Gone Fishing - Second Person
Posted by Ian J Cottee Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:57:00 GMT
This country sucks. But this song doesn’t.Last two months
Posted by Ian J Cottee Mon, 16 Jul 2007 06:57:00 GMT
John Podaras has just reminded me that I’ve not posted anything for a long long time. Here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on.
- Spent a week in Normandy on hols. Involved about 1,500 miles of driving.
- Worked my balls off
- Put another system live feeding the Toyota factory near Derby
- Akemi got given an old Astra from my parents which means I can drive to work now in the Avensis and wave goodbye to Merseyfail.
- Taken a couple of trips down to London for the first time in a year or so.
- Visited Paris and Lyon Universities and learnt a lot about the world of allergies.
- Started running again regularly.
- Watched Alisa start crawling around the floor and AT LAST have got her out of my bed and into her cot. I have a place to sleep again!
- Cooked my best roast lamb EVER. Super slow cooking and orange marmalade are the keys
- Became totally and utterly skint. Not helped by the strange NI rules for directors which means every wage day is a surprise – usually in the wrong direction.
So there you go. More soon.
Cherry Ghost - People Help The People
Posted by Ian J Cottee Fri, 25 May 2007 20:37:00 GMT
Best song I’ve heard for a long time
God knows what is hiding in that weak and drunken heart
I guess you kissed the girls and made them cry
Hardfaced Queens of misadventure
God knows what is hiding in those weak and sunken eyes
Firing from the muted angels
Giving love and getting nothing back
People help the people
And if your homesick, give me your hand and I’ll hold it
People help the people
And nothing will drag you down
Oh and if I had a brain, Oh and if I had a brain
I’d be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned, all those good hearts away
God knows what is hiding, in that world of little consequence
Behind the tears, inside the lies
A thousand slowly dying sunsets
God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts
I guess the loneliness means nothing
No one needs to be alone, oh save me
People help the people
And if your homesick, give me your hand and I’ll hold it
People help the people
Nothing will drag you down
Oh and if I had a brain, Oh and if I had a brain
I’d be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned, all those good hearts away
People help the people
And if your homesick, give me your hand and I’ll hold it
People help the people
Nothing will drag you down
Oh and if I had a brain, Oh and if I had a brain
I’d be cold as a stone and rich as the fool
That turned, all those good hearts away
Dabs Crap, Misco Good
Posted by Ian J Cottee Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:52:00 GMT
Did I mention I have killed my MacBook? A bookshelf (yes, yes, one I put up) collapsed on it and the three mini-itx machines sitting on the shelf smashed into it. They were all fine but the MacBook wasn’t. The Apple dealer described it as an uneconomical repair.
Truth be told that although I love OSX and hate being away from it I’ve not been impressed with the MacBook build quality. It has numerous cracks in the case which have just appeared as part of normal wear and tear and others in the office have the same. So I was umming and ahing about getting another Mac and in the end I decided to hold off, get a PC for work and buy a MacBook Pro when the new versions come out (or maybe when Leopard appears in the Autumn).
It’s here now – A Sony Vaio VGN-FE41Z – and it’s quite nice. It comes with Vista which I’ve played with but have shrunk the existing Vista partition and currently have Ubuntu Feisty Fawn running on it which is pretty cool. Got most of my major issues out of the way with it and everything seems to be working well. Mail me if you find this in a google search and you comments/questions on it’s suitability for a linux laptop.
Now onto the title. I ordered this from Dabs Direct (I won’t even give them the pleasure of a link). Ordered it at 08:30 in the morning. They issued an email asking questions about the credit card details at 10:00 which was replied to immediately. And then the status on the web page just stayed there saying they were still awaiting a response. Now Dabs Direct offer no phone support. We sent three emails and tried to speak to the ‘online customer service’ people who couldn’t help. I’d asked for next day delivery and next day there was still no change in the status or response to my queries. Absolutely pathetic.
I canceled with Dabs and ordered it from Misco. I had a phone call an hour later to the office and somebody asked me to confirm the delivery address I required. I realised after that they had rung the office number which I hadn’t given them so they were obviously checking that I was ordering from a correct address. The status soon updated to dispatched and I had the laptop in my sweaty hands at 08:30 in the morning.
To this day I still have heard nothing from Dabs, not a hint of an apology or anything. My advice is avoid them like the plague.
