Technological wasteland

My old flat was technology-tastic. I had broadband, a big tv, sky, sound system, etc. All a boy needs to keep his boy pad, well, boy padish. My new place is not quite so well blessed (aside from the hardware I brought with me, some of which is still mothballed at my parents). My internet troubles have already been documented and suffice it to say that my faith that bt had begun to shed its former status as a massive leviathan of incompetence has been thoroughly trashed. I must have rung them up at least 20 times now to fix this broadband nonsense and got a different answer every time. Wankers.

Meanwhile I am still trying to sort out my tv reception. Like I said, I had sky at my old place and, with the exception of one or two pretty massive thunderstorms, it delivered consistently good quality tv (sound and picture wise, not necessarily program content) into my living room which after three years there, I accepted as the norm.

I don’t have sky at my new place and I am uncertain at the moment whether I can, or indeed will, get it for various reasons. Nevertheless I am finding that projecting grainy, 4:3 aspect ratio analogue onto my 16:9 widescreen tv is far too distressing. However Elia has kindly lent me her terrestrial digital tuner which picks up most of the free to air digital channels, with the exception of the ITVs (no real loss there) and E4, but I still, bizarrely, get E4+1 and this at least allows me to deliver most tv into my living room with reasonable picture quality.

Of course this is except when it rains when it all goes down the pan and I get nothing. I am not going to ascribe this to Elia’s digi tuner because it picks up some channels absolutely fine (the eminently redundant shopping channels work rain or shine). So I conclude it must be the signal strength that I receive as to where the issue lies. So in an attempt to improve the situation I ventured out to purchase a decent tv aerial this weekend as, thus far, I have taken my signal through my 12 year old portable tv’s wire loop aerial (a glorified coat hanger) so wasn’t expecting miracles from that.

On the highly dubious recommendation of the sleazy salesman in Comet, Slough (Maidenhead is too classy to have anything as trashy as a retail park), I bought the most expensive aerial available. A jazzy looking silver thing with loop and sticky out aerials and light emitting diodes all over it and all manner of self promoting techno-jargon.


Got it home, unpacked it and installed it, to be greeted by reception worse than that delivered by the aerial from my 12 year old portable tv. Yes, worse. To say I was fairly indignant is an understatement. Anyway, the shiny, silver, pile of shit aerial is going back to Comet, Slough, at some point this week.

I am very irritated by being stuck in this technological wasteland. It makes life very inconvenient as my internet dependency is limited to the slightly clunky paraphernalia at work and the terminals available with the nice folks at Apollo video, Maidenhead. Who incidentally are also kindly furnishing me with the DVD collection of 24 (presently on Season 1 at 14:00), which at least my DVD player delivers with consistent high quality.

Cold

My new lifestyle of doing my new job in Ealing and living in Maidenhead is making me cold. There are various reasons for this.

The biggest irk is that my new flat doesn’t have gas central heating (like my old place and everywhere else I have ever lived) but has night storage heaters. These things are fine for bringing the flat up to temperature in the morning but have to be set on a relatively high output in order to bring the place up to any kind of tolerable morning temperature. I like my flat to be hot in the morning and at the moment it is only adequately warm for my tropical tastes. The problem here is that by using all the ‘stored’ heat up in the morning there is nothing left for the evening so I am presently alternating between being cold and burning cash by switching on the standard electric heater function on the heaters.

Then there is getting to work and being at work. I walk to the station and wait on a windy platform, board a generally pleasantly temperate train before walking at the other end to work and vice versa in the evening. At work I have cause to be out of the office more and this is predominantly on foot. When it comes to shopping I am doing this too on foot either on the way home from work or by walking into Maidenhead town centre at the weekend. As a consequence of all this I am spending a lot more time in the harsh outside. I do have layers so my main body, feet and neck are always pretty warm but I don’t have gloves (do guys even wear gloves these days?) and my work trousers are not particularly thick meaning I have cold hands, knees and nose for large chunks of the day.

I don’t like being cold and I now seem to have a permanently runny nose and variably pink slash purple, cracked hands. None of this makes me particularly happy especially coming home in the evening to a cold flat. I am going to address the flat thing this weekend by buying a timeable free standing oil radiator which should overcome my biggest complaint about the flat being cold (subject to making sure that kind of behavious isn’t a fire hazard).

Meanwhile all I can do is wait for spring and summer to bring some milder weather and try not think about next winter for the time being.

There is no I in team see you later loosers

I thought my old place of work had a high staff turnover but compared to my new employer this affliction was mild. I have been with my new employer for nearly a month now and, as of Monday, I will be the second longest person in the team of people I work in with, on average, one person leaving at the end of each week. To put this in perspective, my period of notice appears to be longer than the normal period of time folks work at the place (so clearly my employer is on to a winner hiring me already).

On the one hand this high turnover is a bad thing, as it is difficult to form any kind of meaningful relationship with anyone who is quite so transitory, not that I have really been there long enough do so with anyone anyway. Clearly getting along with the people you work with is a good thing and the rapid turnover of people to date has precluded this.

However on the other hand, the high people turnover means that folks I don’t like also go fairly quickly and I don’t have to deal with arbitrary pleasantries with them in any kind of supposed spirit of cooperation. Two people I can’t say I warmed to (but didn’t really know sufficiently well to actually be able to say I didn’t like them) left recently and the one other person who I can say I don’t think I really get along with is departing imminently which is all good for me.

Meanwhile, although I am pretty new still, for the even newer newcomers I am already part of the furniture (and knowing pretty much everything about the minor-scale piss-easy wank-planning I am dealing with at the moment) already think I am pretty rapidly becoming the oracle of everything and can soon begin to ply the minions to my mighty will of planingness.

Oh, and if this post didn’t tip you off, nobody I work with knows about the blog (which wasn’t intentional its just worked out that way). But that is the subject of one of a number of, what I think should be good posts, that I have up my sleeve for whenever I manage to get internety at home again.

Witch tit cold

I don't know if folks ever follow any of the links I have stuck up at the side but I thought this post from Overheard in New York was kinda funny. Recon I am going to drop 'witch tit cold' into some conversations and see what folks say.

Nose dive

Well my stats on the blog have taken a massive nose dive recently. I guess that is due to the infrequency and eratic nature of my recent posting but until I get my home internet sorted out (which is taking a while) the blog is going to (clearly) suffer.

I just hope I can get my stats back up again once all this moving home stuff settles down.

All points north

This is probably going to sound a little ridiculous but I only realised this weekend that my flat faces north. I mean I looked round it before moving in, looked at it on a map, looked at it using aerial photography and lived in it for a week and it never occurred to me during all this to consider which direction it faced.

The only, but fairly major, implication of this is the amount of direct sunlight the place gets. As in, not a huge amount. My living room balcony windows face north, my kitchen window faces north and my (otherwise pretty pimp) balcony faces north. But none of them ever get any direct sunlight. Thankfully the place has three outside walls with windows so the secondary living room window (east), bedroom (east) and bathroom (west) all get morning slash evening sunshine.

Regardless of this I am still pretty happy with the place… I am just outside of five minutes walk from the train station, ten minutes from the town centre, fantastically elevated above the rest of the world on the second floor and (other than the occasional drone of an intercity 125 and the particularly irritating doo-daa horn thingy that sometimes gets blasted) in a fairly peaceful position. And also not in Slough.

Regular service will resume shortly

I know posting has been patchy this last week, due to a certain telecommunications company not wanting to get me on-line in any particular hurry and internet access at work, aside from being a little erm... patchy, being, well, at work.

So this post comes to you from the jazzy confines of the Apollo video store, Maidenhead.

Leisure time

Thanks to my new commuting arrangement I know have 64 minutes (31 there, 33 back) of time spent just sitting available to me every day, by which I mean time I spend sitting on the train waiting for it to deliver me to my destination.

