I AM NOT A "SENIOR"

And speaking of birthdays...
Had my 60th recently.
And received a news letter from my local MP.
Here's a photo:

Bastard.
I threw a tantrum and hurled it across the room.
An admittedly restrained tantrum as I had to maneuver my walker and take my medication.
Ben, being sane and unwilling to face my ungodly wrath, left it where it was.
That was some days ago now.
It's been sitting there like a malevolent pixie jeering at me from the corner.
"I AM NOT A SENIOR!" I mutter under my breath...
Bastard.
I picked it up and it will be going on the BBQ tonight.
Bastard.
I'll be dropping a baseball bat, a roll of barbed wire and instructions on how to insert it into various orifices on my local MPs doorstep when the battery on my mobility scooter has charged.

Thank you Dr Mark Courtney and Dr Paul Murphy and all the staff at John Flynn Hospital

Ok. I survived my latest surgery. Many thanks to the staff of John Flynn Private Hospital and Dr Mark Courtney and Dr Mark Murphy for making it memorable.

I say memorable in that my handbag and overnight bag got lost. I'm not complaining mind you.

Seriously.

6 hours of searching by security staff eventually found them. Keys, cards, prescriptions, etc basically 2/3rds of my life recovered. Thanks guys!

In the mean time I had to wear paper clothing and be restricted to my room. Which was awesome I have to say. Fantastic views. But no underwear. Sucks to be me. Dr Courtney came round to see how I was faring at 7:30pm. Way, way, seriously way, after his visiting times.

Now that's dedication to doing the right thing.

Awesome!

He was an angel and sent me home rather than stay overnight because:

1) The cyst (huge bugger as it was) was easy to remove and
2) I didn't bleed like a stuck pig and
3) He understood I had to pay for the room out of my own pocket and
4) ALIENS! No. Not really. Just people. Humans. Good humans.
5) Now where did I put number 6?
6) Oh! Here it is!

I shook his hand warmly and gave him a hug. He positively beamed happiness.

And a big shout-out to Dr Paul Murphy.
We had met before and I kept calling him 'Paul'.
Kinda odd in a professional kind of way.
I kept expected him to say

I didn't spend 3 years in "evil Anaesthesia College" to be called "Paul" thank you very much. It's Dr Murphy if you please.

Sorry about that.

Oh. I have to mention. While in pre-op I overheard the birth of two babies. AWESOME. Made me smile. And many of the staff I have to say. Cool.

I now have a HUGE plaster on my neck and my neck hurts like... Like... Buggery... But I have antibiotics, pan forte and FINALLY have this damn thing out of my neck. Two years of coughing myself to distraction every morning for 2 hours. Gone. Clicking when I swallow. Gone. Glands the size of golf balls. Gone. Finally. Gone.

Thank you Dr Mark Courtney and Dr Mark Murphy and all the staff at John Flynn Hospital for making it go away. Thank you.

And A massive shout out to security for ransacking every ward and every locker for my bags.

Thank you.

Dr Courtney.
Dr Murphy.
ALL THE STAFF AT JOHN FLYNN PRIVATE HOSPITAL!
ALL OF YOU.
SPECIAL SHOUT-OUT TO SECURITY - AWESOME JOB DUDES.

A very Diggy Diggy Minecraft and Gaming Christmas!

Well.
Not just MineCraft.
Here's some photos:

Our decorations include Minecraft items!

And Daleks and K9 and some paper figures of us:

 

Ben got a metal Millenium Falcon to make. Warning: You will need snippers, a tweezer and the eyesight of an eagle.

He got me a Minecraft GiftPack of books.
Aimed at kids, but really cool.
I particularly liked that on page 2 of every book is a page about staying safe online.
Sigh. Vanilla Minecraft. Awesome.

Also some Minecraft paper figurines.
(The video is Wil Wheaton and others playing Ticket to Ride)

I got him a baby StrandBeest!
It really works and walks and creeps you out with its organic look when it's moving.

And would you believe it, we bought each other a copy of the KJV Manga Bible!
See Moses using his Ninja Skills!
Curiously the one on the left covers the whole old testament in great detail while the one on the right skips most of it to concentrate on the new testament.
Both leave out a shed load of books from both testaments, but they are both very cool.

Oh. And here's Ticket to Ride!
We played it straight away and love it.

I'm 57. I'm not old.

To anyone who hasn't had a Pythonesque upbringing...
Well...
You missed out.
Sorry.
Better hit the 'back' button because you're unlikely to get any references from here on in.

