6.4.06
Fruity Boots
Dear Apple, this is why you are Shiny. Great 'birthday' present. Windows without the EFI twiddling. Probably wouldn't be much of a hack to boot Linux in the same way.
P.S. Please release a 12" or 13" MBP or MacBook without a castrated graphics card. Please.
4.4.06
You know you're adjusting to shiftwork when...
-You create a character on the US-based WoW servers so you have someone to play with.
-You start looking for live webcams in 'your' timezone, to remind yourself that it is, in fact, actually afternoon somewhere, just not exactly here.
-You lose touch with your day-shift workmates... the ones in the *same* building.
-You don't know what meal you should eat when... breakfast at the end of the 'day' feels wrong. And what do you eat in the middle? Does that meal have a name?
-You feel you've comfortably determined which girls in the phone sex ads are in fact transvestites or similar.
-You start refering to your SO as a 'Daywalker'
-You actually secretly or not so secretly appreciate the quiet and the time to yourself.
-You suddenly have a lot of time to write or study .... except you find yourself blogging instead because your brain won't make it out of first gear.
Yeah I've started shiftwork as part of my Shiny New Job. Its not completely horrible for a Night Owl like myself (and lets just say absence has made things... sparkier... between D and myself).
1.4.06
22.3.06
20.3.06
Not wild about Larry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Cyclone_Larry
Sparing a thought today for the friends and family around Cairns who
will be
losing roofs and the like. I've heard of two lost roller doors and a
skylight so far and this is in town, not even getting the brunt of the
storm.
A lot of people have lost power, there's been evacuations, and it's not
over
yet...
13.3.06
Goodbyeeeeee
Having reassured myself that my computer was not, in fact, emulating the one from Electric Dreams (I'm old, so there), I loaded Adblock into Firefox... specifically for this ad. RIP, f**king smilies. +1 nomination for Most Annoying Flash Ad ever.
Yes, I've seen the crazy frog ones.
5.3.06
Changing gears on the weekend
Most things are either archived in VoodooPad or my sketchbooks, I'm going through those at present and getting a grip on where things are. You tend to know your characters pretty well but I need to pick up all the threads of plot I've written down but not woven in yet.
If I get some time after that (I'm on dinner duty tonight) I've got a Cisco PIX manual to read over. Which is easier when you've had enough sleep and your eyes focus. I think I need new glasses though, my eye fatigue plus these current glasses are giving me this weird sort of tunnel vision where I don't see and note things in the immediate periphery of the small area I'm focused on, in emails and stuff.
Maybe I need bigger frames as well. I definitely need some distance vision assistance for reading projectors and stuff.
1.3.06
New Mac Mini, integrated graphics
And the Hifi box, I've seen better. And cheaper. This event rates a big 'meh' from me.
21.2.06
MacBook P0rn
I really, really want one of these babies. But unless I can somehow make it pay for itself, I can't afford one. *deep sigh*
I've adjusted my expectations, and my next laptop will be a iMacBook 13", or whatever the next iBook equivalent will be (I wouldn't mess with 'iBook' as a name, but it'll probably get Steved). Even the 13" MacBook Pro, should the make such a creature. In fact please do, it will probably fit in my existing (and much-loved) laptop backpack.
20.2.06
Spreading stupid
And that’s a couple of generations ago, with the reading writing and ‘rithmetic. I probably won’t retire in time to avoid dealing with the next generation’s ‘business leaders’.
17.2.06
Retrocomputing
Feeling the need for a PDA, I dragged my Palm iiic out of mothballs. I bought it a USB adapter and dug some OSX drivers up from an obscure but *thorough* Taiwanese manufacturer’s site (Linux drivers too. Warm fuzzies) . I hooked it up to my iBook.
The Palm desktop is set up and works like a charm. iSync talks to the Palm and my muuuuch newer phone. Avantgo is up and running via a third party conduit. Mail.app won’t sync and crashes but I think that may have more to do with my colossal email archives than the plugin.
They really don’t make stuff like the Palm iiic anymore. The battery is still fine after lying in a drawer for a couple of years. The UI is fast and straightforward. Theoretically I could have used my phone as a PDA but the interface is awkward and the software is slightly sluggy.
