Archive for March, 2005
Bias
Well the blue squares above are all filled in, which means it’s the end of another month. This was certainly a March with a lot less ups and downs than last year, and I mean that literally as well as emotionally. I kept all four wheels on the ground this year!
I’ll be moving on into April with more work on whatinterest, with the hope of maybe even launching before the month is out.
I cancelled my Blockbuster subscription today, hence it’s removal from the right hand bar. The last three DVD’s I got have been sitting on top of the PC since the beginning of the year, unwatched. I could have bought them with the subscription fees I’ve paid during that time. I don’t know why I never got around to watching the items I was sent, I think sometimes I have a bias towards watching things I already know rather than trying something new.
Feet
Well they’ve taken the money for the tax disc out of my account, does that mean they’ll actually post it to me now? One day left.
Not much else happening, another night of whatinterest, toothache, naps on the couch and sausages for tea. Really just a feet up, laid back, good music kind of a night.
Reasonably
I’ll try and not scare everybody like I did last night. I really just couldn’t think of anything to write, posting a photograph seemed like the easy way out.
I must have been enjoying myself working on whatinterest tonight because I didn’t even notice how late it was, it was after midnight before I realised that I should really have been sleeping. As is always the case with these projects, every time you get somewhere another ten things rear their ugly head and beg to be dealt with. There’s nothing too complex, it’s just getting it all on the page in a reasonably coherent way. At the moment the thinking is that the code will be GPL’d (since all the content will be released under a creative commons license), but I’m trying to not let that effect my coding style too much. Everybody will just have to deal with my mess as it is.
On a slightly less positive note, my toothache is back, and I still don’t have my new tax disc. Only a couple more days before I’m driving illegally.
Thousand
I couldn’t think what to write.
The picture only needs to tell 986 words.
Abstracted
And another weekend comes to a close. I was a bit bored today, but I watched the BBC Supervolcano documentary that I’d recorded on TiVo a couple of weeks ago and that was entertaining for a couple of hours. Especially timely since the topic was discussed in the book I just finished.
I spent the rest of the evening bouncing around episodes of Friends, Seinfeld, Blackadder and Whose Line. I’ve decided I need a big button on my desktop that just launches a random episode of my large TV show collection, deciding what to watch is getting harder.
I also worked some more on the little whatinterest upgrade I spoke about yesterday. GR looks at me funny when I tell him what I think it should do, like it’s going to take months of development and be hugely complicated. I’ve always thought otherwise, thinking that if abstracted enough it could be done really quickly, but his comments have obviously gotten to me as I’ve now started to look at it with a bit of a negative outlook. I tried to lay out the code to make it work tonight and now I’m worried it’s too simple, like I’m missing something. Damn his pessimism.
Off work tomorrow. I don’t think the day is going to hold very much, but I’m going to try and get up at a reasonable time so it feels more like I had time off. Sometimes I think I just sleep these days away.
Sadistic
Why does everything come off your bank account at once? I’m just a hair away from going over my overdraft and I’m not even sure how I managed it. There are charges on there for stuff I purchased weeks ago, as if they were all waiting until Easter to take their money like some sort of sadistic chocolate egg alternative.
Build
Quick tip for web designers, if you’re laying out your website design idea on paper beforehand, get yourself some proper colours. Apparently the fidelity of blue biro doesn’t translate so well to screen.
Myself and GR are working on something we hope is going to be a little bit special in the website department, but these things can always be a worry. Will anybody use it, will it just their dormant just like previous attempts to do something community based, are we biting off more than we can chew?
That last one is especially pertinent, because our imagination has quickly run away on this one. What was originally meant to just be about finishing whatinterest to it’s original vision (with comments and management of your own collection) has turned into a site which seems to be trying to compete with half the internet. But we’re going ahead anyway, because I have this stupid belief that if you build it, they will come.
Let’s hope I’m right about that one, but whatever the outcome, it’s great to feel creative again.
Past
Well the past is past and it’s time to live for tomorrow. It’s holiday time again and no work until Tuesday.
I’m going to put on some cool tunes, sit back in the chair and work out how to display databases in new and creative ways.
Hate
I want you to imagine me, and then a really, really long way away something representing happyness.
I then want you to imagine myself and happyness coming together. Really slowly, little tippy-toe steps, but there’s communication throughout. It’s not a particularly straight path either, it twists and turns a bit rather than being direct, but there is a path nontheless and it is being travelled, even if it is hesitantly.
So then imagine this goes on for a reasonably short period of time, during which the brief encounters are very enjoyable.
Then imagine somebody comes along with a giant hammer, and in Monty Python style, crushes happyness in one swoop. BANG! Destroyed while I look on with upset eyes. A destructive nature that has decided that happyness isn’t allowed, however much it’s wanted, because I’m not deserving enough. A destructive nature that has appeared before many times, but from which lessons are not learned.
That destructive nature ladies and gentlemen is me. Sitting alone, where I’m going to remain for a very long time.
I hate myself.
Scribbling
I was just about to gather the paperwork I needed for going to the Post Office tomorrow and sorting out my tax disc, as mentioned previously, when I has this crazy idea of checking to see if they’d fixed their website. You can imagine the sound my jaw made when it hit the floor as I saw they had in fact reactivated it.
Click, reference number, click, click, click, Switch number, click, click, done. It did all the work of checking I had insurance and MOT, and I didn’t have to go hunting for any bits of paper. The promise of the Internet realised.
