Month: September 2012

Noooo …

I haven’t been getting ambitious in the kitchen, although I saw some pictures of cakes earlier that looked incredibly tempting …

Been watching lots of sport this weekend, as well as making a bit of a dent in the recorded stuff on the box. There’s 2 massive events on at the moment, although I have my doubts about one of them.

Cricket has another world cup going at the moment, this time it’s Twenty20 games. That’s actually a very similar format to what I play, although they have daft rules in like needing to have a certain number of players close(ish) to the bat. We don’t have the rule, although it works out similar.

International T20 games are hard to predict a winner before the game. In longer games, it’s possible to rebuild if the side loses early wickets. T20 can get dominated by the ball very easily. I have mixed thoughts about whether or not it’s good to watch, as the games can get one sided (and therefore boring) very quickly.

Anyone could win this tournament, now that we’re in the “Super 8’s” stage all of the sides can beat any of the other sides on their day. That makes it far more interesting than football or rugby tournaments where you’d only put money on 2-3 or 4 sides out of 16+. Football and rugby world cups have far too many poor sides in, which makes the early stages extremely tedious.

Anyway – there’s been a bunch of cricket matches on this weekend and I’ve mostly watched them … That is, I’ve typically had the pictures on (or cricinfo commentary) with the sound off so I can listen to either music or :

Ryder Cup’s come round again.

I don’t watch much golf, although I wouldn’t mind trying it out again to see if it helps my shoulder and back stay loose and useful. That’s another thing that has to be on hold though until I can rely on my legs and arms again. Soooo much is waiting for my skin to recover. I think it is, steadily and slowly … I just have to give it the chance by avoiding self inflicted wounds.

Ryder Cup is something special. It comes around once every two years and is a matchplay tournament between 12 Americans and 12 golfers from GB & Europe. It can get very tense …

And that’s an understatement.

I’ve got it on at the moment, Europe have just drawn level at 10-10 with 8 games to go and need to draw 14-14 to retain the cup. It’s going to be compelling viewing over the next couple of hours. Compelling enough for me to hide behind a popcorn bucket ? Maybe 🙂 Although I did have popcorn the other night while watching a bunch of Stargate SG-1.

But while I’ve watched lots of sport this weekend, that’s not really where I’ve overdone things. All things in moderation of course. That is, except for grabbing more music for the library.

I’ve been enjoying listening to game soundtracks lately. And went a little berzerk acquiring more today. The damage today is another 133 songs, which will take 10.4 hours (stats from iTunes) to listen to. That’s adding to another 139 songs over the last couple of weeks. Not all game soundtracks, I was impressed by Lisa Hannigan’s first album (Sea Sew) and Proms Fever made me buy a Last Night soundtrack.

The last 3 months has seen no less than 593 tracks join the library …

Perhaps that’s overdoing it 🙂

PS Since stealthing my wifi network, there’s been Zero interference. That’s going from at least one router reset per day to no resets in a few weeks now. Kinda proves that there’s a naughty person out there trying to stop me listening to music ? LOL. At least I haven’t had to spend cash to stymie them 🙂

Yeah – I’ve not put many updates in lately …

The reasons for that are usually something like having something on my mind, being worried about something, being distracted by something or just plain not having that much to talk about.

Not so sure about that last one, cos when I get my teeth into talking about something, it’ll end up being Wall Of Text like usual. Although I have been struggling for things to work as triggers to start me off.

It’s not even so much the being distracted by things, although I have been watching a lot of Youtube from peope like the Yogscast, Totalbiscuit and Omfgcata/Jesse Cox (not so much of the Dodger these days). There’s a few things I’d like to get distracted by 😉 But I need to get healthy again first.

And that’s probably what’s really on my mind and the thing I’m worried about. My legs last year decided to steadily get worse and worse. I thought I’d figured out how to make them better but just as the cricket season was closing down, they erupted again. Like to a state worse than last year in only a week. Hence the big shift in diet to include green stuff.

I have to say, I’ve appreciated that change of diet – although I have to watch out so that the grazing on apples doesn’t continue into grazing on biscuits. Having the apples = good, grazing on biscuits = bad.

