Today I heard some great news that my friends Chris & Roo have got engaged. I’m really excited for them, they are such a sickeningly good couple that you just know they are gonna be great together & live happily ever after and all that jazz.
There must be something in the air though, because the day after tomorrow, my brother-in-law Jonny, aka wikiriffs will be marrying Kristina, aka bookworm_chic. Weddings are usually really good, provided you know the couple well – especially for the bride and groom. I know that my wedding was an amazing day for both Sarah & I, largly because it made us realise quite how many friends & family we had that cared about us.
Now, the build up is a whole different matter. It’s always stressful, no matter what scale wedding you’re having and no matter how much you try and convince yourself that the wedding doesn’t matter – it’s the marriage that counts. That is almost certainly true – but you will still be stressed!
In the Ardern-Casto household, however, I would like to think the scene is something like this (I AM IN NO WAY MAKING ANY COMPARISON BETWEEN KRISTINA AND MISS PIGGY!!!!)
(I’ll say nothing about the resemblance of Jonny to Kermit though…) :
I particularly love the line “Wedding, wedding, pig and froggy wedding”
If you’ve been following me long enough, then you know that periodically I get fed up & completely overhaul my website. Well, its that time again and as you can see I’ve gone for a lighter approach this time.
A couple of months ago I switched to tumblr for blogging as it was easy to post just an image, video, or a post of just a few words. I could also do it from my phone.
Lately I’ve been missing blogging in longhand like this, so hopefully along with the new design will also come an end to me neglecting to blog. I also hope to have more interesting and/or funny things to say! I’ll probably keep my tumblr so that I can post the short & sweet items as well.
When I started my career in IT back in 2008 I was sent to London to do some training. I took a couple of Microsoft courses and then a few exams.
Because I passed those exams, I was given the title MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) and given a piece of paper saying that Bill Gates is ok with me fiddling with computers. I also got a card to put in my wallet saying the same thing.
I still have that card in my wallet today. The only time I’ve ever taken it out is when I’m travelling abroad – I take only what’s necesarry to minimalise the impact if I lose the wallet or get pick pocketed. When I get home it’s put back in there again with my Tesco clubcard, my DVD rental card everything else.
I’m not particularly proud of my qualification and I don’t tell people or flash the card to try and impress anyone. It just sits there filling a gap in my wallet.
I’ve asked a couple of other MCPs and they are the same. They carry it around, but have never done anything with it.
I wonder if secretly we all hope for some exciting scenario to unfold. In films and on TV a man in a restaurant will choke and the waiter shouts ‘is there a doctor in the house’ and a hero steps forward.
Perhaps one day I’ll be on a plane and the stewards will come running “Emergency, quick… is there an MCP on board?! The navigation computer has just been upgraded and now it’s asking for a missing component from Microsoft .NET – else it’ll route us into North Korea! – You’ll have to show us your MCP card, you can’t be too careful…”
Last night I took my Bro-in-law Jonny to the school hall, where my church meets each week, because he wanted a stage setting for his latest video (see youtube.com/wikiriffs for awesomeness). Plus he needed a cameraman, so it was great to be involved & have some serious creative input into it.
This weeks song was a piano based jazz style ballad thing, so clearly we needed piano shots. This upright lives in the hall so we thought it’d be a great iea to dismantle the case and film the inner workings as he played.
I snuck a few photos in between takes and I’m really glad I did.
The video we shot will be on the wikiriffs youtube channel early hours tomorrow morning (17th)
A really interesting read for the more geeky, but one particular part that struck me was the insight from Scott Adams. More of an anthropological observation than technical comment :
Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, writes a blog of pointed commentary, largely aimed at techies. Last year he depicted technology-tethered humans as de facto cyborgs: “If a cyborg can remove its digital eye and leave it on a shelf as a surveillance device, and I think we all agree that it can, then your cellphone qualifies as part of your body.” He sees the phone as an exobrain: “Your regular brain uses your exobrain to outsource part of its memory, and perform other functions, such as GPS navigation, or searching the internet. If you’re anything like me, your exobrain is with you 24-hours a day.”
For a while now I’ve been subscribed to a monthly puzzle book to chip away at each night before lights out time.
