, a small pile of iron filings and some new blueprints that John had not seen before. Trev seemed quite engrossed by them and kept muttering things and taking notes on a small pad he had produced from an inside pocket of his lab coat.
"These are the way forward, these are the future" Trev said
"What are they?"
"These are the revolutionary engines for our rocket" he enthused, writing ever more furiously on his notebook
John wandered over to have a look, but he could make neither head nor tail of what he saw on the prints.
"They look big" he said trying to think of something to say
"It's all releative, these are actually no bigger than the air they displace" Trev replied
yeah, thought John, but how bigs that? He didn't have the patience to probe any furthur as the small pile of iron filings had caught his attention. Having previously sat next to the test tube, they were now all gathered around the tube as if drawn by a huge magnet. John tried to reach out to see exactly what was going on, but Trev swatted his hand away
"Don't meddle, this is highly important work you are fiddling with"
"Come on Trev, this is silly, you've got all this stuff here, you asked me round, yet you won't allow me to touch anything"
"With very good reason, and all will be revealed as soon as i have finished calculating the exact mass of the ship in question"
"What ship?"
"Our ship my boy, our ship"
"You mean the rocket?"
"Please don't call it that, its so much more than just a fuel burning pod"
"Ok sorry, i'll leave you to it"
He wandered over to a bench in the corner and leant against it whilst Trev continued his feverish activites hunched over the drawings. Several minutes later Trev looked up at him and whispered
"Now its finished"
John headed back over to Trev and looked down at the bench,
"Whats finished?"
"The fuel for the ship has now finished settling"
John looked back to the test tube and discovered the iron filings had now reformed back into a small pile next to the vessel and the contents of the tube, which previously had been a blueish bubbling liquid were now a solid red mass in the bottom of the tube.
"What is it"
"Its the most revolutionary fuel to come along since peanut butter" Trev replied with more than a hint of madness in his eye
John didn't like to question what he'd been fueling with peanut butter, but instead decided to humour him
"Whats so good about it?"
"Its the only fuel known to man, that when combined with the engines i will build in my garage, will allow our ship to travel to all known corners of the universe, and beyond!"
"Oh, so it's good stuff then?"
"Only the best stuff you can make, it allows you to instantly jump from one place to another, millions of miles away"
"Very good Trev, how much can you make"
"How much do you want?"
"i don't know, i wasn't planning on going all that far away, the moon at best"
It was dawning on John prehaps Trev had taken the idea of space flight a little too far, but it remains to be seen just if he can actually pull off all the claims he was making, and even more importantly just how safe all this equipment would be when it was all fixed together.
Leaving Trev's house shortly after sunset, John had many thought's in his head, and even more questions than he'd started with.
The end of that bit of nonsense
Right i've taken up more than enough of your valuable living time, go and do something useful
Aside from that it was another boring day in the existence, foreign drivers who speak no english, and me, who can't speak foreign. So lots of gesturing and hand waving basically, and in the end give up and just let him do whatever he wants and hope he gets mown down by a passing forklift. You can but hope.
Anyway's in the light of fuck all else to write about, i think its time to churn out another chapter in the story "Rocket? My Arse!" for which the first part can be found way down the bottom of the page somewhere.
Part 2 - Interstitial Rifts
Having rung trev's doorbell, it suddenly occured to John that he wasn't really sure what he'd come here for, a garbled text message on the phone had told him he needed to come round during the day, but never really explained why.
Trev's form of late hadn't been the best, there were several times that he'd done things and nobody could work out why, the most extreme of which had been the time he'd claimed to have invented a cure for blindness. His early experiments had yielded little in the way of success and eventually the RNIB got wind of his activities, and had prompty shut down his operations. Undetered though Trev continued to work hard in his vault, and was always keen to make a name for himself.
Suddenly the door swung open and John was presented with a rather dishevelled looking Trev, complete with dingy lab coat and ruffled hair,
"Ah good, you're here, come in, come in"
"Whats this about, you didn't say why im here"
Too late, Trev has scuttled off towards his vault, clutching something in his hand, although the exact nature of it remained a mystery as he disappeared from sight round a corner.
