NIN – again

Thanks to Tom for pointing out that Nine Inch Nails had added more dates to their tour in the UK. I’ve managed to get one ticket for the final date of the tour, and now it’s all sold out again. That’s now nine UK dates, completely sold out. I wonder if they’ll add more?


Soothsaying

You know the day’s not off to a good start when you’re walking to walk work, scratch your nose, and your glasses attempt to lemming towards the concrete…

You’re not quite sure how the day’s going to go when you catch them before they hit…


Postcard

Dear Lyle,

I’m sorry to be away today, but I really needed a break. The work stuff was really getting me down – there’s only so many SELECT statements and INNER JOINs that you can look at without needing a major break. As for that guff about the house you had in Manchester, and the landlord being an utter cunt, well I needed a break from that too.

In short while I think that moving was a bloody good idea, and the domestic side is working out really well, the job you’ve got is a shitbag at the moment, and we all need to step back and look at it properly. So that’s what I’m doing today. From bed. See you when you get home. Wish you were here.

Sincerely,

Your Will to Live.


Demoralised

It’s been two months now since I started with the new job. In that time, I feel like I’ve learned sod-all, and I still don’t really understand what the company does, or why, or even most of how. That’s frustrating.

I don’t know if some of it is due to permanent jobs having a far slower/shallower learning curve than contracting, where it’s always “in at the deep end”. I do know that I don’t react well to that kind of ethos, I far prefer the “sink or swim” approach. And at the moment I’ve spent two months paddling, with no real impetus or incentive to do anything else.

Now, I’m supposed to be analysing some reports and how they work, where they get the data from. That’s all well and good, and in basic terms I can figure it out no worries. But that lack of understanding, the fact I simply don’t know (and, if I’m honest, don’t care) about what a Net Net Shipping Forecast Figure is, means that I’ve frankly no clue whether the information I’m reporting back on is correct, flawed, or utter bollocks. My suspicion runs with the latter, but that’s because most of the work that integrates with marketing stuff seems to be filed under “Bollocks, Utter” in my brain.

Will that change? I don’t know – with time it might, were I to work out what the figures mean, and why they’re important. I’m still going with the hope that at some point all of this will suddenly click into place, and I’ll understand it.

What really grates with me though is that lack of understanding. I’m not stupid – far from it. But to be told that a method is “easy”, when it then takes 90 minutes to be explained, leaves me wondering whether I’m cut out for this stuff. I don’t like being made to feel stupid, and I don’t handle it well. I know that about myself.

What I don’t know about myself is whether I’m just missing something fundamental, or whether this job really isn’t for me at all.


Ad-Vance

I must admit that – despite some people’s thoughts – I find myself quite unmoved by the death of Tommy Vance. Yeah, sure, I know who he was, but I rarely listened to his show.

Pix mentions that his show got her into a lot of rock music, and fair play, it’s as good a way as any to get introduced to it. I think I used to read Kerrang! or somesuch (in the days when it was actually quite good) along with the much-missed Melody Maker and NME. I still read NME fairly regularly, although I’m not quite as influenced by it as I used to be. But for the most part I was into the music anyway, and stayed in touch through a variety of methods.

So no, for me he’s not one of those life-altering people who’ll be missed.

In the meantime, I’ve got a delivery from Amazon of the Go! team‘s album, along with Green Day’s “American Idiot“, so I’m sorted musically for the day’s work.


Dangerous Phrase

We’ve had a ‘new’ guy start in the team today – by which I mean he used to work for the company, moved away, but has now come back. Fair enough, that’s his choice. However, the introduction of him to the team contained a phrase that has left me thinking a lot about the attitude of the company…

This is xxx, who’s seen the error of his ways and come back to us.

I think it’s that complacent condescending attitude of “we knew he’d be back” that really rankles with me…


D-SLRs

As referred to in the post below, I’m looking at upgrading this year to a Digital-SLR camera. Really there are two in the running for it – well, three now that the Canon EOS350D has been released. However, the two that I’ve been primarily considering are the Canon EOS20D and the Fuji S3.

I’ve been impressed with the Canon results, up to a point – and Chromasia has done a lot to show me what the 20D is capable of doing. I was less impressed with the 300D when I played with that a while back, although I suspect a lot of that was down to the owner/user not really knowing what he was up to. And in honesty, I was pretty sure that the 20D was the way to go, until I saw about Fuji releasing the S3. I’ve used Fuji cameras all the way through my digital camera series so far, and I’m still very happy with the S5000 that I currently use, and have had for about 15 months now. Quite honestly, for anyone wanting a semi-pro camera, and particularly one that comes in at under £300 now, I’d recommend it and the upgraded S5500 without any hesitation at all.

What the S5000 does lack though is the creative controls. Sometimes I just can’t get the shot or effect I want with the camera, which is frustrating, to say the least. So I know that a DSLR is the way to go – it’s just which one to choose. I’ve a lot of loyalty for Fuji, so I suspect what I really need to do is see if I can find a decent photography club and get my mitts on both for a while. I don’t think the odds are high on that one, so I’ll just have to think more, and see which one I want to go for in the end. Unfortunately, at the current moment I don’t even know quite what the deciding characteristics will be. I’m sure I’ll write more about it soon though.