World of Tanks - Cockbites a Bound

I continue my current run of game play with a bit more world of tanks - I've got screenshots of my games and replays to record if anyone were interested - but you're not.

So, I'll jump to something which is publicly available and which I've already touched on, my play stats.

I am still sick and tired of people incorrectly using XVM mods with the stats enabled to cry havoc at people, last night was a good one, some twat kid in a Matilda whom has had an account since March and only unlocked two tier 5 tanks on the Russian line and up to the Matilda (according to my viewing his player profile - 23rd March he started playing - I unlocked my Crusader in under a weeks playing quite casually - so this guy must be shit) and I noticed this guy had no artillery unlocked, he's not played them... yet he quite happily sat there calling me a noob... "Shoot noob arty"... "shoot"... the fact that, a) they were not spotted - hence I had no idea where to aim b) had already shot and was reloading and the reload is SLOW on a Grille (without any crew skills or a gun rammer I was) and c) he has no fucking idea how they play himself... I was the noob... No "nico__30" you're the cock bite noob, and I told you so - this replay will go up soon.

But that evenings play was not a total bust I played the Grille last, just once before selling it - I have it elite'd but don't like how arty play now - and wanted a garage slot for my Comet - coming soon.

My run of wins ran through all three Brit tanks I played and out into my German line, and I had some real fun, getting my mastery badge on a couple and some massive results.

But then I thought I'd sort out my JagdPanzer IV streak, it was down around 46%, and I want all my tanks to be over 50% win rate.  So I started to play, and it was just dire, first match out I was dead in seconds, even with binoculars I didn't see the IS who ammo-racked me, and from his position I had no idea he could see me, maybe a forward scout spotting for him, maybe a cheater, whatever it was I just exploded... and the evening continued like that for me in my JadgPanzer IV.

40% win rate I pulled out of it in the end, and then I played the infamous Grille game mentioned above and thought - fuck it I'm going to bed.

but this was not before Mr Jingles passed 100,000 subscribers, he was at 100,004 when I looked earlier in the evening and was over 100,300 this morning, so good on him!

I'm not going to even attempt to run for his competitions, I don't get games like that, my games are mediocre and for my own laughs.

And I say that because though I'm there having a laugh, I seem to meet every cockbite going, I really do, nico__30 is just the latest in a long line of cockbites, and I hope that little shit chokes on the next dong he swallows... "hmmmm yes my headmaster"... slurp slurp slurp... cockbite!

Oh and I just noticed, I'm in the top 10 Crusader drivers on the EU server, I'm actually second, suck on that nico__30 you prick.

LOTRO - Disappointing English

I played LOTRO when it first came out, I played a Dwarf and soon hated it.  At the time I was not willing to pay for the game - and since it went Free to play that barrier has been removed, I still don't play it, and I had to ask myself why?

Well, the look and feel of the game, I don't like, its awkward looking and I remember it looking pretty dated.  Things might have changed, but I'm simply not willing to download the mammoth sized download just to find out.  And I don't trust other peoples rigs capturing video, because their rig is not my rig.

But I don't think things have turned up very much in the quality, not least because this game representing one of the biggest names in English Literature, a book which sold so much in the twentieth century as to overshadow everything around it... this ENGLISH book through and through gets advertising mail like this:

"Through August 6"... its so yankie doodle fucking dandie.  Its not even correct English, and I hate that...

"Join the festivities from now until the 6^th of August" would have been the more correct, Hobbiton, fashion of writing this, and its more meaningful.  The moment I see US tailored brain dead English like this I disengage with the topic, I don't want to have to wade through it, if you work in PR, then for god sake work in Language, not colloquialisms.

I think this is a personal peeve with the slap dapse approach to PR from across the Pond in the US of A, a better example of this might have been the birth of Britains new top baby boy, Prince George.

Lots of US news outlets were reporting him to be a new "to be" KING OF ENGLAND.  We don't have kings or queens of England, its the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (not to forget all the commonwealth realms - Canada & Anzac loving vibes to all - across the globe)... But oh no "England" they came up with... Hey ho...

