Corrosive Shame

Of all the things I've done in the last couple of weeks one thing I've not done is update LJ. This isn't really the slow yet inevitable parting of intimate friends, if not lovers; rather it's a reflection of how I'm having enough trouble reading that I'm not writing.

So what this means for you is that you'll continue to get major spamblasts of everything I can remember approximately once every two weeks. At least for now...

Looking back it's not actually been as long as I'd thought since I updated, despite the last one being rather self-indulgent and not at all interesting. Two weekends have (to be honest) passed since a proper update. I've downloaded a lot of Movies and TV, I've been to the cinema, I've played some LRP and I've had one of my eyes turn from white to red. And not this time in the name of anyone's grand design.

Movies wise, my crib sheet tells me I've watched the following:( Read more... )

Then, in the middle of it all, there was LRP. Maelstrom was good. At least, in the sense that the event went well, the people were pretty much without exception lovely. I could gush further but then the accusations of bodysnatching would start afresh. There are some photos - I really will do a photo post soon. They're not particularly impressive but are focussed on "giving people what they want" as much as "taking the shots I want".

And then finally there is work. It's not bad. Progress is being made. But it's slow. And I'm getting distracted. But I expect renewed vigour and desires to make things happen next week. I just have to survive the weekend first.

I'm sure I had something more interesting to say. Perhaps I did two hours ago when I started writing this. Maybe it was eulogising over Lightroom. Maybe it was enthusing about more LRP to come. Maybe it was about skiing. Maybe I just want to go to bed...

This week has been one of endings – though not of life, pets, hobbies, computers or even phones; but of television. The end of Rome (forever) and BSG (series 3) leave a hole in my viewing schedule that is unlikely to be filled by Lost (getting a bit rubbish) but may be by Heroes (which has taken 6 weeks off while they celebrate having a whole series and desperately try and write some more story).

Rome seemed to go out with a little bit of a whimper – mainly due to my knowledge that it is not going to get another series. That’s a shame because although it’s a bit odd in places and Series 2 has not been as exciting as Series 1 (we’d seen it all before tbh, and even the abundance of orgies didn’t excite) – it was worth watching.. If for not other reason than it reminded me about Odyssey.

BSG was an odd beast. Old friends returned as expected and the missing Cylons appeared to (maybe but lets not get carried away) be uncovered. The court scenes were tremendous though – brilliantly done and worth watching for the “let’s catalogue the plot holes in the series to date and use them rather than do like every other TV show would and ignore them” speech. I wasn’t sure about the end of the last series and that turned into something very powerful, so I suppose I should have faith.

Perhaps one of the reasons I don’t is last weekend. A visit to Preston coincided with Matt crewing Vikings so I packed a shirt, some woollen trousers and a couple of stabbing implements and went with him. On paper it sounded reasonably fun – a chance for some relatively relaxed roleplaying (try saying that when you’re drunk). However despite some highlights it suffered for reasons both in and out of the organisers control and basically overall didn't impress me. I like to think it wasn’t just because my shoulders aren’t used to chain mail for extended periods. Mind you, elsewhere people are raving about it, so perhaps my “good” and other people’s “good” is a completely different thing and I should stop moaning.

Of course it’s likely I’ll never get invited back there now, after having committed the cardinal sin of criticism.

One surprising discovery, visible from the motorway, was the 52nd Mormon Temple near Chorley. It’s a very impressive building – a classical cathedral style, simplified, that looks like it’s made of concrete. I’d love to get a closer look but you need a letter from your bishop to do so and I’m not sure I know any who are the “right kind”.

Today I’m in London, enjoying the benefits of a little laptop with decent battery life. Except I can only see out of one eye due to a dodgy contact lens so focussing is especially tough. To add insult to injury I didn’t get any Brown Sauce with my veggie sausage sandwich earlier and this evening’s train is “old-style” so might not even have any catering. I was down for a sustainability conference. My organisation now has an active policy in this area which should allow me to claim carbon footprint reasons for working from home… in my dreams at least.

This evening I will post this journal entry and share some pictures, before doing a bit of freelance work. What a life eh!

Next financial year I hope to spend £5k on a new laptop and camera. It will both make me a better photographer and allow me to carry two phones and two laptops around with me. I will then write long epic livejournal entries on the train and maintain a pretty reasonable policy of not abusing work’s laptop too much. Now all I have to do is find the £5k before claiming some of it back from the taxman.

Which reminds me, I’ve just been playing with Adobe Lightroom and I like it. I possibly even like it enough to buy it. It runs, does what I want and while it isn’t as good a UI as Potatoshop it is pretty much there.

And I’ve booked some more skiing. Dark City be damned.

From grh

The iRack

Sometimes I despair of people. The bottom line is that if you care about having rights and control over anything original you produce then at least have a basic understanding of the issues.

Gah.

Which reminds me, I must post "Simon's view of Photographic Copyright 101" soon.

Spending some time overseas, where I soon picked up "No Worries" off the Aussie residents of the Canadian Rockies, it's become increasingly obvious to me that there is a disease at the heart of the English language. That is the phrase "You know".

Inserted into any conversation for any reason, we're so anti the idea that we should pause to think, perhaps dropping the conch, rather than keep the motormouth running.

Today I think I only "you know"ed twice, but still each time I kicked myself.

So LJ masses, after I failed to post the "Tell me something interesting I missed not having been back through two weeks of your journal" earlier this week I will challenge you all to "Count your "you know"s for the day" and post the results.

Go on - you know you want to...

... interesting.

I'm still shattered. I'm still under the thumb of a massive to do list and I miss the snow. It's never really gotten to me before but this time I'm feeling it a little. Maybe it's the commute.

