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Crappy Journey Home
On Saturday, Bonnie and I packed all our stuff up nice and early and left the hotel room, as we left I checked out. Nice and easy. It was about 11am. My flight wasn't till 5, so I thought Bonnie and I could hang out for a few hours before I needed to be at the airport.
Nope. She ended up having a fight with her mom and dropping me at the airport at 12pm instead! Oh well I thought... only 5 hours to wait.
Again... wrong! I got delayed didn't I. Something about bad weather in Chicago. My plane finally left Raleigh at 8:30pm (EST), and landed in Chicago just after 9pm (CST). I was supposed to be on the 10pm flight from Chicago to Heathrow... that was less than an hour away from my landing time. There was no way I could get on it.
Posted in Life at 22:43 |
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Home :(
Well... I'm finally home. Never thought I'd make it, not since everything started to conspire against me. I'll post more later... right now I need sleep. It's been a long past 2 days.
Posted in Life at 00:28 |
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Happy Turkey Day!
Today is Thanksgiving in the US. It's my first one too. Seems a bit odd that someone English is "celebrating" this festival, since the only reason it exists is because people left England to move to the States. Considering the Pilgrims killed hundreds of Native Americans and stole all their land, it's a pretty odd thing to celebrate, on both sides. ;)
Anyway, Bonnie and I went over to Suzie and Mark's house where her mom had been cooking most of the day and after a few hours we finally sat down to eat.
We had turkey (yum!) with stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potato, beans, carrots, sweetcorn... and apple pie with cream n ice cream for dessert. T'was very yummy!! I quite enjoyed my first ever Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately Bonnie started to feel very ill soon after eating, she put it down to her neck giving her problems again. :( Poor darling. So Mark dropped me back at the hotel, while Bonnie stayed the night back at her place.
Posted in Life at 20:10 |
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Mmmbop
[21:36] <quack> mmbop
[21:37] <quack> :)
[21:37] <loops> k
[21:37] <Wilkesy> shoobadoowop mmmmmmmmmbop
[21:37] <Wilkesy> dobedoooobedoo mmmbop yeah yeah
[21:37] <quack> hehe
[21:38] <xrs444> I want to shag the girl out of hanson
[21:38] <Wilkesy> you DID shag the girl out of hanson
[21:38] <Wilkesy> :)
[21:38] <xrs444> she was mighty good
[21:38] <xrs444> her mouth was purdy..
[21:39] <Slink> but hanson was an all boys ba....
[21:39] <Slink> nevermind
[21:40] <xrs444> lol
[21:40] <Wilkesy> ;)
[21:40] <loops> lol
[21:41] <xrs444> she said it was just a strap-on...
[21:41] <xrs444> wondered why she wanted the lights off...
[21:42] <loops> lol
[21:42] <loops> :\
[21:42] <quack> lol
Posted in Humour at 21:46 |
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My Trip So Far
My flight from England to Chicago went fine, was on time and lasted a little over 8 hours. Jay was there waiting for me. We drove back to his house, and chatted for a good few hours. I was feeling pretty tired once we got back to his place, but I stayed awake till about 11. I slept till about 9:30 the next day.
Jay and I went to TGI Fridays for lunch, the service was incredible. Our server was really friendly and helpful. Our food arrived really quick, and we got our drinks refilled without having to demand them! This might not be unusual for Americans, but it is for someone from England. I'm just not used to it.
After lunch we went to the Indianapolis Speedway, where they hold the Indy 500 and the USA F1 Grand Prix and looked around the Museum. It's full of old Indy 500 cars, from the first ever back in 1911 to the modern cars. Then we took a tour around the in-field of the track (they were resurfacing the actual track so we couldn't do that tour) and saw the F1 track, the golf course, all the stands and Gasoline Alley. It was really interesting.