Now.
Where was I?
Oh yeah.
57.
I'm not fucking old!

Old is when you accrete cats.
One that pisses everywhere and is called Samson not because he's strong but because he has long hair.
And he's a she.
And one that refuses to be petted and shits in your shoes.
"Those" kind of cats.

And you have one of those ride on carts.
With "Go Faster" stripes.
And aerials.
And a stick so you can poke young people and say: "Get a job! Cut you hair! Marry a cousin!"
Maybe not the latter although Pat Robertson may disagree.

Wait.
What?
Where was I?

Oh!
Yeah.
Being old.
No.
No. Fucking. No. .COM.
Not old.com.
"Experienced"
experienced.com.

"Experienced" My Fucking Phhhbbbttt.

I just survived.

Survived the cold war. Fucking nutters.
Survived hippies. Fucking nutters.
Survived Ayn Rand. Fucking nutters.
Survived fucking tons of crap...
Well..
Get off my lawn!

Served.

Anyway.
Where was I?

Oh Yes.
Minecraft.

Getting a tad annoyed.
Seems like I spend time building spectacular... Wait.. Adequate.. Wait... Shit... Apartments...
For testificates.
They swan around.
They are ignoring the Tom Clark Memorial Mega Tower (Thanks Sips) I spent fucking ages building.
And they... Well... They're "young".
And they expect me.... Me... To provide them with a Mega Tower.
With shopping malls.
And the MC equavalent of FCUK.
Wait.
What?

I'm the geriatric.
They're folding their arms and acting like it's expected.
Screw them.

I'm the geriatric.
So screw minecraft.
I'm following Sips lead and trying "Banished"!

Oh.
Oh Crap.
Banished needs Windoze.
Oh crap.
Bugger.

Bloody young whipper snappers.
What the hell is a snapper anyway and why would it whip?

Wait.
What?
Is it someones birthday?

GalactiCraft! OMG!

Ok. Haven't posted for a while as I've been rather busy.
Yesterday (Sunday) I decided to rebuild our internal network minecraft server up.
Got bukkit and configured it up and allowed external access to it for my family.

In any case, while doing this I stumbled on Galacticraft.
It's a tekkit mod that is just hilarious and looks very cool.

The site is at:

http://micdoodle8.com/mods/galacticraft

And you should *definitely* watch the podcasts by yoglabs.
Hysterically funny.
I cracked up repeatedly.

My favorite parts are.. are...
Oh what the heck...
ALL OF THEM.
Giant three headed creepers, spiders with spacesuits, Shai Hulud, alien eggs, variable gravity, slow motion skeleton arrows...
I just giggle madly if I think of the spider with a helmet and air tanks.

I could go on...
But you need to go and watch the podcasts.
Do it.
Do it now...

Oh... Shai Hulud... If you haven't watched or read Dune, this won't mean anything.
But don't despair! Go get the book, or watch the movies.
My favorite is the De Laurentius "theatrical" version. (We have all the versions)

Well, it's official. I've been unemployed for 6 months and broke.

I left Guvera officially mid last year due to fairly dramatic family needs. Then Guvera asked me back on contract which I could do while handling those family issues. I finished up that contract just before christmas to work on some other exciting projects.

I have tons of work on several major startups since then. Mainly Rails, Padrino and Java with some PHP and Systems Admin work. While those startups may still create income, none of them have produced dollar 1 so far.

So I have no option but to hit the job market and try to find work to pay the bills. So if you're looking for a highly experienced technologist, toolmaker, solution architect, problem solver, trouble shooter, firefighter and innovator, then go no further. Have a look at my LinkedIn profile to see if you could use my skill sets. In particular see my colleagues recommendations.

Here's a quick run down of who I am and what I can do:

I have over thirty years experience in computing and have worked for large multi-nationals such as Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Western Mining Corporation and many, many startups. I have written Unix Systems Administration manuals and have taught systems administration and programming to both groups and individuals.

I love technology!
Since the late 70’s I have been involved in the open source community and contributed heavily to many early projects. My code exists in many implementations of linux and I have even been cited on a man page (albeit for a game). Ben and I own far too much tech... We even have a first gen MakerBot and have used it to fix quite a few things around the house!

TDD is a part of everything I write and has been for many years. Unfortunately I have found that many companies consider TDD to be a waste of programming resource, which I consider short sighted.

Release early, release often. I have always advocated this and used (and built) many deployment tools such as Capistrano et al to get code live quickly.

I have used MySQL, MongoDB and recently CouchDB to handle large amounts of data. A recent project involved 100’s of millions of documents handling companies historical data.

I am no stranger to working from home and can be incredibly productive. For the last 6 months of last year I contracted to a major music distribution company and worked from home with occasional in-house and Skype meetings.

So if I fit your needs, get in touch!

"Scratches to Scratches" a version of David Bowie lyrics for cat people!

"Scratches to Scratches"

Try listening to Ashes to Ashes after reading these lyrics Ben and I came up with:

Do you remember a cat that's been

In such an early lol

I've heard a rumour from Animal Welfare

Oh no, don't say it's true

They got a message

from the Ceiling Cat

"I'm hungry, hope you're hungry too

I've eaten all I've needed to eat

Nomming details following"

The eating of nothing is boring

Just pictures of grumpy cats in synthesis and I

Ain't got no money and I ain't got no food

But I'm hoping to scratch but the sofa it's unallowed

Scratches to scratches, punk to punky

We know Ginger Tom's a punkie

Strung out in catnip's high

Hitting an all-time low

Time and again I tell myself

I'll not eat tonight

But the little can openers call to me

Oh no, not again

I'm playing with a valuable friend

"I'm hungry, hope you're hungry too"

One flash of led light but no catching it

I never done good things

I never done bad things

I never did anything out of the house

Want an claw to break the skin

Wanna eat right now

My mother said to get things done

You'd better not mess with Ginger Tom

Bible Thumpers: Y U No Check Your Pamphlets?

Got one of these in the letter box on the weekend:

Can you see it? Oh. It's a bit small. Here's a close up:

Wait. What? Oh. So that's why I could never see the kingdom. It's over there, beyond the sparkley fountains of milk and honey in... in... HAD.

Seriously? It's the primary quote on the pamphlet for Cthulhus name.
The thing that grabs peoples attention.
And you got it wrong?


I did try google maps by the way. Gave up after a bit because it was boring. And stupid.
Mainly because of the semi-useless word "HAD."
The results where quite humorous and gave results focused on Israeli restaurants in:

Ash Sharqiyah, Oman
A possible I suppose.

Al Anbar, Iraq
Hmm. Seems to stretch the idea a bit don't you think?

And surprisingly:

Casper, WY, United States

Yeah. Real place. Loads of Israeli restaurants there according to Google.
Although I would hazard a guess and say that this kingdom is not likely to be at the Ramada Plaza Riverside Hotel and Convention Center unless they prefer the decor.
And the big question is, why Israeli?
I'm babbling.

I've decided to stop watching debates about the existence or nature of god for a while

We foster cats and catlings.
"Wait. What?" I hear you say.
Just give me a few moments to explain.
Over the last year Ben and I have been fostering sick cats, mothers with kittens and the like.
Loads of them.
And, like 2 year olds, you have to watch them like a hawk.
They are always being mischevious, investigative and learning about the world they are in.
Since they are often sick or just kittens, we have to keep them inside for their own safety.
So they learn about the world that is the our house.

You can't concentrate on much, read a book and so on.
Some things you can do includes watching TV.
And I've been watching debates about the existence and nature of god while keeping a watchful eye on the fuzz balls.
So while you listen to Dawkins, Krause, Lennox et al, you observe the cats, their habits, their kittie-language and so on.

One thing that leaps out is the solid block that is the limit to their intelligence.
They can jump on chairs without knowing that it is a chair.
They eat food from a mechanical food chain beyond their grasp.
They cathramorphise us as their parent cats.
They can't read.
They may watch TV sometimes but have no capability of understanding any of the massive technological edifice behind those flickering images.
They are limited.
I suspect that even with evolution in play they will never be able to:
Open a can of cat food;
Read a book;
Build a car or fly a jet fighter within any reasonable time span.

So when I see a bunch of atheists, theists and deists debating I get an image in my head.
And that image is a bunch of house cats, sitting on a carpet discussing the nature of Dog.

I'm not saying that the debates are pointless and shouldn't be done.
They should continue, but on the understanding that a hundred years from now they will be debating the same thing.

So I'm laying off the debates for a while.

For cat-lovers here are some photos of the latest bunch:

There's a few things that are hard for average people to understand

I'm kinda in a state of physical limbo.
It's damn hard to explain.
Because most people have no conception of what it's like to be 'half-n-half'.
For example...
For years, no decades, until I was 40 my left knee would dislocate.
Roughly once a month or so.
I mean that bone down the back of your calf.
There'd be a sudden movement and I'd be on my back in agony.
Muscles frantically jamming solid trying to move an immovable object etc.
Pain washing over me like waves...
I'd have to...
and if you're squemish skip to the next paragraph...
I'd have to jam my wrist around the back of my knee and with the other arm yank hard on my ankle.
There'd be this enormous "THWACK" as the bone snapped back into position.
I'd then faint.
My mother would run into the kitchen to avoid this.

Anyway...
Thankfully I don't have that problem now.
I'm guessing because of HRT dropping muscle mass etc.
But the basic issue still persists.
And it's so hard to explain because very few people have any idea what to equate it to.
I have a left collar bone.
Oh. Yes. You do too. That thin one at the top of your chest.
Left side.
No.
Your other left.
Anyway I've broken it a couple of times.
But that's not the issue.
The 'ball' at the end that fits into your chest bone is 'gracile.'
The socket is 'robust'.
For the non-anatomically inclined that roughly means gracile=>female, robust=>male.
So it doesn't quite fit.
And occassionally pops out.
And people in an office setting are sometimes privy to me pushing my chest out and...
THWACK.
As I pop it back into place.
Sometimes it doesn't work.
Like today.
I've been walking around all day with a dislocated collar bone trying to snap it back into place.
Driving.
Lifting.
Caring for kittens.
Sweating with pain.
Wiping tears away because you just have to soldier on.
"Ship? Out of danger?"
Still haven't got it back into place.
Hot showers help.
Pain killers?
Nothing - not a dent.
Anyway.
You have no clue what I'm talking about.
Life sucks sometimes.

Interesting human dynamic going on in the supermarket today.

Dropped in to pick up some essentials.
Stopped by the "mixers" aisle.
And was gob smacked.
My smack was gobbed so completely I nearly fainted.
Two people had filled a trolley to over flowing with every single bottle of Tonic Water on the shelves.
I wasn't alone in looking like I'd just been hit in the face with a fish.
Quite a few people had storm clouds over their heads.

Now.
Interesting.
You put items in your cart.
Until you pay for them they still 'technically' belong to the supermarket.
So it should be perfectly ok to go up to someones cart and simply take things from it.
Except it's not.
Why not?

Because it breaks some deep inbuilt rule we have about social behaviour.
So a group of people watched the pair struggle to get their cart to the checkout.
The thunderous looks would have done Wotan and Thor proud.
And I thought: "Ah. So this is why Assault Rifles are illegal in Australia."

Disgusted with myself at not saying: "Oi? WTF? You pricks!" I turned away.
Especially since I actually intended to get some tonic water.

At the end of the aisle I noticed some "DIET" tonic water.
"Oh lord no," I thought, "I'm reduced to this."
But Ben noticed a 'normal' bottle at the back.
We pushed aside some bottles and to our amazement there were four bottles of "normal" tonic water.
I grabbed them.
And covered them with sliced cheese and milk bottles.

We made our way to the checkout.
Seriously you would need a machete to cut the air.
The hatred and anger flowing from the people around this tonic water pair was palpable.
Now I know that only a few of them were likely to actually be buying tonic water.
But these two were blissfully unaware of the hundreds of daggers and muttered oaths.
They went through, paid and left.
The air tasted of cordite.
I really felt like if anyone noticed my four bottles I'd be hung, drawn and quartered.
Or in the US, riddled with bullets.

But it got me thinking about Altruistic Punishment.
Google it.
Now.
Oh and Sociopaths.
Most examples apply to cyclists, but I think this fits.

I think I will have to wash my eyeballs with bleach

I did something tonight that I never normally do.
I watched a un-frackin-believably bad movie to the bitter end.
Despite the better engines of my nature.
Despite my brain desperately trying to climb out of my skull and strangle me I might add.
It was about a pair of Viz characters called San and Tray.
The "Fat Slags" if you don't know anything about them.

Now I like Viz.
If I see a copy I always buy it.
The Ads alone make it worth it.
"Klondike Kittens! Sh*t their own weight in gold!"
"Chessington world of sheds!"
And the like.
But then I guess I'm corrupt.
It's an absurd comic with racist, sexist and just plain stupid strips.
They make you laugh, even though you don't want to admit it.
If you've never seen it, and have any sensibilities at all, don't look for it.
In fact, don't buy it if you are any mother, father, child, dog, cat or, for that matter, any living creature.
Or not-living.
I suspect it would corrupt a lump of coal if it was exposed to it.
In any case, you'll end up with a substance resembling guacamole running out of your ears.
If you have ears.
Coal might have problems.
But would probably spontaneously burst into flames.

