Thursday 30 June 2011

My work here is done

Or at least until next Tuesday

Here's an updated photo of my work notepad.

I thought Guardian readers were bright

Here's a comment from an article about public sector pensions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jun/30/politics-live-blog#start-of-comments
eagle12
30 June 2011 9:16AM

The Government wants the teachers to retire when they are 78!!
Would you want your children's teacher's to be 78 yrs of age? It could have an impact on the children don't you think.
Cameron reckons we are all living longer - as long as 90 yrs - God Save and Help Us All From This " RAT INFESTED COALITION GOVERNMENT. "

Idiot!  Just think of the children...

Who said 78?  Surely 68?  Some part of your brain should stop your keyboard typing for two minutes and really have a think about what you're about to rant.  78?  Idiot!  78 sounds shocking and really would be a cause for concern for many people.  Me included.  But then I stopped, thought about eagle's statement and then called him an idiot.  The next most worrying part was the fact that he has recruited 16 more idiots to recommend his comment.  Shockingly stupid.

I'm sure I could write a comment on the Telegraph's reciprocal page about foreigners coming over the UK stealing hard working teacher pensions and get a similar response.  But I can't be arsed.

Even so why are public sector workers getting so upset?  An additional 2 years of work is needed to fund their pensions.  Why should tax payers take up the slack?  They have to pay for their pensions and will see similar increases. 

What a bunch of idiots.

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Waiting for 2nd class mail

My order was posted last Thursday and is yet to arrive.  The cheap company posted it 2nd class.  Looking up on-line it says post should arrive within 3 working days.  So

Friday
Monday
Tuesday

It's now Wednesday, it had better have arrived by the time I get in tonight.  My beer arrived after 2 days!

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Make yourself at home why don't you

Urgh!

Government spin doctor advice:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13932474
Take photos from further away…

Well that was close...

I perhaps went to the gym too soon after giving blood.  40 lengths in and I was nearly sick climbing out of the pool.  That would have been embarising.

Early night for me.

Tau day

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13906169

2 time pi.

Weather's looking better each day

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/2199

I still have very little confidence in BBC's weather predictions however.  I think I may add rain coat and wellys to my previous post.

List of things to bring on a canal boat trip

Beer
Cider
Wine
Cordial
Crisps
Biscuits
Sweets
Bacon
Sausages
Burgers
Meat delivery devices (a joke for Ian there)
Milk
Margarine
Speakers
Torch
Cash
Sun tan lotion (you never know)
'Lame' t-shirt
Pewter mugs
Silver goblets
And your good self.

Moving?

We're booking in to see our first house in Greenwich.  Eek.  I'm due to sort out the estate agent agreements soon so if you fancy a wonderful detached 3 bedroom house in sunny Tonbridge let us know as me may know of a property that matches.

Monday 27 June 2011

Gee whizz it's hot out there

Probably best if you avert your eyes for this post if you don't like needles or blood (or both).

Just given blood, 4 mins 34 secs once the first bit of blood was taken (400 and a bit mls) till me finishing the full donation.  Not bad.

It was so hot on the way back though, even my mint club melted.

Giving Blood

Waiting now, why bother putting in a time of appointment if I've got to wait for 20 mins each time I give blood anyway.                                   




Sunday 26 June 2011

Not many left

There are only 3745 of my car in the UK.

http://howmanyleft.co.uk/?q=mazda+mx5+sport

Top Gear mentioned the website at the start of the their new series and it took until 35 mins through to open up the page. The website host must have loved that hit to their servers.

Saturday 25 June 2011

Testing

Testing a new blogging application as my old one started spamming me.

She'll sleep anywhere.

Biscuit, silly cats,cat,cats
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Busy day

Rugby mate came round at 8 to replace en suite sink and kitchen sink taps, 3 estate agents came round for an hour each and valued our house, then off to the George and Dragon in Speldhust for lunch and then onto the village fete.

The sink and taps look great although speaking to the agents the general consensus was that it was unescessay.  That said what, the agents had to say was very interesting and quite confusing.  We had a price range in the valuations of £75k!  How can it be that different on a relativley low house value?  We'll go somewhere in the middle and will be very pleased if we achieve that price.