Posted in Life at 04:33 |
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People I've Met From The Internet
In July 2007:
dirtieboy (Mike)
In July 2006:
GoldenOrchid (Bri)
SplitPersonalities (Jen)
In June/July 2005 more tubbers:
IceCu[B]e (Angi)
Verbal_Kint (Haydn)
^Roosterteaser^ (Shana)
^DrGreen^ (Randy)
^WyldOne^ (Dan)
In November 2004:
MrFabulous (Jay)
getoutofmygalley (Bonita)
Then in July 2004, a few more tubbers:
StrangeLittleGirl (Pam)
DigiGirl (Kelbie)
Digital_Dragon (Jason)
Raine (Pam)
In 2003:
Soft_Puppy (Emily)
From #Hottub in 2002:
Druid_Prince (Bob)
Gerbra (Lisa)
ShadowDog (Chris)
^Taz^ (Marc)
TunaMan (Joe)
BuMble^ (Jacs)
FlipShades (Doug)
jettt (Joan)
Tazzzy_Gal (Christy)
Taffi (Eva)
Cheerangel (Tobes)
Elaine21 (Elaine, duh)
Seaview-SSBN (Bob)
Jimi_Girl (Nikki)
madmanpondo (Brad)
From my #Singles days:
GenerationX & Audryna (Gareth and Kalani)
MizzJudi (Judi, duh)
Twilight-Master (Nico)
Echild & Missheru (Phil and Michelle)
Lewis (Lewis, duh)
T|me69 (Matt)
Shylah (Em)
a4biddenfruit (Danielle)
HunneyB (Claire)
Melanie^ (Melanie, duh)
Posted in Life at 06:05 |
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HL2 Quote
Best quote I've seen so far:
When I first encountered the venom crabs in Ravenholm I assumed the fetal position in a dark corner of my room, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably until they found me the following morning, unconscious and drenched in urine and vomit. After a few intense therapeutical sessions I am finally beginning to overcome the post-traumatic stress, though the nightmares still haunt me.
Posted in Humour at 16:02 |
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HL2 Revisited
Still working my way through this fabulous game. Up to Chapter 8 I think so far.
I love the graphics, and the physics... incredible!!
Posted in Computers at 11:15 |
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Holiday Tomorrow!
Yay! \o/
I'm leaving from Heathrow tomorrow afternoon and flying into Chicago where I will meet up with Jay (MrFabulous) who'll take me to his place in Indianapolis. We'll spend the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday together, then I fly down from Indy to Raleigh, NC and meet up with Bonita (getoutofmygalley).
I'll be staying in a hotel in Raleigh till the 27th when I'll be flying back to Chicago, then back home.
Should be great fun. Can't wait to meet Jay and Bonnie.
Posted in Life at 11:09 |
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Photoshop Tutorial
Enhance Your Images with Photographic Edges
Naomi gave me that handy link today, it's a tutorial on how to use masks and filters to create funky edges around pictures. I've always wondered how to do that!
When I get some time I'll have to try out some of those techniques.
Posted in Computers at 10:55 |
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Reply To Bonita
Taken from Bonnie's Blog, it's all about her. :P
Posted in Humour at 05:14 |
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Totally Pointless
As reported in the news today Margaret Hassan has been executed.
Now this wasn't really a surprise to most people I'm sure, how many people kidnapped in Iraq haven't ended up dead; but time it truely was pointless.
Margaret Hassan was British-born but she was an Iraqi citizen. She was married to an Iraqi and had lived in the country for over 30 years dedicating a large portion of her life to the Iraqi people working with charities over there delivering aid to those in need of it.
I know there was probably no chance at all of her getting away from her captors alive, but this is upsetting news. They killed one of their own, for nothing at all.
Posted in Rant at 13:39 |
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Half Life 2
After a few little problems, I have now gotten HL2 working.
And my god... that is the most beautiful and brilliant game I have ever seen or had the fortune to play... and definitely worth every single penny spent purchasing it via Steam.
I've only played it for a few hours so far, but I am enjoying every single minute. I can't help but wander around the streets of City 17 marvelling at the attention to detail, and I feel like I'm actully there.
Way to go Valve!! *double thumbs up*
God I love this game!! If you don't have it yet, why the hell not??
Posted in Computers at 10:25 |
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Stupid JavaScript
Found this code in a script:
var isMinNS4 = document.layers
var ie=document.all&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera")==-1
var dom=document.getElementById&&!ie
&&navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Opera")==-1
But what's wrong with it?
