Garfield, minus Garfield

There's something deeply disturbing and quite, quite wrong about this original (if dubiously legal) little site:

Garfield, minus Garfield



"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb."



Thanks to Clush for the link :)

Wasted evenings in front of the TV

Well, not entirely wasted - I can now join in with conversations when people talk about Lost, and I have a new picture:



Cute, non? I made him over at WeeWorld and then edited a few things and added the transparency with GIMP.

Off you go now, if you're bored enough to read this, you're bored enough to make your own.

Edit: Yes, it is accurate. I shaved a couple of days ago. Sorry beard fans, truly sorry...

Pachelbel Rant

Do not turn it off halfway. One of the best endings to a rant ever.

Perfect.

IWOOT

One of the other interns over at Microsoft UK, Onwah Tsang, runs the TechCast Network - a review site for various cool gadgets and bits of geekery.

As I was over at his desk last week for a prizegiving ceremony (I won half a can of Coke - 30 photos were clearly needed to commemorate this) he showed me a few treats from a box of gadgets he was busy reviewing.

One of these was the L Version wristwatch (the link's to his December review of that) and it's just one of many unbelievably cool LED watches made by Tokyoflash Japan. Here's how it looks:



Hours on the right, tens of minutes on the top left, singles of minutes on the bottom left. It's pretty easy to tell the time with after a little practise, and looks simply beautiful - elegant and stylish, yet ultimately modern. It also does a great job on the 'pub test' - simple enough to be shown off to all your mates after a couple of pints, different enough to keep their attention and sturdy enough to cope with being dropped in a small pool of beer.

Obviously, for sheer geek value, you still can't beat the Binary Watch - which is a little more difficult to use, and not as well made...but really does give you that edge of superiority over the technophobes out there.


_{The Binary Watch}

Hours along the top (8-4-2-1) and minutes along the bottom (32-16-8-4-2-1), with only 5 seconds to read the time, mean that you need to be pretty sharp on your binary and maths if you don't want to be constantly late or early everywhere you go.

Still though, it looks damn cool, and "is water resistant to 90 feet - just in case you wanted to show off your binary proficiency to a halibut."

More signal, less noise

When I'm not in sweet, sweet bed, I tend to live in one of two places - the Internet or Outside. It's always been a bit of a toss-up as to whether I should qualify things with 'IRL' and have people assume I'm talking about the Internet otherwise, or whether I should say 'online..' and have people think I'm talking about 'the outside' unless I say otherwise. This applies to conversations via any medium.

The introduction of #xkcd-signal however, has clarified all of that for me. Unless I explicitly state otherwise, anything I say refers to my life online, from now on. I've been drawn back into the clinging, soul-leeching world of IRC again by a simple, but absolutely brilliant concept.


_{I love XKCD}

The chat channel #xkcd-signal is governed by the almighty Robot9000 ["The most generic, unoriginal name for a bot that we could think of"], and the mission and purpose of that robot is to prevent decay in the signal to noise ratio.

To that effect, it will mute anyone who types a sentence which has ever been typed before in that channel.

They threw in the logs from another channel too, so there's now about 2million lines of conversation logged. Say anything which matches one of these lines, and you're muted for 4 seconds. Re-offend, and it's 16 seconds...and up and up and up. There is a decay too though, but anyone who gets a bit too ahead of themselves with "lol", ":)" or "hai guys" is likely to spend a few days in silence.

It's great fun to play chicken with (they're not a humble lot, I managed to get away with "Looks like I'm wrong") and you'd be amazed at how long a full conversation, with no cheating (adding in pointless words etc - do that and a live moderator will mute you) can go on without a single sentence repeated. The guy behind the idea thinks we could go on for a decade with no real problems.

Connection details, more background and reasoning can be found on the XKCD blag - highly worth a read (and not just for that post).

The whole thing, by the way, is written in perl, which is awesome. I've started learning it myself, and it's so cool to have, amongst other things, a postfix unless:

print "We have no bananas" unless $bananas;

Not quite as cool as lisp, but much more useful:


_{Clickety-click click click}

Gmail Adverts

The beautiful service known as Gmail (Google Mail) is probably the only place on the internet where I'll actually actively seek out the adverts and go ahead and click on them.

When Gmail was launched, there was a lot of online hype and buzz about how Google would invade everyone's piracy by 'reading' their emails and then selling adverts based on the contents. In reality, this has turned out (in my opinion at least) to be a brilliant device - as you now get ads which are relevant to exactly what you've been talking about with your friends.

It's a far more effective way of delivering relevant and interesting ads than more common paradigms - which look at the static content of a webpage and try to decipher what generic adverts everyone who looks at that page may want, as the page might have a range of subjects on it, and the viewer may only be interested in a certain one. But you're pretty certain to be interested in nearly everything in your inbox (unless it's full of spam...but Gmail blocks pretty much all spam! Hooray!).

Occasionally though, a rather odd advert slips through the net. I'm fairly sure this isn't in any way related to anything I've been discussing, but Gmail recently offered up an advert for She Pee to me. With a tagline like 'No More Squatting' I was helpless but to click and I confess to be completely bemused by the whole concept even after having read through the entire site.


_{She Pee - For those thinking of getting that operation...}

Through festivals, I've heard of the concept, and the name and picture above should give you the rest of the details...but bizarre though all this is, it doesn't warrant a post on its own. What really warrants a post is the captivating and incredulous story on the About She Pee page. Here's the start:

"During a journey through Indonesia, Dutch born Moon Zijp..."

Let's face it, anything that starts like that deserves further reading. Go on, click, I know you don't normally, but do it this once.

I'm still, by the way, completely unsure as to how She Pee actually operates...but don't bother informing me, I'm happier this way.

The Best eBay Purchase Ever

I was watching what I had been assured was the best Crystal Maze clip and feeling fairly disappointed when I came across this relatively amusing spoof:



Whilst true, I admit it's not exactly great. The reason I was over on YouTube watching such things though, was that my housemate and I were lamenting the poor quality of game shows nowadays - they don't make them like they used to. We both, naturally agreed that Knightmare was the greatest of them all.

Rather than watching disappointingly short clips of this sublime program on YouTube, I decided to pop over to eBay to see if I could find anyone selling a couple of episodes of it on VHS, when I came across this listing:

Knightmare - The Entire DVD Collection Series 1-8

£15. 113 episodes. 12 DVDs.

The one I've linked to there is a new, slightly pricier listing, as I've already bought up the £15 one. I seriously can't believe that this is actually true...I'm certain I'm the victim of internet fraud - but even so, the excitement and anticipation I feel at the vaguest possibility of this actually arriving are completely worth the £15 I paid out.

I. Can. Not. Wait.

Drunk Kitty

Possibly the cutest thing I've seen this year:


_{You're a kitty!}

Shamelessly stolen from Hebs' Blog :)

The Best Bassist Ever

No, this isn't a poll, or an opportunity to voice your opinions on the matter - it's pure fact. The best bassist ever is James Lee Jamerson.

Who? Come on, you've all heard a ton of his basslines, you just don't know it yet. This is because he was a massively overshadowed session player for Motown records, providing the funk and the soul of hundred upon hundreds of classics with his band 'the funk brothers' - "right about now, the funk soul brother", take a wild guess who that's referring to..

Here's a selection of some of their rhythms:

_{My Girl - The Temptations
Bernadette - The Four Tops
Aint That Peculiar - Marvin Gaye
Ooh Baby Baby - The Miracles
To Many Fish In The Sea - The Marvelettes
Uptight (Everything Is Alright) - Stevie Wonder
Heat Wave (U) - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
This Old Heart Of Mine - Isley Brothers
I Heard It Through The Grapevine (2 recordings) - Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & Pips
Where Did Our Love Go (U) - Diana/Supremes
Since I Lost My Baby - Temptations
For Once In My Life - Stevie Wonder
My Guy (U) - Mary Wells
Your Precious Love - Marvin Gaye/Tammy Terrell
You've Really Got A Hold On Me - The Miracles
Love Child - The Supremes
I Guess I'll Always Love you
Dancing In The Streets - Martha & The Vandellas
Don't Mess With Bill - The Marvelettes
What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
Standing In The Shadows Of Love - 4 Tops
Mickey's Monkey (U) - The Miracles
Cloud Nine - Temptations
Nothing's To Good For My Baby - Temptations
My Baby Loves Me - Martha & The Vandellas
You Keep Me Hanging On - Diana/Supremes
You Beat Me To The Punch - Mary Wells
Little Darling (I Need You) - 4 Tops
I'm Ready For Love
The Way You Do The Things You Do - Temptations
I Can't Help Myself - 4 Tops
Roadrunner - Jr. Walker & The All-Stars
You're All I Need To Get By - Temptations
You Can't Hurry Love - Diana/Supremes
Shop Around - The Miracles
Ain't To Proud To Beg - Temptations
My Cherie Amour - Stevie Wonder
It's The Same Old Song - 4 Tops
How Sweet It Is - Marvin Gaye
Take Me In Your Arms (And Rock Me A Little While) - Brenda Holloway
Ain't No Mountain High Enough (2 recordings) - Marvin Gaye/Tammy Terrell, Diana/Supremes
My Baby Must Be A Magician - The Marvelettes
Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart - Diana/Supremes
Beauty Is Only Skin Deep - Temptations
Ask The Lonely - 4 Tops
Going To A Go-Go - The Miracles
I was Made To Love Her - Stevie Wonder
Hitch Hike - Marvin Gaye
I Second That Emotion - The Miracles
Please Mr. Postman - The Marvelettes
Jimmy Mack (U) - Martha & The Vandellas
I Hear A Symphony - Diana/Supremes
Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over) - 4 Tops
I'm Gonna Make You Love Me - Temptations
Get Ready - Temptations
The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game
Stop! In The Name Of Love - Diana/Supremes
That's What Love Is Made Of
Nowhere To Run - Martha & The Vandellas
Seven Rooms Of Gloom - 4 Tops
Pride & Joy - Marvin Gaye
(I Know) I'm Losing You - Temptations
Two Lovers - Mary Wells
I'll Turn To Stone - 4 Tops
Come See About Me - Diana/Supremes
Stubborn Kind Of Fellow - Marvin Gaye
How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone
If I Were your Woman Gladys Knight & The Pips
My World Is Empty Without You - Diana/Supremes
The Tracks Of My Tears - The Miracles
I'm Wondering - Stevie Wonder
Can I Get A Witness - Marvin Gaye
The Girls Alright With Me - Temptations
Shoo Be Doo Be Doo Da Day - Stevie Wonder
Reflections - Diana/Supremes
What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted - Jimmy Ruffin
Baby I Need Your Loving - 4 Tops
Quicksand... - Martha & The Vandellas
Reach Out...I'll Be There - 4 Tops
You Beat Me To The Punch - Mary Wells
The Bells - The Originals
Shotgun - Jr. Walker & The All-Stars
Fingertips (pt. 2)- Stevie Wonder
Hey Girl - Stevie Wonder
What Are You Gonna Do When I'm Gone (U) - Kim Weston
Still Water Runs Deep - Four Tops
All in the Game - Four Tops
My Baby - Temptations
The One Who Really Loves You (U)- Mary Wells
This Old Heart Of Mine - Isley Brothers
My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left) - David Ruffin
It Takes Two (U) - Marvin Gaye/Tammy Terrell
Honey Chile - Martha & the Vandellas
To Busy Thinking About My Baby - Marvin Gaye
When Your Young And In Love - Marvelettes
Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing - Marvin Gaye/Tammy Terrell
Still Waters Run Deep - Four Tops
If I Were Your Woman - Gladys Knight & the Pips
I Want You Back - Jackson 5
It's Growing - The Temptations
Agent Double O Soul - Edwin Starr
I Can't Get Next To You - Temptations
I want A Love I can Feel - Temptations
Heart Breaking Guy - Supremes}

And on, and on, and on...plus there are countless superb hits where the rhythm section is completely ignored in the credits, any one of these could (and some very likely were) have been played by the funk brothers.

James Jamerson played on more #1 hits than Elvis, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles put together. Sure the songs had some great vocals on top of them, but any of the old Motown singers of the day could have done them justice - no-one else could ever touch the perfect driving rhythms and the sweet funk inherent in every single bar. Bands would write and record songs with other session musicians only to throw them away in disgust until James Jamerson & co turned up and made them into hits that are still household names today.

"Jamerson was the heart and soul of his group and was once carried in to a recording session session too drunk to walk or stand on his own (alcoholism unfortunately lead to his untimely demise) and still tear the house down better than anyone else could from flat on his back with the funk machine (his trusty p-bass) strapped and resting on his belly."

The bass in question had frets with higher action that you'd find on a double bass, and frets so dead as to almost make the neck fretless.

Without this man we'd have no modern rhythm and blues as we know it, John Paul Jones, John Entwhistle...any modern hip hop or dance music...nothing. He revolutionised funk and soul and brought the bass into its own more than anyone before and since.

Bow down to this horrifically unknown legend. (Hell, he doesn't even have a last.fm page for me to link to).

--

Originally posted to my Last.FM Journal on the 29th November, 2005. That was back in the days before I had a blog, so my various rants and thoughts were directed at a range of websites, forums, papers and publications.

Just posting it up here as someone left a comment on it, which got emailed me, which brought the thing to my attention. Couldn't have something so true not archived over here, could I? :)

--

I never thought I'd use the 'jazz' and 'rants' tags for the same post...

I Hate America

Lots of people make this claim, but mostly they're just basing it on some trivial little thing, like wars, foreign policy or unbounded capitalism. They probably don't even care too much - I mean, look at this chap:



He just forgot to bring his jacket along for a day of standing on the street corner, and wanted a bit of warmth. Then the media got involved and suddenly he had to start pretending he had some problem with the USA. Then you've got these fellows:



This was originally reported as an 'anti-America rally', but if you look closely, you'll notice that the guy in the foreground is actually making a 'scissors' motion. He's about to stage the grand opening of a much needed Gilette shop.

--

Back to the topic I, on the other hand, have a perfectly valid and, quite honestly, shocking reason to hate the Americans. I took the novel approach of 'walking' (walking, noun: the act of travelling by foot - I got that definition from an online, American dictionary. They'd spelt 'travelling' wrong) from place to place in Seattle.

I soon noticed, as I 'walked' about the place, that they were big fans of traffic crossings. Well, you'd have to be really when it's impossible to walk more than 50 metres or so in any direction without encountering a road. Such big fans, in fact, that they had three different variations on images for the 'stop' and 'go' paradigm, which as far as I can discern, all meant exactly the same thing.

One of these types was the familiar 'red hand' and 'white man':


_{Colour's a bit off in this pic, you'll have to trust me that the man at the bottom is really 'white'}

This is quite an interesting picture if you actually analyse it a bit. You'll notice the hand is designed very clearly to convey a message of 'stop'. You may think the colour red is designed to do the same, but if you think carefully, you'll realise that what Americans really associate the colour red with is...communism. So, the top of this sign is really saying "STOP COMMUNISM" every time you cross the road.

I hardly think I need to point out the implications of 'progress for the white man' to anyone with a brain either. Shameless subliminal messaging from the American government there.

That's not why I hate America though.

The reason I hate America, is another type of pedestrian crossing sign you'll see over there:


_Bastards.

Yes, the infamous "Don't Walk" sign. Or, actually, if you take a good look at it, the "Dont Walk" sign. What the hell is a Dont? Every single day, every single American (well, those that go outside...so probably more like 50%) is being exposed to a horrific violation of the English language - it's little wonder that in a word association survey 'stupid' recently came pretty high when people were asked to associate something with 'American'. British people, that is, obviously - not American ones. Can't find the source for that survey at the moment, I believe it was on BBC News, let me know if you have a link.

Finally, two more pictures of something from my little Paris trip that never made it up:



Something that classy makes it hard to hate France, doesn't it? I still manage that feat though, fortunately for all.

Something to remember

During the long, long few seconds as I fell to the floor after kicking myself in the back of the leg tonight at salsa (well, better than kicking my partner I suppose...) - I had a very profound thought that I want to share with you. It was:

"Ouch. Fuck. I probably look quite stupid. Ouch"

The first ouch being the kick, the second ouch as I hit the floor. If, however, I hadn't been so concerned with the fairly mild physical pain and the much more fierce humiliation, I might have had another thought:

"Iambic Pentameter, Jet-Lag and Salsa don't mix well"

I think that this is something which every small child should be taught in school. I bet it's something you've never even considered before - but think of the potential social embarrassment and horrific bruises I've just saved you. You should probably give me money just for letting you read this.

To elaborate a bit - I've been reading Stephen Fry's 'The Ode Less Well Travelled'. As such, I've got poetic meter stuck in my head - the most famous of which is Shakespeare's dear Iambic Pentameter, which goes:

'and One and Two and Three and Four and Five'

As those of you who've danced Salsa before may realise, this doesn't tie in with that particular dance's beat:

'cha cha cha ... cha cha cha ...'

Furthermore, those of you who've enjoyed the wonders of aviation recently may be aware of jet-lag's particular little rhythm:

'la la la la l........'

If any mathematicians amongst you think you can combine those three into anything better than 'ouch', let me know.

Xx

The Internet can survive without me

I was, quite frankly, shocked and appalled to return from ten days away, during which time I'd barely been on the internet at all, and find that everything still worked. My 'new emails' counter hadn't experienced a buffer overflow, Facebook's servers weren't backed up with pending requests from people who wanted to be my friend and various forums had threads created and replied to without me standing nearby to watch out for any fatal errors of grammar.

It's been a sobering and humbling experience.

One further site which managed to live without me was Tie-Dye Heart, proving that I really do 'do nothing' over there. Many thanks to Gib and Oosie for keeping that one going whilst I was away :)

Xx

TechReady6 is over!

I'm finally home from Seattle, and just a little jet-lagged, but it's certainly been a week to remember. I've been out there attending TechReady, a Microsoft internal training conference, and I've had such a brilliant time.

As well as speaking to and hearing from lots of guys in various product teams (the ones who write Windows, Office, Visual Studio etc etc) I've also had a chance to meet loads of other evangelists from around the world - all of whom are also doing cool stuff and playing with great toys.

"Blog about the conference, don't blog about the content" was a guideline given out that I'm unfortunately going to stick to, but believe me when I say there's a hell of a lot of really cool new MS stuff coming out both soon, and longer term. Keep an eye out for some of the amazing stuff being announced at MIX08.

Also keep an eye out for some beautiful announcements coming from Adobe around that time-frame too. TechReady wasn't just about Microsoft technologies you see - we also need to know what's happening all over the industry if we're to do our jobs properly. As a result, I'm now a complete fan of Ruby and Adobe AIR too - can't wait to get some free time to start writing some code with those two. If you're into coding, buy me a drink sometime and I'll talk your ear off about those two :)

More posts to follow about various fun in Seattle, going to have a nap now I think, then resume trawling the pile of emails that built up in my absence. A teaser for now though...one of my draft posts is currently called 'Dancing on the tables' - and I've left space in there for a video...

Xx

A quick hello from Seattle

This trip in one word:

Unhealthy

I'm not sure I've eaten a single vegetable since I arrived here. I'm becoming swiftly addicted to American junk food. I spend the entire day (8-6!) sitting in sessions, watching cool people presenting about ultra-cool stuff. I then pop back to my hotel room for all of...fifteen minutes or so. After that it's time to go out for another inordinately unhealthy (but gorgeous) meal, and lots to drink.

I'm sure something happens after that too, but I have no idea what. Then it's back up at 7.30am to start the whole thing again. The only exercise I get is moving between bars, or walking from the hotel to the convention centre and back.

I choose to walk despite the fact that my hotel's one of the ones on the 'shuttle bus' route to the convention centre. Only the ones which are close enough to walk don't get a shuttle bus service. I'm so hardcore I walk it anyway - though it's such a dissapointment not being "so near the hotel that shuttle transport will not be provided and taxi fares will not be reimbursed" as you can clearly see below:



Picture taken from Live Maps' directions from the hotel to the convention center centre.

Off to Seattle!

Well, just finished packing, and I'm off to Seattle tomorrow morning, where I'll be seeing all the coolest MS stuff and generally having a good time until the 17th.

Try not to miss me too much...

Xx

Microsoft boy's homework

Only got two seconds but:

Microsoft boy's homework

Classic.

Pancakes Ahoy

A visit to Birmingham wouldn't really be complete without popping back to my old house for the night - and especially not when it happens to be pancake day and I have two willing female volunteers to cook for, and generally look after me. Naturally, I helped out a bit though:


<sub>First, a pause, to ensure conditions are perfect, and calculate the perfect trajectory


Then, a mighty toss into the air, with a triple-flip and a half-pike


Finally, consume</sub>

Once sickness set in, it was time for a spot of that most entertaining of games - Cranium. Things were wonderful...until it was established that I couldn't tell true from false, or hum. Only minor setbacks. At least it was a little easier than the home-made versions of charades I'd played in Reading on Friday, once Cluedo had run its course, where I got given what I was assured was the title of a popular song. "Drunks, lovers, sinners and saints". Try acting that one out when no-one else has heard of it either.

I love board games :)

On the road again

Sporadic blogging on my part is generally due to one of two reasons - either I'm doing very little of interest, or I'm doing a whole lot of fun stuff.

This week, I'm happy to say, has been the latter. I've been filling in for someone on the Inspiration Tour - a set of three hour presentations to students, with the aim of getting them enthused about technology in general, and showing off a heap of cool Microsoft stuff along the way. I was around to present on all the cool stuff in Silverlight - though I also gave a hand with XNA, and then with general questions on .NET and anything else which came up.

Yesterday I had the fun of presenting to a couple of hundred folks at my own University (Aston) which was great. I resisted drawing the New Aston Logo during a demo where I happen to say the line "obviously, you can see I'm not an artist in any way", as I was wearing my Microsoft hat, but it was very tempting. They've got the logo up outside the main building now too, and it looks simply horrible. I cried inside.

Things went pretty well there, people seemed to enjoy themselves and feedback scores were pretty high - with some nice comments left about me (apparently I 'captivate the audience', don't you know). However, they could have gone a lot better - because although I, and the other guy filling in, really knew our stuff, we hadn't presented it to students before - and I'd not really spent much time with the slide deck and demos I was using.


_{Some might question the merits of my 'standing in the centre of the audience' presenting style. But it gets results.}

Today, on the other hand, over at Brunel University, went superbly - everything was smooth and slick and polished and feedback scores were through the roof. The half hour for Q&A at the end over-ran and we managed to handle all the tricky and technical questions superbly, if I do say so myself. And if I don't say so myself, the feedback forms certainly do.

Newport tomorrow, for the same gig, and then I'm done with that forever - which is a bit dissapointing, but given that I'm writing this from the office, having just finished a 'day's work - I won't be sad to see the back of this and have enough time to keep up with my day job.

Oh and Friday? Off to Seattle for 10 days with work. Things might be a bit quiet around here whilst I'm out there, but I'm sure I'll spam you once I get back.

Xx

Bureaucracy

As those of you who've entered the world of work will know, and the rest of you will soon find out, red-tape is pretty much everywhere. Some regulations can be ignored, some rules bent, but every now and then you'll run up to a brick wall and just have to do something which seems at best, just a little silly.

Microsoft's fairly good in this department, and you can often get away with 'tweaking' things a bit if they're just ridiculous, so I'm not posting to complain about them. Instead, here's just a few short stories I heard at the lunch table when the topic came up:

--

First we've got a graduate, working at one of the UK's big insurance firms. Normal policy here is to come into a 'graduate' role whilst you learn the ropes, before moving on to a 'real' job, and allowing someone from the next batch of graduates to take your place. The firm however, had recently decided that the job this graduate was in was in fact a 'real' job, and that he could simply stay in his current role.

Sounds fine no? The amusement started however, when he got an automated email reminding him he hadn't yet filled out stage 1 of the handover procedure. Naturally he informed HR of their mistake, but was told that the process was automated and he'd have to complete every stage of the handover, or risk disciplinary action. This poor chap spent about 15 hours or so in total, handing over his old role, responsibilities and clients to himself.

--

Secondly, we've got a fairly large UK software house that installed new coffee machines in all their kitchens. They must have been pretty impressive machines (sidenote: we have Starbucks machines at work - leet or what?) because apparently no-one could use them without proper health and safety training.

Naturally, as the new machines were already in, and the old ones already out, people began to ignore this regulation, and so the administrative folk introduced a £25 fine for anyone caught using a machine without having completed the training. The most notable fine came about when someone asked the health and safety chap giving the demonstration to show his certificate - he'd never participated in the training himself, only given it.

--

Thirdly, and less audaciously (though, possibly more believable), we've got me. At the start of this year I was meant to list some 'commitments' that I'd then be measured against. However, with the confusion of the three managers I've had to date, I never actually knew about this, or made the list.

An internal process has recently whirred into shape and states that I've got to have my 'mid-year review' by...four days ago, which involves...seeing how I've done against my commitments. As such, today I had the great opportunity of firstly working out what I wanted to commit to, and then deciding how well I'd done compared to that list. I must say though, I did surprisingly well. Must be my wonderful planning skills and forward-thinking nature.

--

Completely unrelated but...if you see a fat person eating in a restaurant, cafe etc, do you look at what they're eating, and secretly hope it's unhealthy, so that you can judge them? Or is that just me...

Evil Night Together

Now, below, is a video. Usual procedure for this blog I realise, would be:

1. Click 'play',
2. Watch the video,
3. Ignore everything I've written below or above it.

Assuming you haven't followed standard procedure here, then I'd like to highly recommend that you hit play, and then ignore all the text surrounding the video. But for God's sake don't watch the thing.



I absolutely love the song; Jill Tracy - Evil Night Together, but unfortunately the only copy I can find online is this 'short film' which won an award on some MySpace festival. You can see why, but I don't recommend you do so.

The Conf. Call Dance

To fill in the breaks between work, we here at Microsoft love to jump onto a conference call, to discuss super-important issues. These come in four flavours.

1. The briefing
An important event has occurred, and everyone needs to know about it immediately. However, 'immediately' can be pushed back a bit to make sure that everyone can sit at the end of a phone to find out about the event, because this event's so important that email simply won't cut it.

Unfortunately, 'important' is a relative term, and no-one on the call, except the organiser actually gives a fig about this bit of news. As such, they all press 'mute' on their phones and get about their work, with half an ear open for their name.

Years of chatting to various women on the phone has left me expert at this particular type of call, and I'm invariably able to judge which non-committal phrase to utter when my attention is grabbed by my name. The notable exception was when I stupidly said "Yeah sure I can sort that", without hearing what 'that' was. The call then moved on, and to date I still have no idea what I agreed to - clearly can't have been too important though.

2. The Transatlantic
Across the pond, Brad and Crystal are super-excited about the latest scheme they've thought up. They're HYPED. To the max. Now, the scheme might not be entirely appropriate for your region's needs, or have any real content, but that's no longer important. The scheme, you see, has been assigned a Marketing Budget.

Given the time difference, you might not be at your best when the call starts at 6pm. However, this is not an acceptable excuse for not giving the call 110% - because that would be unpatriotic. Sitting there, over in the good ol' US of A, B & C expect you to be ENTHUSIASTIC and would love an INTERACTIVE call.

You can't even check your emails, as you'll constantly need to refer to the flashy Powerpoint deck which the marketing folks have put together, and will be talking you through for the next four hours.

3. The team catch-up
Everyone in the team needs to know what everyone else in the team has been up to. Quite why this is, no-one's sure, but it's in everyone's Outlook calendar, so it must be true. If you need more convincing - then consider the fact that the most successful teams in the company always have these calls, and deaths in the team have been at 0% since the calls started up.

Whatever you've been up to for the last week - whether it was a holiday in Skegness, or a technical training conference full of juicy gossip and hot new gadgets, you have 60 seconds to speak. You must fill these 60 seconds, and then get back on with whatever you were doing.

Given that these calls often occur on a Monday morning, that generally involves pulling the blanket back over your head and enjoying a nice lie-in.

4. The non-starter
Turning up on time to any kind of meeting, especially a conference call, is so passé. As such, you can expect to be on hold a fair while before the call starts. If you happen to work at Microsoft, then you get the awesome, fast-looping hold music loved the world around.

I've danced to this before, in meeting rooms and at home - but why did I never think of recording it before?

Classic, watch it all the way through: