A proper politician

We need a few more of these :)

Last weekend before she comes and gets me

So I...

• Washed up X 4
• Did laundry
• Did plants
• Did bike
• Did Shopping
• Did mp3 player mega update
• Packed Nintendo stuff, other than DS travel kit and DS/DSLite, and my N64 which I need for Pilotwings
• Got all my major bookmarks sorted on BS Browser
• Learned how to route Yahoo messenger onto my DS through a nice website
• Finally sorted all the CDs
• Found the Leveller's 'Mouth To Mouth' CD and thought "oh, that's a recent one I haven't got round to listening to yet" then looked and saw it was from 1997. Felt old.
• Sorted a few thousand CDs
• Watched The Bourne Supremacy
• Had a bath.

And now I am tired.

Drones 4 Me

That reminds me - I was speaking to a retail manager at Orange the other day, on a train. I thought retail manager meant she was in charge of the shops side of things for the region or summat but it really means she gets told how to run a shop and then does it.

I asked if she was the one responsible for people in mobile shops haranguing you as soon as you walk in and she explained that when that happens in a shop, it is usually a a fail criteria of the mystery shoppers (head office spies) if you don't approach a customer within 15 seconds of them entering the store.

So in future I'll try explaining to staff that I'm not a mystery shopper, show them my staff ID for elsewhere or whatever. As we know, there's no good reason at all to do any more than greet a customer you make eye contact with - asking if they are ok is harassment and if they are capable of entering their pin or signing a cheque, they are capable of asking for help from you, stood ready to help them a discreet distance and staying the hell out of the customer's way.

Reminds me of the time after I moved to Hull where a new phone was needed and I headed into 'Phones For You' (no, I'm not spelling it the chav way). I was looking for either a Samsung D500 itself, as this was the model I wanted, or simply a magazine with the vital statistics in. Kid comes over, asking me if I am alright. I wasn't aware that I didn't look alright, but there we go - Hull's idea of alright has not frequently coincided with my own. I asked him to see a Samsung D500 and he said they did not have a display model as it was too new. I said "that's fine, I'll just take a brochure then - I'm only having a little look today and I'll buy in a week or two with my wife, who is contributing as a birthday treat". He asked when my birthday was and I told him it was due in two weeks. This was a problem, apparently - the amazing offer they were currently doing could not be guaranteed to still exist in a fortnight and they had, so far as he knew, the last three D500s in town - everyone had been coming in asking for them as other places had sold out. Oh dear. I'd better buy one then, hadn't I? I looked at the package they were offering. I usually make about 30 minutes of calls and send about 30 texts a month. The only package they 'could' sell me the D500 in was alas offering me 200 'free' texts and 300 minutes per month. I hda no idea there even was three hundred minutes in a month. I had to look it up when I got home. So... I reiterated that I was just looking for a brochure to discuss it with my partner (we like shopping for tech, us two) and I'd not be buying today, and he rattled of another bunch of stuff, primarily that they weren't doing brochures anymore so I couldn't have one. He asked me to wait there for a moment, and returned to the comfy little interrogation booth he'd brought me into with the manager. It was like Ant or Dec walking onto the stage with Samuel L. Jackson instead of their usual foil. This guy was a baaaaaadass mutha with a strong pitch and a deep, booming voice that threatened uncoolness if I didn't take the offer and buy the phone. I pleaded spousal autocracy and apologised most profusely at my inability to redeem myself in the eyes of my peers and sign the line on that contract of ultimate cool he had printed out for me, just in case. His final gambit was

"Are you saying there is no way I can sell you this phone today?"

I replied in the negative - he [i]could[/i] sell me the phone, but not a contract. And it would have to work on Virgin Mobile where I'd been up to this point. Off he went, leaving Ant or Dec to ask me if I would exchange my number for one of his business cards. I was impressed - I thought he was just a spotty herbert in a bottom-rung sales assistant job. Clearly not - he had business cards. One should never judge another on appearances. So yeah - he got my number, with the last three digits changed to 666, because that's whose backside he can kiss if he thinks I'm going to buy a phone from him. And not three days later I walked into the O2 shop and purchased an Ericcsson S700i instead, what with the D500 being sold out across the nation and that. The S700i is the same spec with a larger screen and memory stick support. Runs Opera mini like a charm and becomes a useable camera when it needs to, as opposed to being a phone with a camera on it. I was after both and at the time 1.3 megapixels on a phone was like 1.3 million pretty girls with red hair on my sofa. Lovely.

