Blog Posts:
Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
Time Waits for No Man. But What if he doesn’t turn up?
The Masonic Season starts again this month, And last night I was dutifully at Rehearsals. Well it was needed as everyone moved up a rung on the ladder at the last meeting, and this is the first ceremony we will do in our new positions.
So We all start turning up at the Lodge at 7pm, greet each other and start chatting in little groups while we are waiting.
TIME PASSES
The groups slowly move about as people move to greet and chat with others, catching up with people not seen since the end of last years season.
TIME PASSES
At this point I’m chatting to the Candidate, who has turned up for the start of rehearsal before leaving when we do the bits he can’t yet see. At some point he asks me how long the rehearsal will go on for, as he has to go back to work afterwards. I point out that he can only stay for the start and then he gets to go. So it wont be long after we start.
TIME PASSES
So we’re discussing the age old discussion Linux/Windows/Mac. When he asks what time do we start. I point out we’re just waiting on people then we’ll start. It was only when he asked me who we were waiting for that I realised we were all actually there. It was just no one had noticed, or suggested we start.
I saw the Devil ice-skating to work
I have been thinking, and am a bit confused.
R: “A Bit?“
W: “OK. I’m often confused. I just figured I’d type out my confusion and at the same time send out a call to arms!.”
For the last several years you would have to have been living as a hermit is a small cave on some hidden mountain peak not to have heard about “Global Warming“.
To be fair, when the Doom & Gloom brigade first started they rumblings that we were killing the planet, and that gia would not stand for it, and a war between nature and progress would be the end of us…. “Ooops. My bad! That’s the plot of Avatar. But you get the idea.”
At the time we were having Lovely heat waves, Hottest summers since records begun, sweltering heat, warm winters, snow was a thing of the past. So It did look like this “Global Warming” may be real. So the “Experts” said we were killing the planet, the ice caps were melting in the heat, Sea levels would rise, there would be new floods and carnage.
In fear people jumped on the bandwagon, we had terms like “Carbon Footprint”, we changed the way we live, we turned lights off, or used energy saving ones. We drove less, we quit using cfc’s and aerosols. We did what the experts said. And yet they demand more. There was recently a global meeting of world leaders to talk about how we could cut down our emissions even more.
Now this is what confuses me. We cut down our emissions, and since then we have not had a summer longer than 4 days of sunny weather, we’ve had no heat waves. What we have had is the longest cold spells since records begun. We’ve had more snow in the last year then the decade before it. For the last three months we’ve had permafrost in Wales.
If we cut down our emissions any more we’re on the edge of creating a new ice age. Now I don’t know about you guys. But given the choice of “Global Warming” or “Global Freezing” I choose the option that leads to warm days, cold beers, scantily clad women!
So forget what the so called experts say. What do they know, “Global warming does not equal longest cold spell ever!” So I say, screw them. Lets drive our cars when we don’t really need to, Hell leave the engine running for ten minutes before getting into the car to warm it up. Leave all your lights on 24/7.
Lets have tree cutting days to counter the tree planting ones. Lets wipe out whole forests. Lets burn Hippies! that has got to give off some good carbon emissions!
I am asking you dear Reader, Do what you can to help fight off the Ice Age that’s coming. Remember, A real Ice age is not funny like in the kids films, its not big and its not clever!
Somebody Shoot Busby
I wonder if there is any of the old “Busby” Puppets/Models/Anything still around I could get my hands on, and then film its destruction by the use of Thermite. I think something along those lines defiantly needs doing, as the Fat Yellow BarSteward is currently the bane of my life. To put it simply “I HATE PHONE SYSTEMS“. I along with the majority of work colleges Past and Present blame the Phone Systems for all the problems the Insane Asylum has had over the last 4 or 5 years.
Let me mention a few of the current reasons that I wish to rain down thermite on a marketing logo, or the telecommunications industry, or the next person to mention phones.
*Directory Enquiries
Now this was a Project I finished, its all written and finalised. There is just one thing, BT’s security demands a user entered none automated file upload. And since the Asylum paid for my access to the BT system, It means I have to do the manual uploads. This involves changing IP addresses, checking huge thousand line text files for any bad words (it goes up in my name so checks needed) then connecting to their system, uploading a file, then several times over the following weeks doing it all again to download results. Now we currently do it every few months so its not too bad. Only I overheard Governor talking yesterday, he’s pushing it to go for weekly uploads, or better yet daily!. I’m supposed to be SysAd/SysDev not a fraking Data Input Drone.
