Diary for the past week.
Sep. 23rd, 2003 01:22 pmAustralia: a nation of pooftahs. SEVENTEEN PER CENT!
Joe Strummer Remembrance Sunday, Brighton, November 9th. Includes a Carter USM non-reformation.
"The mainstream consumer has made it absolutely plain time and time again that the price he or she will pay for standard new-release items of leisure software, be they books, movies, pop albums, graphic novels, concert tickets or absolutely anything else, is £15, give or take a couple of quid ... Development costs just don't come into it. They're nothing but a red herring."
I believe I have one of these 'lives,' amongst the geeky whining. Last Monday I went to the Dev with
arkady, and my
goodness I've missed it. Howdy to
bootpunk. Tuesday,
redcountess and I had a Quiet Night In. I think we watched The Blues Brothers again.
Wednesday I visited
arkady in St Albans and discovered that,
although the Casio MP3
Watch is really quite 'l33t, the software is crapware of such proportions
as to reliably crash Windows XP when you try to upload certain files. Why in
God's name don't these fuckers just make their gadgets umass devices?
What's the fucking problem?
(I willingly fix
arkady's XP box for her. It must be love.)
Thursday we watched
silveraj on Richard and Judy. I
also had a win on the beer from Sainsburys - we ordered three bottles of
Hobgoblin on a three-for-two deal, then discovered the bottles in question
had a bonus "32% free." Mmm, beer.
Friday we had another Quiet Night In, after a Bugger of a Week. Saturday I took care of
redcountess and
arkady. And
went onto #uk_goffs for the first time in almost a year. I also cleaned up
FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE QUANTITIES OF WINDOWS VIRUSES. Sunday I sent
arkady off to work and settled in for a lovely quiet day with the
Liz.
Yesterday I discovered the part of the company I work for is to be sold. Except the subsection I work for, which won't be. This may help explain why I've been having an interesting time of late dealing with some workplace issues. Not that everyone here (and across this industry) isn't quite used to working for four companies in three years while doing the same job at the same desk.
We also saw an actual new episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
The rats have worked out how to escape their cage. I foresee a larger playground for them in the near future.
Cosy Domesticity: it's dull, but it's cheap!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 05:40 am (UTC)Not that everyone here (and across this industry) isn't quite used to working for four companies in three years while doing the same job at the same desk.
That's me!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:06 am (UTC)Got any Tam Tams? Apparently I have to try The Suck...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:07 am (UTC)You mean you could work out what bits where being sold and what weren't?? I'm impressed.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:13 am (UTC)(Not that I'm interested in pooftahs. Australian or otherwise. Um. Look over there!!)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:21 am (UTC)[pouts]
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:32 am (UTC)Herald-Sun
Australia 'world's gayest country'
23sep03
MORE than 17 per cent of Australians are involved in gay or lesbian relationships, putting the country equal first in the world for its proportion of homosexuals, according to a new worldwide survey.
The survey of sexual habits by international condom maker Durex found that together with Americans, Australians had the highest proportion of same-sex relationships.
At the other end of the scale, Vietnam recorded the lowest proportion of gay and lesbian relationships, at three per cent.
The company said Australians enjoyed a busy love life, having sex on average 125 times per year.
Hungarians came out on top, having sex 152 times per year.
But Australians were still ahead of Americans, at 118 times a year.
The survey also found phone, text and cyber sex were gaining in popularity in Australia, with 43 per cent indulging in "virtual reality sex".
The company said faking orgasms was also common in Australia, with 47 per cent of respondents admitting to doing so at least once.
This was almost twice the global average of 26 per cent.
The survey found 41 per cent of Australian men and women had sex for the first time because they were in love, and most agreed that more foreplay would improve their sex life.
The company said more than 150,000 people took part in the on-line survey, which was now in its seventh year.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:36 am (UTC)Hmm. The company said faking orgasms was also common in Australia, with 47 per cent of respondents admitting to doing so at least once.
*raises an eyebrow*
Does this mean whilst the Australians are getting laid more often than the Yanks, the sex is bad enough that they have to fake it??
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 06:44 am (UTC)"G'day, luv. Noice tits. Wanna root?"
*gasp* "I do now, ya smooth talkin' bastard!"
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 07:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 08:10 am (UTC)The Register had an article about micro MP3 players, the cutest being a Sony one which was basically a pair of outer-ear headphones with a builtin MP3 player. It suffered from the problem of not being umass device tho. Its one reason why I prefer the MP3 player I've got which takes a CF card - easy to put it into your umass device of choice that way.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 08:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 08:49 am (UTC)It could also be due to umass having crawling horrors when compared to ugen (although I doubt this) or the makers of the ugen chipset provide a suitable SDK so the OEMs can easily throw together something which works.
Alternatively it could be due to ugen being available before umass so there is an inertia behind ugen.... you'll end up with PHBs having to defend their teams (more likely empires) of software developers who produce the crap software which works with the ugen interface against the umass interface which wouldn't require the software and thus the large teams of developers.
Rats
Date: 2003-09-23 10:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-23 11:07 am (UTC)Given that developer time is zero-cost, the problem of it being a braindead design requiring extra programmer time to sort out does not figure in any accounts, so even if they pick a
ugenchip for nontechnical reasons (better blow jobs from the vendor saleschick or whatever) there's still no measurable loss to them.If there was standard software so that they could avoid having to ship any software at all with such widgets, then they would pick
umassbecause shipping software costs money; media costs money you can measure and it's a per-item cost. They just won't notice having to ship hard-to-write software over shipping easy-to-write software."Australia, nation of Poofahs.."
Date: 2003-09-23 04:31 pm (UTC)Hello there
Date: 2003-09-24 12:34 pm (UTC)I've been trying to find out when the next B-movie is (there's nothing on the site apart from when the last one was). When googling for this info just now, it brought up a link to one of your journal entries where you mention B-movie, so I thought I'd take a long shot and ask if you know when the next one is, by any chance?
Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-24 12:44 pm (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-24 12:47 pm (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-24 12:54 pm (UTC)(Doubt we'll be at it, though ... severely po' and saving our pennies for WHITBEEEEEEEE)
Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-24 01:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-24 06:39 pm (UTC)"Ah. Would you mind lying down while I have one?"
I doubt you have the Canadians beat - when I was in Toronto I met only one woman who was not a lesbian.
Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-24 06:44 pm (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-25 01:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-25 09:33 am (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-30 04:44 am (UTC)This doesn't affect me; I always show up at 8pm, because there's nothing bugs me more than a club opening time that drifts backwards because no-one wants to show up before any of their friends - so at least anyone who knows me knows it's a fairly safe bet they'll have someone to talk to whenever they show up.
Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-30 04:46 am (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-30 05:14 am (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-30 06:37 am (UTC)Re: Hello there
Date: 2003-09-30 09:04 am (UTC)http://www.velvet.net/~fun/ukpix/030110/25-damerell-ali-martin.jpg
and
http://www.velvet.net/~fun/ukpix/030314-bmovie/IMG_0899.jpg
have me in (I'm the guy with blonde hair, not the guy sticking his tongue out or the pretty girl...) in fairly typical clothes.