Big Bore

I have to say, with the beginnings of the media hype again plus the trailers on Channel 4 and so on, I’m already utterly tired and bored of Big Brother. I suspect that no matter how hard I try, I’ll be even more bored of it come the end…

Reading

Karen over at Rise is compiling a list of favourite reads. Mine consisted of

1. “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson.
     A book that somehow combines Metaverses, Sumerian history, neuro-linquistic hacking, and a deeply warped sense of humour, all in one story.
2. “The Sparrow” and “Children of God” by Maria Doria Russell.
     Science-fiction at it’s highest level, the story of a Jesuit mission to a newly-discovered planet. Impossible to describe and do justice to – simply superb.
3. “The Reality Dysfunction” by Peter F Hamilton.
     The first book in a 4000+ page trilogy, again, bounding with ideas involving the discovery of a “beyond” after death, and how to deal with it.
4. most stuff by Dick Francis (they’re all interchangeable to a degree, so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it).
     Complete no-brainers, but familiar ground – always a good thing after reading an epic.
5. “Brightness Falls” by Jay McInnerney.
     Showing it’s age slightly (written in the late 80s, about the late 80s) when all’s said and done it’s a love story, but with various twists along the way. In fact, for the most part it’s the story of “what went wrong”. Still a favourite though.

I’ll explain more about them later, when I’ve got home. Work’s not as bad today – things are finally working, or as close to it as a combination of Windows XP and MS Visual Source Safe will get. The fact I’m now using Textpad instead of bloody Dreamweaver is also helping things come together a lot quicker than yesterday.

Definition of Irony

The first site I’ve got to work on within the new contract is adding some stuff to United Utilitities’ website – which is ironic, because over the last year or so, one of my primary complaints with United Utilities (other than the shite back-end and payment systems) is that the website was as useful as a mobile phone to Helen Keller.

Someone up there has a sense of humour. I’ll know this for sure if the next site I have to work on is that of the bank that shall never be named.

Work

There are some things that can be said about a place that uses both Dreamweaver and Microsoft’s Visual Source Safe. The first of these is “WHY?!?“, the second is “No, seriously, why on earth would anyone in their right minds use this combination as a work tool?“, and the third is normally somewhere around “Oh for fucks sake, you useless lump of shit, of course the fucking files exist, now why won’t you find them?” followed by the thud of boot into computer.

People’s Olympics

It didn’t take long for Camelot to get in on the act of saying it will help fund a UK Olympics bid – using special scratch-cards, and some “special event” draws, they reckon they can raise £750m, as well as providing a similar amount from their normal funds. Will it happen? Only time will tell.

Preparation

Ah, the joys of the last day before a return to work. Laundry, shopping, sorting out the week’s season ticket for the train, it’s all happening today. And then Peter Gabriel tonight – not necessarily the wisest option just before an early start the next morning, but what the hell, that’s what timing’s all about.