Journals in Hypocrisy

The title of this post will become clear, but I am going to discuss my awesome weekend of awesomeness first. In brief.

Rob Shipley, friend and colleague headed towrds the light on Friday, it was his last day at this company. Also Don Pedro Ramirez - international latini lover, arrived for a visit for the weekend. The inevitable drinking until we couldn't feel our faces ensued, inclduing a lovely curry at Lal Akash - I was going to put a photo here but they are on the home PC.

Saturday saw me cooking a lot of food and myself and Pedr taking the newly formed Wisconsin NFL franchise - the Cheddar City Cheesey Poofs - to an unbeaten run in the 2007 season on Madden '08 on the 360(8 and 0 so far ;)). The uniform of bright Edam Red and Double Gloucester Orange proved a hit with the fans, who were glad of no longer having to support the Evil Green Bay Packers. The Cheesey Poofs play at Cheddar Gorge stadium. Yeah, it took us hours to come up with that one.

I also made curry. It was awesome. Grown men playing 360 all day. That's right, no one is cooler than us.

Sunday we went to the Strand to check in to the hotel but they were running late on check-ins so we ditched the luggage and headed up to Wembley (photos on facebook, will put some up here eventually). We watched the game between the Dolphins and the Giants, the weatehr actually helpled the dolphins somewhat and it ended a tight 13-10 Giants win. The experience of goign to Wembley and actually watching a regular season NFL game was awesomeness, we then went to Sports Café to catch the Pats, 49ers and Jets games and Pedr also wanted to watch game 4 of the World series.

Met a bunch of people there who had also travelled down for the game who were very chatty (clearly not natives of the South East ;)). Seems to be a disproportionate number of Tynesiders who are NFL fans!

Monday I was off work, so obviously got called up 3 times before 930am which was fun after drinking until 3 in the morning.

After putting Piotr on the tube to Euston I decided to mooch about London for a bit and wandered aimlessly - ended up by Whitehall, Palmall, some other places. Eventually wound round to Regent Street which is where my big troubles began. I ended up in the Apple Store and nearly convinced myself to by a MacBook then and there - all my brain needs is a tiny bit of space and it latched onto the 'You were going to buy a laptop soon anway' thought I'd been havign and it was away! I escaped with my wallet intact for now but I doubt it will last much beyond the end of the month because I am an idiot.

Yes, I still hate many of the things Apple do but I've hardly been in love with Microsoft all these years. Maybe I should just get a 400mhz 386 and install Ubuntu on it and be done with all of these commercial giants. But then, that wouldn't be as pretty which is apparently what matters.

I hope I don't have to start wearing rollneck sweaters if I become a Mac.

Breaking News - No One Fucking Cares!

There should be an International Law that forces all self-proclaimed news sites to have a Diana filter. This could serve multiple purposes, not least of which would be documenting who are the Diana conspiracy theorists and excluding them from any and all public debate on any subject - they clearly lack the ability to apply logic and reason to any situation.

The Diana filter would immediately remove all the pointless, worthless crap that is written around a sadly departed over priviledged socialite. Seriously, 'Poor me I live in a Palace full of treasure'. It's apparently blasphemy to say this but I didn't care for her when she was alive and, thanks to the Daily Express and everyone who still seems to think that this is in any way news, I care for her less now.

I check the BBC daily and the news stories from the 2007 inquest (I think it's an annual event now, kind of like the Queen's speech) this week:

Today - Diana Spoke
Yesterday - Diana chased and possibly hindered by Papps
Yesterday - Car in front of Diana on the road
Tuesday - Scooter may or may not have been ont he road at the same time as Diana
Monday - Spitting Image puppet of Diana to be sold.

I kid you not, this is just what I remember from glances at the 'most emailed headlines' link on the beeb. Who's emailing this crap to their friends?! And how do they still have friends?! Essentially the top emailed stories this week are 'Diana had the ability to speak', 'Other people in France use roads' and '80s puppet based satire enjoys brief rememberance'.

The irony that the same media that killed her is the same media that sheds crocodile tears and feigns interest in "finding the truth" now is not lost on me ;)

Of course, the biggest advantage of a compulsory Diana filter is that none of you would have had to read this ;)

Ending an abusive relationship

For the last 13 years I've endured your abuse. Your lack of communication in my times of need have left me anguished for days on end. Just when I am at the end of my tether, you kick me while I am down - when I try to fix things, to make them better - you don't answer my calls and when you do you just give me the run around. And then you charge me for the privilege!