I haven’t had a repeat of the bad breathing issues lately which suggests I figured out the cause – it was one of :

Wheat allergy (most likely)
Bacon/Ham allergy (less likely)
Work related stress (very likely)

I’ve cut out the sources for the wheat allergy, with brown bread being fine to eat and white bread leaving me struggling to breathe. Looks like it’s white bread that’s the trigger. I’m hopeful that I can start having the bacon again. Bacon Good.

And the prime cause for the work related stress moved out of our team a few weeks ago. He was an ok guy but we’re still feeling the consequences of ill thought out actions and will do at least until we rebuild the relationships with our contractors (the ones who actually do the work). Hell, we should have had a key document out for our 6 ships by now, instead we have barely gotten out one due to his interference.

Axe to grind ? Hell yeah. He was an ok guy but professionally he was a wrecking ball.

And now you’re probably thinking : yeah, there was a definite cause for work related stress. And that’s without me passing on most of the stuff that was going on. I’m one of those people who is utterly dependent on their self confidence. To have the confidence surgically dismantled at every turn is tough to take. And yet I did, because I’m also the sort of person who doesn’t let a bastard win. The worst thing about it is not knowing who I could talk to about it, because of all the Chinese Whispers going on.

What’s this health thing though ?

I have to get the discipline to leave my legs along (and a couple of other patches). I think they’d have healed by now if I didn’t keep scratching them. Perhaps a series of hefty gaming sessions is required so that I don’t think of the scratching ?

I’ll get back to doing more updates soon. But that’ll be when I’m less focused on trying to see why my legs aren’t better yet. I think they are improving – I just need to leave them alone enough to give them the chance.

I have several like that………….

Lol from Facebook :

Made me chuckle 🙂

What compels us to do stuff ?

I’m in a bit of a weird phase at the moment with the gaming. I have a bunch of games that I’ve bought recently but haven’t played yet and a much bigger list of games that I never finished. And then there’s the others which I go back to time & time again.

I played my first session for a while of Guild Wars 2 last night and have to admit that I really didn’t enjoy it much at all. That’s a curious one, because when it comes to gameplay it’s mostly there and it is genuinely one of the better MMOs I’ve played. And that’s all-time, including GW1, City of Heroes (very meh), Eve and WoW.

MMOs hit that compulsion thing pretty hard. Especially Eve with its player driven universe. Eve is the best example of a game that compels its players to keep in there in order to keep up with what friends are doing. Eve has a fairly freeform party setup which allows up to 250 players to be in the same fleet. That’s up from a party of 5 in most MMOs or a raid of 25-40. So the more players you have in the fleet, the more powerful that fleet is. But one strength of Eve is that a small group of strong players with a fleet balanced across the ship types can and will take apart a much larger group of disorganised players.

So why don’t I play Eve any more ? Well – it’s 90% grind, 9% boredom and 1% sheer terror. There’s a lot of grind needed to prepare your character for pvp. Most of the pvp time I had was boredom as we didn’t find anyone to fight, with that 1% being when things happen.

The problem with the grind is that you find that you’re spending so many more hours in the game doing preparation work for what’s supposed to be the fun part. And that’s where a game starts feeling like a second job.

If a game is becoming so important that it feels like a second job, or it is becoming more important than your actual job : GIVE UP THE GAME. I see that at work too, where organising their fantasy football league takes more time than they put into their job (that cost us big time). I used to run the project’s indoor cricket team and we got consistently good results too, typically being 3rd in a league of 11-12. I gave up running that because it ended up taking too much time away from the day job.

No game is that important and if it is approaching that, you’ve become addicted to the point where the game is no longer entertainment. I guess WoW became that for me in the early days, although that was a particularly strange time. I realised what it was doing to me and gave up the guild leader position before something broke in my head.

I’m not feeling that compulsion with Guild Wars 2, although it is a better game than SWTOR.

