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November, 2005

  1. you were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. it happens

    November 30, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… tantrum smilie at life

    I was going to have small grump today about the inaccessibility of the Southampton County Council’s website and how stupidly set up their online payment pages are.

    But you are to be saved from this fate worse than death because of my inability to download Firefox 1.5.

    Whilst this has no actual impact on my daily life (I use Safari still, despite repeated efforts to switch to FF, and me persuading everyone I know to use it), it has bugged me. I want to switch to FF, and from all I’ve heard, 1.5 is going to be the release to do it for me. So the first day of release and… I can’t get it. The links to the Mac OS X (en-us) localisation are broken. All of them. Even the ftp links. And no, I am *not* desperate enough to download the tarball and build it from scratch. I want my nice .dmg file! *wah!* Naughty Mozilla foundation not making sure it all worked before going live. According to the forums, they are “working on it”.

    *Grump*

    If anyone has a solution to this problem, let me know please!

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  2. if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane

    November 30, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… cool smilie at life

    So I’m writing this using the new version of Firefox I was having trouble downloading this morning.

    On my way back from the hardware store (needed a new bulb for the kitchen) I had a brainwave – sure enough, I was right. You can download the new version of FF, but you need to download it using FF in the first place. Try to download it from Safari, and all you get is the dmg file trying to open up in the browser window. Not good. Let’s hope they get that little bug sorted before too many switchers are put off.
    Here, use our wonderful product we’ve been telling you is so much better than what you are currently using… Oh, but you have to use our new product to get our new product….

    Yup. Something went wrong along the way there.

    I’ve taken the plunge and made firefox my default now. I’ll let you know how I get along with it. First mission – to find a theme that is less cutesy and teletubby land! I had the slick ‘silverskin’ theme for the previous version, but that’s currently broken, and I do NOT like the default theme.

    Toodles.

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  3. i’m guessing an exotic dancer from your spotty youth?

    November 29, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… bang head smilie at life

    People keep coming to the blog via a search for ‘chayanne underpants’ on Yahoo!Search. There is nothing wrong with this – whatever brings me readers keeps me happy – I just feel sorry for people who come to the blog expecting pictures of this individual in underpants only to find… whatever it is you find here abouts. That, and who is this Chayanne and why are people so keen to see him/her in their skivvies?

    As I have never, to my knowledge, blogged about Chayanne in his/her underpants, I was at a little bit of a loss as to what was causing this result in Yahoo!Search, so I did a bit of sleuthing. Turns out, the post containing a list of the artists involved in the whole SonyBMG Rootkit debacle is on the same archive page as a post containing the word underpants.

    I am at a loss as to why this search should bring me up as the fourth result, considering the words aren’t even in the same post, let alone the same sentence. Then again, perhaps there aren’t many pictures of Chayanne in his/her underpants on the web, which is why people repeatedly keep coming to me by mistake? *1*

    And yes, I am aware that this post is probably going earn me many more hits from the ‘Chayanne underpants’ searchers out there, but, as I said, whatever brings me in readers.

    Looking at this picture, however, I am starting to see why people might want to see pictures of Chayanne in his underpants… (click picture to go bigger)
    chayanne
    Just what a girl needs to get the day off to a good start wink smilie

    Endnotes:
    *1*There are no pictures of Chayanne in his underpants that a quick search through Google or Yahoo!Search can turn up. Shame. Though I did find a nice one of him on the beach. I leave that one for you to find on your own time.Back

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  4. the French don’t believe custard exists

    November 28, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… smilie

    This post is a shout-out to the Brainy Snail. Yes, I am alive and no, my computer hasn’t blown up. It’s been a close run thing on both counts, but we’re hanging in there. Just.

    If you all will care to look down at the Blogstalking section of the sidebar (or if you are reading this in RSS, here) you will see that we have had visitors from Santiago, Chile. Welcome :) That’s visitors from every major continent now. Woot! If you know of anyone in obscure and far-flung places of the world (bear in mind I am in the south of the UK, so pretty much everywhere is far-flung), please let them know about Bright Meadow. I need more readers east of Germany and south of Greece. Ok, so I don’t need exactly, but it would be nice. Consider that your Minion Task of the Week tm.

    Todays word is lassitude: lack of vitality or energy, which is pretty darn accurate for a random word. I am going to take it as a sign that todays post doesn’t have to be either very long, or very interesting. Toodles.

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  5. don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.

    November 27, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… rain smilie

    Todays Sunday Roast will be, I am afraid, a short one. I can’t even vouch for it’s quality. Things have been… not fun… this week at Meadow Towers and this has impinged on my cooking abilities it seems (just how far can I stretch this roast dinner metaphor before it cracks under the strain, do you think?).
    Still, eat up, and don’t forget the leftovers if you have room at the end.

    Web 2.0 – A good appraisal of what Web 2.0 is, its bad points as well as its good points.

    Door thwarts quick exit for Bush . Thanks to Minion Moose for this one. Made my morning.

    Google and Anonymity.
    With the related – GoogleAnon.

    Go Flock Yourself. Yes, that is the tag line of the blog flocksucks.wordpress.com The sheer vitriolic glee with which this blog is written is just making me salivate. This is one time you really don’t have to agree with what someone is saying to enjoy how they are saying it. And, you know, there’s been an awful lot of tosh spoken about Web 2.0 – it’s about time somebody stepped up to the plate and said “Hang on, you bunch of lemmings…”

    Open Web Design. So I find a design I like… and no longer have a site for it. Lol. Anyway, there’s some pretty shiny designs here, all available free to download etc. Hence the name of the site! Useful resource.

