Neko Rahmen

I have been watching Neko Ramen a Japanese animation about a cat running a noodle shop, its pretty good and available for free via bit torrent on Azureus Vuze.

The Cure

I am sure most people at some point get the feeling that they are merely pawns in some sort of great game, to which we dont really even understand the rules. I often feel that way, and every so often I see something whihc captures it, this is one of those things. It is a clip from Zeitgeist, the Movie To be fair its the sort of documentry film making which blends fact with clever filmmaking to labour a point sometimes bending things wildly out of their original context. Still a very interesting take especially given the current liquidity crisis in which some of the big banks have been scooping up rivals at exceptional discounts.

Remember me

I know, I have been terrible recently never posting blogs, I have several half written pieces that for one reason or another are waiting on completion.
In fairness to myself I have been very busy with work and various other things, perhaps I will get around to writing it up one day.
Today was quiet a good day really, work wasn't too horrible and I met Sarah for lunch at the rectory. We had a few drinks and both tried to shake off work stresses. I really enjoyed taking time out to just sit and talk about life the universe and everything. During lunch we also arranged to hook up with Jo, Holly and others on Saturday night for a curry.
I had a couple of drinks with lunch and I felt very relaxed and in control back at work, and in the afternoon I managed to get through a few little issues pretty well.
This evening was Emily's birthday and a Sandbox gig at the Night and Day Cafe in Town. Ian drove down and we picked up Danny on route. I hadn't seen him for a while so it was pretty good to catch up.
We arrived in time to hear the second Sandbox song, they sounded really good except Andy's bass drum was trying to make a great escape. He was getting pretty vexed by it, at one point lobbing his drum sticks away in disgust.
I caught up with Emily she seemed to be having a fun birthday, and K was also in a very good mood.
I must admit at first I found it hard to be communicative, I was feeling really tired and a little depressed from work but after a few beers I warmed to conversation. I had a long chat with K about her dissertation, she is writing about surveillance it all sounded very interesting.
Ian was showing us his dance moves, from the quirky "feeding the chickens" to the downright outrageous "sprinkler" we were very amused at his techniques.

Mr Brightside

I have been feeling really angry and upset the last week. The garage are really messing me about, they have had car for three weeks now and I still don't know what is going on. I have had so many stories, I think that they are covering up a complete lack of knowledge.
My house searching is not exactly going very well either, either my budget is just too small or I haven't yet seen the right property. I am getting a little fatigued searching though.
I think I am just generally fatigued, I realised that for nearly two years I have worked on one high pressure project after another, there have been so many deadlines and work its all starting to make me battle weary.
Today was Budget Day, and as typical for the New Labour nanny state beer is getting more expensive, as is fuel. More and more I feel that working people like me are paying a huge burden yet more and more people are excluded from life by the increasingly Byzantine system. Everything seems to be about complexity rather than transparency and fairness. I really think it it detrimental, I really think a simpler system would be fairer to all, at the minute the middle of society is screwed while those that can afford clever accountants (and non doms) avoid a great deal. I think my view is backed up by the fact that despite all the extra taxes the divisions in society are growing, quiet quickly.

Silence

Over two weeks and still I am carless. Its been sent to a difference "expert" today, still no concrete costing or date for getting it fixed. I feel totally powerless, when it initially broke down I thought its not worth fixing new car time but I allowed myself to be swayed by the mechanics, big mistake. It was of course in their interest to fix it and generate work rather than tell me to buy something new so at the minute I am caught no car and an expensive bill to come. Not exactly what I need, cycling can be a chore, especially with the bad weather.

I was really annoyed when my dad picked me up from work, its slightly unfair, but he sided with the mechanics and still does. I went to the gym and ran on the treadmill until my calves burned and my t-shirt was saturated with sweat. I felt an awful lot better walking out than when I went in.

I went to see my friend Ali. Its been a while so she invited me round for dinner, which turned out to be a rather tasty spaghetti bolognese. She has three kids, two boys and a girl. I really have no idea how she copes I think I would go crazy, I remember, just about, how much of a little bastard I was at their age. I think that she does a pretty good job on her own its kind of inspirational.

