October 2005 Archives
Sigh. I rue my flat. I'm near beyond caring about it now, but it still seems to rise up and punch me in the gut every once in a while. An influx of unforeseen bills has landed in my lap, including a whopping council bill tax which is wrong and I should be able to successfully challenge, once I work up the energy to do so. In the meantime I'm still trying to sort out the tangle surrounding the three years worth of tax returns the Inland Revenue dumped on me as well. I'm increasingly annoyed with my old flatmate - this would have been far less of a pickle if only she'd forwarded on my mail, rather than sitting on it for over a year. I made a trip to the bank and they fortunately acquiesced to my request for copies of three years worth of banks statements. Once they arrive I should be able to fill out most of the required information. I still have a National Savings account for which I don't have any statements which might prove troublesome, but I'll worry about that later.
I'm not having fun.
I recall there was a considerable backlash from Americans in response to the Guardian's campaign to influence the last presidential election by persuading it's readers to mail potential voters. Consequently, I was somewhat curious about this advert I noticed in a recent edition of said newspaper:
Regardless of the merits of the campaign, I find it's attempt to target the UK particularly noteworthy. Admittedly Florida is a prime holiday destination for vast numbers of UK tourists, so it's perhaps not too surprising, but I can't help but wonder if this an indication of things to come, of local political matters reaching for global support.
Courtesy of BoingBoing appropiately enough. It's an advert for Sony, but the sight of quarter of a million bouncing balls cascading down a San Francisco street lifts my heart regardless.
I have a question and a few things to say about the Legend of Zorro. I can't think of anyway to phrase it without revealing major plots point of the film, so please scoot over to the extended section if you want to know what I'm asking....
Well I'm thoroughly fed up with what's been going on. Dealing with MFI has just been a soul destroying experience. I believe the parts I need have finally been ordered, though in the end I had to pay for them, and they shan't be with me for another two weeks. Even with a discount it's not a situation I'm happy with. A copy of the complaint I intend to send to their head office can be found in the extended section, in the hope that it might crop up on Google and cause MFI some financial discomfit, however minor. I don't feel it's particularly worthy of sharing aside from that, and the fact that I've written it just makes me feel petty and small.
Someone send me some good news, please...
My blog is worth $1,129.08.
How much is your blog worth?
Perhaps unsurprisingly my dreams have followed me home at last. Lest that seem overly cryptic I write not of aspirational dreams - of hopes, dreams, and wishes - but rather those of nightly slumber. Thinking about dreams I've had recently, many more of them have been centred around here than is usual. In particular a small wooded area just a short walk away (which looks particularly handsome at the moment in it's autumnal attire) has features with remarkable regularity. It's not a great revelation really, that the locale of my dreams should reflect that of my daily life, especially an area in which I formed a great many memories, but it's not something I recall observing before.
Of course, it's form varies considerably, as it always does in dreams. For example, it was definitely a touch more post-apocalypticy last night, and I'm sure there were a few more zombies milling around trying eat my flesh than I normally encounter in my day to day existence. You know, it's just as well I don't have nightmares, otherwise that might have been rather disturbing...
One star reviews of great books from Amazon. On Lord of the Flies: 'I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!!'
The saga of the missing gable ends continues. I'd refer to it as a comedy, but I've long lost the ability to laugh at it - more I just shake my head sadly and sigh. And painful though it is to me, it doesn't yet warrant the status of a tragedy. I'm not sure what that leaves. Farce perhaps?
In an ironic twist my problem now involves an excess of gable ends as well as an absence. The issue, originally, was the lack of these mysterious items delaying the installation of my bedroom. My order turned to be short four gable ends. Let me repeat that: Four. It's not a hard quantity to grasp is it? A quick test shows a four year old has no trouble with it. So why then, when I requested these missing pieces of my bedroom jigsaw be dispatched with all due haste did only two turn up the following week? And why did it take so long, and so many, many phone calls, for an additional two to be sent to me?
But I've complained enough about that particular error in the past, and I now have in my possession - at last - four gable ends. So let's move on to a new complaint: They're the wrong gable ends. Perhaps the mistake was mine to begin with, in that I was expected - and for my sins continue to expect - a degree of competency in those I've been dealing with. Goodness knows I'm well aware of my own inadequacies in such matters, and part of the fault is mine. I examined the pieces when the arrived to make certain that they were all in one piece, and that nothing obvious was amiss. What I didn't do was to make certain they were the correct height. And they're not.
