Criticism

From this morning’s comments, I couldn’t resist posting more about adso’s one in the post below. I’d offer a link or a mailto, but they’ve not been brave enough to leave a valid one, sadly.

Jesus Christ you’re a miserable cunt aren’t you!

Really, life is too short to have such a cynical attitude as yours. There aint nothing cool about being jaundiced. You need to change your attitude before your life turns out to have been a complete waste of air.

I’m not quite sure how, in a post containing the phrase “find it funny” I get to be called a miserable cunt. But there we go – freedom of speech and all that jazz.

As for life being too short to have a cynical attitude, I’d disagree. Yes, I can be cynical (Shush, you at the back there) but it’s not a permanent state of affairs. Jaundiced? Yeah, I resemble that comment on occasion too.

But what adso has failed to realise in all his wisdom is that it’s all a matter of perspective. The stuff here is one facet, and there’s much more. But even here I’m not solely cynical and jaundiced, and if the divvy little git had read further, or perhaps removed head from arse, they’d have realised that.

All the same, it’s fun to get hatemailcomments every so often, even if only for a bit of a reality check.

Inspired

Yes, I’m sure it was “in bad taste” but I can’t deny that I found it funny seeing the story about staff from a private gym handing out promotional literature as the nearby council-run gym burned down. It takes a particular form of warped logic to seize the opportunity on something like that, and while I might disagree with the principle, I do still find myself with a slight respect for anyone brave/quick enough to take that initiative.

Frustration

Ever have one of those days where people all around you appear to be experts in fuckwitdom? Today’s been one of those for me.

Not content with the already-posted cretins of the workplace, I come home to a card on the doormat. The contractors who were supposed to be here on Thursday have decided they’d come today instead. And the mobile number they left on the back of the card was – you guessed it – wrong.

Then BT called – well, their Indian call-centre. “You haven’t paid your bill”. “Yes I have”. and so on. I ask to be put through to customer accounts. “We can’t do that from here, we’re just here to tell you you haven’t paid”. Grrr.

Then the person who was supposed to be helping my house-mate after her wisdom-tooth extraction tomorrow has decided he can’t make it after all. She’s going to be sedated for the operation, and I know how bad that can make you feel. So I’m going to be taking some time off (again) to make sure she’s OK.

It’s one of those days when I could just spit.

Filtration

Yay, the filters I ordered last Friday from Jessops arrived last night. Two little boxes, wrapped in a bundle of air-bubbles and cardboard about 8 times the size of the filters. Never let it be said they’re shoddy with packaging. Stupid maybe, but not shoddy. So anyway, now I’ve just got to experiment with them a bit and see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, I’ve ordered a selection of prints from Photobox, mainly of some of my macro shots of flowers. I’ve no idea what it is I like about doing these shots, but I find them to be extremely satisfying, and the results can be spectacular. (I’m probably going to add some more to that macros page in the next couple of days, too) It’ll be interesting to see how they turn out as 7″x5″ prints, anyway. What’s really impressive with Photobox is that I uploaded and ordered the photos at 3pm today, and by 4pm I’d been told they’d been not just printed, but dispatched. So far as I’m concerned, that’s absolutely superb service.

Security

On a regular basis, we get emails about “security” and being aware of security risks. In theory, I assume it would be nasty to get a bomb in a council office, or whatever.

So it was a bit of a surprise yesterday when I saw a satchel-type bag abandoned on one of the main stair entrances to the offices. I’ll be honest, I didn’t give enough of a shit while leaving the office to go back to reception and point it out.

Far more of a concern was when I ambled in this morning and the bloody thing was still there though. So much for awareness, and letting people know. Bear in mind that probably the best part of 500 or so people have gone past the flaming thing. (Well, it wasn’t flaming, but you know what I mean) And yet when I checked with reception, not bloody one of them had reported it, or even mentioned it. It’s gone now, the security nork just walked up and opened it. Not the best idea should it be a device, but there we go – that’s training (or lack of it) for you, I suppose. But all the same, I find it amazing that in mind of the constant reminders and general media hysteria about terrorism and yadda, yadda, yadda no-one said a bloody thing for nearly 24 hours.

Ouchie

Thank you, Virgin Trains for this.

Ouch.

No, No, No

According to various sources, Richard Branson wants to make spaceflight more commercially viable for passengers. Now OK, it’s a nice idea, and it’s what the X-Prize and so on is all about.

But there’s one massive problem with this. Virgin poxing Trains can’t even sort out making a three-hour journey across the country on time (as commented on in MANY places on d4d) and even today’s launch of the ’tilting train’ service was a cock-up with trains breaking down or not even starting.

They can’t manage a train service – so I ask you this. Would YOU trust them with getting you into orbit?