In Between Days

I went out with Nick this morning to look at a couple of houses in Shaw Heath. The first one was an ex council house on the edge of Shaw Heath, I didn't like it from the get go, the area looked unloved and the houses were that horrible council style so utilitarian and ugly. It also boded badly that as we parked up we were able to watch the police rapping on the door of a house further down the street.
Inside the decor was frankly awful I couldn't wait to get away, unfortunately the owner was keen to show us everything.

The second house was much better, a two up two down terrace on one of the little side streets. Nicely done up and maintained I liked all but two things about it, to the back over the passageway was a commercial building. Worse thought was the price, I think 10-15
more than I would want to pay.

Nick was reticent to talk about his absence from the comedy evening making only a dark comment about not being in the mood to laugh. I decided not to push the issue. He did however take me to see some of the houses he has been looking at, which was interesting.

After all the house hunting I took mum to the garden centre to look at plants and bought some pots. Then I went swimming to relax.

In the evening I headed round to Phil's to catch up with Lost, it made my head swim. I really am being to get very confused by the plot twists and turns, its gone from the sublimb to the ridiculous and beyond. Rather than parallel the man of faith versus the man of religion we are now firmly into the Sci-Fi realms.

"the cake is a lie"

I feel really tired today it has been a long week.

I had to work early Saturday morning and I felt tired that I just stayed home played portal and chatted to Kasia online. Portal is amazing, though nowhere near as hard as Bruce and John led me to believe.

Saturday morning was hard because I needed to be in work and my parents needed the car early morning I had to ask my dad nicely if he would give me a lift in for 6am, fortunately he said yes. The job actually went pretty well apart from the usual suspect not doing his bit.

Dispite the problems we managed to wrap up by 9, so I had enough time to rush home get changed grab my bike and cycle to Cheadle Hulme in time for the spring Yoga Morning. Yoga was relaxing but also quiet a work out. There were 3 guys including myself in the class of 36 people and the women were mostly a heck of a lot more flexible than me. I did feel really good if a little tired afterwards. Cycling home was really hard, feeling tired after three hours of Yoga and cycling into the wind.

In the evening it was the monthly Laugh at the Legion. I arranged to go down with Martina, Nick, Phil and Bruce. Ian gave Nick myself and Martina a lift down before toddling off to meet Gilly for some drinks. Nick was a bit quiet and said he forgot his wallet so disappeared again, strange thing was he didn't reappear. We all enjoyed the show there were a couple of really good comedians Martina was very amused by the singing grammar Nazi. We all got really quiet drunk, apparently she was making some strange comments in the car on the way home, I walked home in an effort to get rid of some of the alcohol.

When I arrived I was just making a snack in the kitchen when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was drunkenness. I made a double take at finally focussed on the field mouse sat under the chair in the dining room. For a couple of minutes we stared at each other, the mouse made the first move though darting like lightning across the kitchen then leaping to freedom in the depths under the sink.

3V

Here is an interesting idea. Bascially you buy vouchers at payments points which can then be used to buy goods and services online.

Each voucher you purchase has a visa number on the receipt the expiry data and cvt2 are sent to your email or mobile phone. These are the three details needed to make purchases online.

Unlike some other payment cards this can be used at any site that excepts Visa. While this does look like a coinvent solution for people whom don't have or cannot get a credit card there do seem to be a few little quirks. The actual physical card is only used to purchase vouchers each voucher has its own visa number and while you can move money from one to another there is a £1.75 charge. Some of the vouchers themselves have a charge to purchase and the maximum amount that can be used cannot exceed £200's

Further more like the pre pay mobile phone vouchers this scheme is clearly based around the vouchers have an expiration after which their value drops to zero.

You could use these for anonymous online payments couple with an unregistered pre pay mobile phone.

Over all I think this is an interesting but expensive and fiddly system which isn't worth it for the average person. Given one of the pay points local to me is a high school they are clearly targeting young people who are used to buying top up for they pre pay phones and cant yet get a real credit card. They might also be useful for people paranoid about fraud shopping online after all the maximum you can lose is the vouchers value.

One thing to note as these are not real credit cards you wont be protected by section 75 of the consumer credit card act so if you were buying items and they arrived damaged you would not have the credit card company to back you up.Here is an interesting idea. Basically you buy vouchers at payments points which can then be used to buy goods and services online.

