I didn't quite catch that...

It’s unfortunate that SkyOne doesn’t put a little bit more money into producing shows, instead being content to just buy them off the shelf. Because when they put money into a show, they produced the new Battlestar Galactica, and we got to see it first.

But when they just buy it, we have to wait. Such is the case with Stargates SG1 & Atlantis, which started three weeks ago Stateside, and for which we’ll have to wait till October. There is an upside, of course, to this: we get the season in one run, while the Merkins have to make do with breaks in the middle. Still, I’d rather not have to spend some months studiously avoiding so many websites for fear of the dreaded spoiler.

Fortunately, it is rumoured that Sky have learned from this, and have reinstated their financial interest in the production of BSG. Which means that, according to rumour, certain UK-friendly conventions are being used in season 3; namely that the UK gets to see it at almost the same time as the US, and that they do away with the daft mid-winter break.

Still, it’ll be October before anyone gets a chance to watch. This causes disappointment. Especially since the previews are already out.

I want my BSG! Now, dammit!

It has been pointed out, by people both at the place and outside of it, that I’m not really into doing the door job because I like the place. Or the job. Or the customers. And this is all entirely correct; I dislike the place, I’m not hugely fond of the job, and the customers cause me annoyance.

But I still go, for a couple of reasons. 1, it’s the easiest money I’ve ever got, even easier than that provided by the student loan company. And 2, it’s good craic because of the people I work with. You hear a lot of things, from a lot of people, from a lot of backgrounds.

For example, here’s a couple of things I learned about this weekend that I didn’t know before:

• There is a bit of a shortage in Belfast regarding the illegal narcotic ****, because the primary importer ended up **** **** in the ***** recently.
• Oliver Cromwell was tried and sentenced to death for his part in regicide. Some number of years after he had died. Requiring that his remains be dug up and killed again.
• Certain things about the power struggle (or coup) in the North Belfast ***, and how one person in particular has outmaneuvered everyone.
• Micro climates in the Belfast area, and why the BBC is currently shite at dealing with them.

Among many other things, of course.

Another topic of conversation was the whole Israel/Lebanon thing. And the opinions were varied indeed; some were firmly of the opinion that Israel was totally in the wrong, and that the world would be much better off if someone had poked some holes in Moses’ moses basket. Others were convinced that Israel is holding back too much, and should be progressing with operation “pave over Mecca” posthaste.

Personally, I’m somewhere in the middle. Israel has a right to defend itself; and there is a difference between targeting terrorists and targeting civilians. And the ‘world community’ is busy calling for Israel to hand Hezbollah a victory, in a war which Hezbollah started. Which sticks in the throat a little, to be honest. Especially when you’re being force fed one side of the argument by good ol’ Auntie. Hell, even Clarkson noticed, and he’s paid by the BBC fer fecks sake…

At work, we deal a lot with queues. Queues of records comming in from one place, being tidied up a bit and then sent on to another place. Riveting stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The other day, the most important* was massive; something like twelve or fifteen times it’s normal size. And we were led to believe that this may become a semi-regular occurance, far beyond our ability to manage without doubling the size of the office. So we did the decent thing: held off and got our third party supplier to get a fix in place.

And they did; a little script which sorts everything nicely, but at a slight cost in terms of quality. So we can’t use it every day, just when the shit hits the fan.

Policies will, of course, be developed for the deployment of this script. They’ll probably involve such boring things as logging work requests, making phone calls and emails with many people in the cc field. Which isn’t much fun; my suggestion was a big ol’ red button on the wall behind my desk, with klaxons and flashing red lights. Just so that people would realise the importance and significance of the deployment, you understand, not because I think it would be muchly cool to have such a button.

Of course, being a sensible sort, I’d not expect work to have such a setup handy, so I’m more than happy to source some of the equipment. Hell, I’ve found the big ol’ red button already; and it has security included as well.

Now all I need is a klaxon and some flashing red lights…

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* – defining ‘most important’ as ‘the one I work on’ and/or ‘the one that’s existed the longest’.

