12.08.10
Posted in Fun, General at 11:11 am by Mister JTA
This year I joined Reddit. I’m quite enjoying it, and it makes up for the fact I accidentally let my account on Legend of the Green Dragon finally lapse. It’s a nice friendly place (mostly, although some of the subreddits creep me out), and there’s a nice sense of community; apart from the odd crazy subreddit, and the occasional passing troll, there’s a real sense that we’re all nice people who look out for each other.
Not long after I’d set up, I started seeing links to Arbitrary Day, which is a sort of secret Santa thing, but run in the summer (I guess they picked the summer so Australians wouldn’t feel so left out when they opened their Christmas presents). Reddit had run an actual Secret Santa last Christmas, and apparently that worked really well.
It sounded like it might be quite fun to give a present to a completely random stranger, so I signed myself up, and said I didn’t mind shipping out to anywhere, and after everyone got matched up with a giftee, I wound up shipping to a lovely guy somewhere in Illinois. I got pretty lucky, I think: his short description made him sound like the sort of person you could get presents for quite easily, even in Aberystwyth: he was a teacher (so he got a nice mug from the Arts Centre) and he liked reading (so he got a copy of Aberystwyth Mon Amour) and he was in a band and played guitar and bass (so I figured he might like Richard Thompson, and Andy’s Records not only came up with the goods, but then decided it had been ages since Andy had heard any Richard Thompson, and started playing it over the loudspeakers.
I was quite pleased with it, really. It ended up costing more than the suggested cost of a gift, but that was alright by me, because I was taking a bit of a scattergun approach to the thing anyway to try and make sure the guy liked at least part of the gift. I wasn’t sure how long postage to America would take, so I sent it off early, figuring that he wouldn’t mind.
As it was I struck pretty lucky: he liked all of the gift - especially the CD, which he’d been meaning to buy himself - and as a Calvinesque bonus, my giftee’s son apparently spent most of the day playing with the bubblewrap I’d added to the box to keep things from getting broken. I got awesome warm fuzzies from that, and was quite looking forward to finding out what I’d get.
…
It turns out that what I got was, uh, nothing. Whoever got assigned to me checked my details and address the day before the official shipping date, but never confirmed shipping anything. I waited a few weeks, and nothing turned up. Then I got distracted by moving house, and once I was here on Earth I did a reformat and re-install of my system and so it was a while before I was back on Reddit.
After a while I raised the subject of what I ought to do about having not recieved anything (I wasn’t expecting anything huge, y’ken, but it would’ve been nice to have a mystery box to open, and evidently the bit of the plan where that happened had gone wrong). It turns out that with all the business of moving to Earth, I’d managed to miss a re-matching service, where people who hadn’t got gifts could arrange to get gifts.
This, however, is the point at which I get to boast about what an awesome community feeling you get on Reddit, because a guy I’d never heard from before sent me a message and offered to send me out a fresh gift, if I wanted. Awesome! (There followed also a bit of dancing around whether that would be fair on people, and the fact that I was probably not in the same country) but, nevertheless, I eventually got another message to say my replacement gift was in the post.
So, for your viewing whatzit, here, in Glorious If Fuzzy Cameraphone-o-Vision are photos of me on my own Fake Arbitrary Day:
Just taken the box away from the postman
Very well taped shut!
Opening the box
Awesome, a guide to Safeway's current offers!
A surprisingly detailed book on the basics of balloon sculpture.
Books by Dan Savage!
(I love how happy Vault Boy looks in that photo)
Interesting cookery books. There was one of me reading the CIP data but I thought that might look too stereotypical
Yes, yes I am reading the shipping information. What?
Also not pictured was a DVD with a PDF of every single column of Savage Love since 1999, and an MP3 of all but the most recent episode of the Podcast. Awesome stuff!
(Seriously, I should get people to not send me presents more often, this kindness of strangers stuff is awesome!)
So that put a nice bounce in my week! Exclamation marks all round!
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10.06.10
Posted in General at 2:11 pm by Mister JTA
So we have moved to Earth. Not only have we moved, but it’s starting to look like home. Quite how I own So Much Stuff(TM) I don’t know (especially since it turns out the sum total of the books in my posession doesn’t cover more than 38 foot of shelving, and barely takes up any room at all.
Getting out of the Uberflat was a sad business, and our arrival on Earth was… interesting. Ruth, of course, was the driving force behind moving here, starting out fresh, etcetera, so it was a bit of a letdown to discover the place was in ruins (OK, not actual ruins, but the fridge-freezer didn’t the front door didn’t close, the boiler didn’t work, the matress was worse than the one I had in Penbryn, the bathroom ceiling leaked, the bedroom door didn’t close, the garage door key was lost years ago, the snug smelt of damp, the sofa was torn to buggery, the kitchen tap dripped, the smoke alarms didn’t, the cooker hadn’t been cleaned, the grill pan was in the garden and the builders who lived here before had left stacks of low-quality pornography and rubble dotted around the place).
I will say for Premier Letting Agency that whilst they’re more than happy to let you move into a place that’s not really habitable, they did at least put in the effort to make it habitable once we’d arrived (I suspect the chap who was handling our account was New, and not really sure what he was supposed to be doing, because the girl who I’ve been speaking to lately has been Very Organising and has got things fixed). In fact, the Landlords have given us a much better matress, and a really nice new fridge freezer, and a front door that works properly and doesn’t have to be door-whisperered into closing is due next week. Almost everything else is fixed up too, apart from the Forgotten Garage and the fact there doesn’t appear to be a stopcock anywhere in the building.
Dissapointingly, the washing machine did work, so I couldn’t call Premier and tell them it was broke.
Still, since most of the things got either fixed or slated-to-be-fixed, the place has been coming along nicely, and I rather think it feels like home, although the unpacking bit is still kind of a pain. We delayed unpacking initially by more or less living out of bags the first week because we left most of our stuff back in Aber rather than try to transport everything in Miriam (which would have been a Bad Thing). Consequently we hired a Transit Van Raptor with which to shuttle our belongings about the shop, and we duly nipped back to Aber for a final Aber-based Troma Night last Friday and to load things into the van and get everything to Earth on Saturday.
Mostly, Dan loaded things into the van, whilst I tried to pack without moving anything (seriously, I wasn’t kidding when I said the matress on Earth was bad, it really did do a number on me). We also swung by CRAFT to pick up the various bits of furniture which we’d bought there the previous week (a very nice wall cabinet for £7.50, and a fantastic umbrella stand / hall seat which looks to be at least pre-war, if not better.
It became fairly apparent, around Saturday afternoon, that it was not going to be possible to get everything into the Raptor. Dan did amazing work packing things into corners, and stuffing up the furniture full of other things that needed to be transported, but even full to the ceiling, it wasn’t going to be enough - every time I declared a room to be “almost done” it turned out there were another five boxes of oddments still needing to be packed up.
So Ruth and I headed out of town on Saturday evening, with a revised plan: drive to Earth, jettison everything, sleep a bit, and then come back the next day (via Newport, where I’d arranged to collect my grandparent’s sofa bed, which would do for the Snug [It would do better for the snug if it wasn't getting saggy in the middle, but I think stuffing a couple of pine boards in there will help with that]). We decided in advance that, since neither of us had actually driven a van before then, we’d work in strict shifts: one hour on, one hour off. I heartily recommend this to anyone undertaking a long journey after a tiring day in an unfamilar vehicle - knowing that you have to swap over is a damn good defence against thinking you’ll just go another forty miles to the next services, and is actually more restful because you can take a quick nap when it’s your break.
We’d planned to go via the Motorways, but that was sunk somewhat by a big oil spill outside Llandinam, so we backtracked to Llangurig and cut down the A44 to Worcester before we hit the M5. We returned to Earth about 02:00, and managed to unload everything - mostly into the garage, which does at least open from the inside - by around 03:30, at which point we went to sleep on out awesome new matress, which Premier had left in the hall. (We didn’t sleep in the hall, obviously, we took it upstairs first, but it was worth it all the same).
