Watching it all unravel...

Gah!

Yes, it's another rant about band. This time, it's about being told we have a major concert coming up one week before time, not being told the playlist until the last practice before said concert, and then watching people try to organise the damn thing by committee, when all that's needed is a solid decision!

As I said: Gah!

The most annoying thing about all this is that I know exactly how and why it's all going wrong, I know fine well what needs to be done to fix it... and I'm not in a position to go ahead and fix it. It's really infuriating.

I'm now considering launching a coup and taking over the whole. Cos there is just about enough I actually like about the band to make me want to stay, now.

I'll say it one more time: Gah!

My Greatest Idea Ever... for today, anyway

I've just had the idea for the greatest computer game in the history of everything. Huzzah!

It's called "Eviction 2". There was no "Eviction", but as we all know, the first game in any series always sucks, so I've decided to skip it.

Anyway, it's a cross between "The Sims", "Big Brother", and an MMORPG.

Here's the idea: you create your very own online persona (let's call her, picking a name entirely at random, Jade), who will be entered into one of several themed online environs (the House, the Pirate Isle, the Space Station) with a number of other players (let's call them 'contestants'). Each week, teams are assigned a task, which they must complete using the resources of the environment and their own guile. Each week, the team members will then nominate folks for Eviction (hence the name).

Now, as a twist, the rest of the community (usually meaning the players in the other games that are running simultaneously) are able to view the events and goings on in the various games, and may, at the end of the week, vote to Evict the players they wish from the various games.

Is it not brilliant?

Bored

Very occasionally in my line of work, you hit a test that runs along the lines of:

1) Set the system running.
2) Wait until it stops.

I'm currently running one such test, and have been for the past nine (working) hours. I'm quite bored.

Stealing a stolen list

Juliet stole this list from Ellie, and I stole it from her. I would have stolen it from another source, but somewhere between reading the list and getting around to it, said blog switched to "friends-only". No matter.

It's a list of books. The ones I've read are in bold, the ones I want to read are in italics. Note that there are very few in the 'want to read' list - typically if I want to read a book I'll go and read it. There are many books on the list I wouldn't mind reading, but won't actively seek out.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) - No, but I saw it in an actual theatre once.
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Tolkien) - technically, these should just be one book, "The Lord of the Rings". It was only split up because Tolkien's publisher insisted.
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling) - No such beast. I have read "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" however. Another mad decision by publishers; apparently Americans don't know what a 'philosopher' is!
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) - oddly, the only one in the series that I haven't read!
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I know this much is true (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) - currently sitting in my 'to read' pile
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) - but only if I can lay my hands on an unabridged version. I hate abridged books with a fiery passion.
64. Interview with a Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) - a long, long time ago for this one.
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) - don't. It's a bad book.
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Wow, only 17%! Still, it doesn't strike me as a 'must read' list, so I guess I'm probably okay. The inclusion of "Wizard's First Rule" is rather odd, and the omission of things like "War of the Worlds", "The Demolished Man" and "The Three Musketeers" strikes me as near-criminal.

Competition Two

Yesterday the band were at Bathgate. The only thing I won was a bad sunburn.

We came sixth, out of ten, instead of our previous eighth out of 25. And, in fact, all of the bands at yesterday's competition were at Dunbar, and we beat all but three of them. Which means we're getting worse!

The good news from this is that I'm not responsible for our plight. I'm one of the strongest pipers in the band, and thrive under pressure, so am doing well enough. The bad news is that I don't see the band improving any in the weeks to come - I suspect we've done about as well as we can expect to this season. Which is pretty damning comment, but I fear it's warranted. It strikes me that there isn't enough strength in depth in the band generally, and it strikes me also that the ambitions of too many of the players are rather limited.

It's all quite unfortunate.

Matalan, how you annoy me...

1) A couple of months ago, I bought a pair of jeans from Matalan. This worked quite well, until it came to pass that the assistant couldn't put through the sale until I signed up for their stupid customer card. I found this mildly annoying, but annoying all the same. After all, shouldn't one be able to just pay for things? Or is that too much to hope for?

