Schmap

Fame at last!

Ok, fame is maybe overplaying my hand somehwhat here but if you remember a few weeks back I mentioned that Schmap had contacted me to say they had shortlisted one of my photos for their site....well it was chosen! :o)

It's HERE, listed under 'La Misericordia Bull Ring' though you might have trouble finding it, the link seems a bit flaky so here it is too:


In all honesty it's not one I would have chosen but I'm not about to complain! ;o)

Isn't it always the way.....

.....that you spend half a lifetime trying to solve a problem only to find that the answer was scarily straightforward all along! Ugh! This post could alternatively be called 'ever felt like a fool'?

My wireless connection problems, the bane of my life for months is perhaps finally, by a process of elimination and utter frustration, resolved!

Myself, Fletch and Punctuation have spent months fighting the damn thing, we have between us altered and faffed with just about every setting and option available to geek-kind, hell I even took the bull by the horns in desperation at one point and killed off the o/s and started from scratch re-installing the whole damn lot hotly followed by my first venture alone into the changing the reg... but all to absolutely no avail. I would finally connect and then drop off again within hours, only to spend another day or two trying to even find trace of the network, let alone actually connect to it.

And the answer is?

Um....thus far (though I am not yet holding my breath) it's looking like moving the router up a meter might have solved it! For pity's sake, in my defence I had considered this possibility but given that the signal only has to haul it's sad self maybe 2 meters to my lappy, I had dismissed it on the grounds that it ain't far and when I could connect the signal appeared to be strong!

That said, pride before a fall and all that but if I have to nail the bloody thing to the ceiling I will!

Spaghetti dysfunction!

The best way I know, for me at least, to distract myself from any troubles is to become embroiled in something fiddly (ok some may say anal) and faffy but of little consequence....and so hence it was that yesterday I tackled the long avoided nightmare we all have somewhere in our home, the spaghetti dysfunction of tousled wires we try desperately to 'poke' out of sight behind the TV/computer etc. etc. only to find that the more we poke the more of a mess and a tangle it all degenerates into!

This was a treble purpose effort I hasten to add, not only did I want to tidy up and unravel the mess but also it was yet another another step in my endeavours to find out just why I can't maintain a wireless connection. Thirdly the issue of why Fletch's very expensive amp. seems to have stopped doing it's stuff, needed investigating!

I achieved 1.5 of my goals! The spaghetti dysfunction was transformed from this....

(don't look Fletch)


to this....



....and I may have solved the connection problem (only time will tell on that one, I have been here before as some know only too well) but the amp.? Dead as a do-do it would seem :o(

Ok, 50% success rate isn't bad, and I did a pretty good job of taking my mind off all the other stuff going on around me right now but mostly I think I deserve a small medal for even daring to unplug all that lot, unravel it....and then getting it all going again in under two hours, the amp. aside of course!

Enough!

I had a long and remarkably positive post all ready and waiting for this morning, a kind of antidote to the fact that the last few days have bought with them much worrying and challenging news....and then a third helping of crap landed with me early today, and suddenly my resolve to be positive in the face of adversity has diminished somewhat and the post no longer seems to reflect my current state of mind.

They say everything comes in three's, let's hope 'they' are right because right now I don't need anything more to contend with, as fast as I seem to pull myself together and rally my small mind into some semblance of order, it seems the next heap of crap lands somewhere in my near vicinity!

Enough already!

Apologies, I suspect a small pity party may take place here for an hour or two while I muster whatever it is we muster in these times when we need to get a grip but for now all I can think to add is 'for fucks sake'...and thank God or Allah or Buddha or who the hell ever for friends and Fletch!

Ribbit!

How many?

Things from the weekend

Our weekend away was kind of odd one way and another for reasons I wont go into but none the less it was a nice break, good food and company were in abundance and it provided just the distraction needed.

Along the way I took a few pictures, if you are expecting seafront pictures, don't, the only time we made it to the sea it was either dark or raining! I did find these though;




(Click to enlarge)

I'm back...