At the moment I am spending this looking out of the window and thoroughly appreciating that I don’t live in all the places I pass through without exception but most specifically Hayes and Slough which quite frankly look like hell on earth. However, smugly staring out of the window and being condescending about other people’s neighbourhoods is not going to keep me entertained for long.

Now I don’t want to think of this 64 minutes as ‘dead time’ where I have to sit and wait for the train to do its thing, nor do I really want to get into the mindset of ‘this is my commute, deal with it.’ I would rather consider this 64 minutes as additional ‘leisure time’ that I have been blessed with. So what should I do with my new leisure time?

The easiest option is obviously reading. Many of my fellow partakers of leisure time on the train engage in this activity, either in the form of books or the day’s newspaper. I can’t say I am so much up for the newspaper thing as I somewhat resent having to pay for the days news when it is quite freely available and much more personally customisable on the internet. I am open to the option of reading a book though and no doubt will be taking my current choice of literature, Life of Pi by Yann Martell, with me in the foreseeable future.

In a worldly kind of way I have considered perhaps investing in some self-improvement tools. Using the time to learn another language maybe or study up on history or professional development however, lets face it, I am not going to be in the mood for this kind of thing in the early morning or immediately after work so no matter how good my intentions, its probably not going to happen.

What I really want is to pursue the high tech route. I would like a PSP and an I-pod or other similar music playing device both of which I think are pretty self explanatory. However the Holy Grail probably has to be a laptop computer; something nice and small and light and functional (and would supersede the desire for a PSP or I-pod device).

For example, I have done, but generally don’t, spend around an hour constructing blog posts. With a laptop I could, mood permitting, use my new leisure time to construct posts for the blog which I think would be a fantastic use of the time. It is something I enjoy doing anyway and slotting it into leisure time seems to be a perfect match. The laptop also has the added bonus of being usable for other things such as regular work, planning aid work, computer games or offending fellow passengers by viewing porn (ok not really) etc. The laptop does of course require a rather large and self indulgent chunk of cash though. One I can’t really justify at the moment, particularly given my current rash spending on lunch and breakfast (now generally a large coffee and a chocolate croissant or bagel) as well as other essential house moving items.

So for the time being I think I am going to be restricted to the book option which is fine… for now.

Disconnected

Having no internet access or phone line for the time being at (new) home (and a consequent inability to make blog posts as I would like), living in a new and relatively unfamiliar town, work email being about as reliable as a circa 1980 communist Russian Trabant, work internet blocking access to my personal email account and my mobile phone being misplaced slash stolen I am feeling a little lost and disassociated at the moment.

Over the past few weeks my entire life has been turned on its head like it has only three times before. Namely, moving out of London and changing schools in 1996, moving to Sheffield and starting University in 1998 and moving to Amersham and starting work with my former employer in 2002.

Moving out of London and starting at my old job I did with and slash or in the presence of my family which at least afforded a degree of consistency. However starting University and moving to Maidenhead I have done slash did almost completely by myself (although of course everyone who helped me physically move flats last weekend is way appreciated).

I remember the feeling of being slightly lost and overwhelmed by everything in the first week at University but this was at least shared by everyone else I was with at the time pretty much being in the same boat and quickly slid away, lubricated with large amounts of alcohol.

This time it is different insofar as it just me to whom everything is new to now. It all feels totally new and slightly alien, and indeed is, ranging from ‘where is the bloody exit to the train station?’ and ‘is it you I talk to about getting additional consultations on this planning application?’ to ‘aha, this new oven will cook slash burn my dinner much faster than my old one’ and ‘how the hell do I get this bastard night storage heating system to work?’ Almost every single action is experimental or prompts a question.

This all makes life more interesting and the challenge is certainly welcome after my seemingly pedestrian former existence which ceased (still less than) a month ago now. However it would be nice to have something I could fall back upon as being reliant and consistent so it is not all change however it appears that, given events, (like I said at the start of this post) I am not going to be afforded this luxury, at least for the time being.

Hello *person type 19*

Well this apparently is my new neighbourhood profile.

Family income: High.
Interest in current affairs: Very high.
Housing - with mortgage: Medium.
Educated - to degree: Very high.
Couples with children: Very low.

If you read the full profile (link) it pretty much describes me, or at least how I like to see me (which are hopefully not too divergent). All I have to do now is start liking sport and I would be pretty much 100% accurately pigeon-holed by my post code. I am unique, just like everybody else.

Deconstruction

Moving day is this Saturday. I have spent the last few weeks gently disassembling my little flat and packing all non-essential items into boxes, some of which are already stored at my parents for the time being. Today was the final pack up and everything I own has been pretty much either deconstructed to its component parts or committed to cardboard boxes (with the exception of my pc, monitor, keyboard and mouse, bed, kettle and a mug with a tea bag in it, oh and some things to make myself clean in the morning).

I pick up keys to my new place tomorrow morning and then have to go sort out meter readings, inspection etc. and check out any other issues that come to light. The previous tenants seemed pretty sanitary and I doubt the place will need much of a serious clean before I move my stuff in but its going to get one anyway. Expunging the former tenant’s existence from the place just seems like a sensible ritual that is necessary before I can take proper possession.

Like I said, moving into the new place on Saturday, then depositing the stuff that I don’t need (as it comes kitted out with white goods etc. which I have already) at my parents on the Sunday and then stripping out and cleaning my old place up followed by handing back keys on the Monday whereafter I will hopefully have some opportunity to sort the new place out before being back in work on Tuesday. At the moment, getting all this done seems like a real uphill challenge, its taken me all day to order my old place and I am still not done yet. I will be glad when it is all over. Actually, getting back to the, at least consistent, mentalism of my new job and working environment (the intended subject of a forthcoming post) should be somewhat of a welcome relief.

Of course the reason for the move is twofold. One, because my old flat was linked to my old job and I couldn’t stay there indefinitely and two, to make my commute a little easier into work as, I can tell you, spending up to and hour and half on the horribly unpredictable A40 and then fighting for on street parking before walking a variable distance to work was starting to do my nut. Although, not so much for the doing it, more for the unsettling uncertainty of how long it was actually going take. So pretty much regardless of reason one, reason two is sufficient grounds to want to move in my opinion. A near door-to-door train ride of thirty minutes seems like a much more civilised prospect despite that other people are apparently going to be getting on this train thing.

I thought I would be a little more (hmm, what’s the word) nostalgic (?) about leaving my old flat but it seems that, as it was with my old job, I am more looking forward to what’s in store in my new place and living somewhere new, rather than reminiscing about the memories from the old place. Maybe that will come later when I have a little more time to actually think about it.

Anyhow, bye bye to Amersham (smell you later), hello to Maidenhead.

Opposite side of the sun

Well it has been six months since I started this blog and lots of stuff has happened including getting a new job, finding a new flat, going to a wedding, getting a speeding ticket, going on holiday, getting up early (more than once), serving a stop notice with a police escort and how could I forget, getting threatened by agents of the North Korean Government.

I think it has taken a little while to settle into a blog rhythm and reading back I do cringe at some of my earlier posts which I think were, on occasion, pretty cruddy (and no I don’t want confirmation of that). However I think I have settled into a reasonable pattern now and for the most part can come up with something at most times that at worst passes a few moments of dullness when reading at work and at best is something folks like to keep up with.

I have some objectives for the future, including a few fairly ‘grand posts’ that I am keeping quiet for the time being as I don’t know if they will come to fruition because they involve more effort on my part than I have had to commit to any other post thus far.

Meanwhile I am happy my blog has got this far and that people keep reading. I think if I stopped getting any readership the blog would close down pretty sharpish. I wonder if I will make it to a year...

Hell is other people at breakfast

I came across this article today which struck a chord with me (via). In a roundabout way I think it part explains why I like doing this blog. I get social interaction through it but on my own terms.