2) Anyway, I signed up for their stupid card. Since then, they've taken to sending me a periodic update about what's new in their ranges. Hurrah!

Quite aside from the annoyance of receiving yet more junk mail that I can't recycle (since it contains name and address details), there's the annoyance that the mailing is clearly and obviously not intended for me - virtually the entire is filled with women's clothing. Which rather makes sense... but then perhaps they shouldn't send it to me! Even just having a "Don't send me your stupid mailings" option on the form would have been ideal, but no...

3) Anyway, I decided the time had come to go and buy another pair of jeans. It seemed the thing to do. So, despite not having been informed that they still sold such things (their mailing was remarkably silent on that issue), I decided to risk it, and went back to the store where I had previously bought jeans. And, behold! they still had a big rack of jeans.

Astonished as I was by this miraculous event, I went searching for the jeans I actually wanted. This was an adventure in itself, as the jeans were carefully labelled such that the size could only be read from above... and the jeans then racked above head height! Still, I persevered... and discovered that they had every single size in stock, except for the one I actually wanted!

(You know, it would be really nice if I could say this was the first time this sort of thing had happened, but no. It seems whenever I seek out trousers of any sort they never have the right size in stock. And it's not like I'm seeking a strange or obscure size. On the contrary, I wear one of the most common sizes. And yet no shop seems to bother stocking such things.)

4) Having been rebuffed by their actual store, I then struck upon another cunning scheme - I could order online! After all, surely they must have a web presence, complete with online store?

So, about two seconds of Googling, and there I was. I went into the store, had a look, and found that the store didn't list the entire range, simple as that would be. Instead, they had a small taster of their "huge range", and an entreaty to go visit one of their stores to get the thing that was actually wanted.

Of course, the small taster did not include the item I actually wanted to purchase. Gaaaaah!

Conclusion:

When I was in the Matalan store, between me and the rack of jeans, there was a man shuffling in a zombified manner, purchases in hand. At the time, I inwardly cursed him for his incredible annoyance, but now I wonder instead if I should have pitied him. Was he some previous shopper, stuck there for all eternity, his spirit broken by their nonsensical policies? Did his family know where he was, or had they given him up for dead? Just how long had he been trapped there, doomed to shamble through the store without surcease? I thought about going back, to see if he could be saved, but I feared for my own safety. Some risks are just too great to take.

Thirty years ago, to the day...

On the 25th of May 1977, Star Wars was released in the US. I didn't feel this day could pass without comment.

May the Force be with you.

Comment on a post you haven't read!

As Chris notes in his comment on the post directly below this one, there was a post that I deleted. This was because I decided one of the things said was something I really shouldn't go saying, even in jest. And, since I didn't have time to edit the post, I deleted the whole.

Anyway, the post noted that I had expected that wives suck the life out of their husbands, and then examined this question with reference to the statistical evidence. The results were certainly startling, and led to some astonishing conclusions.

So, now I open the floor to you, gentle readers. Comment on this missing post that you have not read!

No, you can't save me £20 per month

I have a Virgin Mobile pay-as-I-go mobile, and Virgin supply my internet access. I'm reasonably happy with both, although the mobile suffers from very high call charges and very spotty coverage (I don't really care about these because I almost never use my phone, so it's not worth the hassle of switching away). I get my landline supplied by BT, and have Sky TV.

So today Virgin Media phoned me and asked if I would be interested in switching my phone and TV to their service. When I said I wasn't interested, the agent was surprised. "Even though we could save you £20 a month?" he asked, to which I said yes.

Now, the telephone savings would be negligible - I would still have to pay BT line rental, and that counts for about 90% of my spending there, since I never use my phone.

No, the issue is really Sky. And, to be fair, I do spend quite a bit every month on that, what with the movie and sports packages. So, perhaps the Virgin offering really would be cheaper.

But it's not a fair comparison, because in fact Virgin can't offer the comparable product. Virgin customers don't get Sky 1, so that would mean no "24", no "Lost", no "Battlestar Galactica".

