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Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
Full House: What do I win?
I am a gamer, and always have been.
Due to a very lucky (for me) set of events at the weekend I now have a PS3. (On top of having a XBOX 360, Wii, PS2, DS, Saga Mega Drive, etc.)
My eldest Nephew decided to watch a film with his girlfriend Saturday night. He got the film, and just before going to watch it he remembered the video lead for his PS3 was at a friends house, and he was unable to retrieve it till Monday. So he popped to an acquaintances house, who he knew was after money and had a spare lead.
My nephew being who he is, ended up buying a full PS3 system off him, since the price was so low. He used it that one evening to watch the film, with the intention to sell it on the following day. Only since he bumped into me before he had a chance to sell it on, I picked it up from him for pennies.
I now need suggestions of good games that are only out on the PS3.
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Well today is “UK ELECTION 2010” day.
I have done my bit for the democratic procedure of hopefully *fingers crossed* fixing the country. And it was not easy. I sometimes think the Government is trying to prevent me from voting and having my say.
Let me explain.
If I leave my house, and turn left, its a 1 minute drive through civilisation to the nearest polling station. Only I am not allowed to vote there, Oh no, I must use a different one. To get to the one I use you have to turn right out of my house and drive away from civilisation. after about ten minutes you turn onto a small back road and head towards the mountains. Fifteen minutes later you leave that road, for a smaller, less used track and head even deeper into the wilderness of the mountains. Eventually you will arrive at a small shack on the side of the track, and its there I have to go to vote.
Seriously, If I did not have a four wheel drive sturdy vehicle, and a house full of lethal weapons to choose from, I don’t think I would ever vote.
When you step out of the car to make the run into the shack, I swear you can hear banjo music playing in the distance.
Nothing compares to a Penguin.
I have recently reconnected with some old friends on various Social Networking sites, and we have been catching up and reminding each other of various stories and escapades from the past. I will probably post a few of the more “safe” stories on here at some point. Until then, and to counter the last post of mine which was political, here is a series of quotes that were recorded at the 1997 Birmingham Spod meet (See I told you I would Post them! I just needed to find the bit of paper).
Basically someone said something that sounded “dodgy” so a pen & paper was found and people started making a list of all the innocent things said that could be taken out of context and sound “iffy”. There was a running count being kept of who was winning.
BEBOP (to BARNEY) : It’s not my fault the clingfilm broke.
BEBOP (to BARNEY) : You loved it, you came back for more.
MADRORY (to FRESH) : So, are you giving me one then?
AD and MRBLACK : We’re only playing.
MADRORY : I am left handed, so I am crap at doing it with my right hand!
LUCIFER : Biscuit is most defiantly a woman – I checked 12 times!
BEBOP (with VEC) : We’re just going to get money.
MADRORY : It ends up really huge.
: It takes about 3 hours.
FRESH : We want the whole lot.
MADRORY : It was because of a fluffy, vicious, bouncy, potentially lethal goth doing it to me.
MADRORY : I’ve started so I’ll finish.
MORGYN : Look, there’s a dangly bit there!
MORGYN : How large do you reckon you could get this one?
MORGYN : I mean how large do you think this hair will get?
FRESH : I think you’ll find that 3 times in a row.
MADRORY : It’s difficult to do it at the back.
FRESH : He’ll have the black bruises to go with it.
MADRORY : Oh no, my hair’s sticking to it now.
MORGYN (talking about PENDRAGON) : Well you could always pin him down and do it to him.
MRBLACK : Say when!
MORGYN : That’ll fit quite nicely.
LUCIFER : _THAT_ is no muscle whatsoever… except for the necessary bits.
MRBLACK : We’ve been in the pub for 9 hours.
AD : Arse!
MRBLACK : Hurrah…
FRESH : Can’t you do it with an afro comb?
FRESH : And I was doing so well.
MORGYN : Nothing compares to a penguin.
MORGYN : Is Madrory still beating me?
MORGYN (talking about SIAN) : The person we picked up off the street said “aah”
FRESH : Do you like it tight?
MADRORY : Yes, it stays in better that way
FRESH : We’ll do it when we get back.
MORGYN : Damn! I’m being beaten.
MADRORY : I might be able to get up by that time.
MADRORY : Let’s go inside. It’s warmer in there.
MORGYN : Can’t you get it up without a vicar or priest there?
FLIBS : I’m the son of one, will I do?
FRESH : That goes down with the rest of them.
FRESH : I’ve never ever done that.
SIAN : I’m practising to be one.
FRESH : Do it by hand.
FRESH : I think you ought to ask my girlfriend about that.