I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush.

Fix me

So my phone to USB connectivity thingy or something isn’t working. Or to clarify in a sentence constructed using English, I can’t transfer photos from my phone to my computer for the time being until I work out how to fix whatever is wrong or I come up with another solution. This is irritating as not only can pictures from my phone be used to jazz up some posts, they form the focal point of some of them. For the time being this little situation has blown like five posts worth of stuff that I was going to do including ‘phone dump II’ and the long overdue ‘crimes against pd’ as well as a number of other ideas I have. So, erm… here’s a picture of some cute bunnies in cups instead.

And on the subject of things being broken, I know the Nick101 RSS/Atom feed isn’t working at the moment and haven’t managed to work out why as of yet. I will try to sort it as soon as I have the chance. As my somewhat ham-fisted efforts haven't worked so far I suspect a nice email to those folks at blogger may be in order.

Dork

This post makes me a big dork. Why? Because of the link I am going to post at the end.

Not only do I have a blog, have a pretty geeky job, like the new series of Battlestar Gallactica, abjectly fail to grow any meaningful facial hair and spend too much time on the internet; I actually found this link, watched it three five times with a giant grin on my face and then posted it and professed it to be one of the most fun things I had seen in ages.

My only consolation is that I don’t live with my parents and haven’t converted my bedroom into a replica of the Starship Enterprise (and have no intention of doing either of these things).

So what’s this all about then? Watch here.

Rude goldberg machine

I am very tired this evening so here are some links instead.

If you liked the Honda advert where the bits of the car set each other off in a big sequence you’ll probably also appreciate a similar kind of thing done in a Halflife 2 mod.

Or you can read K8's blog.

The microfiche connection

I had a little routine at my old work where I would come in in the morning and make myself a mug of instant black coffee at some point during the first hour using the free hot water machine. Hardly a grand indulgence and it kept me reasonably content for a part of the morning.

My new work doesn’t have quite the same hot drink making facilities. For starters the kitchenette unit is located one flight of stairs up at the opposite end of the building. Once there the facilities leave much to be desired; being a rather dubious looking wall mounted hot water unit which appears to heat the water to somewhere in the region of slightly above room temperature. Additionally the kitchenette appears to have the hygiene standards of a student hall of residence. So suffice to say my previous morning coffee routine has been axed much to my disappointment.

Meanwhile, at old work, if I wanted to view historical records which was a relatively frequent occurrence I would get up from my desk and walk to the filing bays and get whatever I wanted when-so-ever I happened to choose.

At my new work, instead of walking round to the filing bays I have to either request them specially from a dedicated records store five miles up the road for delivery in the afternoon or the following day or leave the building I work in, walk three minutes down the road and into another building to inspect the records along with joe public.

So from here we conclude that I miss my morning coffee and have to go a lot further to fetch historical records. Of course in fetching historical records I have to walk past a rather nice cafe selling a fine array of fresh coffee, croissants, pastries, baguettes and really everything the hungry slash thirsty office worker could ever want.

You can probably see where this is going.

I have already become quite the patron of this rather canny little establishment (spending nearly £7 there yesterday in two visits) and I really don’t want to make a habit of it as it will cost me dearly (with a large, fresh coffee setting me back £1.50). However the promise of a very good cup of fresh coffee after a suckish commute and with no real alternative I am struggling to resist.

Being nice

Responses to people in and around my new place of work that hopefully convey my feelings in a polite manner:

You’re from Australia, really. Perhaps you should go entertain somebody else with that now?

It’s nice the way that you stand so close, it makes me feel like we are special friends.

I am sure your turning up for work at 11am has very little to do with your disproportionately large case load.

Flowers bought from a highway verge on the north circular, what could be more romantic?

Perhaps before coming here you should have considered whether you had the 90 pence bus fare home?

Thank you for shouting at me down the phone. Given your well elucidated comments I will personally request that Parliament considers repealing the Planning Acts on your behalf.

Sea-less-land

This wikipedia article on the Aral Sea came up on popular del.icio.us a few weeks ago. An interesting and slightly scary piece on how if you fuck with your environment it will fuck you back twice as hard.

You can always see my del.icio.us for other linky stuff that I thought was intersting and maybe get a sneak preview of some of the stuff that I link to on the blog.

Week one

Well the first week at my new job was interesting. Not all in a good way but it certainly wasn’t all bad either.

My first day wasn’t so great but it did improve over the course of the week. I have been put, for the time being, in one of the area based teams dealing with small scale stuff that I can do with my eyes closed. Were it not for the antiquated computer systems (Windows 2000 etc.) that I am having a little trouble getting to grips with I could probably polish off my entire case load in an afternoon however I am spinning my work out for the time being so I actually have something to do. I doubt this will be my permanent position as, to be completely blunt, they are paying me too much to do the kind of stuff I am doing at the moment, and that really wouldn’t be a very sensible use of resources.

The people I am working with seem pleasant enough for the most part. The majority of them do seem a little distant from me and the other new principal I started with. I get the impression there is a slight ‘them and us’ thing going on what with me being one of the very few contracted staff, which I wasn’t expecting. Speaking English without a foreign accent, and actually in some cases speaking English at all, does seem to set me apart a little from the majority of my colleagues. Regardless, I didn’t take this job as a social event so whilst it would certainly be nice to make friends with people there I don’t think I am going to loose too much sleep if it turns out they all hate me.

Actually working in Ealing is good. The place is pretty buzzing with activity and has a great London vibe to it without being too in your face overcrowded like I find parts of central London can be. Lunch times are excellent as I have gone from having like a choice of three eateries in Amersham to an as of yet uncounted number in Ealing ranging from Subway and M&S to cute little corner places which I have not yet tried.

The commute from Amersham sucks royally, especially the hideous uncertainty of trying to find a free on street parking space in the morning which can be anything up to twenty minutes walk from the office. Still, this is better than paying £12 a day for the NCP car park opposite the office. This should improve greatly when I move to Maidenhead and can jump on the train as it should be both faster and less stressful than fighting for road space in London rush hour. However, that some parking space is available near(ish) the office is good too as this will allow me to drive in occasionally so I don’t have to do too many site visits using something called a bus.

The highlight of the week was getting my first pay cheque on Thursday for the month. I was feeling a bit low about the place at the time but opening up my pay packet I remembered why I had done this move (aside from career advancement) and a self congratulatory steak (from the aforementioned M&S) and chips dinner that evening left me feeling a whole lot better. It’s not all about the money by a longshot but it can certainly negate some objections I may have.

Now you may notice that I have stuck this post up on Sunday evening as opposed to my regular morning posting time. I am sticking with evening posting for the time being because of the necessity to get out early in the morning to beat the traffic before it gets majorly heavy. Like I said, posting may become a little inconsistent for the next few weeks.

I hope everyone had a good weekend. You can send me email at my new work (and I promise nice fluffy responses for the time being) at [withdrawn].

A date for the diary

Now I’ve always thought that your average mid-20s male (such as my good self) was under-represented in the arena of having ‘special days.’ Dads have fathers day, mums have mothers day, Christmas is for kids really, halloween is for the ugly and valentines day is one to make the girls feel special. So it’s nice to see that now guys have their own special day too. March 20 is now officially (apparently) steak and blow job day which is, well, pretty self explanatory really. Probably for the best that i didn't insert multiple images to annotate this post.

Traffic

So on Monday I left home at 7:45 and arrived at work (well, outside it) at just after 8:30 (45 minutes). On Tuesday I left home 10 minutes later at 7:55 and arrived at work at 9:00 (65 minutes). Yesterday I left home at 8:05 and arrived at work at 9:30 (85 minutes).

So for every 10 minutes later I leave after 7:45, it costs me an extra 20 minutes in commuting time.

