Archive for August, 2006

Save Your Space is a petition to block legislation in the Us that would block social networking sites in US schools and libraries. The idea is to stop sexual preditors. Though they aren’t really stopping sexual preditors from accessing the sites if they are blocking it in schools. They are just stopping the kids. Furthermore, it’s censorship. Some people’s only access to the internet may be a public library even if not, they might want to access the internet while there even if they have it at home and find it censored. China anyone?

Not only will this affect sites like MySpace and Facebook but it will affect YouTube (which I am currently living on) and also blogging platforms like Blogger, Xanga and presumly WordPress.com. So kids can’t blog now! Why don’t we just ban under 18’s from using the internet? It’s not a good situation and so SaveYourSpace.org has launched a petition aiming to get a million signatures. The deadline is in like a week so they aren’t going to make it. But they can try. I signed it. You should too. I’m even going to include one of their graphic dealies.

I’ve spent a bit of time researching how I can turn my computer into a multi-region player as my DVD player is playing up. My optical drives aren’t region locked but Windows is (what a suprise, it’s a Windows problem) and it looks like the only solution is to shell out for something like AnyDVD.

It’s stupid really. I realise why they implemented regions but they didn’t think it through – anything software controlled could easily be hacked and it unfairly affects legitimate users. I have a lot of region 1 DVDs simply because they were never realised on region 2. Absolute film classics such as Logan’s Run and The Breakfast Club and fantastic non-Hollywood films like Paradise Lost I have on region 1 because the only way to get hold of them was to import them from America. Legitimate real paid for versions that I bought off Amazon. That I can’t currently watch.

Hmm, ok, well, don’t have much to blog about at the moment. I’m working tomorrow. And Thursday. And Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. Maybe Monday too, I don’t have my schedule for then yet. Have a load of other work to do as well, it seems as much as I do nothing ever gets done.

I’m not feeling great about going back to uni. I had a think what I’m going to do regarding work and stuff and I’m probably going to transfer away from Colton which sucks as I’m going to miss all my friends. I know I’ve only just met them but they are really cool people. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I mean, I’m doing the logical thing. But is that the right thing? Do I even want to go back to uni?

I’m running into other issues too. My digital camera is broken as is my DVD player. I’ve lost all motivation for getting projects done. Plus one of my friends is going through some major issues right now. So all in all it’s not the best situation. Though I have been doing some comfort shopping on eBay and have a few electronics (and now DVDs) scheduled to arrive this week. That is if I actually get any time to use them.

Yesterday I finally got round to sorting my phone out. I’m going on contract because it should work out the same cost plus I have about twice the amount of minutes and texts I usually use and I get a new phone as the joystick on my current phone is really iffy. Plus the new phone I’m getting is a k800i featuring a 3.2 megapixel digital camera which is as powerful as my actual digital camera.

I’ll miss Virgin, for pay as you go deals they are great. Vodaphone’s contract prices can’t match them – £0.12 a text on Vodaphone whereas Virgin are £0.10. Same for landline calls and calls to people on the same network. Plus Virgin’s service is great stuff like free voicemail, free PAC codes (though I don’t know how uncommon this is), itemised billing (I have this on contract but for pay as you go I would have thought that is pretty sorted). I would highly recommend Virgin they just have two issues. One is the pay monthly details aren’t great.

The second is my next point – I’m off T-Mobile’s network! Vodaphone has the most reliable network in the UK (that’s official) and the best coverage as well I think. I should hopefully be able to get a signal around campus which was a touch and go issue on T-Mobile.

Ok, well I have time for one more post before sleep I guess. I should probably provide some background reading for regular readers of my blog as to my last post and talk about work as I haven’t really blogged about it, nor indeed blogged about anything recently. I will go into work later but I’ll mention a few of the people now.

Jenny is a good starting point. She was at the same orientation thing as me so we started at the same time though she is part of “the other side” (she works front counter ;)). She has also just got her exam results and a place at Leeds College of Art and Design. Plus she’s a mosher which makes a change from the the dance music listening crowd that tend to work there.

Don’t get me wrong, they are great people, they aren’t chavs. But anyway back on topic, JT is the shift running manager who is responsible for training me. He’s a man of Michelle’s heart being a massive Placebo fan, I’m under orders to fill my MP3 player with Placebo for tomorrow’s close.

Rich is a guy on the training squad that did quite a bit of my grill training and he’s cool. Ash is a really good laugh, as is Craig. Danny is a good guy too, he knows his stuff and Danny Atkin who is one of the floor managers is a cool guy who seems to have similar music tastes, he normally goes to Leeds Fest.

Kayleigh is one of the floor managers who I did my first close with, she is nice and friendly. As are pretty much all of the managers. Johnny is a cool guy as he is really chilled out and doesn’t let the pressure get to him. Tom is a nice guy and always talks to you as does Harris.