Happy House

Sorry for getting all political but ID cards really annoy me. Labour MP Jackie Smith was on the Today program this morning talking about the plans for the introduction of ID cards. Initially they will be foisted on foreign workers in the UK, I guess Kasia and Martina will both need one. Apparently by 2010 the government will start offering these cards over to young people. She made one specific point about how ID cards would help them in particular because at the moment they need to take in 5 types of ID to register for a bank account. I couldn't help thinking that its the government which made registering for a bank account so difficult in the first place in a misguided effort to cut fraud (given the level of fraud hasn't changed I don't think it worked).

I wonder if this is government strategy, to help acts pass make life deliberately difficult and then pose the act they want to be passed as the answer. I think back to the rumours going round London about the congestion charge, that prior to the introduction of the charge the traffic system was slowed by reorganising of the traffic lights. So that immediate gains in congestion could be proven straight away. Is it paranoia is are we sleepwalking into a big brother state?

I really cannot see ID cards being anything other than an expensive and overreaching system. No matter how good the security measure I imagine there will be a cottage industry around fakes within a few months of their launch. On PM a security firm ridiculed the inconsistencies in the security and the many pitfalls in the system. In the end no matter how secure the system is the weak link are the actual checks done at ground level by staff. The same staff who for example who let a Brazilian cleaner get away because she ran, and the self same ones who allowed a male journalist to use a fake passport with Jackie Smiths picture on it.

I went for lunch with Sarah, the second time in a week. She seemed a lot more at ease today, last time I think her work had rather been taking its toll on her. We ate in the Bollin Fee, I had a cheese, bbq chicken and bacon panini it was really rather tasty. I feel a lot more relaxed with her now and we seem to have really enjoyable conversations, I am always sad we only get an hour at lunch.

This evening I watched the assassination of Jesse James with Martina and Phil. It was a very long film, beautifully shot but I found it a little drawn out and self indulgent. Martina really enjoyed it, Phil seemed so tired he barely concentrated.

An Ending

I got back from the Gym in time to catch the Japanese part of around the world in 80 Gardens. You can catch it on the bbc iplayer for the next 7 days. Kyoto looked so wonderful, I really cant wait to see it for myself. There is one scene where Monty Don is in a taxi driving past a bamboo patch and just has to stop and admire it, it looked like the scene in house of flying daggers!

Owners on the orange phone network get two tickets for the price of one at Cineworld cinemas every Wednesday night. As Martina is an Orange customer was indulged in an Orange Wednesday night.

We went to see Juno, a film about a teenage girl whose life is turned upside down after she becomes pregnant. Rather than aborting she decides to have the hild adopted, the film follows the emotional twists and turns. I found it a really touching and cute film. The dialogue and acting were excellent and the sound track is superb, well worth a watch.

50 faces of

When I blog I always write what I think at the time. Unfortunately like most people I am emotional and erratic and hypocritical. I say things I should, emote my frustrations, anger and temporary feelings. In the beginning it hardly mattered, my readership was limited to the odd Google whack. I saw a T-Shirt the other day which read "this slogan has more readers than your blog", which is eerily true. Over time though there are a few people who noticed and started following and I have had a few comments usually in the real world that gave me pause to think. I am not writing to upset people more as a release, for myself however given that its the internet plenty of people can read my output. So the choice is to stop, to moderate or to continue and risk alienating people, so far I have mostly chosen to moderate, I hope that is the correct course to take.

Today was really difficult, I found out my car is totally trashed and had to make a snap decision on whether to fix it or not. In the end I decided to fix it as it would be better the devil I know. I could have gone out and bought a banger but whats to say I wouldn't have faced the same problem next month. It just couldn't have come at a worse time, I just paid £300 for a service and MOT, and £400 for my gym membership. On top of an expensive trip to Japan I am forced to dip into my savings which in turn diminishes my house deposit.

I met Sarah for Lunch though I felt it wasn't the best of our meetings. She looked harassed from work and I after a couple of comments I came to the conclusion some of the tings I have blogged might have come across as negative. Sometimes I get so into writing that I almost forget the connection to the real world. Anyhow to set the record straight, I do shy away from contact, but I like hugs, I just shy away when I don't know people well. Anyway my rather rambling point is it has been most enjoyable to meet Sarah and swap our respective stories and take a break from the hustle of the office.

Wake Up Alone

Bit of a strange quandary this morning. I opened my email to find a message from somebody I had never heard of before at the client. He was asking for some rather sensitive information. He had actually forwarded me an email conversation from several people at the clients site discussing how they will work on a new version of something we currently provide them. I forwarded it onto my boss, he found it all very disturbing, me too.

