Hammy spammy bloggy spam
And you though you were safe having installed you spam filtering on your email program. No more penis enlargement emails for you. No more Chinese herbal medicine, cheap cigarettes, stock tips or old friends wanting you to view their picture on xxx50yearoldbabes.com. Not any more .. all you'll be reading is quality mail.
And of course blogs. You'll be reading blogs too. But they're not spam, are they? Well ... they are now. The email chain letters have taken on life of their own and now sensible people who would never forward chain letters are perpetuating blog chains.
You hear this Ponder. I'm blaming you. And I've even added a new category for it. You happy now? Anyhow ... enough of the moaning, and without further ado I present you with my musical baton (ooh matron - it sings)
Total volume of music files on my computer: 14Gb
The last CD I bought: Poets of the Fall - Signs of Life
Song playing right now: Blondie - Maria (On the radio)
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
You're getting the top ones from iTunes peeps
Green Day - Holiday
Anastacia - Left outside alone
Michelle Branch - Goodbye to you
Dandy Warhols - Bohemian like you
Republica - Drop dead georgous
And the 5 people who I curse with this dreaded blog-spam are ... Stef (can I link to yours?), Stephen (get a proper URL for your blog too), Jimmy, Jim and I guess Steve if he ever gets his blog going.
We have normality. I repeat, we have normality
Things are finally (more or less) back to normal after Scotch on the Rocks. Tiredness has returned to normal levels, vision is back to usual level of blurriness, and headache has gone. Oh, and there is now a comforting lack of cf tags in my vision. Splendid.
I've sure you'll get a full review of the event over on Andy's blog when he gets back, so I shall spare you the details. Suffice to say everything went rather well, and everyone seemed pleased with the whole kit 'n kaboodle.
Much drink was had by all (including Andy on the Wednesday night, meaning he was immensely hung-over on the Thursday when he was doing his two talks). After promising himself he was going to be in bed by 10 on the Thursday, after the 1st pint of Guinness he found himself out till about 3. And then on Friday, just to finish off the week with a bang, he managed to smash the LCD on his phone. Kids, eh?
And now that I'm back I have a metric shedload of e-mails to catch up on, work to do and numerous other things to attend to. Still, I am now older and wiser, and will quite happily admit that Coldfusion has its place in the world. So yes, I guess the whole thing was even worthwhile for me.
Early bird, etc
Blimey. I can confirm this is the earliest I've been up in the last month or so. And the reason for rising at this ridiculous hours? Well, it's all the fault of Mr A. This morning I'm off to pick up a van and help Andy get stuff across to sunny Edinburgh.
And, I'm sure you're all dying to know the reason for this trip over to the Scottish Capital. Yup, thought so. Well my furry little friends (and any non-furry readers - That's not furries BTW) I have been persuaded to attend a Cold Fusion conference. No, unfortunately that's not the exciting field of thermonuclear reactions, but rather the Web scripting language produced by Macromedia Adobe. The event is being run this Thursday and Friday by the Scottish Cold Fusion User Group and is aptly named Scotch On The Rocks.
This week has already been uber-busy with work, with still tonnes I should be doing, so I fear I may have to take a laptop over and do some work at some point. If it weren't being run by the eminent Mr A, I rather suspect I would be skipping it and working non-stop till the weekend. As it is, I think I shall instead be working solidly over the weekend. Gah. I shall rant some more on this at a later date. For now there are things I should be doing.
Bagpipes on your iPod?
According to the free piece of tat given away on public transport around the wonderful city that is Glasgow, the city council have come up with yet another fantastic use for taxpayers money. In an incentive to try and get secondary schoolkids to eat a more healthy diet, each one will shortly be issued with a swipe card.
When buying lunch in school, their cards will accumulate points for healthy lunches. For example, a filled pita, yoghurt, soup and healthy drink which costs about £1.45 (where can I get a lunch like that at a price like that) will gain them 40 points.