Maybe when Scotland vote on their independence the US news-tards can get that all to cock and someone will give a shit, they don't seem to give a shit when they piss off the English, but you pick on a "minority" and you get focus.

Its more like a J and a U - Amazon Delivery

So the BBC are covering the news that Amazon are shaking up their delivery charges system, and the BBC describe it as a "U" turn...

The super saver delivery was introduced in 2009... that's four years... to its less of an immediate sounding U and more of an over time "J" that Amazon has reversed the decision in, and the decision doesn't seem to cover everything.

Books, CD's, DVD's and the like are not covered and remain possibly free to deliver.

It does annoy me when the BBC get someone reporting like this from their soap box, its most certainly a personal opinion in this case and to flagrantly describe it negatively as an immediate sounding U turn, when its clearly a longer term strategy is just poor reporting.

About the decision though, one does have to question whether this is a move now to maximise profits as Amazon has shut down and cornered many competitors, such as Play, and now Amazon feel enabled to charge.

I will say I for one will not be going out my way to pay delivery, and paying a charge may reduce my orders from Amazon, but will it stop be using Amazon?.. Probably not, and that's more a sign of how ubiquitous their services are now compared to ten years ago.

Parking Ticket

So, my wife threw me a good one, she got a parking ticket the other week, and assured me she had not seen the signs "the notice to pay elsewhere was way over on the ticket machine, and the notice was the same shade of pink as the ones saying the machines were out of order because of vandalism"..."so from that distance I assumed they were still vandalised as before".

I trusted this and I sent in the informal appeal....

Yeah, the chaps at the other end must have been pissing themselves at this explanation, because the wife was parked square in front of the machine, which clearly could be read even in the grainy black and white photo they sent back.

"I couldn't read it"... Get yours eyes tested love, cus even the fucking dog can read that fucking notice on this shitty 420x360 pixel image.

Pokemon Cock Fighting

I just heard the strangest analogy...

youTube Video at 4m25

"Pokemon is like cock fighting"

Weirdly yes, yes it is.... Gotta catch'em all.

RIP Mel Smith

I am so sad to see the news of Mel Smith passing away, I loved his work, the really strange thing is though... I mentioned him to the wife just yesterday, we were talking about funny things, and one of the funniest things I've seen - least when I was a kid - and it still makes myself and my brother laugh when we mention it, was his playing "Gregorio" the opera singer who has an inadvertent "wank" whilst singing.

To demonstrate, the man himself:

Steam Green Light - 7 Days to Die

If I were you folks, I'd log into steam and give this a thumbs up, I plan on buying it!

7 Days to Die - Steam Green Light

Anakins Home Destroyed....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23375344

If only we could now bury all the prints of that fucking film, and go back in time, slap all the Yes men around George Lucas and hand that annoying kid's Dad a johnny on the fateful night of conception.

Noooooooooooo

I've had to wait a while to post this, its something which annoyed the shit out of me at the time, but there's nothing I can do about it...

My wife borrowed my old mobile phone, she was only going to use it for like a day... Did she just put her SIM in it and leave the phone alone?....

No, she set the fucking thing up with pink flowers and stupid ring tones, she basically started to treat the phone as hers...

This included her EMPTYING ALL THE TEXTS AND CONTACTS.... I lost pictures of my niece as a baby, I lost pictures of now deceased pets, I lost contacts whom were not migrated to my new phone but where historical.... I lost basically 2008-2011 in phone terms... and... and I'm really sad about it.

The wife, doesn't give a shit either.

Disabling the Java Updater

I've had a annoying moment with the Oracle Java Updater, we have a system which though not using Java can run applications using Java, our system however is all seamless, there's no desktop and it boots into a managed environment for display.  Trouble was the base disk we have had had the java update enabled, so about 50 seconds after starting the desktop changed to an Administrative mode asking for permission to update Java.... SIGH!

So this morning I've spent about half an hour figuring out a fix, because we can't seem to remove the Java update service.  No problem, lets change the setting to disable it... So I fire up explorer, and there is the java Updater in the system task tray...

See, there it is... And you can right click on it and access the Properties...