But it's kinda funny.
In a comic way.
Not in a movie way.
The movie was appalling.

I sat with my mouth open, totally stunned, for the entire movie.
There was a part of my brain screaming at me to press stop.
For Wotans sake.
STOP.
But I persevered.
It was so bad.
Never again.
Never.
Ever.
Ver.
Er.
R.

Why do engineers feel a visceral urge to frack with things that work?

Ok.
I'm old.
But seriously.
Why do engineers feel the urge to frack with stuff that works?
It's not broken, so just don't fix it.

Example 1:
Decades ago when most people wehere struggling to get to grips with Windows 3.1 I was administering hundreds of Unix workstations across dozens of minesites across Australia.
Mining engineers aren't dumb.
And they have this visceral urge to change stuff.
To fix stuff.
Stuff that don't need fixing.
So one day, around 1990 I think, I turned up at a minesite and was given the task of figuring out why this program wasn't working.
I looked at the code and thought "Ah. This is C. I know C."
I tried to figure out why the program wasn't working.
We didn't have IDEs in those days (unless you include VisualAge) so all I had was vi.
Nothing worked.
It wouldn't compile.
The error messages didn't make sense.
After about 10 minutes I looked at the code in detail and saw that it was including a header.
Which was a *massive* list of macros.
Which made Pascal look like C.
WTF?
Why?
If you're writing code in C why use a pascal compiler?
If you have to macro a language to look like another you're using the wrong language.
Needless to say I fixed it...
But I asked myself: "Why the frack do people frack with stuff?"

Example 2:
On another minesite.
I sat down in front of this machine.
I opened an xterm and typed a command.
Utter garbage.
I stared uncomprehendingly at the keyboard.
WTF?
It took a while before I realised that the main user of this machine preferred French.
So he had remapped every key on a standard US keyboard to a French keyboard.
Why?
Needless to say I fixed it...
I asked myself: "Why the frack do people frack with stuff?"

Example 3:
Yet another minesite.
I opened an xterm and typed a command.
Utter garbage.
I stared uncomprehendingly at the keyboard.
WTF?
The user had a shed load of aliases that changed just about every Unix command to a DOS command.
Worse they had remapped every key to do something Emacsey.
Home? No... That means history -25 lines.
Left arrow? No... That means last command.
Why?
Worse was that he had aliased vi to emacs.
WHY?
Is it that hard to type emacs instead of vi?
Needless to say I fixed it...
I asked myself: "Why the frack do people frack with stuff?"

IT FRICKIN WORKS OUT OF THE BOX.
STOP FRACKIN WITH IT.
DEAL.

And that brings us to today.
I'm ripping our humungous DVD collection to drobos.
So I have a Mac with NO CHANGES AT ALL.
My /etc/bashrc and .bash_login are minimal to say the least.
The only changes I make are to map MP3, M3U8 and M4V to VLC.
Ok.
So I enlist my husbands Mac to help rip some DVDs.
Sit in front of it.
Log in.
And stare uncomprehendingly at the screen.
He's mapped every hot corner possible.
He's changed the Application menu to something incomprehensible.
He's changed just about everything that can be changed.
WTF?
Why?
STOP IT.
JUST STOP IT.
PLEASE.
FOR WOTANS SAKE.
It's not necessary.
And it makes life frackin difficult for others.
JUST STOP IT.
IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT.

MineCraft: Crack for Engineers.

Oh Lord.
I am sad to say I've become yet another statistic.
Along with Sweden (who recently added minecraft to their school curriculum) I have now become addicted.
Sad.
But fun.
But sad.
On the plus side, I would say it is a cure for alcoholism, over eating and in fact any human activity.
The dying words of a minecrafter would be:

"Just... One... More... Block..."

It started just before Christmas.
My brother came over and was frackin desperate to show his creations.
He is a frackin genius architecturally and his creations are pure brilliance.
We had steadfastly refused to even look at MC, but he persevered and we got the XBox 360 version on his insistence (read coercion).
To his chagrin it didn't support connecting to his favorite server.
In any case, in the days that followed Ben started playing.
First he ended up on this island.
With a mountain in the "way".
"Well," he said, "It'll have to go."
So dig, dig, dig.

Some 12 hours later he had excavated an ginormous cavern that you could land B52s in.
Dr No would have a conniption and envy fit.
It could easily house several Saturn 5's.
Or just a couple of Vostoks.
Multiple levels, and since we were just learning, floating candles at all levels.
Benworts or Benhalla.
Take your pick.
You get Vertigo.
Looking... Up.

