Andy's Blog

There is a certain assumption when using a simple technology like the telephone that what you communicate from one end will be repeated in the same manner on the other end.  You can be fairly sure that when you speak down the phone the recipient isn’t going to be hearing Donald Duck or Popeye like vocal inflections making lewd comments

….Unless, of course, that’s your particular “thang” – but let’s not go there… well at least not in public… call me… later…

The problem is that phones are no longer a “simple technology”, especially the mobile ones, they are made by a variety of different manufacturers with all kinds of whizz-bangery wonderfulness that you can now do with them.  I don’t know about you, but my phone is more of a portable internet device that, sometimes, does voice as well.

We just kinda assume that they’ll still function like our old phone though; what you speak or write on your side will be reproduced faithfully on the other side… Uuuuunfortunately it t’aint always so.  One phone’s nice little cute smilies aren’t quite the same on another manufacturers phone.

The resultant confusion can make for some very interesting conversations though, and very possibly a surprising visit from someone who’s just gotten a very wrong idea.  That is of course if the recipient tends to see the risqué version of a particular textual rendering… which is pretty much all of those with an extra Y chromosome in their particular DNA strand.  So please, dear female reader, please remember to be careful out there.

Don’t be too surprised if you text this , from a Blackberry, to a male of the species, who doesn’t own a Blackberry, when you receive the following…

8====D

Beer, pizza, mindless violence, hyper-active kids, cider, karate, mad dashes across Northamptonshire, troubleshooting wireless access points, kung-fu in a film with karate in the title, pill popping, weak-ass shower switching between nut-shrivellingly-cold and skin-searingly-hot, missing a birthday party, talking-about-love-n-life, kiddies roller disco party, tea, more tea, COFFEE, fighting, laughing, Iron Maiden, bruises, yoda, young love, old friends, full english breakfast, kids up till 3am, Jackie Chan overload, grading, teasing, expectations, throwing up, winding down, blogging, snoozing…

How was your weekend?

It’s not something I have done for a long time, which is rather strange as it is something that I used to love.  Not sure whether it’s the ever-advancement of age, the bearing of responsibilities, or just simply forgetting the pleasure of it.

However there I was.

Not intentionally.

Sitting with the car door open, whilst waiting, watching the rain come down.  Not a deluge, just a gentle pattering now that the cold snap has let up a little.  I love the smell of rain, the sound of it as it hits the trees, roofs and other objects, the peace of it.

The melancholic background music probably helped the aesthetics of the moment… before reality decided to rudely interrupt.

I must do that again. Inner karma, at least for a little while, has been restored.

I’ve had enough of being an adult for the moment, so I am sat down with The Complete Collection of Bill Watterson’s excellent Calvin & Hobbes comic strips.  There are worse ways to develop an ethos on which to live your life, but no better way to just chill at the end of a long day.

I’ve been reading these for the past few days, and have even plagiarised some of their more memorable quotes, which seems to have been taken rather more literally than I had originally anticipated.  Ah well, you can’t always help what others decide what you’re all about.

So I’ll continue to be the quiet one in the corner, to be the idiot on the internet, to make sure I always go “Oof” at the right time, to be the pain in the ass when your room begins to fester, to be the geek who’ll fix your PC, to smile at the pants, to step aside without complaint… but more importantly, and outside of your conception, the big kid I’ve always been on the inside.

As the Chris Antonak quote goes; “Aging is mandatory, maturity is optional.”

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”.  Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”.  The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out.  Terrorists have been re-categorised from “Tiresome” to a “Bloody Nuisance”.   The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588 when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards”.  They don’t have any other levels.  This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”.  The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender”.  The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.

It’s not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout loudly and excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”.  Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides”.

The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”.  They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose”.

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy.  These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile and as usual are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their allies, just in case.

And in the southern hemisphere…

New Zealand has also raised its security levels – from “baaa” to “BAAAA!”.

Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the air force being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister’s bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is “I hope Australia will come and rescue us”.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, mate”.  Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!’, “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled”.  So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

I *really* wish I could take credit for writing this, unfortunately I can’t.  Received in my email inbox today and copied here for your viewing pleasure once I had wiped away the tears

Buggly Eyed Beasties

I looked at the ‘langostinos’ and rather disturbingly they looked back.  I’ll give most things a try, but not when those ‘things’ are able to look at me, with more than a little recrimination, and have more legs than foodstuffs should have!

“Look Dad! Buggly eyed beasties!” the boys bellowed across the table at me, knowing that the unofficial name that I gave this favoured Spanish dish gets me in more than a little trouble with the natives.

I also can’t help but feel a little queasy when said natives are ripping apart the aforementioned buggly eyed beasties and leave what looks like a slaughter of the cast of fingerbobs.

The Christmas meal just doesn’t seem the same without an obscene amount of roasted turkey and a feeling afterwards that you’ll be pooping feathers for the next few days.

This year I thought that, rather than ask for my usual ‘useful’ gift, I would get something completely impractical and feed the big kid in me.  Santa didn’t disappoint and I am now the proud owner of a mini Apache AH-64 remote controlled helicopter!  The little devil fits in my hand and buzzes around the room menacing all that are within the vicinity… mainly due to my ineptness with the remote and the fact that it’s an absolute bastard to control.