Moral of the story being that if you've bought a contract from Phones For You in the last couple of years, you were probably a gullible fool who deserved the ripping off that inevitably happened. Even if you got a good deal, you are still going to hell for validating and empowering such an insidious, humanity deprived void-church of sales bullshit with your custom.

...and while you mull that over, you might also want to consider changing that bloody mp3 of a popular tune that flutters and rattles its way out of your insubstantial phone speaker every time one of your friends calls you. It sounds rubbish and is too loud and even if any proper people liked it (which they don't, because it is Coldplay or something) they are going to be so sick of it soon thanks to you and your misguided idea of what will make other people hate you a little less. Be a decent human being and have a phone type noise on your phone. I have a gradually increasing Tardis sound on mine - it doesn't become loud too quickly or too slowly and feels like a ringing noise, albeit a strange one.

The wisdom of my staff...

"David Hasslehoff? What was he in? Is he the one who looks like the one in that really old dancing film, the one from the eighties?"

"I can't afford to travel into work before nine o'clock so I'll be in for ten from now on" (she gets travel expenses reimbursed regardless of cost, but loses an hour's pay each day she comes in later)

"Don't talk crap - when has the Catholic Church ever murdered anyone?"

"It is stupid to say the Vatican should pay for priests in hospitals. So what if they've got loads of nice stuff in there that's expensive? God deserves a really nice building full of lovely things - he's God."(I mention that everything is technically already His, according to Him) "What would you know about it? You aren't even a Catholic!"

"I can't believe I didn't pass my theory test" (I mention her utter failure to revise at all may have been a contributory factor) "How was I to know I was going to fail? Some boys I know told me it was really easy, they all said they got 100% and didn't have to try."

"I can't believe John - he's cheating on his girlfriend again. Can you believe it? I'd never cheat on someone I was in a relationship with". (I concur and ask her how her evening was...) "Oh, fine. We went out to a wine bar and when we got home I shagged John. He's such a bastard."


"I love the Kooks - they're a really good band"

"John is such a poser. He really loves himself. I don't think he's fit".

"Can I come and use your computer? I've got no internet and need to get this college application off tonight or I'll not get in?" (I reply in the affirmative. Later that evening, a text arrives...) "Sry cnt cm rnd, Bobby cutng mi hair x"

"Oh my god, what am I going to do? What would you do?" (I'd apply for college before getting a haircut, you dumb tart)

"You know, I think caffeine is keeping me awake at night" (I intrepidly enquire as to whether she drinks coffee in the evenings) "Well I had three cups between about ten and twelve" (Her colleague observes that this is obviously going to keep one awake) "No, I've never had it affect me that way. It usually helps me sleep" (Yes, sweetheart, and cocaine makes you an even more reserved, self-effacing intellectual than you already are...)

"At the weekend I woke up and some sick had come out of my bottom"

"Doesn't air go in through the holes in your jeans?"

"Is Jeremy Vine a gay? I hate him. He's so gay. Why does he have to be so gay?"

"I love gay guys"

(As anyone who knows me will attest, I carry 20 gigabytes of music around with me and play them constantly to anyone who will listen. As soon as she hears ANY electric guitar...) "Is this Metallica?"

I'll post more as I remember them.

posting from...

... my DS Lite using handwriting recognition input alone. Impressive once I can get used to what it wants from me. Hand cramping a little bit now... off to bed.

Buying Japanese things from Hong Kong...

... is so satisfying. I can't read Kanji (or whatever the language of the manual and interface is) but I'm not stupid and the packaging and documentation has so much love and charm in it compared to the European release, which will be in a fat ugly box with a fat ugly manual which has the same thing repeated in 9 languages. And it will cost more, too. Today I was wandering in Leeds city centre, popped the thing open and collected my email in about a minute. In a bit, I might have to go for the British standard DS version, but not until I've learned this Japanese one. I can even blog on the bog, should I want to. Which I don't. Next, I'm getting a Wii. December 8th. You won;'t see me for dust.

If wishes were corpses... (or, Oh! The Huge Manatee!)

