Aching Brain

Yikes. Alpe d’Huez have closed their glacier to summer skiing for the foreseeable future, due it melting*.

How scary is that?

* = excessive meltage?

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In the spirit of posting old news, I just found this while researching stuff for my dissertation:

http://www2.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html

It is from the early nineties but (and?) quite amusing…

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The date today is 2/5/6. Which the nerd in me finds amusing.

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I receive and send an outrageous amount of emails every day from my work address. At this point it may be worth pointing out that my hotmail address is currently totally unmanageable as well. All the emails full of useful information are lost in amongst the hundreds of emails from friends, which amount to a kind of online discussion board that exists to coordinate various important social gatherings (teh quiz), to send forth the latest humourous interweb finding (tronguy), and more generally to preserve our mutual sanity in moments of work dullness. And as another aside to this blog maybe we should have an achingbrain.net comment board for those of us who are blocked from using web-based mail / blog sites at work. The membership would of course be terribly exclusive.

So back to my inbox and its 1112 emails, all of which I have never bothered to put into folders. I had this theory that I would delete the useless ones, and then use the Outlook “Find” function to track down the useful emails when required. Sadly my inbox is now so crowded that the “Find” function is about as speedy as a snail.

So today, I have declared “Inbox management day” (please feel free to join in my celebrations). Today I am going to create folders and file my emails; I am going to blog about it before I begin.

For some time now I have considered the unsorted and unregimented inbox as the last bastion of my insubordination. I’ll explain, in my current job I am working in an industry I never expected to, my job is to organise another’s life, and frankly at times it blows. The random emails floating about in inbox space reminded me of someone who didn’t want to file for life, free and easy, floating in the wind (apologies for the metaphor overload)… As much as I would like to keep it this way, technology has scuppered my attempts, and hindered my propagation of the scruffiest inbox in the world.

So today, it’s time to accept my fate, clip my wings, and prepare myself for a life of filing. Am I sad? Well, a bit. But I suppose this is a prequel to a much longer blog I have stored up about the problems of being a member of the undefined generation (aka Generation Y). I hope my boss doesn’t know about this site.

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I finally watched Serenity last night (sorry Cat). Bleh.

Before I launch into my rant, I want to make it clear that I loved the TV show. Loved. It was great, and until Battlestar Galactica started, I viewed it as the saving grace of Sci-Fi, particularly after the damage done to the genre by Enterprise. It was Joss Whedon at the height of his powers (alright, maybe not as good as Numfar doing The Dance Of Shame), witty, cynical and incisive.

So what happened?

Katherine recently introduced me to a wonderful term - Jumped the shark. It is a reference to a scene in Happy Days where the Fonz jumps over a shark on a pair of water skis, and is generally the point in a series where you realise that it’s got pretty crap, usually because something fundamental has altered which changes the dynamic (like Buffy graduating), or the story becomes so slow moving that it practically grinds to halt (I’m looking at you, Lost). With Serenity, Firefly jumped the shark.

Two ‘main’ characters with suspiciously little screen time prior to that point are killed off - Wash has about two lines (both comedic) and then dies (a bit unessarily if you ask me). Book is no longer a member of the crew, but shows up just long enough to say ‘Ooh, I’m old and wise, but have a dark past that I’m only going to hint at’, much like in the TV series, but then also dies, so we’ll never know. Malcom then orders the crew to tie the dead bodies of Book and his family to the front of their ship. ‘But they’re our friends!’, says Kayleigh, voicing the collective conciousness of the watchers of the original TV show. Talk about burning your bridges, it’s like Whedon is really sick of Firefly by this point.

Talking of Kayleigh - her and the good Doctor hardly get a look in, apart from a brief exchange at the end where they promise to have a shag at some vague point in the future. Nice resolution of that sub-plot. Such romance. Really touching.

The Reavers, oh don’t get me started on the Reavers. They had such potential. As an embodiment of absolute, relentless evil they are on a par with the Borg (proper, collective Borg from the episode ‘Q Who‘ or the Battle of Wolf 359. Not that First Contact pseudo S&M rubbish (hey, the film was good, but having the ‘borg queen’ is pretty far removed from their orignal premise. Then getting her trying to shag Data *rolls eyes*)), but far more visceral, more primeval. And then Serenity. I’d always secretly hoped that they would turn the whole flesh eating zombie type thing on it’s head and reveal them to be intelligent and highly advanced, despite their feral appearance, but no. Their beginnings were so pedestrian it was painful to watch (10% had the opposite reaction! Oh no! That didn’t show up in the lab tests! Hmm. Now I come to think of it, that might explain those mice that started eating the other mice.), and somehow a short video of this revelation manages to turn the suddenly unquestioning assassin (who has previously shown no tendency to be influenced at all and entirely single minded in his purpose to kill River) against the coalition. Oh and Mal just happens to have had that nerve cluster moved. How convenient.

