Archive: 2003-01
A Salesman Calls
It’s not too common an occurrence, thanks to the fact that you have to climb two flights of stairs to get here, and the place I live isn’t populated by the right demographic group for selling crap to (unsuspecting older people are generally the target). However, tonight I was visited by a salesman.
Tales From The Ghetto
I’m writing this on my handheld to upload later. The on-screen keyboard is a little tedious but tolerable. It’s fascinating to see the effect of the cold weather on the LCD screen—it slows right down and becomes really pale.
Busy Life
In truth, I have nothing particularly new to report. I’ve been working, which takes up a fairly large amount of time, but an even larger amount of energy. As a result, I have spent a lot of my leisure time sleeping, watching films, and reading. In other words, activities that don’t tax my brain any further.
About My New Job
As I mentioned before, I’m spending eight weeks or so teaching English in elementary schools. I’ve just finished my first week, so what is it like?
Crazy
I think that I have just read one of the most irritatingly stupid things ever:
Rock Stars - A Menace To Society?
What the hell is it with these rock star types and child porn? First Gary (no, we don’t want to be in your gang thank you very much) Glitter, then Jonathan King, and now it’s Pete Townshend. In the interests of fair reporting, I’d like to make clear that Kenneth George King (his real name) and Paul Gadd (Glitter’s real name) are convicted criminals, whereas Mr Townshend has simply admitted paying for access to a child porn site. Interestingly, in the Who’s rock musical Tommy, there is an uncle who “fiddles about” (that link goes to the lyrics, by the way, in case you were worried about clicking it!) with his nephew. Maybe we should have taken more notice, in retrospect.
Nice, But No Monkeys
If you’ve never been to Japan, you might not be able to appreciate just how desolate the urban sprawl is. Hardly any houses have gardens, and the parks and playing fields are surfaced with sand instead of grass. The cats don’t even have anywhere to bury their droppings, with predictable results.
Write To The Government
Instructions For Using Sticky Labels
Who would have thought that some round coloured sticky labels could be so complicated? Evidently the Japanese do.
Two Weeks Good, Four Weeks Baaad
I’m talking about vacations. Although I’d usually tell you that I’d much rather be idle than working, sometimes I’m not sure. When it gets to the stage that getting out of the house before 3pm is a genuine struggle, idleness has really set in.
Rewrite
I’ve been talking about rewriting the background code for this site for quite a while, although with a noticeable lack of activity. You may notice that the page generation time is now given at the bottom of each page. I hacked that in a couple of days ago to get some idea of the speed of the code. It seems to be around 40-70ms in most cases, but occasionally takes longer (probably due to load on the server from other websites). That’s not awfully fast, and it’s not surprising, because there are some fairly inefficient routines in the code. In particular, the automatic navigation generator isn’t pretty.
Gun Crime
I used to live in Birmingham, so I know that Aston has a reputation for being unsafe, but the murder of two girls and the non-fatal shooting of two others by gang members has shocked a lot of people. Rightly so.
Real Annoying
Cold
I woke up this morning. That in itself is noteworthy, as I’ve been waking up after midday most days this week. Today, I opened my eyes with a good fifteen minutes of AM to spare, which is something of a minor victory. Having woken up, I instantly regretted it, because although most of my throat felt numb and swollen, the parts that weren’t numb were really painful. I wonder if too much seasonal cheer has weakened my immune system. I hate having a cold. Still, I’d rather have a cold on holiday than when I’m at work and have to talk all day.
Happy New Year