MADRORY : Stuart, stop fiddling with it.
SIAN (to MORGYN) : That is not as impressive compared to Madrory’s
MORGYN : It’s just the way I’m sitting.
FLIBS : I don’t care as long as it’s solid.
MORGYN : It’s amazing how large it can get so quickly.
SIAN : Does it do it again?
MADRORY : I’m prepared for all eventualities.
MORGYN : You can tell by his woggle!
MORGYN : It only took 3 hours.
BIGPHIL : He’s staying on my bedroom floor.
MADRORY : That goes down I’m afraid.
AD : It’s too floppy.
MRBLACK : Yes, i need to get hold of something hard.
JONAH : You’ve just thrown your thingy at me.
MORGYN : It’s the person you’re lying on’s responsibility.
BIGPHIL : How long is it now?
LUCIFER : Almost 5 pages.
LINDA : It’s sticky isn’t it?
FRESH : He said he was coming.
MADRORY : We were getting worried that you wouldn’t come.
PHOENIX : You keep trying but you haven’t managed it yet.
MADRORY : Right Fresh, come here … UP … NOW!
PHOENIX : Where’s the rest of it gone? Can we have it now?
MRBLACK : Are you fingering my bottle?
LINDA : Hold that a minute.
FRESH : If you weren’t admin, I’d give you a right good slap.
FRESH : What position are you in, rougthly?
-=> NicePerson sitting down with people standing around her.
BIGPHIL : Oh look, She’s just the right height now.
MRBLACK : He has now. He’s used it enough … OH BOLLOCKS!
MRBLACK : What are you sucking up there?
MORGYN : Don’t grab that, it’ll go everywhere.
MADRORY : And what are you up to?
AD : I’m making it move around in the glass.
MORGYN : I don’t like being tied down unless on special occasions
MADRORY : It’s fascinating isn’t it? Watching all the white stuff pour into the bottle.
FRESH : Aww it’s wet, EWW!
MRBLACK : Ad caught in the act!
MORGYN : Get off me! You didn’t say that last night.
FLIBS : I stroke mine regularly.
BIGPHIL : You can go back to my place and dump your stuff.
LUCIFER : Aarrgghh, Don’t sit on my hand.
BIGPHIL : It’s a good method for foreplay.
PHOENIX : Oh no, he sat on the spike
MRBLACK : I’ll have some.
JONAH : Anything in it?
LUCIFER : He wants to get a shot of that before they clean it up.
PHOENIX : He’s obviously not going hard enough.
PHOENIX : Don’t make me hurt you Greg.
-=> …(Extended wrestling)…(Greg hurled from room)…
GREG : BITCH!
GREG : 4 of you eh?
JONAH : So, nobody wants any cucumber?
BIGPHIL : You can go in another room and do it, I don’t care.
LUCIFER : Then it goes down nice and syrupy.
MRBLACK : It just doesn’t dry up.
GREG : How big is it then Phil?
LUCIFER : I’m going to wash my hands cos they’re all sticky.
PHOENIX : Yes, well we won’t go into that.
GREG : Stop penetrating my soul.
PHOENIX : I haven’t touched your shoes.
PHOENIX : Better to take then one at a time, I reckon.
PHOENIX : It’s the sweat that does it.
BIGPHIL : You really took pleasure in that didn’t you son?
BIGPHIL : You might get a groan out of him and then he’ll go to sleep.
LUCIFER : Imagine getting that out your arse.
MRBLACK : One at a time please.
PHOENIX : Isn’t that an interesting crease?
PHOENIX : Oh damn – just 3 inches too short.
PHOENIX : Bah! But I would have triumphed if it wasn’t for you pesky kids!
–==>> That’s all Folks!! <<==–
–==>> No Sat quotes – sheet stolen… <<==–
–==>> Shame, as all the PENDRAGON Quotes were on that sheet ;0) <<==–
while (1) $head->brickwall(“BANG”);
This morning it was quiet at the Insane Asylum! We were informed that due to planned work being done on the trees growing through power lines, we would loose our power supply for a short while. To prevent damage to servers/systems/coffee pots we shut down all electrical equipment at 9am (The time we were told the outage was due for). At approximately 10:45am we were informed the power work had been done, and that we would not be affected after all. So everything was re-powered back up.
When FireFox starts up on my desktop and re-opens the session I had before the shutdown I notice something odd. A development site I have been working on is now displaying some errors. “ARRRGGGHHH! what did I do? was I in the code when my machine switched off?”