And hey look, there's an option to NOT do updates... Lets select that....

Oh look, an apply button, I'm not a rookie, so I'll click that for good measure.... and then OK...

*Whistle*... *humm*... So lets go back in there and see what its done...

Holy mother fucking god the setting is back on... Thank's Larry, this is really good stuff...

How you actually this off, is to disable the whole updater/deployment tool... So go into your User AppData directory, so my username is "Xel" so the path is: C:\Users\Xel\AppData.  This is a hidden folder, but just type it in to the start box, so if you're "judy"... C:\Users\Judy\AppData, and now we can go into: "LocalLow" and then "Sun" (yes Oracle fuck up the installer and still have the balls to name the folder "Sun").

Next you go into "Java" and then "Deployment"... Now we're past the gravy and against the meat, you should see a file called "deployment.properties"... Open that in a text editor and change the "deployment.javaws.jre.0.enabled=" from "true" to "false" so it looks like this:

deployment.javaws.jre.0.enabled=false

And reboot, now the deployment tool won't even start - let alone bug you or update the java runtime.

Chatting at Work

There is a department here at work, I'm not going to name them, but they're exclusively male and very bloke like and they look a bit scruffy, some are young, some are middle aged, all it seems are single or divorced or separated in some fashion, and it shows.

I have no bone to grind with them, save for one thing, whenever I go get a drink from the kitchen they're in there having a laughing communal chat.  They chat as a department in their work area, and they all spend all day talking about none work things, so why everyday do they congregate in the communal kitchen - choking it with bodies - and have a loud roustabout conversation?

It irks me that I feel like the interloper asking them to move from the fridge, or move from the coffee machine, or stop leaning on the water cooler.  But then they should not congregate in there, they should get their drinks and have a chat in their work area - oh no wait, they already do that, so I really don't get why they gravitate to the kitchen... 

Its really weird, and annoying... To Exemplify this I will now steal a picture from the internets...

How fucking annoying do that lot look, yeah, very.

This machine was working... Honest.

Its one thing to be told your software is not working, its a very different thing to trapse down to the machine, and after 5 minutes of trouble shooting realise the sticker saying "Checked 100%" is a lie and in actual fact the PC has no RAM installed....

Predictive Text Failure

We've all had that problem with predictive text getting the wrong prediction, however I have to say my Nokia C2 is utterly shite at it, not least because it totally lacks any statistical analysis of my textual habits to being commonly used items to the top of the list, and it steadfastly insists on giving out poor or uncommon suggestions for the most common words....

Just now I text'd the wife asking her to send me the "pimp list", do you know what a pimp list is?... "Shop"... Shop, not fucking pimp, how often does a person entering those characters mean to say "pimp"... Shop is far far and away more common!

How about this one... Coal.... Father in law has a coal fire, I text'd him asking him if he needed coal... the suggestion... Anal.... Not coal.. Anal, now I admit coal is less common a word than anal in texts - depending on your pass times that is... but then correcting it, the next fucking suggestion... Cock.... Anal Cock Coal.

So, if you're a gay ex-coal miner, Nokia got your back!

I mean, some phones I've had are acceptable, others are utterly fucking shite.

Did She Learn Nothing from South Park

I'm not condoning the actions of that male teacher who took the 15 year old lass off to France, but I find it very telling the amount of cover male teachers in a position of trust screwing with their pupils gets, compared to the low key way stories like this are covered.

Female Teacher Screws Lad in Layby

I do wonder if its because she's a woman, and we all know the lad was up for it, and she's kind of pretty:

But the parallels I can draw in how this case seems to have been handled and the satirical rip of it from Trey & Matt over at South Park speaks volumes.

Hug him, or Kill him...

Ladies, if you were this guy's lady, would you hug him, or kill him after this one?

Scary Video

Statistics and Cockbites in World of Tanks

I got really annoyed the other day, I've tried to think about how to blog about the problem, but I came up blank.

My blankness was because at the time I had no proof my run of thoughts were correct, that is until now.