And so the whole soul-sapping ritual of trying to get things sorted out commenced again. More phone calls which in turn led to more requests that call I customer services instead. I now abjectly refuse to do so on the grounds customer services invariably tell me to call the store back and which point the cycle repeats again. Instead I hang doggedly onto the phone until they find someone who can help me. That someone then told me all they could do was contact customer services on my behalf, and then call me back later. They never did, and when I called back to find out what was happening, that person had left for the day. For some reason people at the store still refuse to believe me when I tell them this happens, continuing to insist that they always return calls.
All I can do is call back tomorrow.
Rinse, repeat, despair.
Bohemian Rhapsody in the style of the Zero Wing cut scenes that gave the world 'All your base are belong to us.'
I should make my position clear: I dislike flavoured milk intensely, with particular vitriol reserved for chocolate milk, a fusion of two wonderful substances into an bilious liquid barely fit for human consumption. The other variants are equally vile.
But although I have no love for the stuff, I tolerate it's existence on the basis that it's marketed as a soft drink for the most part, rather than as a milk substitute. I doubt most people would consider adding banana flavoured milk to their tea, for example. So never the twain shall meet for the most part. Pure and innocent Milk and icky, nasty flavoured milk stand apart in their own disparate realms. Thus it is and thus it ever was.
But what then are we to make of this incursion into the no man's land between the two worlds? "A tantalising hint of natural wild strawberry flavour" says the melodious marketing campaign. Pure corrupting evil in a carton, say I.
Just say no kids.
Lists. I've got lists on the brain. Lists of things to do, lists of people to see, not to mention something else I've been meaning to write on the subject of lists, prompted by a recent product announcement from Apple. Even my current project at work involves manipulating lists in a web browser, and promises to be terribly cool once it's complete - far cooler than anyone is expecting, so it should be received well if I can complete it on time. Unfortunately that doesn't look likely, despite the fact that it's impinging on all my other thoughts for the moment and I spent a goodly portion of this evening working on it as well. It doesn't happen to me terribly often, but when I come across a problem I can really dig my teeth into it becomes an overwhelming obsession. In many ways what I'm trying to achieve is wholly unnecessary - I could easily produce a simpler tool that will suffice, but... well, this where my argument breaks down a little. There are many perfectly valid reasons for going down the route I've chosen to go down. The whizzy features I'm developing aren't merely for show, but they'll make a big difference to the usability of the thing. Tasks that would be otherwise tedious become fast and simple. But that's not really why I'm doing it - the fact that it will be used at all has become almost incidental to me. I can envision the end product in it's shining platonic perfection, you see, and I just cannot accept any alternative. It's right, it's right that it should be like that. It's the way it supposed to be, and once I'm done it's the way it will be. Compromise is unthinkable.
It's not an easy point of view to explain to a manager - this much I've discovered in the past - but fortunately I don't have to explain myself until it's late. I've got until Monday, though it's not a huge project which buys me only a degree of latitude.
I'd better get a move on...
The end point is rarely where I expect it to be, and the point itself is even more rarely what I expect it to be. It's the problem with trying to create anything: so many twists are turns pop up along the route that it's nigh impossible to stay your course. What's all this naval gazing in aid of? Well, there's another new theme added to the blog and no, it's not what I set out to make. On the other hand it's exactly as it should be, and I'm inordinately pleased with it. However basic the design may look I love it dearly. It's different from anything I've done before, which is a great part of it's appeal to me, but it also captures exactly the feeling I hoped it would when I started work on it. I can also flatter myself by saying that the implementation is fiendishly clever too (I'll pay myself that compliment because I know just how much time I spent getting it right).
I've a few things left to sort out yet, but I'm happy enough with the results thus far to loose it upon the world. It's called "Whiteout", and as ever can be found lurking in the theme selector in the links bar over to the side.
My brother showed me his designs for last year's pumpkins and most impressive they were too. He's quite the skilled artist, having put a lot of effort into becoming so, and I enjoy seeing his sketches. He's yet to achieve his goal of creating a pumpkin that will scare the beejezus out of young children but he's definitely moving towards it. It's been a while since I've carved a pumpkin (nothing came of my musings about doing so last year), but since there's a friendly rivalry between us when it comes to such matters I may give it a go this year. We both share a similar attitude along the lines "It's not worth doing unless other people look at the results and query your sanity" which adds a little extra impetus.
Yes, I know I've complained bitterly about my struggles getting items delivered in the past, but I feel another rant is warranted. The few items missing from my bedroom order were supposed to turn up today. And to be fair, most of them did...
It's frustrating for a multitude of reasons. I originally expected the bedroom installation to be one of the easy parts (though I must be careful when I say that - it implies that that have actually been easy parts). The bedroom was the very first thing I ordered for the flat. Back in May 2004 if you're keeping track. It seemed easy at the time. With hindsight now I realise that it seemed too easy. I walked into the store, wandered around a little, and then came across a bedroom suite that I thought looked rather lovely. More importantly, it was set up in an area whose dimensions corresponded exactly with that of my bedroom. It was ideal. I basically ended up walking over to a sales person, where I pointed at the display, and said "That. I want that." Of course, that wasn't what I paid for in the end, as it turned out that the list of items produced was missing some important components. I'll raise my hand and admit some of these I should have been aware of had I checked the list of items more carefully. The missing chest of drawers for example. On the other hand, there were more whose absence I had no way of recognising. Four gable ends, for instance. Even now I'd be hard pressed to describe what a gable end is, but I can tell you they've taken on undue importance in my life right now.
The delivery today contained 2 gable ends and for my present purposes 2 gable ends is functionally identical to no gable ends. And thus I began a trail of phone conversations that would have driven even Patrick McGoohan's Number 6 to distraction, such was it's frustrating illogicality. I don't really want to go into the details, since it doesn't paint a particularly flattering portrait of myself. I will say that I lost count of the number of different people I ended up getting upset with as I was passed from person to person and department to department, speaking to a succession of people who seemed to have a decreasing ability to aid me. In the end, I found solace with one enterprising young man who couldn't help me directly - no one, it seems, had the ability to make the missing gable ends materialise - but who could report that the original two gable ends I'd received were damaged thus setting in motion a chain of events that will hopefully result in the missing items arriving on my doorstep.
Throughout this whole frustrating process, one thought remains constant in my mind: "It's not supposed to be this hard."
Mum's fine. She arrived back home this afternoon, after the doctors gave her a clean bill of health and small array of pills to take on a daily basis. She was basically told to carry on as normal and seems quite content with the situation now. She also doesn't seem to be giving any more tours of her valuables, much to my relief.
All's well, everyone's fine, if a little stressed and life carries on as normal. Now if you'll excuse me, she's being a little quiet through in the living room and I'll just pop through and check up on her...
Ever wondered what Dr Claw, nemesis of Inspector Gadget, looked like? Prepare to be disappointed...
Sometimes my family can be so obtuse I could scream. I'm sure it's a trait I share in common with them. We'd rather dance around an issue, carving out the space where it should belong, rather than highlighting it directly.
Tonight offered a most exemplary example. My Mum came up to me and said she had something to show me. She then proceeded to point out to me where she kept her important papers, some envelopes of money, share certificates and the like. I didn't quite see the point of this, and I queried her about it. She calmly replied "I think I might be having a heart attack."
She wasn't haven't having a heart attack, fortunately, although we didn't know that at the time. She did have an excessively high heart rate however, around 150bpm. We rushed her off to the hospital as soon as we were able, despite a quite incredible lack of urgency on her part - I swear I was almost ready to drag her off to the hospital myself at one point as she wasted time fiddling around with a heart rate monitor she'd gotten hold off. A lot of waiting ensued at the hospital during which time a seemingly endless array of unpleasant and unwelcome thoughts flitted through my head. After a few hours we were able to see her again, and the doctors reassured us a little. They'd brought her heart rate down, and she looked, and felt she said, like normal again. She's been kept in overnight for further tests and hopefully we'll know more tomorrow.
At somepoint in the near future I'm going to have a conversation with her that's going to include a close approximation of this phrase: "If you think you're having a heart attack, for goodness sake tell me first, and worry about wrapping up your affairs second."
I've few enough tools in my armoury to fight against the coming onslaught of dim and dreary winter days. What little I have? A camera, some knowledge of the dark arts of Photoshop, a sprinkling of css and a memory of the saturated hues of summer in times past. It's slightly ironic then that my attempt at brighter theme should end as a reproduction of a reproduction of summer. It was pure expediency of course, since my meagre library of photographs otherwise lent itself poorly to the task at hand. But the photo I chose stood out easily amongst the rest, and I gleefully cannibalised it to do what I needed. The results can as ever be seen from the theme selector over at the side. I've named this new creation Industrial Sunshine, and I'm rather attached to it, even so much as to make it the default theme for the site, for visitors who come afresh.
I headed along to the post office near my flat this afternoon to pick up a much delayed parcel (it arrived at last!). Along the way I passed by a school, or what I assumed was a school. The building itself was invisible behind several rows of thick hedges and a variety of other shrubbery. The only clue as to it's presence was the disembodied voice of children floating through the air. It's a generally happy sound, the noise children make whilst playing, but without the physical presence of a child to connect it with, it takes on an almost sinister quality, enhanced in this case by the absence of other pedestrians and a lack of traffic on the normally busy road I followed. What is it about kids that makes their rhymes, games and accouterments seem so eerie when taken out of their natural context? Is it just a result of some form of Pavlovian conditioning from watching horror films over the years, or is there really something about children that's inherently scary?
I've long considered work on my flat to be a zero sum game, especially when it comes to money. Leaving aside the fact that I've spent more than double my original budget (where did it go? where?), it seems that whatever savings I may have clawed back along the way are immediately swallowed by some other work that's required. Most famously I saved a good few hundred pounds on the installation of my gas fire, only to receive a phone call a few hours later informing me that the cost of the kitchen worktop had risen by that same amount. So it is, and so it has been since I started, way back at the dawn of time.
Flat finances have been on my mind even more than usual since I realised I'm more than likely indebted to the Inland Revenue for a not inconsiderable sum. I've been somewhat lax when it comes to accounting my monies. Usually I don't pay that close attention to what's in my bank account. Often I simply have a rough idea of what's in it at any given time, and if my irregular checks on it don't throw up any obvious anomalies I'm content. However, with things being as they are I thought it was for the best if I gave it close scrutiny than is my norm and decided to open up the small stack of bank and credit card statements I've accumulated over the last few months.
And lo, my checks threw up a fair whopper of a discrepancy. The balance in one of my accounts was unexpectedly down by a hefty amount, but for once it turns out to be good news. It transpires that I'd paid for several expensive items not by credit card as I'd supposed, but with a debit card instead. The net result of this is I'm considerably better off that I'd supposed. And by dint of good fortune, the surplus I've just discovered is almost exactly enough to cover my estimated debt to the taxman. Better yet, it's just as well I discovered my tax debt before the surplus money, since otherwise I'd have very likely spent it already (doors and rugs amongst other items, in case you're wondering). It seems that the vast karmic pendulum that's been governing my life since it became entangled with the flat has finally swung back in my direction.
Hurrah!
Just got back from viewing Wallace And Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The best praise I can think for it is that it's everything a Wallace and Grommit film should be: groanworthy puns, knowing humour, hilarious set pieces, meticulous attention to detail that shines through in every scene and the most believable chemistry you'll ever witness between two lumps of plasticine. And fortunately, despite having an extended running time to play with, the film never outstays it's welcome. Upon viewing it's easy to understand just why the film took so long to complete - it practically demands a second viewing in order to catch all the visual gags flying around in the background that you missed first time around. It's very obviously put together with exactly the sort of loving touches we've come to expect from Nick Park over the years.
If such ratings mean anything, I'd place it only very slightly behind The Wrong Trousers (which I believe to be perhaps the finest thirty minutes of television ever conceived). It's pretty much a joy from beginning to end, and it's been quite some time since I've laughed out loud so many times during a single film. It's worth your time and money - go see it!
Serenity is an amazingly dense piece of storytelling and Joss Whedon is a magician. The latter is the only explanation for the former - it's physically impossible to pack as much story into such a short time-frame otherwise. At the end of the film I had to check my watch to convince myself that only two hours had passed. If it had been three or more I wouldn't have been in the least surprised. Serenity picks up the pace in it's opening moments and then proceeds to accelerate, until it arrives, breathless, at it's conclusion. Along the way I recall fearing that it's momentum was unsustainable and that the film was about to come to an abrupt end, denying us a resolution until a sequel. I was wrong. Serenity delivers. It fulfils much of the promise of the series that spawned it, and doesn't shy away from giving us revelations of substance. Characters grow, and are forever changed before our eyes, secrets are laid bare, questions are answered.
It is, by turns, funny, and frightening, and visceral, and exhilarating, and moving, and enormously ambitious. I was skeptical as to whether a film version of Firefly could possible work. I struggled to recall any series which has successfully transitioned from film to television. But Whedon manages it, as much as anything else by throwing a ludicrous number of balls up in the air and then proceeding to juggle them with consummate ease.
For those of you who haven't seen the series, I still recommend it. The required exposition is elegantly woven into the fabric of the film, cleverly explaining the backstory whilst revealing in detail events hitherto unseen to even committed fans. Perhaps more importantly, Serenity succeeds on an emotional level. I dare anyone to watch this film, having seen the series or not, and fail to engage with these characters. They're not standard action heroes by any means, and their flaws are all too visible, but if you're not on the edge of your seat during the final stand off, willing them all to survive, then you're made of stern stuff indeed.
It's time to dig out and dust off those old reviewer cliches because Serenity is the film they were intended for. "A rollercoaster ride!", says iMark. "Rollicking good fun," says member of Delete The Web. Etcetera, etcetera. Go see it now.
It's a remarkably malevolent use for otherwise innocent technology
Ah, October. The month in which autumn hits the realm in full, hues of scarlet and gold blanket the forests and I can look forward to finally ridding myself of the year's accumulated debts.
Or so I thought.
I started to look at my tax returns earlier today, masochism having gotten the better of me at last. Asking advice from someone at work who seems to go through these things on a regular basic reminded me that I'll need to declare the income I derived from renting my flat for 18 months or so. I wasn't too concerned about this, since for some reason I was still labouring under the belief that all such income under £4250 per year was tax free. Because the time during which I was renting out the flat was neatly nestled between two different tax years, the rent I collected during each year fell safely shy of this figure.
Guess what, I labour no longer. Some further investigation revealed that the scheme I'd been looking at only applies when renting out a room in a place in which you're dwelling. Renting out an entirely separate location, as I've been doing, means that tax is due on the full amount, less 10% depreciation. As near as I've been able to estimate, it this works out equivalent to another six weeks of debt, bringing me to the middle of December.
Insert appropriate swear words here.
One of my great pleasures and peeves come from the weekend newspapers. I tend to skip over newspapers during the weekdays, instead saving myself for binge spread over Saturday and Sunday, when I'll set aside some time to curl up and wade through the voluminous mass of paper which comprise the weekend editions. That's the pleasure part. The peeve is the ludicrous number of inserts which cunningly lie in wait, hidden between the pages until they have a chance to escape and maliciously litter wherever you happen to be. Only slightly less numerous than the leaves on the trees, there seems to exist a never ending stream of the dratted things. My first task when sitting down to read is to inevitably discard the weighty mass of useless bumph (actually, that's not true - the first thing to go is the sports section. I do have an image to maintain after all).
This last weekend, however, I'm ashamed to admit that one of the pamphlets I was about to rid myself of caught my eye. True to my usual form, it's for a chocolate tasting club. The leaflet itself is a glossy affair, with rather respectable production values. It certainly serves it's most important purpose by making the chocolates on offer look quite divine. As with the more familiar book clubs, the mechanic is a straightforward ploy to eek as much money out of you over as long a period as possible, whilst providing you with a product or service to make the drain on your accounts seem worthwhile. In this case a shiny new box of carefully selected chocolates will be delivered to your doorstep once a month. On the one hand, it's expensive for what's on offer - 400g of chocolate for £15.95 (inc. p & p), working out at 61p per chocolate. But on the hand, it's chocolate and... actually, no and - it's chocolate. Perhaps it's just the fact that I haven't eaten any today, but it all looks rather tempting, and it seems like a fun way to discover new and exciting chocolates each month.
Alas, however much I may desire chocolate (which right now is quite a bit), I despise the newspaper inserts more, and thus I cannot possible condone ordering anything from a company that chooses such methods to advertise.
Principles suck.
A fond farewell to Ronnie Barker
To date, I've only encountered one film I've been unable to sit through. It's true that there are some I'd rather not have sat through (take a bow, the insufferably awful Batman and Robin), but for very different reasons. No, The Shining just creeps me out on some deep and primal level, such that I find myself clawing at the door in search of release each time I try to force myself to watch it. I take great comfort then, in one of the entries for a recent competition which sought to produce trailers recasting famous films into different genres through careful editing and voiceovers alone. Some are ingenious: the twisting of West Side Story into a zombie film, for example displays an especially warped sense of humour. Others are less of a stretch, such as the transformation of Titanic into a standard horror flick. However, my favourite, and the most widely blogged about from what I've read, is transmutation of The Shining into the sort of upbeat, life affirming comedy drama that would have Kubrick spinning in his grave. The trailer, along with the competition that birthed it, an is excellent example of why you should never wholly trust what you see on the screen, and a fitting tribute to the power of the editing room
Ay!
I hope it's next moon is called Joxer
My old flat mate from London sent me a small bundle of envelopes that have apparently been accumulating at my old hauntings since I abandoned them last year. Welcome amongst them was a cheque for pleasant sum of money I hadn't realised I was due (and which I've already spent). It also included a heap of communications from the Inland Revenue dating back a year or so. Better late than never, it's true, but I rather wished they'd been passed on to me just a little sooner...