Last night was the first time I really took the time to look at the cover.
It’s split into four sections, three photos and an advert for a cash prize. The three photos this month are of a smiling thirty-something blonde, a windmill and a farmyard.
I think it must be a bonus puzzle to try and figure out what the heck the connection is between the three and with the subject of puzzles. Forgive me for judging a book by it’s cover (sic), but the blonde really doesn’t strike me as the type who wants to do puzzles and I would imagine a significant minority of subscribers are living on farms or in windmills.
I’m looking forward to next months issue now. 10/1 it’ll be a German u-boat, a baby panda and a pensive looking Terry Wogan…
The use of punctuation in the English language is changing. I’m changing them as of now, so pay attention world.
It’s not as if I don’t know the current rules, or understand (at least to an average level) how they work & what goes where. Yet when I type or write I seem to have some mental condition that causes the connection between my brain & my fingers to fail. So I have decided it would be easier to just change the rules for everyone, than to reprogram my brain & fingers to do it right, so here goes:
There is now an apostrophe in wan’t and wen’t, an there is no longer one in dont. The apostrophes in was’nt and did’nt have also moved. It is Now also Appropriate to Capitalise random words in your Sentence. Spelling is also Affected. It is now Entirely Optional which way around you Put the I and e in any Word where the two are used Together.
At Soul Survivor this year I went to a seminar about video making. Given the event is aimed at teenagers I was expecting a very basic introduction to the art, so I went thinking it’ll be helpful to hear again all the things I’ve already learned.
Instead I learned an awful lot I didn’t know, but the one thing that has radically changed my way of thinking was when the guy defined ‘amatuer’ for us.
I know I’m not the only one guilty of applying this term to someone who is not great at something and isn’t paid for it. How wrong could we be.
Amateur is a French word that comes from the Latin ‘amatorem’ meaning lover. It describes someone who is passionate about their field & does it purely for the love of it, regardless of remuneration. So the kid in his attic with a mobile phone camera & a box of Lego is an amatuer, but as long as the passion and attitude remain – so are Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron & Steven Spielberg. They are all amateurs in my opinion.
Today I got to go see the remake of Karate Kid, and it was free!
I just had to promise I’d tell people what I thought about it, so here goes.
Overall it was an excellent film, visually, musically and emotionally they got it all right. The only downside to the film was that it took the first 30 minutes to get going.
From the start it felt like everyone’s acting was below average & that they had pressurised Jaden Smith to perform like his dad, it seemed unnatural. As the film moved on he seemed to relax into the role & move away from the Will Smith Aura. His performance improved no end as that happened, and perhaps as a consequence, every one else’s did too.
The film lacked the mystery that seemed present in the original, but I felt that it didn’t suffer because of it. Jackie Chan played Mr Han – the new equivalent to Mr Miyagi – and was absolutely perfect for the role. There was a lot of touching moment in the film & a particular sequence where he poured his heart out to Dre (Jaden Smith) and Dre helps him to pick himself up, got me really emotional.
If you get a chance to go while it’s at the cinema then do. Once you get through the opening, it’s really worth it.
Now please excuse me, I have to go pick my jacket up off the floor…
Let me precede my comments by saying I am interested in the football, and I will be watching the England match later today.
Now, what the heck are you thinking interrupting my LIVE F1 race to spend 10 minutes talking about how Capello probably won’t be affected by traffic on his way to the stadium!
You have an alloted time later this afternoon to talk about football, so why irritate all your F1 fans to break away from the race & discuss inconsequential things about England’s match, which won’t start for 2 hours.
I’m certain that you won’t interrupt BBC1′s coverage of the match 20 minutes in to let everyone know that Mark Webber isn’t concussed & that Alonso is still a wazzock, so why do the equivelant to us now?
I realise that it was during a safety car, but surely that’s the ideal time to discuss F1 related facts?
While your at it, it wouldn’t hurt to drop the cricket updates too, the match was on 5 Live Extra, so anyone interested can flick over briefly (but at least those updates are brief.
In future, how about you talk about F1 during the F1 race, and football during the football match eh?
…into the world of Apple vs Google.
The use of punctuation in the English language is changing. I’m changing them as of now, so pay attention world.
At 
