Ignorminious' Misty Mind

Twitter

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:31:16 +0000

Just a quick one to let you all know that I�ve added a Twitter feed to the side bar on the blog. You�ll find it beneath the �Recent Entries� box and above the �Recent Comments� one, over on the right hand side ->

For those who don�t know, Twitter is a mini-blog social networking site where users must answer the question �What are you doing?� in no more than 140 characters. It can be updated by SMS text message as well as at the Twitter website, which can lead to some fantastic �Tweets� by people who venture out into the real world.

Whilst I�d be the first to admit that Twitter is the cyber equivalent of Marmite (you either love it or you hate it), (I hate it) (Marmite that is, not Twitter, obv) even if you don�t want to sign up yourself, you will now be able to keep an eye on what I�m doing from the comfort of your very own computer.

If you want to read the rest of my Tweets or add me to your Twitter contact list, my Twitter profile can be found here.

P.S Many far more interesting bloggers also use Twitter, so if you get bored of me, have a wander over to their feeds and see what�s happening.

Go on, you know you want to ;-)

Funny Friday Saturday - Jeb's Jobs

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:54:05 +0000

.....And at last the silence is broken once again! Oddly enough, the lack of posting over the previous 3 weeks or so wasn�t actually my fault this time. Some Twunt decided to hack the site�s database and managed to delete the entire site, much to my incredible annoyance and dismay.

I would have written a long, rather rude post then and there about the sort of people who mess with other people�s websites in this manner, but sadly the site was in such a state that I couldn�t post a damn thing. I had backups of everything I needed, luckily, but using them to repair the site took the best part of a week, and ever since then, every spare moment has been spent improving the backend operations, in the hope of making it easier to fix the problem next time it happens (which I have no doubt it will).

Anyway, we are fully operational again now, and most of the improvements I wish to carry out are either completed or nearly completed, so I thought it was time to post again.

I thought I�d share with you the first in a long line of fantastic animations by the wonderful guys over at Weakend Productions. This one has been around for a few years now, but in case you�ve not come across it before, it is definitely worth a look at. If you have seen it before and you are anything like me, I�m sure you won�t mind watching it again anyway :-)

(This is an embedded YouTube video and must be viewed using a Flash enabled web browser. The video may not appear in your RSS feed, so please click through to the website to see it properly.)

This isn�t a very good copy of the video I have to say. I think someone did a dodgy recording job to get it onto YouTube. The original, high quality version can be found here.

A Little Help Please

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:09:20 +0000

One of the best parts of blogging, compared to other forms of publishing, is the two way nature of communication. It means that once in a while I can take a break from the essay style posts I normally write and open the floor to others who may wish to speak.

Over the next few days I�m going to be spending every waking moment I�m not in work, frantically writing coursework, of which I have 5,000 words worth due in on Thursday. As I�ve mentioned a few times before, I have issues with procrastination and motivation and am probably going to end up wasting a lot of time these next few evenings trying to make myself work and hating the fact that I just can�t seem to get a grip on it.

This is where you come in: you are (for the most part) good, hard working, motivated individuals who are always getting stuff done. I want to hear your tips for motivating yourself to do things you really hate. If possible I�d like something a little more concrete than �positive thinking� or �just think about the consequences�. I�ve tried pretty much every trick in the book on this one, so I�m after a few tricks that aren�t in the book please.

Over to you...

Something I Found...

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:49:54 +0000

I found the following video on YouTube the other day and am still chuckling over it now. Apparently it�s a Swedish advert, and a friend of mine reckons it was featured on Tarrant on TV. Since I hadn�t seen it before, it stands to reason that some of you won�t have done either, so I thought I�d share it with you:

(This is an embedded YouTube video and must be viewed using a Flash enabled web browser. The video may not appear in your RSS feed, so please click through to the website to see it properly.)

Wastage

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:59:40 +0000

Am I the only one who, having bought something from the supermarket that turns out to be a disappointment, feels compelled to use the offending item, rather than throw it away, in order to avoid being wasteful?

As I type this, there sits on the desk in front of me a steaming mug of what ought to be drinking chocolate, but sadly is not. It is instead a curious drink, made by Cadbury and called Bournvita. Now, I don�t wish to imply that there is something wrong with this product; there isn�t. The problem lies with the lack of knowledge I had about malt chocolate drinks when I bought it. The colours on the container are similar to those on the bars of caramel dairy milk and in the same way that caramel chocolate bars are like regular chocolate bars, only better, I assumed that Bournvita would prove to be like drinking chocolate, only better.

When I got the stuff home and eagerly tried it, I was bitterly disappointed. It isn�t a bad drink I must stress, but it isn�t nearly as chocolaty as drinking chocolate nor anything like as satisfying. Unfortunately I bought quite a large tin of the stuff, and now that I have it I�m determined to use it all up before opening up the real stuff. So far I�ve been at it for 3 months and have managed to work my way through about 1/3 of the tin.

In a similar incident, I recently bought a lemon scented air freshener for my bathroom. It is one of those little gel based jobbies in a plastic shell that sits in the room and gradually fills the air with its lovely scent.

Unfortunately, unlike the previous ones I�d purchased, this one did not smell at all lovely. Quite the reverse in fact. The pong was so intense and so utterly offending to the nostrils that at one point I seriously considered forcing a bowel movement in order to try and improve the smell in the room.

Nonetheless, I had paid for this thing and I was not going to chuck it in the bin so soon after purchase. Fortunately for my nose, the air freshener has worn itself out now and the room has been cleared of its infuriating pong.

I look forward with some trepidation to my next visit to Tesco.