These points can then be traded for prizes. For example an iPod shuffle costs 2500 points. An X-box is 3000, while a 20Gb iPod is 4000 points. 100 (subsidised) school dinners and you get a free iPod? Yes, I'm glad my tax money is being spent that way.
End of rant.
Today pipe bands (that's bagpipes, BTW) from all over Europe descended on Dumbarton for the 2005 Scottish Pipe Band Championships (Not to be confused with the World Pipe Band Championships which take place on Glasgow Green in August).
Apparently there were around 150 bands taking part, and boy, did they make some amount of noise. Although, some people obviously play their personal stereo's too loud and had trouble hearing, and for others it seemed to be that fact that they could hear the bagpipes that was the problem.
The weather was lovely, the company, with his camera, was on top form as usual, and there was beer. All in all a very good day.
Famously normal
Apparently Golden Balls (aka David Beckham) doesn't actually have golden balls. And they're not very impressive to boot. No, really. I have it on good authority. Not that you care. Not that I care. In fact, the only person who probably cares is Victoria. But to be honest, I think she's got more pressing things to worry about right now.
They say you learn something new every day, and that's what I learned this evening while having a jolly nice curry. Granted, not the most exciting of things, but slightly moreso than the information that John Cusack almost bought a clock in Glasgow.
Speaking of things that didn't quite live up to expectation (tenuous link there, I know) I saw the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy on Sunday. Now don't get me wrong, it had its moments. Stephen Fry as the voice of the book was an inspired choice, and Alan Rickman as Marvin was another good casting even if I did think it would never work at the start. The film wasn't a huge disappointment, but could have been so much better. But then, I was never a HUGE fan of the series anyhow, so maybe I'm not best placed to judge.
Well, that's my 2 pence worth anyhow.
Smarter than the average bear
Ladies and gentlemen, the Clyde Tunnel has just reopened after being closed for a short period due to a cyclist entering the tunnel. And it's wasn't me. Bwhahahahaha. Bet he (or she) feels like a right tube. Still, at least they'll have pissed off a few motorists trying to get to work, so all in all not a totally wasted trip. Wonder if they get a telling off, or whether it's just regarded as an honest mistake? Oh well.
Got a new Camera at the weekend and have been taking a few snaps with it. Ok, so not exactly a new camera, but I got it off Mr Ponder since he upgraded his to a fancy new one. Most complicated it is too, but nice none the less. I shall need to be reading up on all this fancy ISO Speeds, and white balance and Photoshop and what not. Or at least ... that's the plan, so watch out Colin Prior.
In a spot, that's hot
Working on-site today, meaning I'm writing to you from the sunny climes of Hillington rather than the usual base of sunny Glasgow's "South Side". And not only that, but I'm in a T-mobile hotspot, meaning I'm paying a whopping £7.50 for 3 hours of WiFi connectivity. Still, at least it's tax-deductable, if I ever figure out this accounting lark.
More work keeps appearing from all sides, meaning I'm potentially busier than ever. So much for holidays and time off and getting out on the bike. Mr Colin is getting up a fair lead on me over there. Still, as long as he keeps breaking spokes, and stopping for beer, I should be able to stay not too far behind.
Weather is lovely and I'm stuck in here. Gah. But on the plus side there has been positive moves on payment of invoices (not that I've actually got the cash yet). Anyhow .. I shall get back to what I'm supposed to be doing, and try to ignore the sun blazing through the window.
Not lost exactly
Merely not quite sure of exactly where I was, or in which direction I should be heading. But then, that's how you learn, no?
Last week I decided I'd find out how to get to Paisley on the ole' bike. I'd fired an email off the local council a while ago, and they had furnished me with a pile route maps and what not, so I was well armed and knew roughly how to get there.
Looked fairly simple. Into to Pollok park, then from there along the White Cart way and Bobs your mothers brother. Or something. So how the heck did I end up in Govan? Hmm ... my fine tuned sense of direction isn't quite as fine tuned as I'd imagined. Dagnammit. At least I was on the right side of the river, but being I started on that side it doesn't say much.
Anyhow, deciding not to waste the trip I thought I'd nip through the Clyde Tunnel and head into town. Yeah, great idea that was. Somehow I missed the cycle bit and before I knew it I was sitting at the mouth of the tunnel. Of course, there's no slip road off once you get there ... so I either had to go through the pitch black tunnel (and probably get killed) or cross 4 lanes of traffic and escape over the other side (and probably get killed). After procrastinating for a few minutes while trucks whizzed passed I went for option 2 and needless to say, made it.
So, being a brave sole I decided to try and find my way to Paisley again yesterday. I poured over the map a bit more, and was convinced there was another exit to the park that I hadn't found. Again, I couldn't find the exit and ended up in Cardonald, on Paisley Road West .. so at least it was a way to Paisley, if not the right one.
Took a different route back and found myself down by the Cart, and whilst following it found the secret entrance to the park, and as such the correct way over to Paisley. So ... later this week I shall try that, if i have the time. Pesky work and what not.
As the country holds its breath
Yes, election fever reaches its peak tonight, as the whole country waits to see if there's a new Prime Minister and a brighter future for the UK. OK, so that's a pile of bull twaddle. Most people will won't really give a sh*te, not really caring who's in power tomorrow, as one party is pretty much the same as the next. The one thing that will interest me is what the turnout was. I'm betting it's significantly greater than last years 54% ish.
Anyhow, I spent my evening in the pub, as all good Scottish people should. And yes, I did vote this morning, for all the good it will do. And no, I didn't spoil it. Oh well.
But in exciting news, Bia (a pub in West Regent street) is not only one of the few pubs in Glasgow to have Budvar on tap (For all you USians, Budvar is the original, and significantly better Budweiser) but also had Framboise on tap. Never seen that before! (That's raspberry beer, for you uneducated lot).
And my reason for being in the pub? Well, I don't really need one. But I was catching up with some old workmates. And most interesting it was too.
And while I'm here, I may as well point out that I am quite disappointed at a lot of your with your Blog updates. Interestingly, both Colin and Andy both updated their blogs today, otherwise I'd have been bitching about them. Ponder is fairly new to this so I'll let him off for now, and Stephen and Ian need to get their respective arses in gear and get a blog going. But Steph, Steve and James, you need get updating or else I will come down there (or over as required) and ... er ... do something nasty.
Right .. this election whatnot it far too exciting for me (only one seat announced and it's a Labour one) so I'm off to bed.
First of the year
Today is a day to celebrate. The first wasp of the year has appeared at the kitchen window. *groan* In order to try and avoid a repeat of last year, I have now done the best barricade job possible with a roll of black bin bags and some drawing pins. No idea if it'll make a difference, and if it doesn't I think it may be time to call in an exterminator, and try and explain that I don't have a clue where the nest is.
Saturday evening (Kelli's birthday, for those of you with short term memory loss) was an interesting evening. Four couple there, and 3 single blokes. Towards the end of the evening we moved on to Walkabout, an Australian themed pub, in Glasgow. Go figure. It seems the way to make a pub Australian themed is to stick some surf boards to the wall, fill the place with TV's showing sport, and (most importantly) serve nothing but pish beer.
Anyhow, by this time the crowd had been whittled down to three couple and me. Hmm. Talk about feeling out of place. Oh well. The evening was cut short anyhow and I left as Andy was trying to subtlety guide the slightly-tipsy Kelli towards a taxi. The poor taxi driver had a look of dread on his face, but was trapped at a set of traffic lights so couldn't escape. I didn't hang about.
Work is annoyingly annoying as usual. While I have slightly more motivation than when I was stuck in an office, even half a days work three times a week is hard enough. And due to issues with one of the sites, I ended up working till about 11pm last night. I really now wish I hadn't taken any of this work on.
General election tomorrow. Don't forget to go vote. And if you don't plan to vote, at least goto the polling station and write something obscene or amusing on your ballot paper. Try and give poor people counting the votes a chuckle.