This measured and deliberate abuse ends now, I've found someone else - you and I are through.

I'm sick of your gnarly old Natwest facade, your 'admin charges', your inability to do anything without me coming into your understaffed branch and proving my existance to you. In short, you smell of poo and now I have a proper job I amm in a position to move my accounts somewhere else. Do you know what a mobile phone is? First Direct will text me with my account status, they'll text me whenever I tell them to. They have a cool website (though I think the fact they have apodcast is a bit weird).

So screw you Nastywest! I got me some First Direct love!

Let the good times roll.....or at least wobble a bit

I had a big thing about hunting for a new flatmate, being sensible with my budgeting and all sorts of other incredibly dull stuff here until I realised that it was all crap and no one cares. Instead I am going to tell you that I am going out for the first time since Hannah's awesome visit last month (post still to come - work in progress for the ever elusive new site). I only tell you this because it will be the first opportunity I will have had to test out the camera on the new phone! You're on the edge of your seats I can tell. It's Nim's birthday bash and it should be good fun. Also meeting up with Mair in London tomorrow night for a catch up and drinks, so two in one weekend!

It's nice to go out because I want to, not because it's a weekend actually - I only decided to accept the Nim invite when I woke up today, I was going to be all sensible and just do tomorrow but what's the point in being good if you can't reward yourself a bit? ....... As opposed to my previous budget plan which was to reward myself extensively and without pause in lieu of being awesomely good.

There seems to be a bizarre response to the podcast idea, none of you seem particularly horrified - I'll look into it - I may even start with an NFL special report pre-Wembley while Pedr is down visiting. I should probably mention it to him at some point - but he'll read this. Pedr - we can cut this short, you'll say you don't want to do it and say you’re embarrassed etc. I'll likely agree, and then we'll get drunk and argue about how I think baseball could be much improved by making the ball a time bomb that goes off randomly. You know it makes sense ;)

Mattcasts

I'm considering doing an infrequent podcast, because my ego really is that deluded. I say me, I mean me and Nick. Nick doesn't know yet but I'm sure he'll be thrilled. It's probably yet another whim that will pass but I thought I would warn you.

Weight gain 3000

I've become more portly in my dotage because I am lazy and don't take much exercise. Apparently saying you are going to exercise doesn't cut the mustard.

Some people say that drinking lots of beer and alcohol in general gives you a beer belly and makes you fat. This isn't true, at least not directly. Not in my case, I don't care what these so called 'Health Professionals' tell you.

As the completely indisputable evidence provided by psuedo-science tells us, soft drugs lead to harder drugs. I assume this means you progress from the occasional spoon of Night Nurse to a hardcore Benylin habit. Anyway, where am I going with this analogy? I'll warn you that it's a tenuous link at best but I'm hung over so you can all sod off.

So, Alcohol doesn't make me fat - but Alcohol leads to kebabs and breakfast. And much like spending increases to match your income, my body has grown to accomodate sausages and kebabs. I get drunk, I get hungry so I eat lots of things that aren't good for me. Also I wake up starving - I don't normally eat breakfast but after a heavy night, if it's a weekend I grill half a pig's worth of Porky White's sausages and maple cured bacon. I grill tomatoes, heat up some beans, poach some egss and toast a load of bread. All of this goes onto a plate and is promptly demolished.

This kind of behaviour has got to contribute to my ever growing moobs and it's time the drinks industry stood up to its responsibilities and provided free gym membership to all those affected by ARSES (Alcohol Related Stupid Eating Syndrome) or, better still, a personal trainer. An idiot would suggest that I could just exercise some willpower, but as the description suggests, that person would be an idiot.

Casing point - last night was the project meal and I got hammered, abandoned this post half written to get fish and chips.

Podcastables

Hi! It's me again! Just thought I would write about the awesomeness of Podcasts. The new phone is quite cool in this regard, it will subscribe to podcasts and I can download them right to the device. I still haven't found a way of automating it but give me time. Anyway, so I've been looking for half decent podcasts to listen to, some recommended to me by Nick and one or two I found myself. So far, however, there are only two that held my interest.