Well, Channel 4 really caught up, didn’t they? Ohly a month and a half behind RTÉ, they showed the end of West Wing. And, since I was sitting in front of the TV anyway (TG had just finished), I watched.

Further to my initial thoughts on it: I think that Santos would be a decent president, but Vinnick would have been a damn sight better.

More interestingly, during one of the ad breaks, there was a trailer for Studio 60. Which is interesting, to say the least, for this is one show that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Because, obviously, I loved TWW< and I've been watching a lot of Sports Night on abc1*.

Big things are expected, oh yes. And it looks like More4 may even be fairly quick in getting hold of it. Which is nice.

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* – Interesting point: abc1 wins the award for most annoying advertising setup, ever. Because they’ve basicially taken the US standard and brought it over here. Four ad breaks in a half-hour show? Is there any need for that kind of behaviour at all?

So, did you see the Grand Prix? And those lovely two red cars that finished in 1^st and 2^nd? And wasn’t that great, that the bloody blue cars didn’t work properly at all?

It was a shame that that poor Mr Weber didn’t finish, but that’s the only real low point for the race. Oh, except for Coulthard’s little airborne excursion not being more spectacular.

On the Ferrari!

An IDQCT… investigation has shown that BBC Newsline investigations are a little bit rubbish. Specificially, this one.

A BBC Newsline investigation has found that the measures designed to protect novice drivers in Northern Ireland could be putting motorists at risk.

Learner drivers in Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, are not allowed to exceed 45mph.

Those who have passed their test have to display ‘R’ plates, and must keep to that speed limit.

But the BBC has found that the majority travel much faster, without any training for driving at increased speeds.

Now, when i was an R driver, I disliked the practice. I think that the period of restriction should be no more than six months, and certainly not the eighteen months that I had. But the is now saying that it is shocking – shocking I tells you – that drivers aren’t given training to deal with speeds above 45. Which is daft; nowhere in the UK do you have to get such training; I only know of one person who had such, and her problem was not that she couldn’t drive at speed, it was that she had no confidence whatsoever and terrified everyone who saw her on the road, herself included.

The R system does three things:

1. It enables new drivers to get experience driving on their own at a lower speed, allowing them to build up some experience and confidence before letting them go nuts.
2. It lets other drivers know that a driver is new and relatively inexperienced, allowing them to factor that into their decisions on the road.
3. It makes the thrill seeking that nearly all new driver try for that little bit less dangerous. To speed a fair bit, an R driver can still be under 70; to do the same without Rs, they’d be nudging 100.

All in, the whole investigation reeks of boredom in the office. Now that peace has broken out, that the politicians are pretending to get along, that the riots are calming down, the BBC is having to stir up nothing and call it news. Boring. And as such, it registers thusly:

Via Chris:

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You’re the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl… or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

I can’t really take issue with that result… perhaps it’s because of the Chocolate whiskey cake answer…

… at our own Secretary of State:

Hain flew in specially chartered planes to a Dublin rugby international and two Sligo motor racing events within the past year. The bill Hain’s costly jollies comes to £10,754. Hain, a keen motorsports fan, flew with one official last October to Sligo to attend a motorsports event. The cost of this one-day trip was £2,491. In February he flew to Dublin to attend an Ireland versus Wales rugby match. Three officials went with him and the bill for the one-day trip came to £5,002. In March, he was back in Sligo again to attend another Rally Ireland event. Two officials flew with him on a charter plane for a two-day stay which cost £3,271.

Hell, even I noticed that the Rgt. Hon SecState for Norn Iron (& Wales) had a little bit of a habit of turning up for motorsport events, but costing that much to turn up for a couple of trips seems to be a little excessive.

And, apparently, his name is being mentioned in connection with a possible Premiership. Which would scare the bejeezus out of me, I have to say.

Life is full of little annoyances. Things that aren’t quite enough to justify jihad, but that cause grinding of teeth. Chelsea FC, for example, or boybands, or chocolate milk.

One of the most annoying of this minor annoyances is the fee-charging cash machine. £1.50 to get my at own money? How wrong is that? And for years, this has been a growing trend; bars, clubs, shops, taxi offices have had this little demons, and because they tend to have a captive (and often impaired)consumer base they have been making money hand over fist.