I really think Palm peaked with the Palm V and the iiic, I see a lot of them around still. The Treos that periodically emit their peeping alarms around our office, really don’t compel me to upgrade. The news that Palm are moving to a Linux OS sounds really interesting though, I’ll keep an eye on that development. Palm might get interesting again.
13.2.06
Not all together..
Having trouble getting going this morning. Its another birthday (yay, I’m not dead!) . So far scored a few things, like the Serenity DVD (better the second time around). Instead of having a nice relaxing unemployed day today I’m off to $other things, but it’s still 2 weeks until I get to transfer out of here. (I checked out, but I didn’t leave).
6.2.06
Clan HoldTheFries
Today’s Earworm – ‘Queen Of The World’, Tina Cousins
Thinking of starting a WoW clan called ‘HoldTheFries’. We would not be exclusively low-carb, though we would be low carb friendly. We probably would be banninated under current management though.
I’ve an internal interview today for another department so wish me luck. Damn I wish I could let on the real reasons I think I’ll perform better in a different department…. But you know, if you have nothing nice to say… etc.
I’m hopeful but I’m also wary of things falling through, so come Monday I could have those glorious few days-to-weeks off I’ve been fantasizing about since I transitioned here from $old_werk with no time in between. Except of course, for the problem of actually being unemployed, and the longer you’re out of the game, the harder it is to get back in.
I need to line something else up before D starts sending filled application forms to fast-food joints on my behalf.
At least I’m at that point where lack of experience is no longer a problem, just lack of paperwork.
1.2.06
Wiped out
All I really feel like eating is bananas, an apple, or peanut butter, weirdly enough, and not available in our carb-avoidant household. If it means I can get through work tomorrow though I'll eat a bit off-plan.
29.1.06
The TroppoBook
I've switched from coffee to tea or iced tea (mostly). It seems too hot for coffee, and tea doesn't rattle my nerves as much. And even at McDonalds, tea is served in a teapot with a jug of milk. It's a more deliberate, civilized sort of experience. The only problem is I can't drink tea without some sort of sweetener. I'll have to buy some more Stevia to carry around with me.
On that topic, weight loss continues, doing very well thank you very much.
On the job front, I'm encouraged by interest from recruiters and I'm applying for more jobs, in the likely event that the current roles I'm pursuing with them fall through.
The other thing I'm working on is swotting for my MCSE exams, I've been putting those off for an embarrassingly long time. At this stage, I have experience but not the certs, and those certs could mean the difference of about 10k in the job market. It means more flexibility too. I'd like to be able to *avoid* the sorts of jobs I've had up until now.
One could argue that doing the certifications once you *have* experience means you'll get more out of them, and God knows I need more confidence.
Without the certs, I'm doing the work of people who *did* get the certs and are getting paid more than me, and who needs that?
27.1.06
Gaming it
Listening to ‘Landed, Ben Folds’
Playing phone tag with recruiters today. Actually I’m fairly chuffed considering how many applications it took to get *one* phone call the last few times I’ve been down this road. Feeling hopeful. Which is good because once the buzz from my impulsive Recovery had worn off and I was starting to feel a bit silly.
Treating the process like an RPG as much as possible, in terms of strategy and trying vs failing. Seems to be working out so far.
25.1.06
Recovered
Well, one thing led to another and I made a decision to move on from
$current_werkplace. So now I'm looking around for some new
employment. I might put up a quasi-CV listing my 1337 sk1llz later
today. I was up to 2:30am hunting down leads in my bookmarked job sites.
Hey, if you shake enough trees something is going to fall out.
There's a Unix gig I have my eye on.
16.1.06
It is what it is
So I’m back after a couple of days on holiday.
I got asked to write some notes on the stuff I’d done. I wrote a beautiful phone book, and arriving here found none of my cases had been touched, and nothing I’d done had been acknowledged.
So tell me why I was here doing an hour’s overtime, again?
13.1.06
5.1.06
On Interruptions
“Conversely, forcing someone to perform errands synchronously is bound to limit their productivity. The cost of an interruption is not just the time it takes, but that it breaks the time on either side in half. You probably only have to interrupt someone a couple times a day before they're unable to work on hard problems at all.”
http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
And if what you do is nothing *but* interruptions?
The other source of procrastination for me is just how long I spend avoiding other people (with some of the people I work with, understandable) if I’m depressed, which is most of the time lately.