First twansfer

BBC Sport - Yeovil Town boss Terry Skiverton hails first 'twansfer'
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Friday 24 June 2011

Just hold out for one week longer

Weather update:  BBC reckons it'll be 32C in London on Monday.  Tuesday is supposed to be light rain and 19C...  Just hold on for one more week.

Big sister

Well that's HR finally moved.  They previously sat right behind my desk at work constantly wittering on about inane bits of gossip.  You'd think they'd have more secrecy. They're moving up to the 6h floor with finance (we're on the first).  We're swapping places with them so hopefully i'll get a half decent seat with no one overlooking my monitor.

The gits however have taken it upon themselves to have the rest of the afternoon down the pub however.  where was our invite?

The Final Countdown!

5 working days left, here's my note pad at work getting used to the max by counting down the work days left till my long weekend away.  In case you're wondering, it's not blood, it's juice from a squashed strawberry. That certainly is an unavoidable hazzard when you get free fruit at work.

A couple of photos from Pappy's

Pappy's flatshare slamdown last Tuesday
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Thursday 23 June 2011

£6.15 a pint

I paid £6.15 for a pint of beer yesterday.  It's not the most expensive pint i've ever bought, that was in a Monaco hotel bar (€12 for 500ml), but it is a sorry state of affairs.

Was the beer nice?  Yes, it was.  Was it worth £6.15?  No, it was not.
http://www.brewdog.com/punk_ipa

We also had two bottles of an Oyster Stout.  A black chocolaty liquid.  That was £5.60 a bottle (500ml).  Per ml it's actually more pricey.  1.12p / ml versus 1.08.

One thing is for sure, if all beer was priced that high I certainly wouldn't go out as much so maybe it's a good thing in disguise.

Wednesday 22 June 2011

A whole new division of stupidity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-13873091

...but looking on the bright side...

... I also won the Euro Millions last night! 

Before you bombard me with begging letters.  I won a grand total of £2.70.

That's a loss of £0.30 as I bought two tickets.

Spare any change mate?

Another car bill

This time road tax.  Another £245 that i'd rather have for myself.  They should tax by miles done.  In the two and a half years we've had the car we've only driven 16,000 miles.

Just tried to do it online and the site is down.  Just tried to call them, firstly the number on the website is incorrect so they forwarded me onto the correct phone number then I get a recorded message saying that the phone system is down too! 

Idiots.  You'd think they want me to pay some tax.  Oh yeah, they do.  Idiots!

Tuesday 21 June 2011

How things have changed

Last week I had a meeting with a very senior guy at work.  In his office was a big pile of A2 graph paper glued to card that he'd found from our archives.  Someone used to have to (1970s) manually draw and colour in bar charts to show our company's performance.  How times have changed.  I guess that would have been one of my jobs.  He, he. 

I wonder what we'll be doing to show company  performance in the next 40 years.  My predictions.  Frickin' lasers!

Will it rain for my canal boat holiday (stag part 1)?

Probably...  BBC weather only takes us till Saturday and it looks like we're due some more rain.  Boo!  We're supposed to be going to the Speldhurst Fete on Saturday so it looks as though we may get a little damp.  http://speldhurst.org/village/events.htm

Anyway, as a little sneak peak into next week's weather and possible up to next weekend and the canal boat trip i've downloaded a live cloud map (kml updated every 10 mins) for google earth.  Here you can see a bunch of cloud that's currently on us and will be for some time.  More worrying is the next clump in the mid-Atlantic.  That could make for a very wet trip.  Boo!

In addition I can see any nasty hurricanes that are building up off the coast of Africa.  Fingers crossed we're in for another quiet year as my bonus largely depends on it.  That said, a lot of the industry would like a good kick in the balls so that they can get a significant rise to their rates in the renewal season.  Sod that, I just want a good bonus.

Biscuit was snoring

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Sunday 19 June 2011

We're seeing this get recorded on Tuesday

Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown - Episode 3: Dinner
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Or to be more accurate we'll see episode 4.

They were warned

Http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-13823427

Not sure I've seen a zombie taking a photo on their mobile before.
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Saturday 18 June 2011

April's present wasn't bad either

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Best present

Just left Sam's birthday party, I think everyone agreed that my present was the best.

A 'talking' Chewbacca.
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Metallicaopolli

Metallica.com/products/monopoly-metallica-edition.asp

No explanation required.
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Spoilt rotten

It was my brother's son Sam's first birthday yesterday so we're all off round his for a birthday party this afternoon.  20 of us going in total, and if everyone's got him the same amount of stuff we have he's going to be a very lucky boy.