Firstly - Russell Howard on 6 Music podcast - very funny show without all the boring musicky bits! :D Clicky to Download

The second is This Week in Tech or TWiT. Obviously a geekfest but also very funny, especially John Dvorak. Clicky to download. Incidentally Dvorak has quite a good ranty blog here.

Anyway, any podcasty recommendations send them my way, I made the mistake of downloading Moyles from the BBC who I am pretty sure I used to like - though I can't think why anymore! Anyway, point being I wouldn't bother with that one ;)

Delayed response

Hi! I haven't forgotten you, I've just been lame. Hannah came to vist a couple weks ago and I took her to Thorpe Park and a comedy gig for her birthday. Lots of other stuff is happening too but I need to sort that post out, hence the delay on other stuff. Bear with me, if i can actually muster some effort I will get a lot done this weekend ;)

You're on the edge of your seats, I can tell.

Techno-Mum

A snippet from a conversation from my mum - this was after the usual 'We checked the obituaries and didn't see your name, so we assuemd you are still alive' and update on every member of the home town conversation.

Mum: So I set up one of those thingies and wrote you a letter and used that bit that you wrote down and it said it doesn't exist.

Matt: I have no idea what you just said, were you just picking words randomly out of a dictionary?

Mum: I have enough of that off your bloody father, don't you start!

Matt: OK, so start again - what exactly are you trying to do?

Mum: The email thingy! I made one, wrote you a letter and the thing you wrote down it says doesn't exist.

Matt:...... oh right - my gmail address? I'm sorry, it was in May and some things have happened between now and then. So you used jones.mg@gmail.com?

Mum: Yes! that's the one!

Matt: Well it should work....I'll tell you what, give me your email address and I will send you an email, that way you can just add me to your friends when you get it.

Mum: OK, all right then. You're dad's on the PC playing his silly games at the moment. You send me an email, and if it arrives I will give you a call to let you know its arrived.

Matt:......

Mum: Hello?

Matt:....Was I adopted?

shiny new toy

Hah! As you can see my new phone is way more awesomer than any other phone ever. FACT! Now does anyone know of any symbian software that will let me upload direct to blogger? Blogger mobile appears to be down and currently i am emailing this stuff in from my phone.

test

Room with a view

The Reaper Never Sleeps....

Awesome. I smoke, I drink, I eat lots of things like cheese and pie. Now apparently the fact I generally sleep 4-6 hours a night means that death is even closer. Stupid scientists! If they didn't spend all their time working out the many and varied ways in which I am going to die we might have some better stuff and I wouldn't mind the dying young because i will have lived to have seen it! Instead all of that effort and brainpower is wasted working out new and improved ways of ruining my fun.

Dying young doesn't matter so long as you've lived to enjoy hoverboards and jetpack equipped squirrel/cow hybrids.*

*This also explains why all depictions of 18th, 19th and many 20th century scientists are so dour - they all knew that they were generations away from this pinnacle of human achievement.

Phonetastic Gibberish

Hehe, gibberish is a great word.

Anyway, over on my Techno-Whine you may have seen that I've decided to get a Nokia N95 instead of any of the other phones I've been blathering about. There is some vague attempt at a logical argument as to why I should be getting this phone. I cite both financial and technical reasons for the choice, and some people may be fooled by it. The logic does make some sense, and if you don't know me you would give me the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, most of the people who read my blog do know me. What they know most is this : I'm jonesing for a new gadget, this one is new and shiny and it does almost all of the things I want it to do without being Apple or Sony.

I think the techno-blog is making me schizophrenic:

Techno-Whine Matt: Ah yes, the natural logical conclusion is for me to get the N95, for you see blahblahblah [insert tenuous logic and misdirection]

RantAMatt: So it's not just because the HTC isn't out and you want to replace your perfectly serviceable phone for something newer?

TWM: Errr....No! 'Cos I could have switched to T-Mobile, they have it available from next week!

RAM: Yeah, but that would end up costing you about 450 quid more over the course of the year - what with the discount you've been promised from Orange? I mean, you're a gadget freak and everything but you're not a blind, lobotomised monkey with no hands - you have some small amount of normal person's reasoning abilities.

TWM: Ummmmm..... The only reason I didn't think of the N95 before is because I didn't realise you could export contacts from Outlook and then...

RAM: You do know that I'm you right?

TWM: Errr...

RAM: You're not right in the head, I should never have given you your own writing space.

