Sleepypete's Pillow

One thing I’ve noticed about cricketers over the last few years when they’re doing interviews is their habit of saying “Look” or “Ah look” before they answer the question they’ve been asked …

I’m scratching my head as to why they do that, I’d usually use “look” in that context only if I thought I was being got at by the interviewer, which is almost always not the case in the ones I’ve watched. And Michael Atherton in particular is outstanding for pulling out the cheeky question that
most other interviewers wouldn’t have the courage to ask 🙂

Another case for the “Ah Look” is Hancock – went to see this one yesterday and it’s as spectacular as you’d wish for in a Summer Blockbuster. It’ll make a lot of cash this one, in both cinema (probably best there for the scale) and on dvd. It scores through consistency with itself, it makes as much sense as sci-fi usually does and there’s a massive plot twist half way through that turns this from run of the mill into something really rather special.

Well recommended, this could well be the pick of the summer blockbusters. It definitely hits the mark better than Prince Caspian and it’s more serious than Kung-fu Panda.

What else have I been up to ? Monday and Tuesday were testing days, which involve representatives from my place watching the subcontractors assure themselves that the multi-million pound piece of software is a) working and b) working as expected. It’s a very complex beastie the thing under testing this week, there’s at least 50 discrete pieces of computer hardware that all have to talk to each other and get along without something going bang that shouldn’t be going bang.

That’s the real trick in my particular line of work, making sure all the different systems made by a collection of subcontractors all play nice with each other without throwing the toys out of the pram. I don’t have personal experience with autism but it’s probably a fair comparison – computers can only work by the rules that they are programmed with, which includes their ability to communicate. If the message is slightly garbled, they can’t even use human experience or our wider set of rules to decipher the message. They’ll either bin the bad message (good) or complain bitterly and give you the Blue Screen of Death that most Windows users will know all too well.

It’s a challenge and we’ve got a good bunch of people working on it 🙂 Plus being disconnected from the usual blogs and forums in the hotel room allowed me to finally finish Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. It’s not a terrible book but on numerous occasions, I lost the ability to visualise precisely what was going on. It wraps itself up fairly nicely at the end but I couldn’t avoid feeling that it was a rather contrived finish. I’ve got plenty of other books in the collection to read before buying more Alastair Reynolds. It’s currently Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein, this one is a definite Must Read. Just put all thoughts of the Paul Verhoeven film out of your head, there isn’t actually that much alien shooting in this one, the strength of the book is its discussion on ethics and morals.

The rest of the week was a bit of a blur unfortunately. I suffer from a mild form of manic-depression. The manic times are great, although I have to put the watchkeeper on to help me avoid upsetting people by going too far on windups. On Tuesday though, just about when I started driving the depression kicked in, which is definitely a Bad Thing when you’re about to do a 2.5 hour motorway trip ! I managed to resist the Evil Voice inside me that was telling me to sideswipe the tailgaters as they overtook.

I’ve dealt with my depressive cycles for a good few years now, when they happen I feel worthless, slow, past-it and just plain ordinary. That last one “ordinary” is the most crippling, as I don’t have the looks or the physique to get ahead through that route, I have to depend on my ability to think rapidly and out of the box to shine. When the depression hits, I have too much of my mental run-time thinking about rubbish and not enough left for useful thoughts. I get to feeling useless and my patience and understanding can suffer to the point where other people feel the edge of my depression due to me getting waspish.

It isn’t bad enough for me to need pills to balance it, the cycle will usually end thanks to an external trigger or stimulus. Like seeing Miss L in the queue for the coffee machine 🙂 She’s a very special person is Miss L, although she probably doesn’t think that herself. I missed having a natter with her by about 10 seconds, she’d disappeared into the lift about that long before I got there. Mrs C is also a great help, she’s got enough experience to be One Of The Boys and at the same time be a very Girlie-Girl. Having a “Hello Pete” from Mrs C as she walks past the desk really brightens the day 🙂

Hmm – Wall Of Text probably gives a big clue as to how interesting the cricket is this morning !