I quickly check the Live site, and that has the same errors as the dev site. “err OK. we work on the dev site, test any changes and only if they shown to work do they get copied over to the live site”
A quick check of the file system shows files in both the live & dev areas with modification dates/times of 9:30am today. Which means they were played with during the time the Asylum was off-line, which means only one possible person with access. The freelance Phone developer who for his own protection we shall call PhoneBoy (PB). The following is a breakdown of the IM conversation that has occurred.
WO: “Hi, What did you do to the site? Both Live & Dev are showing errors?”
PB: “Nothing, not touched it, and not seeing errors here!”
WO: “Are you sure? Try refreshing the browser, I’m seeing the errors here on multiple machines”
PB: “No errors, and I checked IE and Firefox”
*Repeat the last few entries continually for about fifteen minutes*
WO: “Seriously every machine here is showing the same errors, here look!” *Phone photo & email*
PB: “No. still cant see any errors and I even checked with Linux. and I did not do anything, all I did was comment out some code to make the pages load faster”
WO: “You commented out code? what code? Where?”
PB: “See I removed what I did and the page loads slow now”
WO: “Yes but it now loads! And the errors have gone. Please leave it alone. I’ll make the page load faster, you leave it be!”
I would not mind so much, only this happened every time he does anything. You have to fight for about half an hour to get him to admit he actually did anything. Then another hour to find out exactly what he did, then ten minutes to actually fix the problem.
So as the post title says.
while (1)
$head->brickwall(“BANG”);
If we don’t all hang together, then surely, we shall all hang separately.
Greetings and Salutations Dear Readers.
I know you’re not supposed to discuss politics and religion in polite society, as it can lead to arguments, duels, wars, genocide, global annihilation “Oh! are the last few just me then?“. This post is going to be about the forthcoming UK elections, and as such I apologise in advance..
The thing that’s got me thinking about this election more than any previous one is the multiple predictions of “a hung parliament“. A hung Parliament is when no party wins a overall majority, meaning if every other MP voted against them, they would loose any vote and as such be powerless. A lot of people appear to to believe this will be a good thing, they seem to think that with no majority all the parties will hold hands and work together to make the world a better place.
Personally I disagree. I think that the two main parties will never agree on anything and always vote against each other, which will basically counter each other out. Leaving the deciding votes to the smaller parties. Which means parties like the BNP or such have final say on government policies. I’m sorry but I do not believe that the lives of the many should be ruled by the views of the minority.
For this reason I am not voting for a party. I’m voting for a “not hung parliament”
I think we should all throw aside our political views, lets all pick a party and vote for them to make sure someone wins. Now I have no particular favourite. I always voted “Monster Raving Loony Party” until they stopped having a candidate in my area when I switched to one of the Welsh party’s. So from a pure logical point of view, I would like to suggest we all vote Conservatives. Before you Labour people get upset, give me a minute to explain my reasoning.
The country is in a bit of a mess at the minute. To quote some popular media, “its broken Britain”. and as such we need it fixing. Labour have been in power now for 13 years. I’m not saying that the state of the country is their fault, but, If you saw a old established company going bankrupt would you blame the old owners for the collapse of the company, or the people who have been running it for the last thirteen years?
Change is always good. So maybe the Conservatives are no better than Labour. They are however change. They would be different, they could make the decisions that go against Labours core values. It can only make us stronger. Also if you look at how the Labour Party has been fighting off scandal, and bad press over the last few years, a break from power can only do them the power of good. It will give them a chance to lick their wounds, take stock of the country and their policies and come back fighting at the next election.
So both parties gain, the country can only gain, and more importantly we prevent fringe parties getting control of the country. There are no long term disadvantages to this plan. Please people, for the sake of our once great nation, place an X on your ballot paper for “No Hung Parliament”
No matter your views, for the greater good vote Conservatives.
When Development Goes MAD
It started off as just another day in the Asylum.
Well not just any old day, but a Friday. The countdown to the weekend had been started. The coffee brewed. and all was well!
Then IT happened.
And not a cool interesting intergalactic space spider who likes to disguise herself as a friendly clown called Pennywise. No not a good IT at all.
He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
No this IT was getting called into a phone meeting, something that to date has tended to go the same way every time. I go into the meeting, i sit about for an hour listening to the marketing guys discuss what name to give things, then I have a ten minute contribution about the development, then another hour of pointless marketing drivel. (I think I fell asleep at one point in the last meeting I went to).
This was luckily just a 15 minute quick meeting to discuss what is the next area of development to concentrate on. You see the site in question is getting a major overhaul and is currently in a situation where the development site can be made live. There is just some final testing going on. This testing will be finished today, so the site will be live by Monday.
