More random stuff

Oh where to start ...

I know some stuff I can't talk about. Cos I can't. It's all over the news but I'm way too close to it. Just remember when you see stories on the news, there's usually real people caught right in the middle of those stories. If it was a car crash, you'd call them innocent bystanders. Ok, it is a car crash and they're still caught up in it. But that's enough about that story.

(I'm actually prevented about talking about it without asking permission due to work rules)

Olympic Flame goes out - lol. Oops. Superstition will run riot with that.

I'm in love with a gamer from the PressHeartToContinue channel. I'm watching videos of gaming more than I'm gaming lately. Spotted Dodger through The Game Station podcast with two very dangerous (to a gamer's wallet) individuals called TotalBiscuit and Jesse Cox of the OMFGCata channel. They have a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm towards gaming and their enjoyment of what they play has persuaded me to buy more than one game this year ... Anyway, P<32c is giving me flashbacks to when Bits graced our screens. She's smart and she talks good sense. Funny too.

The cap is still there. It hasn't been crispy fried yet. It wouldn't burn anyway, the fire would get put out by the heaviness of the rain.

Been buying more music - the latest is Little Broken Hearts by Norah Jones, which is excellent. Morcheeba's Blood Like Lemonade is pretty good too. I have my eye on Katie Melua's latest but to be honest, Katie Melua and The Ting Tings are groups where I'll wait for the album to come out at 2 for £10 or £5. Like Air and Maroon 5, their Pocket Symphony and "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" albums arrived on Tuesday before I disappeared off to watch Avengers.

Headache has faded today ! Although today was one of those insane can't draw breath "that was nice, what was it, what's next?" kind of days. Not had time to get a headache. I got a big grin from a couple of our people in our Portsmouth office as well. Grin + Productive Work = awesome.

Work's being a little challenging at the moment. We're moving from a place where we're accepting stuff to a requirement set that was agreed years ago and towards needing to keep track of things we're changing with those requirements. The pace of change these days is relentless and one of the facets of my current job is keeping up with the question "What do we actually want ?" Anyway, had good progress there today without the glacial pace that some of this can go at.

That's how it feels sometimes - long periods of routine punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Terror ? I think that's actually from a movie or a game. Switch "sheer terror" for "mega fast activity". I don't say much about what I work on or for who but let's just say the stakes can be very high.

Gaming ? Not doing much of that at the moment. Not reading much either, outside of websites and watching gamer videos.

Weather ? It's still raining. If tonight's cricket hadn't been cancelled yesterday then it would have been a classic : Sunshine all day. 6pm - match start. 6.05pm - deluge begins.

Amusement or "Where not to be if you're supposed to be on leave" - one of our people is on leave all this week. But ... the PCS and Unite unions were on strike today. Where did I happen to see this person this morning ? She was on the picket line that was causing traffic chaos in the local area, handing leaflets to cars coming in. Oops. If you're striking, taking leave is Bad Behaviour. Definitely shouldn't be in such a prominent place ...

I'm not in any of the unions. I don't see their goals aligning with who they claim to represent. They chase the wrong fights. They should be targeting discrimination in the workplace (we are discriminated against by post code as policy) and other strangeness instead of attempting to get conditions that will make their own members unaffordable to the organisation. They're actually campaigning for job losses.
I'm not socialist, conservative, right, left, centrist. Ok, maybe I'm a little Nationalist (but not extreme). I'm pragmatist realist and refuse to be blinkered by any particular political point of view. I see the blinkers on people every day - it's not a way to convince people. And I have zero faith in the current political system. Democracy is a fine idea, when you have credible people to vote for.

And I think that's enough for now before I dig myself a massive hole !

Last thought from that - be careful what you do online. I read that a collection of people have been fired by a Sheriff in the USA for "liking" a political opponent on Facebook. When they sued, their case got thrown out. That click can have consequences ...

And on that note - been lucky where I work, our project has had some long screwdriver interference but we've managed to avoid most of it. It's let a bunch of amazing people get on with delivering something fantastic. We've been luckier than most. We're definitely in a better position all round than the people I referred to on opening this post !