domdavis.com

I don’t really do Birthday’s or Christmas any more, however, I still do Easter so now is the time to shower me with gifts. The following gift items are acceptable:

• Chocolate
• Chocolate Eggs
• Chocolate Eggs with nice fillings
• Chocolate Eggs with bars of Chocolate

I like mass produced milk chocolate, however, a word of caution: I don’t believe in the new Smarties and they are anathema to me. Now go nuts

Well, 7 and a bit hours to go until the end of the Gregorian calender year of 2007. Let’s have a brief review (as seems to be the rage at this time of the year on blogs):

2007 sucked.

Brutally.

And not just for me either. It’s been a year of death, divorce, dumpings, and a whole host of other things beginning with D. (For those of you looking through the archives I didn’t blog about most of the really crap stuff as, contrary to the evidence presented, I don’t blog about everything )

Still, on the bright side I have a nice new house, shiny new toys to put in said house, a whole host of new friends and, for the first time since the dawn of the internet, a website that I’ve actually kept maintained for longer than about a month which is always good. I’ve also managed to live within my income this year (well, OK, an income that’s been heavily supplemented from external sources, but hopefully I wont have to buy and furnish a new house in 2008) and I’m actually in a much better state financially that I was last year (no girlies going to be getting their hands on this house, I can tell you ).

I don’t do new years resolutions (the only one I ever kept was the one to not make any more which has been going strong for 12 years now ) but I do have some goals for next year:

• I’d like to give this company something like £4,000 to custom build me a proper left handed, folded blade katana. This is very dependent on if I get a bonus or not this year (unlikely) or me being able to not spend enough during the year to save the money (even less likely) but it’s good to have goals.
• I’d like to not end up in the back of an ambulance or in A&E this year. This one should be easier since I now keep a stock of the drugs that A&E give me on my person at all times so I can just bypass the NHS bit and go straight to the private health care bit. Would be nice not to need that either.
• I’d like to start doing photography again. I’ve not really done any in the past 6 months. Hopefully in the spring I should have a bike so I can take my camera out into the countryside round here and take some spring time shots.
• I’d like to finish my house (OK, OK, flat - you guys are so picky ) off. Not much left to do, just need to get a new desk for the spare room, custom made thing for the en-suit (which really requires me to get the designs to bathgirl since she knows people who can make it for me), new lights (which knowing me are going to be expensive), new hob (my one sucks almost as much as this year has - I’ll get that and the lights fitted at the same time by an electrician), kitchen tiled (friend has said he’ll help out there) and the flat could do with a proper coat of paint.

Nothing overly ambitious, I know, but I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I do fairly regular exercise, I eat pretty well and any other ‘big’ changes are just not going to happen at this stage in my life. Besides, setting lofty goals that I can’t hit is just a bit pointless

Ah, the non days between Christmas and New Year, so full of… ‘meh‘ (really, that’s the best word for it). Everyone is waiting for the year to end and the promise of the new year. It’s as if they expect Tuesday to dawn , the camera to pan back over some pristine utopia version of wherever it is you live with this as the sound track.

Lovely idea isn’t it? It’s also a complete crock. I get the need for people to mark the passage of time but we do pick some odd occasions: “Woohoo, it’s midnight, the planet has traveled from one totally arbitrary point to another one 99.930% of the way round the sun“. Leap years are slightly different, now we’re celebrating the exact moment that the earth has gone round the sun once from some arbitrary point and then gone another .204% of the way round (gotta love being a geek ).

Celebrating the end of the calender doesn’t really work for me either. Why don’t we mark the end of each month with some lesser festivities? (When I’m dating people I do actually mark lunniversaries as well as anniversaries, but then I could just be sad ). Why not celebrate the moment when the days start getting longer again? (6:08am last Saturday morning in case you weren’t looking). Regardless, we get all expectant, count down the seconds when the time comes close, proclaim ‘Happy New Year!’ and… then what?

Nothing changes people!

Much as I’d love to wake up to my movie start to the year (and I do quite often listen to that particular song on my way to the station as it’s good for putting you in a good mood and getting you geared up for the day) I suspect my first morning in 2008 will be summed up by this. Why? Because that’s what sums everything up now and I really don’t expect anything to change in however many days it is until the 1st.

