Oh the peace (relative) and joy of xmas

The one time of year when there’s no blasted buses with incontinent bus drivers incapable of switching off their engines (regardless of winter, spring, summer autumn) , no squeals of engines nor the grating sound of brakes as they park up, no belching clouds of smoke nor invisible clouds of cancerous gas, no noise, no pollution, no vibrations to worry about. 

However in 2011, we shall be concentrating on recording the offending drivers and officials who feel above the regulations (there to not annoy residents) they appear happy to flout!

So to all able to enjoy or not this time, peace and happiness to one and all.

Seasonal greets

Xmas?

Oh dear, that time of year’s once more arrived. 

Now that I managed to squeak my assessment in before the deadline, I can devote a bit of time to conjure up some imagery that conveys the finest of my thoughts on the prickly season!

Keep the leaks alive!

Wikileaks in switzerland - http://46.59.1.2/

Jobsworth

“…we’re living in an age of the jobsworths.  Whom if they momentarily thought outside of their hide-bound heads, would explode in a shower of glittery shiny sparks.”

Gritty U's

Sigh, what to say about sgu?
Brilliant.  Excellent character portrayals, a nice departure from its sugar-coated predecessors.   For those who have never seen its predecessors, using the current sgu series as a benchmark would leave you pondering whether the entire franchise encompasses nothing but doom and gloom, whilst the cast are all trying to romp back home in a holed handcart; all firmly held in a rigid fist that's squeezing the bejesus out of them before spitting the remnants like so much used sticky nasty tobacco - and that's in a happy episode!
This (series) is/was turning out to be one of my favourties sg's, and they'd better ensure there's a sufficient number of series's down the pipeline to keep us stalwart gits happy  - otherwise, executives, a crate of kinos'll be shoved into places the sun doesn't have any place shining  - nicely of course!

Leave of absence

I have temporarily taken a leave of absence from the linux world as i've been extensively using w7 on a new laptop; the experience has, so far, proven remarkably reasonable - obviously much has been purloined from both mac and linux worlds but i have so far being amazed that the os (a msoft piece of work) hasn't yet fallen over - seven days and counting.
Despite the aura of reasonableness i shall (once the hdd is upgraded) dual boot with a linux distro, if only because i have this nagging suspicion that eventually something will happen on the w7 side that will entail me losing everything i may have forgotten to back-up.
Unlike linux which can work on a sixpence, w7 is a resource hog.  However, i could finally get around to ditching xp in favour of w7, eventually.

Tagged

It probably won't be long before we (poor people) are forced to have one. After all, it would be far cheaper than having to send out cards or keys, or fiddle around and about with id papers - simply pop into your local iap (identification access point), wave your hand over a screen that instantly updates and authorises you, synchronising your identity and all your information.

Handy for when you've succumbed to that "one for the road" tipple and need to be dragged from a hedge by the emergency services!

Oddities

Not sure that i'm totally content with scribefire as a windows writer replacement (one of the rapidly shrinking products that i still miss from the windows world), as it's handling of pages, images and general formatting, still isn't quite there - passable for basic stuff, unless your fully conversant with html, but for those who faint at the first sight of a command-like line, it's not quite there.

Noises from the arse-end!

Apart from the odd bit of chewing gum thrown into the garden, takeway boxes and the like, oh yes the increasing boy-racers (according to the recordings), and buses braking for all their worth with engines on and still idling and about as environmentally friendly as any suv (showing once more that tfl are talking out their end, yet again) , an all-nighter soon to be on at the venue, et all... apart from all of that, i'm feeling chipper. 

Perhaps it's nothing more than the taste of winter around the corner.

The new same old difference

Let the games begin...

Bonfire of the sensibilities

Hack and slash and burn, and make them pay, and cut cut cut!

If you're poor that is, or struggling by.

An extra 2.5% of costs will be added onto anything already at 17.5%: clothes, prepared foods, telecoms; if you're budget is already 100%, spoken for, what options apart from reduction in food, or clothes do you have?  There are already 75* people chasing every job vacancy, so even if you have a first in higher humanities tuff luck and will soon be donning your new condem puce one-size fits all jumpsuit, showing that you are not only helping the community by working for your benefit, but checked to ensure that your bags are packed (for when your number's up), and they ship you out to the most pest infested, damp rotted, single-glazed, asbo condemned, cctv covered, tourist free, locations in the country!