That’s curious that – so many games tick so many of the right boxes but when it comes down to actually playing them, it feels like a chore after a while instead of fun. I’d put the following games in that list : all MMOs, Borderlands, Skyrim, Terraria, Mass Effect 3. And there’s a bunch more too.

Having a feeling of being compelled to keep up with the less enjoyable games distracts away from some of the unplayed games I have that I know would be huge fun : Beyond Good & Evil, Machinarium, Botanicula, Trine 2. And one I’m still looking at : Kerbal Space Programme.

So how about the games I do play way too much ? There’s usually a good reason for that.

Story – Deus Ex HR has an excellent story and I feel another playthrough coming … Similar with Mass Effect 1 and 2 (3 wasn’t so great).

Simplicity yet depth – Moo2 and FTL definitely have this. As does the ancient Neverwinter Nights which had me obsessed before the MMOs took over.

Mindset – Settlers IV.

Yep. I have a game that I’ll play just to put me in a particular mindset. If I’m needing a bit of mind numbing strategy, I’ll fire up Settlers IV. It’s a very slow Real Time Strategy and I have a build order that takes a very long time to mature. If my brain is buzzing, Settlers IV helps to calm it down. It’s nowhere near the best RTS type game but it works for me.

Not much gaming today though. There’s been F1 streaming from BBC (what the hell is wrong with Youtube’s playback ? No issues on BBC, yet continual whirly-waits on Youtube) and we’re currently at half time in the second cricket of the day.

Fingers crossed that England can overtake India’s total. It’ll finish just before I’m due to head out to the Wishing Well for drinks & munchies with the Eve crew. I’m done with Eve as a game but I still keep up with how the Volition Cult is getting on. They’re a good mob and I count a lot of them as good friends. I’ve managed to stay in touch, whereas the WoW mob showed how they got a little too addicted to that game.

Curious how the people in a game renowned for spies and politics don’t have a problem staying in touch but the people (Mercs) in WoW went a little crazy. But that’s a curious one for another day.

Right now – it’s England batting and me trying to avoid the compulsion to start off another HMS Iceangel run in FTL :-).

PS I also just picked up Alone in the Dark (1992 with its 2 sequels) and the two Independence War games from Good Old Games. Gotta find time to do more with those than just listen to the soundtracks.

The latest bit of techie hype has caught my eye this time …

What am I talking about ? iPhone 5 is what I’m talking about 🙂 I have to admit I’m just looking at the hype at the moment but there’s a few good reasons stacking up for why me upgrading to an iPhone 5 might be a good idea.

Data allocation – yes it costs more per month but it would give unlimited data. Perhaps that’s not worth an extra £22 per month though.

Shininess – iPhones are very shiny. I wouldn’t have said that before getting used to what my Xperia X10i mini gives but I’m thoroughly sold now on the potential of these little beasties. It’s very impressive being able to integrate so much on these devices now.

Phone Reliability – oh this is a big one. The Xperia is a good little device but it’s been showing tiredness and a few defects. There’s a lengthening list of defects with the phone :
Disrupted calls – where it sounds to both ends like a blender is by the mic
Low battery – I tried using the Xperia to take pictures during the IST20 last year, I got a small number but the camera isn’t the best and it nukes the battery
Soft-crashes – issues with the browser interface
Loss of network – exactly how it sounds, this seems to be happening more
Possible overheat nuking the battery more – sometimes it doesn’t want to charge, I suspect overheating
It’s very small

All that said, the X10 Mini does a lot of things well, like Bluetooth integration with the car and the general smartphone-ness. But it falls down on annoyances with the interface and its tendency to soft and hard crash. I bet it’s more reliable than a Windows phone though.

IPod reliability – I have a 16GB iPod Nano which works fairly well. It’s only refused to play music in the car once. But what it does have is amnesia. It’ll forget what it’s been playing. That’s irritating. A 64GB iPhone would also hold all of my 30GB+ library with room to spare.

There’s a bunch of other advantages it would have too, things like hooking it up to the car via Bluetooth for music although I’d probably still use USB because that charges the battery.