This is due to getting stuck in less traffic earlier and of course this meaning you get farther along the journey before getting caught in heavier traffic and then finding a parking space nearer work as (obviously) the best free spaces are taken first and the later you are the farther away you are meaning it takes longer to walk from the car. Suffice to say that I am not messing around at home this morning.

This little statistic in itself is pushing me to consider adjusting my posting time to evenings as opposed to mornings, at least until I move flats.

New toy

My crudy old monitor which is about eight years old now has gone on the blink (literally). So I took that as a sign that a new monitor was required. A trip to PC World, some drooling over a variety of technology with some (really very) gentle coaxing from Mark and I now have a very nice 19 inch widescreen tft monitor with a yummy screen resolution of 1440 x 900.


The only problem with it is that I cannot find any porn big enough to fit the whole screen.

Hell of a day

Well I always expected my first day to be a little mental and chaotic. I was expecting uncoordinated messiness but I really wasn’t prepared for the way the day panned out.

I got up super early to beat the morning rush down the A40 (or at least allow plenty of time to sit in it) and make sure I was well in time for my 9:30 expected arrival. So I left at 7:45 and arrived at around 8:30 and found a free parking space fairly nearby which was all good. I wandered around the (predominantly closed) shops for a little while before getting cold and deciding that I would rather sit and wait inside than walk around the cold and particularly windy streets.

This is where it started to go a bit wrong. I apparently wasn’t expected at all, not least at the wrong building which I had been told to go to. Anyway, a bit of wrangling for about 20 minutes and I was directed to the right building where I still was a pretty unexpected arrival, despite now being in the right place and bang on time. After some delicate negotiations with a very large security guard I got inside and found my way to the planning department where I was (thankfully) expected although their provisions for helping me get this far left something to be desired.

Ok, fine, I'm in. Brief tour of the department, this is where you are sitting (window seat, w00t) in the east team (again, w00t, not the unreasonably ethnic end of the Borough). Computer, check, log-on, check. Here’s another new guy so you’re not the only one. Ok, things were starting to pick up.

However, the team has no team leader and hasn’t done for three weeks whilst the team leader’s boss is on leave (and has bigger troubles) and that’s where the chain of command appears to stop. So no team leader means no work allocated or any other kind of introductory niceties for the new folks. Having said that, my arrival along with the other new guy pretty much doubled the size of the team (albeit it still less than half staffed with our contribution) so its not like there is much to lead.

So I spent the rest of the day acquainting myself with the computer systems. Not least email which whilst, erm… clunky, works so succeeded in firing off a couple of emails to folks addresses what I could remember and getting some back (thanks folks, much needed) and trying to fathom the really fairly incomprehensible database and mapping systems. Of course I found out later that many of the functions I was trying to access didn’t exist, for example, any kind of meaningful electronic records. That should prove interesting for somewhere that was billed to be paperless.

So a slightly inauspicious start to the proceedings.

Good news is that the commute is way shorter than I expected, free on street parking is available, albeit limited, and there is chance that I could get a coveted parking pass. The people (mostly) seem pleasant enough and I would imagine it is certainly going to be a challenging job to say the least.

I’d like to go at the place with a bit more of a jackhammer today but get the impression that nobody seems to actually know that I am not just some temp, and really don’t want to go pissing my new colleagues off too much by appearing like an overly authoritative jerk. Perhaps I should do a memo?

Look what I got

So I got a nice little haul of leaving pressies from the folks at my old work. I got a really jazzy looking clock which is way cool (it’s staying in the box for the time being to keep it safe while I move flats).

I got salt and pepper mills which I have wanted for ages.

A really nice address book which I have also been wanting for ages together with a pen with my name on it.

I also got two giant bars of chocolate, one box of chocolates and a bottle of Guinness.

I was really chuffed with these rather nice gifts and whilst I did expect some trinkets to mark my departure (because everyone who leaves gets something) I was a little taken aback by the niceness and generosity of the gifts. I also got a really nice card too which (almost) everyone had signed and said nice things in.

So for those of you who read Nick101 at my old work, thanks everyone.

Departure lounge

So today is my last day at my current job and you know I really thought I would have more to say about that. Turns out I haven’t got much to say about it all.

It feels very weird though. I think I will probably do a debrief post on it at some point when it is all over.

Have a good weekend and I will see you on, what is for me, a fairly major and distinctly uncertain Monday.

Playing it cool

So starting off at a new job with entirely new people in a new environment presents me with the very rare opportunity of creating a unique first impression to numerous new people. I am unsure how I should approach this and have been toying with a couple of approaches:

Mysterious stranger: Stay quiet and only chime in when I have something sage or insightful to say. Drawbacks being I would probably never say anything, not being particularly sage or insightful.

Hawaiian: Buy pairs of sunglasses to match every shirt I own and wear them all the time. Of course I can’t afford that many decent pairs of sunglasses so would probably end up looking like Timmy Mallet and I probably wouldn’t be able to see where I was going most of the time although that might be a good thing.

Innuendo: Turn everything into a sex joke, could be funny if I was in a sit-com. Folks would probably think I was just a sleazy jerk though.

Yoda: Speak like Yoda I would. Construct without planning permission and enforcement notice receive you will. Think like twat I would sound.

Refined: Maybe sport a curly pipe like Sherlock Homes’ sidekick, get a monocle like Patrick Moore and a pocket watch too. Actually I think that would be like way fun to do. I wonder where you could buy a pipe, a monocle and a pocket watch. Ebay has got to have some stuff like that surely?

Present and future

Next Monday I begin my new job. To start with this is going to involve a fair chunk of commuting by car and then (hopefully) as of 13 March, should be a short(ish) train ride from Maidenhead to Ealing Broadway. In either instance this is going to be a big change from my amazingly short commute of around five minutes and available free time as a consequence of that. Also moving home is going to create some (again, hopefully) short term uncertainty about internet access (although I certainly will have access to the internet, the speed of it I am as of yet uncertain).

All this, I suspect, is going to affect blog posting although at the moment I am not sure how. I have every intention of keeping the blog going because I like doing it. So please, if stuff gets erratic over the next month or so, stick with me, I am hoping that it will be temporary. Fingers crossed, a new routine and blog post rhythm will sort itself out.

Back in the present, I am feeling increasingly weird about leaving my job at the end of this week. I have been doing it for a pretty long time and until fairly recently derived quite a bit of satisfaction from it. Also I have made friends there and whilst I doubt I am going to keep in touch with everyone I met there I am still going to miss the place a bit.

I am actually a little confused as how I am supposed to feel about leaving. Half of me wants to tell everyone how much I am going to miss them and how I will genuinely have fond memories of the place and perhaps everyone could come with me if that would be ok and maybe shed an uncharacteristic tear. The other half of me wants to shout ‘see you later losers’ whilst flicking v-signs before doing a donut in the car park and blazing off in an unnecessarily dramatic manner without a backward glance. I am not too sure how to reconcile these two things. Perhaps I could do both?

Meanwhile, it appears that Bng’s blog has been reawakened which is good to see. I have to say I was starting to feel a little blog-lonely recently what with not really being part of a blog ring or anything like that. I am still looking forward to those others who have said they are going to start blogs to get them up and running (you know who you are).

You're in the way

I came across this on Flickr (of all places) and, well, it’s funny.

I think I would end up issuing an unreasonable amount of these, given the opportunity, probably most often in the supermarket.

The plane on the moving runway

This little puzzle befuddled me for quite some time and whilst it didn’t quite keep me awake at night I did go to bed for a few days thinking about it. This is the question:

A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?

Stop reading here. Go and think about it (unless you are a physics master) as after this I am going to go through my lines of thinking and give the answer.

