Category Archives: Personal

New shiny

Reply

I’m sitting in front of two machines, both belong to work. My laptop belongs to work. The other computers in the house – and there are a few – do not have my name on. So if I want to just browse the net, or do non-work stuff I have to do this on a work machine. And work is work, I can’t help but see that xchat is open, adium is showing incoming, twitter searches are in the dock as are 3 browsers and any other programs I might be using that day. There is no getting away from the fact that these two are Work. They are almost identical too so that should this one fail the other is there to rely on. Anyway, no computer, no personal web stuff. I couldn’t compartmentalise any online activity. That works as an excuse for a new shiny but it’s actually real.

Don’t need a desktop or a SFF machine because I don’t need what it can do. I don’t need a laptop because what I want to use it for does not warrant the size, weight or ability. So – that leaves a notebook. Checking several sites in the end I opted for a Compaq CQ10. It’s running Windows XP (and it arrived with no activated crapware) so I’m quite happy there. All the programs I want are now installed, I have a few gb of music and when the extra gb of RAM arrives (it runs well but as it’ll take 2 it can have 2) it’ll be all the smoother. OS is tweaked a little, custom theme installed. And no work programs. Pidgin will be Live and ICQ only, no Skype, irc is there but not for work. It’s a work-free machine, one I can use and see just what I have created. I do have a couple of plans for some non-work work which I can move to it which will be better. And if I am out and it is lost / stolen then unlike my laptop I don’t need to worry about work passwords/data. So all is good.

Drunk

2

Got on the plane feeling fine. I’d cut down on the caffeine beforehand, drank enough water (2 litres at the airport, took another 2 on with me). During the flight started to feel ill. I had a bad pain at the base of my spine, spent over 4 hours of the flight standing at the back stretching and being constantly asked if I was in the queue for the toilet and by the end of the flight was feeling very wobbly. I felt uncoordinated while collecting the suitcase and had to concentrate hard to not stagger. Lots more stopping to get my balance on the way to the coach. Since I’m home it feels like I am very drunk. The room will spin, my legs are wobbly and feel like they will give way, I feel sick, my breathing is worse, vision is a little blurred at times, typing is taking more concentration. My fluid intake is good, caffeine is still down, food is good. And I’ve had headaches too.

So ….. jetlag or caffeine related or a bug. Given where it started I’d actually say a bug. You know when you’ve had a few drinks and you lie on the bed that the room does start spinning? That’s just what it’s like here, even as I type this. It is very unpleasant.

Add New Post

3

I’ve never ‘got’ Facebook. The friends thing weirds me out partly because so many people seem to have these friends who they have never and will never meet and partly because I find it all confusing what with posts, pages, comments, likes, fans etc. I deleted (as far as you can there) myself once and I forget why I added myself back but now it’s private, friends only and barely used. I’m using Stainless as a standalone app for it so it stands out in the dock and cookies do not get read elsewhere but I still can’t bring myself to use it often. Maybe I’m just too old.
Twitter I use. 4500 posts since sometime 2007. Each worthy of a post? No. Each useless? No but I bet it’s north of 90%, So why use? Habit. I use it for news and keeping track of certain issues, use it to see what others are doing and it takes me no time at all to type a sentence like “All lawyers are bastards” (which they pretty much are). Is that worthy of a blog post? Hell yes, it may well be at some point. So why don’t I blog like I used to. Here are some reasons:

1. My girls started to read it. Now they don’t care but relate to 2 it seemed to matter then. But also their friends could read it (as one did when I blogged my eldest had dumped her boyfriend, he read it and I found out she hadn’t actually taken that step).
2. My anger went down. I spent a lot of time angry at things, things that still exist but are now lessened by nicer things. So the volcano has subsided.
3. Meeting people who read what I wrote. At one time my old site was pretty popular. All WordPress related and while I had some comments (current stats 3,666 posts, 11,0101 comments) it was strange seeing really high stats and hardly any comments. I think most people would like more comments than seeing the equivalent of people traipsing silently through your house. So although I had met several people before I started that blog they knew me first and then read the words. Their opinion was formed in person. So meeting people who have decided what you are like after they have read your words is different. Better? Worse? No idea. But saying ‘Hi’ to someone who then says “Hey, I read your blog” does make you wonder what impression they really have.
4. Related to the above – censoring self. Many times I have written entries here then deleted them because they could have offended someone I know. If you are a lawyer I don’t care – I’ll call you anyway – but on other topics I end up deleting the post.
5. Time. This is the main one. My time is very fragmented. In the day I will work, shop, clean, play, walk the dog, tidy and other stuff but it’s all bitty, no set times. I work whenever. I don’t start at 9 and finish at 5. What I want to do is at the bottom of the pile to J’s needs, the dog, the house, the girls. That is wrong and needs to change and blogging would then return. Sitting to write takes time. Composing the post or even – as I do – just letting the fingers tap away with no real idea of what will be in the next sentence. Giving a time span forces a thought, drives the words but I have never blogged that way. There are a small number of posts which I really do like and they did not come about from some contrived draft and equally there are posts which now make me cringe a little but they too came out direct. (There are more posts which make me wonder just what I was on when I wrote them too). (Dealing with the complaints at wordpress.com also makes me realise that my blog must have been the subject of several complaints to my host. I know of one from a splogger who failed).

I’m sitting in San Francisco airport. Boarding isn’t for another 30 minutes so I have time. I have the time to write about my blogging and I had no real idea what I would write. I have time to pause as I write and ponder the chances of being pulled over in Customs and having to pay the tax due. I think I’m missing a point above too.

So what I need is time. Here’s an example – I brought over my Sony Reader and while here I have sat each night and read some of two books. The act of reading is good, the peace was good and what I read was good. I need to take that feeling back home and make a point of recreating it, make a point of saying “it’s reading time’, make a point of claiming a certain number of minutes just for me. That can only be a good thing. And that’s the thing with writing. I once asked Matt what he said to people who asked “How do I blog?” and his reply was “Write”. That’s it. It’s not difficult but it’s the putting time aside to do that, it’s the holding of the best thought that might have been twittered and writing about that.

I’m sure I’ve written all this before.

I blame ‘asides’ :)

I should write because I do like to do so. I will see what happens.

I should go through all my old posts and pick out the ‘bests’. They would be inspiring.

A dislike of Spring

1

Whether it comes in like a lion and out like a lamb – or vice versa – the joy of spring beginning is hard to resist, says Simon Schama BBC

I dislike intensely the Spring season. Just as many people don’t like the cold starkness that is Winter, I hate the newness that is Spring. Sounds odd maybe. Did you know that the Spring – Summer period is the highest for suicides? Go look it up – wikipedia has it but places that do real research have it too. It’s as if that cold starkness suits someone with depression but the warmth and colour of Spring does not. It is not a season that I derive any pleasure from. Summer has it’s evenings, Autumn has the leaves and Winter is one long glorious event but Spring? No, I’d pass on that.

If I could be

Reply

Jacqui is completing an application form at the moment – what for does not matter here – and there are a variety of questions along the lines of “If you had a million pounds what would you do” and “If you could invite 3 other people for a meal who would they be and why” – that sort of thing. It’s all good stuff and she has asked me a couple as I wander through to get a drink. Today’s was interesting.

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
Jane Austen

She asked me who I would be if I could be anyone for 24 hours. I said a woman. She said Who and I replied it wouldn’t matter. We’ve done this conversation many times so it was surprising that she didn’t see that answer before she asked the question. Anyway, she persisted and I did think. It’s pretty difficult. If you are going to do something for 24 hours then you want to get something out of it. So being Bill Gates or Richard Branson is going to teach you nothing just like being The Queen, or Prime Minister. There is nothing from there you could bring back after that time which would benefit you, be of practical or even theoretical use. Money you could spend in a day but power? In a day? With all the red tape and nonsense layers protecting us from the whims of them? Wouldn’t happen. In the end I said I would be her for a day. Not because I want to know what it’s like to be married to me (I really do not want to know how I am from that perspective) but because I want to know what it’s like to be her.
Years ago I rang Jacqui at work said “What does this mean” and help the phone closer to one of the girls who was crying. I knew she knew that one cry meant hungry, one was tired, one was nappy. But I’d done those 3 so I rang her. She didn’t know but the point is back then she had the routine down with the child care. So she got the house done, the sprog fed/watered/clean, had her own time and it was all organised. I had none. So I wanted to be like her. Organised. In the end I got there but I was never as good but I knew I could be there. With J’s MS though I cannot be there. I know some of what it’s done but I don’t know all of it, can’t do because it’s so physical. Had to buy some washing up gloves. Not because the water is too hot but because she cannot feel heat, has no clue how hot water is. Been like that for a while but until I mentioned the water she didn’t think to tell me. So I’d be her. That way I would know just for a day how hard (or easy, no pulling the wool after that day)(yes, I know it’s actually not easy) it is, how much she could and could not feel, all the physical effects. Not that 24 hours would give a clue what 24/7/365 is like but a brief glimpse would be good. Of course it may be a very bad thing too. (This answer won me some brownie points too.)
Same for any partnership though?

