2004-07-11 partially recovered

Frustrating

How frustrating is it to write 5 CDs for clients, only to discover an error in some SQL scripts on them that mean that they won’t work outside of the development LAN… <grr>

It’s the world rebalancing the good and bad things, I guess. Making up for last night’s wild rampant sex tour of the flat (starting on the couch, finishing on the bed… without need for re-entry). Damn, we were horny.

I’d better fix these SQL scripts. Ooh: office Christmas dinner this evening! That’s something to look forward to.

Christians Should Be Banned From The Internet

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]

If you’re going to spend (at an absolute minimum – and probably closer to four times the amount) $350 on a series of banner advertisements promoting your service, to be displayed inside a popular ad-sponsored piece of software, you’ll check your spelling, right? Right? Look at this:

[this image has been lost]

Sometimes I really do feel that Christians should be banned from the internet. They should certainly be disallowed from writing web pages – other than the Christians, I’ve never seen a group of people who have – within their own group – broken every single rule of good web site design. Well… except if you consider GeoCities-users a group of their own.

As if this page, which scrolls on and on, haslarge numbers of images linked from other sites, and using a (badly) tiled background image, isn’t bad enough, I’ve seen:

This GeoCities monstrosity, with a stupid amount of animated GIFs, annoying applets, and platform-dependent code (including an embedded… [the rest of this post has been lost]

Final Troma Night Of The Year

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]

And a good Troma Night it was, too. The usual people came – surprising how few of them had gone back to their families for Christmas, yet – although Liz didn’t bring Tom, and, as we decided last week, this undoubtedly spells the end for their relationship. Maybe Troma Nighters should only date other Troma Nighters. Perhaps we should fix Liz up with Bryn (I would suggest Adam, but based on a conversation I had with Liz on Tuesday night, I don’t think that ‘Strokey’ Adam could handle her).

Totoro was fantastic, as ever. We also watched Pitch Black, which was cool for a virtually unheard-of Hollywood title, followed by another of Miyazaki’s fantastic animated films – this time one I hadn’t seen (but had wanted to),… [the rest of this post is lost]

Gatecrashing

Claire, Peter and I gatecrashed a friend-of-a-friend’s house party last night, and ate all of their Pringles. One of the housemates’ music collections was fab: all the best of the Goo Goo Dolls, 3 Doors Down, Nirvana… and some weird (but actually quite good) Welsh rock band.

(Is Welsh Rock a genre? Or just something you buy on the prom at Aberystwyth?)

Must start my Christmas shopping.

[Edit: Came home from the party with an irresistible urge to listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’. Weird.]

Banned From Driving For Life, Before He’d Even Passed His Test

As this news story from the BBC relates, a certain Alan Shirkey from Aberdeen was this week given a life ban on driving, as well as a £300 fine and a year’s probation.

He’d started learning to drive over a decade ago, but then stopped. Then, on the day in question – 10 years after he’d last been in a car and with only a provisional license – he drove (without L-plates or supervision, and with no insurance whatsoever) towards Perth. He stopped to fill his car up at a petrol station, and then left without paying. Realising his mistake, he began to reverse back down the dual carriageway, colliding with several cars as he went, and injuring several people. When he was arrested, he refused to give a urine sample.

And they only fined him £300?!?

Christmas Is Coming, The Exams Are Getting Written

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]

I haven’t done any yet.

I’ll start tommorow. Better call my mum and get some tips on what my sisters are into this year. Becky’s typically quite easy – she usually just wants the most violent computer game released in the last three months – but Sarah, who’s desires are driven by the fluctuations of what is and what is-not fashionable at any particular time (“That is so last week! Nobody listens to clip-hop any more!”)

Claire and I are going to be spending Christmas (and a couple of days before) with Claire’s dad. Then we’ll travel all the way up the country – with her dad in tow – on Boxing Day to spend the weekend with my family. We’ll be back in Aberystwyth in time for New Year. And then I suppose I’d better start revising.

For the benefit mostly of myself (this is a convenient look-up point), but also just to show you all, my exam timetable for this semester appears at the bottom of this post…

Only three exams! Woo. I feel moderately confident enough about them – although I’ll need to knuckle down and read up a lot of formal notation stuff for the SE33010 exam. I’ve also got an assignment to do for my Professional … [the rest of this post, and one comment, are lost]

Worst 100 Films Of All Time

IMDB provide a list of the worst 100 films of all time, as rated by their visitors. I particularly enjoyed the fact that four of the Police Academy movies made it into the list. In other words, Police Acadamy films are responsible for 4% of the Worst 100 Films Ever. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody.

Something In The Water

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]

People keep getting together. Kate and Leu, Tom and Liz (now with a journal!), and now: Sian and Andy. Must be something in the water. The latter pair (and the one I most recently heard about) is the most unexpected, and the middle one the most blatant. Sian and Andy???

Well, best of luck to them anyway: a long-distance relationship isn’t necessarily easy, but I’m sure that Sian knows that by now anyway.

I’ve challenged Paul to find the link between Tonari no Totoro, which we’ll be watching next Troma Night, and Troma. There is a link, and it’s a lot less complicated than he’s looking for. He has until Saturday before I tell him anyway.

I tried to send an e-mail to a load of people the other day, telling them about something I’ll later tell to one other person. Unfortunately I accidentally emailed the other person at the same time (was thinking about them … [the rest of this post, and one comment, are lost]

Troma Night

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]

Ran out of food, ran out of alcohol: a disgrace from a planning perspective.