What was bugging me was the statistics - specifically kiddies pointing them out and rubbing my face in them - in the game World of Tanks, let me explain.  I was playing a game - in my successful German anti-tank line - and a tactical situation came up where a heavy tank on the left flank was being backed up by several allies, and all he needed do was pull back and the enemy blocking him would follow - as they could not see us ready to pounce - and we'd have the enemy dead and the friendly heavy could move on.  The problem was, this friendly heavy was a) not moving backwards and b) not very friendly - hello spider if you're reading this, you're a cockbite, and here's why you're a cockbite.

Now, playing my Stug, I love my Stug, and I have a really positive experience with it, its pimped out with modules and a 100% crew, and I play it when I'm getting frustrated with my current pass time of grinding up through the terrible British tank line.

And there's the problem, first I'm back in the game after a long hiatus - I mean I used to play when the Tiger II was rare to see, and I got my Tiger I and did Clanwars for a bit, lost interest in arseholes bossing me around and quit.  And now I'm back into a game which is very different, physics, new tech, new nations, new tanks... its all very new.

So, rather than get my Tiger destroyed and my meagre stash of credits lost in repairs as I relearn the game I decided to break my exclusive playing of the Germans and try a different nation.

I had seem some of QuickyBaby's coverage of the Tier 7+ British tanks and liked the look of them, so went for the British line.

Now, I found out that the British line is not a great line to learn on, or even re-learn on, they are not quick tanks - compared to other nations - they have really bad guns - compared to everything - and they suffer from the common thin low tier armour problems of all nations.  In short they are a real pain, and in exclusive pick up groups (PUGs) its very hard to get a good game.  I've seen other commentators on the World of Tanks phenomenon of the "bad game streak", but gentlemen I can assure you I've had the WORST every run, here's the proof of that, and my middle finger raised at spider - whom I'll explain more about in a mo.

That is my run of games, you can see the slow decline of the graph, that's my grinding - and loosing - in the British Cruiser tanks and the Valentine (which I have to say is the worse machine of war I've ever had the misfortune to encounter).

I lost, and lost and lost and lost, and teams lost around me, and guns never penned, I mean in the Valentine I had like 10 kills, but I had over 100 sharpshooter and sniper badges... I could hit things, and hit them lots of times, but never ever did I get a kill because the poxy guns - and that trend even continued into the Churchill I, which has terrible guns until you've got hold of the final Vickers gun.

So, I'm loosing and loosing, then you see that up turn... that's when I actually got the final gun on the Churchill...

Its a pretty obvious upturn in my fortunes, and directly linked to a single piece of equipment - that last gun on the Churchill.

My play style has not changed, my tactics have largely not changed, indeed I start most battles and warn people "I'm a bit shit"... So this feeling of frustration with how bad the tanks have been and how suddenly a single piece of equipment have changed the whole feel and behaviour and fortunes screams "unbalanced".

But, I'm not a developer or statistician for WarGaming, nor am I inclined to moan at them about this.

No, I only bring this all up because of a player - yes spider - this heavy driver from the other night.  When I asked him to move back he was antsy - most children rail against authority - and that's what this moron did, he ignored my suggestion he did not pull back.

Having watched the replay - several times (I may record and post it if I can) - it is more and more obvious he should have just dropped back and let the enemy come so the array of TD's watching his back could help.  But he refused.

And not only did he refused but he started to brow beat me with my game performance statistics for proof of his superiority - and when after all the other tanks, like his, were dead and it forced arty and myself in a TD to try to cap the flag against remaining enemy tanks he was calling me out as a noob.

I had to take this frothing bullshit from the guy, I was polite - he was not - and in the end I told him to go away and put him on my ignore list, because he just would not listen, he was raving about my performance, about my ability.

Well, kiddo, let me tell you some things... First this is a game, you stupid pointless waste of oxygen, its a game, that means its all for entertainment.  Second, I've played a lot of games, and I don't care whom I play with, they can be as backwards as they like or bossy (QB I'm looking at you) but if they're insulting - like you were kid - then they can go get fucked.

Finally for these statistics, look at the performance, that long downward slope is all the low tier British tanks, tier 1 - 2, its down to sheer luck who lives and dies at that level its like a massive free for all... But then into the line of tanks on the British tree, its all like a horrid dream, poor armour, no gun... the basics to allow it to compete are missing.