When gloop was good.

Reply

When I was a kid back in the 60′s and 70′s – you know I wish I’d been born say 5 years earlier. I could have really got into being a punk or a goth, I could have been one of those that voted Maggie Thatcher into power and probably even more fun could have been had – I don’t think they had the technology to make yellow glass. Or that it was so expensive they could afford to make it into bottles for some over-sugared vile tasting “The worse it tastes the more good it’s doing” drink called Lucozade. So they wrapped it in that yellow crinkly static-creating cellophane. Why they thought making it look like some gross relative of a Roses chocolate would work I have no idea. I’d have been a punk. Siouxsie never did it for me though. Probably really nice. Must be 50+ by now too.

Ribena. Back when I was a kid what you would do is pour some ribena into a glass, fill it direct from the tap and drink it. Funnily enough I do the same today (only I buy the Light version, no sugar needed here thanks) (but I have tried this on the full-lard version) – I pour the ribena, fill it direct and drink it. But now when I look at the glass if it’s empty I see nothing and if it has some drink still in I see uniform purple. But back when berries were berries and chemicals weren’t in fields and companies had values….. I drink it and when I looked at the glass I would see a distinct purple line and coating inside the glass where the ribena had been poured in. If I didn’t finish it I would see it when I did. The ribena coated the glass, it stuck. Doesn’t happen now. I’m sure whoever creates the purple “run it past those berries real fast Rodney, we need them to last at least a week” concoction would come up with some crap about it being better for us but the simple fact is they watered it down. No two ways around it. Can’t even think of the faceless corporation that makes it now though. They don’t care about s, we don’t know them. I’ll buy Tesco’s own next. But – and this is the point – being a kid should have moments that you can grab hold of again when you have grown up. Little things which briefly remind you of sometime way back when. Ribena was one. When you finished drinking that glass of blackcurrant the very last part of the drink was super-blackcurranty. It was like blackcurrant jelly, it had a taste you could keep for ages. If you ever had ribena back then you know just what I mean. But you can’t get that now. The bottled concoction is uniform in every respect. Taste is less, experience is less. Shame because as silly as it sounds if it was just like it was then I could say to my kids that I did the same, I could get a drink of it for a memory as well as just a drink. But I can’t. The corporation stole my blackcurrants.

Sir Terry Leahy

2

Last year Tesco – lead by Sir Terry Leahy – made over £3,000,000,000 profit. 3 billion quid. They have a store at Beaumont Leys in Leicester. If you go upstairs in that store and you are in a wheelchair you cannot browse the DVD section. Building supports and their deliberate placement of the aisles mean you can look down the aisle but not move along it. Tesco do not believe that people in wheelchairs watch films.
We went there earlier to buy some food. Because Jacq uses a wheelchair we have to use a trolley that clips on the front. And because of that we have to wait until one of the people on their front tills happens to notice us and decides to help. The person doing nothing in the Exchange booth will just stare at us while I usually then have to queue with those wanting to buy their cigarettes. More often than not it’s a security guy who helps. We have to ask for these trolleys because they keep them locked up for some reason. So we can’t just “go shopping” we have to wait and be treated third class first. Today we asked and were told that all their wheelchair trolleys were being used. That we would have to wait. And then she said “but all 4 are out”. Four.
It’s a big store that caters to a huge area and yet as far as Tesco are concerned 5 people in wheelchairs would be 1 too many. They make 3 billion profit a year and yet they will happily discriminate by not providing trolleys. Maybe there is some fire regulation? Maybe those trolleys cost thousands of pounds? Maybe they’ll say “But they always get stolen” to which the reply is “Keep buying more then” Or maybe Tesco just don’t give a crap. And by Tesco we have to mean the person who takes all the plaudits and that is the disability hater himself, Sir Terry Leahy.

