I just severely fucked with a telemarketer’s ears, by accident.

Every now and then, my phone rings. I know it’s telemarketing, because nobody calls me on my land line – if anyone real did, they’d leave a message. So I have the answering machine set to activate within two rings.

This time, for some reason, I picked up the phone. Only the answering machine went on just after I said “hi”, as these things tend to do. Then it started recording before I could turn it off. The phone is right next to the machine, and any message it’s recording is played simultaneously, so I got an earsplitting EEEEEEEWWYANNNNNN of feedback.

I must remember that particular feature for the next time that I actually want to ruin someone’s hearing. It’s a good idea to put your fingers in your ears first though.

I’ll feel slightly guilty if it was a wrong number, but I don’t have that much sympathy for wrong numbers either. bring bring “Hello?” “Hi Leanne!” Do I sound like a Leanne? “This isn’t Leanne, I think you’ve got the wrong number.” “Can I speak to Leanne?” “You’ve got the wrong number. There’s no Leanne here.” “Okay.” click bring bring “Hi Leanne!” You fuckweasel. I think I’ve dialled about two wrong numbers in my life, and I’m useless at taking down information, so I take each one personally.

Incidentally – yes, I am on the Do Not Call list, but they have this scam going whereby they pretend that they were calling for someone else about debt consolidation – it’s always about debt consolidation – but if you answer they will undoubtedly say “oh, sorry… well, have you ever thought about having your debt consolidated?” I don’t need to be taken by every scam on the planet, I’m not compiling a list.

Tangentially connected to that, the Royal Bank Of Scotland have now increased my credit card limit (as they are wont to do at regular intervals) to 2,900 pounds. The reason why escapes me, since I never use it because I am in the wrong bloody country, but when I finally flip out, liquidise all my assets and go on a cyber-terrorism rampage to destroy the state, it will come in handy. That sort of money will buy me a nice Powerbook and plenty of firearms. » Continue reading “Aural abuse”

I found my glasses, by the way. They, and the case they were in, had fallen out of my bag in one of the shuttles, as I’d hoped. Lose something on the public transport network and it might as well have never existed.

I don’t really have all that much to say today. I’ve been posting some links (and if you are a Livejournal user, you should really subscribe to happylinklog… go on, I’ll wait) but really…

How often each day do you have the “I can’t believe I’ve got to this age without actually doing anything” feeling? And you know there’s only one solution, actually doing something, but you’re not quite sure what, and it’s so much easier to just agonise about it.

Phonepic

Found on the station platform just now.

Lost my fucking glasses. This means I may not post that much until I get them back, or get a new pair, because while I’m not blind without them at all, I get very dddiizzy after screen time of any length when I’m not wearing them. Ideal for a programmer really. Maybe my body’s trying to tell me something.

I quite surprised myself with how angry I got, though that may have something to do with sixteen ounces of coffee and the Dead Kennedys. Luckily I have the sense not to hit things that are fragile, sharp or too hard. I really need something solid that I can punch, though this place is not really large enough to accommodate a proper bag, and there’s nowhere to keep people in cages so that’s out too.

Oh yeah, if you’ve ever gone to my homepage there’s a link blog on the side, where I post a few the various links that I’ve seen while I’ve been “working”; in other words, it’s more like the traditional blog blog than this collection of tedious life detail, rants and pointless photos. It has an RSS 2.0 feed now. If you’re on Livejournal you can subscribe by friending happylinklog (and remember, syndication is unlimited now). Or you may not give a shit.

Phonepic

One of the few national newspapers. Agenda pretty much like network news as far as I can tell, though a little less fluffy. I found it on my seat.

Actually, my tax refund’s not really enough to get one (by at least $1,000) and I already have a perfectly functioning G3 iBook that I just upgraded with RAM and wifi.

But, y’know. Dude. Have you seen the thing?

The iBook would eBay well, too.

Some of you may be under the impression that it improves the experience of visitors to your site to have their mouse pointer change appearance in a non-standard way. Perhaps it turns into crosshairs when it goes over a link instead of the normal finger-pointy. You may think that this not only gives users a pleasant surprise, but is an important part of personalising your page and expressing your creativity.

It is none of these things. Have you noticed any proper sites where this happens? No. Could that be because it’s crap? Yes. Nothing since the <BLINK> tag and Comic Sans MS says “I am a web newbie with no design sense” better than a fucking changing pointer. The further message is “everything on this site will be a horribly-coded illegible mess of inappropriate colours, huge ‘arty’ background images and possibly poetry”. If your livejournal is like this, I know exactly what to expect the entries to be like, I’m afraid, and I’ve rarely been proved wrong.

I could go on about interface guidelines, user expectations and so on for a considerable length of time, but that would spoil the bile. I’ll just sum up by saying do not change the user’s mouse pointer. If the user is used to having a pointy finger appear over a link, let them carry on with it. There is nothing so special about your collection of cat pictures and anime fanfic that means it deserves special treatment from my operating system.

The fact that it’s possible to change the pointer with CSS in the first place is a grievous flaw in the CSS specifications. Pointer change is not a display characteristic, it is an interface characteristic, it needs to be consistent and should not be at the whim of Geocities. Useless bastards.

I have some photos for you.

» Continue reading “Nice day for a walk”

click for video

There are some sports and pastimes that are pretty directly derived from an activity in the real world, just made into a ritual competition – sprinting, boxing, NASCAR. There are some that are clearly just made up – snooker, bungee jumping.

And then there are some that could possibly be real world activities, if you were in an alternate universe. One of these is bull riding, which I was watching earlier on TV. (It will undoubtedly amuse those Brits who like to imagine America as a dumb cowboy nation to hear that this is televised, but frankly, if you want to compare Sunday TV schedules and acts of public stupidity, the UK doesn’t exactly lead the way either.)

They all dress up in cowboy gear, which would be appropriate if, say, it was a cattle-roping competition, which would fall nicely into category #1. It isn’t, though. It’s men sitting on massive horned muscular pissed-off animals, which are then released and proceed to throw them off in a matter of seconds. As you might expect.

It’s really, as far as I can see, a competition to see who can piss off cattle the most effectively, which seems to me to be rather mean; it’s not like cattle win long term generally, what with the whole “bolt through the head” deal, and events designed specifically to annoy them are a bit much. Better than bullfighting though I suppose.

The thing about it is that it falls into the “uncanny valley“, where things are sort of familiar but something is wrong. There are men riding things… okay, that’s well known… they’re dressed up as cowboys… right, cowboys ride things, that works too… but hold on. They’re on bulls. Er? What?

On the “strange perversions of normal activities” scale I’d say it was closer to “normal” than, say, cheese-rolling, but that makes it stranger. Cheese-rolling is just silly, as is anything involving cheese – it’s like monkeys, badgers or eggs, it turns anything into a branded “silly activity”, rather tediously these days. Bull riding is authentically odd, made more so by the seriousness with which it’s taken. How do you assign points for sitting on top of an irate mammal?

By the way, unlike golf, where all the adverts are for penis pills, all the adverts around bull riding seem to be for beer.

according to 20Q.net

Could it be found in a classroom? I say Probably.
Is it black? I say Yes.
Is it furry? I say No.
Can it be stolen? I say Probably.
Is it living? I say Doubtful.
Does it stink? I say Yes.
Was it ever alive? I say Doubtful.
Is it very, very expensive? I say Yes.
Is it a geological product? I say Probably.
Is it bad for your health? I say Probably.
Can it be used in a pie? I say Yes.
Is it hot? I say Probably.