Still, since we’re time bucketing things the way we are lets hope that everyone’s 2008 sucks less than my 2007 (or indeed my brothers 2007, bathgirls 2007, and too many other people to mentions 2007). Enjoy your non days until then, I know I’ll be making full use of the fact that it’s 3 days of very little work and a lot of play resplendent with a lazy weekend

linky.

So that’s it. The madness is over for another year. I spent a very enjoyable (if rather drugged up day) round my friends house having food made for me, lounging on the sofa and generally doing nothing. We watched TV, talked and had a laugh and to be honest, that’s what Christmas should be about. Getting rid of the gifts (I have reclassified the few presents I did get as house warming gifts as I did ask for no Christmas gifts and will open them later in the week) actually made things more pleasant and the not worrying about it being a ‘perfect’ Christmas (believe me I’ve even found myself on the receiving end of a tirade about how “this year was going to be perfect and nothing is going to stop that”, not sure my idea of a perfect day involves being ranted at) meant it was all very relaxed. I’m definitely banning people from buying me gifts again next year

El el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el el.

(Think about it, Christmas is noel )

Dear Santa,

I get it. You’re miffed that I’m not playing, but seriously dude; check the contract. Pressies for the good kids, lump of coal for the bad ones, not a sodding kidney infection (yeah, it’s so nice to know my kidneys are all there, throbbing away). Git!

I’ve managed to control the temperature now (1000mg of paracetamol, 400mg of ibuprofen, 100mg of tramadol every 4 hours) but I’m so off my face I can’t think to work which could mean that the bank doesn’t make as much money as it otherwise might of, which means that pay rises and boni might be smaller, which means there will be less money for things like charitable giving which means you’re actually killing small children and little kittens.

I hope you’re happy.

Lots of love,

Dom

January: “Get prepared for next Christmas, for just £x per month you too can loose all your money when our company goes tit’s up depriving you of vouchers for money off Christmas from all these shops.”

September: “Christmas is coming, better start thinking about what you’re going to be getting people.”

October: “Don’t forget about Christmas, it’s closer than you think.”

November: “It’s Christmas! Shop! All of you, before it’s too late!”

December 1st-23rd: “Oh my God people, there are only x shopping days left before Christmas! Have you got everything you need? Are you sure? Panic!”

December 24th: “ONLY 1 DAY LEFT! GO! SHOP! QUICKLY! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. CHRISTMAS IS HERE!! Oh, and the sales start boxing day.”

December 25th: “Boxing Day sales! We’re open from 9am Boxing Day! Don’t miss out!”

What!?? You’ve been driving Christmas down my throat for 12 sodding months and now you’re telling me about boxing day!

I *bang* want *bang* each *bang* and *bang* every *bang* bloody *bang* one *bang* of *bang* the *bang* retards *bang* responsible *bang* for *bang* this *bang* lined *bang* up *bang* in *bang* front *bang* of *bang* me *bang* so *bang* I *bang* can *bang* shoot *bang* each *bang* and *bang* every *bang* bloody *bang* one *bang* of *bang* them *bang*!

From a work perspective this Monday is just utterly pointless. Those who can take holiday have, the rest are not exactly holding business hours (yes, I know it’s not even 9, but this is a global organisation we’re talking about here and we do operate 24×5.5) and to be honest, who can blame them?

I’m the first to say I do absolutely sod all at work, but on occasion I do actually do some. All I need to do for the rest of this year is get a test working and have someone sign off on it. I’ve never seen the code in question before and no one except the developer has seen it run, so there’s going to be teething problems. That’s fine, that’s expected. Problem is this thing takes over 15 minutes to fail and will only run before midday (after that the input files become invalid and removing the logic checking for that kind of renders the test pointless). Given I need services run by other teams to be up and running and I am getting absolutely no response from them I don’t think I’m going to get my test working today. Since I’ve got nothing else to do you’ve really got to ask: What’s the point? Thankfully I’m ‘working’ from home so I can watch TV while waiting

Joy, get back this weekend and find an £800 service charge bill for the house. I was rather hoping they’d ask for quarterly or 6 monthly payments, not all of it up front. Hey well. I also got a reminder from the electricity company for my meter readings. I tried to enter them but it would appear a proper meter reader has been round already and entered the wrong values for my meter so I am now unable to put the real figures in as they’re lower than what’s in there already. Why do I get the impression this one is going to take weeks to sort out? ‘Tis the season to get hacked of with people demanding money from me.