I’m not going to jump for the iPhone just yet … I’ll let the early adopters check it out first so they can find out about things like AntennaGate on the iPhone4. Apple are good but they’re still prone to software booboos. I’ll also be checking out what a few other people say about their iPhones.

So – not bling ?

When I started this post, I so TOTALLY had something in mind to denounce as utterly non bling.

Can I remember what it was ? Hell no. Shame ! Ranting can be excellent therapy 🙂

Been struggling to think of themes for posts lately, things I can wrap words around.

I’ve had the various thoughts running through my head, like how I’m enjoying work more at the moment (one big reason for that is something I’m not posting it here – lol). Here goes with a few random things :

Audi drivers really do need to Learn To Drive. I know there’s some sensible Audi drivers out there (including a very good friend) but the typical Audi driver gets the brand noticed. Things like tonight where a pony and trap was coming the other way. You take it easy around horses on the road, it’s easy to spook them. Audi driver decided to overtake the pony and trap just as I was coming past it.

I know right ? Easy way to get hoof prints in your front wing.

There was another one at work who objected to me slapping his rear wing after he nearly ran me over on a pedestrian crossing. (Service person who had the worst of the bad attitude they can have).

But that’s enough about Audi drivers. Apart from maybe next door, he has an Audi too. Not heard much from that one lately, which is always a good thing. I actually suspect the house is sub let, which is never a good thing for a neighbourhood as you don’t know who the transitory people are.

Talking of neighbourhood, I actually saw someone parked in the flats parking. There’s 3 parking spaces opposite my house which belong to the flats. However, the denizens of the local shops believed they were shop parking too and occupied the spaces until the owners of the flats got annoyed. There’s a chain over the spaces now with “Private” on it and nobody can park there. They shoulda just reported them to the Police instead, like what I do with cars who park outside with expired tax discs.

Yes I do. An expired tax disc means the car likely doesn’t have MoT to say its roadworthy or insurance to keep other drivers assured that it won’t be an issue if the muppet crashes into them. I report them with a clear conscience, knowing just how many idiots infest the roads.

And that behaviour on the road is getting much worse, case in point being that Audi driver who was begging for hoofprints in his doors.

Other bits – health stuff.

I think I’m on to something with locking down what I’m reacting to. Jaffa cakes are fine !!! HURRAH !!! So it’s either pig or wheat that I’m reacting to. I’m fine with brown bread at work, making turkey & lettuce sandwiches. I seemed ok with toast at home on brown bread. But I reacted a bit to turkey & ham sandwiches made on both white (lots of reaction) and brown bread (less reaction).

That lines up with other reactions too – pizza and going hyper with bacon.

What about the skin stuff ? Well, there’s a big patch on my arm which just looks like a rash. I really don’t know about this one, I think it’s subsiding (slowly). The patches on my legs are definitely subsiding, albeit very slowly. My skin is incredibly dry though, which isn’t helping. I think that’s from the damage though, my lips always go cracked when I’m suffering from an ulcer.

It’s improving, steadily, I just have to leave the bad patches alone so they get a chance to heal. That’s harder than it sounds cos it’s damn itchy. Hopefully isolating the allergies to wheat or pig will help.

Music.

Been enjoying listening to lots of music lately. And that means enjoying it without having to retune the router or reset the electronics. Since I made the wireless stealthy, I’ve had no interruptions from the jammer. And that’s over a significant enough time period to eliminate the reprobate responsible disappearing on holiday or something like that.

Last bit – Car stuff.

I’ve only had my car about a year now but I think I know what the next one will be … Here it is, courtesy of Autoexpress. It’s a little bigger than my CT and comes with a bigger engine, 2.5 litres up from the 1.8 in mine. It promises (like all hybrid concepts!) to have high mpg and low CO2/km. I suspect it’ll do about 45mpg but be a sub 10 second to 60 car rather than a slow 10+.

The Lexus LF-CC is a concept at the moment but it might come on sale conveniently close to when my CT’s loan matures … Looks shiny. It continues a theme of Lexus gradually going through their range facelifting them. The CT came in last year, the GS just got a facelift, now it’s the overdue turn of the IS. Hopefully this one will also come in a soft top version, like what I was looking for when I linked the IS-C 🙂

I’ve been hit by one of those bugs.

