Category: Life

For the stuff about my life

bookmark_borderThe weekend! It's the weekend!!

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I’m sitting on the sofa with some weird MTV programme blaring at me, but my niece seems to be enjoy it, despite my protestations…

Yesterday was the first Xmas ‘event’ of the year, namely the Development Team’s away day. 50 of us, crammed into a nearby gastro-pub, crackers, crap toys, and turkey. All washed down by … Guinness. Still the food wasn’t all that bad, and it was good to unwind, the last two weeks have been manic as we headed towards a release deadline.

And so my attention turns to Christmas. We are heading through to my parents today to help put their tree up. Something I’ve not done for many years, and at some point I’ll need to start thinking about buying some presents.

It also means I now have time to get on with those other things I had hoped to get finished by Xmas. A website or two, another 100 CDs to rip and get into the loft, not to mention considering what I’m going to buy in the New Year sales.

Toying with a super-compact camera, for when my current camera is a little too big, Sky HD, or… umm.. a PlayStation3. The latter is expensive and scarce and I might hold off for another 6 months or so… which then brings the Wii into play, presuming I can get hold of one.

Decisions, decisions.

But first. Coffee. And some more painkillers…

bookmark_borderHeading home

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Almost packed, but I think I can get this flaky wireless connection to stay online for long enough to post some quick thoughts.

The conference was very informative, and it was good to meet other TechPubs Managers and chat about the variety of responsibilities and “challenges” we all face. My presentation went well, although I did finish 5 minutes earlier. I had planned a short live demo but concerns over time and internet connections made me reconsidered. Next time (presuming there is one!) I’ll plan in more content.

It was a buzz though, and I can understand why people enjoy doing it and why, despite the nerves, people keep doing it. I enjoyed standing on the stage and talking about something I have a passion for, and watching and feeding off the reactions of the audience. I had a few humorous observations which got just the reaction I’d hoped and I could feel my confidence soaring with every passing minute. I even abandoned my notes, a stack of index cards on which I’d written key points, and managed to wing my way through the last few slides without missing a beat. I even remembered to pause, to move around the stage, to raise and lower my voice, to make eye contact and all those other things that make a difference. I THINK it went down well, feedback may tell me otherwise.

So overall, it was fun and I learnt some stuff. That’s all for the other blog though.

I am a bit tired this morning though but I do want to take a moment to thank the couple in the room next to me for a very educational evening. I’m in a Club room and the adjoining door, whilst firmly locked, does leave a little to be desired when it comes to sound-proofing. This was to my benefit though as I now know that a Romanian woman (I think, certainly from that neck of the woods) makes the same noises and cries out “OH God!” whilst reaching the climax of her orgasm. The couple very generously made sure I fully understood this by repeating the lesson three times. The third lesson finished around 1am, and I think if a fourth had been started I may well have knocked on the adjoining door to thank them for such an informative evening.

Speaking of which, I did catch Charlie Brooker on TV talking about the trend in TV Reporting, which is particularly poignant given the BREAKING NEWS being splashed all over Sky News this morning. Yes, apparently England lost a game of football.

Ohh come on, you didn’t think I WOULDN’T mention it, did you?

I did watch the game, and will admit to cheering rather loudly at every goal. All three of them.

Hmmmm, maybe the couple in the next room were just getting me back…

bookmark_borderThere's a kind of hush

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We will not be mentioning the football.

Apart from saying well done as, to be honest, to even get to the last game with a chance of qualification and then giving the World Champions a bloody good run for their money was far more than anyone dared to hope (and this is where I DON’T mention the ball that McFadden should’ve squared across the area, nor the opportunity he missed, and I’m not even going to touch on the freekick that led to the Italian winner as it’s not even worthy of the name “freekick”…).

The rest of the evening was merry, and we even managed to get a Greek waiter at our Italian restaurant. The meal was OK, although I’ve never really understood why Italian restaurants are so expensive (pasta, chicken, spinach, onion, cream, white wine… £12.95?!), and the company was excellent. Alas the torrential rain put the dampers on proceedings, although given the state of my hangover yesterday that is probably no bad thing.

It did mean I got to watch a few old movies as the TV channels seem to have started their Christmas broadcasting early. My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Matilda, See No Evil Hear No Evil, Spiderman, The Usual Suspects. The quality improved throughout the day, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Kevin Spacey in action (twice as it happened, couldn’t have told you he was in the other movie…).