Sunday we were up at 08:00 (ugh) and hit the road about half past. We were considerably slowed down by IKEA, where we were purchasing book shelves in exchange for the aforementioned sofa, because we’d forgotten how bloody hard it is to get through IKEA without being slowed down by the chicanes and the hidden everything that makes it such a challenge to find what you’re after. But we made it to Newport anyway, and I was proved right that a transit van will go up our drive (I knew, because I’d seen ‘em do it, but it was still nice to work out the mechanics), and then we got back to Aber about 16:00 and continued to load the van until we left, at 22:30. It would have been much, much, later but Paul was awesome and volunteered to do the actual cleaning.
So we brought the Raptor back in shifts, and arrived about 03:00 Monday, and unloaded and got four hours sleep, and then I went and took the Raptor back to Thifty, had bacon-egg-and-chips with a mug of sweet tea at Mick’s Cafe (which Statto introduced me to, and which is awesome) and, duly fortified, started getting shelves in place and emptying boxes onto them.
Emptying boxes is, in fact, just about all I’ve done this week, although I did get the Internet set up yesterday (which was pleasingly easy) and moved my computer up to my room today (which I didn’t before because of Watching Things, but next time I’m here there will be a television). O, and I’ve been trying to install the dishwasher, but I can’t because of the lack of a stopcock - to fit a dishwasher I have to put an adaptor on the pipe, and to do that I have to remove the supply to the washing machine, and to do that I really need a stopcock because there isn’t a tap on the feeder pipe, so if I remove the supply there’ll be water everywhere. Not even the Landlords know where the stopcock is, apparently, so that will be interesting (and possibly involve a lot of towels and turning on all the other taps, which I guess could work…
Anyway, the supply of yet-un-unpacked boxes is considerably reduced, and the few that remain un-unpacked can be shifted into the Snug for safekeeping, just in time for the living room to be once again re-filled with Boxes. But these will belong to Dan and Paul and will therefore Not Be My Responsibility, which is much nicer, and will leave me time to work out where all my clothes are going to go.
Anyway, I should go ensure that said boxes are duly hoiked over a couple of rooms, otherwise we shalln’t be able to leave for Wales on time.
Man, having the Internet again is nice. Now if I can only catch up on my 4,972 (+, because one indivudual feed is giving me nowt more specific than 1,000) Unread Items in my RSS feeds I might feel settled in…
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24.05.10
Posted in General at 5:06 pm by Mister JTA
Well, there goes Masters Part One. Everything handed in and sorted out (assuming they don’t throw out my Diss proposal and make me do another one, anyway, which seems at least a bit unlikely).
It took No End of all nighters (Normally, I shut my tower down at night to save on electric. Before the electric meter ran back out yesteraday it had an uptime of 4 days, 19 hours, 26 minutes, which was only 8 hours longer than I’d spent awake in the same few days.)
Now that everything is in, I’ve acquired a massive headache, which has presumably been lurking about to pounce on me, so I’ll guess I’ll stop gawking at the monitor for once.
Coming soon, a post about leaving town at last. In the meantime, have a limerick. I wanted to put it into that last assignment on Paul Otlet and Hypertext, but I suspect it was just one of those 05:30 ideas that isn’t actually suitable for academic work (although I like it, because it is suitably pathetic). Still, you ain’t marking me, so you get to have a copy:
There once was a fellow named Otlet,
Who thought that all wars should be stoptet.
He wanted a book,
To which we could all look,
But then he was dead and forgot-tet.
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15.05.10
Posted in General at 1:38 pm by Mister JTA
Hey-hey! So Bruce Schneier runs a Movie Plot Terrorism Threat contest, in which people submit short stories that depict Terrorist events of the kind that don’t really happen (ie, the sort that scare people a lot, and which Governments therefore like lots.)
Here is found the blog post which announced this year’s contest, in which entries have to be styled after a short story for children, max. 400 words.
Five semifinalists have now been announced:
- Untitled story about polar bears, by Mike Ferguson.
- “The Gashlycrumb Terrors,” by Laura.
- Untitled Little Red Riding Hood parody, by Isti.
- “The Boy who Didn’t Cry Wolf,” by yt.
- Untitled story about exploding imps, by Mister JTA.
Yeah, that Mister JTA.
You can vote for the winners - by leaving a comment to state which number you preffer - at this page. So, y’know, please do.
Note that I’m not demanding that you vote for my entry specifically*, but I won’t say no if you do. I could win a book out of this…
Cheers!
*It could’ve been a lot better: apart from anything else, it really suffered from the word limit (have you any idea how often a story designed to be told to children repeats itself as part of the natural form? I cut about five instances of “down the long years” so “back up the long years” loses a lot of it’s impact). I might return a full version of it once the voting is over, because I much preffered the 868-word version before I had to cut it down!
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07.05.10
Posted in General at 4:35 am by Mister JTA
Apart from the fact I’m usefully relaying election results to people far removed from civilization (viz: one friend backpacking in Australia, and one in Edgbaston), I think I’m getting tired.
Because on the one hand, I’m making massive typos, and on the other, the results for Hammersmith just came in and I swear I sat here thinking ‘”Hammersmith”? Why does “Hammersmith” sound familiar?’ The answer, as I realised after they’d finished reading the results, is that I was there this morning yesterday.
On the other hand, I have been up since 06:16 on Thursday, and I’ve dodged into London then hammered back out of it to vote back in Wales, and I haven’t actually slept. I’ve not spent the whole night awake since I used to sit up in Penbryn of an evening.
(I’m almost tempted to see how long I can actually go, but I might have to admit defeat presently…)
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23.04.10
Posted in Fun, General, Memes, Tech, Work at 11:13 am by Mister JTA
Eech. I should be working on a report, at this moment in time: essentially Your university is going to launch foundation degrees, how will this affect the library & the readers?. I hate that sort of stuff, because whilst I realise that we’re supposed to be demonstrating the use of the theory, I don’t feel comfortable making up backstory in order to have a platform on which to stand everything else. It’s a ‘pre 1992 university,’ apparently, and that’s about all the guidance we get.
That is not enough guidance, I feel: from there I can say anything from ‘but the library building was completely re-done with corporate sponsorship in 1998 and has seven floors, complete with Student Shop and Coffee Bar on the entry level, Floor 5′ to ‘the library is housed in the Old Building, is Grade I listed and has the unique feature of two floors, each with a periodical gallery, originally designated to house the Arts and the Natural Sciences. The central Loans Desk has been left as it was, though admin work now takes place at a new desk, installed opposite the exit. The University is currently discussing arrangements for external access to the second floor for disabled students, but it severly limited by the various prevervation orders in place.’
…The problem, basically, is that I want the briefing for this report to be Oblivion, and what I’ve got is Morrowind. Oblivion is a fantastic game, and I really do enjoy playing it. Morrowind may well be a good game, but I could never get into it, because it was too open ended.
At the start of Oblivion, you’re in clink, but you get let out by narrative imperative the Emperor, who happens to need the escape route in your cell, and who dies almost as soon as you’ve had chance to collect one of each base weapon class, learn how to sneak, pick a lock and work your way back to the plot. For reasons best known to himself, he gives you the Amulet of the Maguffin, the token of his Emperordom, and tells you to push off and find a monk who knows where his illegitemate-but-everyone-else-in-the-family-is-dead Son is. At which point, you can either do so, or wander off and do open-ended things. It’s a nice obvious quest hook, and you can catch it, or not, or catch it later as the mood takes you.