But, very recently, I’ve noticed some free Ulster Bank machines sprouting up in former bastions of pay-per-spend machines. Not many, a couple here, a couple there. And some down the Odyssey as well, which is bloody kind of ‘em, since they only got rid of the free ones about 18 months ago…

It seems that this may be a trend, what with RBS owning Ulster Bank. And good on ‘em, I say. Took them long enough, of course…

All these blatent big brother ads are now starting to piss me off. The worst two are the DVLA ads (“You can’t hide from us; we’re watching your every move, and if you don’t tell us everything, then we’ll get you.”)and the Work & Pensions lot (“If we think that you’re claiming benefits that we don’t think you should have, we’ll fuckin’ have you.”).

Clearly, these ads are not designed to inform, or to educate. They are there to scare, to frighten and to intimidate people into acting according to the wishes of the government.

What, do you think, would be the response of the government if any other group came along and tried that trick in ads? My belief is that they’d land on them like a ton of bricks, because the sheeple must be protected from such nasty practices. Unless it’s government, naturally. Because frightening the population is all in a day’s work.

Yes, it’s another meme. Yes, I’m stealing it. Yes, I’m a bad person. So sue me.

Some silly factoids about me. 49 of them, in fact. No, let’s just make it 50, shall we?

More »

Further to the randomness of the apparent fan club, there were comparisons made that I thought I should post for future reference. And to confuse the search engines, of course.

(By the way, you have Marc to thank for these.)

• Ed: Randalstown’s Kimberly to Cully’s David
• Ed: Alumni of the John Prescott school of weblogging
• Ed: NI blogging’s ginger one from Girls Aloud.
• Ed: The Tony Soprano of Oddessy doormen

Yes, I am the ginger Tony Soprano, recently graduated from the John Prescott school of weblogging. Which is nice.

There is, apparently, an unholy blight upon the countryside; it is making travel unbearable; it is killing thousands of people; it is causing children to vomit uncontrollably. It is… the presence of a whopping 900 semi-mobile advertising trailers alongside the 2,200 miles of motorway.

Of course, these ads are not, in fact, doing any harm. They may not be pretty, to be sure, but they’re not causing accidents, nor are they being used for criminal purposes. But, and this is the problem, they’re not completely regulated. And that, in this day and age, is not allowed.

So the busybodies are trying to do something. And they’re naming and shaming companies that advertise using this way, and putting pressure on farmers to stop allowing their land to be used that way.

Hmm. How would I generally feel about that?

“The government tells farmers to diversify and then clamps down on anyone who shows entrepreneurial skills.”

Ah yes. Exactly like that.

I’m not a massive fan of phone conversations. Unless the person I’m talking to is far, far away and/or I haven’t seen them in a while, then I think that phone calls are best used to organise an occasion in which conversation can occur properly, rather than talking for hours with someone twenty foot down the road. But that’s probably just me.

Part of the reason is obvious: I’m not a great conversationalist at the best of times, and over the phone is rarely the best of times. And over the years, I’ve discovered that I find it very difficult to sit still while on the phone. So I walk about. In a scientific fashion, I once worked out that I walked around half a mile during a ten minute conversation. Without leaving the room. If doors are open, I’ll happily walk through them, so I’m constantly moving through areas of bad service, which is probably annoying for people on the other end. And I’m sure that it’s annoying for people in the rooms I’m walking through…

(Luckily, work hasn’t yet forked out for hands-free kits, or I’d be put out of the office quite quickly, I imagine.)

So, what’s your worst phone habit?

Channel 4 finally did something that they should have done long ago: they dropped the subscription for FilmFour. Which means that there is now a decent film film available for free, or as part of the basic pack on cable and satellite. Which is nice, and somewhat overdue.

And how did the celebrate it? By putting on two of my favouritest films ever: Fifth Element and Duck Soup. One of which I’d rewatched recently, and one of which I hadn’t seen in many years. In a worrying twist, I still knew most of the words of most of the musical numbers.

