Incomprehensible

I’ve just taken a call from a telesales person, trying to sell my company “mobile upgrades and savings”. Supposedly the company was called “amoco” (pronounced “ammer co”) only she didn’t explain enough for me to be able to get any kind of link or website to verify.

However, considering they were calling a business *cough*, they were amazingly incapable of providing any details. In fact, the conversation ended up with…

Telesales : “We’re offering to get you some upgrades and savings”
Me : “Ok, what’re you offering, how much will it cost me, and what does it do?”
Telesales : “Oh, it won’t cost you anything, it’s just some upgrades and savings”
Me : “On what?”
Telesales : *click*

So it was a completely wasted effort, and I’ve still no idea what they were bollocksing on about. Most bizarre.

Progress

Well, the entire Content Management project is progressing slowly – the new site will go live on Friday in time for the CPA starting on Monday, although there will be some bits that won’t be working immediately. With luck (he said, hopelessly optimistically) the idiots in the departments will be able to engineer the assessors away from the missing sections while they get updated/migrated/sorted.

So, a couple more days of struggling against the chuffwits, and then it’ll be back to a slightly calmer atmosphere while fixing what idiots who don’t understand the process have done.

As a result, updates here may be slightly less than normal. As well as the CMS deadlines here, I’ve got a couple of job applications to get completed, and two other deadlines that are approaching rapidly too.

It never rains…

Jungle: The Challenge – BBC2

Can a sales manager from Putney take on the Outdoor Quest in the jungles of Borneo, running, biking, climbing and kayaking over 200 miles in 40 degree heat and 90% humidity?

This is the fastest adventure race in the world, offering four days of physical and mental punishment.

I’ve just watched this programme, and it’s left me stunned. I’d never really seen or heard of adventure racers before – but wow, I’m impressed by them now. 200 kilometres of racing in 90% humidity and 35°C heat over four days, running, cycling, rollerblading, kayaking, swimming, and even an abseil.

So far as I’m concerned, anyone who completes even one adventure race is heroic beyond normal measures. To keep on running them like Team Saab Salomon is dedication bordering on insanity. I’m in absolute and utter awe.

Organised?

Today (and in fact the rest of this week) is shaping up to be utterly shit. Fair enough, for the last fifteen months I’ve been pissing and moaning about not having much work to do, and it’s been true.

However, next week the place I work has it’s CPA (Corporate Performance Assessment) which I’ve blithered about plenty of times before now. However, the arrival of this Inspection and Assessment appears to be news to most of the departments, as they’re all only now going into a mad panic and realising that their web-pages and so on are – to be blunt – fucked.

So not only are we working at getting the new Content Managed site up and working in time for Monday, but we’re getting mad panic from all areas wanting their Internet and Intranet pages updated in time for – you guessed it – Monday.

The entire process should be filed under “Organised, Couldn’t, Piss in a Bucket“. Murder may have been committed by Friday.

You Don’t Say

Ooops. Donald Rumsfeld has now said that he doubts there was ever any connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Nice work, Einstein.

Of course, the problem with this is that the “link” between the two was one of George W.’s main cases for the war against Iraq. Anyone with half an IQ point (which, of course, excludes George) knew already that Bin Laden and Hussein were more likely to be deadly enemies than allies, as Hussein had that eeny-weeny loathing of the Kurds, which is (of course) the main section of support for Bin Laden. So, bit of a clang there then.

Right since the start of this bullshit conflict, I’ve always said that the best thing that Bin Laden could have done would have been to eliminate Hussein himself. I’d love to have seen what the result would have been, had Public Enemy #1 been seen on TV holding the decapitated head of Public Enemy #2 (aka Hussein) in his hands. Of course, it never happened, but I still smile at the idea of GW having to say “Thanks” to Bin Laden….

Celebrations. Ish

Well, I can’t help but celebrate to learn that Paul Sykes, the biggest contributor to the UK Independence Party has donated his last. Slightly more worrying (and potentially listed under “Death, Kiss of”) is that he’s switched his allegiance to the Tory party.

Mr Sykes told the Today programme the Conservatives were the only Eurosceptic party capable of forming a government.

Damning with faint praise, methinks.

High-Rise

In a rare event, today the office where I work will be allowing access to the roof of the tower – although only in small groups. It’s one of the highest buildings in the area (15ish floors, and then higher still by virtue of being on top of a hill anyway) so the views should be interesting, to say the least.

The camera’s going up with me, anyway – as is the UV filter. We’ll just have to see what I manage to get…