04 April 2016
We have an office custom; on or around one’s birthday one brings along cakes, pastries, biscuits or even better (depending on the significance of the number) and shares with immediate colleagues & all-and-sundry. I’m no different; this year I bought 1kg of shortbread biscuits and placed then at the allotted, er… place.
3 hours after arrival they’ve nearly all gone. I got it right. It feels good.
Thanks to those who wished me a happy birthday, even though my rationale for not bringing stuff in on the day sounded a bit lame. At least the Amazon Prime Now explanation went down well (see yesterday’s ‘Order’ post) - as did the biscuits.
Now, those who just take and walk off are bad enough. There’s nothing worse though than someone inquiring whose birthday it is, then walking either away or past one’s desk. Eating a biscuit!
Ungrateful, ignorant, self-entitled bast[CARRIER LOST]
03 April 2016
There are a lot of things in this life that a good Getting Things Done (GTD) or reminder app will help with when attempting to sustain (or create) a sense or order in one’s life.
Order is important.
Quite why I used the Amazon Prime Now delivery service - instead of going to the shop - to order the following escapes me. Necessary, yet…
In order of ordering:
-
A 1kg box of shortbread biscuits,
-
A box of Thorntons chocolates (445g or thereabouts),
-
A squeezy bottle of tomato ketchup (unfortunately Heinz, it’s all they have).
03 April 2016
The local elections roll around again in a month. I’m hoping that the prospective candidates from the party I’ve voted for all my life will make some form of appearance.
It doesn’t need to be physical; I’d settle for each candidate going to the towns’s independent local news site and briefly stating a few words; why they’re standing for election.
I’d settle for a leaflet hurriedly pushed through the door by ninjas, stealth-delivered at silly o’clock; a document briefly outlining who they are, where they’re from, why they consider themselves successful, and why I should vote for them.
Twitter worked for me a few years ago as the campaigning wound down towards its… what’s the opposite of climax‽ I simply asked a thus-far silent candidate why, especially when there’s the easy publicity from that local news site… and she added her pitch to the electorate.
Simple.
And, as the number of votes declined each subsequent election, I asked again. And, faced with the inevitable, I gave up asking. They’re not worth it. Really.
This year I’m looking at two important opportunities to exercise my right to vote (or to abstain):
- Local elections,
- The European Union Referendum: Do we stay or do we leave the EU?
Both are important. Important.
The first gives a small voice to us ordinary people at a local level; an opportunity to address concerns like poorly-phased traffic lights, repeated illegal parking on the estate, why we shouldn’t have speed humps; important stuff.
Now, these are the sort of issues any party’s elected representative should be addressing; it’s irrelevant which party I vote for in these instances, as ‘my’ councillor it matters not how I voted.
The bigger picture is what really matters, but past local level we have no say in political matters. None. So it’s pointless voting in National elections.
So, that established…
The second upcoming poll, a referendum, will eventually determine how successful Britain (England at least if everyone else removes themselves) can be when dealing with the rest of the world in trade. And stuff.
Europe seems to be a diminishing force in pretty much everything. Internal political idiocy and a resistance to reason dictates that nothing good will ever appear from the parliaments however many levels of beaurocracy are removed… but to be outside of it, unable to exert even the slightest of pressures to change the system, it’s folly. Madness. ‘Out’ gets us a reduction in dues, a nationalistic feeling of pride (a ‘we did it!’ hubris) and nothing else - a phyrric victory for those who would…
Ok, I know which way I’m voting in the second poll, but in the first apathy is the order of the day. No not apathy, but it’s not anger either…
Why should I vote for someone I don’t know? I don’t really know any of the people I’ve voted for in the past so it’s an odd one, this. I vote for people who I don’t know because they at least make an effort to tell me who they are and what they stand for. Merely belonging to a party I express an allegiance to just does not qualify them to gain my support.
No-one understands the referendum’s issues, no-one. Everyone’s guessing, dressing it up in hope or doom, analysts adding game theory to it in the hope something good will drop. So what will happen in or out? Everyone’s got their own ideas, it’ll keep the media busy for months. And we’ll all be wrong in the detail.
The good thing about the second: were not voting for a person. It’s for a system or an ideal, dependent on your views. It should be easy to choose a box to add my cross in. But thought, a process of reasoning, an inability to simply vote as my parents did. Hard, groundbreaking stuff, this.
(sighs)
One thing at a time then…
Dear local election candidates: I’m again ready for disappointment. Make me wrong.
02 April 2016
Elaborating on (or maybe not, it’s not my place to say) my ‘Between’ post yesterday, @matigo provided some nicely written (as-ever) insights into a modern curse..
‘Curse’ is my cruel trick; a word, a hook to drag you in. Oops!
Social burnout.
Most here will have a social networking networking history, may even identify personally with Jason’s words… For me it’s a case of ‘the wrong time of year’.
For you…?
Choice. While I had only IRC and MS Chat, that’s all I used. IRC was a one-day thing for me; i can’t recall any actual interactions at all. Literally one day. I got online and, within the first month explored every protocol and service available to me as a new Microsoft Network (MSN) customer.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention ICQ in my blog post; a service I used mainly to connect to people I already knew online. In real time. Mine was, probably still is, a 6-digit user ID.
Nowadays though we’ve dozens of places we can go to express ourselves. There are social networks, forums, niche services… There we can chat about our desires, hopes, dreams… with other like-minded people, hopefully without troublemakers intervening. Most of us want a quiet life when we want a quiet life.
Yes, that.
So, App.net (ADN); it’s a place with lots of good memories, good people, but it’s been let down by its founders and those in search of a bigger audience.
Now mine’s not a massive criticism. I’m hardly there at all, my feeling’s more one of a remembrance of the emotional baggage stemming from the SOTN post, the frankly-ridiculous antagonism (I’ll never understand why people don’t simply block) and the network’s inevitable subsequent decline.
And guilt.
I’m not doing #QuoteSunday (always a low-engagement thing) in part due to IFTTT’s ADN support shutting down, nor am I running #ThemeMonday (once an entirely different proposition.)
That reminds me, I should really move the #ThemeMonday page at my site and replace it with… Sometime.
I must examine my other social network profiles linking to ADN, to see whether I must move them to where I’m most comfortable calling my social hub.
Or must I?
A perhaps-telling FYI; Last year, despite others not doing, I upgraded my ADN account to ‘Developer’. More of a statement of intent, a gesture, an attempt to pay back in… I developed nothing of course but got a vague sense of wellbeing, and a hammer to add to my bio. THIS year I downgraded. To an ‘ordinary’ paid user account. Not all the way to ‘40’.
Hollow.
But here I am at 10C, with a Premium account paid-up until 2017 (over the top of Jason’s invite) developing an ‘app’ for 10C. How odd.
So, back to the blog post. Burnout maybe, but I’m happy to call 10centuries.org (10C) home.
One thing to bear in mind; I’m crap at publicising stuff; hence the one successful invite. Kinda successful, I’m hoping the guy I invited will spend a bit more time at 10C…
And that others will follow. There’s nothing to lose. No ads, no spam. Really.
And here be (more) Adventures! Maybe.
</waffling>
01 April 2016
Car insurance: I got home today, opened the insurance company letter, and sat. Quickly.
They think I’ll be paying more than £130 per year extra to them.
Ah, no.
A quick price comparison site search shows that, if I’m careful choosing the cover, I could get a policy £500 cheaper than I’d be paying if I allowed inertia to dictate terms.
RAC Insurance: yourselves you can go and fu[CARRIER LOST]