The first line tests for layer compatibility with Netscape 4+ browsers, all fine there.
The next line checks for support of document.all which was introduced by Internet Explorer but supported by Opera, the line will reject Opera browsers.
The final line tests for the W3C DOM and the getElementById function, rejects IE and for some reason it also rejects Opera.
Netscape, IE, Safari and Gecko browsers should all pass through the checks fine, but Opera will never pass through, and therefore the code just won't run. Why the hell is Opera singled out? Who knows.
It's easily fixed though. Opera supports the W3C DOM correctly, and so should pass as "dom".
The 3rd line should be changed to read:
var dom=document.getElementById&&!ie
Then Opera can actually run the script without any problems.
Posted in Computers at 12:59 |
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Happy Birthday To Me!!!11
It's my 25th birthday!
\o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday quackster
Happy birthday to me
\o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/
Posted in Life at 00:15 |
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It's My Birthday Tomorrow
Yay! I'll be 25.
And how's this for a fantastic birthday present?
Half Life 2 will be released tomorrow at 8am!
Posted in Life at 20:54 |
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JavaScript Compatibility
JavaScript is a funny old beast. Especially when differing browser developers invent proprietary functions that refuse to work in another browser completely.
Microsoft made up a whole load of new functions, so did Netscape. Opera and Firefox attempt to use some of them, and try not to break completely on some scripts, but there are some scripts which will NEVER work in anything but IE (or Netscape). This is where frustration occurs. The webdesigners either have to rewrite the script so it does work in other browsers, or they have to find compatible scripts that do the same job.
Posted in Firefox at 16:30 |
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Arnie For Prez?
Californians will soon see advertisements urging them to help give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other foreign-born citizens the chance to run for president.
Haven't we seen this somewhere before? Oh yes... in the 1993 movie Demolition Man. Surely a case of reality imitating art?
Lenina Huxley: I have, in fact, perused some newsreels in the Schwarzenegger Library.
John Spartan: Hold it. The Schwarzenegger Library?
Lenina Huxley: Yes. The Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn't he an actor when you...
John Spartan: But how? He was President?
Lenina Huxley: Yes! Even though he wasn't born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment which states...
John Spartan: I don't wanna know. President.
Posted in Politics at 17:10 |
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Homeland Security - Smiley Style
I know this is an old one, but I still find it funny.
Posted in Humour at 16:18 |
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Got My MCSA!
I took the Managing a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network Environment exam today, and passed!!
Now I am Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Messaging qualified.
Only another 3 exams to go before I get my MCSE.
Posted in Computers at 19:59 |
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Today In "The Times"
This is quite interesting, how moral issues differ between the UK and the US.
And on a lighter note:
Posted in Politics at 22:02 |
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Sucks To Be Me
Yup, sure does. Some days I wonder why I even bother.
I'm fed up with pretending to be something I'm not. It takes so much effort, and it's really not worth it.
Posted in Life at 00:51 |
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Funny Rejection Letters
Very funny job rejection letters from The New Yorker written by Jack Handey. :)
Dear Sir:
Congratulations! You got the job! That is probably what you were hoping this letter would say. But it doesn't, because you didn't.
Sincerely,
Personnel Department
Posted in Humour at 20:12 |
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Setting The Web On Fire!
Firefox 1.0 has been released!
After what seems to have been an eternity of waiting, the day has finally come. Mozilla Firefox 1.0 has gone gold and is now available for download from Firefox download page now!
Posted in Firefox at 09:06 |
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Take Her Back!
Who the original author is I don't know, but I repost the entire thing here:
NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE:
To the citizens of the United States of America, In the light of your failure to produce proper cars and elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical dutie over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.
2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize".
3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon". If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.
5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
Posted in Humour at 08:57 |
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Life Sucks
Life just went from "Just OK" to "Completely And Completely Shit" today.
Someone find me a rock to crawl under. :(
Posted in Life at 22:45 |
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War... Huh!
From IRC:
<quack_> war... huh... what is it good for?
<penski||||afk> quack_ - gaining enough of a sway over the peons to remain in power for another four years?