Have you ever bought something you wish you hadn�t? If so, why not tell us about it in the comments section below?

Coincidence Or Cock-Up?

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:37:14 +0000

If you ever require clarification that large organisations tend to balls-up when it comes to organising themselves, please consider the following example.

I finish work this afternoon and walk the short distance from the bar to the university library, where I immediately head to the library catalogue computer terminal to search for a book I need to take out. The book in question is the core text for one of my modules, so I�m expecting the library to be well stocked, especially since the module is well attended.

Much to my dismay, the computer informs me that just one copy exists on the catalogue, and that it isn�t due to be returned for another 10 days. Just to make sure, I go and find the relevant section to see what is actually there.

There are no copies of the book to be found on the shelf. However, there are at least a dozen copies of a completely different book that just so happens to have the exact same title as the one I�m after.

Coincidence, or cock-up?

Peculiar Petrol

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:10:59 +0000

On my way home from work I notice that the petrol light on my car�s dashboard is lit, and so take a detour to the garage. The filling station of choice is the one attached to the big Tesco at Eastville, not least because it�s usually cheaper than any other in the city.

As I approach the petrol station I find myself at the back of a queue of cars waiting to fill up, as is normal for this time in the afternoon. Between my stationary car and the forecourt is a partial wooden fence which I instinctively glance towards to see how busy the garage actually is.

To my surprise the forecourt is completely empty. Not a car or person to be seen on it anywhere, despite the queue that I�m still sat in. Eventually some of the people ahead of me abandon the line and I am able to pull forward until I�m just two or three cars away from the front of the wait, from where I have a good view of the situation in front of me.

This particular garage has two entrances and both of them have been blocked off by rows of orange traffic cones. Manning each set of cones is a member of the forecourt staff, patiently explaining to the cars in front what is happening.

I cannot hear what they are saying from where I sit, so imagine my continued confusion when, on some unknown signal, the employees suddenly remove the cones and begin letting cars in again.

As I stand next to my car a few minutes later, patiently watching the cost of oil killing my bank balance via the dial on the pump, I see one of the ladies who had been playing with the cones and consider asking her what was going on. Alas, I can�t think of a way of asking without appearing vexed, and since the poor lass is already looking harassed, I leave it.

I still don�t know what was going on, even now, and I�m pretty sure I�ve never seen the like before. If you�ve encountered similar behaviour at your local petrol station or have a theory as to what was going on, why not comment below?

A Chlorine Induced Thought For The Evening

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:55:15 +0000

Whilst swimming lengths in a crowded pool earlier today I had a revelation about why so many people give up an hour at a time to swim up and down the same stretch of water, unable to go anywhere because of the number of people all around them:

It has nothing to do with wanting to get fit, it�s actually a subtle form of speed dating!

I was in an adult only lane swim at my local pool for about an hour and was unable to get up any sort of speed because of the huge number of people there, blocking up the lanes. I was so bored that, with a little bit of observation I was able to work out the whole process of initiating these watery romances.

1. Person A will scan up and down the lane adjacent to their own until they find someone they like the look of, who we shall call Person B.

2. Person A will briefly swim alongside Person B and will �accidentally� make physical contact with them. This is best done at the end of the lane, whilst both Person A and Person B are turning round. The contact should be harder than a brush, but softer than a kick: a brush is insignificant enough to be ignored and a kick might hurt Person B and ruin any chances of future friendliness.

3. Person A stops to apologise to Person B. This is the point at which compatibility is assessed. If Person B isn�t interested, they will brush off the apology and swim away without a second glance. If on the other hand, they like Person A, a smile and a few words may be exchanged.

4. Person A swims off but controls their speed so as to ensure time for a smile and a nod to Person B when they next pass each other.

5. Person A swims alongside Person B and begins a more in depth conversation. If sufficient charm is used then it can generally be assumed that Person A and Person B will be practicing at making babies before the evening is out.

Needless to say your humble narrator barely managed an inarticulate �sorry� with a mouth full of chlorine before being left behind clinging to the side of the pool.

Bite Size Blogs

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:36:24 +0000

Recently I�ve been finding (perhaps because of my work schedule) that I�m far more interested in the items on my feed list that are, shall we say, bite size. Either laziness or a lack of time during the day has driven me away from long winded posters (though I do still read every post they write) into the arms of those who rarely put more than a couple of paragraphs out into the world at any one time.

Among these are my favourites of all: comic strips. I refrain from saying web comics because some, such as Dilbert and Peanuts, originated in the ancient world of newspapers, whatever they were. The following is a list of RSS Feeds that each make just one minute of my day that bit more enjoyable for their tiny existence:

Dilbert
Geek And Poke
Peanuts
Private Secret Diary
Quote of the Day
XKCD

Each of these is well recommended for anyone wanting to combine regular updates with still having time to do other things. For those of you with more time, why not check out some of the links on the right hand side?

I�m musing on the idea of finding something short that I can do here on a regular basis, to fill in the gaps when I don�t have time to write longer updates. I can�t do a web comic unfortunately, because I can�t actually draw (the owl on the right of the screen took several hours and nearly killed me), but I�d like to try and find something that I can do quickly, with very little fuss and which will keep my readers entertained.

If anyone has any ideas about a short, regular feed they�d like to see, then why not tell me about it in the comments box below?

Another New Year

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:01:28 +0000

Well, 2007 ended and 2008 began.

Perhaps not my most inspired opening line ever, but at least I am writing something, which makes a change these days. Actually what would make a change is if I wrote a blog post that didn�t complain about my lack of blog posts for once.

