as anyone who knows me knows, it's *always* interesting. in fact, i can't go five minutes without whinging about *something*.

low points : too much travelling around at the moment, the major downside of the job
high points : some cool TV on at the moment, and life at home is pretty good at the moment, and Download is only 4 weeks or so away, yay! also, getting some writing done in my spare hotel quiet moments, which i'm quite pleased with. not quite the volume i want, but i think the quality is coming along nicely.

reading *lots* at the moment. motorway services are good for cheap books, but alas, i do have to admit to reading plenty of Da Vinci code wannabes at the moment. my problem is, that the basic premise behind the da vinci code is just so much toss, and even being written the way it is, it's a nice time grabber. most of the paperbacks in the book charts in places like asda now are "code" this, or "enigma" that, it's quite dull, and most of them are shite.

Clive Cussler needs to pull back on the whole "we've got a cool ship which looks like crap, but can take out small cities" thing. there are *some* nice technical touches, but Tom Clancy did it better....

James Patterson needs to write something *original*

Lee Child? well, actually Lee Child isn't too bad, except for the major conceit of the main Jack Reacher character which basically can bed anything with breasts in 5 seconds flat. other than that i quite like them.

i need to work out some way of selling on all my bloody paperbacks though, i'm buying them at the rate of 1 or 2 a week, coz that's the length of time they last these days, so we have a lot of them piling up now.....

well, in the last few weeks i've been up to Glasgow, and down to Worthing.

quite frankly i'm pooped.

i found this quite interesting : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/21/wikileaks_bulletproof_hosting/

i'm sure there's a market for peer to peer hosted websites which would be impossible to take down. the only problem with that idea is a way of distributing the processing for php websites, and being able to distribute database in some kind of secure way. the ideas there though..... it would certainly enhance PRQs principle of being secretive about where their servers are at. if you don't *have* a server, no problem. some kind of distributed way of storing this stuff, to put another layer of difficulty locating centralised sites is definitely the way to go i think these days. the days of the underground net, BBSs and so-on is disappearing as more and more sites are shut down, even in countries where normally the laws don't support the Industry bodies. unless Eastern Europe suddenly becomes a haven for hard-to-take-down websites, most of the western internet is at the mercy of big industry throwing it's weight around.

i need a few days off :(

The road is my Muse.

seeing as i'm driving along a lot of it at the moment.

seems to be better when i have something deeply dubious on the CD, like FSOL, or Front Line Assembly. at least that seems to work at the moment. i've had some really good eureka moments the last few weeks while tazzing down the M1/M6 doing the ton. i'm having a couple of heavy weeks at the minute, where i'm out on the road a fuckload, which kinda sucks, but like i say, long drives seem to have got my creatives oozing, so there *is* some kind of upside.

2ndly, i've finally caught up with the rest of the world and started playing STALKER, Shadow of Chernobyl. I was on the beta testing thingy a year ago or so, when the engine sucked and crashed my PC a lot, but the single player is damn spooky. to the extent that the other night i put my feet up and read a book while my player sat in an abandoned container for an hour or so Real Time while i waited for it to become Dawn again in Game Time. spooooooky.

3rdly. Download 08, shall we go? the consensus seems to be "Yes", even though so far the headliners aren't to my tastes, although last year, we didn't really watch much of the headliners, and relied on the side bands to keep us happy. there was a rumour at one point that Rammstein were going to be on, which *would* seal the deal for me, but it's the experience more than anything else, so we'll probably go anyway.

meep.

well, another month, another few bucks.

i've been flat out debugging javascript today which links into asp pages, which link into a database. it's all fun. i'm bloody knackered. the work is still good, and i'm getting reasonably decent training, (asp.net using C#), with some C# OO training to possibly follow. it does get a bit random at times tho :)

downsides : i've found out i can't take leave off to go to download, which is really, really aggravating. i was looking forward to that this year.....

i stupidly bought a sandwich from the motorway services on wednesday night, and i've had food poisoning since.

so not good.

this resulted in me missing a meeting, i'm mortified. i know i'm ill like, but it still pisses me off that i missed it.

OK, it seems to be going groovy at the moment.

by the end of my 2nd week in the new job, i'll have had proper Javascript training, which is probably worth more than all the professional training i ever had in the old job (ie. none whatsoever). then in January, i'll be getting some ASP .net training too, so Go Me!

I've used my l33t sk!llz to clear some helpdesk calls, and although i've got to do a day onsite to install it, i've virtually completed my first actual piece of consultancy modification work, which rocks. I've dealth with an emergency (software wise anyway) situation which turned out rosy for all concerned, and while i ended up using the blunt approach, in the end it was the right call. A colleague on the team who i've known for years told me that the way i've started off in my first week is absolutely in no way normal, which is kinda saying something for me :) and i've also got other colleagues talking about "my reputation". this is so cool, from a place with no motivation whatsoever, going into a company which actually has thought highly of me for a while before they even considered employing me. hell, it's worth the stroking of my ego alone to work for them.

company car will be appearing (with any luck) in the next couple of weeks, and then the transformation will be complete, and i can get down to the business of making a name for myself, building on my skillset, and tidying up my life in general.

well, this is it, my last week on the (current) job. i get a week off, and then it's into the fray with the big boys.

