The Angry Geek

I have a very nice Vodafone v1615 mobile which runs the Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) operating system. On Saturday, I lent it to my wonderful Fiancée while she was in the shops and I had to run back to the flat to solve a crisis at work. I’d like to say that ever since then it’s been running slowly; but the truth is it was giving me grief even before that… I just noticed it more after using her sleek, shiny (but tragically pink) Samsung Tocco.

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I’m sick of the negative media. For months I’ve been convinced that if, instead of going for sensational headlines of doom, the press were just a little more optimistic – balanced even – then the financial markets would probably sort themselves out. Even though that’s probably a bit too optimistic, having spoken to a wide range of business analysts in the last few months on the subject, I’m firmly convinced that even if reporting good news wouldn’t help, reporting all this exaggerated bad news is certainly making things worse.

Sadly, it’s not just the news-hounds who hate people having a good attitude. Baroness Shriti Vadera has been publicly shamed today for daring to voice optimism in this current economic climate. According to the Tories (who I supposedly support), saying “I am seeing a few green shoots” demonstrates how out of touch and insensitive she is…

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The latest beta of Windows came out last weekend… and I don’t care. Yes, I downloaded it as soon as I could. Yes, I’ve installed it on a virtual machine. Yes, Microsoft has declared “Beta Keys for Everyone”, so the world should be running on Windows 7 Beta – but no, I just don’t care.

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The worst thing about being the most technically competent person in a company is that all too often, the buck stops at my desk.  I can’t complain – it’s a problem of my own making; I’m too lazy to pass on knowledge in a usable format, so I end up having to do a lot of the work.

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Supposedly, this site is an advert for Compare the Market (dot com), where you can compare quotes for all kinds of things – insurance, credit cards, mortgages etc.

To be honest though, I think Compare the Meerkat is an entertaining website in its own right (although the annoying voice-over is, well, annoying).  Even if it is viral marketing… I like it!

As well all know – the egg came first; long before there was ever a bird that might even be considered an early ancestor of a chicken, things laid eggs.  The question of “Which came first, the Chicken or the Chicken Egg?” is more tricky – I’ll leave that one for the philosophers.

The question for me though, is which came first – the content or the readership?

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In vino veritas is a well-known Latin phrase. It means “in wine [there is the] truth”.

I’ve had a lot to drink tonight – perhaps (though I hope the spell checker will help with this) you will be able to tell this from my typing.  It’s an odd conundrum – although it is thought that alcohol is supposed to bring out the truth, I find myself quite an acomplished liar after drinking.

The trick to a good lie is two parts truth to one part lie.  The secret to drunken lies is to let slip the first “truth” while you’re still sober enough to remember what you’ve said… once that’s done, you only need to remember to tell the lie – the other truth will come out by itself.

So remember, all of you – Just because a person is drunk, doesn’t mean all he says is the truth!

Last November, my cheapo USB mouse I use to replace the stupid nubbin on my work laptop started playing up. For some reason, it would stop registering normal mouse clicks every now and then. Fortunately, this could usually be resolved by good old percussive maintenance (i.e. smack it against the desk a few times) – but around December I realised that my mouse clicking finger was beginning to feel the (repetitive) strain, and it was time to buy a new mouse.

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I work in a so-called “Managed Office”. This is where my company leases a number of rooms in a large office building, and gets use of the communal spaces, reception, car-park etc. – the idea is to get all the facilities of a large corporate office without the overhead.  I say so-called, becaues I’ve never actually seen these people manage the place at all!

There are some huge disadvantages to working in a place like this.  One of them is dress codes – some companies in the building may have a different code than others, which can sometimes look unprofessional when you have visitors…

Another disadvantage is that you’re sharing the communal areas – kitchen, break room, post room etc. – with maybe 100 people over whom you have absolutely no authority.  In fact, you don’t even have a way to raise issues.  Without futher ado, here are the 10 worst abuses of the communal areas in my office…
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Remember this from a few days ago?  Well, now Sam and Mary’s brother Steve has decided to weigh in with his opinion… BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Rockets hit Israel from Lebanon.

Does anyone honestly believe this is anything other than “Ooh, here’s an excuse to blow shit up!”