Sadly though there is no getting away from the fact that I didn�t post during December �07. Not once. I�ve been rather unhappy as of late, what with too much work, nowhere near enough sleep and a general feeling that I�m selling my soul for a measly wage and very little time to do the things I enjoy with my life. Every week it seems I get out of work in just enough time to do the housework and go to bed. Sure it is nice having a little money, but right now I feel like my quality of life has fallen through the floor.

So, 2007 in brief then. At the start of the year I was living in a student house with H and J and working 2 days a week for Catering Services at my university whilst working on my degree. Over the summer I moved out and into my first ever apartment, where I now live by myself. I bought all my own furniture and had a great few days and weeks making this place my home.

In September my two day a week job became full time and is now between 5 and 7 days a week, the lesser end being my preferred working hours. To compensate for this, the full time degree became part time and will now take me an extra year to complete.

I didn�t holiday at all this year, in order to put the spare cash into moving home, a decision which I still stand by. Unfortunately my increased working hours make me feel that I need one more than ever, which clashes with the terms of my employment, ie that I don�t get holiday pay at all.

At the beginning of 2007 I was single and nothing had changed by the end of the year.

So to 2008. I don�t expect much to change unfortunately, as until I finish my degree I am trapped in my current situation. The job will continue to be mundane, poorly paid and unnecessarily tiring. What may change though is me ability to cope with this progression into the real world. Right now I�m in a strange place where I can either work or do the things I want to do. This year I want to do both.

Blogging should become a daily activity once again. So should Twittering, answering my emails and keeping on top of my feed list. Some form of exercise would also be helpful, though that has been the case for years and doesn�t look like changing.

If I have one goal for the coming 12 months, it is to squeeze into my day what everyone else manages to squeeze in. There are 24 hours in each of the 366 days that 2008 has in store for us, and I really want to get the feeling that I�m not wasting any of them anymore.

If I let the system get the better of me, I shall become nothing more than a worker. Bar tending is not my life. My life is what happens when I leave work each day, and those are the hours I want to learn to embrace.

If there were a God, I�d ask Him to make 2008 the year that I learn to fit it all in.

Happy New Year everyone!

Coffee Cock-Up

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:23:05 +0000

I�m ordered to serve coffee and tea to some very important people.

Apparently these are senior people within the university and should be pleased at all costs. Having regularly served formal dinners to the Board of Governors over the last year, I�m pretty confident that I am up to the challenge. However, I�m rather pushed for time, it being the middle of the lunch time rush, and I�m cross to have this extra burden dumped on me at no notice.

Fortunately, as I enter the kitchen I find a full up pot of coffee and a full up pot of tea sitting ready for me to take into the board room, where the very senior people are. Without hesitation I take them on through, bow myself out of the room and return to my duties.

After a minute The Boss shows up and asks if I�ve done the teas and coffees yet. I tell her that I have, thanks to the pots she�d already prepared for me.

�What pots?� she asks in a worried voice, and I explain the situation to her. �Oh shit!� she replies, �Those pots weren�t for the very senior people. They�ve been sat there since yesterday!�

Needless to say the coffee was stone cold and there were complaints and apologies and replacement beverages. Two weeks on and I�m still trying to live it down.

An Honest Day's Work...

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:14:06 +0000

If you ever have far too much time on your hands, and are wondering what to do with it, I can highly recommend a job in catering.

Assuming you aren�t required to serve breakfast for anybody, you can stroll in at about 8 or 9 in order to prepare your bar, cafe or restaurant for the mid morning coffee rush. This tends to merge quite nicely into the lunch rush, during which you will be rushed off your feet, shouted at, complained at, insulted, made to look stupid, made to feel as though you are ruining everyone�s day and generally subjected to the worst of the pre-lunch bad moods to be had about the place.

At about 3pm you should be able to sit down for your own lunch, but don�t expect to stay sat there for long as you will be interrupted at least once every 3 minutes in order to serve customers wanting their afternoon coffees. This is the quiet part of the day, when you can begin to tidy up the mess and regroup for dinner, which you should already be preparing to set up.

As the deadline for the start of the evening meal looms ever closer, the list of things to do doesn�t seem to be getting any shorter. Even highly experienced caterers need hours to lay up a formal dinner and a missing knife or dirty glass can turn the whole thing on its head.

Finally, with mere minutes to go, you are ready to begin the meal. The tables are laid, the food is cooked and the drinks reception is prepared. Now all you need is the customers. An hour later, the first of the customers arrive and express an air of surprise that you expected them to be on time in the first place.

At this point one of two things will happen: either only half of the customers you�ve spent all afternoon and evening preparing for turn up, the rest having decided to go to Pizza Hut instead and not thought it necessary to cancel their booking, or they all turn up and bring a few friends along as well, so you have to completely destroy your carefully laid out tables in order to squeeze these people in, rushing around to find extra cutlery whilst shouting to the chefs to put on some more steaks or something.

Eventually the meal will get underway and, as you catch your breath between clearing one course and taking out the next, you realise that things aren�t going all that badly. Assuming there are no unforeseen screw ups, you should be able to sit down for your own dinner at about 10pm, after which the wash up will become your home for the next hour as you battle to clean each and every plate, knife, fork, spoon and wine glass used throughout the evening.

A good day is easily identified as one on which you get home in time for a full 8 hours sleep before you have to go back to work. That�s the only sign of a good day in catering. In all other respects it still looks fairly bollocks. Hooray!

Sunday Stuff

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:16:48 +0000

Sunday is a funny old day in the Iggy household. That is, assuming that household is the right word when one lives alone. Yet more changes to the work schedule mean that for the time being I don�t have to work on Sundays, which although not a great thing financially, does at least ensure me a day off each week.