Today I braved the train for the first time. It wasn't too bad and I could even have gotten my bike on it - once I've sorted out the changing/shower arrangements for the other end. This is the only light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday I sat in a room for most of the day with headteachers. It was all rather predictable. The women had too much make-up on and smelled of middle-aged lady; while the men looked around and wondered what the hell they ever saw in this profession - and were obviously dreaming of retirement.

That's not to say the job isn't all bad - I know more about underachievement in minorities than I did yesterday and can recommend the publications of the National Audit Office to insomniacs the world over.

It'd be all too easy to get dragged down by it all, so instead I'm going to take a couple of minutes, look at the new photo-book I've bought and dream of creativity.

And try to forget the credit card bill - brought this month by North America ski passes; the Hilton Bradford and Easyjet flights to Berlin.

I did get some free champagne from British Airways after they cocked up our online check-in. Anyone want to help or watch me drink it?

I'm going out. I may be sometime. In the meantime, there will be regular updates on my photoblog. There might even be a bit of stuff new to LJ over the next couple of weeks.

Cripes, I'm exhausted. This working for a living is doing for me. It seems like ages since I updated - which is mostly because it is ages since I updated.

In any case, deep breath, and here goes.

A couple of weekends ago I went to Oxford, and took some photos of lovely people doing silly things; and some twigs; and some flowers. The results I will bore you with later, when I get a chance to upload them properly. It might take some time though. Company was good, camera-pr0n was good, though I was mostly shattered.

Last week was my first full week then The New Job (TNJ). It involved a two day staff conference, a trip to Colchester (via London), a snowy drive to Nottingham and a day cowering at home from the white stuff falling from the sky. The staff conference was actually good fun. The novelty teambuilding exercise involved making a video, which I enjoyed more than I thought I might. Methinks there might be something to explore there in the future. Colchester was bloody miles away. I was also not impressed by the Holiday Inn. Snowy Thursday I made the trip because of another planning day. This is where my life started to unravel.

Well, not my life as such, but the stoic, professional face I'd been wearing for days. This is the face of a person who is quiet, considered, positive, professional, reasoned, respectable and well turned out. Unfortunately it slipped off and the real me poked through. Still, they haven't terminated my employment yet...

This last weekend I did very little. I stayed up too late doing a bit of work, playing The Lord of Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Rise of the Witch-King, which has probably the longest title of any game I own. I also watched some Oz (gritty!), some Battlestar Galactica (ok-good), some Heroes (wonderful fan heaven) and Lost (too predictable). I did find time to DJ at Malediction on Saturday and spent most of Sunday being slightly dead.

Apparently I need a silly DJ name - answers on a postcard...

My setlists were:

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The big surprises were the number of people dancing to Modulate and someone saying to me it's the first time he'd heard Here Comes The War played out. I was shellshocked.

This week I have mostly been trying to convince myself that listening to the Today programme counts as work; enjoying the Archers and watching my Cthulhu investigator be murdered by a nasty piece of work with a .45. Poor Dr Kersh. He died a noble death during what was perhaps his most stupid and suicidal plan to date.

Finally I am nearly up to date, before jetting off again at the weekend. But there is time enough for one final story.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was in Austria there were some storms. During these storms a number of roof tiles detached themselves from my roof and decided it would be warmer inside. Ignoring the glass in their way, they fell to the earth. Alas they did not carry the words of $deity, but rather they just left devastation in their wake.

Upon my return I phoned my insurance company, got their glaziers out (or rather had a survey and the work is being done tomorrow) and had a budget to sort out the roof. So, I phoned a handful of roofers. One actually picked up the phone, came out and spoke to me. £480 inc VAT he said to me, perhaps unsurprising when I said the insurance company had authorised £500. "Written quote please!" I say and off we go. No quote ever appeared, so on Monday I phoned some more roofers and arranged for them to visit tomorrow to quote (when there will be someone in to open for the glaziers - with me so far?!).

But then this evening I get a phone call - without sending a quote or arranging to do the work, the original roofers turned up first thing this morning, did the job, and presented an invoice for £480 + VAT. So tomorrow I get to call them and explain that I'm not going to pay for that work and really it would have been better if they had arranged something with me rather than turn up in the van.

Trading Standards - here I come!!!

The best way to round off a week which was quite tiring was to relax to Oxford with a lot of lights, some jolly good company, approximately twice as many people as cameras - oh, plus a lot of chocolate.

I'll go through some of my photos later, but behind the cut is one I took of Chiara (WINOLJ)'s eye. What's most interesting to me isn't the eye, the make-up or the contact lens - but the reflection of myself in her pupil. Weird.

Anyway - take a look. Much, much more soon but first I'm away from home for another couple of nights thanks to w**k.

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I'm also thinking of buying a laptop. I'm drawn to a MacBook Pro. Any Appleites out there want to talk me into spending more money than just the basic model - or advise me to wait a bit for any reason?

I am only looking at the 15" as the 17" is too big for what I want; or maybe just a MacBook with a bucket of RAM. It is, in practice, likely to remain my second machine as a desktop with 21" and 17" monitors is likely to remain my first choice for photo editing. I was also considering IBM/Lenovo but almost certainly not Sony as I've found their build quality to be rubbish.

Can you use Nokia mobiles as modems on MacOS? I'm assuming yes...

Today for the first time in about 4 years I'm off to a proper office job. This is slightly terrifying as for a long time I've either been "working from home" or in such flexible employment I'd spend much of it not at my nominal desk.

So I'm up early, I'm vaguely clean, the car has petrol, I've got my dinner money, I've got my induction timetable...

Soon I will answer the important question - is LJ blocked at work.