So, um, no thanks. I'll continue to spend the money, and get the product I actually want.

Now Virgin could make this a tough decision. See, they own the Bravo channel, which shows "Blade", "The Unit" and "Daybreak". So, if they pulled their channels from the Sky offering, then things become interesting. Frankly, though, I'd rather they didn't. Instead, they need to get the Sky channels back, or else they're always going to lose.

In fact, Virgin are making a mistake by putting the notion of switching in mind. See, Sky also offer an integrated package, which would save me the money I spend on Virgin's internet service each month. So, I could keep the products I like, and save quite a lot of money each month by switching... but not to them.

That, of course, raises the question: why haven't I switched? Well, the answer is quite simple. Virgin have provided me with flawless internet service for the last ten months (or however long it's been), where the Sky offering is untested. So, given the choice, I'll give them a chance to screw things up before I move away. Though perstering me to take more of their services would be a good way to start.

Gone phishing...

Well, Microsoft just cheered me up immensely. As I'm sure you know, my cousin has her own blog, which I check on a daily basis. Today, Microsoft Internet Exploder decided that this was a "known phishing site", and as such should not be viewed by anyone ever. So, it very helpfully blocked it for me.

Thanks guys, I feel much safer knowing you're on the case.

Films that aren't even worth finishing

My DVD collection has some really bad films in it. And, with the films available on Sky and elsewhere, I have seen some real stinkers. I even made it through "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle", which was quite an ordeal.

So, my standards for watching films aren't exactly too high.

But in the last week, I have found myself watching two films that weren't even worth finishing... and in fact demanded that I respond by putting them off halfway through, and then deleting. The first was "Underworld: Evolution", a truly boring sequel to a really bad film. I 'watched' about an hour of that before giving up, while setting up my new PC in the foreground. The second was "Basic Instinct 2", of which I might have watched 30 minutes, become succumbing to the tedium. (This was an odd one - the first film is actually quite good, once you get past the controversy. The sequel is just dull, dull, dull.)

Now there's a disturbing thought...

I had today off, in order to get some urgent repairs done to my car. And I came to a very disturbing realisation: I actually enjoy my job, and find it rather more satisfying, than any of my actual hobbies.

This is a very disturbing realisation, not least because I really don't want to be some sort of miserable workaholic.

I think I need some new hobbies.

Competition Season Begins...

On Saturday, my band were at Dunbar, our first competition of the year. We came 8th, a marked improvement over last year when the band came 17th. As this was before I joined, I am of course going to claim the credit.

Still, it remains clear that there is still a lot of work to be done.

The day itself was pretty horrible, being grey and overcast, with occasional rain (but not when we were playing). It was also really, really cold. This combined with the horror of having the get up at 6:30 to generally make me fairly miserable all day. Plus, I had only taken one magazine to read on the bus, which would have been fine had I not finished it by the time we arrived.

They just couldn't leave it alone

I went to the post office this morning and picked up my parcel. It was a copy of Microsoft Office for my new laptop. I have just installed it, and found that Microsoft have changed the interface. They do that periodically, moving all the menus, changing the window design, and all sorts of nonsense. It's a real annoyance, since it means whenever I install a new PC I have to go through all the settings and put them back into 'Classic' view so that it looks like it always has. You know, like I actually like it to look.

Imagine my horror, then, when I found that Office 2007 has no Classic view! Yes, they've changed the arrangement unnecessarily... and made it impossible for the user to choose to do otherwise.

Thanks, Microsoft. I'll add that to my list of reasons to switch to OpenOffice.

What Use is That?

This morning, the postman attempted to deliver an item for me from Amazon, and found that it was too big for my letterbox. This is not a huge surprise, and although there is a mild annoyance that he arrived only an hour after I left for work, it's really not a big deal.

What is a big deal is the routine for me eventually getting the item. Specifically, some time in the next seven days I have to go to the local sorting office and pick up the item. And when is this alleged office open?

Mon-Fri 7:30 - 15:00
Sat 7:30 - 12:30

Honestly, three o'clock? What use is that? Grrrr!