This concerns me. Why is so much of my memory filled with such trivia as songs from a 1933 film when I have trouble remembering people’s names? Brain, sort out your priorities…

Exunt, singing. To war, to war, Freedonia’s going to war….

A headline from the BBC:

Britons ‘dependent on mobile use’

It’s about a survey which labels people according to how they use their phone, blah blah blah. But the same story at the Register is titled:

Only 1 in 7 switch off their phones during sex

Leave on vibrate?

It’s good to see that there are sensible media outlets, who’ll not go for the cheap gag, who’ll not lower to tone, and who’ll be relied on for pure, unspun facts.

And it’s better to know that there’s el Reg to offer an antidote to such outlets.

Someting a family member said the other day got me thinking about just how paranoid I come across on this blog. And the result of that thinking was one word: very.

So I thought I should explain something. I don’t think that there’s a massive conspiracy against me. I don’t think that there’s a massive malicious conspiracy going on within the upper reaches of government. I don’t think that this government is out to get us, or that speed cameras are purely a money grabbing thing. I do think that, for the most part, the politicians in this country genuinely think that they’re trying to work in the best interest of the country.

I just strongly disagree with them on that point.

I think that this government, in common with previous governments, is far too concerned with easy fixes to overstated problems, and far too ignorant of the long term risks of those fixes.

Their responses to so many issues, from terror, to immigration, to tax evasion, to absentee parents, to anti-social behaviour, to car tax evasion, to organised crime, to benefit fraud, to electoral indifference, to political corruption, to nationalism, to self-defence, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all show a basic lack of understanding or concern for hundreds of years of interaction between citizen and state. Important things are brushed aside or deferred because they would be difficult and unpopular to fix (like the mess that is the benefit system, or the pension cockup), while the little problems are blown up just so that they can be seen to fix them.

And the ‘fixing’… Dear God, the ‘fixing’. Much of the ‘fixing’ is akin to cutting off your leg at the knee, because you can’t easily find a pair of shoes to fit. Never mind that it cripples you, at least you won’t have to spend time looking for shoes in the future.

And that is why we’re getting an unworkable ID card, because it looks like doing something. That’s why more people will be locked up for longer, because it looks like doing something. That’s why people are being tagged because they’re willing to defend themselves, that’s why people are having their assets seized for not accounting for every penny.

And that’s why I’m paranoid. Because all these little thing will, over time, pile up. And because I’m not at all confident of future governments being as ‘good’ as this one.

Someday, all these changes will come bask to bit the country on the arse, unless some future government rectifies all the mistakes being made now. And I don’t think that that’s going to happen, because it’s easy to make mistakes, not so easy to fix them.

So, I’m paranoid. But with good reason, I think.

Did you hear the one about Geldof’s concert? The one where it could have accommodated 12,000, but only 45 turned up?

No? Well, neither did I. No punchline was to be found. But, luckily enough, I found the initial premise to be more tahn funny enough.

I don’t like Geldof.

No, really. Endorsement of full-on social ostracism, petty acts of revenge, two-faced behaviour, etc, based on someone having an SUV.

Note how they suggest everything bar actually confronting the issue. No, why not just take the worst traits of office behaviour and try to turn it into a campaign. Oh, and how he’s the only one in the office with a car. Because all cars are eeevil, but some are more evil than others.

Some random bits of conversation overheard at work last night:

• Fella 1:I know what I did wrong yesterday… Not enough vaseline.
  Fella 2: Yeah, you should know by now that you’ve really got to slap loads of that shit all over the place.
• Very drunk girl on payphone, shouting: Look, I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done it, I know he’s your friends, I know *BLEUGH* I’ve been sick on the phone. Look, can I just come over and talk about it?
• Girl: So why is it always you? I trust you an’ all, but there’s always loads of girls comming up to you everywhere we go.
  Fella: It’s ‘cos I’m sweating like a paedo in a playground. Women love the smell of ballsweat, that’s what it is.

After that last one, I went out of my way to not hear anything the customers had to say. I was too scared to see how low the conversation could go. And I had to go and find a cleaner to sterilise the payphone as well.