Steve better get that new house soon as there won't be enough room to store all the toys otherwise!

Friday 17 June 2011

Aren't the Japanese funny

All the way from Japan. We've got some Japanese visitors in today and they gave us a box full of these. They're supposed to be green tea favoured but tastes like white (green?) chocolate to me.
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Thursday 16 June 2011

Smile

Why do rainbow's make me smile? I'm about to get wet!
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World record suit buying

10 mins. Let's hope the trousers fit... I hate shopping in general, suit buying is no exception. I've been more or less the same size for the past few years, what could possibly go wrong? Find out tomorrow when I attempt to squeeze into it.
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Bombardier also make trains?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13792510

10 days to go

10 work days to go before the canal boat holiday!  Yippee!  Can't wait.  Fingers crossed the weather improves as I could really do without tootling along in the depressing rain.  Saying that all we need is beer, food and the odd truffle shuffle and it will be classed as a success in my book.

Shut up!

There's a guy at work who watches the Apprentice, it's he talks about on Thursday mornings.  Shut up idiot!  Who cares?

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Getting comfortable

Of course my chest is mote comfortable
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Mmm, nothing nicer than a wet cat

Poppet deciding to take a perch on my arm after getting wet in the rain.
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New favourite show

Gold Rush, Discovery Channel. A bunch of first time gold prospectors try to make their fortune by leasing a disused gold mine.

Most of them are idiots and it's funny watching them and their dangerous antics.

What not to watch? B.A.Baracas's new clip show in BBC3. It's your standard semi amusing clip show but this time narrated by B.A and not Jeremy Beadle.
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How pasta became the world's favourite food

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13760559

In response to this BBC article. 

Firstly, who cares?
Secondly. why did Oxfam feel the need to conduct the study?  Haven't they got more important things to help out with?  I'm pretty sure the starving Ethiopian didn't tick the pasta check box when asked his preference.  He ticked sushi.

I hope it's worth it.

Just found out the budget for our new server environment.  It was approaching £500k.


-£250k for the machines
-£150k for the licences (we’re moving to a bigger version of the capital modelling software we use)
-£100k (approx) on consultancy / getting it all set up and connected

I reckon I’d even work on Friday afternoons if instead of forking out £500k on new kit, they’d pass it on to the staff…

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Podcast fatigue

Over the past few months i've been really getting into podcasts. I'm not sure why I never bothered with them before but I do enjoy a good handful at the moment.

I am currently subscribed to about 10 podcasts, most are around an hour long and update once a week. That's a fair load of hours to sit through. Luckily I have 2 hours commuting time each day and up to 4 hours in the gym each week. However it is quite easy to create a quite considerable back log whilst going through some of their back catalogs at the same time.

I'm also aware that since picking up the podcast bug i've also stopped reading. On my recent holiday in Morocco I brought with me about 5 books and didn't pick one up for the whole trip.

Maybe I should cut back...
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43% and rising

I've exercised 43% of days so far over the past 28 days and it's rising.  This time next week it should be above 50%.  Quite pleased but must keep it up and ignore James' requests for lunch.

Cored right up

We’ve just had our new servers opened up to us. We previously had 38 cores between us. We now have an additional 160! Just running my model now with 40 of them. Should be done in 10 mins!  Problem now is that i'll have no excuse for sitting around surfing the net.

But imagine I could install football manager to it. I could have every league running simultaneously. Wow! I could see how the Vietnamese 3rd division league was getting on.

Is this James May?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13751454

Donations are down

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13748004

Come on chaps, blood donations are down 20% in 'young' people. Unless there is something physically wrong with you man up. And I don't want to hear any excuses about having a phobia. It takes 5 minutes and doesn't hurt. In fact, the only excuse is if you are actually gay as they're not allowed to donate.

Are you gay?
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Monday 13 June 2011

That was tough

Just got back from the gym, it was certainly harder than I thought.  I've been going 3-4 times a week recently but that session on Saturday must have taken it out of me.  I'm knackered!  Straight home and another early night I think.