TWM: I'll be good....

Ah well, at least I have someone to talk to.

[Boring geek Waffle!] Ongoing Techno Saga

I've now moved my techno-whining here

The Kinks

The first ever album I bought with my own money was by the Kinks. I don't have many early childhood memories but I do remember this distinctly. I had a battered old tape player radio thingy and we went on one of our regular trips Mold market.

Anyway I was looking for something or other and my dad took me to a stall that sold cassettes. Now the next memory has probably been rose tinted somewhat.

What my brain tells me happened:

I was poking through the rack of tapes and I picked up the Kinks tape (I think it was a singles compilation of some kind), my dad made some approving noises and I bought the cassette. I left with a feeling of a job well done and I listened to the tape relentlessly - I'm not sure what happened to it but I think it broke.

What probably happened:

Similar to above but I was probably whining about having to go to Mold market - it smelled, was usually raining and my parents used to split up. This always presented a dilemma - do I use my devious child cunning to wander around with my mum, thus receive snack foods and sweets but suffer her trying to buy me shoes that were made with asbestos, acid and nails just because they are 3 pairs for a fiver - or do I go with my dad, forgo the sweets and snacks but have the possible hope of looking at power tools. On this occasion I went with my dad and I almost certainly started with cassettes more suited to a boy of my tender years but was 'encouraged' towards the Kinks. Most probably because the older artists were much cheaper. The approving sound was almost certainly an accurate memory and undoubtedly along the lines of 'Thank Christ you're not your mother's son!'. The feeling of satisfaction and the ultimate fate of the cassette remain the same.

The whole thing about not being my mother's son is understandable. She likes Neil Diamond. Couple that with the fact that she is a singer and it's a recipe for mental scarring. I don't mean that she is a singer really, more someone who sings. Badly. It's a quirk of my family that we compensate for the entirety of the Welsh nation by being utterly without musical talent or ability in any guise - especially singing. I usually have the good grace and consideration to remember this - my mother on the other hand feels no such obligations.

Everyone thinks my mum is lovely, she is a spherical whirlwind of a woman who is ace. However, it must be remembered that we were always made to choose between two evils as children. Example. Baking day (Saturday to the rest of you). Do we stay in the kitchen negotiating who gets to lick the bowl, who the spoon and who the whisk whilst enduring the ocular assault of her singing, or do we bid a retreat and spend the morning leaping off the shed roof? Which in itself brought a different kind of vocal abuse from her if she caught us. (What is it with mothers and their inability to watch their children diving headlong off garden structures/trees/bedroom windows?).

Anyway. The Kinks, i think they are awesome. The Beatles never appealed to me, I don't think their music is particularly good. This statement appears to have become against the law over the last 10 years, the very idea that someone thinks Paul McCartney is a cock and can take or leave the music of the Beatles seems to be some kind of perverse criminal act. I'm not saying they were crap, there are some tunes I quite like but I don't generally care for them. The Kinks I really like and for a lot of reasons but mainly the irreverence I think.

So The Kinks Rool, the Beatles Drool. Or something. (All this because Plastic Man played on random on my PMP on my way in this morning)

The Flapjack Deception

I love flapjacks, they are more awesomer than most if not all other snacks. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is the lie that they tell with their appearance.

They are all oaty you see? Lookit all the oaty goodness!:



Healthy right? hah! That's where you are wrong! Who the hell just eats oats? What are you, some kind of weevil?! No, this marvel of modern confection is bound together with about as much butter and honey as it's possible to cram into the space allowed. This results in the flapjackey goodness you see fore you!

Now, much like the Hobnob some people will attempt to claim that the varieties that are coated in chocolate are superior. These people are deluded idiots and should be pitied. The beauty of the Hobnob (essentially a crunchy round flapjack) and the flapjack is the fact that they have a thin veneer of an appearance of being good for you. Go slapping low quality chocolate all over them and that illusion is shattered.

No. Unadulterated flapjacks and hobnobs are the only way forward.

I brought this up for many reasons:

a) I think the only thing I've blogged about recently that I've enjoyed is probably biscuits

b) I bought flapjacks and ginger bread men from the supermarket yesterday. I am embracing my old age by having a store of biccy like things in my desk draw to have with my tea at work :p

c) It's this or do some work. And nobody wants that.