I often spend Sunday morning in bed, sound asleep. I need this time to make up for my very poor sleeping patterns the rest of the week, but frankly I�d rather be awake in bed with the radio on, a continental breakfast and the Sunday papers. Once again, this is prevented by living alone, as the very act of getting up to make breakfast and go and buy a paper rather defeats the purpose of staying in bed.

I usually rise around lunch time and spend my shower time cursing myself for not being up in time to cook a really nice breakfast on the only day of the week when I have time to eat one. Lunch on a Sunday is, frankly a miserable affair. I was brought up in a fairly traditional home, where for the majority of my childhood years, Sunday Lunch was a full roast with potatoes, vegetables, gravy and dessert. We ate at the table and no one was allowed to leave until we�d all finished eating.

This last rule was infuriating for the entire family, since it meant having to waste half the afternoon watching my brother Michael pick away at his food and complain bitterly that he didn�t like this and that. Eventually he�d be forced to finish it, but not before we�d all near died of boredom waiting for the next course. But I digress.

Because of this long association between roasts and Sunday lunches, I find myself greatly saddened by the sandwich I have for lunch on a Sunday now. I miss the smell of the meat cooking in the oven, with maybe a pineapple upside-down cake adding its own sweet scent to the aroma of the house. Sundays often meant a trip to Blackbushe Sunday Market, and on our return that wonderful smell would be there to greet us.

My mood perks up a little in the afternoon, though not very much, as this is the one time I have to really sink my teeth into the housework. I�m well known for being a slow worker at the best of times, and even the basics such as vacuuming, dusting and cleaning the kitchen and bathroom can take me hours.

If the weather is fine, I might allow myself some fresh air by washing the car for 20 minutes, but even this is no substitute for what Sunday afternoons should be about. After lunch is the best time for a long walk in the countryside; taking in that fresh cold air and gazing with wonderment as the scene before me slips from autumn into winter.

When the weather is less accommodating, a good book or magazine strikes me as the perfect way to pass those fleeting afternoons and long, dark evenings. I seem to have little time for such things as reading these days, and it is beginning to vex me somewhat. I hope that this week I can find the time to get all my housework completed on Saturday, sometime around my time at work, so that when I�ve lunched on Sunday I can focus my attention on doing what I want to do again, and not on what I feel obliged to undertake.

Happy Sunday everyone.

My Four Months Of Pleasure

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:45:56 +0000

If you meet me in the street and ask me what my favourite time of year is, I will probably say ~~who are you?~~ that I like them all equally. I know this, because that�s what I always say.

Generally speaking it�s true. The most notable feature of any time of year, in Britain at least, is the weather. Since I see as much charm in the wind and rain as in sun and blue skies, I am pretty content with all times of year. The obvious exception, as I�m sure is the case for most people, is the end of winter. Usually around February, when Christmas is a distant memory and spring is still not yet here, and there is nothing fun about the weather that simply refuses to improve.

Apart from that, I like all times of year equally.

This autumn however, I�ve begun to think that actually I like the evening of the year far more than any other time. This isn�t specifically because of the weather, although there�s a lot to be said for the coming of the wind and rain, the foggy evenings and the crisp, clear, cold mornings, with dew glistening from the cobwebs. All these things are fantastic, but what I like more are the social occasions. The Autumn is ushered in by the beginning of the school year. This always excited me when I was young. New uniform and brand new school supplies. New books, classrooms and teachers. Within a week the novelty of being back at school had long since worn off, but those first few days were some of my happiest in the school calendar.

Autumn, I think, has more celebrations than any other time of year. There is Harvest Festival, which although not widely celebrated by the community at large, still evokes vivid memories of church services, fresh ripe fruit and the glorious end to the hot, sleepy summer. Next comes Halloween, which I never bothered to celebrate as a child; trick-or-treating being far too tacky and American to be tasteful; but now dressing up has become fun again. Fancy dress parties really come into their own at Halloween and I can safely say that I was more proud of my vampire costume this year than of any other fancy dress outfit I�ve ever worn.

Almost before Halloween is over we are into Bonfire night. Remember, remember the 5th of November; gunpowder, treason and plot!As a child, this was the night when we all put on our coats and wellington boots (I tried to type �wellys� and Microsoft Word corrected it to �willies�; go figure) and stepped out into the dark and damp night to play with sparklers, whilst Dad lit rockets and catherine wheels by the light of the bonfire in the back garden. Later we�d retire indoors to enjoy the delicious tea Mum had cooked, with everything based on a bonfire theme. I wish I could remember exactly what it was we had...

By now the trees are mostly bare, and the leaves that scatter the ground are all dead. But throughout October, we are treated to the most beautiful sights nature has to offer. If this was special when I lived in Yateley, it is doubly so here in Bristol, where a dramatic increase in the number of trees serves to intensify the effect, almost to the point of distracting me from the road as I drive to work. The last week of October was the week when every year of my childhood, we�d holiday in a caravan on the Isle of Wight. What a perfect time of year for enjoying the outdoors one last time before winter! There is a certain weather - perhaps cool but not cold, with a fresh breeze - that reminds me of those holidays every time I experience it. In the same way that Christmas can be summed up by the smell of a Christmas tree, the Isle of Wight can be summed up by that fresh autumn breeze.

My biggest regret this autumn is that a combination of a dire work schedule (7 days a week most weeks between September and Christmas) and a bad foot conspired to stop me walking through Bristol with my camera on a sunny weekend to capture the magic of the season. The Clifton Suspension Bridge must have looked stunning at sunset, with the woods behind it aflame with yellow, orange and crimson. Oddly enough, the best sight I got of the falling leaves was in the car park at Tesco one afternoon, when I came out to find leaves falling from the trees onto all the cars. It was a picture perfect autumn scene, and had I had a camera with me, I�d have stopped there for an hour or more.