....don't groan so loudly!

More when I have climbed the Himalayan size pile of washing that is beckoning!

A short escape

Our bank holiday weekend starts here! Oh, do the rest of you have to wait until tomorrow? ;o)

Fletch has managed to secure for himself today off work as an added treat, so it's off to the 'outlaws' on the south coast today for a few days R&R by the sea...... beer, food and friends aplenty and escape from the frustration of confounded dysfunctional technology!

He needs a rest from unending work and I need to get my mind away from a few difficult issues that are ongoing and un-bloggable in my life right now, a change of scenery and some sea air sounds a pretty good antidote to me.

So, have a good one guys, I may be absent for a few days but as ever I will be back again soon to harass you!

I'll leave you with a picture of last night's sunset:

Reference.....

....the miffed cat face in the last post, please don't anyone even mention computers or connections to me right now...or re-formats or AV or routers (particularly not routers) or apps. or hard drives or partitions or Vista or ....hell just not anything even remotely concerned with bloody, sodding, hateful, spiteful computers! Nothing! Zip! Nada! Thank you.

I'm going for a beer. Correction, I'm going for lots of beer! ;o)

I know how he feels!

Losing control!

It's a very odd experience, when that which is usually under one's own sole control is suddenly given over to another!

What the bloody hell am I going on about you are wondering aren't you?

Well it's this: I have been having for a fair time now 'connection problems' with this infernal machine that is usually welded to the end of my arms! Problems that despite months of fiddling and faffing and attempts to diagnose, had me completely baffled (ok, thats not hard I grant you) and to make matters worse, what has been an occasional difficulty suddenly turned into an out and out, full time, pain in the rear!

Enter, a knight in shining software, who this morning did that very weird thing and took remote control of my machine in an endeavour to repair whatever damage I had probably inflicted at some point in history! I don't know quite why it always feels so odd to me, but the sight of my mouse pointer moving around and actually knowing where it needs to go, whilst I sit back and do absolutely damn all, is always weird...though in this case it was also fascinating, I was riveted watching what was going on and seeing places I had never even seen before, or at least had never dared tamper with myself!

And the upshot? My machine is behaving so much better than it has in a while and I have a connection again...yes, a real live connection, that thus far hasn't 'done the off' without warning and though I probably am tempting fate by even saying it.......it seems pretty stable right now!

So, thank you to my knight in shining software.... but please, those little er...'anomalies' that you found on here could perhaps remain just between ourselves!? ;o)

The galaxy song!

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
'Round the sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In an outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

It's official....

.....the hardest thing about this being unemployed lark (aside from the obvious one of having no money of one's own), is maintaining a reasonable degree of motivation to do anything constructive beyond about Wednesday of each week. Why is it official? Because I have decided it is! ...or at least it's the bit I find most difficult, though others may beg to differ.

Add to that I seem to be permanently tired, all this doing nothing seems to be tiring and it's not helped by my apparent inability to sleep. I'm told I need a sleep routine. I have one. I go to bed at 10.30ish, I lay awake til midnight, I get up again, I go back to bed again at about 3.00 and I sleep til about 6.30.

What do you mean that's not quite the kind of routine the professionals advocate? It's the only one my body seems to want to adhere to recently despite my attempts at forcing it to do otherwise!

But I digress, back to the motivation, or lack thereof. Monday I start pretty well, fired up for the next round of looking in papers, job centres, on websites, yada, yada, yada, for my next 'sparkling career', I happily clean and cook and undertake all known domestic chores, I faff around on here, I fiddle with the odd hobby and read the occasional book, I go for walks, I sort out 'stuff' that I have meant to find the time to sort out for years....and I clean... and I look a job vacancy sites... and I cook....and I do more sorting out of stuff... and I read.... and I walk... and I clean... and I read....and I cook...and after almost three months it's all beginning to get a bit pointless by about Wednesday of each week.