My conclusions:

1. The plane remains in the same position as any forward propulsion achieved by its (say) jet engines is immediately negated by the opposing motion of the runway. The plane therefore remains stationary. Whilst the forward motion of the plane is achieved by the force of the jet on the air, not on the ground, until the plane has gained sufficient velocity to gain lift from moving through the air it is inextricably linked to the ground by gravity and thus the inverse speed of the runway drags the plane backwards meaning it can’t make any forward progress and thus gain any lift. This was my initial conclusion that I stuck with for quite some time but it doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny as, unlike a car, the forward motion of the plane is created by the force of the jet on the air not by the wheels on the ground.

2. The plane remains stationary but rises. Ok so I never thought this one would apply but am going through it anyway. This can’t work because the plane requires the lift of the air passing its wings in order to become airborne. No amount of thrusting from the jets will make it rise if the plane can’t make any forward progress. It would be like having a plane on a stick stuck in the ground (I like the imagery of that). Besides if this did work surely it would be employed on aircraft carriers and other stuff with short runway constraints.

3. The plane proceeds down the runway regardless of what the runway itself is doing. As the jets are acting against the air not the ground the motion of the surface it is on is largely irrelevant. This answer defies my land and car based thinking but really is the only feasible answer. As the engines are thrusting against the air what the plane is doing relative to the air is the important bit. What the ground is doing is largely irrelevant, think for example of a jet plane taking backwards off an aircraft carrier which is moving forward really quickly.

I have to confess this is a bit of a rob from this post (which itself was a rob from this post, but then the internet is like that) and the subsequently confirmed answer here (at least I got the right answer even if it did take me a few days and a bit of coaxing). But it got me thinking and I thought it was sufficiently engaging to warrant blogging.

Someone else to pick up the pieces

The interviews for my job are going on today. I know both Mark and Hannah (who I work with) have applied for the position and I wish them both the best and, personally, I would give them both the job. However, I am not in any kind of job determining position which is a bit of a relief as I am not sure who I would pick put of the two.

Good luck guys.

Picky picky picky

Having done this flat hunting thing for a fair number of weeks now and seen god knows how many places I think have a pretty good grasp of what I like in a flat. A lot of this goes against the grain of what I think you are ‘supposed to like.’ I am of course ignoring obvious stuff like being next to a sewage treatment plant, living in a crack den or being in Slough (all of which are bad).

Like:

1960s flats because they always seem to be well proportioned. I think stemming from when they were designed their internal layout was more important than jamming as much in to as small a space as possible. A lot of the time they are also way ugly on the outside which I think gives them a certain ugly duckling charm.

Wall to wall carpets which are nice and thick and warm and cosy.

Balconies because they are just plain cool. And none of your iron railings and juliet balconies, I mean really big ass ones that you can sit on and stare at your neighbours (the best one I saw was huge and came with an outdoor heater).

Being up high (but not too high) as it has a slightly detached and secure feel to it. You can keep an eye on what’s going on outside without having to let it trouble you because safely elevated.

Big living rooms, because it’s where you spend a lot of time and it’s nice to have some breathing space.

Off street parking, because battling for an on-street parking space is so proletarian and I don’t want to have to walk half a mile from my car to my flat.

Space for a dishwasher, which I think is pretty self explanatory (nowhere seems to have this though despite many places clearly having the space).

Dislike:

Period conversions. Don’t get me wrong I really like character houses, just when they’re subdivided and have flats rammed in it seems to be so badly done. The space is never well proportioned (who wants a living room three metres by three metres in floor area with four metre high ceilings?) and the features that get left behind (if any) look out of place and lost.

Hardwood floors, cold and echoey.

Really pokey modern flats, particularly the ones where two bedrooms have been rammed into an area only really big enough for one bedroom (I saw a few places where the second bedroom was big enough for a single bed but you wouldn’t be able to open slash close the door).

What was it you do again?

Looks like the letting agent for my new flat has been in trouble with the planners. I hope they don't hold that against me.

Maidenhead baby (again)

I have a flat in Maidenhead. And this time I have stuck my rental deposit down on it so it shouldn’t be going anywhere like the last place did, no evil tenants to change their minds and stay this time.


Anyhow, this place is a little smaller then the previous place I thought I had secured and only has one bedroom. However it is up on the second floor, which is great because I like being up high, and has a rather funky balcony (pictured, top left) with funky (in a different sense) views over the London to Bristol mainline and a haulage yard. It is also way close to the train station, being only five minutes walk away (that’s five actual minutes, not five estate agent minutes which appear to be about three times longer than a standard minute). Also it has a buzzer entry phone thingy which means it is classy.

Move in date is scheduled (in draft) for the weekend of 11 March.

I am still a little disappointed that I didn’t get the first place I thought I had secured as it was bigger and as equally well decorated internally. However it was further away from the train station and supposedly in a crumby area (although I still refuse to accept that to a certain degree).

Regardless, I am happy with the place I have got.

Tying up the loose strings

You may recall my post about the mobile home Inquiry and my subsequent (somewhat self congratulatory) post, Inquiry debrief. So I am most pleased to report the appeal was dismissed (meaning we won) (and of course this includes my favourite bit… getting my name on the ‘end credits’ of the decision notice). The decision notice even included a reference to my remark under cross examination about the mobile home park being a little twee for my tastes, sadly it wasn’t worded quite like that.

I am quite pleased that this decision came before I leave my current job as I have plugged a sizeable chunk of time and effort into the case so getting a win is a real plus. Whilst it is by far and away not the end of it in the grand scheme of things it is a major landmark.

Whilst I am happy to be moving on to new things there are a number of cases I still have running that I am going to have to pass on to whoever picks up my post that I kinda would like to find out what goes on. My self imposed rules mean I won’t divulge to much about the cases but I am going to log them in a fairly vague form. So here is a list of the cases I would like to see the outcome of (and in honesty the ones that I think would have made really good blog posts had I had the nerve to write about them):

The marker posts
The ostrich farm
The reality TV building
The water bottles
The landfill site
The worst extension in the world

101 x 1000

Having not deleted an email, read or unread, since 21 June 2004 I can now proudly claim to have an email inbox containing no less than 1000 unread emails (actually now 1007 at the time of this post).

How's that for an entirely redundant achievement? And on a numerical theme, this post also happens to be post number 101, which I couldn't really allow to slip past without some sort of comment.

Nuclear futures

Recently the Government appears to be considering a U-turn on nuclear energy policy and toying with the idea of re-introducing nuclear power as a way of generating electricity. This, if enacted, could result in the construction of a new generation of nuclear power stations to generate the nation’s electricity supply. I can’t say I welcome this as a particularly sustainable and ecologically slash environmentally sound way of generating electricity. Plumbing more investment into the seemingly wide array of renewable energy sources seems to be a much wiser long term solution.

However, renewable energy sources do not, as of yet, appear to be bearing quite as much fruit as could be hoped for (arguably due to a lack of investment and possibly commitment). Additionally given recent concerns about the supplies of traditional hydrocarbon fuels (environmental merits notwithstanding) relating to the practical availability of the stuff and that many of such resources are now caught up in politically unstable locations (by which I mean a bunch of gun totting lunatics, yes that includes the Americans) around the globe I can see why going for the previously tried and tested, and I would hope in this day and age, somewhat more refined, nuclear generation option may be considered preferable.

I doubt picking the nuclear option is going to be anyone’s first choice, especially given that even nuclear fuel sources are not exclusively sourced from nice friendly and stable countries with fluffy western ideals. However, in the grand scheme of things I think I have to list my preferences in terms of how to get electricity as follows:

1. Nice environmentally friendly renewable sources
2. Some possibly slightly messier nuclear option
3. Burning hydrocarbons
4. Using soylent green (although I am unsure of its electricity generating properties)

And then a long way down the list, right at the very bottom in fact…

5. Not having electricity at all.

Say what?

I start my job as Principal Planner with my new employer in three weeks time. As I understood it I will be the deputy to the Team Leader working in one of two area based teams.