You could say "You don't know how to play", but as I've said, I'm shit - but I've not change my play style, not immersed myself in new tactics I'm going with the flow in a PUG group grind and suddenly I have a significant upturn, not through skill, not through experience, but simply by finally getting to a tank in the tree and specifically a gun on that tank where things work.  And there is some balance.

Literally the pawl of helplessness has passed away from me.

So, mouthy spider - go fuck yourself - this is why my stats were low - you watch them bounce back you mouthy schmuck.

John McAfee Winner...

I'm not sure how I missed this, but here it is, genius...

Digital Arachnophobia

Now I'm not Arachnophobic with the usual spiders in the UK, I was once a little surprised by the size of a Wolf Spider I found down Cheltenham way, but that was all...

However, having just watched this I have the distinct feeling of a creeping wish to not ever ever meet one, it looks so... ergh.

Spider Robot

People of the Internet...

I would start this post with several tag lines...

"How every other player online is a douche"

comes to my mind... or perhaps...

"How every douche finds me in game"

... or, I could get more personal....

"The douches who I met in Pick Up Groups playing World of Tanks last night"....

Maybe that's too specific, because this post is not totally all about World of Tanks, but it most certainly is about the douches we all meet out there.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not always nice in games, I'm not perfect, I mean last night I shot a friendly and I was appologising, but then when someone else shot me I was raging, I'm not perfect and don't claim to be.

But, I do know what's going on, I can look around and when I suggest to someone they do something its usually for a good reason, so some of the reactions I've had last night have been interesting, and relate directly back to the same feel of how people have acted in other games - so this is definately not a World of Tanks phenomonon, its more about how people playing at home alone think they can be utter and total insulting bastards to the other people they're playing with.

And, they can be, no game company I've ever seen has dealt with this problem.

So, what is it that has been ryled?... Well it was a specific incident, playing a game, I secured one flank, sorted it out, crossed the whole map to help the otherside, got there, checked things out and it was obvious one guy needed to move, backwards, meaning the enemy he was in deadlock with would be forced to come out and get shot by the five of us backing this guy up.... Would the guy move back?... Nope... Would he say anything nope... Did he move?... Nope... What happened?... He died, leaving the rest of us to do tasks we really needed him to do.

His reaction?... To call me every name you can think of.  He started to snigger about my score, and historical score - I'll get back to that in another post - and he started to quote his personal military doctarin, which was basically "ADVANCE WITH MY HAIR ON FIRE", rather than listen to anyone else.  And after the game was over, the prick even thought it acceptable to start sending me insulting personal messages, to the point that I actually decided to add him to my ignore list - now I'm a pretty foul mouthed fucker, so to get your douche ass on my ignore list then you've got to have stepped over a line.

And what did this guy do to over step that line?  Was it call me names?  No not really, he did but you know sticks and stones... No what he did was he started to quote statistics at me from Noobmeter.com about my player profile.

Now, I left WoW when skill was ignored in favour of sum total values of armour/equipment and raids went all exclusive and shitty.  So to come across it in World Of Tanks annoyed me.

Not least because the prime game mode for everyone is to play in a Pick Up Group - and we all know Pick up Groups are like a bag of cats, you can't say what people can do, how they think, or even what language they speak.  And in World of Tanks as a near always solo player, I'm always in a Pug, so my average win/loss ratio is low.

Then add into the mix I'm back in the game after an 18 months hiatus - and grinding a whole new low-tier set of tanks - and in low tier you just explode in seconds so your "efficiency" and "k/d" ratio are all over the place, then quoting statistics back to me were pretty pointless, but any moron could see my profile was such and such a percent, in active over the last 3 months and only active in the last week, if you looked.

But this douche did not look, he did what any teenage douche does, he looks up the first stat he finds and beat it out on his keyboard over and over and over and over and over.

And I was like, you know screw this, I don't have to listen to this shit.

