Sleepypete's Pillow

Been seeing a few things lately that’s been making me wonder if it’s worth continuing to blog …

The reason I’ve kept this blog going is that I find myself with thoughts that are bursting to get out. I need to express them but either have difficulty saying it out loud (confidence issue) or it’s a case of not actually knowing who to talk to them about. So I work ’em out here so that they don’t keep me up all night. They do that, the subject I’ll be thinking about will rattle around in my head until I sort out what it actually is and scribbling it here allows me to settle the chaotic thoughts into some kind of order.

Trouble is though … and this is where the Pitchforks come in, is the breach of anonymity that could quite easily happen due to the attitudes of the people who actually run this country. I’m not talking about the government there, although you’d expect them to be in charge. They’re not though – it’s the media that runs this country. Yep, even less elected than our PM (and his adoption of the top job didn’t involve a vote …)

As they showed in the case of the Copper Blogger who they exposed, the argument “in the public interest” can be used to unmask anyone, even someone who is writing from a declared position of anonymity. What’s that mean for whistleblowers ? The policeman blogger’s position is rather different to mine though as I understand that he often commented on politics and cases he was involved in. Which is the opposite to how I work, I obliquely mention work reasonably often but I’m far more interested in talking (and saying nice things) about the people I work with than I am in talking politics.

Politics tends to be highly depressing, although I get the feeling that not all of what the media says about our politicians is actually true. The media can happily get away with half-truths and blatant inaccuracy with any comeback from public figures being limited to a halfhearted apology on a small fraction of page 10.

I work on a fairly high profile project (1 well hidden blog post here mentions it) and there’s usually a mix of emotions that come out when a news story about us does the rounds. On one hand, we’re usually pretty chuffed to see nice things written about us and our project’s one of the better ones so nice things tends to be what we see. However, that’s tempered by all the inaccuracies, falsehoods, blatant lies and utter incompetence that riddles media reporting. Even when there’s a definitive statement produced where it would be unbelievable for it to be twisted, the media often find a way of corrupting it to suit the angle they’re looking for.

I have a very dim view of incompetence, I don’t like to make life any easier for those who I view as Idiots and Morons. However, the ability for a newspaper to use the “In The Public Interest” argument to strip away a person’s anonymity is disturbing, especially when they’re the ones defining what the “Public Interest” is. Is it something the public genuinely need to know or is it the media hunting for a new Victim.

Either way, highly disturbing. Makes you wonder whether you really want to put something on a website that can be twisted and corrupted by some highly questionable people.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll put my Torch and Pitchfork away and get back to watching the England Girls in the cricket. They’re fighting hard but are looking incredibly nervous … Very strange, a side that was so clinical in the longer game is struggling with poor errors. Hope they bat better so they can beat Aussie, cos that means I’ll be watching the England Girls again on Sunday morning 🙂

PS In case there’s any misunderstandings, I’ll repeat what I usually put about work. It hasn’t changed 🙂 I work with some amazing people and although some can be pretty hard work (very sharp people can be tough to keep up with) the project is great to work on. And that’s shown by the length of time people tend to stay on board, people hang around on our project. Also, even though big projects have their bad times as well as the good, we’re really delivering stuff now. We have an awesome product that should do its job for many years to come. And it can’t be a bad thing when after a decade or so, you see again what you worked on and feel a sense of pride when thinking “I helped with that”, which is what everyone on my project will have in the future.

One of the things that’s been keeping me going at work lately is the people that we have around. It’s been a struggle this week, due to pain in my back and poorly shoulder. And because the shoulder isn’t too healthy, restricted blood flow in my right arm means my right wrist gets painful too.

Sucks a bit …

But I don’t like to dwell on pain, as that leads to the pain owning you. I have a mental discipline that lets me filter out the annoying things around me, things like the loudly squeaking printer that irritates everyone else. I’m aware of the squeak but I’m able to filter it out. I try to do something similar with pain, where I don’t acknowledge it until I kinda trip up over it. It works most of the time but the constant low level pain of wristy RSI can get to me.