Yeah, they can work pretty well with some music but with other’s, they start to grate …

I need to figure out why my laptop speakers are sometimes EXCELLENT and sometime you can barely hear anything. I might consider upgrading them. Your post inspired me to come to these decisions. 🙂

… you probably can’t afford it.

At least, that’s how the saying goes ! In real life it can be a little different, like when you darn well know the price of the gadget you’re wanting but you’re not looking to be ripped off by one shop selling it for more than the proper amount.

My latest target gadget is an Airport Express, made by Apple. It looks like a pretty promising little widget :

So what is it and what will it give me ?

It actually does more than I’m interested in, cos it’s a wireless router. I’ve got one of those (although my current one is looking to be thrown out the winda), what I’m really looking for on this is Airtunes …

This little widget should allow me to fire up iTunes on the laptop, connect wirelessly to the Airport Thingy and have the Airport pass on the iTunes music to my better speakers. That should be a hefty improvement over the laptop speakers as I’m finding out that those Really Hate It when I ask them to squawk out the Enya. Enya has an amazing voice and does great music but my laptop’s speakers just don’t get on at all well with it. I could run a long lead across the room with laptop & proper speakers but I’d be highly likely to trip over it and break stuff.

Sounds like a ThingummyBob that could improve my listening pleasure doesn’t it ?

PC World actually have this in stock but they haven’t marked up anywhere how much it would be. It’s on their web page, for exactly the same amount that it is on the Apple online store (£65). I was actually expecting it to be £50, so this particular toy will be waiting on the shelf a little longer.

However – there’s always Ebay 😉

I wish I understood the logic – or lack thereof – that’s used to decide when to air certain ads.

Here in the Great White North, regulatory oversight of television programming applies only between 6 a.m. and midnight. So as soon as midnight hits, all bets are off: Suddenly, we’re inundated with ads for all-night chat lines, infomercials and other things I wouldn’t want my kids to see.

Truly frightening. It’s enough to make me want to sell the telly entirely!

The “theme” ads that come on for certain sponsored programmes can be amusing 🙂 Things like the Natwest Piggy banks that are in the cricket and the Famous Grouse ads that used to be on the rugby.

It’s amazing that with so much research going into ads, that some of them miss the mark extraordinarily badly. There’s a major bank that I won’t have any business with because they sent me a letter that said I was an idiot for not having their card. Hmm – calling someone an idiot is not a great way to get their business …

I’m currently watching Sky Sports and it’s lunchtime in the cricket, so they’re showing previous moments in history between the two sides, England and South Africa.

One of them is the England v South Africa Test Match at The Oval in 1994. This is one where England were looking down the barrel after getting a thumping at Lords earlier that summer. This game was looking fairly balanced, with South Africa getting a short lead at halfway.

This is where Devon Malcolm entered the stage.

Devon Malcolm was a fast bowler who was playing for England for a little while. He’s a big fella who when he played, was England’s fastest bowler by a long way and one of the fastest in the world. He could barely bat but that didn’t matter. I revered the guy like a god at the time (I was 17 and hoping for big things from my bowling), it didn’t matter that his place in the side was always in danger because his accuracy was pretty poor. For American readers, think of a pitcher that can do 100mph fastballs but has trouble locating them over the plate.

Back to the game. South Africa made a critical error just before the halfway mark … one of their bowlers managed to pin our Devon right between the eyes and hard enough to dislodge a decent chunk of his helmet. Unfortunately I missed what was to come because I was also playing cricket that day. Devon Malcolm’s a good fella but in the words of David Gower, “don’t make him angry”. Revenge for the helmet was promised and was duly delivered over the course of the day.