Part of an email

Reply

This arrived in my – and thousands of others – inbox on Nov 5. I liked the whole email when it arrived but I really liked this part. Just read it again and I still do. (I’m at 12097 of the 50000)

2) You deserve some fun. We get so focused on doing the things that pay the bills that we sometimes neglect to do the things that make us feel truly alive. You have a world of people depending on you—family, friends, co-workers, bosses, teachers. Taking care of everyone’s needs while still finding time to buy groceries and bathe every couple days can be a feat. Unfortunately, this means that activities like writing and art and music tend to disappear into the margins of our lives.

Think of November as an all-expenses-paid, 30-day vacation to novel-land. It’s a place where you can whoop and holler and dance the crazy dance. A place where you can conjure new worlds, dream oversized dreams, and explore the wilds of your imagination. For one month, you get to orient your life around your creative spark, rather than vice versa.

Which brings us back to November 1. Today, over 100,000 people are heading out to find that spark. It’s going to be a great, unforgettable month. The cloud wishes you well! And all of us here on staff wish you well, too.

The world needs your new novel, author.

It’s time to go get it written.

Chris
NaNoWriMo

2 targets

Reply

1. Weight. I’m back on the diet. I started eating crap again and this is not good. I’m around 75kg still, target is 73 for now, it will lower.

2. NaNoWriMo. Will I write 50,000 words? No idea. Can I hit 20,000? Pretty sure I can. It’s not a story, it’s more bio based. I wrote something before similar but I lost or more likely deleted it. Did that in a couple of days and it was over 10K. I’ve opened the box though so I’ll keep on writing until I’ve finished – and I know where it will finish – or it becomes too uncomfortable. I doubt the last will stop me but it’ll slow me certainly at times. Goal for the end of today is 3500 according to NaNo and that’s not going to be a problem. No idea what I’ll do with the end result. Probably let Jacq read it. Need to finish it first though – that bit can wait. If I don’t hit 50K? Does not matter. What matters is writing it all out.

Credit inexpert

Reply

At some point in the last couple of years Jacq signed us up to a service called CreditExpert. I will have chosen a password, told J what it was and left her to do whatever it did. I don’t care for any money issues, it’s all down to Jacq to sort (which she likes so that’s okay). Anyway, a couple of months or so ago I got an email from them along the lines of “Hey, missing you! Sign in to see the great changes!”. I must have been bored but I went to their site and could not login. Tried a few times and gave up. Following month I get another. I try again and I still cannot get in. I have lost all the information I need – which shows how throwaway I thought the service was.
I email them. I send their email back along with a note saying I’ve forgotten so could they close my account. Get one back saying they can’t be sure who I am so could I call them. I reply that No, I will not phone them. I include every detail I know they have of me, my phone number, everything. I add that if I was an imposter then I’m showing I know everything, that if I was I have control and that if I rang them or they rang me how would they know it is me. Get a reply saying they can’t be sure it’s me. I swear and give up.
Jacq tells me that I’m paying for this service which sends me emails, tells me how great they are but I cannot access. So I ask her to cancel it. I happened to go downstairs this morning and find her exasperated on the telephone. Because she set it up for me and used my financial details they – she is talking to CreditExpert – say she is guilty of fraud. Not in a big bad way but they are still saying it. She passes the phone to me, I talk, then the woman on the phone asks for Jacq, then me, then Jacq. End result is that I am no longer with CreditExpert. Bearing in mind the previous emails the woman had to be sure it was me, right? She asked my name, my address and my date of birth. She then asked for 1 piece of information which can probably be found by Google. She asked for a lot less than I had sent them in the first place. So how does she know it was me? Because she initiated the contact? But then how do I know she is with them? Like I care now. It’s a bit like those identity insurance services – how do they know it’s you? And now – I routinely print every order, invoice, new login/account.