Posted in Politics at 22:24 |
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Canada 2.0
Mena Trott (co-creator of Movable Type) posts this on her blog. ;)
I think it's brilliant personally.
(Stolen from Kelbie ;))
Posted in Politics at 17:12 |
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New Office
Just made an appointment to go visit the new London Office on Wednesday. Should be interesting.
Posted in Work at 15:39 |
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Sheesh!
15 days till my trip, leaving on the 20th. Yay!
Our London office planning to start their move to new offices on the 19th. Boo!
Probably not the best timing by any means, but I'm going on holiday and that plan is not changing. So there.
There's a lot that needs to be done IT wise. I have got to go up to London early next week and check all the cabling in the new offices to see if we can use it or not, or if it all needs replacing.
I really want to get an Exchange Server installed in the Sutton office and start moving people over to it, I am primed and ready to do this... but someone seems to be holding it up, as usual. I have been waiting for Exchange for almost 2 years now. Why is it so damn difficult to get something incredibly important to the entire business bought in this company, when money can be spent on less important things willy nilly?
Most of my day involves me sitting idle, when I could be doing something important like importing thousands of pieces of email into new accounts and setting everyone up with Outlook 2003. Frustrating isn't the word.
I'll be so glad once the purchase is made and I actually have some damn work to do.
Posted in Work at 15:26 |
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Election Funnies
Taken from Will Durst's website:
Bush lost Pennsylvania after 44 trips. And he was leading there when he started. Has anybody ever considered that a politician can visit a state too many times?
If you liked the last four years, you're going to LOVE the next four. If you didn't, time to either learn Spanish or Canadian.
I was hoping Bush was going to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote, and how'd you like to be the one having to explain it to him.
Best campaign joke: "Every time you vote Republican, God kills a kitten."
Unrelated to the actual presidential election he has this to say:
Clinton is getting 12 million dollars for his memoirs. Hillary already got 8 for hers. That's 20 million dollars for the recollections of 2 people who for 8 years continually testified under oath they couldn't remember a single thing. Is this a great country or what?
Still can't figure out what the outcry over gay marriages is about. I thought the whole idea was to keep gays from having sex. What better way than marriage can you think of to achieve that?
Posted in Politics at 15:18 |
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Smart People Vote Kerry
But only if this data is to be believed. Not too far off the accusations that Bush has the lowest IQ of all presidents - which is untrue.
I wonder if this is on Snopes.com yet.
Update: It is, and this is fake. It was originally produced for the Gore/Bush election, and was fake then.
Posted in Politics at 15:01 |
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Gmail
There was a time I said I would NEVER sign up to Gmail, there isn't any point... I have my OWN mail server, under my own domain, with at least 20GB of possible space, and web access to it... so why would I need to sign up to a service that gives me 1GB of space (who the hell needs that much email anyway, I currently use under 100MB!), and injects adverts into the web pages?
Bandwagon, the jumping on of. That's why I have a Gmail account. Plus I can keep other people from registering my name.
Anyway... I have 6 invites if anyone out there still doesn't have an account, and would like one. Leave me a comment if you do. :)
Posted in Computers at 09:45 |
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Comments
I decided to turn on Allow Unregistered Comments so that anyone can comment, without leaving messages in my shoutbox because they don't have a TypeKey account - which by the way is totally free and the BEST way to leave me comments as they're not moderated (once I've approved your TypeKey account) so any TypeKey users leaving a comment will have it appear almost immediately.
Sign up to TypeKey today!
Posted in Movable Type at 09:53 |
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Bah!
Well it looks like Kerry's blown it. Another 4 years of terror presided upon by Bush.
Posted in Politics at 09:49 |
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Green Chicken
Yesterday's dinner was supposed to be a roast chicken with broccoli and potatoes, but it didn't go quite as my mum had planned. The chicken was cooked, and as my parents started to carve it, they discovered the meat was GREEN!
Not all of it though, just a bit of it. It certainly didn't look edible though, so it was put aside for returning to the supermarket from where it came... and my mum had to find something else for us to eat.
It was still a nice meal regardless of the missing roast chicken.
Posted in Life at 12:44 |
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