So with this in mind I was a little disarmed to read in my professional magazine of choice that my new employer is advertising for two new Team Leaders. So I guess the current Team Leaders are leaving. Where does that leave me?

Eh-oh.

Bloggies

Last chance today to cast your vote in the 2006 Bloggies. I like Cute Overload (for the layout and razor-sharp opinion of course, not the fluffy bunnies), Post Secret, Girl with a one-track mind (for the quality of the narrative, not because is shamelessly unabashed literary porn), Digg (but not Slashdot), Del.icio.us and (somewhat begrudgingly) the self satisfied ramblings of Jason Kottke.

Repeat offender

So I have picked up another speeding ticket. I get the impression that they are probably not going to send me on some wanky drivers education course this time as clearly the last time they packed me off there it didn’t work on account of my getting booked again. But then again last time I went it only served to give me the impression that I was a better driver than everyone else there because they all really sucked.

I am not so pissed off about this time though because I got caught doing a manly 81mph by a stealth radar van whereas last time I got flashed by an omnipotent static camera that I knew was there whilst travelling a scant 36mph, making it particularly irritating. At least this time it was sporting. And I happened to be late for an appointment this time too so I have an excuse (albeit pretty weak) whereas last time I was just being impatient and inattentive.

And the moral of this post is; when you bust through the speed limit in southern Buckinghamshire don’t do it on the A404 between the M40 and the turn off to Maidenhead or in any of these other locations.

Ship breakers

Some fascinating and quasi-post-apocalyptic looking visuals of Bangladeshi ship-breaking yards (via).

Planblog

The internet is replete with vocational blogs; ambulance blogs, train driver blogs, police blogs, washed-up child actor blogs (who incidentally decide to redesign the site when I want to do this post, grrr), doctor blogs, politician blogs, the list goes on…

I can’t find any planner blogs though.

Although I know my blog is not all about planning, and indeed has only relatively rarely touched upon it, I wonder if I am slash could be the first planner with a blog? Perhaps I should do more ‘insightful yet witty incursions into the bizarre world of planning.’

Stats

So these are my stats for the past 12 weeks. I think it shows a moderate rise in visitors until the Christmas to New Year lull but things seem to be picking up more now with an all time record in week two of 161 page loads (ahem, not to be confused with 161 visitors mind). It’s difficult to tell though whether I am getting more hits as none of the indicators of page loads, unique visitors or returning visitors are entirely reliable for various reasons.

It seems that as the amount of content, and particularly outgoing links, on Nick101 increases so do the number of hits I receive. About 8% of recent visits have been from unreciprocated or unknown links. Thus far I have had viewers from the USA, India, Singapore, Kuwait, New Zealand, Belgium (ok that was me on holiday), Portugal and Spain amoungst others as well as my predominantly UK based readership.

Translating this into content; when I started this blog my initial concern was with actually being able to produce stuff to post. However as time went on I became much more relaxed about it as I realised I could come up with quite a lot. Of course now I have hit another worry point as my viewer stats rise; trying to deliver posts of reasonable quality (not sure whether I am doing that at the moment) and hanging on to viewers and chasing the somewhat unexpected goal of getting more hits.

One of the worst aspects is that it can be quite demoralising to put up what I think is a good post and get very few hits that day. I really liked Urban Jungle, featuring PARK(ing) and the cups in wire fence thing which I really thought was fun and interesting, but that day I got virtually no visits at all (seriously it was like the internet had broken that day) and hence Free Music Stuff the following day was a somewhat half hearted affair that ironically got twice the number of visits on the day it was posted.

Of course, this comparison between posts and hits is somewhat academic as I have no doubt that people will read the blog as and when it fits their schedule rather than based on the content of posts which of course you don’t find out until you read the post in the first place. Moreover, just because you visited the blog, doesn’t mean you read it but the stats don’t count that.

How to ruin stuff 101

Requires one perfectly good duvet cover with small holes that need patching, one iron on patching kit (available from Woolworths for around £1.79), one perfectly good carpet, a pair of scissors and an iron.

Take duvet cover, remove duvet blanket and place on large flat area; living room carpet is ideal. Iron area which needs patching. Use scissors to cut iron on patches to cover slightly more than area which needs patching.

Place iron on patches over small holes with some spare fabric underneath to absorb any excess adhesive. Iron over patches for approximately 40 seconds ensuring the corners of the patches are well adhered.

Leave to cool for about a minute. Attempt to remove duvet cover from carpet. Realise that iron on patches have adhered themselves to the top side of the duvet cover which has in turn adhered itself well to the under side of the duvet cover which again has adhered itself to the carpet. Scratch head and re-read instructions on iron on patching kit.

Use brute force to remove duvet cover from carpet leaving large mass of firmly affixed glue on carpet and chunks of carpet reciprocally attached to the duvet cover. Separate the top side of the duvet cover from under side of duvet cover.

Stand back and appreciate formerly perfectly good carpet with two very large masses of glue embedded in it (pictured above) and iron on patches just barely affixed to duvet cover with flappy edges.

Update:

The iron on patches came off the duvet cover in the wash. Ironically, the remenants of carpet stuck to the underside did not. Think I am buying a new duvet cover this weekend.

Seven more

Rejects:

Maidenhead one bed – Nicely decorated flat in period property next to the river, plenty of height to it, not so much floorpsace though, which is where it counts.
Maidenhead one bed – Ok sized but just off the A4 and noisy, has parking but half way across town. Comes (badly) furnished.
Maidenhead one bed – Slightly strangely laid out flat with wood floors. Ok, so there wasn’t anything really wrong with it, it just didn’t feel quite right. Can’t put my finger on it, just not right.

Candidates:

Maidenhead one bed – Good size, right next to the river. Comes part furnished with questionable taste but nothing really wrong with it, a little pricey; paying for river proximity.
Maidenhead one bed – Majorly close to the train station, a little small and a little dated. I was initially put off because the current tenants were, well, filthy but I have no doubt the place would get a decent clean and then it would probably be ok. It’s hard to look past the major ming problem though.
Maidenhead one bed – In the same block as the place I lost out on and a bit smaller (also cheaper) and there really was nothing wrong with it at all apart from the living room was a bit purple.
Maidenhead two bed – A little on the pricey side but a clear winner, comfortable walk to the station, immaculately presented, comes well, but sparsely, furnished which is ideal as I could probably just fit most of my stuff in it too, and the rest can go in the garage that comes with it.

(I think my judgement on the latter three might have been a bit skewed though because the pretty girl who showed me round was unreasonably flirty).

28 (20 working) days later

Caution, this post contains wanky, and no doubt dull, introspective nonsense. However, I have added some arguably unnecessary links to jazz it up a little.

As of Monday I have only four weeks left at my present job. I have been feeling increasingly weird about this as time has gone on although I don’t think its just leaving my present job; fairly big changes are afoot in general with other associated stuff going on at the same time.

I have been dying to get away from my current job for a little while now and, when going to work for the past six months or so, have been thinking ‘why am I doing this and where the hell is it getting me?’ (Answer: don’t know and nowhere, respectively). But now I am going to work in the morning and counting down the days (I have even numbered the days to count down in my outlook calendar) and as they get fewer and fewer the inevitability of some major changes gets greater and greater.

A number of people have commented that I have been bouncing around work with an uncharacteristic level of energy and enthusiasm. In honesty I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me however I think I can guess what is prompting it. Even so, my impending departure still leaves me with a degree of nervousness at what is coming next.

I have been with my present employer for three and a half years now. This is, by a wide margin, the longest time I have been in any single job (although I suppose its two jobs, technically speaking) and it is a long time. This is compounded by my moving flat at the same time which I have been in for nearly as long as I have been at my present work. I haven’t lived in the same place for this long since I left London (by which I mean the watered down suburbs of Middlesex) in 1996. And this is where it gets a bit circular as I am going to work soon in a place just a few miles up the road from where I left nearly ten years ago now.

