bookmark_borderSmorgasbord

Only a couple of weeks after mentioning my dual monitor setup at work and what happens? They buy us all 19″ LCD screens, no more old flickering CRTs.. woo hoo…

AND I get a RAM upgrade for my laptop (2GB now).

AND tonight is the Champions League final.

In other news, it looks like Louise is off to Spain for a week. Her flight leaves at stupid o’clock in the morning middle of the night, and she’ll be joined by her sister and our youngest nephew. Which means that I get to fend for myself for the week. Needless to say the immediate thoughts of “yeah… party!!” are replaced by “but who will iron my clothes and cook my dinner?!”.

I bet you think I’m kidding…

Her Dad is really chuffed, and I know it will mean a lot to Louise to see him again as we didn’t really think we’d be able to get out there until later in the year. And hey, it also means cheap booze for me! A litre bottle of Southern Comfort for starters…

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Ohh and a question for you all. Professionally I know a few people in my industry but would never claim to have a network of contacts. It’s not ever been something that’s bothered me overly as, in my profession at least, it doesn’t make a huge difference. In fact, if I’m honest, the entire “networking” thang has me a bit perplexed. Other than collecting contact details for large numbers of people you probably won’t contact until you need something from them (which seems a little… rude?) is there more to it?

Do you “network”? If so, any tips?

bookmark_borderRandom

Why buy a domain name if you have no plans to do ANYTHING with it and, as it’s been sitting there for over four years now, it should be obvious that no-one is going to come along and offer you a fortune for it. I want www.mclean.co.uk goddammit!! (and yes I’ve asked what the price would be, still no movement).

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Car Insurance time again, and if my current insurers — Direct Line — give me a competitive quote I’ll probably stick with them. Just can’t be arsed with all the faffing about to save £12 … ohh and that reminds me, need to get the road tax renewed. How much is a year again? Brilliant, not even June and I’m spending that months wage already! grumble grumble

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In other news, I’m looking for a good Windows font application that will print out a nicely formatted font sample sheet. Typograf might do it but it costs and I’m cheap. Anyone know of a good freeware alternative?

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Red Hot Chili Peppers new album, Stadium Arcadium. Meh. Disappointing. I think they’ve had their ‘moment’.

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And finally, I’m in a meeting all day today (offsite, so at least I’ll get lunch on the company), so don’t expect much in the way of posting. Not that that will make much of a change.

bookmark_borderDreich

It’s all gone a bit ‘yeuch’ hasn’t it. What happened to the summer, was that it?! Probably.

In saying that, I don’t mind this kind of weather so much. It’s not raining hard enough to soak you, more a steady constant dripping, and as it’s warm enough to not need a jumper it was actually quite a pleasant walk to work this morning. Or at least it would have been if I was able to walk properly.

It seems the gardening extertions on Saturday have taken their toll on my hamstrings as they are tighter than a gnats chuff (or some other euphemism). I’m fine once I get going but as it only takes about two minutes to walk from the station to my office, no sooner have my legs started to approach normal functionality than I’ve arrived. I even wandered round the block at lunchtime just to keep them active. Might have a hot bath this evening…

Aside from that, and some rather juicy gossip at work which I can’t mention here (but it’s positively DRIPPING it’s so juicy), there ain’t much else to say. The news is wholly boring, and… wait.. how could I have forgotten!

BIG BROTHER STARTS ON THURSDAY!!!

What? Ohh don’t give me that look.

I promise I won’t blog about it any more than before as, and this is the same every year no matter how hard I try, I’ll start watching it for the first few weeks then I’ll get bored. Then, with about four weeks to go, I’ll get back into it (fitting it in alongside the World Cup of course) and THEN I’ll bore you all stupid. You have been warned!

bookmark_borderWeekender

A good meal on Friday night at The Cruin was spoiled by the waiting staff. Generally I’m pretty tolerable of below par service (unless it’s downright unprofessional) as everyone makes mistakes, an apology usually suffices and I tend to take things on balance. If the food is good, the atmosphere welcoming, table positions are favourable etc etc.. then I’m not going to complain. However, unlike Arseney Wobble Twatson, I don’t think scrapping the minimum wage would help improve restaurant service.

Arriving back home we heard the most awful, anguished, noise coming from the back garden of our neighbours house. It was obviously an animal in some distress but didn’t sound like a cat or dog… we both guessed at a fox (we have a couple that we see regularly). I took a torch from the car and wandered up to the gate, peered over into the darkness but couldn’t see a thing. By this time the noise had stopped. I cast the feeble beam around but it made little impression so I headed back to the house.

And the noise started again. It was an awful sound, so I decided to get my big torch, the one that’ll light up a house half a mile away, and see if that would help.

Back to the neighbours gate, a flick of a switch and their entire back garden explodes into light. Two foxes are staring at me. Oops. The male dismounts and skulks off before the female follows, she pauses at the corner of the building and throws me a look that says “thank you, he was awful!”.

Saturday morning and we are both in a “get things done” mood. The sun is flitting between clouds so out into the garden we head. Digging, cutting, weeding commences. At 3pm I fall onto the sofa and spend the next couple of hours flicking between channels, trying to watch both Cup Finals at the same time.

Louise comes in, watches for a bit then decides to clean the bathroom. About ten minutes later a little scream emanates from the smallest room in the house, it’s a well known scream and usually accompanies a small eight-legged insect. I stick my head out of the living room door:

“You OK?”
“Yes… yes I’m fine… ” she says, stifling a giggle.
“What you up to?” I say, somewhat suspiciously.
“Nothing.. no no, nothing… *giggle*

I head upstairs to investigate.

I get there and Louise looks at me sheepishly. Apparently something had scurried out from under the bathroom unit as she was cleaning the floor, it kind of “rolled” at her, she said.

Startled, she screamed whilst trying to avoid this odd little insect as it rolled “right at me”.

So, if you are like Louise and not fond of little scurrying insects may I make a small suggestion. Don’t leave little rubber bands lying around, as when you try and sweep them up they sometimes “ping” and “roll” at you.

Which can be very scary. Apparently.

bookmark_borderM:I III

Movie info from IMDB
Movie reviews from Metacritic

I’m part of an agency… called the IMF.
What’s that stand for?
Impossible Mission Force.
[chuckles] Yeah right.

So let’s get this straight. Tom Cruise, big budget action movie, and the guy behind Lost and Alias directing it? Can’t lose right? Right. And it doesn’t.

Yes Philip Seymour Hoffman acts Tom off the screen, yes the stunts and gadgets are over the top, yes there is a lot of violence and guns and explosions. And yes it works.

I’ve never really understood why the critics pan Tom Cruise for his poor acting in a movie like this. The entire point is that you aren’t watching HIM, you are watching the action. You are wanting to be entertained, to laugh, to be thrilled, to be excited. If I wanted to see some great acting… well I wouldn’t pick Mission: Impossible, would I.

Movies are about entertainment and that comes in many forms. It just so happens that this movie delivers in spades, the action scenes zip along, there are a couple of nice twists, and it’s hugely entertaining. JJ Abrams has injected a nice sense of humour to things, and there is even a distinct storyline in evidence. Suspension of disbelief is required, naturally, but as a summer blockbuster movie this hits the mark.

Mind you, ANY movie that features Simon Pegg can’t be bad, right?!

bookmark_borderSnippets

Can’t believe it’s Friday already. This is despite both Louise and I thinking that YESTERDAY was Friday, something we are putting down to the lovely weather we HAD (grey and with a slight chill in the air this morning… welcome to Scotland).

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My “should I post when I’ve nothing to post” post was interesting. I’m fully aware that it was completely contrived but it was still interesting to read your comments so thanks for that. It was borne out of habit rather than need… you see I’ve been a bit busy.

In fact I think I would go far as to say that I’m a little stressed at the moment. The POTW site is dragging WAY beyond my deadline and is now a burden rather than a pleasure and no, this is not a call for help as it’s more that I’ve lost motivation to tackle it because I have two paying customers waiting for some movement (one is time critical, one isn’t). Another factor is the bigger project I’ve mentioned before which has seemed to hit a bottleneck. This weekend will see me taking the bull by the horns methinks (something I probably should’ve done a couple of weeks back)

All of this sits beside the fact that, at work, I’m down to one. Me. The other member of my team (which was already one short) left a couple of weeks ago and I’m picking up his work as well as trying to start some new stuff. Now I know that EVERYONE is busy, and I hate to moan. So I’ll stop.

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Tonight Louise and I are out for dinner to celebrate the 70th birthday of her Aunt Mary (her Mum’s sister). It’s at the Cruin, somewhere I’d recommend if you ever make it to Loch Lomond…. ohh balls .. just remembered that I’ve left my camera at home. Arsebuckets.

Anyway, a late night drive home will mean we have the weekend to ourselves. Gardening is on the cards, as is a visit to the cinema. And yes, a fair chunk of work as well (at least five or six mockups are the aim).

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Ohh and whilst I remember, this site will slowly start to evolve over the coming months. So far I’m planning to upgrade to WordPress 2, import the overflow posts into WordPress, import comments from HaloScan and switch to WordPress commenting (both on main posts and overflow posts), and return to a more minimal design and then promise not to change it for at least one year. Yes I’m hoping to create a ‘brand’ that I’m happy with. Fingers crossed.