40 (faulty? What's wrong with him)
Posted by Ian J Cottee Wed, 21 Mar 2007 19:51:00 GMT
Ah yes. I’m still in the UK and I’m more or less recovered from the depression of being back here. Actually – that’s crap. I wasn’t that depressed anyway once I got back. For one, I was already starting to get bitten by the dreaded ‘sugi’ pollen allergy when I left Japan and being freed from that was cool. Secondly it’s not so bad living in the UK as long as you don’t think about it too hard. Or at all. Or something.
So last week I was 40 (13th of March). That’s cool. I have no issue about being 40. Not a lot different from being 39 or 41. If anything it does show one positive thing – I’m not dead yet. So 40 is cool. Got lots of nice pressies including a Sinclair Z88. Yes – I did want one – thank you for asking. If you don’t know why I suggest you try one out – they are incredible little machines and 20 years old. Following the theme of old hardware I also picked up a Mac Classic II last week that I found on eBay. Fond memories of the SE/30 I used to own (the Classic II was the kind of successor). I just love the form factor. It’s such a beautiful design.
And I got gazillions of books and some games. And Akemi promised me she’d get me a Wii as soon as we found somewhere which had one in stock (i.e. next Xmas). So was somewhat amazed when I was poking around Game in Cheshire Oaks last weekend to find they had some. Small consignment came in and I snapped one up. When I left there were about 15 people in the queue behind me. The Wii is great fun – kids love it and it shows that just trying to improve graphics isn’t the be all and end all.
What else? I got my drums up in Hugo’s room. Been working, working, working. Swearing at Mersey Rail, enjoying beer, complaining about the food in England. Got a replacement car for the Sienta (which is now going to be stored in a garage). The replacement (an Avensis) broke down 10 days later but fortunately was covered by warranty.
In short – not a lot has changed. Just wanted to post the fact I’m still alive and no doubt I’ll do some more posts soon.
Now time for a Wii.
Back in the UK
Posted by Ian J Cottee Sun, 18 Feb 2007 04:45:00 GMT
Well I’m back. Arrived Friday early evening and it’s now very early on Sunday morning. Kid’s up somewhat jetlagged so just taking some time to clean up the Mac (done a nice fresh install), and plan what we need to do today (specifically, tidy up the house, find a car, cook a roast dinner).
You are probably thinking I am going to sit here and moan about being back in England and rave on and on about how much I miss Japan. Yeah – I’ll probably do that but I’ll probably revisit one of my favourite subjects first – the difference between Air France and JAL (which in itself neatly sums up some differences between Europe and Japan).
Not got the energy for that yet but here’s an observation that Akemi made. Not once in Japan did anyone ever offer to help us as we tottered around the country with three kids, pushchair etc. Trains buses, airplanes etc – it was every man/woman for themselves. Back in Europe we were offered seats on airport buses twice (by both men and women).
damn
Posted by Ian J Cottee Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:58:00 GMT
I’ve got to forget this crap.
You know the Bible 91%!
Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses – you know it all! You are fantastic!
Ultimate Bible Quiz
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Change
Posted by Ian J Cottee Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:24:00 GMT
This is a very good article.
When I make a change, I almost always make the most incremental change of all and work iteratively from there
and
Habits don’t change overnight, and if they do, chances are it won’t be sustainable.
Stupidity in the UK
Posted by Ian J Cottee Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:46:00 GMT
I’m not in the UK at the moment (hoorah) but this article entitled ‘Supermarket asks man, 87, for ID’ is a great example of why England is heading to hell in a handcart. We are used to the signs saying that if you look under 21 you’ll be asked for ID even though the age limit for drinking alcohol is 18. That’s not enough for this particular store – no doubt there’s a lot of alcohol riddled 15 year olds whose young bodies are aged to look like octogenarians.
“To further limit any element of doubt, staff at the Acomb store are required to ask anyone buying alcohol to confirm that they are over 21.”
A Morrisons spokesman said: “This is done with the best of intentions and we would hope it is taken in good humour by those obviously over the age of 21, as we do not wish to cause offence and no disrespect is intended.”
So we’ll treat our staff and customers like complete idiots. That’ll be the new excuse for stupidity “we would hope it is taken in good humour by those obviously over the age of 21 because we obviously don’t have a modicum of bloody common sense floating around any of our collective synapses.”