Yawn. Thank god there’s not going to be another one. Oh shit.

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Will has been rejigging his website:

http://www.thefrozenwave.co.uk

Check it out - there’s some really beautiful photography going on (I’d really like this one as a desktop image) - how talented is this man?

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MC Hammer has a blog:

http://mchammer.blogspot.com

Well I never…

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http://www.meatandcheese.co.uk

Bonkers. With free gifts if you order online for pick up.

From the geniuses who brought you the GuffHopper (the GuffHopper website is sadly unsuitable for viewing at places of employment where humor involving body parts that are usually covered up in polite company is frowned upon, but if you can turn your monitor round so no-one else can see it, feel free to have a perv peek).

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Yesterday I met a friend of a friend who studies English and Comparative Literature. They said that I looked like the kind of person who was good at his course (must have been the pocket protectors). Consequently, they said, I should be able to fix the problems with their computer without too much trouble.

I said that I have a friend with a degree in English, which is handy as I can call her for help with grammar and spelling.

A little childish perhaps, but fun.

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http://inigopete.livejournal.com/4438.html

Although, having a mobile didn’t really help when Dave decided to get intimate with that tree shortly after this photo was taken, as although we were on a man-made trail, we were in woop woop and consequently had no reception…

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See? I don’t even have to justify the title. You know you agree with me. Be it because of the jobsworth nazi who wouldn’t let you on the nightbus in the middle of nowhere with no one else around because you didn’t pre-buy your ticket as it might slow him down, or the sadistic bastard who watched you in his rear view mirror as you run for two hundred meters to get the only bus every hour just to drive off as you reach the door which he has just slammed in your face.

Arseholes.

The problem is, sometimes their behaviour can be downright dangerous. I cycle to work, and like every good cyclist, I think it’s great and everyone should do it. The most common reason people seem to have for not cycling is not wanting to be squashed by a bus. Although not on most people’s to do list (definitely not mine), this is almost a good reason not to. Almost.

To your average cyclist, a bus represents the classic immovable object. Were you to be hit by a yummy mummy doing the school run through Bulwagh* in her outsized SUV with little Billy on his booster seat in the front all curly ringlets and designer baby clothes, you’d hope that you would possibly catch his attention before becoming a stain on the road just long enough for him to require years of psychotherapy later in life and have a strange aversion to gas guzzling monstrosities until he becomes that which he fears, a shaved roadie with 0% body fat wearing only unwashed lycra and cycling like a bat out of hell, a mad glint in his eye as he tries to pedal away from himself and the army of rat men ever behind him and the darkness they bring. A bus? No chance. If you were hit by a bus, you wouldn’t even register. If the driver has more than one brain cell, they might bump together eliciting the though ‘Funny. I didn’t see that speedbump.’ But chances are you wouldn’t jolt the bus enough to cause this cranial movement.

Take this example: Yesterday, I was cycling back from the supermarket in broad daylight and a bus overtook me. This is not out of the ordinary. But the bus committed that perennial sin which motorists seem to enjoy so much - they overtake you and then slam on the brakes for the left turn/road island/etc that was right in front of you, blocking the road and causing you to brake unnecessarily.

The bus driver in question overtook me, then swerved in front of me to stop at the bus stop which was, oh, twenty metres or so ahead. Why? Just why? Fine, I thought as I slammed on the brakes and nearly hit the back of him. You’re a bit of a plonker. Maybe you didn’t see the bus stop, or maybe you’re a bit of a plonker. Whatever. So I looked over my shoulder, signaled right and went round him.

This took me to a roundabout, a left turn later and I’m happily cruising along, when I see another bus stop ahead and hear that familiar rumbling sound behind me. Whoosh, the cunt nearly knocks me off my bike as he does the exact same thing. This time, when I look over my shoulder, there is a line of three cars also trying to go round the bus. This puts me in a difficult situation. Obviously I’d like to go round the bus and not stop for reasons above, but chances are pulling out in front of the following cars would be a very bad idea. So I slam on the brakes once more. I wait for the cars to pass and go round the bus, taking time to make gesticulations to the effect that he should spend less time playing with himself and more time watching where he is going. He doesn’t look pleased. Fed up with him being behind me, I jump the next red light, but not before he tries to follow me right through it.