Heaving a large sigh, John stepped inside and shut the front door. Old biscuit crumbs and cake wrappers littered the hallway and having picked his way through the debris he found himself in the front room, with Trev heaving at a small bookcase in the corner.
With an almighty effort the bookcase swung back to reveal a small inset door with a numberpad on it. Trev hunched over and entered several buttons in quick succession, swore softly, and entered more numbers. A triple bleep indicated the presence of the correct combination and the door unlocked,
"Come on, don't stand there gawping, there's work to be done"
"Yes i'm sure there is, but isn't there anyway we can do it up here, i don't fancy going down all them stairs."
"No, i cannot have the work brought up here, there is too much and i can't rearrange my plans just to suit you"
"Well, lead the way then"
A single bulb hanging from the passageway ceiling was all the light that was allowed on the way down to the vault, Trev was a great believer that too much light caused an imbalance in the neutron radiation, and his vault would be discovered by the government. He'd painted the walls with archaic symbols and none of them made any sense to John as he wandered past them, some sort of code he wondered, but Trev was nowhere to be seen, so asking him was out of the question.
Once he'd reached the vault, he found Trev standing next to a bubbling test tube, a small pile of iron filings and some new blueprints that John had not seen before. Trev seemed quite engrossed by them and kept muttering things and taking notes on a small pad he had produced from an inside pocket of his lab coat.
"These are the way forward, these are the future" Trev said
"What are they?"
"These are the revolutionary engines for our rocket" he enthused, writing ever more furiously on his notebook
John wandered over to have a look, but he could make neither head nor tail of what he saw on the prints.
"They look big" he said trying to think of something to say
"It's all releative, these are actually no bigger than the air they displace" Trev replied
yeah, thought John, but how bigs that? He didn't have the patience to probe any furthur as the small pile of iron filings had caught his attention. Having previously sat next to the test tube, they were now all gathered around the tube as if drawn by a huge magnet. John tried to reach out to see exactly what was going on, but Trev swatted his hand away
"Don't meddle, this is highly important work you are fiddling with"
"Come on Trev, this is silly, you've got all this stuff here, you asked me round, yet you won't allow me to touch anything"
"With very good reason, and all will be revealed as soon as i have finished calculating the exact mass of the ship in question"
"What ship?"
"Our ship my boy, our ship"
"You mean the rocket?"
"Please don't call it that, its so much more than just a fuel burning pod"
"Ok sorry, i'll leave you to it"
He wandered over to a bench in the corner and leant against it whilst Trev continued his feverish activites hunched over the drawings. Several minutes later Trev looked up at him and whispered
"Now its finished"
John headed back over to Trev and looked down at the bench,
"Whats finished?"
"The fuel for the ship has now finished settling"
John looked back to the test tube and discovered the iron filings had now reformed back into a small pile next to the vessel and the contents of the tube, which previously had been a blueish bubbling liquid were now a solid red mass in the bottom of the tube.
"What is it"
"Its the most revolutionary fuel to come along since peanut butter" Trev replied with more than a hint of madness in his eye
John didn't like to question what he'd been fueling with peanut butter, but instead decided to humour him
"Whats so good about it?"
"Its the only fuel known to man, that when combined with the engines i will build in my garage, will allow our ship to travel to all known corners of the universe, and beyond!"
"Oh, so it's good stuff then?"
"Only the best stuff you can make, it allows you to instantly jump from one place to another, millions of miles away"
"Very good Trev, how much can you make"
"How much do you want?"
"i don't know, i wasn't planning on going all that far away, the moon at best"
It was dawning on John prehaps Trev had taken the idea of space flight a little too far, but it remains to be seen just if he can actually pull off all the claims he was making, and even more importantly just how safe all this equipment would be when it was all fixed together.
Leaving Trev's house shortly after sunset, John had many thought's in his head, and even more questions than he'd started with.
