i hang around with more wordy friends now

Snippet of an MSN messenger conversation with my teenage niece yesterday, (her latest web name is "ђєคгt รђคקє๔ ๒гยเรєร คภ๔ lคtє ภเﻮђt кเรรєร"):


ђєคгt รђคקє๔ ๒гยเรєร คภ๔ lคtє ภเﻮђt кเรรєร says:
i don't hang around with my chavvy friends any more

mister guts says:
Why not?

ђєคгt รђคקє๔ ๒гยเรєร คภ๔ lคtє ภเﻮђt кเรรєร says:
i'm a few syllables above them.

My wings are like a shield of steel

During the tea break in Kandy, I was flicking through the channels on my TV, fully expecting not to find anything interesting. How wrong I was. Who says there's nothing good on daytime TV?

There were documentaries:
When Disaster Strikes - examining the toxic mould phenomenon plaguing the US.
How It's Made - revealing how everyday items are made. This week: Carousel horses.

There were game-shows:
Takeshi's Castle - I'm not quite sure of the rules, and nor is Craig Charles on commentary.
Iron Chef America - I'm not quite sure of the rules but I think it's all about two sweaty teams of chefs preparing dozens of dishes amidst much shouting and high-fiving.
Extreme Dodgeball - I'm not quite sure of the rules but I think it's all about throwing a ball at your opponents amidst much shouting and high-fiving.

There was drama:
Bergerac - Jim intervenes in a dispute between two families.
Hercules - Legendary Journeys - Lots of big hair and bad acting.

And there was Batfink.

Travel advice

I have some advice for drivers who want to drive from West London to South West London. Go via Aldershot. It won't be pretty, but it will save you time.

I drove from Aldershot to Aldershot yesterday, in 3 legs.

1) Aldershot to Northolt (38 miles) took 45 minutes

2) Northolt to Wimbledon (15 miles) took 110 minutes

3) Wimbledon to Aldershot (32 miles) took 45 minutes


People often ask me why I don't own a car. Well I suppose I could pay lots of money for the privilege of sitting in traffic for hours, whilst refraining from reading, drinking, sleeping and crashing into other cars. But I won't bother for now.

Data magicians

Apparently HMRC officials didn't remove sensitive information before they decided to lose a disk full of data because it would have cost too much time and money. Having worked quite a lot with SQL database queries recently, I can fully sympathise.

Typing...

SELECT * FROM BIGDATABASE;

takes far fewer keystrokes than...

SELECT FIELD1, FIELD2, FIELD3 FROM BIGDATABASE;

Doing a Matthew

Went to a TNS leaving do on Friday. The most common question asked of me by ex-colleagues was, "So what are you up to these days, are you doing a Matthew?"

Is that a dance or something?

Should I stay or should I go?

Reasons why Sir Ian Blair shouldn't resign in the wake of the Menezes shooting:

July 15th - no-one died
July 16th - no-one died
July 17th - no-one died
July 18th - no-one died
July 19th - no-one died
July 20th - no-one died
July 21st - no-one died
July 22nd - someone died
July 23rd - no-one died
July 24th - no-one died
July 25th - no-one died
July 26th - no-one died
July 27th - no-one died

....I could go on.

What price the mule?

Apparently we all drink too much alcohol. I've been listening to various suggestions as to how we should tackle this particular demon.

1) Increase tax on alcohol.
Obviously a few extra pence on a pint will stop everyone from drinking

2) Increase the legal drinking age to 23.
Clearly teenagers aren't resourceful enough to find ways to get hold of alcohol

3) Decrease the legal drinking age to 13.
"That will stop it from going underground"

4) Don't let advertisers make alcohol so appealing.
Apparently it's up to advertisers to try not to sell their product

5) Prohibition.
If in doubt, just ban it

But by far the best one..

6) Give everyone vouchers for a certain number of units a week, which they need to display when buying alcohol. Brilliant.

I wonder how transferable these vouchers are, as I'm sure I would make it a personal mission to use up all my family's spare weekly units.

Big up the Peach

There was some English sporting success over the weekend, which seems to have passed most people by. Daryl Peach won the World 9-ball championship in Manila, the first Briton ever to do so.

I look forward to seeing his open-top bus parade when he returns home.

A day in the other office

Last week I spent a day in the traders' office rather than the usual geeks' office. It was no less perplexing, though extremely entertaining. Most conversations were something like the following:

字意字漢字かん字形漢한漢字形字意字じ漢字
意じHahahaha Robbie Keane hahahahaha 形形じ漢字形じ漢字
会象形字か字漢字漢象形한じ形字漢意字じ漢字
意会意字 Muthafaakaah 象形字字かん象字漢じ漢字
字象形漢字한자かじ漢象字字한漢한字象한じ漢象形漢意
字漢形漢한字象象字意Yayaya Spartak Moscow penalty形字漢字
字会意象形字한자んじ漢字字漢字形意字じ漢字
會Aaah shit, lost ten thousand dollaah 意字字字한象じ漢字
意字会字象漢字かじ字形漢한漢한象形한じ字字


[NB The Chinese characters above are intended to represent generic Cantonese chit-chat. Any offence caused by their actual meaning is purely coincidental/serendipitous.]

