October 2008 Archives

I work as a software developer/engineer/whatever. Actually, I'm not really a programmer, I'm a systems administrator who can code. Most of the time, it's pretty mundane stuff. I'm told I'm very good at it, and I'm quite well paid for it. All the same, it's not often very exciting.

Sometimes it is, though. I've been working, working really hard all day. I've been fighting to make an automated self-test pass. It's been a long struggle, finding the problem, identifying the source, building the necessary tools to fix it, packaging and installing the tools, and finally re-running the test suite.

Still mundane, I'm sure most people will think. On the contrary, at least from my perspective: When that test said 'success', I was cheering like I'd just scored the tournament-winning mawashi-geri jodan (roundhouse kick to the head) in the national championships. It was a really, really good feeling, and my current job doesn't allow me to feel it often enough.

I fought the machine, and the machine fought back hard. In the end, I won. I know that most would have given up, or not even tried. Many wouldn't have even understood there was a problem to be solved. Today I reminded myself that there's a reason I do this stuff - because there is a challenge to be found, if one's standards are high enough; and that I can meet that challenge head-on.

A good day.

It's time I got myself back into a band. While it's fun playing to iPod tunes in my garage, I really need to get out there and play music with others again. A cover band would be fine, probably more fun and less ego. There's a problem, though.

I like heavy metal music. I'm a reasonably decent drummer. Yet I can't play a lot of contemporary tunes, because the emphasis is so much on insanely fast double bass drums.

About twenty years ago the same thing happened with guitars. Undoutedly fine players like Yngwie got famous simply by playing very, very quickly. Now, the same thing happens with drums - players are rated by the speed of their pedals. After a while it ends up sounding the same, and while it's impressive it's not exactly musical. At the extreme end it's so fast it loses definition, and ends up sounding like a buzz.

I'm sure this sounds bitter, but that's ok. I'm not twenty any more, and it takes a whole lot longer to get the fitness and muscle memory to play like that. Thing is, there are so many other areas that I could be spending rehearsal time on, and yet all I seem to do is get frustrated at not being able to play 16ths at 220 bpm. Why? Because if I can't, I'm not a 'real' metal drummer, it would seem. Pathetic.

Don't get me wrong: I think Joey is a great player, and I just know he'd be just as great if he never went double bass ballistic. Many super-fast bass drum players are really just great players who play fast double bass. Still, it seems that so much metal at the moment simply uses insanely fast, clicky bass drums to cover a lack of imagination. Why construct a neat fill or change the accents when you can simply impress by blasting out meaningless 32nd notes on your Axis Longboards?

In the Curry's Digital in Oxford yesterday, a couple approached an LCD television. It was showing a nature documentary at the time.

Man: "That's lovely that is, look at that picture quality. I can see that in the lounge."

Woman: "Awww! Penguins!"

As documented elsewhere, I got a parking ticket in London last week even though I'd actually run out of diesel and broken down. As I explained to the shithead traffic warden at the time, I find that the lack of engine power makes moving, steering and braking one and a half tons of car a lot harder, especially in heavy and fast-moving traffic.

Obviously I'm going to appeal the ruling. Ideally there'd be a telephone number I could call. [ It'd be expecting too much to have a web site, despite what I believe is an honest attempt to make Britain seem a bit more, you know, post-World War II when it comes to access to the Government. ]

No. I have to request a court hearing.

Let me run that past you again. I wish to contest, on inarguable grounds, the wrongful issuing of a parking fine when I was not in violation of the law to which the fine applies. I have evidence. Even the cocksucker traffic warden agreed that I had an unassailable argument against the fine. (Naturally, he didn't say 'unassailable'. He was a knob traffic warden, immune to long words.) In order to make my case, I have to go to court.

In order to overturn a bogus £40 fine, I have to put the state to the expense of a court hearing. It will cost the taxpayer hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds to stage a completely unnecessary bureacratic exercise.

All because one fuckwit traffic warden just couldn't wait to get his Little Book of Power out. It's not as if we haven't got anything better on which to spend our tax money at the moment.

I thought I'd finally got O2 sorted out, and everything working properly. I got a new Blackberry Curve, it was all operating fine. When I went to Italy, I turned on the 'Monthly Roaming' feature, and I was specifically told that it was only on for 30 days.

It's been on for three months. When I called them, they said the minimum term is three months.

I'm not in the mood for an argument today, and I don't doubt that somewhere, someone sent me a piece of paper that told me that, even though the person on the 'phone was completely dishonest. The nice girl in the shop who sold me the Blackberry also told me it was a one-month only thing.

It's not enough to charge ridiculously high prices, and to be difficult to deal with (or even get on the 'phone at all sometimes). It also seems to be necessary to lie to their customers over relatively small sums of money.

Most days my life is at something of a distance. I work from home, talk to a relatively small group of people, and largely keep myself to myself.

Even on days when I have to go to the office, I've taken to driving in. I'd almost convinced myself that it was for cost reasons, or on principle (I object to the cost of train travel); but that's not true. I do it because I want my own space, and that's the one thing I'm guaranteed none of on a train.

Driving home yesterday at around 4pm, the fundamental stupidity of it all hit me. I was running low on fuel, but knew I had enough to get to a nearby garage. My satnav pointed the station out, my car told me how much fuel it had left. Then the traffic just stopped. For an hour.

To cut a long story slightly shorter, I ran out of fuel. On the Hammersmith Gyratory System. Just before the start of rush hour, when there was already (I believe) a broken down bus blocking the road.

Bugger.