The end of that bit of nonsense
Right i've taken up more than enough of your valuable living time, go and do something useful
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
A Calmer Outlook
Well this afternonn im pleased to say was a damn sight better than the aboration that was this morning. I did get whinged at for not doing enough at work, this is despite the fact i stayed over doing 20 minutes work i didn't get paid for, but obviously i don't do enough...
'You can never do a good company for enough' as they say, firmly subscibed to that theory now i am.
Did play a little game with the entrance barrier earlier though that brightened me day up. Our place has an extrance and an exit barrier, with the exit barrier being weight sensed and so automatic, and you buzz to come in the in barrier, however, as we seem to be a hugely thrifty company who refuse to spend any money whatsoever unless somebody is about to die unless they do, our barriers keep breaking, just as they did today.
The in barrier decided it wanted to point vertically and nothing else, so it was doing a hell of a securty job tonight. Anyway we has the fortune to have a driver pop through the office with his nice fluorescent vest on, so duly me and other office chappy piped up
"Here, can you go and see if you can press the button and make that barrier come down for us, cos the site isn't very secure with it stuck up like that"
"yeah sure, i'll have a wander up and fetch it"
( i should mention here we have a camera trained on the barriers and a nice tv we can watch it on in the office, so we can see what's going on)
So off he wanders, into the night and sure enough appears at the barrier, wanders round for a bit then presses a button
"Hello?"
"Yes it's me"
"Who?"
"Me, which button do i press"
"You've already pressed it"
"oh"
"Press the other one, its still broke"
"righto"
He crosses swiftly over to the out barrier, and presses the button for that, in the hope that we can confuse the barrier enough to go down
"Any joy?"
"Er no, not really, you'll have to swing off the in barrier and try to drag it down"
"Errr, are you sure?"
"Yeah, its fine, we've done it before"
"ok"
So we watch with interest as he clambers up to the mounting point and proceeds to try to swing on the barrier, which to be fair to the bloke did move a bit, although we were jabbing the open button too, so he'd get it down a bit then we'd open it again, with him hanging on for dear life
However that was short lived as eventually the barrier gave up and refused to move at all then, so some chap will have to come and repair that tomorrow...
Hopefully i can have some sleep tomorrow morning, sister is off to leeds to peer at the university there, presumably the 2 hour train journey will bore her a bit, and stick her in a non commital mood, so when she gets back, it'll be a "nice day" "not really". I love it when i'm not the only one who's annoyed...
Have fun
'You can never do a good company for enough' as they say, firmly subscibed to that theory now i am.
Did play a little game with the entrance barrier earlier though that brightened me day up. Our place has an extrance and an exit barrier, with the exit barrier being weight sensed and so automatic, and you buzz to come in the in barrier, however, as we seem to be a hugely thrifty company who refuse to spend any money whatsoever unless somebody is about to die unless they do, our barriers keep breaking, just as they did today.
The in barrier decided it wanted to point vertically and nothing else, so it was doing a hell of a securty job tonight. Anyway we has the fortune to have a driver pop through the office with his nice fluorescent vest on, so duly me and other office chappy piped up
"Here, can you go and see if you can press the button and make that barrier come down for us, cos the site isn't very secure with it stuck up like that"
"yeah sure, i'll have a wander up and fetch it"
( i should mention here we have a camera trained on the barriers and a nice tv we can watch it on in the office, so we can see what's going on)
So off he wanders, into the night and sure enough appears at the barrier, wanders round for a bit then presses a button
"Hello?"
"Yes it's me"
"Who?"
"Me, which button do i press"
"You've already pressed it"
"oh"
"Press the other one, its still broke"
"righto"
He crosses swiftly over to the out barrier, and presses the button for that, in the hope that we can confuse the barrier enough to go down
"Any joy?"
"Er no, not really, you'll have to swing off the in barrier and try to drag it down"
"Errr, are you sure?"