Sunday 12 June 2011

Tired now

The beer festival this year was good fun but I am very tired now.  12 hours drinking is certainly not as fun as it used to be.  It was a good day though.  I think James probably beat me in the end as he matched all of my drinks half pint for half pint but sure he had two stellas at the end to my one.  Fair play, he is twice my size!

Official scores tomorrow morning once i've put the data into my spreadsheet.  Another poor performance from Mr Sorrie.

Welland Valley Beer Festival 2011

Another year, another festival. Well that was fun. Just about recovered now...
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Friday 10 June 2011

Poisoned!

The senior Japanese guys at work are always bring back from head office snacks for us to try.  This was a tin of wheat cracker type things.  Some not bad.  However all is not good, the fact that I am unable to read Japanese I am pretty sure that the squiggles on the left mean best before and the biscuits are (were, we've eaten them all) in fact over 6 months past their best.  We've been poisoned!

Aussie VIPs

Last night's wine tasting was good fun although some of the wine pourers were a bit on the stingey side. We soon congregated around the more generous stalls. Mad Fish being one in particular.


There were also some very important people at the embassy attending a different event, in fact there was the Premier of Western Australia who popped down to say hello and possibly a glass or two of wine…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Barnett

Anyway, after sampling around 25 of the 50 wines available and stuffing myself silly on the canapés we left (they stopped serving wine) we headed back onto the Strand. As we were leaving a tray of discarded name tags was laying on a table near the exit so we had a rummage through to see who else was at the VIP event.


Top of the list was none other than Rolf Harris! We nicked the tag and ran out. He, he!

Argh! Zombies!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-13713798

At least Leicester have it on their radar.

Thursday 9 June 2011

I hope they have Ferrero Rocher

We're off to the Australian Embassy for a wine tasting night tonight.  Should be fun.  The ambassador better have plenty of Ferrero Rocher as I want to be spoilt.

Wednesday 8 June 2011

70p well spent

We went to a friend's birthday meal on Sunday which was good fun.  We went to The Goat in Clapham

http://www.thegoatpub.com/index.html

We'd been before, I think for April's birthday years ago with my brother and his wife.  The food was fine and they had a good selection of beer. I had Red Stripe on tap.  Takes me back to Spot On, the pool bar attached to the Raven in Corby back when I was a kid.  Anyway, we hadn't gotten him a card or a present (I don't think it was expected) but luckily we went to the Tonbridge car boot sale earlier in the morning.

There's the usual crap there plus a few little gems like the odd 1990s CD or a nice potted plant for the garden.  We bought 8 cds to add to our shelf busting collection.  We were coming to the end of the stalls when I spotted a painting out of the corner of my eye.  It was a framed picture of a selection of cheese.  The first thing I thought of was Adrian's birthday present.  Ha, ha.  Now the only issue was price.  A piece of such quality would surely garner a few thousand pounds in any reputable antique store so we didn't want to get our hopes up too high.

"How much for the picture of cheese?"
"Erm... 50p?"
"Okay"

Ha, ha, our new found haggling skills worked yet again.  Last week, on our wedding rings, this week on cheese.  We also found a birthday card minus an envelope for 20p so got that too.

Adrian was pleased with the present.

SC Football Manager extraordinaire

 I was chatting to the guys at work about playing football manager for (+champ man) for roughly 20 years and they didn't believe me about my profile pics on FM.  Here they are, they were previously on my moblog account but thought they should be on here too.

April took the photo of me back in October 2007 when we living in our flat in Clapham.  Ha, ha.

Monday 6 June 2011

Doh! I should stop wishing

I wished the rain away from Tonbridge this week and it looks as though it's worked.  Unfortunately I appear to have wished it over to Corby where i'm due to go to the annual Welland Valley Beer Festival on Saturday.

Oh well, at least it should keep the greasy Corby oiks away.

Queen's birthday

According to my phone it's the Queen's official birthday today. I wonder what she asked for?

Probably an i-pad.
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Oakley schmokley

I've recently had to get the lens replaced on my pair of sunglasses (£50) so decided to order a sunglasses case to protect them.  Looking online I found a few I liked but the coolest case was on Oakley's official webpage so decided to order from them.

2 weeks later with no package delivered I decided to give them a call to find out where they were. 

"I'm sorry sir but they'll be at least another 3-4 weeks"

Bloody hell, if their website was more clear instead of saying dispatched within 2-3 days then I would quite clearly not have bothered and shopped elsewhere.  I've cancelled the order and went elsewhere.