All I want is a job, well unless of course I find myself a winning lottery ticket, in which case 'himself', myself and Eloise can head out into the great wide world for a few years, but in the unlikely event that's gonna happen anytime soon just a job would do.... unfortunately I seem not to have chosen the best time in our recent history to become unemployed. Week by week there are less vacancies advertised and apparently more people chasing after them and it gets harder and harder to maintain the motivation as time goes by, but....

I will find a job soon! (she says with maybe only slightly waning conviction).

Winemouse

If ever there was proof that Amy Winehouse is struggling in her attempts to sort her life out it has to be this video she posted on YouTube yesterday, showing herself and Pete Doherty talking with thirty baby mice.


Her choice of company is perhaps not her wisest at this time in her life either, I don't imagine Pete Doherty is number one on any list of recommended detox aids.

Very sad.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold"

So, my movie 'education' has been extended over the last two evenings to include both volume one and two of the Kill Bill movies and I have to say I am pretty impressed with myself for making it through both, in their entirety!

These are movies are had never really appealed to me, in the main because I don't 'do' unreality or gratuitous violence, but in an endeavour to broaden my experience to include what seemed to be two films still much talked about with some degree of esteem, I was persuaded to settle into the sofa two nights running and watch Ms Thurman do her stuff.

Ok, Volume One was bordering on the ridiculous, completely unbelievable and best described as an only slightly interesting, faux Kunk-Fu-esque, stylised, 'bloke movie', albeit Tarantino's brand of direction is pretty impressive and his use of filming techniques and different genre probably saved the day for me. What however is starkly apparent is that without wading one's way through this first volume, volume two would lose much.


The Volume Two, for me was a whole different story. How did I not see this for so many years? One word describes it, phenomenal!

Whilst the life of an [ex] female assassin and the incumbent psychology is somewhat difficult to get to grips with for us mere mortals (well for me at least), this volume didn't have the same idiocy factor about it, the unending spurting blood baths of it's predecessor were thankfully a thing of the past and the (though still much in evidence) violence was almost believable...... and much as I hate to admit it, appropriate. Please though, spare me the scene in which Elle loses her remaining eye, that I have to say was inexplicably, considering the rest of the content, the most horrific moment I have ever witnessed on celluloid!

Against all my preconceptions this film was amazing, gripping, thought provoking, visually stunning and horribly breathtaking, the production and dialog was faultless (Carradine should have won something for his delivery) and I have to admit that suddenly Q.T. has a new and very impressed fan. The guy's psychological status has to be ultimately questionable to have the ability to write and direct such a piece of art but you know what they say....it's a very fine line between genius and madness!

"Take back the web"

I am beginning to become seriously tempted to!

For those of you who don't have a geek in their lives who often times can be found 'sporting' various items of geek-wear emblazoned with appropriately geeky slogans, "take back the web" was/is an advertising slogan for Firefox.

Against all attempts at persuasion I have resisted migrating to the aforementioned browser, in the main because the time I spend fiddling with designs and code would mean I would need to run both browsers far more often than I do now and let's face it, for good or evil, the majority still use I.E. so I would rather get it right there first.

That said, since the enforcement of Vista in my life and the impact that appears to have on I.E. (none of it good) I am finding it harder and harder to resist the lure of Firefox......the fact that it just works is a kind of an attractive prospect!

No sh*it?!

Unemployment has risen in the UK by 14000 in the three months to March.

Actually it's risen to at least 14001 because I for one am not registered as unemployed and doubtless there are many more like me who for one reason or another have chosen not to register, or have by manipulation of government statistics and methods of collecting those statistics, also not been included.

Recession? Of course not, just ask Gordy, I'm sure he'll have some cock and bull rhetoric to disprove the glaringly obvious!

A pointless exercise

Eleven o'clock yesterday morning, ailing somewhat in the female department and feeling less than chipper, I received a phone call from one of the employment agencies I am registered with...could I make it for an interview at 12!