I truly wish that something like this would happen every single day of my life. Newness, things we haven't seen before. Surely that's the point, isn't it? Twenty nine years and I still struggle with the concept of a day that was no different to the one before. I feel robbed, as if I'm having a trick played on me. Most people seem to believe that the obvious differences between humans and other animals are proof that we should be concreting everything and posessing more stuff than the next person but to be honest, I think it is more to do with the ability to appreciate some obscure Russian location yielding a Lovecraftian hair-snake-demon cadaver. To look upon this and know that it is cool, that is what it means to be human. Also, to have predicted these things about 20 years ago. I still remember the creature shop bringing the display to the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. Specifically my mother shreiking at the rubber prosthetic tusk of one of those big bloody things from the film that weren't a Skeksis, or a Mystic, which don't half resemble the decaying Russian mega-serpent above.

I must draw everyone's attention to the trailer for the new James Bond film - where maligned casting choice Daniel Craig looks set to demolish the reputation of everyone who has ever pplayed the character, so accurate to Fleming's original vision does this trailer look. Nice that the fleet of connection can opt for a super high quality trailer as well - but anything less than a 2 meg connection needn't bother - the quality is in his delivery of the lines after all. I can't wait for this.

Tiredness

Triedness, headaches and general overdoing it can cause one to be less than 100% attentive to the task at hand. Then one drops ones laptop onto the corner of the coffee table, and suddenly there's less packing to do for the big move. This is a shame, as I'd had the thing for less than a year. DEspite it being very very heavy, very very slow and probably the lowest spec machine I've ever seen XP run on, I loved it. I waited years for the opportunity to have a laptop, it kept me sane through the last few months of my job at the hostel, and was my first one. I don't think I'll ever have anything but a thinkpad after this one - they are just so (yes, I know...) robust compared to anything else I've used, macs inlucded. Then again, laptops are all catching fire these days aren't they? Perhaps I got off lightly? No, that's not it at all.

I'm going to bed, hopefully Forest will win but I'm not going to get away with staying awake through this headache to hear it.

No decorum in the forum(s)

This week I have cancelled my membership of a number of forums. Now, the most significant of these has made me some cracking real-world friends who I only see occasinally but whose company I really enjoy. We've even been on telly together and stuff. The forum of our fraternity (well, second server/architecture but same nucleus of blokes) has declined in terms of the average age and level of literacy to a point where I feel it is full of children who have no respect for any other forum users, so I bailed in a huff, leaving a wake populated by people agreeing with me in a more measured manner, as I usually do when I kick off on the internet. I always wanted to be the one who says what everyone else is afraid to, but I think the reality is I scream what everyone else is too lethargic to bother whispering.

Whatever the truth, it is like resolving not to go to a pub that's turned rubbish, and with the pressure brought to bear upon me by recent outrageous fortune I am in the mood to swing the axe on many and various irritants in my life as I've had it up to here with just about everything. That a decaying forum or three offers me an opportunity to do this with extreme verbal attrition and no knock-on effect in real terms is a bonus. That I should stumble upon this while lazily clicking any old bollocks this evening is a nice serendipitous note upon which to end another godforsaken week of commuting to Leeds.

GTA: San Andreas nears completion. As substitutes for a wife go, it isn't a bad one. In fact, I can't think of a game that has ever pushed my immersion and emotions so far, nor kept me from all other games in my life. Football Manager sees me waver from jubilation to disgust. San Andreas incorporates both, with a healthy dose of everything else I've ever felt as well. Driving a peyote'd up Mancunian musician through the desert to a snake farm where a gunfight with a vengeful possee of inbreds awaits is entertaining enough. When said Manc asks if we are 'in Chorlton', I convulse onto the carpet sniggering like a 12 year old who has just read his first copy of Viz. I could hug the people responsible. GTA has been my refuge these last few weeks.

This England match doesn't require much concentration... so an update is in order in between pops onto Animal Crossing because it is Flea Market day and that elephant living near the beach has a wicked tribal drum I need to make her an offer on. She's never in though - thank god for sleep mode on the DS or I'd never have the patience to make progress on this game.

oh... there's a fourth for England.

