Doesn't Time Fly...

...when you're not having fun. Nothing's panned out yet job-wise. Still gritting my teeth and keeping to it, but the compulsion to run and hide my head is pretty strong. I shall resist...

Snow

in April... in West London...

wha?

have a little something I toyed with this morning...

Oh, in other news, I just heard I have a job interview on thursday :)

Not Long Now

I'll be working here until the end of June - where I go from there is - at the moment - anyone's guess. I'll just keep applying for jobs and tweaking my CV until I get a hit. People keep telling me I shouldn't have any problems with getting something - and its still early enough days for me to not be totally sceptical of the concept.

For now though, just keeping my head down and ploughing on with the job in hand...

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors...

NDA-licious

Well, some movement at work in that I've been offered a deal on leaving, but of course this is accompanied by a "Compromise Agreement" - a glorified NDA - so I can't talk about it, or the terms, or about my employer.

irritating but not the end of the world.

So now its nose to the grindstone on job hunting and seeing what gets thrown up. Trying to be a little discriminate at the moment, but I suspect I'll pretty soon be spamming the job sites for anything halfway related to what I can do just to get money through the door. I've not been unemployed yet and I've no intention of starting now.

Heh...

Another day, another kick in the pants

Still somewhat in contract limbo-land at the moment, and its getting to be a bit of a struggle to keep any enthusiasm going for anything at the moment. Still, I suppose there are worse things to be doing at work than uninterrupted job-hunting on the net - after all, what are they going to do? Fire me? Oh wait, they already did...

We've got a meeting this afternoon with the director to try and get some straight answers, but I'm really not expecting much out of it. I am expecting a session of evasion and complex looping logic trails though.

Run For The Hills

Hmmmm, well I seem to have lost my job and my marriage in the space of a couple of weeks - can't say more than that as Tribunal may be in the offing and its all up in the air. Other than that its the usual chaos and mayhem; I'm managing to avoid crawling into a bottle, and have plenty of good people to keep me distracted, so just taking things a day at a time for now.

In other news - a little late I realise - I'd like to acknowledge the passing of Gary Gygax, arguably the creator of fantasy roleplay in the form of Dungeons and Dragons and all that was inspired by and followed on from it - up to and including computer RPGs and MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Mass Effect. Like the other great originator of ideas in a favourite area of mine - Jack Kirby in the field of comic books - I guess I always had this illusion that he would always be knocking around somewhere in the background, if only heckling like the old gents in the Muppet Show.

RIP Gary Gygax - forever Rolling in his grave

No Easy Way

but it looks like my marriage is over - and now its just getting ready for the next stage. We've done the separating into different rooms and gone through the numbness - now its sinking in and all the attendant discomfort that comes with it is starting to hit home. Oh well, I was looking for new challenges this year 0.o

Bugger

Its officially one of those days where things are turning to crud before my eyes.

I'll be sleeping on the sofa tonight

Signs That Your Daughter...

...May Have Expensive Tastes...

England young 'among most tested'

I'm occasionally heard to joke that we love to have standards - after all, we have so many of them - but nowhere does this seem to be more apparent in the regime of tests and standards which is currently commented on in the news today.

My daughter, who is eight, going on forty seven, seems relatively casual about the tests and SATs that she currently has to go through, but maybe I'm just showing my age at remembering the old reports that were current when I was her age - a single sheet of paper with the subjects, an estimated grade and a terse comment such as 'Could do with writing more in his answers' (This usually translated to - he knows the answers, puts them down, but doesn't necessarily always demonstrate how he got to them)

These days we apparently have 'a system uniquely "preoccupied" with national standards and accountability'

This sounds to me like someone trying to wriggle out of saying - "we've used education so much as a political football that we can't find a graceful way of admitting its screwed up." Maybe that's just my being cynical

Un-PC, I know

...but when I read in someone's signature "Animals are my friends, I don't eat my friends" I immediately thought "but when I've eaten my friends they've been rather happy about it"...

I'll get my coat...

Privacy Law Musings

One of the more amusing (to me, anyway) stories to break at the weekend was that of the alleged bugging of an MP under terror laws introduced by this government. Oh, the shock and horror and public wringing of hands..! God forbid that politicians should be as subject to the same laws and lack of privacy that have been fostered on the rest of us.

Welcome to our world - do you now understand why we get a little annoyed at increased surveillance and simultaneous losing of personal data on a seemingly daily basis?

I have no sympathy.

I also note that the BBC ran a poll about this issue and roughly 75% of the 7-8000 respondents did not agree that politicians should continue to be exempt from monitoring...

There's a phrase about chickens and roosting that springs to mind...

Windows Se7en

So I'm reading through the filler in my in-box and check out the IT Trends Bulletin, which has this little gem in it:

"Windows Se7en: The Anti-Vista? – Free Article - Even with Windows Vista’s one-year anniversary launch just a week away, all that anyone in the tech-enthusiast community seems to want to talk about is Windows 7."