The circular weirdness aside, at the same time I am going to miss doing what I do at the moment because it is familiar and seeing the people I am used to seeing especially as I like quite a lot of them.

Anyway, I’m not too sure what the point of this post is, aside from possibly illustrating a mixture of apprehensive excitement and abject terror about what is to come combined with a sense of relief and nostalgia about leaving.

Would be nice if I knew I had a nice flat to move to mind (seeing five seven more this weekend).

Yooire not frum roound ere

So I had some fun looking up my family name on the surname profiler (via).


Looks like I have lots of namesakes knocking round in Cornwall, Devon and whatever that purple slash redish blob up north is (like Manchester and Derbyshire and stuff?).

I just want a nice flat

Without wanting to turn this blog into a diary of how I can’t seem to find a nice flat to move to I am going to rant about the two places I saw yesterday which were, well, the worst yet by a wide margin.

First I saw round a very spacious crumbling relic of the 1970s. The carpets were encrusted with ming, the kitchen looked like the set from a horror movie in a mental institution, the living room had damp crawling up the walls and the bedrooms looked like prison cells. And it was located above a bunch of take-aways and car repair garage, accessed from some dubious back alley probably best suited for junkies to sleep in and use as their toilet.

The second place was marginally better insofar as it was only a throwback to the 1980s but also felt like an asian sub-continent squat complete with curry house music and a bizarre aroma of incense. The kitchen was also so small that if you wanted to make a cup of tea and a slice of toast at the same time you would probably run out of space.

At both places the agent was very keen to point out that they really would get a thorough cleaning and 'a decent airing to get rid of strange smells' before I moved in. I think they needed a bit more than that though.

This is the 21st century, why are folks trying to peddle me slums?

Six movies

A list of six movies that everyone else seems to think are rather good that I thought were really boring:

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Get Shorty
The Usual Suspects
The first Lord of the Rings movie
The second Lord of the Rings movie
The third Lord of the Rings movie


A list of six movies that I thought were rather good but rarely admit to because nobody else seems to agree with me:

So I Married an Axe Murderer
Pitch Black
Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
2010
13 going on 30 (ok, not really but I couldn't come up with a sixth and this happended to be on tv when I was trying to come up with something)

A list of six movies that should be watched at least once a year (ideally with either lots of tea or lots of beer):

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Breakfast Club
Die Hard
Any one of the three original Star Wars movies
Alien
The Terminator

Limbo

Ok, so the current tenants of the flat I supposedly had agreed on do not appear to want to leave just yet but I can’t seem to extract whether they are still going eventually and if so when. This leaves me rather cross about being led up the garden path and stuck in limbo land in terms of finding a new pad.

I have resumed flat hunting but can’t find anywhere as nice for an even remotely comparable rent which is both reassuring in that the more I see the more the place I picked appears pretty amazing but it's also intensely irritating as it means I can’t move flats before I change job and it’s unclear whether I get this flat at all. Ultimately it’s all a bit depressing because if I don’t get this one then, unless something else special comes along, everything else is going to be second choice (by quite a wide margin based on experience to date).

So at the moment I am trying to work out whether it’s best to wait for the number one choice or give up and find somewhere else. Because of timescales on starting job and giving notice on my current place I have to decide one way or the other now and can’t do both because if I wait I want it to be somewhere worth waiting for but if I ditch it I also have to find somewhere else immediately otherwise there is no point not waiting. But then again there’s no point waiting for something that I’m not going to get (if that makes sense – it does in my head).

Thus far the other places I have seen have either been nowhere near as nice (for various reasons) but similar in terms of rental payments or comparable in niceness and way more expensive.

Here’s the shortlist of alternatives that I’ve seen:

One bed in Ruislip – right next to tube station and high street but noisy and with no parking.
Two bed in Ruislip – a fair walk from the tube station with the kitchen from Trainspotting and a dubiously giant porno mirror covering one entire wall of the main bedroom.
One bed in Maidenhead – really nice flat with fantastically massive balcony out back but over half an hour walk to the train station which is too far.
Two bed in Maidenhead – student dive looking flat outside a fish and chip shop (which is better than a kebab shop I guess) with a cat infestation, oh, and it majorly smelled of feet.
Two bed in Maidenhead – immaculately presented, great location, unfortunately squeezed into the size of Ford Transit (and not even one of those ones with the extra roofy bit on top).
Two bed in Maidenhead – Kate’s old flat (which makes it a bit weird actually) which is nice but way more expensive. I really can’t afford or justify paying extra for the classier area.
One bed in Amersham – stay where I am and wait and see if I get evicted.

I have another viewing today in Maidenhead and two viewings in Ruislip tomorrow; we’ll see how those go. Heaven forbid I am going to have to start considering looking at places such as Langley or South Harrow (but never Slough).

Free music stuff

I’ve been using Pandora for the past few months for free music. Basically you tell it what music you like and it plays more like it. It also tells you what you like too and now appears to know more about what I like than I do, which apparently is a subtle use of female vocal, disco influences, mild rhythmic syncopation, melodic phrasing, extensive vamping and heavy use of choral patterning. Which is nice, not too sure what that means exactly.

Urban jungle

Car parking spaces are generally so sought after in towns and cities these days that nobody ever seems to stop to consider what else they could be used for. The concept of being able to rent a piece of space in integers as little as fifteen minutes is quite cool when you think about it. Other than parking spaces I can’t think of anything that you can rent for so little for such a variable amount of time with so little commitment. Anyway I really liked PARK(ing) as it was an inventive way of looking at urban space in a new way and putting it to a slightly more beneficial use than just sticking a car in it.

I guess stuff like PARK(ing) counts as modern art, but is refreshing insofar as it doesn’t tout itself as such. I like the interactivity of it too, much like this display of paper cups in a chain link fence.

Maidenhead baby

So I made a rental offer for a nice two bed flat in Maidenhead yesterday morning. I got a ring from the agent in the late afternoon after a painfully long wait all day who said that the landlord had accepted the offer and we could start talking about references and moving in dates and stuff so that is really rather exciting. (Yippee) (photos of the outside are in How much?! and the inside of a similar flat, two floors up, in Phone dump).

In honesty I didn’t have much hope of getting very far with this place because the flat seems to me to be under priced compared to others I have seen to start with, my offer was really insulting (I thought) and having spoken to the current tenants, who are still there so its not like the landlord is desperate for a new tenant, my offer was also like well below what they are paying.

Anyway, so I am pretty pleased with how that worked out as I now hopefully have secured a jazzy new flat with two bedrooms, living room, small dinning room (yeah, check that out, a dining room!) and good sized kitchen. Drawbacks are that it is a little further walk from the train station than I would have liked, no dishwasher and it has electric heating. However these minor points are like really small compared to the amazing amount of space I recon I have got, a nice little garden area, near to shops, a spare room (!) and all for an acceptable rent.

All I have to do now is make sure the landlord gets shot of those current tenants pretty damn quick so I can move in before I have to start the new job.

Of course I didn’t hear from the agent about all this until pretty much the end of the day, five minutes before I was due at two viewings with another agent in Ruislip. So I felt I had to kinda pretend that I hadn’t found anywhere and look round these two shitty flats with this other agent guy because I thought it was a bit late to cancel. Actually it wasn’t that bad because its always fun to have a bit of a nose around and like I say, these other two places I saw were pretty dire (think flowery wallpaper, kitchen off the set of Trainspotting and even worse - no off street parking). I suppose it was worth it really as it re-affirmed my belief that I had picked the right one already.

I am really pleased how this has worked out as thinking back a month or two ago I was sure I was going to end up in some dive studio flat with views of the A40 or Heathrow Airport or a sewage works, or even worse, in Slough.