This evening I went to the gym and spent 45 minutes on the treadmill then 15 minutes cycling. I then pretty much undid this all by eating two dinners and lots and lots of cake. I had arranged to go to Martina's to watch Eastern Promises. Martina said she had made cake and I was in a rush so I only half read her email, so not only cake but also a second dinner was waiting, I'll never be slim!

The film was pretty good, Naomi Watts tries to investigate the parentage of a baby girl after her 14 year old mother dies in childbirth. She is drawn into a London underworld of Russians, prostitutes and villains. It was a pretty entertaining film malevolent and violent (in a real not cartoon way) I really enjoyed it.

After watching Bruce text messaged me so we went to the March Hare for a quiet drink and a chat. Bruce has to go to Belfast for the rest of the week.

Z.N.S.

I had two main tasks to do today. The first was to work on a comments system for Phil. He wants a really simple comment page that he can use with some commercial system he has purchased. I knocked together a very basic script.

Tee second task was to go for another viewing on a house in Shaw Heath. I took Nick with me to capitalise on his knowledge, it was very interesting watching him work. Poking around seeing things I just didn't notice at all. Firstly he noticed there was a right of way across the back of the property, then that the wall at the back of the place was falling down, the vendor had put a wooden fence in front of it to cover it up. His advice was, if they are covering up that what other sorts of things where lurking below the surface. I trust his superior experience so I wont be buying.

We did however take a walk around Shaw Heath. It is a regeneration area and as such the council have been making various improvements such as replacing frontages, clearing up the passageways and improving security. Nick was impressed with some of the housing stock and the variety of different type of houses.

He in fact gave me a lot of advice, so while the house was a dead loss the experience was a positive one. I saw a couple of streets which I am going to try and target and see what happens.

This evening was not bad, I ate Chinese food with Phil then we met up with Nick and went to see Semi Pro which was quiet funny. From the same team as Anchor man and Talagdada nights it was another modern comedy. Set in 1970's Flint Michigan the jokes were pretty good very good period stuff and Will Farrell was at his dead pan best. I still think Anchor man is by far an away the best thing he has done, but if you like that you might like Semi Pro.

Virus alert

No not the insidious computer wreaking variety, rather the more modern viral marketing.
Recently logging onto Facebook or checking my email I have found more and more "Funny" video clips forwarded by my friends which are nothing but adverts for products. It bad enough the internet is chock full of advertising without my people forwarding more to me. I know some of them are funny but it sometimes feel like were are simply a frame to wrap advertising round (Maybe I should put in a link to Amazon here just to be ironic!).

Today is February 29th, quiet an unusual day, traditionally it the day women can propose to men. I haven't received any proposals this time though, maybe in 4 years time!

Infected Mushroom

It has been another busy week, made more difficult by the lack of a car. Unfortunately at first the garage was too busy too look at it, then since they did they are having difficulty locating a part. I feel really guilty taking so many lifts, my Mum has even been taking the bus to work so I can get to work. Thanks to the dire state of public transportation it is actually easier for my mum to catch a bus to Withington than for me to Wilmslow. There is a bus which runs from the end of my road into Manchester (passing through Withington and Didsbury on route). I would have to catch two buses and it would take longer for me to go a much shorter distance. I still feel guilty though even though she offered, my parents will do pretty much anything for me which is great but also makes me feel like a child, I can never be independent while I am here. Ill always be an ungrateful and underachieving person until I get some more independence into my life, get out of the comfort zone as they say.
Talking of comfort zones, last night I was just drifting off to sleep when the earthquake woke me. For some strange reason it made me think of the night I went out with Martina and the French assistants; I don't really know why my brain made the association, but it did. One think struck me, something I have realised meeting them and other people recently, I'm not a tactile person at all. The French girl did the European lets kiss as we great thing and I really found it very awkward. I have never felt comfortable at close quarters with people, it just wasn't part of my upbringing. I always feel awkward and flustered, I think it makes me appear standoffish and aloof, which isn't the case at all. I actually really like hugs, I just lack the confidence around people that I don't know well.

I Woke Up In A Strange Place

Today was the day of the Lan Party. It wasn't the best planned event I just have not been able to find the time to play games never mine set up game servers. So I spent last night tweaking the server to at least play the usual compliment of games. It took a couple of hours to update everything. After which I caught up on lost. I have reservations about what they are doing, this season they seem to want to try something different but at the same time not know where to take the story.

