leslog

Hello world!

I feel the need to start with that because this is the first time I’ve managed to get online in over 48 hours because apparently if you have 100 geeks trying to connect to a wi-fi connection at once, some people aren’t going to be lucky. I never thought I would miss the internet so much. Goes to show, you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.

In a way I’m annoyed that the first thing I wanted to do was change my Farcebook status.

I’m here for a conference, which has just wrapped up but the fun goes on. We have Rock Band, and some people are meeting up later for something to eat. It’s been a fun couple of days. My holiday starts here.

It’s been a really useful couple of days and I’ve met some great and useful guys. It was always going to be guys. A tech conference about an open source content management system, sold out at 100 people, and there were three girls. There weren’t any last year, so at least things are moving on in that respect.

That’ll do for now. I wanna go play Rock Band, and battery low.

Further updates if I manage to get on wi-fi at hotel.

This afternoon, I received an email inviting me to some works leaving drinks. At the end was “No need to RSVP.” Why does this wind me up? Wiktionary serves to anger me further:

A very common mistake is to use the wording “Please RSVP”, which is redundant since SVP stands for “please”.

Yeah, right, so why are you not bothered that nothing you say with this “verb” makes sense in the first place? “Have you please responded yet?” “I can only please respond when I know my plans for the weekend.”

Grrrrrr!

Dictionary.com has a much better definition (though I disagree the plural deserves an apostrophe — don’t get me started), and I’m still not happy about the whole thing.

RSVP, RSVPed or RSVP’d, RSVPing or RSVP’ing, noun, plural RSVP’s.
–verb (used without object)
1. to reply to an invitation: Don’t forget to RSVP before Thursday.
–noun
2. a reply to an invitation: He sent a lovely bouquet of flowers with his RSVP.
3. (used on an invitation to indicate that the favor of a reply is requested).
Also, R.S.V.P.

Were it not for my personal policy to not join any Facebook groups, I’d be right there joining RSVP is not a noun, it is not a verb, it is an imperative command!.

/rant

Believe it or not, I have never before carved a pumpkin, and I’m quite pleased with the result:

In other news, leslog’s first birthday passed by a week or two ago. I would know the exact date only it seems my archive links are broken. (Subtle hint for Pete to take a look when he reads this.)

Continuing the entertaining photo blogging I have of late…

Wonder as the hospital corridors are painted… from Ocean Grey to Military Grey. Something that should’ve been done a long time ago. That’s the new Military Grey bit there, and that’s the dowdy, old, nasty Ocean Grey bit there. Or is it the other way around?

(It’s looking down on the metal casing around the heating pipes which run the length of the corridor — that’s my feet at the bottom of the image.)

And, if you notice an improvement in photo quality, this one was taken with my new work phone, with a vastly improved 1.3Mpx camera! w00t

In the coffee shop at work a couple of weeks ago:

Methinks someone needs to go back to primary school for some geometry lessons!

(Clicky for full size)

I really thought he would stay at Wasps one more year before retiring, but Alex King is off to play next season at French club Clermont.

Devastating news for me, a drooling fan for the past six years, but also bad news for the club, as he leaves big shoes to fill at fly half. A measure of this will be how well the team does without him and I can’t predict any trophies next year for the club. The H-cup match in January when Wasps meet Clermont will be interesting. Could be a good day trip for my birthday, as is tradition.

Ok, this is the last of the online quizzes I swear. This one is actually very interesting and more relevant than any of the previous such links. Check it out, really: www.politicalcompass.org

My political compass:
Economic Left/Right: -3.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.56
(Scores range from -10 to +10)
… making me leftist libertarian, aka communist anarchist, somewhere near the Dalai Llama:

… and giving all the more reason to vote green:?

Which animal totem suits you?

I can’t be arsed to put the full animal list but I scored as a Fox (83%).

“You are the Fox. You are quite intelligent and use it to your advantage. You are a diplomatic person and use that to help your friends in times of crisis, not choosing sides. You are also very patient, waiting for what you want.”

Everyone’s doing this test: What kind of atheist are you?
My score:
Agnostic 75%
Scientific Atheist 75%
Apathetic Atheist 67%
Spiritual Atheist 50%
Angry Atheist 25%
Theist 17%
Militant Atheist 8%

Percentage of what, I don’t know. Perhaps it should add up to 100. Whatever.

An interesting question in the agree/disagree test was Even if I found out for sure that God was real, I wouldn’t worship him. I had to think about that one for a second.