I hesitated momentarily considering that to get myself from a state of the great unwashed and sporting a fine birds nest on my head to 'interview condition' and make the ten mile dash to somewhere I had never been before (navigation is not my forte and my car is lucky to have a steering wheel let alone sat. nav.) from the mental and physical point of decrepitude I was at, was a feat far greater than I was likely to achieve.

But of course as fast as I hesitated I told myself to get a grip, even a three month contract was worth a shot so I hauled myself through the showering and suiting and booting process, transformed the birds nest, poked some paracetamol down my neck and floored my little car in the appropriate direction.

Luck was on my side and with no traffic problems evident and an unusually effective attempt at navigation I made it with time to spare. The adrenaline of rushing about like a mad woman had thankfully bought my senses back to something approaching compis mentis and it seemed that amazingly I had gathered myself from 'slob status' to 'interview ready status' in less than an hour!

The interview, as far as one can ever tell, went well and I emerged feeling reasonably proud of my effort and with a promise that I would hear if I had been successful in the late afternoon.

I did and I wasn't!

Apparently this time it seems I was over qualified!! FFS!!

It has never entered my head that I should need to dumb down to secure myself employment, let's face it, I'm not any competition for Einstein and I'm still trying to decide exactly how, when the contract is only for three months, it would actually matter anyway.

What a waste of time and effort!

Blogiversary!

Hells bells, 'gemmak' is four years old today!

I'm sure when I started this blogging malarkey I didn't ever anticipate I would still be at it four years later, but it seems I am and it would appear I owe you lot a vote of thanks for having the fortitude to keep on reading it all that time!

I'm still not sure why I do it, sometimes I love it, sometimes it has felt like a millstone around my neck but mostly it's just a part of my life now and one that for the most part I would miss. It's caused me some hassles along the way but it's also made me some very good friends, provided me with support when I needed it, given me a place to rant through the tough times and celebrate in the good ones and it has been directly responsible for changing some aspects of my life completely.

So...thanks guys for hanging around, another four years? Who knows..... ;o)

Now I remember....

....why I was tee-total for twenty five years!

This morning I seem to have a hangover, or at least I'm assuming that's what it is, it's not good, I don't like it.

bleugh!

Ok, no more words, I can't do words today, a picture instead, from a few days back, don't recall exactly when....

Shortlisted

Wow...two good things in one week! What's going on?

First the crap car surpassed itself in passing it's MOT test and now Schmap have shortlisted one of my photographs to accompany one of it's articles.

This doesn't of course catapult me to David Bailey status, it doesn't involve any payment (though I would get credit and a link) and the final decision is yet to be made but to even be shortlisted is quite pleasing. :o)

The crap car!

After much professional advice to the contrary and in the full knowledge that by my own investigations much was wrong 'the crap car' (you perhaps have to read 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' by Marina Lewycka to find that phrase funny) it amazingly managed to drag itself, kicking and screaming, through an M.O.T. test yesterday........ and passed!!

I am still stunned! The car God's must have been smiling on me!

I had gone in there very well aware that should it fail on what I suspected it would then this was probably the end of the road (pardon the pun) for it, given that my none existent meagre bank account was not going to be able to even contemplate the bill.

This was not going to be a happy moment and nor was it going to assist the employment search. As it was it turned into one of those ridiculously elated moments and I suspect that the guy testing it was a little taken aback by my reaction to the news, which I have to confess involved some degree of jumping up and down!
Yes, it does still need a fair number of repairs, the cost of which is way beyond me right now but none of them were severe enough to cause a fail and all of them can wait a little longer for the necessary attention. I might add that this is not new where this car is concerned, I bought it new and almost from the day the warranty expired it began to fall apart, I have never had so much trouble with a car in my life, I think I have replaced almost every part over the last few years...some of them twice and most of it documented here over the years!