In fact the full danger of me being behind the controls of the helicopter meant that I was banished to the spare room to try and perfect my skills without taking out a family member.  The “you’ll take somebody’s eye out with that!” argument wasn’t won by myself when I pointed out that it *WAS* an attack helicopter.

Push the controls upwards and the helicopter shoots up and nearly hits the roof. Suddenly letting go of the control lever to stop it hitting aforementioned roof and it slams into the floor.  Buggar!  Push controls gently upwards and the helicopter lifts 4 foot off the floor and starts rotating in an annoying circle.  Looking down at the remote control for the “rudder trim”, as I remember the instruction sheet mentioning something about this, and the little bastard exits stage left and out the window onto the balcony.  “Ooooh shit!”

The little helicopter was never designed to fly outside, and it certainly wasn’t designed to hover from 6 floors up a block of flats.  As I run to the balcony it gave me one last look and started its rapid descent downwards.  I think the roadrunner type “meep meep” was of my own imagination.

Lunging over the plant pots that lined the balcony and desperately pointing the remote control at the gravity aided bit of plastic I managed to at least check the descent to a plummet.

I don’t think the shouted “Sorry!” to the bouffant haired old dear, tottering along the street outside, did much to calm her nerves.  I don’t think she appreciated the last desperate act of skill that changed the kamikaze dive bombing into a crash landing into the bush next to her.  I also don’t think the liberal sprinkling of potted plant dirt in her face as she looked up was also much appreciated.

My grasp of Spanish is basic, to say the least, but I got the gist of her feelings.  “Yeah, yeah, and that’s for the armada” I muttered after her angrily retreating frame, and started the long trek down the stairs to retrieve the errant present.

Awww buggar, t’would seem that the powers-that-be have finally swung their Sauron like gaze towards me and wondered; “WTF does he do?”

So I now find myself, just before Christmas, in the position of having my role officially classed as “at risk”.  As my manager helpfully put it at my 1:1 interview; “It’s not you, but your role that’s at risk”.  I think I feel better.

However, I am taking this rather positively and am not *too* down.  It doth give me the opportunity to see what new adventures are available out there and I have about 6 months in which to do it in (or possibly 12 if you read the rather vague HR document in another way; head slanted at a jaunty 30 degree angle kind of way).

That's me that is..

So I am currently calling upon the mighty powers of Web 2.0, and sacrificing my first born upon its altar (sorry Alex but the Internet is a cruel, yet just, deity) to see what can be found for a jobbing IT Guru without actually getting up from my seat… well actually this blog post comes more from a Pod than a seat, but I’m painting a picture here…

…fin!

I managed to win a new iPod Shuffle!  The thing is truly tiny and now takes pride of place as I pursue my increasingly fruitless task of developing a physique….

…although pear-shaped is a physique, it’s not the one I’m really striving for, rather get away from!

So I can now be found bouncing around the gym, with diddy wee iPod attached to jogging trousers, desperately trying to pump iron to the tunes of Marilyn Mansun, Iron Maiden, Hoobastank, Guns n’ Roses, Nickelback, Rammstein, and many other devils music practitioners.

Now if I could just get rid of this damn cold!  Although on the positive side, going around the gym equipment sneezing, coughing and sniffing and telling the other gym users “I haven’t felt right since Mexico” is getting me on the equipment far quicker than previous outings.

Karate tonight, although I’m sure the same ‘Mexico’ reference will not work quite as well on Sensei!

If the week was on a sliding scale, measuring how well it had gone, it would definitely be pointing to the middle ‘neutral’ ground.

From swings deep into the negative at the beginning of the week with the loss of a friend, not in the bereaved sense of the word, to swings in the other direction with the re-discovery of old friends.

From work and injury managing to stop me attending senior karate classes this week, although the positive is that work is finally starting to get interesting, to finally getting the spark back when presented with a pencil and a blank canvas; Although for some reason when presented with a blank photoshop canvas and a mouse I only seem able to doodle little cartoons… What’s going on there?

I have even started baking thanks to the ever helpful Mr Evans (@phevans).

However, I still can’t shake the feeling that the negatives will be deeper felt than the positives.  Methinks it’s time to go-a-visiting next week, and finally fulfill some long outstanding beer promises, to play catch up and revisit simpler times.

…of course the scales can also extend to the “Oh shit, noooooo!” end of the spectrum, especially when you learn of  ’Jade Goody the musical‘!

Its either time to emigrate or await the four horses of the apathetic apocalypse with open arms.

I am sat in front of the PC and desperately thinking of what I want to do.

I want to draw, but can only doodle a couple of silly cartoons and I can do so much more than that.. if only I could figure out what it was I wanted to draw or what medium to use; pen, pencil, pastels or photoshop with the wacom tablet?

I want to do some more PHP web development, but have so far only developed the equivalent of a “hello world” application and I have certainly done much more that that.. I can’t even figure out what Object Classes or Libraries I would want to use.

So I am sitting looking out of the metaphorical window, as I don’t have a real one in my roof space office, and thinking; “dammit since when did life start impeding on my playtime?”

So it would seem that there’s no hiding up here either…  Which is damn rude of the real world!