*WLR3
Apparently BT are phasing out WLR2 and replacing it with WLR3. WLR2 will no longer exist after March 2011. I know, terrifying isn’t it? “what do you mean you have no idea what WLR2/3 is?” Well to be honest, I have no clue what it is either, Never heard of it, used it, etc. Yet, I have been given the task of developing a software integration from our system to theirs to handle all the WLR3 stuff. Now, all the info I have so far is a Phone conference call I was on, Where basically they just told us we have to do it soon, and suggested we purchase a pre-made system. To be fair they laughed when the Governor said we would be developing our own. They pointed out that some other companies have tried, and they may have Great Dev departments, but its too complex, and too many phone things only people in industry know for any team to develop in time frame. TEAM?? The Governor wants me to do it on my own. And on top of my normal workload, and covering everyone else in the Asylum!!!!
*WebSite Redesign
We have a website for a sister company, trading name kinda thing for our phone products. It was written by a partner company (who since went bust) and is the worst pile of junk you could imagine. Say you need a website, give the programming job to an artist who knows no code. give him a php book, and tell him the more functions and pointless stuff you add, the better the site is. Its shite. it needs deleting and starting from new. Well they decided to re-write it using the existing code, and Guess who gets to rebuild the site? You got it, me, on top of the impossible WLR3 project, and on top of normal workload. Oh, but lets have a quick dev meeting first to discuss what we having on there. Only that turned out to be a two and a half hour marketing meeting, where they discussed costs, pricing, and what terms the sales person should use when selling things that had nothing to do with the website in question.
At this meeting I learnt Apple lies, there is not an app for everything. I searched their store, and there are no apps that allow you to use an iphone to rip out your own heart.
Purple haze all in my brain, Lately things just don’t seem the same
It’s a really small world you know. Even without the Interweb making it smaller and smaller every year. It used to be said that the “Human Web” covering the world meant that any person on the planet is at most just “Six degrees of Separation” from any other person on the planet. This was in the early part of the 20th century. These days with the advent of the Interwebs and Social Networking, I believe that number is a lot smaller.
Q: “Why are you muttering about this 6 degrees rubbish?“
A: “Hang on. Give me a minute, I’m getting to the point now. Sheesh! Everyone’s a critic!“
Yesterday I was talking to my Niece (She’s about 12) and she was telling me about one of her mothers cool friends. Someone my Sister met a few years ago while she was running a pub in Wrexham, and became great friends with. So my Niece is telling me some story and says “you don’t know *GirlsName* but she’s great” When she mentioned the Girls name I blinked, “*GirlsName*? Oh I know her, I’ve known her for many years!” Which made my Niece protest, there was no way I could have known this girl for years, since her mother has only known her for about 2 years. So I told her a story from my past that she could use to prove I knew the Girl.
Since it brought back happy memories of days gone by, I thought I’d share it here.
It was many many years ago. (Something like 1999/2000, I forget exactly) and I was out on a pub crawl that started in Oswestry and ended up in Wrexham. There was three of us on the Pub Crawl, Myself, Ax & Kooper. We ended up in the “Kings Head”, where we bumped into *GirlsName* and her friend, and had a drink with them. When we got kicked out for making a mess.
I should stop my narration for a moment to point out something to those of you who were unlucky, and never got to drink in the “Kings”. Now this pub was a Dive. You know those pub’s where parents warn their daughters not to drink in? This one they warned their sons away from. The plaster was falling off the walls, the seats were ripped and broken, everything was covered with layers of old cigarette smoke. And as for the carpets? A girlfriend of mine once kneeled on the floor to pick something up, and got severe ammonia burns on her knee/leg. This place was that bad. On the plus side, it had loads of pool tables guaranteeing you always got a game, the beer was cheep and it only played rock music. I mention this so you can understand the shame I felt for being kicked out “For making a mess”. Now back to the story.
In all the mess of the pub, they had one object of pride and joy. A pool table with purple felt and balls that glowed under the overhead black lights. Now this evening no one was playing on this table, I was sitting on the end of it drink in hand, and *GirlsName* was sat next to me, and we were harmlessly flirting. (A bit tactless of me as two X’s were sat on a table in front of us).