It may be a crap car, it may be 'getting on a bit', slow, boring and most other things one doesn't normally want in a car but to me it's pretty important, it's gets me from A to B, it's about the only possession I haven't lost over the last few years having fought the bankruptcy courts hard to keep it, it feels somehow like my last bit of independence and it's mine and the only one I've got!

Today I love my crap car! :o)

Incidentally, if you haven't read 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' you should, it's without doubt the best book I ever read and utterly hilarious in a strange way.

The definition of a true friend....

....is the one, who when life is giving you a hard time and you send them mail at 2am bemoaning your woes, not only reads that mail but responds to it at an equally unearthly hour, with coherence and sense!

Thank you.... you know who you are.

So you think you know your movies?

As a self confessed movie dunce, or at least with a mind that seems only to retain information for a nano-second these days, I didn't do too well with Fletch's latest offering....a 50 movie sound clip montage, I scored only 25!

If you wanna have a bash and see how many you can name it's HERE.

Cat fight!

The following quote is taken from an article by the BBC today concerning why teenage girls are more frequently becoming involved in physical fights than they did previously and why that might shock or surprise us. The girl quoted has more than 20 violent offences to her name:

"It's only when I've had a drink and I think I'm on top of the world and I think I can take on everybody. I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself when I've had a drink."

Perhaps I'm just getting old but there seems something of a glaringly simple solution, at least in part, to this individuals behaviour, does there not? Doubtless she suffers any number of other social issues and problems but a little less alcohol might be a start! Ok, so now I'm beginning to get myself into much deeper issues and perhaps she drinks because of those issues but none the less my knee jerk reaction still is just..... jeez!

....and just for the record I would feel the same if it were a guy being quoted.

An engineers guide to cats

This is very funny...well I think so at least! ;o)

I suspect...

....that Mr Brown is laughing on the other side of his face this morning!


Let's face it, the last two days have not been the finest in his career but then by now he should be getting used to it having managed quite spectacularly to end any career he might have had within weeks (was it even that long?) of his moving into number 10!

Surely not even copious amounts of spin and rhetoric can't save him from the dogs now.

Even Boris the buffoon has made his way the top spot in London, if I were Gordy I think I would be house hunting this morning...assuming of course his bank will give him a mortgage! ;o)

Excuse my sniggering.

Five tips for a woman

1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.

2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.

3. It is important to find a man you can count on! And doesn't lie to you.

4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.

5. It is important that these four men don't know each other.


Sorry, it's an old one I know but I couldn't resist!

Paranoia!

Twice a year the letting agents that manage the flat we live in send someone round by appointment to check that we are keeping the property in the manner stated on the lease. We are of course, those who have read this blog will know I am on the OTT side anyway when it comes to being clean and tidy but nonetheless, in the sure and certain knowledge that today was 'inspection' day I thought it best I make an extra effort.

Not knowing what time of day this visit was to take place I began early getting the place absolutely spick and span......you know, doing all those little jobs you always 'mean' to do, like getting the carpet absolutely pristine, cleaning the outside of the windows not just the inside, giving the paintwork a quick once over and polishing the laminate flooring rather than just giving it a quick look at a mop.

Now when I say we adhere closely to the rules laid down in the lease, did I forget to mention um...just the one anomaly?

This is a 'no smoking' property, or at least that's what it is supposed to be, in practice though that is very much not the case. The pair of us smoke like troopers.

Mindful of this most wicked and heinous of breaches and only too aware of the lingering smell etc. I had the windows and doors open all day despite there being a distinct chill in the air, I burned scented candles, I squirted copious amounts of doubtlessly environmentally very unfriendly air fresheners about the place, I utilised all manner of 'clean smelling' solutions for my cleaning activities and worst of all, I had to trail up and down three floors to access the great outdoors (ok, I took the lift back up), every time I wanted a demon cigarette!

.......only to find that when the guy finally arrived he wasn't here more than 15 seconds and his inspection was so perfunctory that I doubt he would have noticed had there been an elephant parked in the middle of the living room!

Next time I won't be quite so paranoid!