At the start of Morrowind, as far as I can recall, you get off a boat, wander through an administation building, and get told that there’s a guy who lives over in Villagetown and you should go and see him. Doing so results in his suggesting you work for him, possibly for some secret reason. Go and do a minor quest in Noobsville, quoth he, and then… uh… yeah, I dunno. There doesn’t seem to be a main quest there. Now bear in mind the first computer games I ever played were Hillsfar, Spellcasting 201 and Paperboy 2. I like obvious objectives in games. I’ve grown to enjoy the freedom of open-ended stuff, it’s amazing to be able to do something in some place and reap the consequences later - which is why Deus Ex was so mindblowing for me - but it’s nice to have a solid known objective you can fall back on, not only to get you started, but to give you something to aim for once wandering in the wilderness gets dull.
And having to make up my own character backstory in a piece of academic work kinda bugs me: what if I go with Option A, and say “based on the findings of the various studies we’ve done (qv), perhaps we can devote the fourth floor to books for Foundation Degrees, and create a seperate collection there,” and then go on to discuss advantages and limitations and things, and Juanita decides that she’s never heard anything so retarded in her life because what the Hell was I thinking imagining more than three floors anyway, why haven’t I talked about the crushing space constrictions affecting the library service?
Sigh.
Of course, I know what’s going to happen: I’m going to Exposit it to within an inch of it’s life; this report to the Vice Chancellor is going to be the library equivilant of Chapter One, the one that goes
“As you know, your father - the King - had no other children. I greatly fear that this attack by Mordok was intended to kill you too. For if you are not present at the Celebrations tomorrow you will be declared dead and Mordok will seize power!”
and to which the only possible answer is
“Faithful old Knight, the only person who apparently knows the secret way out of the Castle - although I’d like to point out that it’s also a secret way into the castle, and how did Mordok’s forces manage to get past the seventeen well-defended gates unoticed anyway? Fine, fine, we’ll leave that to page two-hundred and sixty-seven - but, Allegedly Faithful Old Knight Who Was Always Passed Over By My Father For The Stewardship, I know all that. What, you think I lived just long enough to fulfil the Prophecy and make some Outcast Friends With Secret Knowledge without spotting the lack of siblings!? Dude, lay off the musty tomes already. Nice mysterious sigil ring, by the way. Why’s it glowing ominously red?”
But I’ll feel bad about doing it.
And anyway, I want to be working on my Dissertation reasearch, but I can’t really do that before I pass Part 1!
Still, in other news: have my eye on a job which would be awesome. Shall have to wait and see…
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25.02.10
Posted in General at 11:05 am by Mister JTA
Just read this Basic Instructions.
As everyone knows, the only way to salvage this sort of situation is to drown out the noise of the guitar with a discussion of the relative limitations of non-MARC compliant AACR2 indexing in relation to the search habits of patrons today. (The biggest limitation, of course, comes with the balance between the cost of maintaining multiple access points on a card based system versus the necessity of ensuring access points for probable searches, especially in the context of the Statement of Responsibility: did you know that if you made a standard 3×5 card for the film ‘Pirates of the Carribean,’ you wouldn’t mention that Johnny Depp was involved anywhere on the card unless you chose to enter it into the Notes field [which, of course, cannot be indexed seperately]? It’s more of a concern than you might think, really, which is why we’re still using the core rules of AACR2 when we’d hoped to be on AACR3 by now, although we’re pretty much still on schedule [the first draft came out a couple of years back, and the whole thing should be due for launch this summer, is the plan]. Of course it isn’t going to be called AACR3 anymore, because it’s attempting to be less book-centric [AACR2, of course, had seperate sections for the cataloguing of different materials but we're still talking pretty much about such materials as existed in the middle decades of the 20th Century, with revisions for more modern formats more or less bolted on wherever possible, which is why the new standard aims to be more open-ended] and they propose to reflect this by naming the whole thing RDA: Resource Description and Access.)
You’d think, since I know how to diffuse such an awkward situation as that, I’d get invited to more parties, but I figure maybe I’ve not been advertising well enough. I also have an awesome story about the development of MARC, though. It’s less technical than the background of cataloguing rules themselves, and I do find that it fits nicely into the silence you get whilst everyone is digesting what I’ve just been explaining, and stops that momentary awkwardness where people who don’t feel confident enough to ask for clarification on a more technical issue spoil their own enjoyment by ducking out to get a fresh drink…
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06.02.10
Posted in General at 10:57 am by Mister JTA
Work
Hell’s teeth. Well today, thanks to something of a shift-scheduling snafu at Work B, I got double booked. As much as possible I’m trying to work for whoever offers to pay me first, because I think that works out fairest all round (the NHS pay me more per hour, but work in Holib is going to be more useful on a CV long-term, so there’s not much to choose between them apart from who shouts fastest). Of course, that sort of thing only works if people check your availibility first, and in this instance that didn’t happen quite as much as I’d've liked.
Consequently, I just worked 0700-0930 in the hospital, and now I’m in Holib 1000-1200, and then the hospital again 1230-1500. This is quite possibly insane, but I guess it means I will be paid eventually.
Results
Got results for my Management Essay back, with which I am pleased: 68 (Pretty much the level I seem to be working at for everything, which I’m quite happy about, and some awesome feedback, featuring the line ‘Your opening two paragraphs are especially worthy of commendation,’ which - since the second paragraphs was a description of innefective managers in popular culture (viz: Gus Hedges, Gordon Brittas & the PHB) I think is a massive win all round.
Orphans
Last night’s Troma was rather fun: we inflicted Space Mutiny on Finbar, and then we watched Orphan, a well-filmed and complex drama designed to warn everyone against ignoring the Rules.
The Rules, as every fule kno (except for the dimwits in the film) are, of course,
First: Look Out For Number One (Assuming you have first taken care to look out for Number One’s appointed representatives, if any.)
Second: When In Doubt, Close Ranks.
Third: Apply The Rules From The Centre Outwards, Not The Other Way Around.
Seriously, it’s like the people in that film wanted to be miserable. It’s quite fun, mind, but I think it’s significant that virtually the first sensible thing the lead character says is about fifty seconds from the end credits.
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24.01.10
Posted in General at 11:22 am by Mister JTA
…with only the barest of creature comforts; a radio, a Hellish beefy tower, a small radiator, a few litres of spirits including gin, whisky, brandy & liquers (sounds like a French exercise, doesn’t it?*)
And all because Miriam’s broken herself. Bah. I’m very fond of Miriam; she’s got me through two sets of absolutely crazy floods, one the first day I had her, where we alternated between aquaplaning and smothering the exhaust in water in a frankly Flight-To-The-Ford-ish bid to get out of Stafford, and then again in poxy Newtown, when Matt & I were trying to make it back from Gregynog in the middle of the biggest flash flood this side of Dot and the Kangaroo, with water sloshing right over the bonnet.
The thing about Miriam is that I like her partly because she’s a lot more responsive than Mike’s little 1.2 litre Corsa what I learnt in - on at least one occasion that I’ve been in Mir, I’m pretty sure I’d have been quite badly killed if I’d not been in a machine with a decent lump of power in third gear: half way over a level crossing is a really bad time to discover that the lights and barriers have failed, especially with a Sprinter belting along the up line towards you, and it’s nice to know you can floor it without having to hang around to shift down to second - and partly because she’s a bloody good workhorse, in true VW fashion.
Last time she broke she got a hole in the exhaust which, as far as I can tell, reduced engine efficiency such that a couple of the elderly spark plugs gave up the ghost, and we nursed her the sixty miles from Porthmadog back to Aberystwyth on about two cylinders. I think the highest gear we could take was fourth, on the three miles that were all downhill. And then she managed to make it to the mechanic as well, so it could’ve been worse.
Pretty much the same thing happened this time round, although I’m not sure what’s causing the misfire, and instead of being in Porthmadog, she began to play up when Ruth was around 40 miles out of Aber, which I guess is preferable. The thing you have to remember here is the Miriam is a 1999 Skoda, so whilst she was built by VW who knew what they were doing, she is getting on a bit. As near as I can tell, she spent the first eight years of her life pottering around Wolverhampton to get to the shops and things: when we got her in September ‘08, she’d done 44,000 miles. By January ‘09 that was up to 51, and she’s now on 62,600. I think this is the equivilant of getting a pensioner who never left the village to run from London to Edinburgh with no training, so it’s not entirely surprising that she breaks a bone every now and then.
