Rob Scott-Norto... 的个人资料Molly's Retreat照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
|
9月4日 Why I won't be getting up when Emily cries tonightLast night Emily starts crying at about 12:30. In my (unnecessary) haste to sort her out, I stumble in the dark and receive the most painful toe injury I've ever had. You're probably thinking I've stubbed it, but I'm confident I put all my weight on it and pushed it the wrong way.
Anyway, after lying down again, I go into shock and start shaking uncontrollably for the next half an hour. Nurse Mandy is suitable crap in a crisis and keeps asking me what to do. I was in too much pain to give her nursing advice so decided that a trip to hospital was the best bet. Taxi there and back = £20 = ouch. Waiting room was empty for half an hour, then the local nutter turns up having been dropped off by the police. "Why are you here?" the receptionist asks him. "The police dropped me off," he slurrs. "What's wrong with you?" "Nuthin." "Well, why did they drop you off?" "They said I needed to see a doctor. Can you make me a coffee and get me a cigarette?" he says before storming outside in a huff.
I cringe into my seat hoping he doesn't return.
The x-rays showed no break. I've just done some soft-tissue damage. Great. Still hurts like hell though.
Ibuprofen and rest for it is the best solution. So, that's why when Emily cries tonight, I'm pulling the covers over my head and pretending not to hear her. 9月3日 Chick Chick Chick Chick ChickenMy mad wife has finally gone and done it. She's only started to turn into Felicity Kendal (I think that might actually have to be the lovely Felicity Kendal - there's a law or summit).
We have converted our old shed into a chicken coop and have three beautiful hens in residence. They're 15 weeks and will start laying eggs in about 5 weeks time. This means I will have to eat more eggy bread than usual. Emily's very excited (how I resisted the pun I don't know). Every morning she comes with one of us to let them out into the run and she bends down and starts trying to feed them. Then she sticks her hand in the chicken shit and we have to clean her up, but hey she'll learn. Read more about how we managed this fantastic feat of domestic farmery here. 7月30日 What I had for tea Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous Jealous 5月21日 Midnight visit from the policeSo we've come back from holiday, got Emily off to bed, and were just about to go to bed ourselves when the doorbell rings. It's 11:15 and the outside light isn't working. We can't quite see who's out there.
'Who is it?' we shout through the door.
'Help me. Call the police.'
Oh shit. What's going on?
'What's the matter?'
'I've been attacked. Please help me.'
The voice belonged to a lad. Our area a nice safe middleclass area in uneventful Southport. We get nervous when we see hoodies walking down the street, let alone asking to be let into our house.
I got on the phone to the police and opened the door to the lad. He's 16, and is crying, and has a bloodied lip. Turns out he's had an argument with his mum's boyfriend and been on the receiving end of a punch. Who knows what actually happened but he seemed a nice kid.
We sat him in the kitchen and waited for the police to turn up and when they did, the lad was taken to the police station where he was going to wait for his dad to pick him up.
The lad accused his mum's boyfriend of being drunk. The first thing the police said to the lad when they picked him up, was 'How much have you had to drink?' So both parties were drunk.
The ambulance (oh yes, we had the paramedics round as well) said they were busy because of all the Saturday night drunks and a rave going on at Pontins.
Is that a link here? Would any of this happened with the booze? 5月19日 So what about BT Vision?It's been a couple of weeks since we've had BT Vision and so far it's doing very well. We still have Tivo hooked up so we can watch some programs we've recorded but I don't think either of us is missing Tivo as much as we'd feared. As I may already have said, BT Vision, being free, would have to be pretty shit to make us go back to the £10 a month deal with Tivo.
Things we like
Things we don't like These is nitpicking and could be called the list of Tivo features we miss.
4月28日 Why have we dropped Tivo?You'll have seen my previous quickie about dropping Tivo and may be wondering if me and Tivo have had a big falling out or something. The answer is 'not really' and the real reason for us ditching the service is our friend Jenny.
Jenny managed to get a third off the price of her Sky TV bill by ringing up and asking for the complete TV, Phone, and Broadband package. I thought it was worth a try and decided to ring Sky. I'm not naive and know that the only real power lies with the cancellation team. I rang up and asked to be put through to cancellations.
At this point, it might be worth pointing out that we do only pay a tiny amount for Sky TV compared to some people (£17) but we have to pay £10 a month for Tivo as well( for those that don't know, Tivo was around before Sky+ and is still better).
'Hello, you're through to cancellations.'
'Hello. I'd like to cancel.'
'I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like a free Sky+ instead?'
'No thanks, I already have a Tivo'
'What's a Tivo?'
'Nevermind. I really wanted some more channels without paying any more.'
'I'm afraid i can't offer you that. Do you want the free Sky+ box?'
'No thanks.'
'Ok then. Just putting your cancellation through now.'