What really helps with the pain management is distraction 🙂 And that’s been coming from a couple of different areas :

Letting the mischievous demon out of the box

Hasn’t happened as often as I’d like lately, although I did let the Imp out long enough today to do something that’ll hopefully earn me a smile from someone next week. Nah – the mischievous demon hasn’t been let out enough for a little while.

Having a laugh with people

I get on pretty well with the people at work, including those who don’t actually work on the project I’m on. One of my addictions has earned me a new name : Muffin Man 🙂 I’m a big fan of the Chocolate & Orange muffins in the canteen and cos I tend to leave it until they’re just about to close, the canteen girls have gotten used to me coming down at about 3.00-3.30 to raid their muffins. I’m also a huge fan of the sandwiches they make, even to the point where I’ll grab my lunch from there even if I’m having a half day on the Friday 🙂

A little bit of attention can do wonders for the morale and it gives me a lift to get a hello and a bit of banter when I see them. I got a lot of amusement out of Ms Cantina going “Ohh look, it’s the Muffin Man” yesterday afternoon :-). Kinda curious to note that they don’t seem to do it so much with the other people who frequent that canteen.

So that’s a few ways for how I’ve been dealing with my own fragility 🙂

Getting myself focused in what I’m doing so I don’t notice the soreness. Having a little fun and helping people out (did a couple of techie support things today for a pair of truly lovely ladies 🙂 But most of all enjoying a bit of banter with the people at work.

PS I also go for the canteen teacakes in the morning, mainly cos my morning routine doesn’t usually have a slot for breakfast but partly cos I might get another opportunity to spot a smiling Ms Cantina 🙂

Heh heh heh – in a film I’ll happily watch many times, one of the opening lines is “The Matrix Has You”.

Facebook kinda does that too – They’ve done well in making it quite user friendly and I’m quite impressed with the amount of automation that it has built in. Things like having minigame exploits being able to get published to your page. I’m a little surprised I’ve taken to it, as it’s a complete contrast from the blog :

Blog – Wall Of Text
Facebook – minicomments

I have to admit, I’ve been struggling to put things on here lately, although that’s partly down to tiredness. I’m getting close to needing another week away from work. I like what I do but there are times I want to escape and not have to think about the several different directions I get pulled in when I’m there. It definitely has compensations, like Thursday when I got to have a tour of what I’ve been helping to put together over the past 9 years.

There’s a curious satisfaction to seeing something come together, especially if you’ve been involved from almost the beginning. Projects start out as thoughts on paper but they only really come alive when you can see tangible progress. And there’s nothing more tangible than what we saw on Thursday. It feels alive now and ready to take on what we ask of it. And I got a hell of a kick out of seeing that.

What else is happening ? We’ve been having typical English weather at the moment :

Hottest days of the year, followed by a predictable deluge. Predictable because it’s come at the same time as the World Twenty20 cup in the cricket. They’ve had results in all the games so far, although England will probably have been wishing that Friday’s had been rained off … They got bitten by complacency (yet!) again and failed to beat Netherlands. You should always try your hardest, because if you don’t the people you’re playing will make you regret taken them too lightly.

I should have been out of office again Friday but cried off due to increasing stiffness in my back. That’s one of my old injuries that likes to remind me it’s there every so often. I wouldn’t describe the sensation as “pain”, as pain is too strong a word. Mind you, I seem to use the word “pain” like others use “agony” 🙂 One thing I’ll be looking for on that week off I’m aiming at is a relaxing of my back, as one cause is stress. I stress myself to do my job well, so getting away from the job completely gives an opportunity to heal up a bit.

Watched the latest Terminator movie earlier. It’s handy to have watched the first 3 movies, as you know what to look out for. This movie scores extremely well in staying consistent with what’s gone before, which is always the place where sci-fi movies trip up over themselves. Things like scars on people, where do they come from … bar codes burned into others. They need to be accounted for in order to keep things consistent. It’s a shame the trailers give away what could have been a huge plot point, as this would have had Major Shock Value if kept as a surprise.

Good movie, worth seeing. Very action heavy and very loud, so it won’t be for everyone’s taste 🙂

Right – I have the Grand Prix on telly and I’ll be watching England v Pakistan in the cricket afterwards. Not been listening to as much music as usual lately, although I’m looking forward to the Little Boots album that comes out tomorrow.

