Occulomency

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Odyssey: noun (often lower-case) a long series of wanderings or adventures, esp. when filled with notable experiences, hardships, etc.

Lets just say that the Prof's Paris trip was an odyssey. Don't get me wrong, Paris was fantastic, she had a great time with the antipodeans, but the journey was - well lets say not without it's unique challenges.

Anyway, in order to salve the Justice's cravings for information, Prof arrived home (very late) last night.

People with no redeeming features.

Number one of a short series.

Denis.

That marks the end of this short series.

Had a bit of a shock yesterday evening when the weather Gods decided to play a little trick on us.

Listen, Stranger! Mist and Snow,
And it grew wond'rous cauld:
And Ice mast-high came floating by
As green as Emerauld.

And thro' the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen;
Ne shapes of men ne beasts we ken --
The Ice was all between.

The Ice was here, the Ice was there,
The Ice was all around:
It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd --
Like noises of a swound.

Yep, there was a slight covering of snow. First I've seen in a dozen years. I'm over it now. Still feeling a bit Jalfrazzi.

Looks like Apollo 11 CSM 107 'Columbia' to me.

Tones

Told you.

The Smart-Arse Family from Croyden.....

Yes, I bloody knew you'd get it, but the question is will Mr Mowbray?

(yes, he did.)

In spite of Bergerac Syndrome...

From the Sunday Mirror:

JEREMY Clarkson has confirmed he will be returning to front a new series of Top Gear.

The TV presenter, 46, left the future of the BBC2 show in doubt last week after telling viewers there would "not be a new series".

But last night he said: "Everyone seems to think the programme is finished or that I've left.

"Well, sorry to disappoint you all but it isn't and I haven't. Top Gear... will be back in the autumn."

Looks like Cam was right, the uncertainty was due to a lack of a zero on the end of the pay-cheque. I thought they all did quite well on comic relief too.

According to the BBC website, Justin Hawkins is favourite to win "A Song for Europe". Please refer to the Father Ted episode of the same name.

"I've got Euro-song fever Ted".....

Update: Have just heard that Justin did not get the nod to represent the homeland in Eurovision. Bugger, would have been funny. Cam, get the Top gear of the pops comic relief special bit-torrent, funny.

The glorious congregation of the Meme

I received an e-mail.

It was a an ironic joke.

" During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $1 million to the United States. The pen worked, and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.

The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil!"

This is, of course, loose stool water of the highest order.

You can't use a pencil in a space capsule, particularly those used in the 1960s. If the tip broke off your pencil in zero-gravity, the little bit of graphite may float off and get inhaled, stuck in your eye, short out the "make rocket go boom now switch", that sort of thing.

Moreover, how would you sharpen it in zero G without contaminating the whole capsule? The Soviets never used pencils.

What Nasa did do, at first, was use ordinary ball-point pens. They work fine in zero gravity.Then A Mr Fisher, an engineer who ran a third party pen refill company, developed a refill using thixotropic ink, solid until the action of the rolling ball liquefied it so that it would flow only when needed. The cartridge was pressurized with nitrogen, it could also write underwater and upside down and as the ink flowed when you wanted it to, and not the rest of the time it had a very long shelf life and excellent reliability.

The Fisher cartridge was adopted by Nasa, not developed by them, and is also used by the Russians. It's first use in space was the October, 1968 Apollo 7 mission, using a Fisher AG-7 Space Pen.

My leaving gift from the Gold Coast Hospital was  a Fisher AG-7 space pen. It's lovely.

So, what I am trying to say is, most facts on the internet are wrong, particularly when they are sent to me and about 300 other people, in an unsolicited e-mail, as a joke which was meant to amuse me, but irritated me greatly and caused me to spend 15 minutes writing this blog entry when I could have been watching TV.

People in Stanthorpe shouldn't be allowed computers.

Parent Abuse

Pretty isn't it? You're not a proper petrol-head until you've owned an Alpha Romeo......

We spent the whole day down on the Gold Coast, having a jolly old time. Alistair decided that screaming for approximately 40 minutes on the drive home would be a fun thing to do.

So in retaliation, I am posting this image of him, taken today in the certain knowledge that one day in the future, I will show this picture to the first girl he brings home. Alistair is young, but I know how to play the long game.

Maybe Lumic was right.....