On the other hand; we watched…

“Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell”, in which a girl (who wasn’t really Nymphoid or Barbaric – perhaps she’d be better named “Anorexic Hairdresser”) tries to rescue her boyfriend (apparently) from a nasty man with a bigger pointy stick, in the aftermath of a nuclear war. There weren’t many dinosaurs, either. But those that appeared were done quite well with stop-motion camerawork. Better than “Rabid Grannies”. Argueabley better than “Alien Blood”, but still rather disappointing. And only one shot in which you can see her nipples.

After this, Liz and her new boyfriend Tom left. Just like Probably Bob, the last boyfriend she brought to Troma Night did, also before the end. It’ll never last.

“Beavis And Butt-Head Do America” – surprisingly funny; some hilarious immature humour. And it had Ruth – a guest star for tonight’s Troma Night – in stiches, which I think says a lot about her sense of humour.
“Cannibal! The Musical!” Director’s Commentary. At long last, a night at which everybody present had already … [the rest of this post has been lost]

Justification Of What You All Already Thought About My Sanity, And About Orange’s Competence

As I promised a few days ago, I called Orange today to complain that I hadn’t ever received the two messages for which I’ve had the cost refunded. The first couple of people said that there was nothing that they could do, but a lot of harassment and a few calls later, and I persuaded them to send me the latter of the two messages, which is apparently a Christmas greeting.

A few minutes later, my phone beeped to let me know that a new message had been received. A new multimedia message. The body of which was as follows:

You have received a Multimedia Message, which your handset unfortunately cannot support. Please refer to the accompanying text message and follow the instructions to view the message from the web.

WTF???

Did I miss something here?

Orange send me a message to apologise for having charged me for receiving some messages from them, and give me a refund, even though I never received said messages. Can’t find any mention of them on my bill, either.
I complain at length to Orange that I never received the messages that I wasn’t billed for (I don’t mention that I don’t seem to have paid – they might take the refund back out of my next bill or something), and they promise to re-send it.
The message arrives on my multi-media phone – the phone that they know I have and apparently already sent this message to, once, but it’s in a format that my phone can’t understand.
There is no accompanying text message.

Shall I ring them up and complain again?

The Software Engineers Behind My Alarm Clock

[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]

They must die.

My alarm clock has an interesting featurette. The design is, on the hole, like many similar mains-powered radio alarm clocks. It has a button for “Time Set”, and one for “Alarm Set”, and buttons for “Hour” and “Minute”, respectively. To set the time, you hold down the “Time Set” button – which is deliberately small and well-concealed to make sure you don’t press it by accident – and use the “Hour” and “Minute” buttons. To set the alarm, you hold down the “Alarm Set” button and use the “Hour” and “Minute” buttons.

Anyway; the featurette I mentioned is that if you are setting the alarm, say, and you release the “Alarm Set” button before you release the “Hour” or “Minute” buttons, the clock immediately adds an hour or a minute to it’s time, respectively.

So, when I – tired and using only one hand and the least effort I could manage – set my alarm last night, I didn’t even notice that I’d managed to put forward the time on the clock face by two hours. When my alarm woke me this morning at what I thought was 8:15am (but was actually 6:15am), I was completely exhausted. So I reset the alarm to 8:45 (actually 6:45) and … [the rest of this post is lost]

Orange Gives Me 80p For No Apparent Reason

Today, Orange sent me a text message apologising for charging me for two picture messages earlier this year, and have apparently credited me 80p as a gesture of compensation. The Register reports that this has happened to others, too, but I can’t help but feel that Orange’s mistake is even larger than they thought it was – I never received these picture messages in the first place!

I’m tempted to call them and complain that I didn’t ever receive the two picture messages for which I’m having my money refunded, but as I’m not even sure that I was charged for them, either (can’t see it on my bill), I’ll probably lose me free 80p if I do. Decisions, decisions.

In other news, comment-heavy discussion on the difference between Christianity and Islam on Alec’s LiveJournal [link updated to use Web Archive, which still holds a copy]. Take a look.

AbNib & Str8Up!

Oh yeh; and, in case you hadn’t noticed – AbNib is down. And it’s not my fault! The server fucked up something rotten, but seems to be okay now. And whoever posted a comment to one of my entries the other day and had it not-appear; sorry: same issue.

I’ll try to get AbNib up again on Wednesday – my backup is at the office, and that’s when I’m next at work.

Went out to Str8Up! (Aber’s LGB Society’s event) at Bar Retro last night. Great night out with silly cocktails and dancing and general merriment. And I’d forgotten quite how horny it is to watch two guys – or two girls – getting it on. Fun in the sun.

And in other news, Tonari no Totoro, which I ordered from Japan on DVD last week, hasn’t arrived yet. It’s a great film. I hope it arrives in time for Troma Night on Saturday.

Next stop: Mecca, for lunch!

Parcel Of Goodies

Woo and indeed hoo. Just when I was about to wander down to Richley’s and take advantage of their sale on jeans (having had a nasty shredding-related accident with one-too-many of my existing pairs of trousers a couple of weeks back), my Auntie Anne sends me a parcel of goodies, including several pairs of trousers (including one with a million pockets, or thereabouts).

I think I’ve put on weight since the last time she sent me any clothes. [measures waist size]. Yup; I’m two inches fatter than this time last year. Well; there’s an incentive to lose it again.

In other news; I’ve almost completed an exciting little project that will provide some amusement to those of you who attend Chez Geek Night (BTW: it’s on Tuesday this week, so we don’t end up in a fight with the Irish Band again). No; it’s not a computer game version (although I’m hoping that the author will allow me to write one, one day)… but I think you’ll like it, anyway. Details tonight or tomorrow.

Yay! No more lectures today!