Simeon Pilgrim

Well 2008 Olympics, and I have enjoyed it quite a bit.  I really enjoyed the opening ceremony, and it was a great chance to use the PVR to record the whole thing.

It will be good to not feel compelled to have the TV on for a while.  When so much top level competition is happening I feel that I need to enjoy it all…

Things I will not miss, and think should be scraped are:

Walking race - really how is this a sport, it’s so contrived, ‘lets run, but without running‘. I mean you walk when you don’t want to run, or you run when your late and have a need to get there faster.  So running races are about going as fast as you can, yet the walk (I don’t want to go fast) race, is about going as fast as you can without going fast, how can that be a race.

Womans beach volleyball - lets get a great team sport, and empty the court of most of the players so that points are easy to get.  Oh and now lets skimp the togs down so people watch.  Um, if the people are not watching it’s because it’s boring.  So tarting it up means only oglers will watch - is that what the Olympics is about, perving?

My other major gripe I have is with sports that could be defined as a ‘game’.  Football, Baseball, Softball and Tennis are not really higher, longer, faster are they.  Ok, there are some team games I do like, but would be willing to loose, Volleyball, Table Tenis.  I just don’t see ‘games’ as personal excellence.

My last gripe, is that TV One had four TV streams available on-line, but our Internet plan charges for traffic because ‘international traffic is expensive‘ yet local traffic also gets billed at these rates, because ISPs can. Nice one ISPs.

Oh my god, the people further up the ladder have after a year and a half decided what our new database/reporting tools will be named.

The tools came from another company (X) that is now owned by our parent (Y) so they were called:

X 2DB, X DB Configurator, X DB Editor, X DB Reports

because they loaded data into the DB, configured the normalised data, edited the loaded data, and reported on the data.

When one and a half years ago we merged with these tools, both parties rebranded them:

Y 2DB, Y DB Configurator, Y DB Editor, Y DB Reports

But now we have a directive from on high to call them:

Y 2DB, Y Configurator, Y Editor, Y Reports

They didn’t rename the data loader, either because Y 2 is too stupid, or more likely they didn’t know what a “2DB” was, so left it alone. The next problem is we have had another Configuration program in the pipeline for the last year, to configure machines, which we were going to call Y Machine Configurator. Will they also want to remove the Machine from that name, as it also adds to much descriptive value?

*arggg* it drives me batty the crap that others do in the name of “adding value”

The day that 200 gram chip packets (crisps) are now 150 gram. They had a brief stint at 190 grams, but the possibility of even small bags filled mostly with air was too tempting for both Bluebird and ETA.

I find it so silly that packaged food is in ever small portions to keep things at “magic” price points.  Just inflate the god dam price.

Sorry, I have lots of things to rant about, but this is about the only one suitable for public airing….

I have just wasted the last 2.5 hours, trying to upgrade WordPress from 2.2.3 to 2.3.3

It went worse than my attempt to move to 2.3.2, as I lost my 2.2.3 database, so have spent the last 30 minutes rebuilding the whole thing.

Two lessons learnt:

1. Don’t try and upgrade while at work. Even though the Internet connection is fast, people like to interrupt you, and feel that they are the most important thing happening at that time.
2. Don’t try an over-the-top upgrade, make a second DB, and get it working before pulling down your normal site.

Sorry if anybody (other than me) noticed.