I woke up shutdown and packed up the servers then grabbed breakfast. While I was eating my mum needed to go out, she going to the hairdresser with my grandma. My dad offered to back out my car and let her out as I was eating. 10 minutes later he came in and told me it wouldn't start. We called the AA and the man arrived in about 25minutes. He poked around and suggested that the fuel pump isnt pumping anymore, so he transported it to a garage. Its probably going to cost £100's to fix, C'est La Vie.

I had to ring Bruce and ask nicely if he would pick me up. We mosied on over to Phils as they had arrange for the keys to be dropped off there. Phil had to take his parents to the Airport as they were off back to Deux Alps to see Tina again. Bruce and I waited while he left and came back, still noone bearing keys arrived. So Phil phoned the guy, and two minutes later found the keys, thye had been dropped off the night before :S

We squeezed the gear into the cars and headed to the legion. I opened the door, tapped the code into the alarm, it kept beeping. I shouted to Phil he tried, then the alarm went off. The noise was excruciatingly loud, I thought my head was going to explode. The club were burglarised recently, so two things happened, firstly they changed the alarm code secondly they added two extra loud sirens. Another phone call and we managed to get the code, it only went off for a few minutes but it felt like and eternity.

We finally got into the club with no sirens blaring, and had our first stroke of luck. Someone had left some extra tables. We set up the tables and chairs with the extra we were more than ready for a crowd. Unfortunately the setup was marred by the game server dieing. It has done over 10 lan's without a hitch the server for the games event broke. We tried a repair and managed (about 2 hours after people arrived) to rig up something but it caused a lot of disruption and meant we couldn't share files around easily.

After we got going the gaming went alright though and we dropped the £5 entry fee because of the disruption. After gaming, Pizza and a few beers everyone seemed to have a great day so despite everything we made a success of things.

C64 + Wii?

http://www.gameslave.co.uk/newscomments.cfm?news=7007&title=Commodore-64-Titles-Coming-to-Wii

When Under Ether

There was a hole in my logic this morning, I spent a stressful few hours trying to work out what is was. After I got to the bottom of the problem though today was relatively non-stressful and productive, a nice change.

It being Thursday I met Sarah for lunch. We chose a different venue this week trying out the rectory. It was pretty quiet and we were served really quickly. I think the food is a little better at the Slug but the service was certainly better at the rectory. I am afraid to say I made a very foolish error. I bought a card for her upcoming birthday and left the damn thing at home. I didn't even think about it until she was sitting opposite me.

We had a long chap about the house I am interested in, having worked in the rentals market she has a lot of experience so I was keen to hear what she had to say.

Afterwards we were having a general chat about past events. It was very strange in a way as her recollection is an oddly parallel one to mine. It felt vaguely like watching a news program where different people are being interviewed about the same event; they all describe the same general themes but there are subtle differences in their perception of the occurrence. I found it fascinating listening this alternate version of our shared reality.

This evening I managed to get a gym session in, I haven't been going very regularly because of work so I found it very difficult, Still I feel a lot better for going, as I walked down the stairs to get changed I was covered in sweat but I had the slightly euphoric feeling of having done myself good.

To celebrate I went to the pub to undo all the good work. Phil and I met Nick and Becky, for a drink in Bramhall.
It was kind of strange, like a return to the past. Its early days but they seem to have a more knowing and wise relationship now, I wish them all the best.

Giving up blogging

No not really I just was laughing at this

Im not the only one

Working with dead languages then this guy seems to have a made a career working with Cobol a something I always assumed was longer dead than basic.
I am not entirely sure I believe he wanted to get into Cobol programming, but I do enjoy the fact he has seen a gap in the market and learned the dark and ancient art in an attempted to fill the gap between modern and elder language.
On the same lines I found this article lamenting the loss of the older programming languages as a terrible loss as a teaching aide. In his mind one of the great things about the older languages like basic was they allow you to quickly put mathematical exercises into practise and actually see the logic in practise. The more abstract modern languages are so removed from the operation it is no longer possible to see the connection between the code and what the computers is actually doing. I certainly agree when I was a kid there was something magical about typing in code snippets from magazine and actually seeing something come to life on screen.