"Yeah, its fine, we've done it before"
"ok"
So we watch with interest as he clambers up to the mounting point and proceeds to try to swing on the barrier, which to be fair to the bloke did move a bit, although we were jabbing the open button too, so he'd get it down a bit then we'd open it again, with him hanging on for dear life
However that was short lived as eventually the barrier gave up and refused to move at all then, so some chap will have to come and repair that tomorrow...
Hopefully i can have some sleep tomorrow morning, sister is off to leeds to peer at the university there, presumably the 2 hour train journey will bore her a bit, and stick her in a non commital mood, so when she gets back, it'll be a "nice day" "not really". I love it when i'm not the only one who's annoyed...
Have fun
Stop that banging you cunt!
An early morning addition to the blog today, as the chap next door again decides to draft some half baked builder type in to do some more noisy work at the crack of dawn, right next to my bedroom of course...
I was rudely awoken this morning to the sounds of a drill being used rather slowly, thus creating an immensely annoying squeaking sound, and you all know exactly the sound im on about. This was followed up several seconds later by the sound of a hammer being waved around occasionaly hitting things... i say waved as it didn't sound as if he was hitting the same thing twice.
Having decided at this stage i was up and spose i ought to start thinging about getting up, the doorbell goes. A swift peer between my curtain reveals no parcel vans or any vans whatsoever. Keeping my eye firmly glued to the window, i look down at the drive and see two women dressed in black carrying briefcases, bloody Johavah's witnesses, and i don't care if i spelt that wrong, smite me if you will. Needless to say having received no reply on the first jab of the doorbell, it was obviously deemed necessary to come back and have another go. At which point the dog got annoyed and told them as best she could to piss off. They got the message.
I then wander through to relieve my bladder to discover that the hedge that was screening us from the screaming kids at the school behind our house, has now been chopped down, presumably by a hedge fetishist or something. So now when i peer out the rear facing windows of our house, i get confronted by lots of screaming kids running round, falling over, colliding with mobile classrooms as they try to show their friends just how fast they can actually run.
"Look at me, im superman, weeeeeee (thud) (crumple)"
"Miss, miss, miss johnny hit the mobile, he's not doing much now though, we think he's dead"
You get the idea... (sigh) it would seem today is just not going to be my day
I was rudely awoken this morning to the sounds of a drill being used rather slowly, thus creating an immensely annoying squeaking sound, and you all know exactly the sound im on about. This was followed up several seconds later by the sound of a hammer being waved around occasionaly hitting things... i say waved as it didn't sound as if he was hitting the same thing twice.
Having decided at this stage i was up and spose i ought to start thinging about getting up, the doorbell goes. A swift peer between my curtain reveals no parcel vans or any vans whatsoever. Keeping my eye firmly glued to the window, i look down at the drive and see two women dressed in black carrying briefcases, bloody Johavah's witnesses, and i don't care if i spelt that wrong, smite me if you will. Needless to say having received no reply on the first jab of the doorbell, it was obviously deemed necessary to come back and have another go. At which point the dog got annoyed and told them as best she could to piss off. They got the message.
I then wander through to relieve my bladder to discover that the hedge that was screening us from the screaming kids at the school behind our house, has now been chopped down, presumably by a hedge fetishist or something. So now when i peer out the rear facing windows of our house, i get confronted by lots of screaming kids running round, falling over, colliding with mobile classrooms as they try to show their friends just how fast they can actually run.
"Look at me, im superman, weeeeeee (thud) (crumple)"
"Miss, miss, miss johnny hit the mobile, he's not doing much now though, we think he's dead"
You get the idea... (sigh) it would seem today is just not going to be my day
Monday, November 14, 2005
Foreign Cuisine
Today was a much more civil affair all round to be honest with you, although i did only manage to get 6 hours kip after spotting a Who song that i thought, "i'll go and grab that" and then spent the next few hours trying different bits of software to rip it off me dads cd and get the desired result...
Eventual conclusion, cdex is a fast and dirty way of doing things, but if you want the absolute best result your system can offer, you want to have a look at Exact Audio Copy or EAC for short, its quite simply the best ripping bit of software around, and more or less guarantee's spot on results every time. Very good bit of kit, obviously the mp3 coding part of the process is the same in all progs, as LAME is the mutts nuts when it comes to that sort of thing. I'll let you google for a EAC link, but well worth a look if you fancy it.
On a slightly less geeky note, work passed without instance today, except for one small event that caused amusement to the rank and file of the office.
I wanders in a 2 and plonks me bag down on the chair as per the norm,
"Here's try this" says one of the bloke waving a plastic dish under me hooter
"errr, righto, what is it exactly"
"South American chocolate" he replies back
"Fair enough then"
He prises off the lid and i peer in to see, sure enough, chocolate in small balls, attached in two's
"Why's it like that?"
"Its some sort of nut" he says vaguely
"oh, well i don't usually go for nuts, but whatever"
Picks one up, and the fact that everybody turns to peer at me as i stuff it in me mouth should have warned me i was doing something other than eating a simple chocolate covered nut.
(Crunch) "crunch? This is a bit too crisp for a normal nut" i muffle inbetween crunches
"Is it?"
"You've not tried one of these have you?" The alarms are going off now
"No, you're the first" he replies grinning from ear to ear, "What's it like"
"Nutty" i replied swallowing it down, "Now what was it exactly?"
"It's a chocolate covered Giant Ant"
"Oh! well thanks for that, i hope the damn thing's are safe"
"oh yes they are" he waves the tin at me again, pointing at the word edible
Sufficed to say, i ended up eating another one just to prove to the women in the office that they really were safe and i hadn't pretended to eat one. Far as i know, i was the only one in the building to eat one, still the things we do for fun....
Tomorrow blog may contain a small review of civ 4 for those that haven't already played or heard about it, alternatively it may contain a huge rant, depending on how work goes, however its worth remembering
"Its a shame we have to die my dear, but no-ones getting out of here alive, this time"
Eventual conclusion, cdex is a fast and dirty way of doing things, but if you want the absolute best result your system can offer, you want to have a look at Exact Audio Copy or EAC for short, its quite simply the best ripping bit of software around, and more or less guarantee's spot on results every time. Very good bit of kit, obviously the mp3 coding part of the process is the same in all progs, as LAME is the mutts nuts when it comes to that sort of thing. I'll let you google for a EAC link, but well worth a look if you fancy it.
On a slightly less geeky note, work passed without instance today, except for one small event that caused amusement to the rank and file of the office.
I wanders in a 2 and plonks me bag down on the chair as per the norm,
"Here's try this" says one of the bloke waving a plastic dish under me hooter
"errr, righto, what is it exactly"
"South American chocolate" he replies back
"Fair enough then"
He prises off the lid and i peer in to see, sure enough, chocolate in small balls, attached in two's
"Why's it like that?"
"Its some sort of nut" he says vaguely
"oh, well i don't usually go for nuts, but whatever"
Picks one up, and the fact that everybody turns to peer at me as i stuff it in me mouth should have warned me i was doing something other than eating a simple chocolate covered nut.
(Crunch) "crunch? This is a bit too crisp for a normal nut" i muffle inbetween crunches
"Is it?"
"You've not tried one of these have you?" The alarms are going off now
"No, you're the first" he replies grinning from ear to ear, "What's it like"
"Nutty" i replied swallowing it down, "Now what was it exactly?"
"It's a chocolate covered Giant Ant"
"Oh! well thanks for that, i hope the damn thing's are safe"
"oh yes they are" he waves the tin at me again, pointing at the word edible
Sufficed to say, i ended up eating another one just to prove to the women in the office that they really were safe and i hadn't pretended to eat one. Far as i know, i was the only one in the building to eat one, still the things we do for fun....
Tomorrow blog may contain a small review of civ 4 for those that haven't already played or heard about it, alternatively it may contain a huge rant, depending on how work goes, however its worth remembering
"Its a shame we have to die my dear, but no-ones getting out of here alive, this time"
Saturday, November 12, 2005
A Slight Recap perhaps...
