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.

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.

Gingerism. I’m sorry, is that a word?

Is gingerism as bad as racism? is currently top of the BBC News most read list.

This is the second article about red-heads in the space of two days. Yesterday’s Gruaniad had a spread picturing famous gingers. I didn’t read it, but I got the impression it was a celebration of gingers, and was in a much more positive tone than the BBC’s gingerism article.

It’s not the vivid ginger it was when a was young, but I like my hair colour. My brother, all in good humour, calls me the ginger ninja from time to time, and this doesn’t bother me though I think there is a twist of an intended mickey-take in there.

Are people really “gingerist”? Bullying aside, I think not. And I don’t think gingerism is in the same league as racism. Where do you draw the line between bullying/banter and gingerism? Most people making gingerist comments are going to be at the banter end of the scale, and red-heads who can’t take that need to get a backbone.

I don’t think the “drunken yob” in the article was gingerist. He was talking like any man in his situation, drunk and thinking with his nob. If the woman wasn’t ginger, he would still have spoken to her, made a comment about her tits, and she would have felt exactly the same way. A-holes like this exist. Get over it.

Last night was the 11th annual Webby Awards ceremony, held in New Yoik. A glance down the winners list pointed me to these lovely sites:

Moto colors
Awesomely tasty Flash application - get in touch with your creative side.

ZWOK!
It’s a Flash multi-player game, basically the same as Worms. I’m not any good but it’s simple procrastinator’s fun.

It’s unnaturally cold for May, isn’t it? I had to put socks on in bed last night, and they’ve put the heating back on at work.

Over the bank holiday, Gir and I watched 24 on DVD. So addictive it was, we watched the entire first season in the space of two days. People had said to me before that it’s a great show, and I would like it, and my response was always, “yeah but I don’t want to get sucked in now, because there’s like five seasons to catch up with and I don’t have time for that”. They were all right, I do like it. I was also right and now have to find a way of getting through the next four seasons without wasting away. Plus, I’m feeling super-guilty that I didn’t do any of the things I had intended for the weekend.

But why is it so great?

• It does “trust no one” way better than The X-Files.
• Cliffhanger after cliffhanger.
• Some of the characters do stupid things that have you shouting at the TV, but then they do something smart and redeem themselves. This shouldn’t really be a good thing, but I do like it. We have connected with the characters if we are shouting at them what to do.
• It keeps you thinking and guessing. The number of times Gir guessed correctly, though, he could have written it.
• Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is a superb hero… and the new Fox Mulder.

We’ve already started on season 2.