There are loads of other cool people too like Liz, Zoe, Stu and so forth but I’m tired and need sleep. If you want to be mentioned then bribes will be accepted :p.

I’m about to go to bed but before I do I just want to quickly post this. Jenny was trying to stay up longer than me but finally gave in about a few minutes ago. She gave it a good attempt but you simply can’t outlast someone who is used to working closing shifts at McDonald’s, it just messes with your body clock too much 😀 (although don’t get me wrong, I realise it’s not massively late to most of you reading this but then students have a different body clock to regular people and Kieran’s body clock is in a league of it’s own.

For reference I took a screenshot of the conversation and the date and time dealie Windows has.

Btw, that block square isn’t something I’ve blanked, all the emoticons are showing up like that in my convos, I really need to restart my computer as stuff is starting to play up.

Haven’t blogged in a while, thought I should in case people start thinking I’m dead.

I’ve been looking at barebone systems just now but I’m not having much luck finding what I want. Ideally I want something that can support 4 Serial-ATA hard drives so I can run two sets of RAID1 configured hard drives. All of the barebones only have 2 Serial-ATA sockets though.

There are a lot of stuff I could blog about right now. I’m listening to Lostprophets – 4am Forever. It seems appropriate. We had a really long close tonight at work and didn’t get out until 3:15. I’m back at work tomorrow at 3 so I guess I should probably get some sleep. I have other issues too, I just don’t want to make another blog post about how stuff isn’t working out, they are a little too cryptic for a public blog and I don’t need the outlet.

It’s been ages since my last blog post because I was in somewhat of a state of flux. I had stuff to blog about but I also had (and still have) a lot of stuff to deal with so I didn’t really feel like the act of blogging (which is worrying for me). Hopefully things should be cleared up by the end of tomorrow.

My parents are back off holiday too so I no longer have the house or the car to myself :(.

Still, ignoring all the bad stuff, I’ve just found out I’ve been approved in my application to the YouTube director program which means I can add custom fields, URLs, logos and so forth to my YouTube videos which is good news. I’ve just started publishing a new series of videos which are being fairly well recieved and I hope to get a lot more of them on there soon.

Dragged my ass out of bed to get down to HSBC to pay a cheque in before getting to work for 11:30. Timed it a bit wrong actually, I was almost late. Work dragged a bit at the start although because people had called in sick I ended up doing dining area (clearing and cleaning tables, emptying bins, sweeping up, etc) which was an interesting change despite the fact my entire training for what my responsabilities were and how everything worked was Tom quickly explaining so I could cover him on his break.

I also tried the McChicken Premiere which is really nice, I’d highly recommend it if you are in the mood for chicken. I’m slowly working round everything on the menu :p. I ended up staying until about 7:05-7:10 to cover for the people that were off which wasn’t too bad as it was only an extra half an hour. Ash was stuck on for an extra three. Although Charlotte did offer me her close :p.

So that is it for work until Friday. Although that it’s going to be a mental weekend as I have a close on Friday, working till 10 on Saturday and another close on Sunday.

I don’t think it would quite work to start a post off with a smiley. It would look too weird and besides, do you end the sentence there or do you continue it?

Anyway, I’ve just come off what turned out to be a little over a 9 hour shift. I was expecting 10 as I started at 5 and was working till close which is pushing 3 a lot of the time but we got out at 2:10 which was cool as it’s the earlier close I’ve had (not that I have done many, this is only my third).

It was quite a weird shift actually, though we had quite a few people in when I first got in at 5, it wasn’t ultra-busy. Enough to have a few of us working grill though. Then it just died, it was like a ghost town. I didn’t get my break until 8:36 which was cool as I like my breaks as late as possible so that I have less to work in the second half. Although when you’re doing 5-2, I still had 4 1/2 hours when I got back, I’ve had my break as early as 6:15 and given we didn’t finish until nearly 3 that was like an 8-hour block.

We had people right up until the last minute though. At midnight when we close we got a drive-thru order. Quite a good thing we hadn’t thrown everything out and shut down like we did on my last shift :p. So it was quite an impressive close time given we were cooking so late.

But relating to what the post was actually about (well it was about my shift two, it’s a combination hybrid post), I’m quite a fan of Carpie Diem (the phrase not the place, it’s Latin for “seize the day”). I don’t often practice it because of my neurotic and generally unconfident personality but if I had the guts to I would practice it more often. I finally did today so I no longer have to spend hours every day beating myself up over my recent failure to. Those who know, know, those who don’t, sorry it means that I secretly hate you and resent our friendship. Ok, that’s obviously not true :p. I was quite touched by the concern actually. Please consider yourselves absolved from worry :).