An awe inspiring spell of bowling totally changed the game, with our Devon getting 9 of the 10 South African wickets in their 2nd innings. That’s one hell of an achievement, because the wickets are usually shared and it shows how dominating our Devon was.

And I missed it cos of playing cricket for the village side !

Also, thoughts today go out to Phil Williams of Wayfarers Sports Club. Phil Williams is an amateur cricketer hit on the head by a ball during a midweek game this week. He’s now recovering in hospital with a skull fracture and has been unable to move the left side of his body. It’s further grim evidence that I got away with one a while ago. Like me with my nose, Phil didn’t have a helmet on, it’s still not got through to club cricket culture that accidents happen and helmets help turn those accidents from life threatening to rather less serious. Like the second time I got hit on the head, without a helmet I’d have got carted off to hospital again, with the helmet I carried on batting and anchored our side to a handsome win.

There’s guidance by the England and Wales Cricket Board (governing body in the UK) for all players under 18 to wear helmet with facemask or grill but past 18, it’s up to the player. Cricket is a very random game, not enough people below the professional level wear enough protection to keep themselves safe from when accidents like my nose or Mr Williams’ skull fracture happen.

Here’s hoping that Phil Williams makes a full recovery 🙂

the ad agencies have all kinds of data about what their client’s demos are and who a particular TV program attracts.

A van ad during cricket is similiar to a van ad during an American baseball game. Family men thinking about a vehicle all the kids can fit in.

The late night “find a lover” ads are mostly because studies show that lonely single people are the 2nd group most likely to watch late late shows, elderly/college students are tied for first – funny I know.

I’m with you on the sleaze ads as I call them, one of the most disgusting is where they advertise to loan $$$ against your paycheck. they never mention how the fees and interest add up to 300% being paid back.

Have a great Suday and be careful of those ads! 😉

There must be some science behind how people decide when to put their adverts on the telly.

The most recent trend I’ve noticed is the commercial van ads surrounding the cricket … The science bit must be making the advertisers (and it’s not just one manufacturer) think that the people watching the sport/cricket are the ones more likely to get a van. I wonder if they’ve considered putting their adverts on to the documentary channels, especially the historical ones, to see if they can catch the re-enactors.

The other pattern is the one that kicks in around 11.30pm or midnight … This is the phone text adverts (get your self a friend by texting anonymous people) that infest the breaks. I get the feeling they’re on at that time because they don’t want to spend the extra cash that would go with prime time ad breaks.

Vulture adverts annoy me, although I can filter them out. These aren’t just the injury lawyer adverts (“I slipped cos I wasn’t looking where I was walking – giz 10 grand”), it’s also the moneylender ads too. These definitely have the science bit fully engaged, they almost always paint a dark, depressing or troubled scene for the person looking for cash, that magically changes to Bright, Happy and Confident outlook when the person goes for the loan. I can recognise the psychology there, which gets me walking away every time.

So – vans & cricket – how come the science bit is getting these adverts on connected with the sport ? I dunno, I’d have expected cricket to be more associated with sunny cars like the panoramic glass ones and convertibles. They might also be looking at the typical cricket player, it seems a more middle class game than football or rugby, so the players could well be interested in commercial stuff through their work instead of their play. It wouldn’t go as far as needing the van to fit all their kit in :

Leg pads, helmet, gloves (multiple pairs), bats (probably a couple), spiked boots, tape, drink, munchies, jumpers, hats. It all adds up. As an allrounder, I could still get away with a lighter bag but I know players who carry so much junk around they have to get what is nicknamed a “coffin” which can get close to being a 2 man lift for size.

Oh – I’ll also happily admit that however much I’d have liked to drive one of the two Mazda sporty cars around, I don’t think I could have put even my small cricket bag into either the MX-5 or boot of their RX-8.

Time for a bit of lunch/breakfast now and then more cricket. England are well and truly on top at the moment, although with South Africa’s underlying class it will get a lot closer.

I had wanted to see this series. 🙂