Monthly Archives: December 2008

Draft delete

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I noticed the number of drafts when I moved the blog – quite a few of them. I think I once edited a post over a day or so but otherwise I just typed and hit Publish. These drafts though were all unfinished posts. If I added up the drafts plus the ‘untitled1 unititled2′ etc that littered the desktop and Documents and also added the posts I write elsewhere I do in fact blog something every day.

The untitled docs that lie around are the result of my quitting the editor and just saving to get the quit complete. But that was unsatisfying because I never read the words again and although I didn’t want to read them I needed to do so. I am not organised enough to keep track of these temporarily important files. So I got a  blog. It’s on a domain no-one knows is mine, it’s on another host and I use Ecto to blog there. I bought Ecto when I started doing Support and people would say they had problems with it – the only way to know and help was to buy it. But I use it because what I type there cannot be written here – using another program rather than the dashboard (where I am now) helps the separation. There are 3 reasons why I am not doing blogging the words here it, but the main one is I don’t want people to read it. (The three: J and the girls will read it, my words would be twisted by others, it’s private). I write, I publish. The blog does not ping, is linked nowhere. And the next time I write I read what I wrote, I think a little about what happened since and I delete it. There is only ever one post there, no more. And because I write there I am not writing here. It helps me think, cope with anger / frustration, think about the future, plan things that will never come to fruition (I have an identi.ca account for those fleeting GRrrr moments).

I have this need to split what I write, to keep the private private. I really don’t want you knowing stuff but I do want to write it and I do want to then read it – and a blog is the perfect place. So why write this? So I could write a post here for a change :) But it will tie in with another post that should see the light of day soon.

Moving the db.

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It was in Jan 2008 that I moved from tamba2 to 69105 and I also changed some IM details back then. And today I did it again. Domain, IM, twitter. Why? No reason really except that this domain name is way better than 69105. I’ve had it for 2 years, just not stuck a site on it before.

The theme is exactly what I wanted and can be found at Revolution2.

Some older images will be too wide but I’m looking into a solution there.

So if you do read the stuff I write, update your bookmarks.

On 5 films briefly.

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The Dark Knight. Not my genre and this proved why. The Joker? Can’t see the performance myself. I swear there was someone other than Bale in the Batman costume. I can understand that Batman is meant to have a darker side but the voice as an indicator was pretty poor. Not a good film.

Hancock. Poor on every level.

Valley of Elah (DVD). Formula ‘by the numbers’ film. Why on earth it got the plaudits is amazing.

Taxi (DVD). Great fun, really enjoyed it. (French, english subs)

Want to see a film? elephant is the one to watch.

(Back to TDK. Sean Connery is an irritant in films for me. He is tall and Shcottish [sic] in everything. His performance in Red October is the same as the one in Untouchables, First Knight, The Rock. He is an actor that for me immediately pops any bubble of escapism. It’s the same for Michael Caine. It’s not a butler, it’s not a reflection of Wayne’s wealth, it is not anything else. It’s just Michael Caine. Bubble? Pop!)

Double standards

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Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas [1]

the Hamas militant movement [2]

When Hamas free a British journalist they are described by the BBC in a set of words very different to when they are attacked by a country the British government wants to support.
The word ‘Islamist’ does not appear at all in the second article. The word ‘militant’ does not appear in the first.
I thought journalism was meant to be objective – obviously the BBC do not. But we knew that .. and this provides yet more proof that the BBC is controlled by the political machine.

The Times is warmongering

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Out of thousands of images they choose this one.
And supposedly The Times is an intelligent paper.

I’ll be watching him, unlike The Queen. I have not sat through a single one of her outdated and out of touch programmes. Channel 4′s messages are far superior in every respect.

Less bounce

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Winston weighs 75kg. So that’s a lot less than I thought and when he gets back from the vet he should weigh a couple of hundred grams less. Nutless he will be. All part of treating the dominance / alpha male behaviour. If only lopping them off was the simple answer… still, behaviour progress continues to be made and as far as he is concerned I am alpha male.

Tickets on paper

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I don’t think the girls read this – but if they do I’ll now find out.

Some years ago the house we had was your typical starter home. Not a lot of space and at Christmas even less. We ran out of room hiding the presents and at that age kids want big boxes – the bigger the pile the better Santa was. But we couldn’t hide them any longer and we couldn’t add their names because they’d get opened. And we couldn’t try and remember either. So I came up with the idea of putting raffles tickets on the presents. One ticket for the present, another for a small santa stocking they would get on Christmas Day. Worked perfectly. They got to see a growing pile of presents and on the day itself they busied themselves matching them up. After a couple of years we stopped doing that, not sure why. P mentioned earlier that she wants us to do the raffle ticket thing again. Hm. It would be really boring to do that in the same way. The pile of presents is so much less (though more expensive). So I have a plan.
Tomorrow I buy a book of raffle tickets. That’s 500 of them. We get some random ones for their presents and on the matching ticket put a small D or a small P. I then remove every ticket from the book. All these tickets + the marked ones (which match the presents) get put in a big jar. And on Christmas Day I let the girls take one at a time to see if it matches. If it matches their sister it goes back in the jar. I have doubts the plan will proceed to the proper end but it’ll be fun hearing the protests :)

Update: I had a better idea. I get all the unmarked tickets and put them in the jar. I get all the marked tickets and put them somewhere else. Then I tell the girls all the tickets are in the jar. Jacq doesn’t think that’s my best idea… the comedy value is high though.

We need the Left.

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Row over state loan charge ‘plan’

The document, signed by Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, stated that the government was considering offering contracts to credit unions … The paper stated that this monthly rate added up to an annual rate of between 12.68% and 26.8%. [The Social Fund] currently extends £500m a year in interest-free loans to some 1.2 million benefit claimants, many of them elderly or disabled.

It’s about time that the Left began to rise. Gordon Brown et al. had completely given up on all Labour values if they want this. The economic situation is as good as it could be for a firebrand leader on the Left.

You squeeze the rich, not the poorest – unless you are the Labour leader. All he has to do is stand up and say “This will never happen”.

We need some extremism.

Anthea Turner.

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‘Our backs are against the wall,’ she said.

‘We are in it like lots of other people in this country who have been bitten by economic circumstances.

… she paid herself £900,000 … also took £389,410 … £240,792 … £573,738

Bovey [the husband] told the paper: ‘Our net worth was over £100million – now it’s an awful lot less, just a small fraction of what it was. Daily Mail (obviously)

So someone who paid herself over 1.2 million now has her back against the wall. Hubby says the 100million is worth a fraction.
1/10 of 100million is 10million
1/100 is 1million
1/200 is still half a million quid
So even if their property is worth one hundredth of what it was they still have a heap more money than most, and more importantly what they will have left will increase in value as things recover. So relative to everyone else they are still and always will be way better off.
Anthea Turner should get a f*cking grip.