I'm surely not the only one at this point to be getting a mental image of Brad Pitt staggering away horrified from a battered brown box and shooting Kevin Spacey...

Fun Site of the Day

I've recently been pointed at Goodreads.com to enter in books you've read/want to read/are reading and compare with friends - not unlike a Facebook app which does something similar but without the flinging of sheep and rampant poking (ooer, missus)

I'll add the link in to my sidebar here at some point for ongoing reference, but thought I'd offer it to you as something a little more sedate than the latest Flash, Sturm and Drang site for the latest Hollywood blockbuster... so without further ado - my profile

Snippiness

If I've been short with anyone today (well, more than usual) then apologies, I've not been feeling too great today - but the weekend is here at last so plenty of time to wind back down...

A little light chaos

There's only one thing worse than waking up in the morning, feeling grotty and late for work, and that's waking up in the morning, feeling grotty and realising if you move right now then you'll get in on time...

Welcome to my morning. I probably shouldn't have bothered ;)

In The News

So, RIP Heath Ledger and hello the UK Police Force marching in protest over pay.

One is a sad event that has come as a great shock to us all, and the other is the unexplained and unexpected death of a young actor.

I'll no doubt upset people by saying this but who will be policing the police march? It seems worrying on a huge number of levels to have people who do such a dangerous and thankless job being screwed over by the Home Office. I'm rather more worried about this than the tragic death of a talented actor who I've enjoyed watching and will enjoy watching through the wonders of film and DVD for years to come.

Priorities people!

Another day, another resignation

kind of running out of people to do basic support tasks here folks...

Could these be related?

From the weekend's local government clippings service:

HOME SECRETARY SCARED TO WALK ALONE Jacqui Smith has admitted she’s too frightened to walk around the streets of London late at night. Her comments follow Labour claims that crime is down compared to the 1990s when the Tories were in power.S.Mail p5, S.Mirror p6, S.Indp p23, S.Times p1, S.Express p15, NOTW p2 and Monday papers

and

KNIFE SCANNERS AT SCHOOL GATES TO CURB CRIME Airport-style metal detectors will be installed at hundreds of school gates under sweeping measures to confront the growing problem of teenage knife crime. Their introduction at the toughest secondary schools will be announced next month by the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and forms a core element of the government’s new violent crime action plan. Meanwhile, the S.Telegraph reports violent youth crime is up a third in three years. Observer p1&5, S.Telegraph p1&5 and Monday papers Independent p6, Express p22

surely the two couldn't possibly be interlinked? *cough*

Bouncy Networks

We used to have a saying when supporting the network of a particular location that its network provision would "bounce up and down faster than a whore's drawers" - but compared to the grief I'm getting from my home connection at the moment that was a model of stability. It makes playing EVE an even more perilous occupation than usual due to the threat of imminent disconnection at all times. I've checked the hardware and software at my end and can't find anything wrong, so now I'm finding myself putting off phoning the customer support as I have limited strength for battling the scripted first-tier support.

Oh well...

LANtastic day

Just had a long day at a friend of a friend's place at a gathering of people with xbox 360s and a desire to shoot each other senseless while wearing bright primary colours. Great fun. Exhausting, and a two hour drive back afterwards, but a much needed change of pace I'll look forward to joining in with again in the future.

Now, if my ISP could just sort out their DNS server's timeout problems I'd be a happy bunny all round...

I really must get a pack of these - image swiped from B3TA - see links to the right...

Back From TopGolf

Just had a very pleasant evening in the company of two siblings and a friend playing TopGolf despite the rain and wind (ah the wonders of heaters) before back to eat homecooked chicken curry and play games/watch DVDs. Just back now from dropping people home, got a long day's LANParty in the morning...

This Amuses Me

Bring Me More...

The Spectre of Hamlet with Rolled Up Newspaper..?

POLICE BAN ACTORS' SWORDS

Devon and Cornwall Police have classed actors' plastic swords and guns as dangerous weapons and banned them from a production of Robinson Crusoe. A spokesperson admitted that the case was 'unusual' but maintained that replica weapons are used to carry out crimes. Reported in: Express p37, Mail p29, Telegraph p8

Am I alone in being utterly bewildered by the stupidity of this decision? I'm sure there's more to it, but reading this in this morning's LGA news clippings makes me despair...

I think you should be warned... I am casting my eye around and noting odd personally descriptive tics of those around me and filing them away for pasting to random background characters in my stories...

Planes, Trains and, well if you live in West London you know the rest

I seem to have been one of the last people in the Heathrow/Hounslow area to know about the plane crash landing this afternoon. I mention this only because I work under the approach path (though not as close as my wife), and because my youngest brother was heading that way to see his girlfriend off to australia (long story).

So you can imagine the *hmph* feeling of calling out to the wife when she got in from picking up our daughter from her after-school art club only to get a dismissive "oh that, yes - not really a crash that."

Its like throwing a Schadenfreude party and finding you haven't invited yourself...

Insert Witticism of Choice

testing, testing... is this mike li-*bzzzzt!*

*thud*