Oakley beware, that's your first strike, you are now on my boycott spreadsheet.

Hold off rain

We're getting some work done on our house this week and for the majority of it it need to be dry.  We're getting a guy in to do the hallway (we have no ladders) and also to fix, treat and paint the outside of our windows.

By the look of it we may be lucky as the next time he's free is in about 6 weeks time.  But I know better than to belive in BBC's weather reports.  It certainly wasn't supposed to rain as much as it did yesterday. 

How worried should we be?

BBC news are doing it again. In response to the e.coli contamination scare in Germany BBC news' Sian Lloyd asked her standard daily mail response.

How worried should we be?

Hmm... 3?

As it turns out unless you're planning on a trip to Germany you've nothing to worry about.

What would would worrying about something actually do anyway? Idiots.

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Sunday 5 June 2011

Sore back

We'd left the gardening for far too long this year and it took the threat of our friends coming over for a bbq for us to finally put in the hard work and do some gardening. 4 solid hours yesterday and now I have a sore back and scratches all over my arms and legs. North it though, looks great.
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Reason why the the royal mail is doomed

Someone is employed at the Tonbridge depot to control an electronic barrier to let cars in and out. Totally unnecessary. I bet management have tried to automate it but the staff threatened to go go strike.
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Friday 3 June 2011

BBBOOORRREEEDDD!!!

ARGH!  I'm so bored!  Work's been pretty dull recently, all we seem to be doing is updating various bits then running models to see what happens.  There must be more to the job than that.  What I need is a project to get my teeth into.

We've got a team meeting to "to sort out priorities and workload for the next 6 months" at 3:30 so maybe it'll all become clear this afternoon.  At least we're getting out at 4:30 today for a team drink.  Whooptie do!

Thursday 2 June 2011

I love Amazon

Needed to update my collection.
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Argh! Bloody trains!

I was running a little late this morning (15 mins) but this was increased to 45 due to some idiot becoming ill on a train in front of hours causing a massive back log at London Bridge.  This made our train driver to decide not to stop their at all which meant I had to get off at Waterloo East and catch the tube to Bank.  Bloody idiots.

Next time if you're ill on a train.  Just get off and and save everyone else the bother.  Selfish idiot.

I guess the real winner is me though.  I missed the first 45 mins of work. He, he.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Leaver

Our first graduate here at work (my team) handed in his notice last Friday (when I was ill).  He's off to join Aon one of the biggest insurance brokers in the world, current sponsors of Manchester United and one of my brother's previous companies.

Great news for him (although everyone I know who's worked there hated it) as he's getting a decent pay rise but rubbish news for us and a company as a whole.  He's been with us for 2 and a half years so we will lose all that experience and time and effort will need to be spent again training someone else to get up to speed.  Apparently we've matched their offer but by the time all this has gone on he obviously wants to leave.

Now we've got a meeting at 3:30 on Friday for an hour to discuss before getting let out early for a team drink at 4:30 to 'hang out'.  Jeez.  Bit late guys.  No wonder we've got one of the worst team retention records in the company.  Top of that list was a lady that didn't quite last till lunch time on her first day, she was sat opposite me though.

Maybe I can get that promotion / pay rise I was after.  Ha, ha, ha!

Idiot

From the BBC Website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13600836

Denise Mitchell, Storrington, West Sussex

I had to take a chance that I wouldn't get the full allocation, so I applied for around £4,000 worth of tickets for 20 events. I got about £700 worth.
The money was taken out of my joint account on Saturday. I do not know what I have been allocated yet - I don't know whether it is my first choice or my 20th! I don't think the system is fair for people like me with a limited income.
I think I have got three sessions. I applied for swimming, athletics, archery, diving, and rowing, among others.
The tickets are for five of us. If we get some of the popular ones, one of us will have to stay at home because four tickets is the maximum allocation. It's a funny system.

"I don't think the system is fair for people like me with a limited income." 

If you're on a limited income, why did you apply for £4,000s worth of tickets!  In the end I didn't bother applying.  I bet you can't get a pint at the archery.

Searching through podcasts

I've just found this gem on the BBC's podcast directory.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ouch

A bit un PC to put it in the comedy catagory...

In other news, the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage is back on (Minus April's ex)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc