Da Vinci Bollocks
Posted: Tue 15 March, 2005 Filed under: Reviews(ish), Sweary, Thoughts, Weirdness 6 Comments »No, not a new recently-discovered masterpiece. Instead, the Vatican has come out with a lecture about why the Da Vinci Code is bollocks. (OK, they didn’t phrase it quite like that, but hey, artistic licence and all that)
Frankly, who cares? Anyone who’s brain-dead enough to think that The Da Vinci Code is anything other than utter shite – admittedly, page-turning shite, but utter shite all the same – doesn’t deserve to have it explained to them, they deserve to receive a tattoo on their forehead saying “Gullible Fuckwit”. Ideally written in reverse, so that it makes sense every time they look in the mirror.
The Da Vinci Code is toss. Badly-written pulp novel toss, albeit with sales figures that feature in Tom Clancy’s wet dreams. I’ve read it. It’s toss. That’s my critical opinion of it. And of Dan Brown‘s other books too. Toss. All of ’em. I’m not jealous – fair play, he’s written a pile of shit, and made millions from it. Good for him. But to start linking it with reality is the sign of nothing more than epic levels of brain injury in lots of people.
As for debunking the theories in it, or explaining where they’re wrong, well all I can say is that the Vatican really hasn’t got its collective brain round the conspiracy theory idea yet, has it? “A denial is as good as an ovation to a rumour”, and all those other bon mots. But quite honestly the more people who stand up and say “the Da Vinci Code is bollocks, and knows it”, the better. But denying it is just going to make the tinfoil-hat brigade believe all the more. I bet the bloody thing sells in its hundreds around Area 51, and at the “Kennedy didn’t really die, it was all a plot, like when they faked the moon-landings” school of bullshit, Texas.
Upcoming Fun
Posted: Tue 15 March, 2005 Filed under: General 1 Comment »Over the weekend, I attended a committee meeting for one of the charities I work for, and oh dear lord it looks like we’re going to be busy over the next few months. However, some of it’s definitely going to be fun at the same time as being hectic.
One instance of this is that we’re going to be organising a balloon race for the start of June. I’ve never done one before, but we’re already finding out prices, comparing balloons, and looking at what we’ll need to do in order to make it a success.
For me though, along with all this, there’s one word that just brings a smile to my face in anticipation.
Helium.
And lots of it.
Tickets
Posted: Tue 15 March, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services 1 Comment »In today’s post I finally received my tickets for the Faithless gig in Alexandra Palace from Ticketmaster. Recorded delivery, but that’s no problem at all.
I’m also still waiting for my ticket to Dead Can Dance at the start of April in London. They’ve been delivered by some shower called Special Mail Services, only no-one was in at the time, so they left a sealed envelope that looks like junk mail (and in fact has to have “This is not a circular” (AKA Junk Mail) emblazoned all over the outside. Unfortunately, this just makes it look more like junk mail…) with instructions on how to get it redelivered.
Second time lucky on this one – they should now be delivering it to the work office on Thursday. Still, at least they’re not as bad as ParcelForce.
NHS
Posted: Tue 15 March, 2005 Filed under: Health 2 Comments »A couple of weeks back, I went to the local GP to sign up and sort out my basic details. At the time I also said I’d like to see a doctor about getting my thyroid function tested, as there’s a family history of it, blah, blah, showing some signs of it being a factor, blah blah.
I finally got to see the doctor this morning, and all went well. Ish. According to him, there’s no signs of thyroid mis-function (or whatever the word is), the patches of flaky skin around my eyebrows etc. aren’t really flaky, I’m not excessively warm (considering my reputation as a walking furnace, I raised my – flaky – eyebrows at that one) and that really I should be working harder to lose weight, not laying it at the door of thyroid malfunction.
Again, we’ll exclude the roughly 8,000 paces I do per day, the regular gym visits, and the Weightwatchers.
Anyway, I’m now booked for another visit to the doctors on 6th April for a blood test. Third time lucky, and all that cobblers.
Printable Version
Posted: Mon 14 March, 2005 Filed under: Geeky 2 Comments »Oooh, new geeky challenge. One thing that came up at a meeting yesterday was how one client’s website doesn’t print out nice and neatly, and instead it lags over the page margins by a just-noticeable amount. So over this week I’m going to come up with a couple of “printer-friendly” CSS files for that client and another couple that could do with it.
I’d not really thought about doing this ’til now, but it should be an interesting little side-project. Conveniently it probably also won’t take long- always a good thing!
Testing Times
Posted: Mon 14 March, 2005 Filed under: Resolutions 1 Comment »Ah, just what I needed – a reminder from the BBC that other people can make epic fuck-ups on their driving tests. In fairness, I’ve never forgotten where I’ve parked the car, but apparently some people have.
See, I’ve a whole new world of things to chuff up this time next month…
Antique
Posted: Mon 14 March, 2005 Filed under: Geeky 1 Comment »One task I got given over the weekend is to resurrect some data from what turns out to be an exceedingly old PC. Put it this way – the mouse runs off the serial port, the keyboard plug is keffing huge, and the modem runs from the parallel port.
In other words, O-L-D. If Noah had this thing on the ark, he bought it second-hand.
No CD writer, no USB, and I suspect (not having been brave enough to power it up yet) that it runs on either Windows 3.1, or 95 at a push.
The owner of it has wondered whether once the data’s been taken off it, it could be given to one of these charities who send PCs to the third world. I suspect even they might reject the thing…