Yearly Archives: 2002

Out of sight

Tuesday July 23rd 2002

Gawd damn if a year of sitting beside Mr Jess Unwin hasn’t made me try to think of a clever headline for a journal entry even when I am pissed off.

Anyhow – my sight is screwed. Totally. Well, not totally, but it might as well be. Started on Friday last week and I just cant look at a screen for long without a migraine setting in swiftly, so I’m on borrowed time here. (Actually, if we’re being specific it started around 20 years ago when I sat in my room the whole weekend keying in a space invaders program into my Spectrum 48k – I got a headache then too, but I digress.)

Anyhow, I am royally funked off about it, as I’m doing some very cool stuff ™ at the moment for the intranet at work, and I’m trying to get my teeth back in to C++ at home. Which could be the problem in itself, really; far too much screen time.

This is just a quick dive onto the web to order a card for my Aunty Mary’s birthday (online, natch), and I thought I’d fire in an update before my sight looks like I’m wearing someone else’s glasses and the headache comes back again.

Incidentally, I did go for an eye test this afternoon – they said I was slightly long sighted, but it was debatable whether I needed glasses. I got a voucher for some free ones, so I reckon I’ll get them anyway and maybe just use them for screen work. Cant do any further harm, I suppose.

The only thing left to do is wait for the eyestrain to go away so I can use the computer again. I hate being an addict!

Ah well, back to the darkened room and a new found appreciation of music…

Cybertrash

Wednesday July 17th 2002

At no point, ever, ever ever, have I ever, ever called updating my website “blogging”. The viral craze that has been the Next Big Thing ™ for the last year on the internet is leaving me feeling a little concerned. What is all the fuss about? Who are all these cliquey fuckers who have suddenly realised that you can be self published?

I’ve been putting my thoughts and links onto an evolutionary chain of websites since my humble members.theglobe.com/infoxicated/ beginnings five years ago. I never presumed this habit was anything other than just recording occasional thoughts or having the occasional rant. And I don’t update every single day because, hey – call me boring, but my life does not change that much on a daily basis.

A couple of years ago having your own web cam set up so you could lose your virginity online was the number one way of attracting legions of visitors to a humble me and my dog “home page”, as they were called back then. Now you gotta have a Blog, man, and you gotta update every day – heck, make it several times a day, and you gotta link to an army of other Bloggers who will reciprocate… and so on and so on.

I’m not bitter about being or not being part of any kind of scene – I’ll gladly miss out on being defined as a blogger. I just think that this whole thing is as over rated as the dotcoms of 2000 were. Surely we’ve learned from that year to see through the hype of the Next Big Thing ™ and recognise each NBT’s place in the evolution of the internet?

Nobody is going to make their fortune with a weblog and the chances are that updating a blog every single day with something worthwhile will just burn you out.

And for what end?

What is it with this thing that has reached saturation point on the web? It is actually working against the use of the net as an information source.

A to B they’ll RAC to it being a pain in the ass!

Monday July 15th 2002

As one of the more intricate sub-plots running alongside my birthday celebrations at the weekend, Uncle John’s motorway breakdown revealed more about the RAC than it did about his choice of used cars.

While the Toyota Carina probably shouldn’t be faulted for expiring from being forced down the M6 at 100mph, the lack of speed on the part of the recovery company should be highlighted. My uncle has a full recovery membership which turns out to be as much use as a chocolate sunroof. Forty minutes he spent on hold as the battery on his mobile dwindled to the point where he decided to give up. It was only a passing policeman who managed to get hold of the RAC by other means and send them out to pick him up.

His car had to be stashed in a car park overnight so that both himself and the car could be recovered back to Scotland the following day. Fast forward to the next day, journeying back to the stricken motor and it takes another 20 minute phone call for the RAC to remember what had happened the day before. Then they tell my uncle that it could be up to two hours for a recovery truck to come and get him.

And this is the service he gets for being a high level member!!

I’m just about to buy a car myself but I’ll be steering well clear of the RAC.