They don't make cricketers like they used to

Well done to the caption writer on the BBC website ...


"Gatting's new role is wide-reaching"

Vagrant of the day

Without wishing to give the impression that I'm spending all my time carousing with London's homeless community, I've just met an entertaining fellow on Turnham Green. Some of his words of wisdom:

"Today's not yesterday, and yesterday's not today, that's all you need to know"

"So I said to him, excuse me sir, can I marry your daughters."

"I have a short memory. It's good to have a short memory, 'cos that means you never forget"


I think I impressed him - he said to me: "I like you, you're a sarcastic bastard."

Most surprising response ever

Whilst wandering in the West End, I was passing an old sozzled, dishevelled tramp in a doorway. He was approached by a younger but equally sozzled and dishevelled colleague:

"Where's the nearest off licence mate?"
"Dunno mate"

Mind the Gap

So Gap have announced that they will destroy the clothes that were made for them in sweatshops in India. Precisely what does this achieve? Surely it would be more sensible to either donate the clothes to the needy children and their families, or to sell them as normal and then donate the profits accordingly.

I do wonder how many of the people who jumped onto the morality bandwagon, demanding the destruction of the clothes, are the same people who like to jump on the 'we should recycle more' bandwagon.

Incidentally, what is a bandwagon, and why do people like to jump onto it?

Bad day to bury bad news

There's no news today. I've just been listening to a radio phone-in show and these were the main issues:

- People will be discouraged from driving to the 2012 Olympics. No shit.

- Crack cocaine use may be more widespread than official statistics suggest. No shit.

- Supermarkets use too much packaging. Some are worse than others. No shit.

- The announcement of civil service job cuts leads to disgruntlement from staff. No shit.

- If Spurs continue to lose, Martin Jol's job may come under scrutiny. No shit.

- Didier Drogba claims he is happy at the club that pays him large amounts of money. No shit.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Mr Miserable - listen to 'Down the Line' instead.
Fortunately, he hates it when people agree with him.

Another day at the office

Some conversations I've overheard in the office recently. I can't decide whether it's way over my head or way beneath me. It's certainly not on my level.


- "It's all because of the magic white smoke in the CPU"
- "It's blue smoke, you heathen"


- "Is it a chemistry experiment?"
- "It's called a home-brew kit for a reason"
- "Oh"
(3 differing reactions from people in neighbouring offices to our office beer-making attempts)


"Using the arrow keys in vim insert mode is heresy"


"I got 19% in my networking exam"
(from our network administrator)


- "Can you take a look at this CV and give a rating between 0 and 10"
- "e"
- "OK, give me an integer between 0 and 10"
- "You haven't specified the base"
- "Fuck off"


"Oops, the hedge fund I used to work for just lost £80 million"


"I can't sit there, I don't like sunlight"


"What's Physics Dave's name?"


"Jasper's just not a functional or pictorial programmer, but he could be a decent programmer if he didn't hate it so much"


- "Is the number of elementary particles in the universe finite?"
- "Yes"
- "Do you want to bet a Mars bar on that?"

Blind Peter

I met a lovely couple on the bus last night. She was a shouty old hag, he was a blind paedophile. That's what she kept telling anyone who would listen anyway. Which was everyone, whether they liked it or not.

Or maybe she was saying "this is blind Peter File", it's difficult to say really.

Bible fight

www.adultswim.com/games/biblefight/

If you want to be Jesus, you can vent some frustration from that whole "being crucified" thing by smashing your opponents with your old rugged cross.

If you prefer to be Satan though, you can morph into a monstrous three-headed dog and charge across the screen at your enemy.

I found Satan to be more effective. What does that tell you?

Too tense for me

I received the following text message from somebody called "789" recently:

"Starting soon, we thought we'd text you when your Virgin Mobile balance is £2. That way, you'll never get caught short again!"

I may just be wearing my pedant's hat**, but isn't the first sentence just an aimless meander back and forth between tenses? It basically says: "In the future, we did something in the past when something presently happens".

My mobile phone usage has steadily increased over the last couple of years, to the extent that I'm spending more than a pound a month these days. But, if this is how I should be wording my texts, it appears that I have a long way to go before I can truly claim to be part of the mobile phone generation.

**or should that be pedants' hat, I ask in my pedant's voice. Or should that be pedants' voice?

It's a man's game

"Ooh, that nasty Scottish man just tapped me on the chin. I know, I'll run after him and give him what for. Actually no, on second thoughts, I'm a professional footballer so I'll fall over like a big nancy-boy."

103% fruitcake

I've just stumbled upon a random blog by a religious mathematics student. He claims:

"What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer this question:

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

If:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K = 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

And:
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E = 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But:
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E = 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:
L-O-V-E-O-F-G-O-D = 12+15+22+5+15+6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!"

So there you go, proof if proof be need be.
What he fails to mention, however, is that B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T = 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%