Yet in the meeting, the Governor decided that we needed a development site for the development site. So that while the development site is being tested to go live, a development version of the development site can be worked on. Now, should any bugs be found in the development site they would have to be fixed there and the fix duplicated to the development, development site. while new work is done there. We now have three versions of a site, all for the sake of waiting a day.
I don’t know if any of you can see the sense in that, I know I can’t.
Ah well on with the multiple dev site creating.
Sisyphean Roadworks
On my way home last night I saw something that made me do a double take, and was such a bizarre concept that I felt I had to share it with you.
Part of my daily commute currently passes “Mobile Repairs“. And No before you ask, that does not mean they repair mobile phone. I stopped and asked, and the captain threw a hammer at my head.
Basically they are working their way along the road repairing the millions of potholes that are currently infecting the UK’s road system. To keep themselves safe while working that have temporary traffic lights and cones set up. (Health and Safety and all that).
So as I was driving home last night I happened to catch the strange creatures that actually set up and move these lights and cones. Now you are probably wondering how does Health & Safety cover the removal of Temporary lights and traffic cones on a busy road?
Well that’s simple, They had put up Temporary Lights slightly further out from the temporary lights to keep them safe as they packed away the first lot of lights. So the question is, do they then have to put up more Temporary Lights to be able to remove the Temporary Lights they places to be able to remove the Original Lights? Also. if they keep placing the new lights slightly forward of the old lights will the eventually be so far apart they cover a whole country?
Who said Romance Was Dead?
You cant beat a “good ole family barn raising“.
Well, technically there were no barn’s raised, or any barns at all really. And the closet thing to an Amish was a tall blond in skin-tight jodhpurs who walked past at one point. (What is it about boots & Tight Jodhpurs? Sorry Iwas distracted there…).
The other weekend there were three generations of my family doing some work at my parents place. (Gen1) My Father, (Gen2) Me, and (Gen3) two of my Nephews. We were rebuilding some wooden parts of the garden that have started to rot from old age (haven’t we all), and repaint the wooden fences, etc.. (This is Just Scene Setting).
While we were having a much needed ten minute Coffee break, Nephew #1 was talking about a row of houses near where he lives that have all got a government grant to do work on the houses, apart from the end house in the terrace who’s door is on the other road so have missed out. It got mentioned that the grants been going round for ages now (Slowly as all Government stuff tend to do) and that My Grandfather had it for his place, he had the whole place gutted and rebuilt with the grant paying 70% of costs.
This led to the story of the rebuild. Which is such a touching story of Love & Romance that I thought I’d share it with you Dear Reader.
My Grandparents house then was built over an old mine shaft, meaning you could not get a mortgage on the building, and it was a bit unstable. This did mean they were able to buy it for very little money. So when they had the option of a 70% Government grant for building work, My Grandfather jumped at the chance.
After discussions with the builders it was decided to strip building, fill the mine shaft with a concrete plug & cap, rewire the house, re-plumb, Install new central heating, re-plaster, the works. This would involve the floors Upstairs, and down being removed, the walls stripped of existing plaster, and the electric/water being off. Basically the house would be unsuitable to live in for roughly a month.
Now my Grandfather being a practical man, he decided that was no problem. They would simply move into the garage for the month.
I should point out here, the garage was a large building, Brick walls on three sides. The roof was Tin sheeting, and the front wall was a full length wooden door, which only partially fitted with huge gaps. So all in all, a draughty cold room.
To make it more liveable he put the carpets from the house down on the concrete floor, he put a bed, sofa and TV in there along with a kettle and cooker. Now, my Grandmother was not a plan of this idea. She was not living in a cold, spider infested garage. She wanted to go on holiday while the work was being done, or at least stay in a B&B or Hotel. So my Grandfather sat her down and explained that they could not go on holiday as someone needed to stay and keep an eye on the builders. Also if the builders saw “an old woman” living in such a bad place they would work harder and get the job done. He also pointed out that they had a daughter living next door, so they had access to a bath, toilet, and such. After much discussion she finally decided to do what he suggested. So she helped him make the garage more homely and comfortable. After all, they had lived through the War, what was a few weeks of discomfort, as long as they were together.
Two days before the builders were due to start, my Grandmother walked into her bedroom to check everything had been put away. There she saw my Grandfather packing a suitcase with some clothes. Confused she asked him what he was doing. “Didn’t I remind you? I’m off to Australia for a month tour with the choir. Its been booked for over a year.“
He’d never had any intention of living in the garage himself. He had made it as comfortable as he could for his wife of many many years, he was just not staying in it himself…
Who says chivalry is dead.