It’s hard to think how a bus driver could be less considerate, aside from jack-knifing in front of my house. It might not be such a bad idea for drivers in general, but particularly drivers of large vehicles to be forced to cycle for at least a month as part of getting a licence to drive them. This may help them have a little more patience and respect for those who don’t have the luxury of crumple zones.

* = Someone called it that in a text message the other day. Classic. If you know where I mean, you’ll know what I mean. If you don’t know what I mean, say it while trying to sound posh and you’ll be most of the way there.

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I am a little late seasonally in posting this, but could this be the reason that Flash exists?

http://www.lynxmas.com

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http://www.scannerphotography.com

Pretty amazing stuff…

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Dead at 65

My favourite b-movie actor.

He will be missed…

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Today, I cancelled my gym membership, and instead signed up to Amazon’s DVD rental programme.

I think that’s money better spent.

Film parties with the GhettoJector anyone?

If you are a bot attempting to post comment spam, fuck you.

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Note to self:

If you must insist on moving a week before travelling abroad, when you come across your passport while putting your stuff in boxes, DON’T LET IT OUT OF YOUR SIGHT. YOU WILL LOSE IT AND THEN HAVE TO PLAY THE ‘4 HOURS TO INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL - WHERE’S THE PASSPORT’ GAME.

Right, glad I got that off my chest.

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So, you almost make it to Brighton on your bike (okay, Merstham, but then you do cycle back which is almost the distance to Brighton), but get so wet in the following torrential downpour that you have to wait for four days for your shoes to dry out. When you are finally lacing them up, you accidentally spill a pint of water into one of them.

Balls.

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As I was cycling into the office this morning I must have hit some glass in the road, as I managed to tear a 2cm hole through my front wheel an into the inner tube. Cue lots of hissing and a very annoyed Alex. Some of the hissing may have come from Alex.

I walked from Camberwell to my favourite bike shop - On Your Bike - to get it fixed. When I picked it up, the make/model on the reciept was simply marked as ‘black’. Which made me smile.

For the record, this is my bike:

And yes, it is quite black. But then it did use to look like this:

Now you know.

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franceCam

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Life has changed rather rapidly in the last week for me, so I thought I would have a chat about it with the readers (all five of you) of this fine website.

I started a new job on Monday. 9.30-5.30, in Greenwich, small company, that hires out music and musicians for weddings and other assorted random events. It’s kind of tedious at times, but it’s also fun at times. There are so many things to learn and I’m having trouble remembering where everything is filed, where everything is stored on the computers and all the questions you have to ask people when they ring up. I am sure I’ll get my head round this at some point. But it is terrifying, I finally have responsabilities, I’m bound to make a whole raft load of mistakes, but ultimately I’m going to have to take the blame for all of them. Zoiks!

Then Wednesday comes, frantic text-messaging ensues amongst my group of college friends - they decide to post our exam results early! So, at 5.30 I step onto the bus back to New Cross, and sit nervously in Deptford traffic, envisaging scenes of panic around the boards, and a sense of dread wells up as I imagine not being able to find my number.

There was no one by the boards when I arrived and, despite the lack of crowding, it did take me at least five minutes to find the list of music graduates. Scanning down the list, I eventually found my number in a very pleasing position, and then checked it against my student card at least ten times before it finally sinking in. I had graduated.

Friday brought another change. I left my previous job, a moderately well-paid evening and weekends type thing in one of this cities’ great musical venues. If you made a mistake, you could blame a thousand other people, anyone but yourself. A kind of comfortable, but at times an intenslty uninteresting and unchanging type of comfortable. The evening went slowly and I was due to finish after the interval (and of course head straight to the pub for last night drinking). I asked my manager if it would be possible, since I was leaving, to sneak in at the back and just listen one last time. Better than that, she told me to leave ten minutes before the interval and then grab a ticket and sit in a prime spot in the building. I was amazed. But truly thankful. So I sat and watched, not moving for an hour and a half, entranced, slightly sad, absorbing every last drop.

I never thought I would miss the place, and I don’t think I will. The job essentially entailed being abused by members of the public, mixed in with the occassional friendlier faces. I won’t miss that. But seeing fantastic productions and hearing fanstatic music, as a regular part of your job is something that I am loathed to leave. People too I suppose, I have made some good friends there, and they’ll be missed. I know there will be some of them that I’ll still see from time to time, which will be good.

A week for moving on. I feel like I’ve left school again, or something, faces you’ll never see again dissapear, the bleak smell of most of the classrooms will never be there, and the safeness and security is all gone. Instead, I’ve just left university and started life - something which needn’t be frightening and is simply exciting.

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