Not the sneezy kind … Nah. It’s the anticipation of something new and fun.

This time around, it’s a game called Faster Than Light. I first became aware of this one through PC Gamer magazine (one of the few articles I read in that issue) who ran the reader through a typical encounter, one of many your ship will have in the game.

The game came out on Friday and I’ve been enjoying it tremendously since. The basic premise is that your ship has been entrusted with data that needs to get to Federation HQ, across numerous sections of friendly and unfriendly space. But you can’t take forever because chasing you is the Rebel fleet, on their way to finish off the Federation.

To that end, you’re given a Kestrel class light cruiser and 3 crew to handle Weapons, Shields, Piloting and repairs. The ships also have Life Support, Doors, Sensors, Teleporters, Engines and Drones. Each system can be targeted independently by weapons or even your crew. The basic game play set up allows for huge depth in how you tackle the encounters. I’ve not seen anything like it for quite some time, although I suspect Battlecruiser 3000 may have tried to pull it off.

(And I’m now going to do all sorts of curse removing Stuff to make up for invoking the name of the worst piece of vapourware to ever approach PCs).

It’s deep, yet it’s very simple to play. You can go the conventional approach of Superior Firepower, you can use drones, you can go Borg and send over away parties (very difficult) or you can burn the other ship from the inside. That last one is surprisingly effective – set fires on the enemy and the fires do as much damage as weapon fire can do.

But yeah – FTL. It’s awesome and if you have an interest in space games, it’s an essential.

Back to the real world – I’m currently watching the 3rd in a series of programmes called Moon Machines that was shown again as part of a Neil Armstrong tribute weekend. So far, the episodes have covered the Saturn V rocket and the Command Module. This one’s about the navigation computer.

It’s very important to note that the Lunar programme was from back in the infancy of the computer age. Computers were in use in World War 2 to do code breaking but this was still the very early days. Miniaturisation hadn’t happened yet. Computers were huge, taking up whole rooms or buildings to do what we did on PCs 20 years ago. And yet a computer was needed to fit into a spacecraft to make it capable of getting to the moon and safely back again.

That’s a tough ask, especially as the “how” had never been done before. It’s very easy to clone software or modify process to tweak it to do what you want. But to generate whole new techniques and make them efficient ? That’s a far bigger challenge.

Moon Machines ? Worth a watch ? Definitely. But also watch the Tom Hanks team do their dramatisation of From The Earth To The Moon. I need to watch that again soon too, it’s in the queue after Toy Story 1 and 2 ahead of Toy Story 3 in the recorded stuff queue.

Back to “gaming” again …

I’m seriously considering having a look at the Kerbal Space Program. It’s showing how computer technology and software has advanced since the Apollo program by moving it from the Real Space domain into a Virtual Space domain inside the computer.

What is it ? It’s a toolkit that lets you build rockets and send them to places within the Kerbal system. It’s what I mentioned up top about a devilishly complex system hidden underneath simple ways of operating it. It’s tough to put that in brief words here, better just to point you towards :

Flight of the Munitar

The link will take you to a KSP forum thread with further links to Youtube videos showing a flight to the Mun and back. For a techie/wannabe astronaut (old dreams!) like me, it’s fascinating. It’s showing orbital mechanics at work. Objects don’t go in a straight line in space, they’re acted upon by gravity. You need to be going at a decent speed to “cheat” gravity enough to stay in orbit. You’re effectively falling at the same rate as you’re going round.

The Munitar flight shows a launch, Mun transition and return and it’s fascinating to see those orbital mechanics playing out on screen. It’s showing a modern computer doing with ease what was a huge struggle a little over 50 years ago.

And I’m getting more tempted to try it out 🙂 But first, I see another voyage of the HMS Sleepy coming on, crewed by Snow Queen on shields, The Boss in the pilot’s seat and Ms Warpath on weapons.
(Names I’ve used so far have been from gaming, time for a few new ones!)

