I didn't quite catch that...

Well, I’ve had a busy weekend. How’s about you? Very, very drunk last night and Friday, and I’m surviving on very little sleep. So it’s all good.

And I have to be on the road at 8.30 tomorrow, so that’ll spoil my bank holiday. Less good.

Apart from that, saw Old School and The Day After Tomorrow. Old School is AWESOME!, and TDAT was alright. Made much, much, much better by the presence of Emmy Rossum:

Sweet. So fine, and only 18. More of her later, hopefully.

A couple of weeks ago, I linked to a movie quiz, a copy of which I stored on my server. Some of you may have downloaded it, but only one person has actually posted a score.

But that’s not the point of this post. I got the quiz from a work colleague, withing the health service. I didn’t forward it to anyone, posting it here instead. However, it has spread like wildfire through out the health and civil services, and people keep checking the web for either clues or a clean copy of it. Search for ’99 movies quiz’, and my copy of the quiz appears in third place. It’s been downloaded about 200 times, and a dozen or so people have checked out the blog entry relating to it. All have been NICS or NI-NHS users, most of them in Belfast offices (or at least, have IP addresses assigned to departments based in Belfast). It’s good to see how these things spread, isn’t it? Or is that just me?

Today, I’m working out at my nominal base, as opposed to the site where I’m seconded to. Which means I’m in the middle of a run down old hospital, with not a bar, shop or any entertainment for miles all around. Boring.

However, it does mean that on breaks, I have bugger all to do except peruse the interweb. Which is what I’m doing at the minute. Mainly trying to get the last nagging details of WordPress worked out. For example: unlike in b2, there is now an easy way to do More »

Weather for the last two weeks: sun, sun and, just for good measure, some sun. What I had planned for the last fortnight that depended upon this weather: fuck all.

Weather today: rain, rain, rain. Which is good, because I was planning on outdoor activities today.

Not all bad though. ‘Outdoor activities’ in this case covers canoeing. Canoeing in the rain isn’t much of a loss, ‘cos I’d get wet anyway. Should be a laugh though.

In other news: nearly got killed on the road again this morning. Some fucker (again, in a white van) decided that pulling out into the outside land of the M2 at 70 was a good thing. Neglecting to notice that I was already where he wanted to be, and had been for the preceeding mile. Exessive use of the horn caused him to cancel the manoeuvre and excessive use of the brake allowed me to not drive into the side of him, while giving the poor lady behind me a bit of a shock.

Milla’s brakes: saving my life since January 2004. Passing on, May 2004.

The always disturbed Ali Bennett sent me this link. Most definitely not work safe, but a sad insight into his mind…

I have absolutely no patience. I said, about an hour ago, that I wouldn’t change the layout soon unless the green really got to me. Well, it must have gotten to me, because the green is gone, replaced by what you see around the place.

I also made good on a threat I made nearly a year ago, to put a silly picture in the banner. I’ll see how long that lasts.

The more observant among you may have noticed that things have changed slightly around here. And if you think that the front end looks different, you should see the backend. I mentioned this morning that I was looking at Word Press as an upgrade, and, well, here it is. I like it, works the same as b2, but has all the functionality of Movable Type. And is quicker, what with it adding things to the database rather than rebuilding everything as it goes along.

Anyway, that’s the news for today. I’m going to change the decor round here at some point, but it won’t be immediatly. Unless that green starts to piss me off too much.

On checking the bank balance today, I was pleasantly suprised. Mainly by the fact that a substantial amount of money had landed in it. Yay for payday!

Say what you like about monthly pay packets, but it is damn impressive when a month’s wages lands in one go. I like.

I’m trying a few things behind the scenes here. Considering if I want to upgrade from b2 to WordPress. I like some of the features, but there seems to be some difficulty in getting WP to recognise the 1,007 posts I’ve made through b2, so that will have to be fixed before any switchover takes place. I don’t want to lose my archive, do I?