200th post!

The 100th post on this blog was marked dedicated to David Hasslehoff. Since this is the 200th post, I feel I should dedicate it to another cultural icon, one to have had an equal impact on my psyche. I refer, of course, to Paris Hilton.

Personally, I think it's an absolute travesty that this poor innocent has been sentenced to jail time. Clearly, she is being singled out by a judge out to make a name for himself. After all, she surely cannot be expected to understand that a revoked license means you do not drive. I mean, it's not like she could read the order banning her - it was hidden away in her glove compartment! And it must be quite beyond her faculties to consider that if the license was revoked for drink driving, it might not be a good idea to drive under the influence again.

Nope, it seems obvious to me that this is a case of there being one law for the rich, and another for the poor. Free the Hilton one!

Seriously, though, I shouldn't be too hard on Paris. To be absolutely fair to her, I should point out that I did rather enjoy "House of Wax", and at least in part because of her role in it. Additionally, her musical effort "Stars Are Blind" was actually really good in almost every regard. If it weren't for the lead vocalist, it would have been great.

Best. Malfunction. Ever!

My answering machine doesn't work properly. The caller will hear me tell them to leave a message after the beep... and then there is no beep! It just says "Thank you for calling", and then hangs up.

Bwa-hahahaha!

Mayday Mayday!

I don;t get Bank Holidays off, so I was at work today. And, it being Monday, it was my day for doing the weekly shop. With it being a bank holiday, however, band wasn't on (because the centre we use was shut), so I went to Tesco an hour early... and found that it, too, was shut! Horrors!

Still, it wasn't as if I actually desperately needed anything. But the dilemma remained: did I wait a day for the weekly shop, or did I go over to the big branch in Cumbernauld, which would probably be open? In the end, my desire to go see Spiderman tomorrow won out, and so off I went to Cumbernauld.

Still, it had its advantages. First amongst these was the vastly wider selection at the big store, which allowed me to purchase a carton of Tropicana's "Raspberry and Mandarin" juice, thus completing the set (although they've introduced three new varieties since I started trying them all, so I think there's a ways to go yet...). I also bumped into a young man I knew from my days in the BB. It seems Kai now works in Tesco, although I presume that's not the sum total of his activities.

But you never gain a benefit withou a downside, it seems. The key to a nice, quick, efficient weekly shop is a carefully crafted list, with all the items ordered in a circuit from the entry point around the store, so that you circle it exactly once and pick everything up as you go past. (There are other arrangements that work, of course. There's also a zig-zag pattern where the shopper traverses each row exactly once, but I find the circle pattern works better for me.)

Of course, a carefully ordered list only works if the items are in exactly the expected places and order within the store, which obviously isn't the case when you're in an entirely different store.

Disaster!

If you've read this far, I have no doubt you are impressed that I have used so many words to say "Tesco was closed, so I went to another branch." I promise my next post will be boiled down to the barest essense of what needs to be said.

In other news...

How the Scottish Christian Party offended me

My #1 strongest-held political view is that a government must govern for all the people, and not just for the majority. My #2 most strongly-held political view is that we must have both religious freedom and freedom of speech in this country. However, freedom of speech does have some very sensible limits.

The SCP wrote to me, and being a conscientious voter I took the time to carefully read their material. On the last page, they spent several hundred words decrying a recent change to Scottish law that limits freedom speech. So, I should agree, right?

Except that the change to the law they were complaining about is that it is now illegal for a teacher to tell a teen who thinks he might be homosexual that his orientation is "offensive in the eyes of the Lord". Seriously.

Here's the thing: I absolutely maintain that a person can hold that belief if they see fit (I happen to disagree, because there's a whole lot of context that I believe renders that assessment flawed, but there we go). I also absolutely maintain that a person has the right to express that view.

But you don't go telling a scared and confused teenager something like that. And don't try feeding me the classic line about hating sin but loving the sinner, either. That's a very fine distinction, and one that our hypothetical teenager isn't going to hear. What he'll hear is the trusted adult telling him that he's some sort of freak. Good one.

