April 2004 Archives
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... open eyes....
... look through blurry eyes at watch ....
... see the minute hand pointing to the number 11
begin impersonation of Hugh Grant at the start of Four Weddings and a Funeral..... shit ... 35 minutes to get to work! Twenty miles away!
up! shower! Bbbbbrrrrrriiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg!
..... wha..? why is the clock in my car an hour early? Look at watch. Shit. Time for breakfast after all.
By the way, I would like to point out that not being able to get out of bed in the morning is the only thing I have in common with Hugh Grant.
There aren't many things in this world that really gets up my nose, but people driving badly is one of them. I can't stand it when, for example, approaching a junction behind someone in a small car, and they don't move forward into a gap which is obviously big enough for them, and maybe a small light aircraft as well. I have to wait for the car(s) in front them to move, so they can crawl forwards. This evening on the way home from work I spotted someone driving the wrong way round a supermarket car park. I know this is hardly the end of the world, but the arrows are painted on the road for a reason, people! Also on this slight more evenful than usual journey home, when coming off the motorway, the car behind me actually reversed up the slip road, in order to change lanes. Some people just deserve a flat tyre or two, in my opinion.
I've only been making entries into this blog for about 10 days now, and already it's been four days since my last entry? Why is this? Do I really have that little to write about? Is my life really that boring? Let's see what I've been up to since my last post:
Sunday:
Went for a long walk down the Irwell Sculpture Trail. Again. Each time I walk a bit of the trail I try to walk a bit further than the previous time, and so far I'm succeeding. It was a gloriously sunny day, and armed with nothing more than a bottle of water and my camera, I set off. Along the way I passed a few other walkers, cyclists, joggers, horse riders and trail bike riders. When I saw the first couple of bike riders I thought "cool" but about a mile further on there were about two dozen of them. Walking along a narrow country path, minding your own business, enjoying the peace and quiet (and the sunshine!) is, to me, a very pleasurable experience, but to then have a motorbike zoom past and miss you by inches ruins the whole thing. Well, not quite the whole thing, just that little bit of it, but I did fing myself wishing that he'd gain a rather intimate knowledge of a pot-hole about 50 yards further up the road. Didn't happen, though, which was a shame. Still, I walked for about two and a half hours, and called my cousin to meet me in a pub and drive me home again :-)
Once home, I watched the grand prix - good on ya Jense, pole position and second in the race is excellent going. He's now third in the championship, and starting to give the others a run for their money. To have Michael Schumacher say "in the first part of the race it was like he was driving in the sunshine and I was driving in the rain" is high praise indeed.
Monday:
Work. Saw my son in the evening, which always brightens my day. He's getting to the stage where he's learning what he can and can't get away with, and we're teaching him that he can't get away with telling lies. Since his mother and I are divorced, he's trying to play one of us off against the other. After he's told a lie to his mum and she confronted him about it, he said "my daddy told my imagination to say it". We're telling him now that even though mummy and daddy don't live in the same house any more, we still talk to each other and if he's naughty when he's with one of us, then the other one will know as well. He's a clever kid and can undertand things when explained to him logically, so we'll see if our "softly softly" approach has any effect. His sense of logic is impeccable as well, and he's often managed to wrap me round his little finger when I can't find a good enough reason not to do what he wants!
Tuesday:
Work again. Had a call from the ex-wife, saying "can you talk to your son please?" The conversation went something like this:
Me: what's up?
Son (sounding a bit croaky and sheepish): I told another lie today
Me (sounding disappointed): Oh no. We talked to you about this yesterday. Are you sorry for what you did?"
Son (to his mum): Sorry
Mum (to me): Thanks. Bye.
Wednesday:
Work again - can you see a pattern emerging here?
When I was a child, my parents used to drive me and my brother to the local park (well, not the absolutely most local park, as that was just a walk away, but the nearest park of any size) and let us play around on the swings and roundabouts, paddle in the pool, pet the animals, roll down hills, feed the ducks on the lake and go for boat rides. It made for a very busy day out indeed.
