bookmark_borderTechie advice

MySQL. How do you setup a new database?

I know my host supports it, but that’s the limit of my knowledge. Rather than spend an evening aimlessly surfing I was kinda hoping someone out there would have some pointers/suggestions/offers of free help…

Answers in the usual place please.

[UPDATE: Found my hosts info on setting up PHP on MySQL, all is right with the world again. To those who have already commented, many thanks, I WILL be consulting you later on!]

bookmark_borderYou must be joking

Last Thursday I suggested a collaborative joke, this is the outcome. I’ll let you decide it’s humour value (i.e. if it’s higher than zero…).

A monkey, a dragon and a rat walk into a bar…
The barman looks at the monkey and says…
“I’ve seen plenty of rats in here but I’ve never seen one of those”…
The dragon turns to the rat and says.. “that’s nothing mate, you should see the size of his….
overdraft!”

Hmmm.

Thanks to Green Hamster, Penny Farthing, JH, Simon and Peter (in that order).

bookmark_borderOwn up

OK who submitted my last post to blorgy.com? I’m flattered, thanks!

Now, everyone else – get over there and vote for me! (it’s not about the content, it’s about winning!!! Muwahahahaaaa)

bookmark_borderMaxim

“It’s nice to be nice”

I used to think that was yet another cloying sentiment, a snippet of the wisdom of ye olde worlde. I used to scoff at people who said it, I used to mock them.

Now? Now I’m turning into one of them.

I consider myself selfish, self-serving and occasionally rude. I do not really care what other people think of me. OK, that’s a lie, I do not really care what strangers think of me, and that allows me some ‘old grumpy man’ style freedoms.

Take, for example, the journey home this evening. We took our seats on the train (a rare occurrence in itself), sitting next to the doorway that joins the carriages. Now I fully understand that these doors are designed to open to facilitate the movement of passengers between the carriages (and I have to begrudgingly concede that they, as doors, fulfill that requirement to the full), but there is a flaw in their design. People.

People who throw the door open so it catches me square on the elbow. People who then glance round at me as they stride through, as if I had deliberately thrown my elbow out to meet the door. People who manage, in that briefest of glances, to convey the utmost despise for someone they don’t know (I tell you, it’s just as well I’m thick skinned). People who then proceed to stride out, leaving the door ajar and swaying to the same rhythm as the train.

People who stop and turn to glare when I, pointedly, slam the door they’ve left open.

It’s not too much to ask is it? A quick apology, even that kind ‘eek, sorry’ face would do (you know the one, where you pull the corners of your mouth back and down, teeth clenched… ach you know what I mean) but no, nothing.

And don’t get me started on the kitchen in our office. Disgusting. If I was invited over to certain co-workers for a meal I’d have to decline. I’ve seen they way they treat a kitchen, dishes left clogged with drying food, the sink full of used cutlery and bits of lunch. Soggy strands of lettuce clinging to the knives and forks like a man washed overboard, drenched, hanging on for dear life lest he be swept away into the drain below him. How long does it take to rinse your plate, and place it in the dishwasher provided? Or rinse that teaspoon, dry it (hell, flick it dry if needs must) and place it in the glass provided? Obviously too long. Yuck.

It’s this kind of thing which manifests itself later as road rage. The build up of all these, seemingly inconsequential, moments of thoughtlessness that churn inside you all day, only to be manifested on your journey home. The slightest provocation is all that is needed to push you over the edge, typically another small act of thoughtlessness.

So, tomorrow, be nice. Don’t let that door swing back into someone’s face. Let someone else get on the bus before you, thank someone if they do something nice for you, and apologise if you do something rude.

Either that or stay the hell outta my road!

bookmark_borderWimps

Apparently it will be getting quite cold in the UK over the coming week. Why it may get down to -10C or even, perish the thought, -15C!!

What’s all the panic about? I guess the problem is the British ‘kinda nothing’ climate, anything that slightly deviates from the norm and it’s panic stations all round.

You know what’s worse though… I’ve started posting about the frickin’ weather!

bookmark_borderWhaes like us?

Burns Night tonight.

My Dad is the President of Dumbarton’s Burns Club (Association?). This year he has already sang at two Burns suppers, and has another eight to attend. Tomorrow night he travels to Dumfries to the Howff Club, which was formed in 1889.

He told me a story this evening about the Globe Inn (where the club resides). About 40 years ago, the local window cleaner handed in his bill as usual, the owner decided to check it and noticed he was being charged to clean 24 windows. The owner was sure there were only 22, so he recounted them (from the inside) and confronted the window cleaner. The window cleaner was certain he cleaned 24 windows and took the owner outside to prove it. Only then did they realise there was a hidden room to one side of the Inn. It is presumed it was built as an illicit drinking den, as the entrance to the room was from the building on the farside of the Inn.

My knowledge of Robert Burns is not extensive, I can remember singing some songs in the school choir, reciting a few poems in primary school, reading Tam O’Shanter in English class, and I vividly remember my first Burns Supper. Highly ritualised, and totally hilarious. As with these things I don’t remember the jokes all too well but I do remember the air was a certain shade of blue!

Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat
And sae the Lord be thankit.