I should point out before anyone gets upset about my Grandmother. That after a very long monologue of mostly bad words that would even make a sailor blush, my grandfather was forced able to get a second plane ticket, and upgrade his hotel room to a double, so my Grandmother could go on holiday with him.
I Love the smell of Estrogen In the Morning!
WOW.
Its all I can say, WOW.
I am experiencing a mixture of 60% Shock and 40% Anger, With a small sprinkling of Homicidal Tendencies on top.
I’d not seen the Governor all day in the Asylum. I’d heard slight grumblings coming from down the corridor but that was it. You see one of the Support Drones has not been doing his job fully, and it had been spotted while he was on holiday for a week. And everyone else had run around sorting it all out (Without anything really being said to the drone.) Hence Grumblings.
Towards the end of the day, The Governor storms into my Cell screaming “Where’s this website!” “I’ve given you a long rain of time for it, I need it now“. Most people would have opened with a hello, or the question asked in a normal voice, not at full rage decibels.
Now, I’ve not worked on a major web project since I left the Development department three years ago, So I’m rusty. I should also point out that the website needing the overhaul was written by someone learning PHP badly at the time. Each page needs about 25 separate files of code to work, and DIV tags are spread over several files. Its a mess, and the work being done must not change the look and feel of site. Oh, and after the site was finished it had a lot of work done to it by another person with limited PHP knowledge. I digress.
So I’m rusty, it’s not an easy site, still it’s not impossible to do. Apart from the fact that I get disturbed a dozen times a day on average to help the Support Drones with problems with the ISP part of the company, or The Windows server admin wanting help with something, Or the Linux admin is working on something and wants some scripts altering to help him out, or improve something. Or the development department is bust so needs help, Or customers need help, Or the Governor needs stuff looking up or doing.
After each interruption I have lost my place on the project, and cant remember what I was doing, So I have to delete the stuff I was typing and start again. This week for example I managed about four hours of usable work on this Project.
This on top of the slight Depression I feel by not actually having a defined role in the Asylum. The Linux SysAdmin looks after the Linux Servers (There’s a lot of them), ICT Engineer only does ICT work, Developer only does development, Support guys only do support. I do, Support, Development, windows sysadmin, linux sysadmin backup work, internal development, bt development, question answering/help for all other departments, out of hours emergency support when linux sysadmin unreachable, I cover every department when they have staff people on holiday.
And they wonder a web project takes a bit longer to do than a dedicated web developer would take?
I can never finish any project, I start one, get a week working on it if i am very very lucky, then I’m given another project, and another.
I really feel like I will snap at any point. And being screamed at as the opening question of “is the website finished yet” really does not help.
I will admit that after that incident I may have vented slightly. I posted a Tweet on my Private, None Work based, None Linked to Work Twitter account thus :-
Given a web project, constantly pulled off to do other urgent jobs and get screamed at asking why web project not finished.
Only The Governor follows my Twitter account, So I get another ballistic explosion, of how he’s under pressure and how do i think it makes him feel to see a posting like that? err. probably no where near as bad as being the person screamed at for no reason? And I can remove that tweet or get sacked.
So I have decided to separate my personal “Social Networking” with my Current Employment. Since I feel I should be allowed to vent whatever I want on line as long as no names, or company names are mentioned. It’s a hell of a lot healthier for everyone for anonymous on line venting, than holding the anger in, snapping, and going on a psychopathic killing spree in the office with a philips headed screwdriver.
Technology 1:Old Skool 0
Last night was LOI. And it was a good evening, well OK. It was a good evening apart from a case of “Too many cooks spoil the broth!” which I may talk about in a different post. Someone remind me about it.
Just before the end of the evening (We were doing a 1st) during the bit where the W.M. gives the Candidate the normal documents, one of the P.M.’s who is a Mentor at one of the Lodges who make up the LOI stands up to inform us of recent changes, that require “NEW & IMPROVED” words to be added there. He opens his magical book that no one else has to show the words, and suggests that everyone write them down for further use.
So at the close of the evening there were roughly thirteen people trying to make a note of a couple of pages of writing. The only problem was, no one was prepared. So between them they were able to find a semi-functioning pen, and a small piece of torn paper they found under a bench (Approx. one inch square). In other words they were stuck.
At this point I wonder over to where they are gathered, unlock my iPhone, load the PDFscanner app and quickly scan the two pages of text. Convert them into a PDF document, and email it to several people who’s email addresses I have on me.
You know. Sometimes Technology just Rocks!