As the year draws on, the nights begin to come earlier and earlier each day. Some people, my mother included, find this very depressing, but not me. I love winter nights, snug and warm inside, with the heating on and the TV working its way through the BBC�s autumn and winter schedule, and at this time of year, we are treated to tantalising tasters of what is to come. In summer, one can�t really appreciate the coming of the night, as by the time it arrives, we are too tired to appreciate it, not to mention too hot and sticky. In winter itself, darkness comes a little too early, and it is already with us when we come out of work, but for a few weeks in Autumn, we bear witness to stunning sunsets and misty twilights whilst on our way home, or else just out and about.

In town the Christmas lights are already up, and in a fortnight or so, I too shall turn my mind to the cheer and excitement that is the festive season. For me, this has always been the climax and finale to my four months of pleasure; the last big celebration to finish Nature�s end of year celebrations. Come January I will inevitably feel saddened by its passing, but for now I�m as content as any man in England.

Horrible Hotspots

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:36:07 +0000

As I write to you, I am sat in Starbucks once again, but this time with my laptop. As regular readers of this blog will know, I often like to take advantage of the built in keyboard on my mobile phone by sitting here and typing out blog posts whilst sipping my coffee.

Today though, I have a lot to type, as there are several posts I�ve been meaning to write for a while now, so rather than killing my thumbs on my mobile, I�ve decided to lug my laptop along with me, so that I can enjoy a more comfortable typing experience. The plan had been to connect my laptop to the wireless hotspot in Starbucks so that I can upload posts as I write them, but here my plans have rather fallen apart.

Wi-Fi is a fantastic idea. As a concept I absolutely love it, and in theory it is one of the greatest inventions of recent years. Unfortunately it has one minor flaw. It doesn�t work. The technology has been made too complex, with encryption, IP addresses, DHCP servers and Default Gateways, and now it�s broke.

Sure, sometimes it works. If you have a home Wi-Fi network that�s been set up correctly, it probably works most of the time. But at home, resetting the router by yanking the plug out whenever it breaks isn�t really a problem. In public it is. I can�t even see the router in here, and I certainly wouldn�t switch it off and on again even if I could find it.

Which sucks really, because it isn�t working properly. My phone connected ok, perhaps a symptom of it having been connected before, but the laptop, which is a new visitor to Starbucks cannot establish a connection. I�ve spent an hour or two trying to get it to connect now, to no avail.

Given that I�m pretty good with such things, a veteran you might say, it�s probably not me. I connect these things every day and I�m pretty good at troubleshooting. If it were anything at this end, I�d have found it by now. But I�ve found nothing, because there is nothing to find. Windows Vista is getting quite good at self diagnosis, and even it says the problem is with the hotspot router.

If I had GPRS set up on my phone, I could use that to connect the laptop to the internet, but I don�t because it costs too much to use. Unfortunately the makers of the phone never thought of a scenario in which I�d want to connect a laptop through the phone�s Wi-Fi connection, as if the phone has Wi-Fi, the laptop should as well, right?

I�m beginning to wonder if it would be rude to tell the staff that their router needs restarting. I�m not sure they�d believe me at any rate. From their perspective, it�s far more likely that the problem is at my end. Sunday staff are notorious for being useless and this lot don�t seem to be an exception. The mug of coffee I finished over an hour ago has still not been collected from my table. It�s entirely possible that they don�t know what a router is, or how to restart it. Do you, dear reader?

I have a few more ideas I want to try, but failing that I�ll just have to post this when I get home. Til then, I remain yours disconnectedly, Ignorminious.

The Tuesday Effect

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:51:20 +0000

Why is it that the morning rush hour is always worse on a Tuesday than on any other day of the week?

This is a phenomenon I�ve been noticing over the last few weeks and months, ever since I started working full time. As any commuter will tell you, the morning rush hour in Bristol is not an experience many people relish, and the area around Frenchay, Filton, Downend and Hambrook is especially bad. To put things in perspective, outside of rush hour it takes me 20 minutes to drive from home to work, yet a minimum of 40 minutes during the rush hour.

Fair enough, no mystery there. Rush hour traffic = longer journey times. Fine. Where I get a bit confused is the bit where on a Tuesday and only on a Tuesday, my time spent behind the wheel shoots up to a full hour. On one particularly bad Tuesday about a month ago, it took me an hour and a half to drive the 8 miles to work. Worst of all, the traffic reports on the radio didn�t even mention that there was any unusual congestion to be had anywhere.

Can anybody suggest any reasons why at least a 3rd more people drive to work on a Tuesday than on the other 4 days of the working week? Does anybody else experience this unusual situation, or is it just a Bristol thing? Does the traffic do anything bizarre where you live?

Answers on the back of a speeding ticket please!

Frustrated

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:05:21 +0000

I�ve just realised that it is a full week and a half since I last posted anything here. This is pretty poor even by my standards, which have themselves, slipped in recent months.

I think there are a few reasons for this. Firstly, very little of interest happens to me most of the time. Keeping an accurate record of what I do every day is really not what I�m into here and wouldn�t be even if I had a more interesting life. For me, as for so many others, most of my waking day is spent at work, even on the weekends. I do a job that I quite enjoy, but which is largely repetitive and unlikely to ever change in a way worth recording. Ok so on Monday my hours were changed to allow me to alternate between two different bars throughout the day and today I was switched back to just my usual bar for the time being, but that is about it.