The rest of our group were stood about, when one of the Barstaff noticed someone had spilt their Pint all over the table. We of course all denied anything to do with it, and we would have got away with it as well, only Ax decided to speed up the proof we were innocent by standing in front of the BarStaff and holding up his empty hands said “It cant be us, look I don’t even have a drink!” Which only helped condemn us. Empty pint glass on table, beer everywhere, and a empty handed person standing next to it. I would not mind but that night he was our designated driver, and not drinking.
So we were kicked out. *GirlsName*’s friend said they really had to leave as *GirlsName* had work early in the morning. So being the Gentlemen we were, We offered to walk them to the Bus station. Which went well at the start. Alas I have a really small boredom threshold. So when we started walking past a road that led to my Second Favourite pub at the time, I grabbed *GirsName* threw her over my shoulder and ran off with her to the Pub to continue drinking. This action caused her friend to go mad, lots of raised voices, and a deal that we all have another drink, and our designated driver would give them a lift home, so all would be fine.
I’ll end the story there, Since the main two facts. 1)Getting kicked out of the Kings, and 2) Being thrown over my shoulder and kidnapped to a pub, should have been enough to prove to my niece that I’ve known *GirlsName* for many years.
Notes:
Today’s Post Title is from the classic “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. And was the first Song with Purple in its title that I thought off. The colour Purple plays an important part in all my memories of the aforementioned girl.
*GirlsName* is used because I do not like using Peoples IRL Names without first checking its OK with them.
So, what’s the fox urine for?
Snow… Snow… Snow… All I can see is snow. The worlds covered in a thick blanket of fluffy white snow almost a foot deep. Now this was a beautiful and wondrous thing for the first few days, but now? After over a week of being trapped indoors, unable to go out, its getting a bit annoying.
You see, I live in the middle of the countryside, And even though I drive a four wheel drive vehicle, the snows been too bad to even get out of my parking place onto my drive, let alone up my steep drive onto the road (Which is never ploughed or gritted) So I’m trapped. I could walk to the nearest Village about a mile away, only with the deep snow, and freezing cold I’m saving that for emergencies like running out of coffee.
I should take a moment here to explain this posts title. Not everyone is a Major Film Geek (I know I’m not) and may not pick up on subtle reference’s. The Title is a quote from the movie “Cabin Fever“
The only human interaction I am getting is over IM/Twitter/Etc. And I’m beginning to worry I may be getting this thing I’ve heard off called Cabin Fever. (Damn, why have i not yet watched that episode of Mythbusters?). OK. No worries, Quick to the GOOGLE!!!!!
Cabin fever is an idiomatic term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in, in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period (as in a simple country vacation cottage during a long rain or snow). Symptoms include restlessness, irritability, forgetfulness, laughter, and excessive sleeping, distrust of anyone they are with, and an urge to go outside even in the (less miserable) rain, snow or dark.
OK, so Cabin Fever can be got by being snowed into a cottage, so I have the environment for getting it. Right Lets check the symptoms.
restlessness, irritability, forgetfulness, laughter, and excessive sleeping, distrust of anyone they are with, and an urge to go outside even in the (less miserable) rain, snow or dark.
“Nope, Don’t think I have any of those symptoms yet. Do you?” I asked the Evil looking Goth Gnome that’s sitting next to my keyboard. He just shrugged, he’s not very helpful.
“Well I’ve not really been sleeping much, never do. and the rest of them don’t sound like me… Hummmmmm. OK. I have been playing with a knife and the end of my desk now has lots of small holes in it from where i was stabbing it.” This is probably why the Gnome didn’t say anything, It’s best not to upset the possibly deranged bloke playing with a razor sharp knife.
No. I don’t think I have Cabin Fever.
Well I’ve since dismantled the knife to see if i can re-design it into a faster drawing setup. The Gnomes taken to muttering to himself, I think He’s loosing it being snowbound. I need to keep an eye on him, I cant trust he’s not up to something.
So I’m just popping out for a minute, I may be some time………….
The Year That Was – 2009
Its that time of year again.
Where I look back over the previous year and answer the same 40 questions.
1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
OK, New things :-
- “Tweet” I finally joined Twitter in 2009.
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I cant remember what I picked for resolutions last year, so am not sure if I stuck to them. I will stick to this years.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I think so, I remember the females of the family all muttering about babies, and getting cards, so someone had a kid.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope. (I’ll take better aim next time).
5. What countries did you visit?
England/Wales :0)
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A defined Job Role, A Long Term Relationship, Enthusiasm.
7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
- 5th November – My Dad going into the Chair of Solomon.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Not hurting a particular member of staff.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Wanting to hurt a particular member of staff.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Some weird Red-eye that kept coming back. Was very weird. and made me allergic to sunlight.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
iPhone although technically that was at the very end of 2008.
Future me will not be very happy about this entry.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
- My Niece for winning 4th place at a karate competition after just one month of training, and getting 1st place out of a UK wide competition a few months later. Well done G.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Tim, For his pettiness like getting every member of staff a bottle of wine for Christmas bar the two sys.admins.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Petrol (Commuting), Xbox Games.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
errrrr? finally getting a chair & gavel.
Those that know, understand. I’m in the South!
16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Anything off the Friday playlist.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
- a) happier or sadder? Same
- b) thinner or fatter? Same
- c) richer or poorer? Same
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Socialising.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? .
Being run down/unmotivated.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent in with family, mostly playing Special Ops on COD MW2 with my nephews.
21. What was your favourite month of 2009?
December (Lots of time off work)
22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
None!
23. How many one-night stands?
One night stands? None (I’m a gentleman!).
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
Way too many to mention, As well as all the excellent ongoing TV shows, There was the new finds of :-
- Dollhouse.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No Not really, possibly Just a bit more that last year.
26. What was the best book you read?
This is always a very hard question.
-
Dan Browns – The Lost Symbol.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Jonathan Coulton.
28. What did you want and get?
-
Nintendo DS.
29. What did you want and not get?
-
Pay Rise :0)
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
-
Avatar 3D.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Same thing I do every day. plan to take over the world. err 30 something, I’ve lost track.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Finding True Love? Finding a Job Description? Finding one million pounds!
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Scruffy, Ripped jeans & Sweatshirt.
Oh and suits, because suits are awesome…… True story
34. What kept you sane?
SANE? Me? I don’t think that word means what you think it does?
I suppose this blog helped prevent me going more insane.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Eliza Dushku – Echo in Dollhouse/Faith in Buffy.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
None, I don’t do politics.
37. Who did you miss?
Old Friends.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
OnLine – Wil Wheaton.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009?.
Don’t let the bastards grind you down!!
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
As tonight becomes tomorrow,
All joy will turn to sorrow
The Universe Hates me
I am on holiday this week. A full week away from the Insane Asylum, work, customers or as I like to call them “The Bane of My Life“. So far I’m still full of the festive cheer, festive beer, and festive treats. I have been working my way through the DVD’s I got for Xmas, There is a nice layer of snow over everything making the world look a peaceful place. There is only one thorn in my festive happiness…… CUSTOMERS!
Monday the Governor of the Asylum threw a support ticket at my email marked urgent. It was from a customers developer. They had asked for a new hosting area with Joomla installed on it, and it was done on the last working day of the year (last job before we finished for the day)
Monday:
HI. You set up a Joomla hosting for us, and you set it up wrong. I can not get it to upload modules, I’ve checked the permissions via FTP and they are wrong. I need this installed correctly, fix the permissions and test it!
Hello? We installed it wrong? Have you ever installed Joomla? You ftp the files to your hosting, go to a webpage, answer a few basic questions and its installed! Idiot!. Ok, so he has a permission problem, so he’s decided to use the web server to upload the files instead of putting his FTP details into Joomla’s config to let Joomla handle it. OK. Now. the guy knows enough to check permissions with FTP. So why does he not change them with FTP to fix his problem? Its a rush job, we’re on holiday, be quicker to do it himself. Anyway, permissions changed, idiot informed it quicker to change them himself.
Tuesday:
Hi. Our developer is being a hero and working over his holiday to get our new website developed, He has a problem with you installing Joomla wrong, can you fix this urgently!
OK. Now I am mad. Firstly: -Your developer may be working over his holidays, That does not mean everyone else should be working over theirs. Secondly:- The Install was not done incorrectly, Your developer does not seem to have a clue. Thirdly:- I spoke to your developer yesterday, If he’s not informed you thats his problem not mine!
Do you get the feeling I’m not a people person?
Wednesday:
Hi. I changed the permissions on the folder and it still will not let me upload files. Can we restart and install Joomla correctly!