Right, so the rest of the honeymoon went well, we went to Fortress Llamasoft and had a wonderful curry in Carmarthen and we returned to Mars's parents via Pembroke Dock and Steph's place - then up through the Brecons on the most glorious day you could hope to drive around Wales on. Managed to hook up with the Crickhowell posse for a Dragonsfly gig on the last night and then we returned and I was back to work.

Then everything changed. Let's do this step by step.

1: Mars took a new job. In Cardiff. A such, I'll be down there myself in a month, she's got a payrise and much more responsibility. I've been in to meet her colleagues and it's a massive imporvement over the last place, where we both worked (or tried to) and it is no less than she deserves. She was wasted before.

2: I got a promotion myself, in that most modern sense of the word, where you get to prove yourself with a ton of extra repsonsibility and no extra cash. Effectively the lass I was working on the project with in Hull and Grimsby left to program nuclear power station in Cumbria and the Lincoln, Sleaford and Boston branches had 2 Lincoln girls recruited to do the job there. I was sent in to train them and supervise across the region, given my previous experience with this type of work during my time with Loyds. The Lincoln two played a blinder, making me look great and the branches very happy indeed. We had troubles at Doncaster, now resolved and all local branches are now finished, with the exception of Leeds, where I am now commuting each day with a girl who was brought in to help finish Hull branch, and who I'd dearly love to see the back of, because despite being more than capable she's an unreliable self obsedssed lazy attention whore of the very worst kind. Little productive value in replacing her at this late stage though - I should have been firmer and less mollycoddling with her from the get-go but I'm still learning the man management role and better to learn these lessons in this 'safe' environment than somewhere down the line where my livelihood might be at stake if I couldn't get the results out of people I need. The other lad working with me, an Ulsterman from based in Sheffield is a diamond however, and he's welcome at my new place in Cardiff any time he likes. Leeds branch has an unprecedented level of problems, and we are running well over our deadline but frankly the nature of the banking branch beast is such that these problems are utterly typical across every finance institution you might drift into. Props to the lady (and she is quite a lady) who is co-ordinating the operation though - she's put her faith in me in such a way as many are too wrapped up in procedure to do and on balance, despite problems at the current venue I've managed to clean up a good few other people's messes, spot a wad of problems before they occur and generally prove myself not only to my employers but to myself, and knowing I can do it is worth much more than anyone else knowing I can - historically my lack of confidence has been my only barrier to advancement in any role I've performed.

(Five for England - Crouch could end up the best ever striker for his country if he keeps this up)

So things aren't exactly ending on a high note with this job - three weeks to go then a week to pack and I'm leaving England, but the ride has been a great experience and I've done a hell of a lot of good. The problem with spotting problems early is that you only end up with the result people expect though - were I to be letting problems happen them solve them onceeveryone knows about them, I'd be seen as a much more effective employee but my conscience isn't wired in that way. Well, at least not on this job - I prefer to reward people's trust by doing the right thing by them. I'm also sad that I'll not be seeing the last branch through - York is the final one after Leeds, but then again that wasn't my decision and beating myself up over it would be stupid.

3: Kites. That bug bites hard. I picked up a couple of these, one for me and one for Neal the day after the wedding and we flew them on the back field throughout the summer. Then I got one of these and I bloody love it - 2.2 metres of goodness for such a low price there had to be a catch - and there was... the kite is as well made as you'd expect a German thing to be, but the lines didn't last long before stretching and breaking, and the handles would have cut my hands in half in anything remotely approaching a fun wind. So with new lines and some Flexifoil padded handles I am well away, though I've missed a good few opportunities to fly through work and weather and waiting for parts to arrive in the post. Next step - a buggy or a board.

Bloody elephant still isn't in.

4: Gaming - New arrivals include an XBox - now adandoned by the market in favour of the 360 which means cheap hardware and software they virtually pay you to take off their hands. I've only been playing San Andreas though, which I LOVE more than anything I've played in ages. Pat Badger kindly donated his old N64 so my Lylat Wars happiness has returned after many years away, and a DS lite now exists, so I can enjoy my DS games the way Nintendo intended.

5: Camping - did Serena's wedding (which was surreal and brilliant in equal measure) then a fortnight later Beautiful Days, which was 3% worse thsan last year and still 110% better than any other festival you could go to in the UK.

With that, I'm ending this entry - the wifi to the laptop is as flaky as the battery in this old beast these days and I keep getting limited connectivity warnings so I'm posting while I can.