Well, as you can tell, its been a damn good while since i updated this, Feb 19th to be exact, so i thought it was time i jotted some stuff down and kept it up to date.
As per usual, work at the bear has been decidely wank of late, people will not and refuse to make any sort of decision whatsoever and seem unable to decide what to do. I feel like i'm the only person there who has the balls to actually "do" anything round there. A perfect example of this would be "When x companies lorries are late, beyond a certain time, and nobody has rang you up, you can send them back without emptying them" fine, not a problem. So the following weeks come and go and sure enough x companies lorries are running a nominal 2 hours late, with no phone calls to inform us of this, and i'm getting a bit racked off at this. Taking heed of the previous advice, from the depot manager i may add, i decide to act upon this.
"Here you go mate"
"right then, well this is two hours late and we really can't accept it this time, can you take it to your depot please and get them to rebook it, cos i've been told that if you are late, you need to take it back with you"
"oh, ok mate, hang on then, i'll give me depot a ring, just a minute"
"no problem"
He wanders off, phone glued to ear muttering something about bloody traffic lights and roundabouts or something, as i return to the mundane tasks of whatever it was i was doing at the time. Thirty second's later the shift supervisor comes thundering through the door,
"What do you think you're doing?"
"pardon?"
"that driver out there says you've told him to take his load back"
"well yeah, he's late and the depot manager told me i could, and you were in the room at the time"
"yes i was, but you can't go sending lorries back willynilly just cos you feel like it"
"look, he's late, i was told i could, where's the problem, i'm pissed off with them being late all the time and me having to rush me arse off to get it all booked in before i go home, cos if i leave it everybody else seems unable to do it correctly"
"well he's being emptied over the warehouse at the minute"
"great, so i may as well not be here then"
"don't start"
You see where this is going, everytime i try to do something constructive i get shot down in flames...
More annoyances will no doubt follow in more updates until i forget to do it and just wander round muttering and ranting to meself. However take this little question with you and just ponder it for several seconds
"it makes you wonder, if all this blood and thunder, is just the pressure that i'm under"
some lyric from some song sung somewhere at some time
As per usual, work at the bear has been decidely wank of late, people will not and refuse to make any sort of decision whatsoever and seem unable to decide what to do. I feel like i'm the only person there who has the balls to actually "do" anything round there. A perfect example of this would be "When x companies lorries are late, beyond a certain time, and nobody has rang you up, you can send them back without emptying them" fine, not a problem. So the following weeks come and go and sure enough x companies lorries are running a nominal 2 hours late, with no phone calls to inform us of this, and i'm getting a bit racked off at this. Taking heed of the previous advice, from the depot manager i may add, i decide to act upon this.
"Here you go mate"
"right then, well this is two hours late and we really can't accept it this time, can you take it to your depot please and get them to rebook it, cos i've been told that if you are late, you need to take it back with you"
"oh, ok mate, hang on then, i'll give me depot a ring, just a minute"
"no problem"
He wanders off, phone glued to ear muttering something about bloody traffic lights and roundabouts or something, as i return to the mundane tasks of whatever it was i was doing at the time. Thirty second's later the shift supervisor comes thundering through the door,
"What do you think you're doing?"
"pardon?"
"that driver out there says you've told him to take his load back"
"well yeah, he's late and the depot manager told me i could, and you were in the room at the time"
"yes i was, but you can't go sending lorries back willynilly just cos you feel like it"
"look, he's late, i was told i could, where's the problem, i'm pissed off with them being late all the time and me having to rush me arse off to get it all booked in before i go home, cos if i leave it everybody else seems unable to do it correctly"
"well he's being emptied over the warehouse at the minute"
"great, so i may as well not be here then"
"don't start"
You see where this is going, everytime i try to do something constructive i get shot down in flames...
More annoyances will no doubt follow in more updates until i forget to do it and just wander round muttering and ranting to meself. However take this little question with you and just ponder it for several seconds
"it makes you wonder, if all this blood and thunder, is just the pressure that i'm under"
some lyric from some song sung somewhere at some time
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