Another reason is that the nature of my time at work, which tends to constitute my entire social life, is such that whenever anything interesting does happen, I have to repeat the story to half a dozen people individually; to be sure that everyone has heard it. After that, the last thing I feel like is coming home and writing it all out for you to read, even if it�s something quite exciting, such as my near death experience in a taxi last Saturday, or the wonderful time I had seeing the musical Wicked on the same day.

When I do come home from work, all I really want to do is watch a bit of TV and have something to eat before I have to go to bed, so once again little time for writing.

I really do regret not putting anything here, and I know it makes me a rubbish blogger, but even this short little piece � a trifle over 300 words � has already taken me 20 minutes to type up. Once I�ve finished I then have to proof read it and post it up, possibly with a picture attached. In total it�ll be at least 30 minutes, which is too long for a �quick� post, never mind a real, interesting one.

Oh joy, I�ve not bothered to update my Twitter status for 24 hours. Now there�s a surprise.

Ignorminious On The Environment

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:08:04 +0000

The other day I was in my local Wetherspoons having a spot of dinner, and trying not to look like a complete loner.

As is common place on a Friday night, the pub was packed, and I must have looked terribly selfish having that small, square table by the pillar all to myself. So as not to come across as having been stood up by anyone, I occupied myself by reading the in house magazine that �Spoons bring out every couple of months or so. It is mostly a fairly dull affair, full of articles about which pubs in the chain have won awards for this, that and the other, but in this issue, two articles court my eye.

The first was the forward to the magazine, written each month by the Chairman, Tim Martin. He was complaining about the double standards of the Government in trying to tackle underage drinking and how actually all they were doing was driving the problem underground and away from the watchful eye of the local landlord. He then admitted that he himself had recently been refused entry to one of his own pubs because his 22 year old daughter, whom he was with, wasn�t carrying any ID. She herself had worked in that very pub not 4 years previously, which made the whole scenario even more bizarre.

The second and far longer article was about a new �Spoons pub that has been built using the latest technology to make it environmentally friendly. The two page piece went into some detail about what bits of kit are being installed and how they will be used. They have put everything into this pub, from double the legally required amount of insulation to solar panels, wind turbines, sun pipes, ground source heat pumps and condensing boilers. I�m no expert on green technology, but I do know a bit, and they have really gone to town to make sure that this place uses as little conventional energy to power it as possible.

As I finished the article I began to think about how important it is to start using these new technologies as an interim measure in our little battle with the future of the planet and how bizarre it is that their take up has not been more wide spread.

The building I live in was completed in summer 2006 and opened shortly thereafter, so it�s not exactly old. Certainly, the technology used to make the new Wetherspoons an environmentally friendly pub were well established by the time the plans for my home were drawn up, and yet as far as I know, not one of these great new innovations have been incorporated into this apartment block.

This saddens me, as it�d be nice to think that new builds at least could be making an effort, even if older housing stock is a little trickier to convert. Ok so the insulation here is pretty good. It�s October and I�m sat here in a t-shirt with the heating off and my desk fan whirring away to stop me melting, but who knows how much power that is using?

The thing about global warming and climate change etc though is this: here am I, complaining about how many energy efficient light bulbs there are in the room and towing the Government�s line on environmental issues, when I myself don�t believe the argument.

No matter what politicians may try to tell you, the solution to global warming is not to turn off the kitchen light every time you leave the room. No, it isn�t. Nope. No buts. It just isn�t. You want reasons? Ok, here are two of them:

First off, you cannot change human behaviour to that extent that quickly. We are all used to living a comfortable and pleasant life where we have as much electricity as we want, whenever we want it. Right now I am sat here with 8 lamps on, my desk fan, my computer and my digital photo frame on top on the TV, and you know what? I have no intention of ever giving up my right to waste that electricity as I please. Why should I? It is mine. I pay for it though the nose so that I can do just this. And that will never change. I don�t mind switching from regular bulbs to energy efficient ones, because as I see it, they are just as good. But there ain�t no way I�m going to sit in the dark just to save the planet, and nor should you.

The second reason is that it just won�t work. That�s to say if everyone in the world did everything being suggested to minimise our carbon foot prints, we would still be pumping out too many green house gases to reverse climate change. It�s a fact. This planet has over 6 billion human beings on it. 6 BILLION. That is too many. We could switch the whole world over to low power light bulbs, give each of them an A rated fridge and make everybody walk to work and we�d still be up to our necks in unwanted carbon.

The Government pedal this as the solution because it is the cheapest option. They do it because the alternative is that they will have to pump billions of pounds of tax payers� money into researching real clean technologies, and if they did that, how would they ever be able to pay for all the new stationary, every time they decide to rename one of their failing departments?

You see, for all the campaigning by the Green nuts to get us to turn our TVs off at the wall, electricity is not actually a bad thing. In fact it is the single cleanest and most versatile energy form there is, and there is absolutely no environmental argument against using it as much as we can. There is a good economic one of course, namely utility companies love to fuck us in the arse and the wallet every time the quarterly bills come round, but that is another matter. There is nothing environmentally wrong with electricity.

What is wrong is the way we produce it. Burning fossil fuels to generate electricity is a very messy business, and thanks to the problem of radioactive waste, nuclear fission isn�t looking any better. But why are we bothering with either of these two methods anyway? Follow an energy trail back through time and no matter what route you take, you will always end up with the same common source: the sun.

The sun is a true God send. Day after day it continues to pump out more energy than a trillion of us could ever use, even with all the lights on at the same time. It really is the best place from which to harness energy and convert it into electrical form, and yet at the moment we are being really shit about getting it directly.