I can’t actually remember that far back but wouldn’t it be better if door to door salespeople brought tangible stuff to sell you ?

Lots of people actually seem very keen to sell me stuff right now. I’m not actually that interested in buying but people seem very keen on selling.

The latest was a fella from Lovefilm (who immediately got a negative due to having no ID) who was keen. Gotta give him that. But … I’ve seen all the various adverts from Lovefilm and have zero interest in their services. Yeah, there is some shininess there but :

Films – I’ll buy it on bluray
Music – I buy it on cd or via iTunes/Amazon
Games – I buy them via Steam

The operative word there being “buy”. I’m not keen on the renting services like Lovefilm and Spotify. There’s numerous disadvantages like : Paying more in the long run. Not having free choice of what you watch. Having to wait between choice and watching. Losing all benefit at the whim of the renting provider. If they go bust ? Byebye collection.

Fella from Lovefilm also didn’t understand the meaning of “I’m not interested”. I don’t really have a huge problem with salespeople but I will very quickly start to get impatient with those that insist on wasting more of my time than it takes to tell them to go away the first time.

No – I’d prefer to buy actual movies which will give far superior quality to streaming it from the internet. It’s also cheaper to get 5 for £30 and watch several times than it would be to rent.

There does seem to be a shift though. People are looking to make it so you don’t own what you buy. Things like software effectively being on a rental scheme. You aren’t free to transfer ownership of items like mp3s. I don’t think I could transfer any of the items in my Steam library to a third party like I could with my games on dvd.

But that’s enough about Lovefilm. Car people seem very keen on selling things at the moment …

Had the call from the Lexus people at the weekend offering me a deal on a new CT. That’s been followed by a “confidential” email telling me about a marketing event this weekend. Deals etc. Worth looking into, I can only say good things so far about the Lexus experience. But … I like my car and it’s given me no reason to change it.

That’s more than can be said for the other offer today …

Yes. Carcraft are also out for sales. At least that phone call stayed polite as I told them to go away. I think their guy got the message as soon as I told them that I’d already changed car. Let’s have a look at Carcraft’s terms …

12.9% APR or 19.9% on representative. That’s the big nasty. It’s what makes car ownership expensive. That interest really adds up over the years. Let’s look at 2 examples :

Carcraft Jaguar XF – 2 years old, 32k miles, £23k. That works out as £533 per month over 4 years or £577 over 5 according to their “representative” calc. Scary numbers.
Lexus GS450h – 2 years old, 30k miles, £23k. That’s £513 per month over 4 years at 5/10.5% APR or £428 per month over 5 years at the same 5%.

The totals are £28k/£35k for Carcraft or £27k/£28k for the Lexus. Dunno where that really expensive representative calc kicks in though for the Carcraft car, it’s probably the figure you actually pay rather than the figure you believed you’d pay.

Anyway. Going to a main dealer can actually work out cheaper than going to the car supermarket. Main dealers need custom too. There’s lots of competition out there and the more there is, the better it is for the buyer.

Oh and Lexus didn’t pressure me into getting any PPI or servicing or other stuff like that. The servicing and warranty from Carcraft were derisory. The service wasn’t a full service, it followed the Carcraft schedule instead of the manufacturer’s recommendations and the warranty did not cover the mechanical failure my Focus suffered with its inlet manifold.

All that sales pitch call from Carcraft has earned them is a bit more disclosure on what my experience was with them. Glad that’s over !

PS That Lexus GS looks shiny. But I wouldn’t go for it as my next car. I have my fingers crossed that a hybrid version of this Lexus will come out soon … It is an incredibly shiny car. But … 9 secs to 60 is too slow for it, 30mpg combined is too greedy and 213g/CO2 is ouch worthy for road tax.
PS2 But it is shiny. And I have hopes for the LF-LC although I suspect that one will be too rich for me or have too much roof.

Last PS – if girl scouts came round here with cookies ? They’d only need to visit one house. But they should make sure to ring first to make sure I have enough cash to mean they don’t have to visit anyone else.

Been out and about in the car lately with work.