Burning dependency

Amid the recent turning of part of Hemel Hempstead into blazing inferno of hydrocarbons and the slightly satanic black cloud that lingered over my neck of the woods for the following few days, this article is hardly reassuring. This report of peaking oil production coupled with some alleged convenient lies on behalf of OPEC and chums is not going to make you feel any more comfortable. And just on the off chance that you doesn’t worry you enough, how about this uncomfortable but arguably not implausible forecast.

Firefoxy

So I’ve been using Internet Explorer for years (like since me and the internet met) and despite having tried other browsers in the past (typically various versions of Netscape) have always come back to it.

So, despite having had Firefox recommended to me by virtually everyone and loads of websites that seem to know what they’re talking about I was still pretty reluctant to attempt the switch (you can take a horse to water etc…). Anyway, I gave it a whirl at the beginning of this week and had a play about with it. And to cut a long story short, I am a convert. IE sucks. Use Firefox. And I don’t think I have even scratched the surface insofar as all the stuff you can do with it.

Only one complaint thus far, that being I can’t copy and paste blog posts into Firefox which is a little irritating (not too sure if it is me doing something wrong), so for the time being IE has not been completely shelved.

If you haven’t got it already, download here.

Think I might make that my new year’s resolution actually. Use Firefox as web browser… Check, done.

What the estate agents really mean

What the estate agents said: A well presented, modern, one bedroom apartment.
What they really meant: A tiny flat with wood floors.

What the estate agents said: Internal inspection is highly recommended.
What they really meant: The outside is pig ugly.

What the estate agents said: Excellent access to the train station.
What they really meant: The mainline from London to Bristol pretty much runs through the living room.

What the estate agents said: Ample parking with close proximity to local shops and services.
What they really meant: Located in a bland 1980s housing estate dominated by car parking, miles from the town centre with a small corner shop about half a mile away.

What the estate agents said: Well proportioned apartment.
What they really meant: This flat has a bizarre layout.

What the estate agents said: Sought after location.
What they really meant: Sought after location for chavs and car thieves.

What the estate agents said: Convenient town centre location.
What they really meant: It’s above an all night kebab shop and nightclub and there sure as hell ain’t no parking available.

What the estate agents said: Under offer.
What they really meant: This place is such a shit hole that the landlord has given up hope and decided to flog it instead.

Resolution

So last year my new years resolution was to drink Guinness. Hardly the most challenging task but I never really have been one for the whole new years resolution thing.

Anyway, I managed it and tried Guinness, although it took until about March, so it was hardly a resounding success but I now drink Guinness occasionally and do quite like it.

In fairness last years resolution wasn’t really much of a resolution or even that much of a challenge (which was the point). I hadn’t planned on having one this year but after giving unnecessary grief to the poor waiter dude in the pub on new years day realised that perhaps one particular new year’s resolution would be in order. Namely to try to be nice to the waitress/waiter types in restaurants as I am building up a fairly good track record of being mean to them. This is generally exclusively in situations involving me being hungry and having a hangover and wanting my food immediately and to a standard and with a level of service well in excess of what I was willing to pay for. And, yes, I do feel a little guilty (once fed to my exacting standards) for being mean to these poor people who do shitty jobs for minimum wage on a Sunday morning, no doubt with a hangover and rumbling stomach comparable to my own at the time.

However, lets get real here. When I have a hangover and am hungry I am likely (but not exclusively) to be at my least reasonable and little inclined to sympathise with the catering staff's position when my mayonnaise is not forthcoming with my bacon cheeseburger, my orange and lemonade not having lemonade in it or my side salad not arriving (regardless of whether I wanted side salad or not).

So, really, a new years resolution along the lines of ‘be nicer to the waitress/waiter type people in restaurants and pubs’ is unlikely to have much chance of success. Therefore this years new years resolution is to ‘think about being nice to the waitress/waiter type people in restaurants and pubs (but with no firm or quantifiable commitments).’ I might upgrade it to something a little more challenging in 2007.

Phone dump

A very mildly reminiscent first post to 2006. Here are a few photos captured on my phone camera thingy in the past month together with a bit of commentary where necessary.

Work Christmas do. Somewhere in London. I forget where exactly.

A barn in the middle of a field. Nothing much going here, which was exactly the point of my taking this photo in the first place.

Sometimes I struggle a little to try to explain to people exactly what it is I do all day (besides playing on the internet). Trying to explain why I was taking a photo of absolutely nothing of any consequence or interest is possibly one of the harder things to account for I think.

My brother and dog, next to fire at parents house on Christmas Eve. Yes, very home Counties, blah, blah.


Inside one of the flats I liked in Maidenhead. This is the living/dining room. Not too sure about those light fittings though.

Me and Elenor, News Years Eve, or early hours of morning on New Years Day. A fairly academic distinction really I think.

Not posted: Photos from work Christmas do where everyone looks a little more plastered. The sneaky photo of me that Gem took when we were in Pizza Express that I didn’t find until a week later. Me taking a photo of Elenor taking a photo of me. More photos of that barn in the middle of a field.

That was 2005

Good stuff:

Getting a new job (hopefully)
Going to Lisbon
Two public inquiries and three hearings
Starting a blog
Bng and K8 getting engaged and buying a house
Laura and Chris getting married (twice)
Volunteering for Planning Aid
The new series of Battlestar Gallactica

Bad stuff:

Falling out with friends and family
Stopped caring about my current job
Getting caught speeding
Bumping my car into a bollard (twice) (yes, I kept the second time quiet)
Some other stuff too that I am not posting

Favourite blog posts (in reverse date order):

( ^ _ ^ ;)
Double bookings
Sorry we missed you
Daylight
The hotel of evil

NSFW

Thought I would do these links, which I have been meaning to put up for a while now, when folks are less likely to be at work over the Christmas to New Year break (because they are a little bit naughty).

Read Girl with a One Track Mind.

Play with Orgasm Girl.

Back to work

Hmm, sucks to be me. Back to work already. Not sure how I ended up doing that. I seem to recall thinking ‘I’ll book some time off in the new year and enjoy the between Christmas and New Year lull and avoid the post New Year chaos.’ But I apparently failed to book off much time in the New Year too.

However (thinking ahead) leaving work before the end of the tax year means that four days have been slashed off my annual leave allocation so the remaining days off I have will be most welcome when (hopefully) moving flat time comes around.

Anyway the Christmas break was good. Four days of not being at work and getting yummy home cooked food are not to be snuffed at (and I now have two quiet days in the office before flat hunting recommences). For pressies I got a cook book, a stack of cash as well as the usual array of booze, chocolate, and socks. Sadly no flat screen tft monitor or any other jazzy electronic devices but there you go. Christmas sales were also a little disappointing as I picked up absolutely bugger all.

Hope everyone else got lots of nice stuff too.

(Have also added an emaily side bar thingy for a new way to send abuse and will hopefully keep it, subject to spam robots not attacking me).

A little more festive

Have an excellent Christmas everyone. Eat, drink, be merry, have fun and I hope that everyone gets just what they wanted from Santa (because I am sure you’ve all been very good this year).

Nick101 resumes on 28th December.

As festive as...

I must say I feel a little irked that despite the supposedly festive season my blog has been about as Christmassy as a U-bend (and not even one with sparkly lights or tinsel). I have to confess that I am not the biggest Christmas fan, being unreligious and otherwise pretty cynical about the excessive consumerism of the event. It has its highlights but as with many (but not all) things is best kept in small doses. The Christmas preamble of festivities going back as far as October does somewhat desensitise me to the ‘big day’ and render it somewhat of an anticlimax I think.

In order to try and inject some (arguably needed) festive spirit into the blog I did try to find some festive links to insert but failed to find anything other than a number of similarly cynically minded takes on the event such as Christmas Day with my new girlfriend's family as a circa-1982 text-based computer adventure game.

And that is pretty much where this blog post runs out of steam. However here’s to wishing everyone a happy Christmas.