I spent time before this drawing pictures and scribbling notes on how I’m going to convert the whatinterest site into something that more closely resembles the original vision. There’s hopefully something very cool brewing there, the current version really doesn’t hint at what’s to come.
Creativity followed by good luck. Clearly something is wrong with me.
Fix
I can’t fix everything. But I appreciate the chance at being there, creating a few giggles along the way.
Interest
I do like extended weekends, it’s nice to get up when you’re ready to do so, rather than being forced to by the sound of the alarm.
It was however an entirely boring day. I seem unable to turn my attention to very much right now, I try and play World of Warcraft but lose interest, or I try and code and the same thing happens. I’ve got at least three half written articles for whatfilm, all lacking punch or spice that I seem unable to find endings for. So I just end up watching random TV show episodes, like Newsradio or Whose Line is it Anyway? (US version). It’s not an entirely terrible existence, but not really what I signed up for.
I’m not unhappy, just lacking a bit of direction. Need to get excited about something again, get those creative juices flowing instead of getting stuck at the gate.
Narcolepsy
I’ve found it, the cure for insomnia, it’s called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It’s a remarkably interesting book, and one which I’ve managed to get 3/4 of the way through, but every attempt I make at reading it finds me asleep after about 20 minutes. I stop reading, stand up, shake it off and after half an hour I try again. Once more, within 20 minutes, I’m fast asleep. I can actually feel myself drifting off as well, but it’s impossible to fight, like I’ve just taken a heavy sedative. It’s therefore taking me a while to get through it.
But like I said, it is a remarkably interesting book that I can recommend highly. It’s chocked full of so much information you probably don’t stand much chance of taking it all in without repeated readings, but it certainly does an admirable job of making science a lot more approachable and fun than they ever managed at school.
Undisclosed
I was scrabbling to find content for this post, so I read through what I was doing at this time last year to see if I could get any inspiration. It seems like I was incredibly happy, and as far as I can tell it had something to do with getting lost and stealing other people’s content.
So in a bid to recreate that I’ve contracted the army to blindfold me and drop me in an undisclosed location from which I have to fight my way back to safety. They’re going to make sure and hook me up with a PDA and net access so I can continue to blog, so you’ll have a first hand account of my adventure as it plays out.
Will I make it back alive? Will I be sick in the helicopter? Stay tuned.
Conspiracy
Things improve a lot when you’re not in pain or feeling sick. And the promise of the weekend has certainly done a lot to raise my mood.
I’ve been watching a lot of X-Files episodes over the past week or so, ever since I watched the one I reviewed on whatinterest. I’ve been specifically picking the episodes that dealt with the conspiracy that was the overriding story arc across so much of the show. This usually means six or so episodes a season, the first and last shows and at least two dual parters throughout the year.
I’m up to season 7, and it seems clear that Chris Carter was really just making this up as he went along. Seeing them all together shows how disjointed it was, and how it really doesn’t work dramatically. Questions seem to be answered and then asked again further down the line, the plot twists uncontrollably for no reason other than to make it appear confusing, and it certainly doesn’t look like any planning went into it in advance. In season 6 when everything is apparently answered, you don’t really feel like you’ve learned anything more than you knew years before. And in season 7 they start throwing in other incomprehensible stuff in an attempt to keep it going.
Of course when you just saw these a few times a year between all the great single episodes, it was essential viewing. It shielded you from the mediocrity, that’s the real conspiracy.
Alternate
Yay for not having toothache or headaches.
Boo for still feeling sick.
Yay for iPod shuffle, and it’s teeny tiny music playing prowess.
Boo for still feeling afraid.
Yay for there only being one more work day of the week left.
Boo for not knowing how to help out your friend when you’d do anything to be able to.
Filling
I’ve not been having a particularly happy week. I’ve felt really sick throughout, as if I’ve gotten food poisoning from something. I really haven’t eaten a proper meal since Sunday, which is now causing me to shake and be unsteady on my feet. My toothache has been acting up again, meaning a visit to the dentist today for some injections and a temporary filling. I’ve been suffering from a three day headache, when I’ve been doing so well in not getting them. And of course there’s the fear, where I expect to screw up the times when good things do start to happen.
And we’re only three days in.
So I was cheered up somewhat by the news that I got from Mark, when he sent me a link to download the new Roger Manning Jr. album. Roger was part of Jellyfish and Imperial Drag, regularly played with Beck, and also did the Moog Cookbook and Logan’s Sanctuary albums. There’s a heck of a musical range there, and part of that is showcased on this solo effort. Bits of this album sound like Imperial Drag, some of it sounds like a Broadway musical, some Elton John, Billy Joel, Scott Walker, but all with Roger’s distinctive voice. It’s great stuff overall, and the files you can download can be played three times before you have to buy them with the Weed software. They made me smile.
Things can only get better from here on out, right? I could do with some happy times.
More
Who was I trying to kid, I’m more terrified than ever.
And I still feel sick. And my tooth hurts. Bah.
Plaster
I’ve felt really sick for most of the day, I’ve been in and out of the bathroom and at one point I thought I was going to plaster my keyboard at work. I still feel sick now as I head off to bed.
But at least I’m not as scared.
Failure
I got a letter yesterday from the DVLA because the tax disc on my car runs out at the end of this month. I was annoyed last year that I had to visit a Post Office to get a new one, because it’s the kind of thing that should be done online.
So there was a big smile on my face when a leaflet with the letter claimed that it could now be renewed by phone or on their website. Firing up my browser, I entered the URL and was presented with a page telling me the service was now unavailable until further notice.
Words fail me. It’s like living in the 18th century.