It's been a busy old week what with one thing and another. Friday was not good. I drove all the way out to Chinchilla, dropped in on an errant client, with the intention of negotiating a reasonable solution to his potential woes, and I got a right verbal bashing off a complete tool. For some reason this has really got to me this time. Usually I'm not bothered but this one really has pissed me off.

As I have to perform some regulatory functions, it is not always popular with those that we regulate, but ususally I can negotiate a happy settlement because really it's about minimum levels of safety rather than blind compliance with an unreasonable law. Should the person who takes your x-ray be suitable trained and licensed?

Clients are often annoyed at getting caught more than anything else I think, but I can usually get a reasonable result without resort to threat of enforcment action, unless they threaten me with death (or professional isolation, which has happened). So even if the client is abusive or tells me I am a twat or that I am incompetant I try to give a reasoned response.

It is especially effective to respond to abuse with politeness as as often as not I will receive an apology from the person concerned who might admit to having been drunk or in a dark place personally or just sorry that they were so rude. Sometimes they won't write back at all, but it doesn't matter as I have attempted to maintain my dignity.

It's still horrible getting criticised whether it's by aggrieved punters or a caught out wrong-doer, the abuse will always sting for a second at least. Whilst in my heart I know that it's impossible to please everyone and that I would be quite upset if that actually happened, to rouse someone to such anger that they throw you out of their workplace, slagging you off for behaving in precisely the same way they are behaving is an unsettling thing to happen.

Anyway when I got shouted at by this bloke I felt those pangs of depression. I can't really blame him for being upset about getting caught. My initial reaction to his tirade was to shout "oh fuck off!"

But instead I tried to be reasonable and reply in a thoughtful way and address some of his points. He wouldn't listen, or even let me finish a sentence.

I hate being talked over.  I'll get over this soon enough, but I am really quite wound up about this. This may be the first time I've used this blog as chathexis, and I hope it works. Don't worry I am not down-hearted. Quite the opposite. And a bit of controversy never hurt no-one huh, Daddio?

Anyway, the Worsey's are over. They stayed with us for a few days and are now heading down to the land of Mutton and Leopard (Broadbeach). Nice to see them all. It's been fun.

Michael is having fun with websites. See here for an example.

Upgrade: Delete....

4:50pm Bambleweeny sub-meason micro brain needs a rebuild due to a botched MS update for Media Centre Edition. All my files are backed up on a spare 200gig drive I've got, so this shouldn't take too long....

4:52pm Spilt my 320gig SATA into 2 partitions, an 80gig for my OS and the rest for Data and the like. Not going through this crap again. Annoyed with Dell to be honest, I was unaware of the importance of the sequencing of driver additions.

4:57pm Set-up has finished copying files and is rebooting.....

4:58pm An exciting new look.... 39 minutes to go according to the timer.

5:00pm Now it wants to know where I live!

5:06pm Doesn't time fly, we're finalising installation now, and will be done in 7 of your earth minutes.... Tell me more about this human custom you call Cheesecake....

5:10pm Ooh a restart! Welcome to Microsoft Windows....

5:12pm Loading my personal settings..... Installing applications.....

5:19pm Another restart.....

5:20pm My first desktop... Aahhhhhh....

5:23pm Installing Dell system software, and another restart.

5:23pm It sure re-starts fast now!

5:25pm Intel drivers go on, and another re-start.

5:26pm nVidia drivers now....re-start 5.

5:28pm Monitor drivers.....

5:33pm Intel matrix storage....re-start 6

5:36pm Network and Audio drivers, VIIV drivers and bluetooth....restart 7

5:45pm Time to get the old data over..... I will return when it is done!

update:

9.09pm Thunderbird and Firefox are up and OK. iTunes is working just fine now and I don't appear to have lost anything at all, except time.

I'll be off to bed soon I think.

Happy days.

and yet it moves....

Ali G managed a good four or five steps today unassissted (apart from wind, but we'll leave well alone).

So we're counting that as walking within a year, even though I suspect we're not being terribly scientific in our observations.

Just one little thing, she was French, and anyone sung about by OMD must be a little bit suspect, and I'd demaqnd another re-trial.

On an unconnected topic, I have come to the conclusion that Julia Roberts looks like she has a baboon's arse on her face instead of a mouth.