Incidentially, 1,007 posts. That’s quite a lot. Nearly two a day, on average. The posts table is over a meg now, which is a bit huge. ANd I backed it up the other day for the first time in over a year. Now, I’ve got to go tell people about information security. Which is a topic close to my heart, as I’m sure you could tell.

As I may have mentioned, I’m currently working in the centre of Belfast. As such, I’ve been experimenting with getting the bus into work. Along the way, I’ve been conducting a very specific and vague study into the benefits of public transport. Which I shall now summarise.

Downsides:

• It costs ?6.10 a return. Or ?5 if you buy 20 returns at a time. Which is ?100. Which isn’t an amount of money I like to spend.
• Lack of freedom: you can’t just decide to piss off home when you feel like it if the bus only goes 3 or 4 times a day.
• Bus stops. Specificially, waiting at them.
• Lack of space. Especially when compared to a car.
• Inability to lug loads.

Plusseses:

• ?5 is what I’d spend in parking, on average, for a day in Belfast. On top of that would be ?4.20ish in petrol.
• Milla is parked, thereby not costing me anything or building up the miles.
  (Also, although this is a temporary thing, I ain’t too happy with Milla’s brakes, so getting the bus works for me at the moment.)
• No worries about finding a parking space.
• No worries about traffic.
• Papers, reading thereof. Can’t be done while driving.
• Sleeping. Frowned upon while driving.
• Lunchtime drinking. Frowned upon by traffic cops and bosses. One of whom will be satisfied by me taking the bus.
• Bus timetable requires me to spend 8.30 to 17.00 in town. If I spend that in work, I get 30 minutes flexi time a day. Or an extra day off a fortnight. Which is nice.
• Bus station is right at the nearest carpark, so there is no more walking to be done in the Belfast side. Bus stop is 1/4 of a mile from front door, passing by shops.

So, there is is. More on the plus side than the minus side, so bussing it it is.

this unscientific science was brought to you by the letters A, B, and Q, and by the God of Liquid Lunches.

Did you ever think that there was any subtle subtext to Britney Spears? Try a careful analysis of Hit me baby one more time. Someone has discovered the shocking truth: it says “Sleep with me I’m not too young”. Disgraceful behaviour.

Found at Link of the Day.

Michael Moore has always reminded me of someone. Not in a “Oh, he’s looks so like (a two tonne sea lion that’s in pain)…” kind of way. More in his artistic stylee.

Today’s Times cleared it up for me: Michael Moore is Damien Day. It’s so obvious now: in persuit of their perfect images, they both disregard silly little things like facts. The both create their scenes instead of recording what actually happen. And, by extension, they’re both morally bankrupt and rather sad characters.

I’m actually interested in seeing Farenheit 911. Not paying to see it, but I think it would be an exercise in “spot the blatent falsehood”. It was a fun game to play with Bowling for Blatent Lies, so it may be good here too.

On an unrelated note, it seems that they’re doing a remake of Farenheit 451. Very strange. The first one was good enough, thankyouverymuch.

To paraphrase a certain well known Doctor:

No, no, never, no!

Bloody Billie Piper is the assistant in the new Doctor Who. It’ll all end in tears, mark my words…

What I did with my weekend:

• Watched aforementioned Cup Final. Great display by United, and we cap off a terrible season by winning the FA Cup anyway. Which is nice.
• Took Milla in for a service. 6,000 miles covered, and she needs new brakes. I managed to convince them that the warranty would cover it thought. Mental note: stop raking the arse out of the poor car.
• Worked Saturday night on the door of a bowling alley. I swear to God, the next 12 year old that tries fake ID on me and then gets arsey when they’re turned away is getting a slap. However, the fittest women in the complex go to the club next door, so there is an abundance of eye candy going past. Which is always a bonus.
• Spent a couple of hours on Sunday strimming a bit of the lawn that had been neglected. I say lawn, but does it count as a lawn if the grass is two foot high?
• Watched the GP. Very good. Although I still say that there is something very depressing about an injured Ferrari. Even if Shoemaker is driving it.
• Speaking of Ferrari, liked the one in Top Gear. But that’s not important right now.
• Came within about ten yards of hitting a van that was overtaking on a blind hump in the road. Tootling along at 60, not a car in the world, hit the crest of the bump and , *boom*, there’s a renault van doing about 70 in my lane. Any reference to above braking deficiencies may have something to do with the emergency stop that came in here, or possibly it could have something to do with me ending up half way on the fucking verge. Me was not a happy bunny.
• Signed up to do a spot of canoeing next weekend. Haven’t been in a canoe for about 7 years. What end is the front again?