Solar technology is a fantastic invention, but recently it has hit something of a road block in its development. As I�m sure you know, white light is made up of a spectrum of colours, each operating on a slightly different wavelength. What you may not know is that 90% of the energy in light is tied up in the red wavelength, and that current solar technology is completely unable to extract this energy.

The reason why solar technology has had such a poor reception, with people complaining about the panels not working on a cloudy day etc is because almost all the energy available in everyday light is being wasted. If we could find a way to harness that red light, our problems would be solved! There would be so much energy coming in from these solar panels that even on a gloomy day, enough electricity would be being generated from half a dozen panels on your roof to power half the street.

What�s more, a recent technological breakthrough means that solar panels can now be printed onto surfaces as easily as ink is onto paper. This means that more or less any surface can become a solar panel, without the need of all that heavy and fragile glass. It also costs almost nothing to do.

Now, if I were in government and faced with the current crisis, I�m pretty sure where I�d be wanting to invest my money.

The other big issue with climate change is transport. Our cars will be the death of our planet we are told, and yet where is the alternative? Forgetting road congestion, which is a completely separate issue, we are faced with yet another technological dilemma. Petrol is bad for the environment, and yet we need it to get around. Or do we? The other week I saw an episode of Click, the BBC�s flagship technology short on BBC News 24. They did a feature from Silicon Valley that looked at the latest advances in electric cars, and boy have there been advances!

I don�t know about you, but when I think of electric cars I�m reminded of the prototypes they built and tested about 20 years ago. They were oddly shaped, drove no faster than a milk float and ran out of power after about a mile. Not anymore. Thanks to some extraordinary advances in battery technology, fuelled in part by the boom in portable consumer electronics, it is now possible to draw very large amounts of power from very small cells.

In the example we were shown on Click, an American firm have built a Roadster. It looks as good as any Ferrari and does 0-60 in 4 seconds flat, with a top speed of 130MPH. It can do 200 miles on a single charge cycle, which by the way is about what I get out of my Fiesta going back and forth to work each day. It runs silently and is powered by a battery pack no bigger than a conventional fuel tank, so you don�t lose a lot of space. If this was freely available on the market today at a reasonable price, I honestly doubt anyone would ever buy petrol again.

In fact, combine this with the solar technology we were talking about earlier, and it would be possible to drive around without ever damaging the environment. There has, I admit been some concern about charging such cars if you live anywhere where running an extension lead to the car is not safe or practical, but here we look to the world of boats and caravans for a solution. In marinas and caravan parks alike, electricity is provided by a small pillar poking out of the ground next to each vehicle. This pillar contains mains power sockets covered by a water tight lockable flap, similar to the ones you get on outdoor sockets for homes.

These could quite easily be installed on streets outside homes with very little fuss. They�d be placed on the curb side next to where you park your car and would be connected to the mains supply for your house via cable buried under the pavement. The flap would be held down by a lock, to prevent anyone else from stealing your power, and all you would need to do would be to plug it into your car when you came home at night and unplug it in the morning. Simple.

Ok, looking back up the page I seem to have written rather a lot on this subject, but hopefully you�ve got my point. All the technology we need to reverse climate change is either freely available or just around the corner, and all that is lacking is the will power and a little investment by the Government to ensure that our children won�t have to wear plugs in their bottoms to make sure that no one farts and upsets the delicate atmospheric balance that we are currently in the process of creating.

Count Down

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:11:38 +0000

Every morning at around 08:55, I drive my car up the curb and onto the pavement, in order to drive around the barrier at the entrance to Car Park 6 on the Frenchay Campus of the University of the West of England. What follows is a brief account of the first hour or so of my working day, as I like it to pan out:

08:55 � 65 minutes to opening (MTO) - Car Park 6 is about as small as a car park can be without becoming a lay by, bay or road with the double yellow lines removed. There are perhaps 20 bays in total, and one area by a hedge which isn�t marked as a bay but is sufficient in size to allow the desperate motorist to park there without upsetting anyone. Having failed to find a bay I will manoeuvre my vehicle into this space, just as a colleague pulls up behind me and attempts to do the same. On occasion The Boss will shout instructions from an upstairs window so that we can both fit in without running the risk of being towed away.

09:00 � 60 MTO - I arrive in the kitchen and deposit my bag in the changing room. Next I proceed to rant and rave about the awful parking/traffic/something I heard on the radio that morning to anyone who�ll listen, whilst simultaneously greeting everyone in the room, finding out how they are and enquiring about their weekend/evening out/bad back. Conversations at work can prove confusing to the casual observer.

09:05 � 55 MTO - I go round the room once more to enquire who would like a caffeinated beverage of one kind or another and how they take it, before wrestling with the trolley laden with equipment to be taken to the bar, so that it is persuaded to travel in that general direction. This usually involves ricocheting off of other trolleys, tables, walls and people until we reach the door to the bar.

09:10 � 50 MTO - Making coffee in the morning is the best way of ensuring that all the necessary equipment is present and correct, and that nothing has broken since the previous day. The basic list usually looks something like this:

3 filter basket arms for the espresso machine. These are the strange handle things that get removed from the machine and banged over bins before your coffee is made. We have three at work, two double shot and one single shot;

3 inner filters for the filter baskets. These are basically small metal bowls with holes in that hold the shot of ground coffee whilst water passes through it and into your cup;

A large metal jug for frothing milk. This comes complete with a thermometer and what can best be described as a small, flat-bladed spatula used for alternately scooping the froth off the milk and holding it back whilst pouring;

An assortment of cups and saucers, mugs and teaspoons;

A pot and filter tray for the filter coffee machine;

The special box into which spent coffee is deposited.

