15.04.08: Shutting Up Shop

I often wondered what drives people to stop their blogs. It was something I hadn't even given thought to doing before today, but now, with a heavy heart, I am shutting up shop. In the same breath, I am not going to shy away from the reason why. I used to have a theory that people couldn't be trusted. I even used to have the mantra “DTA. Don't Trust Anybody”. But the more I worked where I work, the less I believed this was true. Until today. It transpires that a couple of people I consider to be friends actually aren't. To the point where they actually went behind my back and drove a sword through it (that metaphor was carefully chosen). And I think some of it may have something to do with this blog, so, I am shutting it down. The reason I am having to take such drastic measures is that what these former friends have done may in the end actually end up costing me my job. So I am putting out some of the fire right now. What is here will remain until my ownership expires, but I won't be doing any further work on it. However, I will be fuelling my creativity somewhere else, so, all is not lost. Just a shame so much has to be destroyed for something else to be born. See you all in another life...
Permalink
|

12.04.08: Quiet Nights, Relentless Girl, Sandwich Man, Early Nights and Adventure Quest

Streaming Song Of The Day: What I Am by Eddie Brickell And The New Bohemians

So, last night was a really quiet night.  We had a lot of customers but not a lot of stuff happened.  So, this entry is going to be pretty short.  Also, didn't help that my shift was a couple of hours shorter than usual, which always gives me less material. 

We had a girl come in last night, and she's a regular.  I'd love to say where she works, but about half an hour later her boss came in and he was a complete arse to me, so I am not giving the bar any credit.  Shame, she's a nice girl.  Anyway, she came into the store and said that she needed a can of Relentless, so, as our delivery had just pulled in, I did a quick search on the delivery list and found out that we had some coming in.  So she waited around for us to get a cage which had some Relentless in it, then Caroline got some out of the cage and she paid. 

Then we had a completely random guy come in.  He strolled into the store, swayed a little, then turned to me and said "excuse me mate, where are your sandwich things?"  He was standing right in front of the sandwiches...

But the thing which has been taking up most of my time today has been Adventure Quest.  I've been putting a lot of time into it lately, and making my character go up a level pretty much every day.  So right now I am a pretty kick ass Mage.  As such, I am taking part in my first ever war in Adventure Quest!  I'm an X-Guardian on the game, which means I paid to get Z Tokens (a special currency) and access to the Guardian Server where all the latest and experimental stuff happens.  At the moment, on the Guardian Server (I think the stats are just for our server) we are 50% through the army we're fighting.  I've also been playing a couple of epic quests.  This game is so good.  It's a single player RPG, but it has multiplayer aspects, and the game is always expanding.  Plus I love the artwork, it's all very Japanese and very Manga style, which I love.

Apologies for the shortness (and lateness) of this, but there should be better tomorrow.  After all, Saturday is when the drunks and stoners really come out!
Permalink
|

11.04.08: The Laptop Saga, Bloody Ridic, Ian In Charge, Fake Charm and Mystery Wifi

Streaming Song Of The Day: Lips Of An Angel - Hinder

So, close followers of this blog will know I killed my laptop on Wednesday night.  Clever huh?  So, after a day of using the eee PC to blog, I decided enough was enough.  I needed a real laptop.  Yes, I know the eee PC is a real laptop, but it's not enough for blogging.  It doesn't have the grunt for it.  This said, it rocks for watching BBC iPlayer content (the player window near as damnit fills the screen)  So, I remembered I had a virtually dead Sony Vaio which my dad rescued from a skip and I salvaged for my mother, who promptly ignored it.  BUT, it runs Puppy Linux 2.15CE which has PCMCIA drivers for the Atheros card I have.  And Puppy Linux reads and writes to NTFS natively.  So, I am now blogging from the Vaio.  It sucks, big time, but it's better than the eee PC for blogging.  Plus I have access to my backup of the blog files which were stored to my 500gb external HD a few days before I killed the main laptop.  And a mix of this laptop and the eee PC will be a replacement for the main laptop until I get paid in a couple of weeks (things are verging on the dire financially...)

We had a great, arrogant woman in last night.  She strutted into the store, and glared at me and said "You will sell me wine, right?"  I told her I wouldn't and she said  "Oh come on!  All I want is a few bottles of wine" So I explained how the tills won't scan alcohol after 11pm.  So she turned to her friend and said "Oh, come on, let's go, this is bloody ridic, a 24 hour supermarket that won't sell alcohol after 11pm!"  I have to admit, she took me by surprise on many levels.  Firstly, we're not a supermarket, we're a garage.  Secondly, wnd ho the hell uses "ridic" anymore?  Thirdly, WHY does it still surprise people that we can't sell alcohol after 11pm?  It's becoming less and less common that we have to tell people this.  But every so often we run into yet another idiot who can't get that when the pubs stop selling alcohol, so do most other places.

Now, people who know me, or even just read this blog regularly will know I am a fairly even tempered guy.  Get along with me, and I will get along with you.  Start on me, and I will start a war with you.  And you will lose.  So, Laura is going to be a casualty of war.  The moronic chavtastic pig dog has demoted me again from stand in supervisor to regular CSA.  That I don't care about.  I am glad that Ian is going to get all the crap from management.  Anyone who isn't me is welcome to it.  BUT, what has annoyed me is that Pete gets an hour off for Boys Club.  Alan gets an hour off for Boys Club.  Kelly gets an hour off for Boys Club.  I don't.  Damnit, I am CHAIRMAN!  But it's fine, you want to play with fire, you can deal with the consequences.  I'm going to suggest we have the meeting at a nearby pub (suck it) and then, after said meeting, I am going to have a chat with Pete about Psycho Chav.  And tell him if I don't get satisfactory answers to my questions about Miss Piggy's behaviour towards me, I'll be sending a far from anonymous e-mail to the bullying department requesting an investigation.  As I said, start on me, you get a war.

Then I had a really bizarre encounter.  The bar manager from Shorefields (they get a link because Mike works there) came in and tried using fake charm on me.  I work in retail, I use fake charm all the time.  Smiling at customers I hate.  Using soft tones.  Telling drunks to have a nice evening.  Laughing with "cute" girls whilst thinking of my girlfriend.   So this guy comes in and starts giving me the whole fake smile, soft tones "Hi there mate".  I don't do it to other people in retail, namely because I know time serving customers gives you a very accurate BS detector.   So, I decide that the only sensible course is indifference.  Which I lay on thickly no smiles, regular tone, nothing out of the ordinary.  He leaves looking very confused. 

Lastly, I have a really bizarre story for you.  We have Wifi at work.  Not ours.  A community Wifi thing.  It's good, about a 4mbps connection.  Anyway, we have a community housing project near us, which I assumed housed this project.  So, I moved the eee PC closer to the estate in our loading bay.  The connection dropped to 0%.  So I moved to the middle of the loading bay and found that the connection shot up to 64%.  So, why is this a wierd thing?  Well, conventional wisdom states that Wifi has a range of about 100m or so.  I am talking without modification.  100m from where we are is trees.  And road.  But mostly trees.  Trees which form part of the 400 square mile New Forest.  Which leads me to 3 possible explainations.
1) They have shoved a waterproof router onto the railway bridge (possible)
2) They have put a waterproof, fox, badger and deer proof router in the forest (far fetched)
3) Aliens (likely)
Tags: Puppy Linux, Ridic, Demotion, Chavtastic, Meraki Wifi
Permalink
 |

10.04.08: Boys Clubs and Drowned Laptops

So, not a huge amount to blog about today.  I didn't blog yesterday because I was getting over my 13 hour day, which I was awake for 21 hours (11am until 8am the following day).  So, apart from the fact that we stole the whole concept from Asda, it's quite an interesting idea.  Basically, we get to make people happy by asking them what they want, and how we can make the store a nicer place to work.  The idea being that happier workers means we cut down on people leaving.  Or as Alan put it - "happy workers means happy staff which means happy money.

But something tragic has happened.  Last night I was busily trying to install Ubuntu onto my mother's laptop (she's sick of viruses on Windows) and I stood up too quickly, which was connected to an external hard disk.  And the cable had been wrapped around a half full cup of tea.  And fell right onto my laptop.  So, I now have no laptop.  Well, I have my mother's 1.3ghz laptop which I can't install web design software onto, and the eee PC, which this blog is currently being written on.  Although the upshot is that my 8gb HCSD card arrived today and is currently installed in the eee PC.  So for now, this blog is going to be a little more basic.  Depending on how good my accounts are, I might get a new laptop in a few days, or it might take a few weeks.  Who knows!
Permalink

08.04.08: Remote Blogging, Palindrome Dates, Weed, I'm Going To Pee Myself, Drunk Ex Employees, Visitors and Sober Ex Employees

Streaming Song Of The Day: Sadness by Enigma (Don't read anything into the song title, it's just in my head)

So, because today is going to be hectic, I am currently shut away in the canteen, blogging on the eee PC. This way I can just copy and paste the text, upload it, and then I'm done for today!

I want to mention the date. 08.04.08. I hate it. I hate all palindrome dates. Those that read the same both ways. My mind has a real problem with them. No idea why, but hey, my mind's ways of dealing with things doesn't always make a vast amount of sense!

Now, I realise we employ a LOT of kids here. About half the rota is under the age of 18. Seriously. Or hovering around the 18 mark. So I wasn't that surprised to see that one of the said little darlings has gone and CARVED a very intricate weed leaf motif into one of the till printers. Yup, and the best part is, it must have taken ages, and I know that it will be on CCTV, and I also know nothing will happen about it. It really annoys me actually, because anywhere else, stuff like this wouldn't be allowed to happen. At our place it is, but if you take a cup of coffee from the machine, oh, that's a sackable offence...

And we had the most random customer I've dealt with in a long time:
Guy: “Are your toilets open?�
Me: “Probably�
Guy:�Because they're locked�
Me: “Then we can't open them. Only the contract cleaners can�
Guy: “Can I use your toilets?�
Me: “We don't have any�
Guy: “Oh god, I'm going to pee myself. Could you serve me a little faster please because I'm going to pee myself. I'd better find a bush. Are there any bushes near by because I'm going to pee myself�
Me: “We're surrounded by bushes�
Guy: “I wonder if I could find a bush because I'm going to pee myself.�
Me:�Look, across the road is pretty dark...�
Guy:�I need a bush or I am going to pee myself!�
Me: “Ok then�

He then strolls out the store, looking at the sandwiches before he leaves. He couldn't have looked any less like a guy who was about to wet himself. People amaze me at times...

Sebastian came in last night too. Drunk as all hell and tried to steal a bottle of water, so I told him I'd call the police. So then he threatened to walk out with a bottle of wine, so I dared him to steal it so I could call the police on him and his lovely girlfriend (she stole from us for 3 years then quit when she got caught). He put it back then looked at the vodka on the promotion shelf and asked if I would chase him if he stole it. I told him I'd chase and beat him, so he left it. He then told me that I was clever, that when he worked at our store he was a player, that he was drunk, and that people thought I was stupid but he knew I was very clever. I agreed with him. Then he left. Then came back and stole an ice cream. Nice.

But then we had something just weird. Maybe 6 or 7 kid who all came in with discount cards for our company. To be honest, if I am out and about and I see our company, I avoid it. I know what we're like when it comes to hygiene. And chilled foods. And anything in that catagory. So I avoid. But then, being kids I am guessing they were naïve enough to believe that maybe things were different in our store from their store, and maybe we did things a little better. Guessing they haven't seen behind the scenes at other stores...

Lastly, I had a really nice surprise. Malcolm came in! I shot through the door to make sure that there was someone on the tills and saw that there was a little old man waiting, and sure enough, I heard “It's jack!� I looked up and saw Malcolm and told him it was a long time since I'd seen him and didn't recognise him immediately. We caught up a little, then he went on his merry way. Not before a very nice sarcastic comment. I told him I was going to be spending 6 hours with Pete today, he grinned and said “well, you enjoy that!�
Tags: Weed Motif, Palindrome, Toilets, Drunk Pole, Employees, Ex Coworkers
Permalink
|

07.04.08: No Work, Early Finishes, and The eee PC Reloaded

Streaming Song Of The Day: I'm Back by ?

Well, I was going to blog from outside again today as apart from a few clouds, it's quite a nice evening.  And I don't often blog in the evenings.  But just as I wiped the chair outside down (it's been raining) it began raining again, so, I'm sitting inside, in my "office" and blogging today.  No reason for mentioning it, but, I thought it might be nice for you to have a little insight into my life!

So last night I turned up for work, and was promptly told that I wasn't working.  So I go and look at the rota, and lo and behold, I'm not working!  So I get my phone out and prepare to call home when Heather offers me a lift back home if I can hang on until she finishes.  I decide to wait around, as this way I can find out all the gossip!  And the first person to turn up is Ian, who is in a bad mood with me because he has to work 8 nights in a row, which apparently is my fault.  The other reason he's in a bad mood with me is because he has to work until 7am but I finish at 5am, which means for an hour he is on his own.  Which apparently is also my fault.  It really annoys me that he keeps blaming me for this stuff.  He blamed me for him working over Christmas.  And now he's blaming me for the fact that he has to work on his own for an hour.  Thing is, I have nothing to do with the rotas.  Or staffing.  Or anything else like this, but because it involves me and him and shifts, it becomes my fault.  Well, this time I am not standing for it.  Whilst the company I work for no longer holds career interests for me (I'm going to The Linux User's Group to learn as well as socialise) but I'm going to keep working my way up until my qualification is done and a Linux job comes up...

Now, like I said, I'm finishing at 5am tonight, I'm also finishing at 5am on Wednesday.  How come?  Boys Club training.  I have to go to training with my lord and master Pete, as well as Alan, Kelly and a mystery person who has yet to be picked.  Could be interesting.  I'm actually looking forward to it, because I've never been to Canford before, and I hear it's impressive.  Supposed to be one of the stores that always gets it right.  Anyway, it's from 2pm until 6ish.  And then finally, I will be able to reveal something about what this Boys Club is.

Lastly, I mentioned yesterday that at The Hampshire Linux User's Group that I was trying to get Puppy Linux working with networking.  Well, I now have wireless networking up and running on it.  I also have sound.  And Skype 2.0 Beta for Linux working on it.  This is significant for me because I use Skype a lot to chat to Alejandra.  Now I have an ultra mobile PC which runs Skype perfectly(ish) and has Wifi.  My new challange is getting Linux to run on my mother's laptop.  She wants Linux because of the lack of viruses.  Problem is, her laptop is pretty much refusing to budge on the whole Wifi thing, which she wants.  Ubuntu will run the Wifi, but I have never been able to get Ubuntu to install properly.  I'm giving a lot of thought to installing PCLinuxOS which I run on my laptop
Tags: Blogging Outside, No Work, Co-workers, Boys Club, Pupeee Linux, Ubuntu
Permalink
|

06.04.08: The Hampshire Linux User's Group and Formula One

Streaming Song Of The Day: Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones

So, the reason there is no blog post from yesterday is that I spent most of the day at the Hampshire Linux User's Group.  It was stunning.  This is something I have been missing from my life for about 10 years.  I used to study Computer Science at college, and we used to sit around and discuss computer things.  One of the things which stick in my mind is when we sat around discussing MP3 and whether or not it was the future of the music industry.  This was 10 years ago.  There were a ton of discussions yesterday.  Like the hypocrasy of the BBC refusing DRM free downloads of their show to Linux users, but when Steve Jobs asks for it for the iPhone it's granted.  We also discussed the security on the BBC iPlayer site ;-)  Then there was my attempt to get Puppy Linux working with networking on the eee PC.  It never did happen, but one guy must have spent about half an hour throwing commands at it.  Another guy offered help whilst trying to get his Kubuntu distribution not to die after the power went out 99% of an update (due to his power cord not being in far enough and the battery dying).  Which led me to experiment.  I asked the guy if he had finished with his Ubuntu CD, which he had, and I tried installing it on the eee PC.  Both he and the guy who tried to help me with my Puppy Linux problems said they thought the eee PC wouldn't be able to take it.  At least not modified.  But the only concession I made was to drop it down into safe graphics mode.  And it worked.  For a little while I had Ubuntu running on the eee PC, not eeeBuntu, full fat Ubuntu.  It was slow, but it worked.  I can't wait to go again.  The people were nice, and I was definetly made to feel welcome.  A lot of fuss was made over my eee PC, which was nice, and a lot of people wanted to know what it was all about, how I found it for use, and things like this.  Plus I learnt a few things.  Like people don't bring food there for others to share, so I didn't put mine out either.  Also I'm going to take a few blank CDs next time, as the Puppy Linux thing could have been up and running with networking on the eee PC for the want of a blank CD.  Also, I'll take something to eat next time, as there isn't anything much you can eat there.  Well, nothing more substantial than chocolate bars and crisps.  And a flask of hot water, because the coffee is fine, but I hoped there was hot water to make a cup of Yerba Mate.  Anyway, I am definetly going to be going again in 2 months time!

Then there was the F1 race at Bahrain!  How awesome!  Now, however unpatriotic it may be, I did give a huge cheer when Fernando Alonso tapped the brakes and made Lewis Hamilton smash into the back of his car.  Yes, he hurt his own race, but man, the rivalry remains!  Ok, so, Kimi Raikkonen wasn't as dominant as he usually is, but hey, he was still good.  And 2nd is better than Hamilton could have produced.  For those not familiar with why I hate Hamilton, the answer is simple - he hasn't earned his place at McLaren.  He hasn't driven for the lesser teams first, and yes, Ron Dennis might have paid for that to happen, but I feel they should do a few years in lower league teams then try for a bigger team.  Just like my man Raikkonen did...
Permalink
Tags: hampshire linux user group, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, IHKimi Raikkonen
|

04.04.08: The Dodge Brothers@The Thomas Tripp,  The Redesign, LOLDogs and Famous Girlfriends

Streaming Song Of The Day: Rocket In My Pocket by The Dodge Brothers (one of my favourites)

So last night I went to see one of my favourite live bands in the area - The Dodge Brothers.  They are awesome.  The thing is this - the lead singer, Mike, he takes the time to walk around before the gig and during the break saying Hi to all the regular, hardcore fans who turn up for every show.  Just to make a point about how full on this is, we were sat right at the back of the bar, because the seats at the front were already taken, and Mike came over to Mike and I and said "Hi guys, great to see you again!  How are you doing?"  There are very few live bands who take the time and trouble to do this.  And even fewer frontmen.  Trust me, this is a band to watch out for.  Hell, if Duffy can revive Dusty Springfield, why can't The Dodge Brothers revive Bluegrass?

You may have noticed a few changes on this blog.  Some stuff has been taken out (notably the valuation widget) and I have cleaned up the overall design.  For those really interested in what has happened, I've moved from a Layers based template to a Table based template.  I don't like doing it but the reasons are thus - Layers were causing me no end of headaches for one agency, plus Ale kept complaining that she had to scroll across to see the sidebar.  In theory, the way I have coded the tables should mean that the blog now scales up or down depending on the size and resolution of your monitor.  I was also having an issue with the colouring behind the layers not going far enough down the layer, which in my mind made the blog look really unprofessional as halfway down the front page the background bled through the layer.  The background has changed colour simply because I felt the blog needed a bit of colour.

I found a stunning website last night.  It was so good that me and Ale were trading links of pictures for a couple of hours, and even after I went to bed, she still e-mailed another one.  I should warn you, this is probably safe for work, but I take no responsibility for bosses lacking a sense of humour:

03.04.08: Blogging Al Fresco, Nights Out, New Toys, Yerba Mate, Coffee, Plans and Trips

Streaming Song Of The Day: Remember by BT

So, I am currently sitting in my garden, and it's very nice. A little overcast, but still nice enough to be able to blog outside without having to worry about being cold. I have no idea why, but it's really nice sitting outside, listening to some quite chilled out electronica and blogging. I guess it's because it's a nice change of scenery from the office.

Last night Mike and I went to The Tripp and actually spent most of the night discussing business (we have an idea in the works, more on that later) but it was manic! I mean, it was a Wednesday, and the bar was rammed full of people. At one point I actually had to wait to be served, and had to stand behind a guy when I did get served. On a Wednesday! I decided not to go to Amsterdam today because Mike and I have decided it would be cooler to go to the US and watch Diggnation being recorded. We can make a trip of it, but also e-mail the guys and tell them we're going over to watch it being recorded (it would actually be the point of the trip). Never know, they might actually be impressed enough with the effort that we get to hang out with them. That would rock.

Plus, the killer thing for me was that I have a new "toy". I have been waiting for three weeks for this thing to arrive, and damn it's worth it. For those who don't know me that well, I have a very eclectic taste in music. I love electronica and hard house, I also love Dido and Enya. And then I also love Roxette. Hence the new toy. The Rox Box. A box set of 4 CDs of rare stuff, demos and greatest hits plus a DVD of their Unplugged session, and all the videos for all their greatest hits. And a 80 page book written by them. The whole thing looks like a hardback book, and it is going to become one of my treasured possessions. I have fought with myself for 3 years over buying this, and finally decided that as I have every album they ever wrote (now on my iPod) not getting this box set would be kind of leaving a gap in the collection. Plus it was only £30. I feel it was worth it and I am going to be having a night in watching the DVD and listening to the CDs

And now for behind the scenes stuff! Despite appearances to the contrary, this blog isn't just slung together randomly. I try (and often fail) to go out for coffee every week and brainstorm ideas and stuff for the blog. Ways to take it forwards. There will be more on this later. Anyway, I am not a particularly well motivated individual. I will often make excuses in my mind for not doing things. Procrastination could be my middle name. So this is why I am loving Yerba Mate. It has replaced coffee as my aftenoon wake up drink. The thing is, I drink it, procrastinate, and then it hits me. A wave of energy. And motivation. I normally sleep for 5 hours, and wake up feeling less than human, so this afternoon I drank the Yerba Mate and after 20 minutes got into town in record speed (15 minutes to the coffee shop).

I just want to say that Cafe Nero Lymington rocks. Two podgy and very cute girls were there serving the coffee, and the cuter of the two (light brown/red hair) spent much time doing stuff around my table, which is always appreciated! But I sat there for a good hour and wrote down ideas to push this blog forwards. I also did a fair bit of work on the idea Mike and I have been working on for the last month or so.

So, what are these plans I have been teasing you with for the whole article? Well, I will finally now let you all know! First up, in the next couple of days, or perhaps tonight, this blog is getting a redesign. Nothing drastic, it's just that I feel it's getting a little cluttered with stuff and needs "dejunking". Also, the podcasts at some point are going to change. I can't give fixed dates, but there will be experiments with recording my own podcasts rather than that synthetic voice which I know is annoying (I hate it mispronouncing my content!) I'm also going to be opening a free music archive. I offer up free music every day, and I figure that a free music archive which centrally stores all of this music would be pretty neat to have. I'm also (finally) going to get the art section up and running. It's been there since the start of this blog, and has never worked, so I am finally going to upload my photographs and do a couple of other things in the art section. There is also going to be a store where you can buy Jack's Blog branded stuff. This has been on the cards for a while now, and I have finally decided that rather than just t-shirts and sweatshirts, there is going to be a whole range of stuff. That will be added with the redesign. Lastly, and the thing I am most excited about is that Mike and I are at some point in the very near future going to be launching a show. It's going to be inspired by Diggnation's style, but quite far removed too. Diggnation focuses mostly on technology, which I know a lot about but really doesn't interest Mike. Mike knows a lot about sport, but I know nothing about it, so we're going to be doing a whole sports section as well as technology. Plus there will be movie and music reviews. The other Diggnation-esque thing is that there will be drinking. Now, I hate beer with a passion, and I also can't see us doing reviews on JD and Coke and varients thereof. So, after a discussion last night, Mike and I settled on wine. Different bottle every week, and a little review of the wines.

Lastly, as I have a nice 4 day holiday I am currently enjoying, I am planning a trip out to the nearby town of Ringwood.  A lot of people assume I visit there because they have a brewery, but this isn't why.  It's so peaceful.  Few locals, massive wide open spaces, a beautiful little park, a beautiful little stream which runs through the park.  It's just bliss.  Anyway, I plan going there, taking my laptop and doing a few bits and pieces there. 
Permalink
Tags: blogging outside, The Thomas Tripp, Roxette, Yerba Mate, Cafe Nero, Ringwood
|