PS Was great to see The Rose back in on Friday 🙂

Yep – another new toy to play with.

I’ve resurrected my Facebook account 🙂 Not quite sure what happened with that. Aginoth let me know that there was a page on Facebook with my own email address. Totally blank page. I didn’t know anything about it … Very strange.

I attempted to resurrect it by going through the forgotten password thingys but wasn’t getting the emails from Facebook. To cut a few steps out, looks like my ISP was rejecting emails sent from Facebook to my main email address. Just shows the danger of auto-delete spam filters that are at the ISP level, they’ll remove authentic messages as well as the spam. That particular problem has been poked and it’ll hopefully behave now.

Anyway, I’ve taken the Facebook plunge now so I’ll be adding things to there too. If anyone reading this would like to add me as a Friend, then let me know through the email address attached to my profile. (The iceangel.mercs@ one will reach me)

Still got issues with my laptop – I suspect the Linksys software that got added a month or so ago caused some damage … it could see Agi’s laptop last night but couldn’t connect to files on it.

Now chilling out on the sofa looking out for Facebook updates, while hoping that my back doesn’t concrete up as much as I think it might do.

PS I get the feeling that one of the Canteen Girls might be doing a bit of a While You Were Sleeping. So I’m going to be keeping on the lookout for solid objects that may result in comas.

(there was another comment here – but it’s another spamsite so it has been removed, as far as I know I’ve never posted anything on table tennis)

Yeah – that’s where I’m thinking that there must be at least a partial answer in better gear … although I have to admit I didn’t watch that far into the video. So often nowadays you see athletes going straight to the surgery option instead of allowing Time to do a better job.

I wonder if not mentioning the discomfort is a macho thing ? Show no pain type of thing.

PS My plastic surgery’s left me with an odd quirk – occasionally it whistles when I breathe through my nose 🙂

In general I think there is far too much plastic surgery being performed, girls as young as 10 and 12 are getting work done

In this case her breasts do look quite large for the rest of her body. They also appear to be escaping whatever bra she’s wearing – they’re kinda spilling out on the sides which must be so irritating

large breasts also cause a lot of back pain and as she gets older they could cause even more complications

I didn’t see anywhere in the story where she talks about discomfort, she only mentioned wanting to be faster – is that what has everyone’s panties in a knot?

I truly can’t blame the girl – when they showed a close-up of her back you can see all the straps and hooks and she’s still bouncing – trust me – that is not at all comfy.

(editorial insert before the rest of the post – this one started laughy and then dived foot-in-mouth into heavy stuff – I think this Reg story touched a nerve!)

One of my daily reads is The Register. They’re an online techie news website that goes for the highly cynical point of view. But they also have a lot of fun with the news they’re reporting.

Latest Hottie topic is this one on the tennis player Simona Halep. It’s a curious story for a couple of reasons (ok, mebbe for more than a pair).

There’s more than two good reasons why cosmetic surgery’s been developed. I’ve actually benefitted from it myself in the past in what I refer to now as Nose Job Number Two. (The second was surgical, the first was agricultural.) I know what she’s getting at too, from experience with trying to move my body fast while the ballast around my middle just wants to stay put.

(I checked the video and yep, she’s got a great pair of reasons why she thinks she needs this done)
(Erm … I only watched about a minute of the 5 they have on there … honest !)

(ok, ok – the Whack-Thud was interfering with the Snow Patrol album I have on)

Doh – I think I digressed there … Yep. I can see why she’d want to have breast reduction surgery in order to get more comfort (they must hurt!) and speed around the court but all my brain is seeing is a young girl looking to have unnecessary surgery performed that amounts to not much more than a mutilation. Mind you, the Amazons used to do something like it and I wouldn’t argue with them.

Maybe there’s other ways to tackle it, like different emphasis in the diet or using different gear to keep them under control. I’m a bloke, so I’ll apologise for not being familiar with the ways the ladies stay abreast of this issue. My ballast problem (ok, when in an honest moment I’ll admit I kinda look pregnant) could be dealt with by surgery (little bit of lipo 🙂 but a far more effective way of tackling it would be to balance my diet and do rather more exercise than I do now.