OK, maybe he has a point. Lets look. ok, he lists the directory he having trouble uploading into, he says he set permissions to 777. Oh, thats odd, permissions have not been changed. oh look, theres a directory of the same name one branch down, and that has 777 permissions, The idiots only changed the wrong directory. I would not mind but he sent me the path to the correct one, why couldn’t he have followed his own instructions.
If I get another set of emails from him, I may just stop being polite.
The Unofficial Insane Asylum End-of-Year Event
Well last night the SysAdmins of the Insane Asylum had the closest thing to an Office Party/Do/Event for the celebration of the Winter shutdown that the Insane Asylum will be having this year.
The DemonPenguin and Myself went from the office to see Avater 3D. Well what do you expect SysAdmin to do to celebrate? other than go, drink beer, and watch a new release Sci-Fi movie in glorious 3D.
So we shot from the Asylum (located in the welsh wilderness) to the cinema (located in England). There was a slight Miss-hap as my mind went to sleep and the autopilot drive ended up taking me to an x-colleagues house, luckily I woke up in time to get to the cinema with only the slightest detour.
First up was food, Steak & Chips washed down with chilled beer. And by great timing we got to leave not long after the place was invaded by a swarm of small people (Children not Midgets). Then on to the movie.
NOTE: Just thought I’d share this as its confusing me. According to the inbuilt spell check on this blog the word movie is being shown as spelt wrong.
On to the movie. I have to say Avatar is amazing, it is a movie all should watch, and if you are going to watch it you need to do it in 3d. I wont review the film, since I do not want to ruin it for anyone. All I will say is two things, 1) you really really need to go see this film. 2)Why don’t people learn the lessons from Jedi? No matter how heavily armed you are with advanced technology, a bunch of ewoks armed with sticks can defeat you!
This is a lesson anyone who wants to destroy America should pay attention to. Ignore bombs, soldiers, just ship in crates of monkeys armed with sticks and watch America drop to its knees.
Weird Emails – Name a Fish after Me?
Greetings dear reader.
If you’ve been reading my ramblings since the beginning (i.e. LiveJournal) Or you need severe Medical Mental Attention (Or are a stalker) and have spent time reading This blog since the beginning. You will know that from time to time I will post one of the weird and wonderful emails I get from people sitting “The Insanity Test!”
One day I intend to collect the weirdest, the funniest, and the ones from military people at the front lines (doing the test while under fire) or the people from the whitehouse/congress/parliament, and put them all into a book format and try and get it published. (Or blackmail said people in the whitehouse/congress/parliament)
Anyway.. Here’s one from today.
Subject: Merry time of year when christians say christmas
Indeed this is a joyous time of year when often people will dress in red fluffy suits
and give out things of a free nature!!!Indeed these are Auspicious days
I plan to secure an aquarium and capture a crayfish of the genus Astacopisis to live in it
probably Astacopisis franklinii but if I discover a new species that’s good too!!!that is part of the reason why I am writing to you now my love if I do discover a new species
I want you to help me come up with it’s common name!!!what an Honor for you!!!
*hug*
awaiting your reply with held breath
BLANKED (I cant hold my breath for I am a computer)
BLANKED (hurry for soon I run out of puff)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The persons name, and that of their computer were BLANKED for legal reasons.
Push the button….
My finger is on the button
My finger is on the button
My finger is on the button
Push the button
The time has come to… Galvanize
Galvanize By The Chemical Brothers…
Sunday night I went to the cinema with friends to watch “The Box“. I wanted to see Avatar 3D, unfortunately you have to wait for films to be released before you can watch them. Who knew!…. In case you are not familiar with the film “The Box” here’s the plot summery from IMDB :-
Norma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a gift, which bears fatal and irrevocable consequences. A mysterious stranger, delivers the message that the box promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button. But, pressing this button will simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world; someone they don’t know. With just 24 hours to have the box in their possession, Norma and Arthur find themselves in the cross-hairs of a startling moral dilemma and must face the true nature of their humanity.
So. Someone gives you a box with a button. If you press the button you will get $1million (say £500,000) But someone somewhere will die. Would you press the button?
“Well would you?”
Turns out, everyone in the group I was with would not press the button, Neither would the selection of people I have asked over IM, or IRL. In fact so far I am the only person who has admitted to the fact that I would press the button with no second thoughts.
I am now worrying I may have slight sociopathic tendencies.