They don’t let me out too much (They think I scare people) but it is good to have the occasional trip out to contractor places or the outstations. Especially when it give you a chance to see what you’ve been working on. Not that the seeing what I’d been working on was the point of Monday’s trip, they just happened to be visible out the windows.

From 200-300 metres away, maybe more. Yep. I’ve been playing with big toys over the past decade.

Anyway. Travelling. One trick I implemented was to take more advantage of the Smart Numbers telephone system at work. That system lets us take a number with us and either attach it to the phone at the desk we end up at for the day or route it elsewhere. I had mine going to my mobile during the two travel days. Now you’re thinking “Hey ! He’s going to be in a car for a significant amount of that.” Yep. True. But I feel better about telling people to ring me back cos I’m driving than ignoring voicemail messages.

Smart Numbers works well (at least it does now that the bugs have been worked out) but the voicemail system is utter garbage. It’s nigh on unusable. Trouble is, the people who ring in don’t understand that and insist on leaving garbled messages that we never hear when they should be sending an email instead (or even a text to the number I give in my sig with a “please do not use voicemail, send a text to this number instead”)

Travelling doesn’t just mean telling people to ring me back when they phone while I’m driving. It’s ok for me because my CT is set up with a handsfree spiderphone facility. But it’s not ok for the person trying to talk to me as my attention wavers between conversation and driving. If the driving demands concentration, that’s where the concentration goes.

I use my own car for business trips. It’s just not worth me taking a hire car :

My CT is far superior to the typical hire car in toys
I’m familiar with it and the satnav is well programmed now
iPod integration (and phone integration) works well
It’s 50+mpg and therefore a cheaper option
And I realllly distrust the hire car companies

Hire car companies are naughty – I’ve seen a few colleagues have to defend themselves because mysterious blemishes appeared on the hire car, supposedly when the colleague had it. You have to inspect the hire car carefully before and after. If there are blemishes, take pictures before opening the key packet.

And it’s really sad we have to protect ourselves in that way. Surely there should be a level of being able to trust the hire car company contracted by the massive organisation I work for. But then again, that may be part of it. The company may assume they can get away with upsetting the little guy because the little guy’s voice gets lost in noise.

Toys ? Kinda gone through this one already with those Smartnumbers – there’s just one flaw there, Caller ID doesn’t work through the redirect to my mobile.

However … what I did find out about was something else with that Smartnumbers. At work, if the desk phone rings, we don’t have a clue who it is. Unless … you know about a part of Smartnumbers we weren’t told about : Caller ID through the desktop. I need someone to ring me while that’s active so I can see it working.

Aliens ?

Think I achieved a couple of things in John Lewis yesterday. Yeah. I bought a vacuum cleaner. But that’s boring … At least it is alongside knowing that the John Lewis girl who was looking after me was definitely thinking I was from another planet. Good to see I haven’t lost that.

Oh – here’s something really sad. When I started looking to talk to people in John Lewis, I went up to Bloke sales person and Girlie sales person. Bloke immediately passed me over to Girlie, with me getting the impression that he thought selling vacuum cleaners was beneath him and was the lady’s work. That’s kinda sexist.

Did I care ? Hell no. I’d far rather talk to a pretty blonde lady any time than a chubby, balding middle aged bloke who apparently didn’t want to talk to his customer. Wonder what she thought of it ? Look after your people as well as your customers.

Failing to look after your people leads to them not being effective at their jobs, especially if you actively prevent them from doing work which is actual priority work.

Brr ?

Getting cold again here. I’ve not turned the heating on yet but may have to soon … Legs are still not healed yet (although they are steadily improving) so I’m still in shorts in the evening. It’s getting a bit cold for that though and my knees are starting to ask for knee pads to be on.

Cricket season is almost over too. Played my last game (the evenings have been drawing in) a few weeks ago but the domestic season goes on a bit longer. Enjoyed watching the last England game for … a week tonight with England beating South Africa.

And I’d better leave it there before I wear out the keyboard. Been strugging to think up topics lately although … when I get one ? Wall Of Text 🙂