It was, however, particularly bad timing since it meant we couldn’t get out of town. Really sorry about that, guys; we’ll hack our way to Cardiff once she’s up and running again and take you for a meal or something. Hope it was a good ‘un!
…In the meantime, I’m also trying to get down to London, for fun and library-related games with people on my course. I’m also hoping to run a few errands whilst I’m down there - I need a job lot of leaflets from Friends House, for a start. This should still be possible, although thanks to the miracle of public transport, I shalln’t be leaving Aber until Monday morning. Happily I’m getting better and running on four or five hours sleep, thanks to inexplicably developing an inconvenient habit of handing essays in on time which rather requires me to write them beforehand.
So it’s all in a bit of a muddle, at the minute. I’m still hoping I’ll get a minute to visit the spectacular-looking Steampunk exhibition whilst I’m in the South, and then it’s back to Aber by train once more (bugger) in order to pull yet another shift at the hospital (who have nearly finished training me, thank goodness; I appreciate that it’s important everything in a hospital environment gets thoroughly cleaned, even if they refuse to make it smell clean with healthy things like carbolic [O man I want all of these things. Witchazel! I've not seen than in years!] but even so I have worked as a professional cleaner since 2002, I’m pretty sure I grasp at least the basics. Plus I seem to be unusual in finding burnishing awesome fun.) and then there’s another Murder Mystery, with almost everyone at it, which should be interesting.
In the meantime, everything is almost under control. I might even have a minute to reply to some email come February…
*Cite me! For bonus points!
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06.01.10
Posted in General, Memes at 7:31 pm by Mister JTA
Aye, as Ruth said we have a website. It is over here, and there is a helpful blog, which will presumably get less sparse over time.
I feel silly having a one-sentence post. Here is a meme, which you may now all skip.
- What is your name?
Mister JTA.
- What colour pants are you wearing?
Black jeans, blue thermals.
- What are you listening to right now?
Depends what the RNG is doing, but the playlist is a mix of Barenaked Ladies, Slade and Warren Zevon, which combine nicely for some reason, presumably magic.
- What are the last four digits of your phone number?
You realise that’s over half the main number, right? By the time you’re establishing my number based on what the exchange might be, you could just as easily look it up in the phone directory…
- What was the last thing you ate?
Chilli con carne, with significantly more rice than chilly. For the cheap.
- If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Er…. Blue?
- Where do you plan to go on your honeymoon?
Huh. Topical. Rather going with the traditional “random short break, proper honeymoon later” plan, is my understanding.
- How is the weather right now?
Sodding miserable.There’s ice and snow and everything. It sucks.
- Last person you talked to on the phone?
No idea what their name is. Sry.
- What’s the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
What clothes they have on. Actually Probably Possibly a lot less pervy than it sounds.
- How are you today?
Not entirely frozen.
- Your favourite drink?
Er. One of tea, coffee, pepsi or Mountain Dew.
- Your favourite alcoholic drink/s?
Ale, gin, whisky, rum, port, stout, cider…
- Have you ever lost someone?
Doy.
- Favourite sport to play?
Hahaha.
- Name three people you can tell anything to?
Jeez, three? Er. Ruth. Dan. Er. Yeah, that’s your lot. Move along, folks.
- Hair colour?
Brown? Probably, although it might be black.
- Eye Colour?
Brown.
- What do you find annoying in a person?
Hm. I’m assuming you mean ‘most annoying’ there. Lack of empathy. It’s not like it’s hard.
- Siblings and their ages?
One, 19.
- Favourite month?
Er. Maaay?.
- Favourite food?
The sort that someone else is paying for.
- Last movie you’ve watched?
Wanted, probably.
- Favourite day of the year?
And the point of having one of those would be what?
- Are you too shy to ask someone out?
All signs point to possibly. Or not, if’n I can actually tell whether they like me. So, er, yes.
-
Summer or Winter?
At the moment, I’d say summer. Come the next heatwave, I’ll say winter. Bloody weather.
- Where do you see urself next year?
Down Oxford way, is the plan.
- Hugs or Kisses?
Well… hugs are more transferable.
- Relationship or one night stands?
This was written by someone in High School, wasn’t it? Still, they tell me even teenagers find relationships are in vogue these days.
- Favourite Computer Game?
Errr. Probably S201 for all-time favourite. Otherwise I’m quite liking Saints Row 2, at the minute. It’s like a GTA game, but written sensibly.
- Living Arrangements?
An attic flat, with no loft insulation and no heating. Wheeeeee.
- What books are you reading?
Intersting times; Flashman; Cartoon history of the modern world, v. 2.
- What’s on your mouse pad?
Mouse what?
- Favourite board game?
Really quite liking BSG at the minute, but also Power Grid & Illuminati & Hacker…
- Favourite magazine?
Private Eye kinda wins by default, there…
- Favourite smells?
Nice whisky is awesome, innit?
- Least favourite smell?
Cigarette smoke, probably. Pipes I mind less.
- Favourite sound?
People giving me money, in a loud “shuffling of banknotes” sort of way!
- Worst feeling in the world?
Probably that one where everything sucks and you cannae do anything about it.
- What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?
At the minute? ‘Bollocks bollocks bollocks, my joints are hurting already, fucking winter.’
- Favourite colour(s)?
Blue.
- How many rings before you answer the phone?
Depends where I am. Anyway, you can’t tell how many times a mobile rings.
- Do you think the glass is half empty or half full?
In my experience, glasses rarely fill themselves. It’s therefore safe to assume that 1) it is getting emptier, and 2) in a just world, someone else would have already volunteered to buy you another…
- Favourite movies?
Flashback; South Park: BLU; big fan of Wargames when I’m in the right mood.
- What’s under your bed?
The floor, an office that used to be heated for around eleven hours a day, and hasn’t had anyone using it for the past seven months.
- What cd do you have in your stereo?
Sterewhat? My Optical drives are currently sporting L4D2 and Civilization II, if that helps.
- Favourite TV show:
Er. I generally fire up iplayer to watch Top Gear…
-
What’s ur favourite Song?
I’ll stick with Protect & Survive, by Runrig, cheers.
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01.01.10
Posted in General at 12:01 am by Mister JTA
Not to generalise, of course, but 2009 sucked. I mean, I’ve clocked up worse years, but for unrelenting grind that was a bad ‘un.
Essentially, it’s the year where my sleeping patterns went to bits, I actually started working because I’m no longer a university student wanting education but a university student wanting a qualification (which is far harder to get, since it’s pretty much a quest on rails), I clocked up further debt whilst getting a handle on fiscal responsibility, and Everything Went Wrong for everyone. (Except for the people it didn’t go so wrong for, but I know fewer of them.)
Mind, there were some decent enough bits, but I suspect it’s going into my overview under “everything went wrong for everyone” (Vs. “1992 - Really wet summer,” “1995 - First absurdly hot summer with melty tar” and “2007/8 - I have no idea what happened between Oxford and starting in IS”.)
Still, it’s over now, and we get a whole new year. How, uh, arbitrary. Nevertheless: Happy New Year, people.
O, and kudos to the Goverment for not restoring our 11 days they owe us during 2k9. Bloody thing was long enough as it was. (I’m still waiting for my helicopter that means I won’t need to use railway branch lines, but I’ll trade my claim to that for someone at the ministry exhuming Beeching and sticking his skull on a pike.)
As I say, best of luck for 2010, and lets hope things pick up for everyone, shall we?
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31.10.09
Posted in General at 1:08 am by Mister JTA
Well, last time I got onto this (frankly already well-flogged) hobbyhorse, at least I managed to sound a very little optomistic. Unhappily, the last time round I was sober, and now I’m, er, not quite so sober.