Welcome to the brand new world of dickens.  Tour guides not required.

Outside?

"You do realise there's a world outside?"

"Only in your dark fevered imagination."

Vibrating ninnies

When numerous residential properties are subject to vibrations causing cracks to appear, due to deep intense vibrations from a club venue, and its associated acts usage of coaches parked less than 9ft from residents premises, and after growing complaints from residents - many of whom have lived here for years - you really would think a council would take a pro-active stance, that a council would even turn up and take not only normal 'a' or 'c' weighted measurements but also conduct specific low frequency analysis so keeping up with the increasing trend for deep low bass bone-jarring music replacing the normal higher dulcet tones as venues side-step noise regulations by not peaking the previous and now outdated normal monitoring ranges.

Indeed, as low frequency travels further through the ground and structures, a growing tide of disaffected residents should provide sufficient stimulus so that officers can finally show that they really are looking out for the 'little wee guys'; instead of which, here we appear to be the meat flung to the lions.

Perhaps concern for residents is the norm in many other boroughs.  Even in this one, reports of churches and bars being taken to court, shows such concern obviously occurs here too - except for (and i might have mentioned it before) this peculiar little triangle, where the cry seems more akin to "liquidate the residents, especially those who dare complain", and as staff boy racers treat the little street like a race track, the venue treats the area like an open air park, bus drivers  treat it like an exhaust testing site, and coaches for acts at the venue treat it like a vibration testing pad, i sometimes wonder what role the old ted knight & co's days played in rendering the situation as badly as it is.

One good thing appears to be coming out of this (if having your health harmed can be viewed as a good thing), is my decision to do an environmental course; so i can work out - instead of just wondering - exactly who officers in environmental departments are supposed to be protecting, as in this case they don't appear to give a damn about the people who live here.

A case in point.  What effect does a 12+ ton coach have, when parked less than 9ft from your living room, with engine on and running for hours at a time with associated vibrations and belching out noxious exhaust?  

Sadly despite numerous years of complaints to the council, apparently not one measurement has been taken by them, as apparently there is no records showing that any complaint has been investigated, that any visit to the premise has been done, that any action by the council has occured (over 20 years), nothing. So a quick peek, at a foi request, showed up. Nothing. We both sat there in hysterics at the slapstick nature of it all.  But there is, however, an air monitoring station on the main road where the nearest residential property is hundreds of metres away.  Naturally they could have positioned it down and round the corner, but do you really want residents to know just how badly polluted the area really is? After all, they might want you to do something.

You generally can't expect an entertainment venue to do or know any better, it's like a dog that has the urge to lick, it does what it does.  The council on the other hand should.

Argos

It was refreshing realising the world outside's quite (or can be) nice.

I sent an email off to argos after browsing their site and a pc caught my eye with large screen, and enough functionality to mean i can, briefly, escape the clutches of the bermuda triangle.  Sadly it had windows 7 installed.

Now i'm neither a windows hater (really) or mac fanboy, or linux diehard but it gets cumbersome when you can throw a dice as to when your os decides to go belly-up, and with windows it happens far too often.  With my linux mint setup it has only failed to play ball once and  had to be rebooted and that's in over 10 months use, the last time i booted into the xp side it stayed up for all of 2 hours before falling over.

The thing with windows is that it needs defraging every two seconds, numerous virus-checkers (auto & manual) to help your chances of missing something nasty, anti-malware/spamware/drive by download/rootkit/etc., and cleaned regularly, and that's before you can start to breath easy.

Life really is too short to have to continually hunt around for something that's screwed with your system, unless you do it for living, enjoy the challenge from time to time, or simply wish to get down and in-depth with your bits of metal; but not when you're intensely in the middle of something and it decides to go poof!

Not only that but i'm looking for something i can easily carry and read and use and upgrade when i wish to without having to send it on a round the world cruise or have some dodgy repair merchant browsing my all my files.  

Where was i? Ah yes, argos.  

I was impressed after reciving a call (not an email) from an argos staff member saying "they didn't supply the system without the os, as they had a deal with the manufacturer and it comes pre-installed."  A very friendly and knowledgable member of staff who also told me of the problems he had when he wanted to do a similar thing.

That reminded me of a staff member in a financial company on the phone who went from trying to sell me a product to  spending 30 minutes  wanting to make a career change as he was "tired and disillusioned with the crap he had to go through every day."

If you're out there do it!  Send that script in to them and set up a videocast.  You have nothing to lose.

 

So argos, four happy tabs are pinned on your earnest friendly technical call staff member.  It would have been five, but, you just couldn't kick the windows habit.

Google car?

It was delightful watching the google car, thoughts immediately turned to...  a google bus!

A bus where engines are switched off when it's stationary at the terminus, but then it wouldn't need to terminate as it could run all the time until it needs servicing; where it then automatically makes its way to the garage for a service - no having to take a tea break nor toilet break - and with decent manufacturing behind it, able to practically run 23/7 without pay or holidays... wonder when we'll see the first one.  Could this be the start of happy days, who needs to be told?

But wait a moment as I pop on my noise-cancelling headphones with internal bass boost which cut down all the noisy street noise to the level of squeaking mice.  With this on, the only time I know a noise-machine is going past is a slight increase in the vibrations tickling my feet - at least I know there's still some circulation occurring in those stubby trunks, and if i do hear it, then the blighters will obviously be deaf in a few months time - hurrah!

I remember commenting somewhere that this little triangle has more akin to the wild west.  But over the past months that's changed.  It is actually the wild west enmeshed in an episode of the twilight zone, where a strange number of people really are, very, very strange.

Global handwashing and the poops of doom!

Well, the other day was global handwashing day, and still the message seems to be lost, but then in those parts of the world where people have to choose between using water to wash their hands, or water to drink, then can you really blame them for not doing so, instead of those who treat everything as a commodity including human lives?

I remember many years ago when still an ardent clubber with legs that moved, that - regardless of my unsteady gait - after every visit to a toilet (restroom), on the way out i'd ensure i my hands were washed; even if every other part of me was liberally flinging dancing sweat as far as my flailing arms would carry them.  Amusing, but certainly not nice.  Even then - however briefly - i started to notice whilst waiting for those lines to go down that fellow clubbers who would be in and out without the slightest momentary glance at the washbasin area; regardless of whether they'd visited the urinals, or spent hours worshipping the ceramic, or enjoying those other things which never required the necessity of placing hands anywhere near genitalia and so never required the closer inspection of soap and water.  

Talking of poop.  During a quick clean out to remove dust-bunnies and using the time to do some re-arranging, i noticed a can of 'paint & varnish remover' festooned with bubbles speckling its lower half.  Cursing spiders for their pooings, I used some diluted bleach to remove the offending bits, only to find the spiders poop had seemingly eaten through the paint and metal allowing the contents to slowly but surely seep out.  Either that or the contents of the can had possibly become more toxic over the months and eaten through, or the two had conspired to combine and decided to create the holes on purpose! 

At this juncture, i believe it is the first option, as the shape and distribution of the dots lend themselves far more favourably to that more plausible scenario especially as the area was rife with webs and dessicated spiders before been flushed, instead of both the spider poo and the varnish remover suddenly having a life all of their own. 

 

Know it alls

You know when you're on the right track when those who should measure, fail to measure, decide to pro-actively work out how not to measure, indeed find every possible method of not having to be anywhere near the place to measure, as measuring would show how short of the mark they've fallen.

On the other hand if those who should measure do, and find nothing, then they will have done their duty and it's simply down to the delicate nature of those who live in the vicinity.

Jingle bug!

Seven more posts and i’ll have bested my earlier years postings of bilge, showing just what tripe they truly are.

Luckily, it’s rapidly entering that time of year where, instead of me expressing the caustic delights of my existence through the badly mangled utterances of my mother tongue, i’ll be expressing those delights through the medium of 20 odd wonderful pictograms, all effusing with wonderment at the joyous celebratory humbug… ha, haha, hahahahahahaha!

Sound booms

It's interesting to note that the sort of sound that can sway buildings, that can crack structures, that causes your whole body to vibrate, is - according to lambeth council - more than acceptable to output and so what if it's inflicted on residents who stand in the way of- what's that green stuff?

Now where's my lfnsa...