And that’s about it. Dull, I know, but what can you do?

United win the Cup. Celtic win the Cup. It’s all good, baby.

United 1 – 0 Milwall. Half time. Someone, please, stop the stress. It’s all so very not good.

Indymedia in the States is becomming a byword for “twats that are taking up oxygen that would be far better spent fueling the oxidation process upon their flaming corpses”. But i didn’t realise that they were as bad as this over here.

Why, on God’s green earth, would you go about putting pictures of undercover Gards? Yes, An Garda Siochana is responsible for the security of the Irish State, but the undercovers are anti-terror and anti-organised crime. I’d say anti-subervion as well, but that really hasn’t been an issue since the blueshirts at the start of the Second World War.

So, what these twats have done is post pictures of ALLEDGED undercover officers, right where the terrorists and criminals can get them. So, I think that it would be fair to say that if anything happens to said officers, then there should be a roundup of the people who put the site there, and a collection to buy some rope, and then a right old knees up over the still warm corpses of said twats.

The best bit, though, is that there is no recourse. My money is on most of the people pictured not being Gards at all, merely people who told Indymedia types to fuck off and stop acting like spoilt children. But that’s my cynical nature coming to the fore again.

Michele linked to this post, which appears to be a post by an anti-Giuliani protestor. I say appears, because it could very well be a bit of propaganda from a pro-Giuliani person, it’s that good.

Read it. My opinions of the writer are as follows:

• Hero worships boyfriend, who can do no wrong.
• Boyfriend is a muppet. Completely focussed on Rudi Giuliani and bent on destroying him long after he left office.
• Boyfriend is a muppet. Believes that heckling and mudslinging is a legitimate form of political protest that will help in the long run.
• Writing style. I realise that mine isn’t very good, but this girl takes the cake on bad writing style.

I would have liked to have been at that meeting, just to hear if anyone would ever use the phrase “Let me go, you big fat mook!” Comedy genius.

The mean security guards mauled me as they walked me out, grabbing my breasts, my arms, holding me very tight, so hard I almost couldn’t breathe. I was afraid I was going to get arrested, but I was getting irritated at the manhandling I was experiencing, so I started wriggling

The “mean security guards”. What are you, in primary school? And, just to let you in on some muppethandling manhandling facts: grabbing arms is a good idea, to prevent being smacked in the face by the manhandlee. If the manhandlee is wriggling, then it is possible that breasts may be brushed against while reaching for arms. Of course, breasts aren’t noticed for their load-bearing abilities, so I’m guessing that no security guard was going to try and remove you from the room using them as a handle. So I think, and this is just my opinion, that that part of the proceedings only happened in your empty head.

In summary: what a fucking muppet.

A Grand Prix in London? What a fantastic idea! Just imaine the fun that could be had. Personally, I’d go for a track round the Mall/Whitehall area, and of course you’d have to include Admiralty Arch, which would kick ass at 200mph.

‘Course, I don’t think that it’s ever going to happen. I think it’s just Bernie stirring shit up with Silverstone, because he’s a very odd little man. It would be very nasty, since, basicialy because of him, the BRDC sold off the track to a company of his choosing. So, he is a twat. More Silverstone GPs, please, unless you can guarantee Admiralty Arch. Simple choice.

Yay, and much rejoycing. Sara Cox is doing her last show on Radio1 today! Which means that, for a while at least, she won’t be on the radio. Yay! No more annoying noises from the wench. All good.