There are good things going on for me, I must say, and the last weekend was a blinder, and went better than I expected it to, even the bit where I found myself spooling back ten years and tying a bunch of flowers to the nearest roadsign to the crossroads.
On the flip side, I’ve now been alive longer since my father got killed than I was before, which is, er, wierd. It hadn’t actually occured to me that that was the case until I happened to do the maths the other day, so it’s come as a bit of a surprise. I’m pretty sure I’m on the record as having said that I think hitting 42 & 43 will be a bit weird, the former because of matching, the latter because of surpassing, but I hadn’t spotted this “more than half” business sneaking up on me until the last minute, so I’m still a bit knocked sideways. Plus, of course, naturally inclined to be introspective.
To be honest, I’m not blogging so much out of a desire to say anything remotely interesting as a hope that I can spin out time until I’m a) sober enough to get some sleep, and b) less buzzing with thoughts, but I can’t say it’s working.
And I don’t really think this is a good post to be writing, so I shall stumble back onto the old coin-flip thing, and post only if this, er… 1733 George the 2nd ha’penny, apparently, which says a lot about the state of my finances that that should be the nearest coin to hand, comes up smudgy tails rather than weirdly unfamiliar heads.
Huh. Fairly unfamiliar tails too, now it cmes to it, and I’m rambling again. I need either to get less drunk at parties, or to start coping better with being one over the eight. Someone tell me which I should do, and I’ll see which sounds better in the morning.
O - and remember, kids: never blog drunk. You dunno what you might be typing. (Yeah, yeah, I’m deliberately not listening to myself. Sue me, I’m a part-time trainwreck. I have no idea how that would work.) Jebus, it’s gone one in the morning. This is what happens when I have no radio or company to give me timechecks, I fail to look at the clock. Nuts.
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29.09.09
Posted in General, Work at 9:10 pm by Mister JTA
Today’s fun fact: I’ve now owned my little battery-powered FM/LW/MW/SW radio for six years. Bought it in Dixons, back when we had one of those in Aber. Well I find it interesting, anyway.
Induction gubbins carries on apace. Yesterday, out to Llanbadarn for what turned out to be a slightly strange seven-strand induction lecture, the highlight of which was the woman the Careers service sent along who tried very hard, but failed to make the leap from “This is a lecture theatre packed to the gills with naught but postgraduate students about to start their Masters courses” to “therefore I should address them as such.”
Thus, after we’d been sitting and listening to people address us for a little under 40 minutes, she began her skit by getting us all to stand up, and stretch and yawn theatrically (Heaven forfend that PG students should be able to sit for under an hour and listen to people!) and then followed that up with the suggestion we were all liars.
We would all like to think we’re there to bolster our skills, she reasoned, but actually we’re just doing it to keep ourselves off the jobs market until the recession is over. Isn’t that right, she asked, as a multitude of hands - three in number - rose in bemused agreement. “How nice,” she said, “that there are three honest people here.” Yeah, thanks for that. You do realise that we’re paying out for this, right? We’re not just sitting here for to while away the next twelve months of an already finite lifetime.
Sigh. She’d've gone down a treat with undergraduates, I’m sure, but like I say she didn’t make the link. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her before; she gave us an incredibly annoying handout on the importance of getting jobs done, which I’ll blog about as soon as I’ve dug it up, because it was such appaling nonsense it damn well deserves to be on the Internet. Probably is somewhere, actually, it’s the sort of bollocks they like to save up for when someone wants to make a website out of clever managerial witticisms…
Anyway, today I went and registered, and am thus officially re-enrolled. Registration by paper always puts me in mind of the Copy Protection Scene in Spellcasting 101 where you have to queue up and then one of the professors says “Ah, yes, Mr. Eaglebeak. Tell me, what was your Oral Aptitude score?” and if you don’t look sharp and say “590″ like what it says on the paper you fish out of the box they push you off to the Restore : Undo : Quit screen fast as you please.
Anyway, they didn’t ask me anything like that or even what my Health Score was (Ernie’s is 91), but I did have to queue twice over, because they forgot to sign the first of my three forms in addition to the second, at least on the first attempt. Hey ho.
I’ve landed myself a 50:70 split, because neither of my two option modules run in Semester 1, but they reckon that won’t be too much of a problem, and if I’m honest it’s the 60-credit diss that’s worrying me, if anything.
Still, I’m all registered up. I returned home to find, in Inbox A, a email from the University in the form of a confirmation to let me know that they have updated my records and I am officially a student and, in Inbox B, an email from the University in the form of an Alumni Newsletter to let me know about all this new students they’ve got sloshing about the place and signing up for all manner of silly modules.
All rather strange, and it’s only Tuesday. Still, see how we go, shall we?
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27.09.09
Posted in General at 12:11 am by Mister JTA
I’m too much of a barometer, is my trouble, and everyone else seems to be having it unremittingly grim just at the moment.
Sigh.
It’s not as though I actually like writing people off; I do try not to. Still if people will go around being… Ah, damnation I do wish you scunners wouldn’t pull tricks like that, y’know? It ain’t helpful for any of your people, and it’s sure as Hell not a good idea for any of mine. (On the plus side, y’bastard, I only met you once so you’ve spared yourself the bit where I figure you know me well enough that pulling this kind of stunt counts as a personal insult to myself. On the downside, I only met you once so I ain’t in a position to execute a proper stick-rip-twist on you. Yeah, it’s that bad; I’ve not done one of them for years, thank Christ. Never reflect very well on anyone those do and you can never be certain that they’ll float back into their conciousness at 0200h as intended or if they’ll just drift out the other side. Or be certain which to hope for, really…)
Hey, I said I’d honed being loyal to a fault into a form of art. I never said I was nice.
Meanwhile, I’m going to go slump over, polish off the last of the whisky and have a bit of a read before I turn in. An’ that ain’t going to make anything better, either. But, then, it’s late, my knees have been playing Hob all day, even before the standing up, and the rest of the background stress isn’t helping with the more immediate backstabbery. You’re all permitted to ignore me, y’know; I’m due a busy week, I’ll be right, betimes; I just needed to be incoherently stroppy with the world.
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17.09.09
Posted in General at 10:43 am by Mister JTA
#1 in a series of at least #1:
Only realising at midday that there was actually a plausible explanation for half-waking in the middle of the night before sinking into a dream about Puff the Magic Dragon.
And there was me thinking it was reading LXG getting tangled up with the comedown from opiates. I should be so lucky. (Note for chemists: Stop mucking about with flu vaccine and make some Codine that actually works, you lazy sods.)
…incidentally, does anyone else see the crowd of 20-somethings singing along in the audience in that Youtube clip? What kind of way is that to run a decade?
Next Episode: 101 Reasons Why It Isn’t Fun To Wake Up To James Naughtie On Your Pillow.
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08.09.09
Posted in Fun, General, Work at 1:04 pm by Mister JTA
Ah, Red Alert 3: Soviet March, I grow fonder of you as a ringtone day by day.
In this case, look you, because you’ve contrived to be the ringtone heralding an offer for part-time work. More than that, for convenient take-it-or-leave-it-and-be-paid-accordingly part-time work, which is liable to be dead handy for me with my collection of other commitments and overdrafts to satisfy all at once. Huzzah!
Therefore, presently, and assuming a clear health check and a green light from the CRB people, I return to work as a cleaner-type person (Undertakers, prostitutes and cleaners: always in demand, that’s us. And, considering the alternatives, cleaning’s not a bad job to be engaged in, all fun aside)
(Alarmingly, by my reckoning this brings my all-time interview:job offer ratio to, er… 9:8 (that’s what not having a driving license will do to you, that is). The reason I say alarmingly is because I assume my luck’ll have to turn eventually, and if it’s going to I’d much rather it dropped out now rather than when it super-really counts, but there you go - I don’t propose to complain too much, I just worry that it’s one of those things that only works when you don’t bank on it, and I’m not sure how to look like I’m not banking on it!)
Betimes, I’ve netted myself perhaps the most cool voluntary work I could have contrived, as a sort of giving-advice-and-opinions bod for a fictioneer. Can’t say I’ve got much experience of that sort of thing per se, but it’s giving me a chance to brush up on some very rusty skills I’ve not pressed for some time, so that’s nice.
O, and a heads up to the guy who just came up the drive and stuffed a ‘Do you want your drive to be pressure-washed?’ flyer through the door: talking loudly on a mobile below an open window kinda diminished the secrecy of the sentence “Mate, can you keep a secret, yeah? I’ve actually got another girlfriend she doesn’t know about.” (Bonus tip: if you must go about keeping secrets, you’ll find they work better if you don’t tell people regardless of how close you are to other bodies)
(A heavy blonde day even for someone as fair-headed as you, huh? You square-set late-teens six footer, you…)
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31.08.09
Posted in General at 2:39 pm by Mister JTA
We’ve had Miriam for a year now, which is nice, and ironed out most of the interesting little kinks.
The sunroof hasn’t leaked for ages, which is good (and all it took was vaseline, then tack grease, then a bathroom sealant and then even more bathroom sealant while I worked through the options of gumming up the seal, fixing the outer edge of the seal and finally glueing it shut. It’d probably come undone with a bit of careful knife work but I’m not sure it’s worth just to get a hole in the roof).
The vents don’t seem to flood as much as they did; they get a little soggy in really heavy rain, but I’ve not had a footwell full of water since I, er, blocked up a couple of backwards-facing drainage channels with, er, bathroom sealant (seriously, that stuff is like Duck Tape in a tube).
The juddering feat. alarming rocking of the engine block has been resolved - hole in the exhaust just below the CAT meant the, er, burntfuelsmoke wasn’t getting out of the tubes properly, which was causing something of a suck-squeeze-bang-coughspluttershake effect and at the same time the spark plugs were on their last legs so she was running after the manner of suck-squeeze-rollD4andbangona1-cough&c, in consequence of which I apologise for swearing at her when she refused to give me the oomph to get round a tractor.
I’ve not yet had an accident (and I’ve only had about three near misses, and one of them wasn’t even when I was going fast, which is nice), although I am starting to think I’ve inherited my father’s habit of going at a reasonable rate of knots which you’d think would’ve got beaten out of me, but there you go.
And, of course, I’ve driven through no end of absurd floods, first in September, and then again on the way back from Gregynog when Newtown got decidedly soggy, and I ended up forcing through an insanely deep bit of flood with water slapping itself up the bonnet to hit the windscreen (there’s still all mud flecks in there, but I can’t be bothered to mop ‘em up. And I wonder why the exhaust got rusty…)
O, and I nearly died on a level crossing, an’ all. Bloody thing stopped working. Although, in fairness, I think we were mostly over the up line at the point I realised that there didn’t ought to be rapidly oncoming lights to my left.
’s good stuff this drivin’.
And, honestly, I’ve not really done much more interesting than that. Except, of course, Ruth’s gone off to Oxford, and I’m trying to patch the holes in my shoes up with, er, black bathroom sealant.
Anyway, that washing up isn’t going to do itself. O, and I’ve not got a headache, so No Worries. The list of things that gives me hangovers stays stuck on ‘99 Moet. On the downside, the list of things that gives me headaches appears to have grown to include Not Drinking Coffee. Which I guess means I need to drink more coffee.
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24.07.09
Posted in General at 10:11 am by Mister JTA
Re-installed CoD4 the other day, for first time since my computer last bricked itself (way back in February or so I discovered it is Not Good for the electric meter to run out at the same time as Windows is updating itself, and when I do a reinstall I things tend to get put back when I want them). All my multiplayer goodies have vanished. Lame. (I had all sorts of cool gubbins with fancy camoflage and nice perks and things, and it’s all gone.) On the plus side, I’m actually more skilled than I look because of this. Snrk. (I shouldn’t be smug, however, because I had a kill:death ratio of around 8:37 in one match yesterday. That probably goes into smaller numbers, if you care about such things, but meh.
I promise I am not saying this to wind people up, but 40 years since we landed on the moon leaves me brimming with indifference. I guess it is nice that we went up on comparatively lame technology, but it happened a long time ago - I think that might be the problem, for me; everyone who can actually remember it seems to see it as a massive thing, whereas I’ve grown up in the age of We Have Been To The Moon, so Going To The Moon doesn’t seem that awesome. That said, I started to understand better thanks to this strip, which actually does make it seem kinda cool. Especially the bit with the steam engine.
Serveral nights this week I’ve not managed to get to sleep until gone 02:30. Yeeeah. That’s going on the list, I fear. Still, it’s in good company; Hollywood Pizza’s been on there for months.
If you do not read PostSecret, I recommend it, for it is awesome, and likewise FutureMe… In consequence of which I’m going to keep an eye on Letters Anonymous, which is knew, and kinda fusiony. Will see how it pans out, might be interesting.
I got (half of) this week’s Piano Puzzler, and am pleased. I never get the composer, mind, but even the tune is kinda a step up for me, plus I got it on the first playthrough. (I was, of course, listening to KUSC, which appears to hand over to American Public Media’s Performance Today for the night shift (09:00 - 14:00ish), which means I keep listening to the Morning Show on my afternoons at work. Confusing stuff, time travel.
The press is full of dead soldiery. It is, of course, very sad that - what is it, now, 19? -people have died in Afghanistan this month, but on the other hand we’ve been out there for a decade, and this is our worst month yet? Jeez, we are kicking arse. It could be considerably worse, you know. I find the fact we’ve got such a very low death toll rather encouraging. Aye, it sucks for the families, I’m not saying it doesn’t. But there aren’t many such families, which is worth remembering…
O, and you’ve probably all heard this one by now, it being a massive hit and all, but if not take a dekko at United Breaks Guitars, about the shoddy treatment of baggage (& customers) by staff of United Airlines, whose shares have - not surprisingly - dropped a whopping 10%. Do not mess with stubborn people is the message there, I think…
O, hey, my break’s nearly done. I wonder if I can nab a mug of tea before I nodd off…
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17.07.09
Posted in General at 10:01 am by Mister JTA
But in my defence this week is 24-carat insane. Most people I’ve not seen, most emails I’ve not looked at and I’m now scared of the time it’s going to take me to clear my RSS feeds, of which no fewer than 257 are clamouring for my attention up in my tabs bar, there.
Er. I’ll get round to emails as soon as I can, and I’ll probably stop snapping at quite so many people once I’ve composed such missives as I’ve Not Had Time To Write. Meantimes, if anybody fancies buying me such alcohol as I can get roaring bloody drunk I might loosen up and bit and stop being quite so twitchy, though I wouldn’t bet on it just yet. GAAAAAAAHHHHH and I’ve got f’king work on Monday again. I swear this bloody rotation is going to be the death of somebody if time dun’t pass fast enough before I bloody finish it…
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03.07.09
Posted in Fun, General at 10:17 am by Mister JTA
But before it fades out entirely, I figure I’ll mention the incredibly vivid dream I got woken up from, because I came out of the whole enterprise looking really awesome (in my head, that is. I don’t imagine it’ll translate so well, but that’s your lookout, not mine). Typically, I’m hazy on the background but there was a duel, and everything, plus generic Regency backdrop, and fancy house. Whole thing was in black and white, though, which is really quite unusual for me. I can’t remember why we were fighting, which is a shame since I’d have liked to know, and I did ask the chap who checked the wadding, but he said he wasn’t allowed to talk to me.
Very nice flinters, is most of what I remember, and I picked the one on the left out of the box because I can clearly remember thinking that I ought to have taken the one on the right instead, though I couldn’t work out why, except it had a different pattern of hatching on the grip. Surprisingly the other chap was weirdly faceless, in the sense that I couldn’t quite make out what he looked like, although I vaguely knew he was a nasty piece of work and was probably the one in the wrong. Very tall thin bloke, blond hair and a black cane, presumably in order to make it clear he was the bad ‘un, but I remember thinking not being able to his features was a bad start to aiming at him… Presumably to save getting a new background curtain we adopted the film-friendly ‘10 paces, turn, fire’ routine, and I think I’d got to about my eighth stride when the sod shot me in the leg from behind, which stung.
Awesomely I improbably executed a very nice spin with the whole extended arm thing (which I’m fairly sure wouldn’t work, I think the balance of the barrel would be wrong given the angle I was at) and managed to get him in the arm, with consequent winning & obvious disgrace for cheating in a duel in front of all the witnesses what had helpfully appeared alongside the bank (of the river. I don’t know why there was a river, but it served for somewhere to put witnesses) I remember thinking he was a fool to cheat in front of witnesses (or, indeed, for either of us to fight anywhere within a thousand yards of witnesses at all) but somebody said his second chappie had told him I’d cheated already and switched the flinters so his didn’t have a ball in it, though I evidently didn’t, since we both got shot. (Did I mention the bit where I was awesome and pirouetting with a leg gone dead on me and still got him square below the shoulder? For I was dead cool, and everything.)
Anyway, he buzzed off to live a new & quiet life in the Foreign Legion, or somesuch Godawful fate, and I got to keep his awesome house, as I recall, which had a fabulous library with tea + cake and a fire… And then we had the traditional fade-to-random-chase routine, obligatory in all dreams since 1697, and I found I’d fetched up in India and was running away on an elephant with an orderly who kept shouting at me. Woke up shortly after, feeling very groggy. I don’t pull out of REM sleep with any grace at all.
Pop psychology interpretations welcome, why not.
(Though personally I’m inclined to put it down as the fault of too much Lovejoy, listening to Moonlight Shadow and (at the end, at least) Flashman. O, and you get No Points for identifying the novel I apparently thieved that library from, though I suppose we should be grateful I didn’t inherit the crazy housekeeper along with the rest of the house. Am assuming the duel-y dude wasn’t Max, hard to imagine him going around shooting people in the leg…)
Still, I’m surprised it’s stuck with me this long, most of the stuff my brain comes up with vanishes before the kettle’s boiled…
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23.06.09
Posted in General at 12:50 pm by Mister JTA
OK, guys. You know as well as I do that part of the reason I go to sleep listening to the World Service is that it means I can wake up to an alarm clock in one ear, and the news in the other.
But, seriously. I was up really quite late last night, and playing both Civ 4 and Left 4 Dead, and that doesn’t lend itself to being woken up by the announcement that the Soviets just landed on the moon, and are massing for an attack on Western Europe. That is possibly the most confusing waking-up experience I have ever had - I wake up very slowly until I’ve got some tea down my neck, and I must’ve been listening for at least a minute and a half before I realised I’d missed something.
Just so you know. Can we at least wait until the planes are in the air before we start telling the barely-awake that the Soviets are using chemical weapons? Or, better yet, just let us sleep. Extra 4 minutes in bed sounds like a win to me…
(I looked for the YouTube clip of the reformation
of the Soviet Union, but I couldn’t find it.)
[Aside]:
Back when I was doing GCSEs, I’m sure they’d dragged Jeremy Bowen out of the Middle East and told him he had to work in a studio presenting Breakfast alongside Sophie whatzerface. I find it kinda awesome that he just keeps going back to the Middle East anyway…
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22.06.09
Posted in General, Tech, Travel, Work at 2:13 pm by Mister JTA
I continue to be crazy busy. It is not all bad, though, for I was able to go to the Gregynog Colloquium, which involved a large number of the Aberystwyth delegation getting merrily drunkish. Also, I entered a charity raffle, buying a strip of tickets for a fiver, and consequently won a not unrespectable digital camera (8 MP, SDHC, 2x AA Batteries - the last means it’s not something I’d buy at full cost, but for £5 I’m hardly about the chuck it up on eBay!) I was pleased about that.
There were massive floods in Newtown. I mean *massive*. Ended up red-lining poor Miriam, in first, with the clutch about two thirds out because 7,000 rpm was the only way to force through the wave of water that was coming over the bonnet and hitting the windscreen while still forcing enough gas through the exhaust that water didn’t back up and smother the engine. Even then she nearly gave out three times. It was more nerve-wracking than Stafford, although if I’d not survived the floods there I might’ve just attemped to push her to the nearest dry ground…
Outside Newtown, though, everything was fine. Rotten little dorp. That said, for those of us who know the incline of the drive at the Uberflat, two days later I got into the car, released the handbrake and, er, went nowhere. Loud clunking noise as we started moving, so I ran her through the carwash and that seemed to fix it; I assume the axles were caked with mud, or something.
Things I have discovered recently:
1. Death and the Maiden is being re-run, starting from the first strip. It is awesome, you should read it. The Sequel is also being re-run from its first strip at the same time. I find this incredibly annoying, because I now have to make the choice between reading both strips at once, or going back and picking up 2 afterwards. Sigh.
2. The awesome Overthinkingit.com, whose recent posts include Episode One Confessional, The Ghostbusters are horrible people and (my favourite of those I’ve seen so far) Belle: Princess, or not Princess, which features an awesome examination of the local political situation around the Beast’s castle.
3. I am in serious danger of ruining my librarian credentials by reading all manner of security books. Admittedly, I’m not too far in, but I’m already at the point where I can see Scheir quoted in Mitnik and remember having read the book that quote comes from a week before. This pleases me, but it doesn’t sit too well with the stereotype. On the other hand, nor does wanting a resolution greater than 8×6, so I’m not too fussed about that.
4. I have probably got a little work next year, which won’t see me rolling in money but, equally, won’t leave me completely devoid of food. I hope.
Anyway, back to it…
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15.05.09
Posted in General, Reflective at 3:31 pm by Mister JTA
Well, that was interesting. I appear to have recovered from a serious error.
On Wednesday afternoon, as I sat shivering in my office, bundled up in my jacket, and hunkered down in my seat, I decided what I needed was a mug of coffee, so I rose to wander through to the common room, wherein resides an urn.
Except I’d not got past the edge of my desk when Andrew, who sits behind me and does something even more complicated with databases than the local_threshold gubbins I footle about with, asked me in tones of incredulity if I could actually be cold.
Brief investigations revealed that everyone else in Aber thought it was sweltering hot, so I wandered home on’t sick and promptly slept for around 30 of the following 48 hours. Indeed, I still feel sleepy now, although that could just be because it’s a) Friday, and b) completely dead out here.
It interests me, though, because though I’ve seen it happen to other people, I’ve never experienced such a thing on my own. That said, with one commitment or another, it’s been a while since I stopped working before 22:00, and we’ve been going places at weekends, which has been knocking out the days when I normally get some actual rest in.
In all fairness to myself, that’s not as stupid an approach as it might sound: I seem to need to pull in 8-10 hours of sleep a night, which is a crazily large number, so I tend to run along on 5-7, and recharge when I get a chance. Turns out that three intensive weeks & no free time in the mornings is about my limit, though.
So, yeah. Apparently it’s possible for me to BSOD. Cool!
Rejected Alternative Title:
‘Quick! Thump “Esc”!’
Rejected because a BSOD doesn’t seem to let you do that anymore. When did they sneak that change in!?
* Cross-reference
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27.04.09
Posted in General at 10:07 am by Mister JTA
Poured with rain last night; drummed on the windows from around 04-00 to 05:30. News on radio at 8 warned of severe rain warning in Eastern parts of Wales; I assume the storm has passed over.
Drove Ruth to campus to get dissertation printed. Deep pool of water in passenger footwell; at least a third of an inch, spread out over wide area plus, of course, that which was absorbed by the carpeting. Suspect this is more noticable because I removed the protective mat things that were down there (I wondered at the time why there were two, now I come to recollect doing so) because they were damp.
Had hazarded that the damp remained from when Miriam was leaking through the sunroof, but this apparently not the case — suspect leak is getting in through vents. A good deal of sogginess up in the foam around the vent, and trail of water down the wainscoting in passenger footwell. Mopped up with paper towels, though still dampness in carpet, as I needed to get into Law.
The good news, on reflection, is that this is evidently an exceptional quantity of water due to the thumping great storm last night, and the lack of additional matts to blot it up. Must remember to retain a towel in the boot in case of emergencies.
Beyond that, Miriam seems to be running OK. Starting to suspect she’ll want a new battery at some point; on rare occasions where she does multiple short hops the engine can be a bit reluctant to start on the third or fourth time, but she goes alright once she’s going. Look to replace the battery ahead of the winter, I suppose.
Bought a new kettle because the old one was on the blink, and refusing to turn itself off once it reached boiling point. Has righted itself now, though, under the omnipresent threat of replacement, so may as well run it a while longer.
Much news this morning about the spreading Swine Flu. Much concern since we’re a way overdue a major outbreak, but so far it just makes me want to play Pandemic.
Coffee break over: back to work.
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01.04.09
Posted in General at 11:15 am by Mister JTA
Ruth’s Christmas present has arrived!
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31.03.09
Posted in General at 12:41 am by Mister JTA
aS THE NEW SAYING GOES.
However, while I know I am drnuk (The reason being 1. I feel goodwill towards all my fellow man instead of 2. loathing thereunto) and 2. my brain appears to be on the fritz on a whole bundle of fronts, which is somewhat of a pain, but never mind because I figure I can cope with such given a nice cup of coffee and an FPS or two to take my brain of the subject while I rehydrate it and flush out the poison ampersand afformentioned blown fuses/.
However while the above all is good, and I am pleased for everybody.
And I know this’ll kill me in’t morning, but ’s all good, and I’m cheerful, drunk and short-circuiting in what’s not the worst possible way, so there we go.
’s all. G’night. O, anmd since my carefuul finger-picking of the keys is probably a little bit to the left or right or something, apologies for the typos. Whoof.
Tea praps not cofffee or I’ll be up all night witch would be of the craxy.
G’night, presenmtyl/
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26.03.09
Posted in General, Travel at 5:24 pm by Mister JTA
Bloody GPO. I was holding off posting myself until my letter arrived, but still no dice. Updates as and when, I suppose, but don’t hold your breath - I’m still waiting for something I ordered as a Christmas gift to turn up, four months later…
Still, never mind. I remain totally exhausted, but I think I’ve worked out why: it takes until 20:00 for me to actually wake up.
Lately, for one reason or another, I’ve not been getting enough sleep, and I’ve been getting progressively tired. No real change there, I guess, I tend to default to a pattern of going to sleep with the World Service around 01:00 and waking to Today at a quarter to eightish. Naturally that leaves me pretty wrecked, so I sleep in on Saturdays.
Since Christmas I’ve spent a lot of Saturdays busy, so I’m not catching up on as much sleep as I’d like and, thinking logically, I keep determining to Get An Early Night. Indeed I’ve spent whole days just barely keeping my eyes open and thinking fondly of how I’ll bundle myself up under the duvet, turn the radio on really quietly and be asleep by 10.
I think this all through the day, and when I get home and sit down I can barely muster the energy to keep awake until the tea’s brewed and the internet connection’s woken up. ‘Never mind 10,’ I think to myself ‘I’ll go to bed in a minute and be crashed out well before 9.’
Trouble is as soon as it gets to 20:00 or so, I wake right up and find it really hard to get to sleep until about 01:00. It’s vexing, but it has led me to develop an unhappy ability to force myself out of bed more or less regardless of how tired I am, at the point when the alarm goes off.
Last night this morning I was finally asleep somewhere after two, so I’ll admit to going through my usual swearing-at-the-alarm-clock routine with slightly more volume than usual, before I chucked off the duvet & walked the two paces to my phone in order to turn it off.
Or, I would have done. Somehow I’d managed to stand without my legs actually being awake, because they just folded up under me and dumped me on the floor. It’s a really weird sensation, I’ve never had it before. My brain, though muzzy, was functioning fine, but I couldn’t get my legs to respond for an alarming five seconds.
The moral of the story? I should get a teasmade. However, I want one of those rather less than I’d like anything on my Amazon Wishlist, what I am patiently (and, I’ll admit, somewhat haphazardly) constructing ahead of my birthday in a couple of week’s time…
In other news, while I’m in no way a Playstation fan (because, one: games work o dear God so, so much better on PCs than on grotty little consoles with their stupidly limited button supply, and, two: the best console I’ve run into thus far was the Gamecube, because all bar one of my favourite console games were built for that alone), there’s a really interesting analysis of what Sony did & didn’t screw up with the beleaguered PS3 over at Downwards Compatible, what I’ve been picking up by RSS since Shamus Young mentioned it. Both nice interestin’ sites, although, of course, you all know Shamus from his awesome D&D Campaign and the webcomic that Started It All, DM of the Rings.
Incidentally, I went home this lunchtime, in between starting to draft this post, and finishing it up. Still no bloody post. Gah.
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20.02.09
Posted in General at 10:53 am by Mister JTA
Processed a book from the Bodleian today, which turned up for a member of staff at IGES, through Inter-library loans.
This makes me happy, in a nostalgia-y sort of way.
Also, at some point, I’ll write an actual blog post, rather than just gibbering vaguely.
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08.01.09
Posted in General at 4:34 pm by Mister JTA
I’m 25! Woo, etc!
Quite possibly the oddest email I’ve recieved for years:
Happy 25th Birthday!
Happy Birthday!
Normally, this is where we send you on some birthday fling. But according to our records, you’re in a happy relationship. So we’ll respect that and just send you…a giant birthday cake: Click here to find your birthday matches!
Birthday Cake!
Happy day!
Exclamation marks!
…
This, of course, is from a website that (presumably) forced me to sign up at some point, which would explain why I fed them a pile of false information (I suspect I also told them my pre-Newport address and it’s pre-millenial postcode); I worked that out after only a couple of seconds of confusion.
What really puzzles me is why I set my fake Birthday to be the 8th of January, a full month ahead of time…
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Posted in General at 3:29 pm by Mister JTA
Here at work people sometimes come in to read the books.
Personally, I don’t agree with that sort of thing; having started out working at the Bod I take the Copyright Library perspective that the purpose of a library is to keep a pristine copy of every book in case somebody needs it in the future. It is therefore imperative that if anybody needs a book we do not let them have it, because then it would no longer be pristine, which is has to be in case someone needs it in the future.
Ruth, I know, somehow fails to understand this basic principle, but I don’t see why; it’s simple enough - someone might need the book one-day, so we have to keep it in mint condition to ensure it lasts forever. Obviously you can’t collapse the wave, but collapsing waves seems to be what keeps the funding coming in, these days, and without funding I don’t get paid (and without getting paid, I can’t very well attempt to get out of my overdraft and start saving money at you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me-percent, now, can I?)
So we not only allow people to read the books, but to borrow them, too.
And, periodically, they don’t bring them back, and they run up fines.
Eventually, we send them letters. (We can do that, because their addresses are on file. Usually.)
Letters go out addressed by the mailmerge system, and look like this:
GUYBRUSH THREEPWOOD
221b Baker Street
London, W1.
Today we had a letter sent back to us by the Post Office. DPA and suchlike prevents me from using the actual name off the envelope, but mailmerge had printed it up all lovely, yet what I saw was this:
Return to sender - [Postie's squiggles]
LARGO LAGRANDE
unknown
Well if you don’t know then we don’t!!
…Made me laugh, anyway.
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