Plastic surgery’s a necessary option for those for who it was intended. Like me with a nose which I had trouble breathing through or the lady who was in the news recently having had a full face transplant. That lady will now be looking forward to a future that’s benefitted from the lessons learned in the rest of the plastic surgery field.

There’s also the case of the lady who had post-mastectomy pictures removed from Facebook (big long link to BBC!), because Facebook deemed them “sexual and abusive”. I caught this story on Radio 5 this morning and I think I heard (was driving, my attention snaps on and snaps off as required by the road) that she was considering cosmetic surgery in the future. From the limited amount I know of the implications of breast cancer, it’s to restore confidence. From how she sounded on the radio, I don’t think she needed that confidence boost 🙂

And that shows – beauty isn’t just what’s on the surface. Some of the most beautiful people I know do not conform to the Hollywood Ideal or the Catwalk look. Their beauty is in what’s inside. How they act, how they move, how they treat other people. Whether they work for their figure or get cursed with SkinnyGenes. I know someone who’s a little bigger than she wants to be and despite all the work she’s putting in, is having trouble reducing to the size she thinks she should be. Do I think she’s fat ? Definitely not – she’s healthy. Do I think the exercise makes her drop dead gorgeous ? Yep. The exercise enhances coordination and fluidity of movement. And she’s blessed with a very warm personality too.

Ok – maybe I’d better get back to the original thing … It raises the “what’s really necessary?” question. I’ll quite happily support plastic surgery to correct things like my battered nose or to give a lady recovering from major surgery the confidence she needs to help her fight for health. But cutting off bits to help someone run around a tennis court faster seems both rather unnecessary and a dangerous shortcut that’ll damage a healthy young body.

However, it’s her choice. From what I’ve put above, you’ll probably gather that I’d advise a different course of action but it isn’t my body that would be under the knife. (I have a few people trying to get me to go in to get my shoulder sorted – it hasn’t happened yet partly cos I hate hospitals)

Before the PS, I’ll add in another note 🙂 I usually support Yorkshire cricket because my ancestry is up there. Getting to like Somerset too cos they’re locals (I almost put yokels ;-). I’ve got my fingers crossed for Middlesex County Cricket Club this year, who have adopted Pink as part of their One Day game uniform in support of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity.

Cancer in all of its forms is a vicious illness. I knew someone my age who disappeared from work for about 4 months. We didn’t know why, he just stopped answering the “Lunch Mob” emails. He came back after a few months and showed us his scars. My initial thought was “crikey, what happened to the shark that did that to you ?” With what they’d cut, it must have been touch and go there. It was good to see him back to his old bouncy self, albeit with the experience shadow that comes with a brush with death. He left the place I work at to move back to nearer his family. Hope he’s still around and causing trouble 🙂

Talking of cricket – the Yorkshire v Lancashire game is starting, so it’s time for me to hit “Publish Post”

PS I’ve put a lot of cliches in that would get me in trouble with the Equality and Diversity people – I really couldn’t resist and all cliches are meant in jest 🙂 But I have gone far deeper into the Breast Cancer angle than I originally intended. Maybe it’s cos I’m keeping an eye out for news about a couple of people ? 🙂

When I had my cable TV fitted, I had the radio commentary coming over the internet 🙂 The telly commentators get the advantage of being able to show things with replays but the radio commentators are great to listen to. They’re intelligent people who get a kick out of watching a game and they pass on that fun to the listener.

Cricket and football are a curious contrast. Cricket is a laid back game, football is hustle n bustle. But whereas 90 minutes of football only tends to have a couple of incidents which change the result, they happen every ball towards the end of a cricket match.

I get bored watching football but get glued to when a cricket match has a close finish 🙂

PS Test Match Special people are legendary in their ability to fully describe cakes.

As a cricket philistine it seems to me you can watch cricket for days and nothing much happens! 😉 I used to share a flat with a chap who used to watch cricket on TV but turn the sound down and listen to the radio commentary. It was quite amusing listening to them talking about birds flying overhead, the buses outside the grounds, people in the crowd etc. 🙂