News Of The World - July 20 2002

A bit later than usual, but early for a Saturday. I woke up and fed
the cats, who had decided that since I was up I could feed them, you
know they sit there and give you the look and you have to hurry off and
open a fresh tin of Felix. Then I listened to the stereo version of
Velvet Underground's first album. This is the edition with the peelable
banana of course.

Yesterday (19) was very hot again, and it doesnt look like now that
Reading will be a washout, I hope not, I am not too keen in sleeping in
a tent on a sea of mud. I havent been camping for years, I know others
go camping every year but I never got around to it so I hope it will be
fun. My only fear is that I won't make it to the toilet block in time
if I wake up and have to take a leak. Or waking up at 6am and falling
outside the tent to have a smoke and wondering why nobody else is up
yet. I shall probably wear my tank trousers if they fit or get a pair
of heavy combat strides with plenty of pockets.

I got the usual train to London, except this morning somone had got run
over at Benfleet and all the trains were in the wrong place, so they
ran three trains past my station at high speed, while commuters on the
platform hurled abuse at the trains as they zoomed past. The train came
in and was pretty crowded, and I got a seat, which a little later I
offered to someone else, but at the next station a lot of people got
off the train so it didnt matter.

I spent the morning wondering why I had had no email from ... then at
lunchtime I got a text to say they had to work early so that explained
it, and also the call was knocked into a hat as well. Still I was able
to text them so it was okay. I bought my panini (a Pastrami) and latte
from Starbucks and my boss was interviewing someone I think, well
anyway he had this girl in the boardroom for a chat and they seemed to
be in conference with the States, but I dont know. Other people I work
with asked as well, but I could only speculate, and since I didnt know
who they were I kept quiet.

I also spent the morning running regression tests on the app. This is
where bugs that have been previously fixed have to be re-tested to make
sure that later fixes haven't broken them, I found four which was quite
annoying, including one the first time I ran the latest version of the
programme. I was getting quite angry with it and had to have a smoke
outside to calm down, else I would have started making rude gestures at
the computer. My boss later found a set of corrupt word documents in
the output folder which it had been trying to use and then crashing,
once these were deleted that bug went away.

I continued doing testing in the afternoon and then left at 5pm.

During the early evening I found that the dvd drive on the Vaio is well
naffed. It wont read anything now, and whats worse is this is the
laptop I use most of the time at home. I have an external drive, and I
found out that it will still boot from CD but it doesn't help if the
Vaio is quite new. It may be a driver issue, and perhaps I will need to
re-image the Vaio again (which I hate doing because it takes ages and I
have most if not all my work cached off line).

I had a chat with ... from mid evening till 8.30 when I watched Big
Brother - The Eviction Announced and they spent 45 minutes on the phone
with their friend. I went back on line at 9pm and had my tea. Then we
just chatted to about 11.30 pm again. My wife really enjoys Big
Brother, and I missed Tim leaving the building at 10. I did think about
taking the Vaio with me next door to watch but I dont think the cable
stretches that far.

I think Tim is happier he is out. He is a product of his background.
Alex apparently learned German first and English second, and there was
a whole piece on accents, with Geordie accents seemingly the most
popular. Where I live it is mostly Essex or East End, although some
years ago I had a North London accent (leastways someone I used to work
with was convinced I lived in Wood Green or Palmers Green) I think
sometimes we say things without thinking, maybe in the belief that the
things we say are funny, and yet it is better to do what Alex does and
think about what you are saying before you say it, unless we are drunk
then we say lots of things we dont remember the following morning or
try to cover over having said them just after we have said them. How
many of us have dug a hole and asked for a big shovel in doing so, I
wonder?

I think thats why I like the board here in that what you post is
permanent and cannot be edited, so you have to think about what you
post first. Some of the threads have quite intricate responses to
topics raised and I believe that these items are just as valid as
anything we may care to post in our set(s). Sometimes I learn something
I didn't know, I dont think we ever stop learning, and nobody can say
they know it all, not really.