I only mention this because today I went back to the same park with my dad. Of course it wasn't just the two of us, we took my son, niece and nephew with us. Comparing the day out we had today with the days out we had thirty-something years ago, there are several significant changes, some for better, some for worse.
The first change was that we had to pay for the car park. You don't seem to be able to breathe these days without having to dig into your pocket to do so. The second change was that we went to a brand new play area in the park, just opened last month. This play area is fan-tas-tic! In the middle is a huge pyramid, a death slide, a rather muddy water/sand play area, lots of things to keep little brains and little hands occupied, all surrounded by brand new landscaping, young sapling trees, blue skies and an ice cream van. Sheer perfection.
Sadly, the paddling pool, petting zoo and boating lake have all been deemed too dangerous for the future of our nation to play with. Every time I walk past the six-inch-deep hole in the ground decorated with blue tiles, which used to echo with the sounds of laughter and splashing, but now has a "keep out - broken glass" sign next to it I think "what a waste". Every time I see the empty and overgrown cage where once a ferocious tiger used to sleep just behind that log, always out of sight but definately there and ready to bite your hand off should he ever feel like it, I think "this all used to be much better than it is now". Every time I walk past the boating lake where the water used to be much more blue, the boats much newer, with their engines put-putting little puffs of exhaust smoke into the air just above the waterline, and again people laughing and splashing and trying to get on and off the boats without falling in, I think back to happier days, more innocent days, days when a parent would happily let a child ride a bike a few miles to the park without fear of them getting abducted or run over or worse.... and I look at the state of the park and the state of the world and wonder where it all went so wrong.
Then I look at the brand new play area and think "well, it's not all so bad, is it?"
And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to bother explaining it to you.
I've had this blog up and running for about a week and a half now, and I still don't know what I'm going to use it for. I'm not a very good writer, by which I mean I can't write two sentences and make them conjure up a whole scenario in your mind. I'm not a political commentator; in fact I think there are far too many of those on the internet already. I don't live in a major city, where I'm likely to see new and interesting things every day. I don't even have an interesting job or lifestyle. I just get up in the morning, drive 23 miles to work, sit in a windowless office all day wondering what the weather's like outside, then I drive back 23 miles and spend the evenings wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life.
Feck. I'm all depressed now. Welcome to my blog... have a nice day.
I'm in a surprisingly good mood at the moment. The painkillers have kicked in and my back no longer hurts every time I move, the sun is shining (I know this because I went out at lunchtime - the only windows in my office are the ones on my computer screen), and amount of work piled up on my desk is getting smaller. Something's got to go wrong, surely?
The Industrious Clock and the Block Clock
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...
Four days off work (ok, two days if you don't count the weekend, except I do count it because it makes it sound better) and 10 minutes into the working day I sneeze while leaning over a desk to put some paper in a printer and my whole back twinges. I'm in agony for the rest of the day. Perfect.
Still, managed to spot and fix a few deliberate mistakes my boss had made in my absence in an attempt to keep me on my toes. I'll tell you, it's working. Except that when I stand on my toes, my back hurts. Ouch.
There is an irc quote on www.bash.org which goes like this:
<Ruth> hmmm first thing to do when one gets home is .... check spam for emails
I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem.
In years gone by, when life was less complicated and we were all much more naive than we are now, my (now ex-)wife and I bought a domain on which to host our fairly typical family web site. You know the sort of thing, a bit about us, some recipes, the family tree, some other irrelevant stuff. We set up email addresses (along the lines of webmaster@ourdomain, me@ourdomain, her@ourdomain, recipes@ourdomain and do on) and put these addressed on the web site as well. In retrospect this turned out to be a big mistake. We'd also set up the email on the domain so that any message addressed to an account that didn't exist (such as totalloser@ourdomain) still came through to our inbox. That was also a big mistake.
As I am now divorced the old web site no longer exists, but it is still an active domain and I still use it for most of my emails. I've only had my new domain for a few weeks, so I haven't publicised it to that many people yet. So far this month, I have received, to the old domain, 14782 spam emails. That's over 800 a day.
Earlier this year I acquired an old Celeron 300 PC from my brother and built a linux from scratch system on it. This system is used as an email gateway and spam filter. I use spamassassin (using basically the default settings) to spot all the spam and file it away in a separate folder. So far this month it has identified 12646 messages as spam, a hit rate of 85.5%. However, this means that I still get over 100 unwanted emails a day in my inbox.
Gradually I will unsubscribe my old email address from various mailing lists etc and resubscribe under my new address. I'm not going to put that address anywhere on this blog in the hope that I don't get inundated with spam generated by spider programs that trawl web sites harvesting email addresses.
Email on the new domain has been set up to send all emails not specifically addressed to me into a black hole, however my new address shouldn't be too hard to work out if anyone were to spend a few minutes thinking about it. If spam becomes a problem again, I'm going to change my email address to something completely random, in which case I can probably ditch this spam filtering system I spent many long evenings (ok 14 long evenings) setting up and testing.
And if that happens, I'm going to have a spare Celeron 300 PC and a spare broadband firewall/router. I'll find some use for it though, don't worry.
In conclusion, I will leave you with another irc quote from bash.org:
<Fooz> In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penisses, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.
I love a good laugh. So do most people, in fact. Laughter is, as they say, the best medicine. I have a feeling I don't laugh enough these days, so I'm trying to remedy that by listening to one of my all-time favourite radio shows on one of the BBC's new digital radio stations.
If you haven't already got it, you'll need real player (and a set of speakers) in order to be able to hear it.
All together now - hee hee, hahhhahah, hoohohoh!
I've been travelling for hours. Maybe even days. I've lost all track of time, but I do know it is getting dark now, and I can hear eerie noises in the distance. I don't really want to be here when it gets dark - I've heard nasty stories of people being eaten alive by strange creatures with frightening sounding names. No-one's ever seen these creatures of course, the stories go that they devour every living thing that comes anywhere near them. Tales of the boogie man told to children to scare them just before they go to bed. Well, I'm not a child any more, but those whoops and cries in the distance scare the hell out of me.
I'm looking for someone, or something, or somewhere. The problem is, I don't know exactly what it is I'm looking for until I find it. Scattered on the ground I see bones and skulls. Worringly, some of them look like they might once have belonged to travellers like me, people in search of enlightenment, entertainment and the holy grail of knowledge.
I turn a corner, pass out of the trees and into a small clearing. There is a cabin up ahead, with smoke rising from the chimney. Tentatively I approach it and knock on the door. I can hear shuffling from inside, but there is no answer. I knock again, a little louder and more forcefully this time. Still no reply.
I take a step back and study the cabin door more closely. Nothing unusual about it..... made of some sturdy wood, with iron hinges and a door handle. But to the right of the door, hidden away in the wall of the cabin, something is glowing. If I'd gotten here an hour or two ago I might not have seen it, but in the fading light it now shines quite brightly. I lean forward to see what it is. It seems to be a screen of some sort, a piece of technology completely out of place with its surroundings.
It says "Enter user name and password"
Damn. No one told me what my user name and password was! Dejected, I step back again. Well, I've come too far now to go back, and besides, it's now almost dark.
"I wish I wasn't by myself here..", I said under my breath. "I could do with some help."
As soon as I uttered the last word, there was a small puff of smoke and a flash of light to my left. A man was standing there, dressed formally in a dinner jacket and bow tie.
"I presume you wish to gain access, sir", he said in a slow, deliberate, slightly snooty voice.
"Yes, I'm looking for something, I think. It may be in there."
"Do you have your letter of invitation with you?"
Of course, the letter. I'd been travelling for so long I'd forgotten all about that. I take off my backpack and root through it. It's here somewhere, I know it is. Maybe my user name and password are written on the letter somewhere. After a couple of minutes searching, during which I wonder quite why I have so much useless crap with me all the time, I find it. It is two pages long, full of promises of knowledge and enlightenment and hours of entertainment, at the tip of my fingers. In my excitement to get here I hadn't read it fully, I just shoved it into my bag and headed off. I study the letter in more detail.
I read it from beginning to end. I read it again. No sign of any useful information in it whatsoever. I'm starting to get frustrated now. So close, and yet so far! I curse under my breath and begin to fold the letter up to put it back in my bag. And there, on the back of the letter, scribbled in pencil, I notice some strange symbols. Maybe that's what I need. I approach the screen. Next to it is a keyboard, with similar symbols on it. Gaining confidence, I enter the name and password.
The screen goes blank.
The door does not open.
The screen comes on again. "Invalid user name and password"
"No. This has to be it" I tell myself. I re-enter the details, very slowly and carefully this time.
The screen goes blank again.
There is a click.
I push open the door, and as I do I am barely aware of a flash of light and a puff of smoke somewhere to my left as the man in the dinner jacket disappears as suddenly as he had appeared in the first place. It seems I don't need him any more.
The cabin looks almost empty, minimalist. There is a fire burning in the corner, and on the chair next to the fire sits a wizened old man, smoking a pipe. I approach him.
"Erm...... excuse me?"
He does not look away from the fire, he seems only interested in the dancing flames and the crackling noise of the burning wood. He puffs on his pipe and sends a plume of smoke up towards the ceiling. "Yes?" he says after a moment, in a croaky and frail voice.
"Is this the internet?"
"It was the last time I looked."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I've been looking everywhere for it. Thought I'd got lost a few times along the way as well - you should put up some instructions or something so people know how to get here."
"Well, we thought about it. But then we realised that if you don't know how to get here we don't really want you here anyway." I had no idea who he was referring to when he said "we" - as far as I could tell he was the only one here. Until I arrived, of course.
"Do you mind if I have a look round?"
"You might as well," he said. "You've got the letter and you managed to get in. This place is as much yours now as it is mine."
I look around, thinking he was welcome to keep it. "Where do I go?" I asked him.
He turns and looks at me with eyes that have seen far too much and a look that says I might be better off not bothering. He takes his pipe in his hand and uses the mouthpiece to point at a door in the far wall. I was sure it wasn't there when I came in.
"Where do you want to go today?" he asked me. I looked at him for a moment, since I did not know the answer to that question.
"What will I find?" I asked, feeling a little more nervous now. "Through that door," he replied, "lies cyberspace."
I walked forward. As soon as I passed through into the realm of cyberspace, I was hooked.
From that day to this, I never went back through that door. I never saw the cabin again, never saw the old man again. I am aware of others here, some spouting opinions, some telling jokes and stories, some trying to entice me into enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. There are so many places to go here, so much to read and to enjoy, that you may not have seen the same things I have seen. So here is the first in a selection of things to see and do in cyberspace. Don't get lost, please keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times, and if you see the old man in the cabin, tell him I said hi.
Oh, remember those strange creatures I told you about that devour everything in their path? They exist, all right. They're called viruses.
And that man in the dinner jacket who popped up out of nowhere to give me directions? I later found out his name is Google.
It's a weird world, this wired world of cyberspace. Enjoy your stay.
Right, made a bit of progress with setting the blog up to be exactly the way I want it. I've moved it all to a different host (AQHOST) and I've also added a photo gallery. I can't believe that Movable Type is all database driven and easily updatable apart from the links section. To add a link I have to edit the main index template. Strange... The style and layout is all pretty much as I'd like it to be now as well. I'm in a bit of limbo at the moment as the DNS servers haven't all updated themselves properly. I was able to get into the new host last night, and uploaded and configured everything, and now I can't see it... h'mmmm..... will give it another 24 hours or so before I start complaining heheh.
Still to do:
add some more links on the left
add a link to the photo gallery on the left
write some more entries!
Gawd, today is dragging....
Still feeling a bit groggy, but I've got the next two days booked off - hopefully I'll be with it enough to actually do something productive with my time (let's see, get the car washed, go shopping, go for a walk, watch the last two episodes of ER on video...., the usual lazing about stuff, not that you'd be the slightest bit interested in all that).
I'm looking at changing my web host. My brother Simon has set himself up as a reseller for fasthosts, and he has provided me with their basic (i.e. free) hosting service. However this did not come with a mysql database, and since he's got a static IP address, he set up mysql on his home server and let me use that. All went well and I made my first post to the blog. Simon then went on to it to add a comment, and he got a CGI timeout error. He ended up posting the same comment three times before it actually worked. I've since had CGI timeouts while adding new posts, and also while rebuilding the site after playing around with the style sheet. It's impossible to work with - every time I make a post or someone adds a comment, it times out. No-one knows if anything is actually going into the database or not....
I asked Simon to look into whether the CGI timeout limit can be altered. He had a look at the support forums and came back with an answer which is something along the lines of: "CGI scripts are set to time out after 10 seconds. If this is not long enough to run your script, please rewrite your script so that it works within the time limits allowed". Of course, since I didn't write the movable type scripts I can't alter them (well, I could, but I don't want to get into all that). So I'm going to look for another host. I'll let you know as and when I've chosen one.
And I'm still looking at setting up a photo gallery, haven't forgotten about that one yet!
I feel like shit this morning. And no, that's not a craving. I think I picked up a bug while out and about this weekend. My chest feels tight, the back of my throat feels swollen........ perfect for the first day back at work after a long weekend..... grrr
Last weekend I walked into town and bought an Ordnance Survey map of the local area. I love maps and can study them for hours on end (heheh, you're beginning to get an idea of how boring I am now, aren't you?). Anyway, looking at the local map, I discovered a 30-mile footpath trail called the Irwell Sculpture Trail, which passes about 200 yards from my front door. "Got to be done", the adventurer in me said. "Not all at once though", the coward in me quickly replied...
So today I coerced my niece (aged eight), my son (aged four and a half) and my sister-in-law (age a secret) to come with me for a bit of fresh air and exercise. I've lived in built-up areas all my life, so to cross a road, walk up a gravel path for 20 yards, and find myself surrounded by fields full of sheep, trees and a canal was rather refreshing. Today's walk was dampened (literally) by the weather, but that cleared up, and even my son nagging for something to eat or to go home again after 20 minutes didn't put me off. I was going to have a walk, dammit, and nothing was going to stop me.
We walked for a couple of hours and got the tram back. Along the way we fed ducks and swans, petted a couple of horses that were ambling along the canal path (actually they weren't always ambling - once we got past them they turned around and started running after us.... "run away! run away!"), saw a swan nesting, and eventually got into town for a bite to eat. Well there goes all the good work we'd done in the morning, wrapped up in newspaper and covered in salt and vinegar. Still, we'd earned it :-)
No, we didn't walk back. We caught the tram.
Quotes of the day from my son (who pushed in his buggy for 95% of the way):
"This is boring. It's all walking walking walking and sitting sitting sitting!"
"I'm not allowed any fizzy drinks or crisps today because yesterday I had a whole tube of Pringles hidden in my room and I was sick all night. If I'm a good boy I might be able to have some crisps next week."
"Where have all the shops gone?" (after we'd been walking for an hour and a half and still not reached the town centre)
"I want some cake!"
(after lunch): "Let's go to the toy shop now Daddy. You can buy me two toys. Come on.......... hurry up!"
A joke from my niece: "There are two birds, one called 'ickle me' and one called 'tickle me'. 'Ickle me' flies away, which one is left?"
My son's answer, after a moment's thought and a little chuckle: "The other one"
Beats watching TV on a bank holiday, I can tell you.
Photos to follow after I've got them off the camera and worked out how to upload them.
I'd like to thank my brother Simon for
1) registering the domain name
2) hosting the site
3) providing me with a local mysql server so I don't have to pay his 50 quid reseller fee
4) letting me know the proper local path on the web server so this thing actually works
Cheers bro!