.....The Flapjack Deception. Anyone else think it could work as film title? Kind of a cereal centric Bourne like film. Sod it, I did the hard bit and came up with a title, you lazy lot can do the plot!

Relocations

They've moved us about in the office at work - something to do with under utilisation of deskspace. I'm not sure I understand, I had a desk for my two work stations, a desk to the right that I put a printer on and also housed my 'big pile of stuff' filing system and a section of a minion's desk to the left that was used for lunch/coffee/tea etc.

Anyway we moved, and I now have a window seat over looking the bit of grass outside and the car park. It's way more awesomer.

I now sit nearer to all the people I generally have to talk to about various things, so really it's a lot better. One side effect though, is this - Each team seemed to have it's hardcore cynic but now we are all concentrated in one part of the room, playing buzzword bingo and generating new corporate slogans. One of our biggest triumphs was with our old strap line which used to be 'Solutions that Matter'. One of our lot finished it off - 'Solutions that matter, people that don't'.

As with many things, I'm a raging hypocrite of course - I tend to be what is known in management speak as 'a go to guy' and even on occasion have a 'can do attitude'. To the rest of us, this translates into 'I've had an idea but I have no clue if it's possible or how it might be done, best ask someone else'. Anyway, I get involved as about 1 in 20 of these ideas has a glimmer of hope in it, a faint glowing ember of sense that can be brought to life just so long as you can usher it away from management before it gets crushed beneath flow charts and minutes from meetings about what font to use to describe it. So. Cynnical with an occasional flash of optimism.

Point is this, there is a concentration of cynicism in about a 10 foot radius in this building an I fear for the fabric of reality. The Universe doesn't end with a bang but with a 'I'll believe that when I see it'

Did we learn nothing from The Magic Roundabout?!!

Pah!

That is all.

Orange mercenary

I'm definitely getting old. I just decided to do something sensible. It's incredibly out of character and hopefully it won't spread, but I'd ask you all to keep a close eye on me in case I start talking about beige.

Anyway, my exciting mobile phone saga continues. I can tell you are all on the edge of your seats, so I won't hold back. As I'm sure you'll recall from previous posts, my main reasons for moving to T-Mobile were to do with their data charges and the shiny new HTC phone that is coming out.

Well. Today I got a call from Orange - the conversation was quite lengthy, so I'll summarise:

O - "Hello Mr Jones, sorry all our other customer service people are so crap at their jobs - did none of them tell you that due to the vast quantities of cash you've spent with us over the years you are entitled to 20 pounds a month of any of our tariffs?"

Me - "No - I said 'I'd like to leave' and they said 'OK then'. It seemed like something of a risky customer retention strategy to me at the time but I didn't like to say anything. What about the data charges?"

O - "Well we cap that so the most you'll pay, if you use at least 20MB every day is 30 a month. Which is still cheaper than switching, because of your discount. They didn't mention that?"

Me - "No, as I say - 'OK then' appeared to be their master plan to get me to stay.....actually one of them did say 'what a shame' but quickly recovered herself from her emotional outburst and proceeded to imply that I was letting her down"

And so on. So I am back in my previous quandary. Do I revert to plan A and get myself a camera phone so I can actually have a camera when I go places? This is a much stronger possibility now I've seen the results of the K810i. Or do I continue to wait for the new HTC shinyness to come on to Orange? I have 4 weeks to decide but I am getting gadget itches and I should pick up a free one before I go spending money again!

It's quite good, I've only been semi-sensible - it looks like I am still driven by my gadget senses so perhaps it was a false alarm after all....

They try to make me go to iPod I say...

Sadly the answer is probably yes,yes,yes. I'm not interested in the iPhone, only interested in a Mac if I don't want to do anything too clever or complicated but the MP3 players are very good. The software is arse, but if I'm honest the Zune software isn't too hot either and it has no podcast support.

Most importantly though, is that it's new and it's shiny. Particularly the iPod Touch, and the new nano phatty.

I am going to be good though, I am going to wait until Canada and give Microsoft a chance to come up with a decent Zune or for iRiver to pounce ;)

I just thought I would put this up because earlier in the year I was raving about the Zune, but I am flexible with my gadget loyalties and won't say something is good just because I like the brand (*cough!*iBoiyz*cough!), it's not all about the badge and if something stands still like the Zune appears to be, then I am going to get my fix elsewhere - even if it means drinking from the Devil's cup :p