Erm, whoops.
But then I remembered about BT Vision. This is Sky+ for the freeview generation (or welfare TV as it's known in Mandy's work). Two tuners and an on demand video service over your broadband connection made this seem quite appealing. Add to that, it's free and with no contract. Mandy said yes but only if BT Broadband reduced our bill.
I rang BT Broadband (a condition of a free BT Vision box is that you renew your BT Broadband contract for 12 months).
'Hello, I'd like to speak to someone about renewing by contract.'
'Hi there, how can i help?'
'I'd like to renew but can you give me a discount?'
'Hmm, I can offer you a discount of £2 a month'
'Ok. I'll take -'
'Plus, i can credit your account with £5 each month on top of that. So that will save you £7 a month'
Well yes I agreed and got a slight deal on a video on demand package for the BT Vision box.
So with Sky cancelled, Tivo cancelled, and BT Broadband discounted, we've saved £34 a month. Not bad eh.
So thanks Sky. Thanks for ripping me off for crappy TV all these years. Thanks for being so stubborn you wouldn't give me a deal. And thanks for letting me see that there are altervatives.
BT Vision comes tomorrow. Better not be crap or I'm going to look a right idiot. SplatLovely journey this morning.
Car 1 - 0 Pigeon
TIVO bye byeSaturday morning my cancellation of Tivo was confirmed and Tivo stopped letting me record programmes.
I nearly cried.
4月3日 Is your job boring?I was reading Tom Johnson's blog and came across this article.
It got me thinking.
Do I find Technical Writing boring?
There are definitely times when I would rather reorganise my filing system than get stuck into writing procedures (depending on mood this could be several times a day). But there are genuinely times when I'm, if not excited by my work, at least highly motivated.
There are days when I need to be creative and days when I need the drudgery. If the software teams' plans force me to do the drudgery when I'd rather be creative, there's a conflict and that causes boredom. On the flip side, there are times when I have a chance to do something off plan, but find myself hitting the equivialent of writer's block.
This pattern must surely manifest in other lines of work.
So tell me, how boring is your job?
New postGareth said I should put a post on here.
Here it is.
I wonder how old that joke is. 3月11日 Don't cross me when I'm tiredThis is what happens to toys that break in the middle of the night and won't shut up. The scissors I used to stab the toy are missing from the picture.
3月7日 Is Skydrive any good?Had a play with Skydrive yesterday and I'm not sure whether I like it or not. I've been using Google Docs and Spreadsheets for a while now and more or less love it. Sure, it has limitations but on the whole it does what I need and looks pretty cool. My only reservation with it is that even though I can import my Word docs to Google, they get converted into Google Docs format. This means that the fancy macros I've gotten used to with my fiction docs are lost.
Skydrive on the other hand lets me upload files and keep them in Word format. However, if I want to edit them, I need to download them to whatever computer I'm on, make the change, then re-upload to the site. This definitely isn't as neat as editing the docs directly in the browser like Google.
Anyone have any thoughts? Which is better? Google Docs and Spreadsheets, or Skydrive? Maybe I'm comparing chalk and cheese. 2月27日 What to do with BlackpoolIt's a shame about Blackpool. Granada Reports was running a very unhelpful story last night about how upset all the residents were. Mandy and I decided to show what a simple brainstorming session can do to help. These are our suggestions as to what Blackpool should consider for their future:
and that's just a five minute brainstorm. I did send my personal favourites to Lucy and the team at Granada Reports via Text (Fruit 'n' Veg, and a Castle, in case you're wondering) but they chose not to read it out. Shame. 2月25日 Jersey care home probeThis report on the Jersey care home probe got me thinking about a very disturbing question:
How do you go about training a dog to detect remains through concrete?
2月18日 Wedding videoIt's a fact in life that you can used to things and learn to live with them. For the past two years I've learned to live with the fact that I haven't finished editing my brother's wedding video. He got married in 2005 and despite being presented with a half finished version of it in 2006, he for some reason, was quite agitated about not having the complete thing.
Well I'm just burning his second copy on DVD now. Finally, another task complete. Another weight lifted.
And it's quite good actually. I showed a bit of talent and made the best of the poor light conditions and shakey 2nd unit director :P I planned the whole wedding out and knew about filming people's entrances and exits into each 'scene'. Knew that I needed to film some cutaways. And knew that I was always going to have an end credit sequence akin to 'The Office'.
I know it's going to be appreciated but no one (apart from the missus) knows quite how much effort went into it.
1-2-1Hmm, I had a dream last night that I hadn't planned for my 1-2-1, and my new boss Ben Miller was a bit angry. At least some of my colleagues got bollocked by him as well. Sadly none of them got eaten by dinosaurs.
(I do actually have a 1-2-1 on Friday. Best get preparing for it.) |
|
|