09:20 � 40 MTO - Coffee is distributed to those who requested it. I always have a latte in a mug, where as the others usually have sachets of instant coffee, the filter machine being switched off at this stage. At this point The Boss or another supervisor is opening the tills and counting the float.

09:25 � 35 MTO - Even when care is taken, coffee granules tend to get trodden into the floor of the bar throughout the day, so this is the point at which I sweep and then mop the floor. Whilst I�m doing this, I�ve set the espresso machine to perform a maintenance task known as �back washing.� This involves blocking up the filter baskets so that the water that is normally forced out through the coffee is made to cycle back through the machine and clean it out. I also switch on the glass washer so that it has time to warm up.

09:35 � 25 MTO - Next the fruit bowl. This must be filled with a selection of fresh fruit that will sit on the bar all day and largely be ignored by the majority of customers. At the same time crisps must be acquired to fill the basket that sits next to the fruit bowl. When this has been completed the specials board needs to be wiped clean, as do any tables that have been used by the �cleaners� in the night.

09:40 � 20 MTO - Time to stock the fridges behind the bar with all the bottles of beer, water, fruit juice and coke sold on the bar. Whilst I�m making out my list I�ll also be removing the nozzles for the draught coke machine from the soda water they are stored in at night and reattaching them to the machine for use. The bottles are all stored in one cellar and a single trolley is usually enough for a day�s worth of stock. Whilst there I will also grab as many cartons of fresh orange juice as I require and a dozen or more pints of milk. Once back in the bar everything must go into the fridges as quickly as possible.

9:50 � 10 MTO - On with the filter coffee, which will take around 10 minutes to drip through into the pot. Whilst it is going I�ll fill up half a dozen glass jugs with the orange juice from the cartons.

9:55 � 5 MTO - I switch on the stereo behind the bar and set it to playing the first of five CDs that have been on repeat quietly in the background since last Christmas. As the first track - California Dreamin� - begins to play, I raise the bar shutters and remove the post between them. I switch the lights on in the restaurant and spend a minute or two checking that everything is ready, and that the water jug is filled with a fresh supply of cold water.

10:00 � 0 MTO - I march importantly to the main door and unlock it, bracing myself as I do to deal with the rush of early morning customers all desperate to come in for their morning coffees.

There aren�t any of course. I�ve never once unlocked that door in the morning and found people waiting to come in. Two reasons for this: firstly it is a busy university and people just don�t have time to stand around waiting, and secondly there is a coffee shop less than a minute�s walk away which opens at 8.

Over the next couple of hours there will be a slow trickle of regulars. On a good day we might see as many as 20 sales by 12:00, but it is usually closer to a dozen.

We refer to this as the calm before the storm....

A Weekend Project

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:33:25 +0000

It is a sign of the fast paced modern world we live in that attitudes to home furnishings have changed somewhat. My parents for example bought their current house in 1982 and spent a full 5 years making it habitable. In fact, it was only in 2002 (I think) that they bought a sofa specifically for the house, their previous one having been handed down from one set of grandparents.

(As a side note: When we finally dismantled the thing � a task that made taking down a tower block seem as easy as loosing at Jenga � we discovered some old coins down the back with the date of production given as 1942.)

Me on the other hand, I�m not all that patient. Instead of taking 5 odd years to �finish� my apartment, I�ve attempted to do the whole lot inside two months. Having bought masses of furniture in August and a ridiculous number of lamps earlier this month, this weekend it was time for the finishing touches: cushions, mirrors, pictures and blinds.

Oddly enough for a Saturday, the Ikea car park was almost empty by virtue of a massive traffic jam on the M32 just outside. I�d like to think that I was fairly near the front of the tail back when I joined it, and yet it took me nearly an hour to get down the slip road and across the roundabout. The cushions were easy enough, and so was the mirror, in the sense that they didn�t have the one I wanted in stock, and so I didn�t have to buy it.

The venetian blinds had been chosen in advance, which simplified things in the shop and so I was left with the pictures. This took some deciding on, and I gather I was considered quite a spectacle by the crowds of shoppers as I left the store with a trolley full of awkwardly balanced frames and one particularly large example being dragged along the floor beside me as it was just too big to do anything else with.

Fortunately for me, the audience was somewhat smaller whilst I wrestled the bloody thing into the back of my Ford Fiesta, and no one was watching at all when I arrived home and tried to unload it all without breaking anything.

Today I woke up with just one thing on my mind: like all men everywhere, I needed Power Tools! A couple of hours later I was in B&Q feeling thoroughly emasculated by the sheer range and complexity of drill bits, screws, picture hooks and Rawl plugs. I had thought that this little project would be as simple as switching on the kitchen light, but I quickly realised that, for all my hours of watching my dad doing jobs around the house when I was a kid, I didn�t know shit about DIY.

That said, I can�t help but feel a certain sense of pride as I sit back now and survey ~~the damage~~ my achievements. The pictures proved to be a breeze in the end, although I�ve since decided that one might look better on the other side of the room from where it is now. The venetian blinds however, were far more tricky, and with the second one I put up, it was down to sheer luck that it stayed, rather than any great technical ability on my part. Sadly I did a piss poor job of measuring this one up, which was odd as I used the same method for both and it totally worked the first time. As a result the holes would have been uneven even if the drill hadn�t slipped a couple of times.

Now all that remains is to make a start on clearing up the heaps of packaging and spares that litter the room. I think hoovering up the dust and debris will have to wait until after work tomorrow.

As will reattaching whichever of the blinds decides to fall down in the night...