Mini-rants

Intercompany communication that means you spend half a day supporting some slopey-shouldered monkey who then refers you to his boss, who in turn informs you the problem is a known issue that they are working on. Seriously people, try your internal IT/IS staff before you call the firewall vendor.

Click-to-enlarge links that display the same tiny photo. News sites are teh worst for this one.

Cafeterias selling Russian cans of Coke because they're slightly cheaper (dont taste any different, but I can't read the cyrillic writing. And I'm incurably curious, and want to be able to read the ingredients. I like shiny things).

Crappy graphics cards that fault the secondary lcd screen crashing my pc >.<

Idiots messing about with firewalls they don't understand, then accusing *ME* of breaking it when they can't set it right. I am not responsible for your lack of intelligence. Get a grip, get an education, get the hell off my phone.

Quitting smoking? Not today, thanks.

Update: Hold music that starts repeating the song on it from the start every time you get the "Your call is important to us... yaddayaddablahblahblah" message. Which is every 32 seconds. Not that I'm counting. Closest Thing to Crazy - Katie Melua. Not Britney bloody Spears.

There will be more lighthearted banter from the font of tranquility later, assuming I dont take a leak in it first.

A little later than planned

Because I have a head somewhat akin to a sieve, I didnt post the exploits of last Sunday. Not that it matters, I'm not the most avid blogger, and it still fits chronologically, but nevertheless. Odd word, that, but there'll be no tangent on that just now. Maybe later :)

Back on target... I travelled up to our marvellous, exciting, stinking capital city to the Albert Hall to see Cirque Du Soleil, in particular Alegría. Now, I've not been to any form of circus since about 1979/1980, which was the sort of circus that let you hold lion cubs, which had a tendency to let their bladder go when sat on a small childs lap. Didn't happen to me, and I'm quite pleased that some arrogant family pushed in front of mine when we were there. Instant karma, with a twist of urine. What what I talking about? Ah, yes. The costumes worn in CDS are spectacular. They were of a form of comedy humanoid for some of the tumblers... exaggerated stomachs, butts you could park a fairly large bike in, and the sort of visage a gargoyle would have, if it found a particularly dirty joke to its liking. I'll see if I can trawl up some images, there must be a few lying about.
The pair of vocalists were amazing. A pair, one in a white, somewhat victorian style dress, white wings, the other the same, but in black. The white was the current underrunning the show. She performed twice solo, but also behind almost every other act. She had the most powerful voice I've heard in a long time. I'm possibly not expressing myself clearly here, but she held me captivated when singing solo, not something anyone's been able to do to me for a very long time. She was also somewhat ageless. At first glance I'd have placed her at late teens, maybe early twenties. Not so, it appears, I think I was nearly a decade out.
The clowns... heh. Somewhat traditional, but not overdone. They wore makeup, but it was not the core of their being, the comedy was. Now, I'm from the camp that generally hates clowns. Well, apart from maybe Krusty. Let's all thank Stephen King, for IT. But any two people that can get ten minutes of comedy mileage out of a paper aeroplane, and not have it get old quickly... excellent. Particularly the last aeroplane you see, somewhat later in the show.
Contortionists. I can't bend my spine that far forward, never mind backwards. The sense of balance was perfect, the movement slow enough to be really difficult to maintain, but not a quiver as they changed stance. Highly impressive.
There were a number of other acts, the acrobats/tumblers were amazing, everything perfectly executed, and perfectly timed. One of them didnt perfectly land a triple somersault with at least a single twist in, but turned what would have been an embarassing backward stumble into a somersault. He looked pissed. I felt sorry for the guy, but when someone's obvious mistake is fairly majestic, you cant help but appreciate the rest of the set.

Long story short... go see it. I'm going to go and see it again, any chance I can get.

So far, so good.

Today has been one of those more satisfying days. I've killed off a major problem in one of my larger customers (yay), really annoyed a bunch of Chinese boys and girls that were abusing an open proxy one of our customers runs by locking it up tighter than the crown jewels, and cleared off a load of old crap that had been sitting about for a while. Just had a good cup of coffee, and now I'm just gonna ride everything till the end of the day.