Despite my best efforts I became involved.
And so we built a tunnel spanning a massive distance.
Underwater.
And established "KimTopia" in a desert biome.
(I have a fondness for Dune, so my village is named Arrakeen)

Exasperated at the lack of functionality in the XBox version we purchased a 'normal' client.
And then.
Of course.
We're engineers.
So...
I built and configured a server to run MC.
On which Ben and Jon and I have created huge creations.

So.
It's sad.
But kind.
And sad.
And you find yourself saying things like this:

"I just need to get 6 raw fish so I can train an ocelot to scare creepers. Oh and I finished the apartment block and the coffee shop for the villagers. We now have three iron golems and a shed load of kiddie villagers running and madly dashing about as kiddies are wont to do. Can you dig out that chasm and get some lava so we can create a wall to burn the frack out of zombies. I have finished getting rid of the sand and cactii so the villagers will be happy. Oh and can we make a marina for them? I have some ideas about making a version of Cardiff harbour so we can fit the Doctor Who and Torchwood sets into it. Damn but I'm tired. What's the time? 2am? Oh well. Maybe another hour. BUT NO MORE THAN THAT MKAY?"

3am:

"Damn. Just... One... More... Block...."

Bzzzzzzt.... Snore... QWERTY embedded into face....

Logs in the river

Hmm.
What do I mean by the the title of this post?
Well.
Imagine yourself on the edge of a wide river.
Sitting.
Quietly.
Just sitting.
Noticing the whirls and eddies of the river.
You watch as it the swirls and whorls and runs towards the ocean.
You notice...
You see...
You see a tree log roll gently as it encounters some hidden eddy or obstacle and it rolls over.
You know...
You just know...
There's something there.
Right there.
Just there.
You could reach out and...
Wait...
What caused that log to roll?
You know you have to be careful.
And aware.
Of the hidden obstacle that caused that log to roll over just there.

That's what it's like examining software.
Sometimes you have to just...

Stop.
Wait.
Think.

And watch.
And see.
Not just see, but *SEE*.
And see the logs.
And take note of the hidden obstacles.
They're there.
Just there.
Under the surface.
So when you decide to run a minecraft server for example.
Just watch.
Read the logs.
Watch.
Watch.
Think.
Sit back.
Patience.
Sadly lacking...

Or you could short circuit the process and watch the BBC series Sherlock.
And then go back and re-read the "Collected works of Conan Doyle".

Or whatever.

Nah. Better to just randomly change parameters in the RC script right?

I made a cardboard castle for the kittens

Had some time on my hands this morning waiting for rows to import into a database.
So I grabbed three cardboard boxes, a cutter and sticky tape.
And made this:

It's crappy, but the kittens love it.
They were flaked out after a meal from mom, but I'll take photos when they are playing in it.

If you do this yourself, make the holes HUGE.
Don't skimp.
I did and had to go back and carve chunks out of the cardboard so they could fight and tussle in the openings.

Apologies for not doing more "normal" posts

For the last two weeks I have been very, very busy.
As such, I have only been able to provide the interesting news links and only "short" versions.

Two weeks ago, my mother had to be hospitalised again due to shortness of breath.
So she had to go to dialysis more times than normal to get the fluid off.

Then we signed up to foster cats.
So we had "Butter" for 2 weeks while he recovered from flu.
Seriously demanding little fuzz ball.
Now we have a 2 year old mother and her 5 kittens to help.

On top of that we have a deluge of work!

So apologies!

I promise to get back into writing normal posts soon!

Worst Marketing Fail I've seen in Years!

Went to a "reject" store today. And saw the worst marketing fail we've seen for years. It's no wonder this isn't on the shelves at your local supermarket. What the hell were they thinking?

Buddha was a programmer and used twitter

Well...
Think about it.
Most of his quotes are under 140 characters and have a distinctly hacker flavour:

"Do not dwell on PHP, do not dream of Ruby, concentrate the mind on the money."

"C++ is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but C++ will wound your mind."

"Three things cannot be long hidden: C, Java, and Ruby."

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. Ruby."

"All wrong-doing arises because of PHP. If PHP is transformed can wrong-doing remain? Yes. It is called C++"

"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done. Polish that turd"

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path to TDD."

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting."

"A jug fills drop by drop. RTFM"

"It is PHP, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways."

"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men that do not test; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they test."

"Even retirement is not to be feared by one who has coded C++ wisely."

"It is better to test well than to deploy suddenly."

Streams of Unconsciousness

Well, it's the first of the month.
So I'm starting a new tradition.
I'm going to gather all my lunatic blonde moment FB status updates together so they don't get lost.
So here they are:


9:30pm. Recovering. Still in pain but exercise and hot showers have reduced it. Reason: 75kg person tries to pick up 40kg bag of potting mix. Result: Spends rest of day and evening in bed in the dark with back pain and massive headache. Misses out on mexican dinner. Moral: I'm a frickin' idiot. Donut privilege rescinded.

Been going through our DVD collection. Did "Mon Oncle" by Jacques Tati. We watched it last night over fish and chips. Fantastic. The phrase ROTFL was completely physically correct. I loved the dogs and the whistling thing. If you want to weep with laughter, find a copy of it.

Holy crap.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/09/harold-white-warp-field-mechanics-update.html
Warp fields? Ok. Ok. This is not an easy paper to read. But... Warp fields? Holy crap!

Ok. This is weird.
http://dp-img.com/2009/07/20-Creative-and-Funny-Toilet-Signs-008.jpg
Who goes fishing in a loo?

Ah. Classic. Came home. Nipped upstairs to check email etc. Came downstairs. Ben flaked out on sofa with lights off. Drank some wine. Tip toed around. Drank some wine. Put dinner making stuff away. Drank some wine. Went upstairs. Drank some wine. 9pm Ben wakes up. Too late for dinner for me. Ben berates me. Drank some wine. Check FB. Drank some wine. Far too late for dinner now. Drank some wine. Might have some cheese. Drank some wine. Screw it. Rip some more DVDs. Drank some wine. Time for bed. Another day without food. Such is life. Drank some wine. Yey!

Oh. Even more classic. Ben had kittens that I was prepared to eat nothing tonight. So he's cut a bun up into strips and toasted it. And buttered them. And put cheese (Vintage Tasty and Double Gloucester) out with Dolmades and what I call Frickin HUGE beans. He's so good to me. Love.

Just finished watching Cannonball Run.
Captain Chaos will save you!
Frickin' love it.

Ok. This really sounds like fun. For some values of fun that include being ostracised from society (and FB) that is.
A free guide. Actually it's a startling good guide on how to start ANY business on the net.
I'm thinking Diesel Powered Nuns as a starting point. Wonder what Google AdWords will show up...
http://startapornsite.smutnode.com/

Ok. This is a wait. What?!? moment. Seen the FB ads down the right hand side? Dunno if it's just me or demographics or what, but I keep seeing these ads with "Mom reveals XXX way to get rid of fat..." with varying degrees of credulity. But the thing that gets me is that most of them seem to require the use of a fruit that looks like a deep sea ocean nightmare. Fruit? That's not a fruit! It's a frickin' torture device used in Abu Graibh. If some cosmetician (or whatever the frick they call themselves nowadays) came at me with that demonic fruit in their hands I'd demand an exorcism on the spot. That while calling in a drone strike of course...

With my donut privilege re-instated, I decided to try some glazed donuts instead of the normal cinnamon ones. So we stopped by Krispy Kreme as I had been to their stores when I lived in the US and the range was amazing.
Phhhhbbbttt. Wrong. Thought: what the hell, and got 6 glazed ones. Bad move. I have to say the KK donuts are rubbish. I know there was donut dough in that morass of icing, but be buggered if I could find it. Hurt my gums like the devil. Won't be going back. Ever.

Ok. Here's an opportunity too big to miss. I NEED someone who can crochet. Why? You ask. Because I NEED THESE: http://www.geekologie.com/2012/09/i-need-those-on-my-feet-now-panzer-tank.php The problem is that you can only get the designs. Not the actual product. ARGH! I NEED SOMEONE TO CROCHET THESE NOW!
Why? They're frick'n tanks! On your feet! How could you not understand? I'd Frickin' wear these to work. Miranda? Please? I'll Pay! I'll promise to wear them to work!

Having to fix some PHP code. I really hate PHP sometimes. There's a switch statement about 60 lines long that could have been done in one line!

Oh the irony. At least I think it's irony. Maybe just "real" you know.
http://cdn.ientry.com/sites/webpronews/pictures/psychicfair5_616.jpg

I don't have a mouse MAT. I have a mouse RUG. Persian of course. And I've been eating potato chips. I now need a very small vacuum cleaner.

Charles Nutter remarked that the Πsymbol reminds him of a space invader or a jelly fish. I suggested that it looks like the Enterprise from above. What are your thoughts?

Ben gets so pissed off about chess puzzles. Mate in 1. But bug in program. Rant! Rant! Rant! It's a bug! Seriously. Bug. Don't stress.

Oh lord Cthulhu. Let me sleep. Questions. Can Rails3 successfully cache and chunk 2m mp3s? And how much porridge can you fit in a cat? And Ben wants to know whether inserting porridge into a cat is a challenge, question or a T-Shirt. I favour challenge.

Well that sucks. Ben has beat me 5 to 1 on dominos. I normally wipe the floor.

a) PHP sucks. Distracts you from what you want to do by making you go mad. b) There's a fly in here. Driving me nuts. c) So is the PHP.

Ah. Lost and confused. Just like the rest of us. I'm handbraking Dawn of the Dead right now. It's good to be confused.
Confused saves you from dealing with the loonies running the world. Like Romney. What is that all about? President Mit?!?.
Sounds like something you'd get in a german restaurant. "Bratwurst? Mitt Romney?" "Nein. Nein Romney." Confused yet? Go Bill Bailey!

If you stand on a robots toe and it says "sorry" can you conclude it's made in Canada? (Probably won't mean anything to any but Americans and Canadians)

Ok. This won't mean anything to any but IT and Sci-Fi nutters.
What names do you give your servers?
We have MOYA, LEXX, NOSTROMO and SULACO for example.
Really like 'Lewis & Clark', but it makes a tough name so we used them for two servers. Pop Quiz: Name the movie!
Be damned if I'll have 'Hunter-Gratzner' but it was the best cinematic spaceship crash of *ALL* time IMO. Blew the budget for the film on the crash!
"Don't you touch that lever Fry!" (Kick, Kick, Frickin passengers, Kick, Kick)

Ben is playing his new game. Borderlands 2. Love it. A Bazzilion guns and loads of Sci-Fi memes hidden away in plain sight... Saw the claptrap doing the Mars Attacks woman walk! Cool.

Just went out the back for an oral suppository and a fruit bat tried to crashland into a tree. I emphasise "tried". Hit every branch it sounded like. But it's valiant attempt to salvage some dignity was ruined when it was brought to a halt by a cabbage. Yes really. Went straight through the tree and hit the ground. It's dark so I can't see it, but I imagine it's doing what cats do when they do something similar: start licking their chests. Wait. Do bats lick their chests? Kinda interested to see that if they do.

Now this is interesting. Found this site. zombiestat. You enter the domain and it tells you what your miserable life^h^h^h^hsite is worth and tells you whether your site is 'safe'. The amount of telephone number dollar amounts shown is kinda cool. So my blog is worth $480. And ranked 1,279,778 in the world. Meh. Do I care? Actually 'yes'. Yes I do. Because I intend to get the site up to the one millionth rank. Challenge Accepted!

You know what pisses me off? Everything. For example: I was asked why do even bother to write things like this. So I said "I've lived long and prospered. Might as well write about it." They didn't get it.

Wow. Now there's a surprise. Go to google and type "mad squirrels" and view the images. There's some seriously psychotic rodents out there. Don't ask me why I typed that btw. Someone has to ask these questions.

Did you know it's possible to toast rye bread? You know that really dark bread seemingly made of mashed seeds?
Anyway, I went downstairs because I needed a Vegemite fix and discovered we had no "ordinary" bread.
We did have some buns, but my attempt to cut them sideways convinced me that toasted blood flavoured buns were a no-show.
But we did have rye. Challenge Accepted! First attempts were a fail. Think I discovered an organic substitute for bricks. Albeit small bricks. Trying to eat them was like trying to eat a slice of gravel. Although a house made of them would be kind of spectacular. Certainly you'd get an audience of birds.
Anyway, you have to watch the slices like a hawk and you can do it.
Unfortunately they don't go well with Vegemite. Fail!

Went to pay a ticket online (1st in 25yrs) and examined the document in detail today.
Under one section named "Evidence" I saw a single scrawled word: "Loser".
My blood began to boil at that point and I started hunting around the website trying to find a way to complain.
Fortunately sanity raised it's annoying head.
You know that little voice that keeps tapping on the back of your head saying "Heeeeellllooo! Wait you dumbass! Think!"
I examined the scrawl again and there was a faint little tick at the bottom of the "o".
I collapsed in laughter.
So.... Not "Loser" but "Laser" The speed gun thing.
Phew...