Tonight I'm going to dig that replay up, it was the last game I would stomach last night, and to save the cunt's blushes I'll turn off the interface and we'll see my heroic solo effort to hold the right flank, and then my moving across the whole map to help to help this douche, and then his spewing shit as I in my hugely inappropriate anti-tank mobile had to go do the job he in his heavy tank should have been doing all along - and I got blown up trying, because he had died minutes earlier.

And this was not the only douche I met, I had people pushing me out of cover, I had people running into me on purpose, I had people assuming I was foreign - because of my in game name - and taking the piss - at which my informing them I was British got glassy stares.  It was a shit night for me.

---

I know its poor form to come and update a post later, but I just read this and I thought, I wish the prick last night would be locked up for the comments he made to me... Would make my day... Oh, no, Wait... I live in a democracy, shit.

What did you do on July 4th?

I went to work, I went to the shops... Why?

Seriously got accosted with this in an online game last night, I admit by an American, but at the time I had no idea he was American... He was playing on the EU server, and chatting away, and then he saw me - and I have no idea even now who the guy was - he was convinced he knew me...

On and on he went, "What kind of patriot are you?  Doing nothing July 4th!"

"Sorry, so you think I'm American, or even give a shit?"

And it went down hill from there, why do I attract these retards?... There was another in World of Tanks - where I'm currently grinding up the shit level IV to V step in the British lines - in the Valentine tank, one of the slowest I've ever been in, and this arty guy (French chap) was going on and on and on...

The whole night, retard after retard, and this yank was the last in a long pile....

"Let me reiterate, we don't give a shit about July 4th, we're not Patriotic to America, you're playing on the EU Server there's a whole smorgasbord of people here"  I said.

"Ah, you're fucking Swedish" his reply...

I've had this kind of shit ALL weekend, I've been working very long hours all month, all this weekend, and its boiling hot, when I've got home and spent time with the wife - but my mind is still active - I want to sit down and go brain dead over games not with this parade of morons wandering through my filter every other minute.

Email Etiquette

I have an annoyance to run past you all, if you receive an e-mail from someone, lets say... "Robert", and they sign their name "Robert", do you then do and reply "Hey Rob", "Hi Bob", "Yo Robbie"...?

No, any sane person replies Robert, they put Robert you reciprocate.

So why is it so hard when I write my name...

"Bla bla, whatever whatever... Xel"...

And then I get a reply..

"Morning Zel"...

Its the height of bad manners, there's a whole raft of names who get this... Joanne and Joanna.  Robert.  Christopher.  Jonathan.  Elizabeth.  Hundreds of names, and hundreds of mails and you still get this bullshit of people being lazy.

I find it insulting, they've clearly not read your mail, or they've pictured you I one mode and you're someone else.  I'm sure if a psychologist has ever, or does ever, notice this and study it they'll come up with some dominance thing, the reply is trying to domineer who you are to dictate or homogenise you.

I went to college with a guy called Jon, his name was "Jon" not Jonathan, not John, Jon... Jay Oh Enn... Jon... And I remember even asking him whether it was short for Jonathan, or spelt different, I think at age sixteen I blurted out "That's a bit odd".  Which is doubly weird of me as my actual name is Jonathan and I prefer "Jon", and forever get "John" or "Johnathan" or "Jonathon".

It annoys me, If I reply "Jon" then you recipricate, if I stick with Jonathan, you stick with Jonathan... If William sends William you send William, not Willy, or Bill, or Billy!

Remember Remember the Spec last September

We have two machines, lets call them Harold and Albert...  Albert and Harold run different versions of the same software...  Albert runs version 7, whilst Harold runs version 10.

One day, MrX comes along and uses Harold, and notices something unexpected, a bug!  He reports this bug to Developer (Me).

I look at the code, look at logs, and look at the spec, and realise that MrX has seen the system work normally, and seen it operate as per spec, and so the bug is not a bug, but normal operation.

Now at this point one has to ask not "What are they doing reporting bugs which are actual behaviour", but perhaps "Why does the tester think that the software should behave a different way?"... Do they have a different spec?  Does the spec have two different possible and plausible explanations?  Has the spec changed?  Has the machine changed?

