http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk Home to the Tongue-in-Cheek Ramblings Of Mister JTA Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:07:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/02/25/486/ Just got off the phone with a very nice lady from Orange, who was conducting a customer survey. (I'm not normally a fan of such things, but I quite want an N900 when my contract comes up for renewal, so I thought I'd try to get a gold star.) The basic ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/02/08/hrmm/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/02/06/three-things/ Podcast No. 164: The Story so far: Dan Savage has called a woman back; she's been making extra money doing live sex shows on webcam, and her boyfriend is not happy about it (that is, once he found out she was doing it on the quiet, he wasn't happy about ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/02/04/savage-love-best-caller-ever/ The murder mystery was awesome; I enjoyed it a lot more than the fixed form ones, which I think is because a lot of the important bits of fixed-form stuff are read out from booklets (assuming they've been made properly, which I'd like to point out is not always the ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/02/03/belated-reports-of-murdery-goodness/ ...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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/01/24/stuck-in-wales/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/01/06/r-jta-exists-huzzah/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2010/01/01/its-all-gone-wrong-hasnt-it/ Pros: 1. I may get paid at some point. 2. Free shoes! And I don't have to get shot at, or set on fire or anything. I can't think of another job where that happens. 3. Apparently some sort of pension. Cons: 1. Every time I catch sight of an oxygen tank out of the ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/11/12/working-for-the-nhs-pros-cons/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/10/31/fifty-fifty/ Someone yesterday contrived to tell me something I never got told before: every 10 credits of study is supposed to equate to one hundred hours of actual study. Or, in other words, in the next twelve months they want me to put down 1,800 hours. Assuming I did it all ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/10/02/1800-hours-of-work-nah-leave-it-for-dave/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/09/29/freshers-week-again/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/09/27/inspector/ #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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/09/17/reasons-why-its-bad-to-sleep-with-the-radio-on/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/09/08/451/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/08/31/pfeh-i-laugh-in-the-face-of-statistics/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/07/24/misc/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/07/17/yeah-i-know-i-know-im-getting-worse/ 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 ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/07/03/end-of-another-coffee-break/ So life continues. Well, for the most part. I still get not quite enough sleep, but I'm marginally less frantic at the weekends now, so I can at least catch up on it then, except I appear to have misplaced the knack of sleeping past noon, which is a shame. Work ... http://blog.electricquaker.co.uk/2009/07/02/sisyphean-spreadsheets-and-eterminable-labours/