T3h 1nt3rn3tz: Keep the stupid off.

I'll grant you, if that were the case I'd never receive an email, none of the sites I visit would ever get updated and there'd be no-one reading this, but seeing as I'm busy doing the special thing and don't want to blog about it, here's the blog of a cartoonist, whose site is called OK/CANCEL. He mentions Google and suddenly all his comments are from luddites wanting google toolbar off their machine (uninstall it, then).

The comments thread descends into parody eventually, but the genuine posts on there are hilarious.

Less is more?

According to this dude, I shouldn't blog that often anyway. I feel better now.

Today was our Frontline Workers Forum. We had workshops and buffet, all the usual stuff, with Supporting People kingpins in attendance, who managed to put across their healthy disregard for certain inaccurate stats, though they repeated their commitment to ending street homelessness in Cardiff, which is about as realistic as the 'Stop Child Abuse, Full Stop' NSPCC campaigns - noble aspirations all but people should remember the point first made by King Canute. People choose street homelessness, you'll never make everyone accept social housing, even if there were ever to be enough to go round. To kick off proceeding we watched a vox pop video commissioned to interview street homeless and one of the main speakers, from whom many attendees drew points of conversation, bemoaned the lack of actual provision in the sector in the face of much good advice - you get lots of words of help but less action, if you are homeless. Perhaps so, but this client in particular has more cash in his bank account then our chief exec.

Which just goes to show... service user involvement and representation might be essential, which I agree it is, but a good number of people will tend to pick and choose what truth they give the camera lens, and many of those who would come forward for an interview in such circumstances have an agenda of their own. We are in the business of supporting people, not programmable honesty and gratitude-bots, and people aren't to be simply believed, whoever they are. Not when there's millions out of the public purse at stake.

Finally, if rumours of Broadcom Wifi chipset support as standard in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon are not greatly exaggerated, I'll be making one final pass at the Death Star Trench of Linux usage. I far that by the time Ubuntu fully catches up with the hardware in my desktop PC the processor and ram therein won't be able to cope, though hopefully for an iteration or two yet it will be less hungry than XP on that machine. Who knows? If I could get Amarok on WinXP yet I wouldn't even care. Kubuntu Gutsy is out before that, though, and I've never been patient with technology.

I can't blog!

It's a shame - I've been in Caerdydd a year this week, and relative to Hull, or a Manchester where I'm spending my free time with Mars and not really living the Manc life, the Cymru Crew are responsible for making the last year successful beyond any hopes I may have had.

All ambitions are exceeded; I've got a real ale pub, friends across the city, plenty of kiting spots near I can reach under my own steam, and a country retreat which features one of my oldest and best mates from school, the best kiting beach in the UK and more countryside to be naughty in that you can shake a can of Carlsberg at.

I've got the job I want and I'm pissing off half my colleagues with the stuff management are giving me to do while the other half have welcomed me into their social circle, feed me wherever possible and get me hammered when I need a night off from the job. I'm also making a DVD for the sector. Let's see if I can be more successful than Mars.....

My inner geek purrs contentedly at my current tech - I'm in the process of trimming down my spare PC bits by making computers for children then giving stuff away, using my old mainbox as a download workhorse, my current main PC being my new (and surprisingly cheap for the spec) Acer Laptop. I've my Wii, my PSP and all the storage space Mars and I need, the 360 will come with my full-time contract. The driving is shortly to be taken care of, the new bike is ready for a day where the sun is shining and I'm not in work or beholden to the company of those who haven't got the inclination to do the Taff trail.

I can ride my board with kite now, and know how not to die. My cooking has improved, I know all the best shops and takeaways in town and I am beginning to recall street names from time to time. I am comfortable with my mobile phone, my perceived social standing and my bank balance. My nightmares tend to be about things I can address in real life. I use mouthwash. I've read all the Dune books. I use organic ingredients and recycle my garden waste. We have retained the services of my Father as an extant being and my Brother has visited the place I live, as have all people I care about who aren't outside the uk or typically hopeless at going anywhere but their local.

I can cultivate my own chillies and go without beer for a week. The only TV I watch is Top Gear or Doctor Who. I'm the all singing all dancing most successful Mike there has ever been.

But I can't blog properly.

All the interesting stuff would get me sacked. The high-level resignations everyone has been whispering about in the sector? I cold have told you here first. The hilarious junkie-who-died-five-times? None of your business, legally speaking. My evil Machiavellian scheme to take over the entire sector? Can't be giving that away..... and I certainly can't name any names.

You see, for all the above stuff I do in my free time, my life is mainly taken up by work, as such a good 75% of all the things I want to write about (and the most interesting 75% at that) are work based. I simply can't be writing about them and keep my job, which happens to be quite important to me. This leaves me with the bottom 25% of things I might ever want to write about and to be honest, I can't be arsed, given how little free time I have and how quickly people will help themselves to it.

I know people check back here from time to time because they enjoy reading what I write. Well here's another fairly dull post and with it an apology, I'll still be blogging in here, just bear in mind it ain't the good stuff - you'll need to buy me a pint to get at that.