There's a whole lot more I have to say on the topic of homosexuality, and especially as it intersects with my faith, but I'm not going to post them until I get my thoughts all neatly organised. Officially, since I'm straight, and therefore it doesn't affect me, I don't have an opinion. Unofficially, of course, I have an opinion on just about any topic you care to name.

Laptop

I'm posting this from my exciting new laptop, which I bought with mybonus money. It's quite a lot of fun. However, even with just the documents I'm transferring across from my main PC, I've just about filled one of the hard drives, which is a matter of some concern. I'm also really not a fan of Windows Vista, and have found that setting up a new PC so it looks and feels like I want it to is a long and drawn out process.

Still, if I ever find the time to set it up properly, it'll be great.

Elections

I am now infuriated at our political process. As of now, no Scot will ever again be able to mock the Americans for their ineptitude in running elections. Grr.

How dare they?

Doctor Who isn't on next week because of the Eurovision Song Contest! In what sort of a world is this a good thing?

The day Wikipedia let me down

Et tu Google? Then fall Stephen!

One of the more valuable lessons I learned at university was how little I know, compared with the vast bank of knowledge known to the human race. (I also learned that the vast bank of knowledge known to the human race is miniscule compared to the set of all knowledge that exists, a lesson that even some very smart academics could do with learning, but that's another rant.)

However, one of the tricks I know for always appearing more knowledgeable than I really am is the ability to research effectively. This has allowed me to work out such diverse things as the specifics of the Competition Act, the time when a particulr Welsh rubby club is on TV, and on which channel, and so forth.

Anyway, I am a firm believer in the notion that with Google available, every question is an easy question... so it was rather a shock yesterday when it failed me.

I had been invited to a birthday party, a party I had decided not to attend because I didn't actually know the person, nor she me, and I was pretty sure I was only invited out of politeness (since everyone else at the band was invited). However, on Thursday I was called by a guy at the band, who explained that they were trying to put together a mini-band for the event, and were really short on people - so could I possibly attend.

Foolishly, I neglected to ask where the "ICI club" was to be found. But no matter - with Google every question is an easy question, right?

Wrong. It turned out that the "ICI club" was more properly known by some other name, which meant the BT directory enquiries didn't get a hit. Google searches for "ICI club Falkirk" established that the club was, in fact, located in Grangemouth... but nothing more.

In the end, I did find the place, but without the assistance of the Internet. No, instead I was forced to resort to a Jedi mind-trick. I went to Grangemouth and drove around until I saw a likely sports centre, whereupon I went inside, smiled at the receptionist, and asked for directions. Problem solved.

As for the night itself... it wasn't a classic. I'm currently exhausted, having had to work long hours all week, and having had to work today and last Saturday (and, my holiday was cancelled this week :( ), so that didn't do me much good. And, as anticipated, I didn't really know anyone there, and they all knew each other, which proved something of a problem.

On the plus side, I was nominated as the Pipe Major for the evening, and did that bit of my job quite well. (My actual play was lousy though. Oh boy, was it bad.) Still, never mind.

How I voted

Just a quick follow-up to my epic post about the election.

In the event, I voted Lib-Dem for the main poll, because they were the party for whom I had the least compelling reason not to vote. I did, however, find it rather galling that they were also the only major party to completely fail to campaign in this seat; I imagine they have determined they have no actual chance of winning. (On the other hand, of the parties who did campaign, only the Tories managed to send me something that didn't offend me. Labour and the SNP spent much of the campaign insulting one another, rather than talking about issues, and the 'Christians'... well, I'll cover that in another post.)

In the secondary vote, I also voted Lib-Dem, although here I was tempted by the Greens, the SNP (briefly),and also for one of the 'Christians'... but only because I had learned that that party had actually withdrawn!

For the council election, I voted SNP, both because I'm actually reasonably happy with their running of the council here, and also because the sticking point for me, independence, is a non-issue at that level. Plus, a socialist agenda at council level is actually quite a good thing, since they don't have too much power to absurdly inflate taxes to little real benefit.

So, that's that.