So, not wanting to sit guessing I ask, and MrX kindly explains to me - like I'm about five and sucking a wet rusk - "Its always worked this way".

MrX then departs in a funk of smug, and I look at the code, and look at the logs and look at the evidence, which all says it always worked the way it works now, so I set about trying this on Albert, the old machine, the one MrX remembers with rosy tinted Historical hindsight and reckons worked differently.

Click click, chug chug, Albert operates its way through the same software section - and low and behold it works the exact same way....

Old machine, new machine.

Albert, Harold.

Version 7, Version 10.

Both work the same way...

The tester insists otherwise, despite the now overwhelming evidence that it always worked the way it works now, and indeed as I said (three hours ago) I've not changed that part of the system in the new version... No apparently I have to fix it.

Well, I don't I'm waiting on the person who write the specification to decide, but I pretty much think this is going to go poorly for the tester, not least because - well because its always worked the way I see it working - they're just remembering it wrong.

Beeping Photocopier

Beep... Fucking Beep... That's right I'm not beeping to censor myself, but to beep fucking share with you the beep of the photocopier in our office.

The thing is like 60 feet away from me, its a large open plan office, and beep someone is trying to get the right settings... beep... and it fucking beeps every button press.

BEEP.

BEEEEEP.

BEEEEEEEEEP.

I've been to look, there is no volume control, I'm tempted to see if I can open the housing and disconnect any speaker, but by the look of things its a tiny PCB in there and the beeper is surface mounted.

It's like a mosquito you can't silence in the night...

I'm hoping there are fewer photocopies required around here today, least until I can shuffle the fucking thing to the other end of the building, or at least get some muffling done on this beeper.

I swear, its a tiny thing, but so loud, they should issue them as part of survival gear, people could be heard for miles with one of these things and a AAA battery.

Perils of Poo

I'm going to talk about something us men seem to talk about a lot - least I do with my pals and they do with me - and this is "thinking".  No not the brain kind of think, the BUM kind of think... Where you strike a pose not unlike a certain statue by Rodin and let things happen... *cough*.

Well, last night I had a curry for tea, I also had about 12 cakes my wife had baked, and I had the whole evening sat down...

So by morning I had a delivery baked and ready to slide... but I could not go, not straight off, I had to get to work, I got here and literally had to dash to the gents...

Now I've spoken about the state of the facilities here before, but they've been done up recently, however as part of the doing up process they've been made more green, first off where there were eight stalls there's now four, and the flushes have gone from capable to feeble.  The upshot was me stood there hopping from foot to foot, hot to trot, but with the first stall full of un-flushed paper, the next full of water to the brim not flushing, the third full of a person already mid-think, and the fourth... The Fourth... Erg...

It was full of someone else's floater, the Bristol Stool chart doesn't go into the buoyancy of a think - I think they should, but they don't - but this thing was horrid... I tried to flush it, as clearly its father had before me, but it just surfed the feeble dribble of water these new facilities call a flush and it sat there staring up at me...

I couldn't just bare my bum to it, so a fold of paper... No it just rolled over this and let the paper sink.... But the pressure of a held curry and cakes now insisted I go, so I had to tuck myself into the bowl and ignore this thing staring up as me as I presented my produce... Not nice.

Programming Brain Farts

I have a long and annoying habit of getting the smallest thing lodged in my code, many years ago a famous one was whilst programming the N-Queens problem in Java, it simply would not work, myself and my house mates were pulling our hair out... Until one of us solved it, and I have the ignominy of my mate walking in pointing at my screen and going... "That [int] should be a long"... DOH.

And the same has just happened now, in some byte wise encryption and transcription code, I could not get the C# port to work, I'd looked at it, printed it out, I'd stared long into the evening... no dice.

I noticed a senior manager earlier twiddling his thumbs, so I asked what he was up so - not that I have remit to do so - he said nothing... So I palmed this task off to him....

Five minutes, most of which was his printing out the function, it took him... "That byte there is in Hex on the spec, but you got it as decimal in the code"... ARGH... ARGH... ARGH... GAH....

"Thanks!"....

FUCK another one for my list of Brain Farts.