Month: April 2004

Does anyone else do this? Is it just me? Read on…

Louise is on holiday today, tomorrow and Monday. I’ll be in work those days. That’s fine. No problem. My usual travel partner is also on holiday (it’s her birthday). No problem there either.

I’ll take the car to the station. I can use the iPod on the train* to drown out Little Miss Loudgob. I’ll get off the train at Argyll Street to add a 10 minute walk to my journey (trying to be healthy).

I’ll get into work. Have a coffee. Read my email. All will be well with my day.

That’s the plan. That WAS the plan. That WAS the plan until some tosser plonked himself down right next to me on the train, and managed to yank the earphones from my ears AND out of the iPod jack. That WAS the plan until my ‘morning walk’ turned into nothing more than a continual ‘avoidance of wankers’.

So I’m narked. MAJORLY.

Thing is I shouldn’t be. I did take the car to the station. I did use the iPod on the train. I did get off the train a stop early and walk to work. I have had a coffee (now two) and I AM reading my email.

But it wasn’t exactly as I planned. It didn’t pan out as I thought it would, wished it would, dreamed it would. That annoys me.

I get the same way at the weekend. I like to plan. I like to know what is coming, and I don’t like deviation from it, not one jot. My plans do not allow for variation. Variation is bad. Variation gets me narked.

Anyone else suffer from this?

* Instructions for setting ‘acceptable volume levels’.

1. Hold the headphones in your hand, NOT next to your ear.
2. Press play.
3. If you can hear the singer drawing breath between lines – IT’S TOO LOUD!
4. Set the volume so that you can barely hear the music.
5. Place headphones on head/in ears – depending on model of headphones.

Simple.

If anyone knows the woman who had her ‘walkman’ set so loud that I could hear it three rows away, WITH my iPod playing, please forward these instructions on to her. If she isn’t contactable by email please phone her but remember that you may need to shout as she’s no doubt in the final stages of progression to complete deafness.

Still stuck for some reason, maybe there is too much going on.

Work is getting hectic and veering from the normal everyday work to discussions of a bigger nature about processes and business analysis and … etc etc. But then it’s always been like that, well it has for me anyway, and to be honest I’m quite glad that it’s headed back to that state – shows that things are picking up. Ohh I forgot. “I don’t blog about work”. Moving on then…

I want to write about abortion, prompted by Green Fairy. I want to write about smoking bans in Scotland, prompted by Peter. I want to write more about the redesign (and continue it), prompted by Scrivs at White Space.

But I won’t. Can’t. What? Ohhh go on then. I’ll keep it brief.

Abortion – I believe in the woman’s right to choose.
Smoking – I believe a ban is a good thing. I like air.
Redesign – I WILL implement a style sheet switcher and allow both bigger fonts and a more minimal site design.

There. I did it. Composed a blog post from nothing. Ain’t I clever.

I’m off to bugger about with Scottish Blogs – if you hear a muffled scream that involves PHP code don’t worry, it’s just me.

I DO want to say a lot about the various factors involved in this article: Powazek: Just a Thought: The “Kostroversy” Context.

But I’m not going to as I’m still trying to separate the emotional from the factual. I do suggest you read and explore it though.

Blocked. Stuck. Absent. Frozen. Closed. Rooted. Suspended. Grounded. Stumped. Hindered. Impeded. Obstructed. Hindered. Stopped. Inert. Stagnant. Dormant. Static. Torpid. Stalled.

We (bloggers) have all done it. Navel-gazing. Wondering why we bother doing this ‘quirky’ thing called blog.

It may only be her 15 minutes of fame but Moi has captured it all nicely, in a very ‘look it’s just this wee thing, stop fretting about it’ kinda way. I suggest you get over there and read it.

As ever, Mr.Coates (Tom to his friends) moves things on in terms of the recent discussions concerning Kinja. His post, Sharing multiple digests could be kinja’s killer app, makes some excellent points and I believe he is correct in thinking that Kinja’s best chance at success would be to promote the ‘sharing’ aspect of it’s digests. In a comment, Mike suggests what I’d already been thinking, namely that a few well honed digests would/will replace the blogroll.

However there is one statement in Tom’s post that I don’t wholeheartedly agree with:

“how do we get people to think in terms of their engagement with others”

Whilst I agree that in a corporate environment (which is already using blogs as a way of communicating ‘informal’ information) Kinja could be a killer app, but it lacks one things. Discussion.

The easiest way to ensure other people are aware of the expectations placed on them, and for them to communicate the expectations they have of others, is through discussion. Where that discussion takes places could be crucial.

I think most blogs have their own comment system installed, and that is the rightful place for discussions concerning a post, but extending Kinja to allow comments on a digest post would allow others to add more weight as to why others should click the link and ‘read the rest’. Of course it may not be a commenting system that is required, just some way of adding ’emphasis’ and showing interest may be enough. Presently the only way I can think of using Kinja to do that would be multiple digests of multiple digests – with different digests representing differently weighted topics.

The more I play with Kinja, the more it feels right, above all else, I just hope they keep the aim of the product simple.