I travel to Warwick tomorrow, then back on Thursday, so bloggage will be light. I will try and do something exciting whilst I’m there though, just to keep you all amused. Although there are limits to how much excitement you can generate in a room full of Technical Writers..

bookmark_borderSpaghetti blognese*

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Furtling around for inspiration I ran a few standard blogging fallbacks through some mental checks.

  • Too busy because – nope, did one of those recently.
  • Interesting referrers – my stats are way down as it is so I’ve been avoiding looking at my stats at all. Ohhh, actually that might be a topic I could tackle, finding out reader stats across website hits and RSS feed subscriptions… but others have done that one so.. moving on…
  • Spam comments – nope, didn’t that one recently too.
  • What do I have in draft – “How to grab TV episodes using torrents” – yeah started that one but need to be at home to finish it.

I guess all I have left is to ask for music/book recommendations, after all I have a “Dear Santa” list to fill and it’s only really got some camera stuff on it at the moment (and my groovy, self-designed Reebok trainers of course. And yes, that IS the longest URL in the world…). Suggestions welcomed..

Other than that, little of note has happened to me recently as my day is largely a set of predictable and repeated steps.

(intrepid bloggers will by now have realised that I’m falling back on the ultimate of all fall backs by posting about not being able to post and why I don’t have anything to write about, thus giving me something to write about in this post. Wise is the experienced blogger…)

Get up at 6.30am, go to work, try and not get interrupted (I’m failing at this one but that seems to be the way of things), go home, chill out for an hour or so, do stuff that needs done, then get some more work done and try to get to bed before 1am (just). Boring. Not really stuff wot people will find interesting.

(great, now this is turning into an “I’m too busy to post” post.. dammit)

Next week will be different as I’m off to exotic Warwick and will be delivering a presentation to a room full of my peers. Yes I am starting to crap myself a little but I know the topic well enough (Wikis) and will get a couple more rehearsals in before Wednesday.

Other than that, the main topic in this neck of the woods is football.

For those of you not au fait with such things if Scotland beat Italy on Saturday, we will have qualified for the European Championships. We haven’t qualified for a big tournament for 10 years so this is a very big thing especially when you consider that, really, we shouldn’t even be in with a shout of qualifying at all, having been drawn in a qualifying group with the two World Cup finalists from last year and with only two teams going through.

Two shock wins against France, and some good performances at home, have put us in this position and the nation (well the bit that cares about this stuff) is rallying. One of my co-workers has come to work in his kilt.

Which is odd as the game is tomorrow but I admire his spirit nonetheless.

We are watching the game with friends, and in my heart I hope we manage it. Our national team was a joke one year ago, and whilst I think it’s fair to say we are hitting above our weight at the moment, it’s reminiscent of the Scotland teams I grew up with.

After the game we are all off out to a highly reputed local restaurant. So if the worst happens, and we concede an injury equaliser (thus almost rendering it impossible for us to qualify (there are permutations beyond tomorrow but they involve the Faroe Islands beating current World Champions Italy… hmmm)) which given the precarious nature with which the national football team seems to operate is the most likely scenario, we will at least eat well and enjoy good company, lively banter and large amounts of alcohol.

Although part of me is wishing we hadn’t booked an Italian restaurant.

* SORRY!!

bookmark_borderIt's time to stop when…

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You take a break from work, fire up Google Reader and idly flick through a few feeds. Your eyes alight on a delicious link and you think, ohh must check that out.

Only then do you realise that you are reading your OWN RSS feed, and you’ve already bookmarked said link in delicious so you’ll check it out.

Sometimes the internets really is confussing, round and round it goes.

bookmark_borderFor the Fallen

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There is little else to mention here today as everything else pales into insignificance. Draft posts have me pondering the moaners of the world and listing pet peeves, all of which seems so petty.

Remembrance Sunday seems old-fashioned and trite at times but fundamentally it is worth taking time not to remember but to consider.

The life we live in 2007 bears little to no resemblance of that in either of the World War eras. Much has changed and it is all too easy for us to forget, or worse, to stop teaching the lessons learned.

The conflict in Iraq is all that should be needed, the war on terror may invoke different thoughts yet it too remains a conflict. Men will die for their cause, exploits and bravery beyond anything I’ll ever know will continue.

I studied history at school, and have some understanding of the horrors of war. I have no idea how I would react if placed in such a situation, it is unlikely I ever will.

Remember.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.