Posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 2:23 am by Philip Devitt
I’ve been back at work for two weeks now and I’m already thinking about my next break. That’s not how I used to be, at one time you’d have to drag me kicking and screaming from work, but these days the monotony and beaurocracy get to me more and more and I just can’t be bothered with the seemingly endless stream of pen pushing that blights my day. I’m a code monkey, I do code; I used to be quite good at it: knocking up symphonies of logic and procedure that would calm the sea of a hectic business’ needs. But these days I just bang along to the tedious plinky-plonk of “Chopsticks” being played badly on a mis-tuned piano. Its hardly inspiring.
The only restbite from all this monotony comes courtesy of my uncle Terry, who, due to his unfortunate and untimely passing, has provided a good reason to escape the insanity of work for a day. Some would say that sounds rather callous, but I would happily repeat the last ten years of madness and misery to spend just another few hours with him, chatting over a pint or two about his new found happiness for the Spanish town he’d adopted. Goodbye and Godbless uncle.
The second hint to the disasterous year that may be ahead can be summed up by a line from the Bolton Evening News: “Arsonist Strikes Twice At Party House“. It appears that one of my distant in-laws was throwing a new years party and things went ever so slightly wrong — twice! Needless-to-say, the next time they’re thinking of throwing a party they’ll remember not to play “Disco Inferno”.
I’ve also just found out that one of my old collegues got married before the new year. Speaking as your humblest baggage monkey I would like to wish you all the happiness in the world.
While I’m on the subject, anyone who’s in the unfortunate position of needing to write a wedding speech could do a lot worse than taking a look at these “How To” guides. Afterall, not all of us have the witt of PG Wodehouse.
Posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 2:23 am by Philip Devitt
I’m older, and its official. Too be honest I can’t say I noticed the clock tick past midnight or even felt the weight of another year fall onto my shoulders. I was too busy reading. For the first time in a long time I decided to get out my dusty old omnibus of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.
I must have read Douglas Adams’ adventures of Arthur Dent half a dozen times during and after my student years. Whether I’ve read it or not I’ve always taken it with me on long haul flights and car journeys partly for entertainment, partly as something to take my mind from whatever tedium I’m forced to endure, but mostly because it reminds me of home; sitting back on the sofa with a warm mug of coffee, trying not to nod off before the next chapter.
It’s often tag-lined as being “A Trilogy in Five Parts“, not quite as catchy as “A Trilogy in Four Parts” which it used to be known as but at least its accurate. Too be honest I was never enthralled by the fifth and final book “Mostly Harmless”. I never got over how easily Adams dissolved Fenchurch — I understand how a miserable Arthur is probably better from a story-writers perspective but I think most readers wanted her to stay for a little longer. If there was an absolute requirement to bump her off Adams could have at least give her a decent death. Maybe having her eaten by the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal while a helpless Arthur tries not to peep under the towel covering his head. Thankfully I have to read through four more books to get to “Mostly Harmless”.
So what has the last twelve months brought me? One on the biggest changes has been the introduction of my neice. Babies are very strange creatures; how can something so small have such an emotional affect on those around them? I’ve recently been thinking of what my main uncle/godfather duties are. So far I’ve come up with these three rules:-
Admitedly the second and third rules don’t really apply until she can a) converse to a limited degree and b) understand the concept of money, but I think the first rule should be enough for the moment.
What do I think the future will bring, to answer that I need look to the past. There are two main aspects that I would like to change; work and play.
Firstly regarding my career: For the last few years I’ve been playing a game which is now getting a little repetative and I’ve finally come to realise that I don’t think I’ll win anytime soon and now is the time to either change my hand or find a new game to play. Maybe I need a totally different game genre to help whet the edge I’ve allowed to dull in recent years.
The second aspect of my existance I need to address is my playtime; I need to concentrate on the teachings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and find me what every pirate should have. (Is that “a parrot” I hear you cry?) I needs me a wench. Preferably buxom with a large bank balance and a vested interest in her fathers whiskey distillery, but I’m not really that choosey anymore. Anyone who makes me smile, shows me the world, or keeps change in my pocket will do.
An old friend of mine has some interesting views on the current state of popular literature on his website.
Posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 6:06 pm by Philip Devitt
It was a spare of the moment decision; should I go home, or should I pop around and see my old friend Cllr Mullen. As it happens I was quite lucky to just catch him coming home from the Labour Conference. With great excitement he informed me that for the last couple of days he’d been hanging around with the stars of Emmerdale and Coronation Street as well as those two shifty blokes named Blair and Brown. Forgetting about foreign policy or the state of the economy, his primary concern was who’s sleeping with who in Emmerdale.
The councillor yesterday experienced a few more of his 15 minutes of fame when a cunningly placed sign with the daubing “Pick Me” held above John’s head, was picked out by the host. If someone can find a clip of his moment of fame (repeated on BBC Parliament, apparently) please forward it on.
It looks like Hannah has finally got a date for her Christening; unfortunately the original choice of Godmother will be out of the country for the actual event (bobbing around the US and generally getting up to no good) so it looks like Hannah will be the lucky owner of two Godmothers — one who will be at the event, and another who’ll be there in spirit. From a Godfather perspective this is quite a good turn of events, ’cause it means there will have to be two booze-up’s — thus doubling the opportunity to get them very, very drunk… (only kidding S & K 
)
Of course the drinking is not the only reason for the ceremony, the real reason is to provide the child with a moral and spiritual rolemodel. As part of the Christening deal, the little churub has to be presented to a congregation eager to take on fresh blood; this basically involves carting her down to church and hoping that she doesn’t decide to scream the place down.
In recent years I’ve only been to church on a few occasions; christenings, weddings, funerals, bahmitzvahs (strike that last one) — I don’t believe that going to a large hall every week and praying to a God automatically makes you a better person; for the faithful, your reward will be based on how you lived your life, and how you treated others, not by how closely you follow religious dogma. The most prominant reason for not turning up for regular mass was recalling the hours of fire & brimstone given by past priests. So I was rather surprised that the current priest made the hour long service fly-by — at one point I did actually check the clock to see if I’d really been there an hour. The resident GJ (God-Jockey) Fr Manock should be praised for the upbeat manner in which he puts across God’s message, especially his use of song during the service. For those wishing to find out more about the ministry, and especially those wishing to donate to the “New Church” appeal, please visit www.radcliffecatholic.org.
Posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 12:35 pm by admin
It’s been a while since I last did any real coding; I’ve found that doing it for a living somewhat interferes with those creative juices that are needed to oil the thinking process. Anyway, I’ve been inspired by an interesting web site www.oceangram.com into writing a simple “message in a bottle” type random chat client that can be added to any web site. If you want to play around with it just drop me a note and I’ll send you the code you need to paste into your webpage. The client is inobtrusive, if you want to send a message just key it into the text box in the top right of this page and press the send button. You will be told if there is a message waiting for you, to read it just click on the “message available” text.
Also on the theme of new stuff, my sister eventually did hatch, not the 6/6/06 as predicated but a few days later. Here’s an “arty” black and white photo of Hannah.
**UPDATE**: The Javascript chat client has been removed after I noticed it was slaughtering my webserver… Methinks it’ll need a bit of recoding