Decided to start back up with a health n fitness gig. Sittin on my ass all day at work means I'm not working what remains of my physique. So, back to the weights, running, and quitting smoking. Again. Oh, and a change in diet. Wheee. It's all good for me tho, I spose. Expect random insults against the world of pasta, diets, detox and not smoking in the near future.

I'm not sure I can live without my caffeine :(

Interesting :)

Found ya, naturekin. The link under "Body" intrigues me :)

I'm on the wrong side of the pond

Sparing the comments about driving on the wrong side of the road, odd looking money, funny accents and such, its good over here.

Had some interesting moments from leaving the plane to getting to the hotel...

First off, we had to fill out the immigration form on the plane. It's somewhat amusing. I mean, really, who's going to put a little tick in the "Have you ever committed or been a part of genocide against a race?". That's pushing the honesty barrier of even the most truthful of genocidal maniacs.

After the slight amusement of that, we got off the plane and made it to immigration. Wheeee. I felt like I'd been sucked into 1984, the book, not the year. A lot of *very* serious faces, all under jarhead cuts, 9mm's holstered on every left hip, jet black uniforms with black and silver badges. All in an area pretty much devoid of everything apart from barriers... I felt like a cow meandering towards slaughter. Not that I was smuggling anything. My colleague, however, had been scrupulously honest on his immigration form, under the "What are you bringing here, and leaving here" section. We had just over $200 worth of Cuban cigars. What we didn't know, is the American government had a bit of a barney with Cuba (well, we knew *that*), and there's an embargo in place (herein lies the problem). Sooo, we got turned over. Forms in triplicate covering the seizure, all the while the customs official (after having a good sniff of the cigars and almost crying) told us he was just as unhappy about taking them as we were about losing them. Well, I hope they complemented his brandy well =). After about two hours of mooching about in customs, standing about doing nothing, receiving suspicious looks from everyone, we were set free. So we jumped on a bus owned by the car company we had selected to hire a car from, and he delivered us to the car lot. herein starts the second humongous fuckup of the day.

My colleague, who was to hire the car, had insufficient funds on his credit card to cover the transaction, and didnt have the cash either. So, I offered to cover it. Now, due to some history on my part, I do not have a full uk driving license. (Three failures, speeding, speeding, and punching an examiner. Ah well...). So, Because he didnt have the cash, and because I can't drive... no car for us. All of this was delivered to us by a lil guy that looked *exactly* like Carlton from the old Fresh Prince series. Funny as. Back to the airport we go.

We called our contact guy, and got a cab to the restaurant they were in... Schula's. Definitely in the top 5 steaks I've ever eaten. There was a 48oz porterhouse I was tempted with, but I didnt want to pay $80 for a steak only to nearly finish it, not completely. I was tired too.

During the week, I/we learnt a load about secured mil-spec wireless connectivity, and the possibilities of the kit that the guys we went to see sell. Good stuff, but not all that interesting if you're not in the market for it (which I'd guess most of the few readers I have are... =)). I ate more steak, some Maryland Crab Cakes (never tried crab before, not a huge fan of seafood) and loved em, and something stuffed with goats cheese. Might have been chicken. Tasted good tho. Also sent and received a few emails with a very close friend of mine (Hi you, I know you're reading =D), was just a shame I couldn't take a few more days out to visit over there.

Flew back on a funky plane, all sorts of games, watch Sin City, loved it, ate some pretty good food as far as airlines go, then jumped in a taxi to take me to work. Taxi driver was falling asleep at the wheel, but I was too tired to care. Worked until 2pm, went home. Picked up the kiddy from school, who was stoked to see me, played about a bit at home, went to bed about 7ish, after being out and about for about 30 hours. Slept until 6:30 this morning. Still tired, but I think I'm back in the swing of things. Just need to get my technical brain back in gear for work, and my creative mind back in gear for my creative writing ;)

More stories as and when I remember them...