Vegas was brill. in theory, i sent a couple of LJ entries from my blackberry. the downside was, the address i sent them from was the wrong one. typical. hey ho. the Grand Canyon was awesome, the hoover dam was scary (they're building a bypass, which will use a bridge just down from the dam, so there's no security issues about traffic. the downside is, it looks scary as hell, and i wouldn't drive over it for a gold pig.) and Vegas was just mental. we ate good food, enjoyed ourselves, and it certainly helped to get away for a few days.

at the moment the job is looking, well, dynamic. i was originally told to expect a few weeks down at the office, but that's looking decidedly flexible at the moment, with possible on-site visits almost straight away, which is almost the deep end as far as i'm concerned. but hell, i wasn't expecting an easy ride on this one, more like a learning cliff instead of a curve. it'll be worth it. at the moment i'm doing some C# at home, and i'll be having Javascript training almost immediately, so given 6 months i'm likely to have built a major skill set to add to the already useful oracle/sql server set i already have, which is generally more than most people have these days. i just hope that it doesn't take too much of a toll on life at home, and that we get into the swing of things nice and quickly. christmas is looking a little tight, but as soon as my new wage packet comes in, i think life's gonna be looking a lot better.

i got a new job. go me.

i am now an educational software consultant (or will be once i've worked my notice) and am going to be bashing around all over the country from now on fiddling with student records systems. it's nicely going to involve going back to coding too, possibly some C# with any luck, which should be cool, i've been wanting to get back into coding for ages.

Educational Software Consultant.

sweeeeeet :)

interview is this week, thursday.

everyone keep their fingers crossed pleasey weasey?

i Saw Day Watch on saturday.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0409904/

Pretty fine film, it annoys me that both Day Watch and it's prequel Night Watch never got the cinema release they deserved. I think there's still a big anti over here for foreign language stuff, and it's a real shame as both of these films are spectacular films, with effects and action that put a lot of hollywood films to shame.

i finished reading Twilight Watch (the third book in the series) a couple of weeks ago, and altogether there is a pretty epic feel to the whole thing, but at the same time it's pretty down at heel and gritty, with a world weariness about it which probably comes from the russian background to the story.

There's a certain Russian style to the whole thing too, the main bad guy slouches around in tracksuit bottoms and a vest for most of the film, but when the shit hits the fan and he gets angry, it's clear how powerful he really is. there's a nice normality to a lot of the characters, and a realism to the styling which you don't get a lot of these days. very refreshing :)

the films depart greatly from the books, and alas, the ending to this one kinda suggests we won't see a third instalment, which is a bit of a shame. 10/10 for the climax though, where large swathes of Moscow get laid waste by a magic christmas tree ornament.

[edit] according to Timur Bekmambetov's imdb page (the director), Twilight Watch is in production, so it's all cool on the Eastern Front :)

Boris for Mayor!

please tell your friends.

1. i bought "Revolver" on DVD the other week. after watching it several times on the satellite, i've really come to like the film. while the ending still kind wierds out big time, it's a really nice bit of filmmaking, with some interesting performances (ie Jason Statham *not* pretending to be anyone except a Brit) and a few very powerful concepts.

i actually "get" it. didn't on the first watch, but after a few re-runs, it really works for me. although i still don't actually know which city it's set in. all the grandeur of some of the scenes actually reminds me of Vegas, but the roof scene towards the end suggests New York. i think in the end it'd actually pretty portable.

2. watched Syriana this evening. again, quite a powerful film, with some amazing performances, including Matt Damon, George Clooney and Siddig el Fadil. i think the ending was kinda downbeat (ie everyone loses), but was very interesting none the less.

3. my copy of Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium went for £102 to Kia off the Team8 boards.

groovy. now i can sell my other copy :D

I've had this for years, and never done anything with it. as far as i know, it's still worth a fair bit....

"Dune : Chronicles of the Imperium" was the best ever RPG of the Dune canon, and was eagerly anticipated by a large sector of the RPG industry, and then, Wizards of the Coast bought otu Last Unicorn Games and the whole thing got canned. worst anticlimax ever.

but there you go, now i'm hoping to make a few pennies on a copy of the damn thing. probably not worth what it was, (i know the guy who bought a copy for himself with me at the time flogged a copy for over 200 quid a month later)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250166113637

without a day off.

i worked 19 hours last weekend, and i am sooooooooo looking forward to this weekend, i really, really am....

i'm thinking that the country needs a website along the lines of

Bearsinthewoods.co.uk

at which, every day, you can log on, and see a value for every TV news programme and national newspaper a count of how many stories shown or printed on that day, STATE THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS.

such as this morning, when we find out (shock horror) that rock stars are more likely to die young than the rest of us.

well duh?

i'm sick and bloody tired of waking up in the morning, putting on the news and being told stuff I ALREADY FUCKING KNOW. and what's worse is, that in the case of BBC Breakfast, I'M FUCKING PAYING FOR THIS SHIT.

rant over.

for the time being.

is gods way of saying "don't drink 7 red bulls in a night, and follow it by a class A prescribed painkiller."

and then go to work on a saturday... ik.

and i'll be at work tomorrow as well..... double ik.

Cool, it's pretty easy to update via email from the blackberry too. Neat. And yes, this does indeed make me a geek.

AJ

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6953374.stm

Missile dumped at US gun amnesty

quote : "The unidentified man said he had tried in vain to get rid of the launcher, which is designed to blow aircraft out of the sky."

not "Shoot down aircraft", or "Destroy Aircraft", but "blow aircraft out of the sky".

must be a Sunday i guess.....

so, i've finally got myself a Blackberry.

most of it isn't activated yet, i'm waiting for Orange to sort out my new contract. PIN and the email addys i'll be connecting to it on request.

Orange basically did me a good deal when i threatened to defect to O2. i think they figured as i'd been with them since 2000/2001, losing me would be a bad thing, so they have actually shaved a lot off what i'd normaly be paying. the upshot is i get the newest Blackberry, with wifi and GPS, the only thing it *doesn't* have, is a camera, but 'meh' to that to be honest.

just watched the Simpson's Movie, and it was cracking, much funnier than the series, and lots of cool in-jokes for those fans among you.