    Meebo. An intriguing little something to play with – a totally web-based IM client that lets you sign into existing accounts (ie MSN). Not played with it really as I can’t spare the time to chat to people, but it looks exciting. Especially if you are on networked computers you can’t download messenger/AIM/insert-IM-client-here for whatever reason (ie school/library). Still alpha, but keep an eye on it.

    Xmas light video. The word you are looking for is “why”?

    Royal Society: rent-seeking is more important than science. Keen blog-watchers might have notice this appear in the del.icio.us research-stream in the sidebar on Saturday, but I thought it was important enough to Roast it as well, just to make sure you saw it. I could rant away for hours, but Cory has pretty much said all I want to say, so I’ll leave it to him.

    A Consuming Experience: Playing MP3s on your blog: beginners’ introduction. There’s been some excitment about this, so I thought I would point out this handy ‘how to’ guide. I would, however, draw your attention to the bit about legality?

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  6. i got a smile on

    November 26, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… smile smilie

    I’ve been trying to come up with a shiny logo for the header-section of the new blog design. Just to let you in on a little secret – I suck at design. I know what I like, but lack a single original bone in my body. This has, understandably, hampered me in my search for a new logo.

    Then I, quite unexpectedly, ended up in a mutual link-love-fest with the good people over at Successful Blog and discovered that I seem to already have a logo (I am now an SOB apparently).

    brightmeadow.blogspot logo

    So it’s a bit basic, but I prefer to think on it as elegant, which is what I’ve been aiming for with the rest of the design. I seem incapable of being stripped-back, minimal, or elegant in real life, so it’s nice to think I can manage a little bit of it in my virtual life.

    Just occasionally, it takes someone you weren’t expecting to make you look at old things in a new way, to make you appreciate what you have, and to make you sit up and take notice of what you might have forgotten in the rush.

    It might be someone who, on a day you were feeling down, unexpectedly says they’ve always liked your smile. It might be an email from a reader who says “you made me laugh today, thank you”. It could be something as simple as the girl in the checkout saying “your hair looks nice”. Or it could be your supervisor saying “I love what you’re doing, every thing is going to be fine”.

    So what has made you sit back and go “oh” lately? What made you stop, smile, and make a tiny re-evaluation in the way you view the world?

    And because I don’t say it enough, you are all lovely people, and thank you for letting me entertain you for a few minutes in your day.

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  7. I’m as excited as a very excited person, who’s got a special reason to be excited

    November 25, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… mad smilie

    Just 24 hours after telling the CC not to get excited, we never get snow in this country in November, we… go and get snow in this country. And it’s November. Yay! Pretty snow!

    At the same time, keeping an eye on the coverage in the papers of all the disruption caused by a few inches of snow, I can’t help but think that we British really do get uncharacteristically excited about a lot of frozen water. Not even that much frozen water if I am to be honest (one thing with living with a Canadian – you’re no longer permitted to say “that’s a lot of snow” to anything less than about three feet).

    A fall of mere millimeters (like they had back in my native Somerset) is enough to close dozens of schools. 5 cm will block roads. I just looked at a ruler – 5 cm isn’t much. About the length of my thumb in fact.

    What happens to the great British spirit of keeping going regardless of the odds when we’re faced with a quantity of snow that would just about frost a cake, but not much more? We see snow and (excuse the expression) freeze, like so many rabbits in the headlights. Entire villages can get swept away, and we rally round wonderfully. How we dealt with the Blitz in WWII even spawned a phrase to describe it: “the Blitz spirit”. We’re renowned for being able to cope. Along with drinking lots of tea, queueing with equanimity, talking a bit posh, and having a mad royal family, it is arguably one of the more famous British stereotypes.

    Yet give us some sugar-frosting on the fields, and we go into a tailspin. More snow falls in an average five minute flurry in Guelph, than fell in the storms that caused so much kerfuffle last night. Though in our defense, British snow is a “different sort of snow”. Wetter, apparently. Maybe that makes it so much harder to deal with?

    My point? Oh, I don’t really have one. *1* I was just commenting on how wonderfully silly the average British person can be on occasion. And if you have plans to take over the world and, admit it, who hasn’t planned a little light world domination in their spare time? Just bring a snow-machine with you when you try to take over the British Isles.

    Endnotes:
    *1*I’ve had a migraine most of the day. You can’t expect reasoned argument after that, can you?Back
    *2*I am not holding my breath for snow in So’ton though: apparently, due to being on (more or less) the coast; the way the wind normally blows; and lots of other meteorological/geographical reasons I won’t even pretend to understand, we very rarely get snow. Winchester just 20 minutes away on the train, yes, Southampton, no. It was the same in Liverpool – why can’t I ever live in a place where it snows? *TANTRUM*

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  8. cute and cuddly boys…

    November 24, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… surrender smilie

    I have been trying to think of something to blog about today, and I have zip, nada, nothing. My folder of shame is actually empty. I had a back up plan of writing something based on the ‘word of the day’ i get each day. But todays word was ‘maelstrom’ :

    Maelstrom: a large, powerful whirlpool; also, a violent, disordered, or turbulent state of affairs.

    Not exactly inspiring me – to be truthful the only thing that springs to mind is talking about depression and the like, and I don’t think any of us want that.

    So, I shall stop talking and just leave you with a picture of a fluffy penguin, because (whilst they are evil) they always make me smile.

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  9. bambiesque? as does pertain to bambi

    November 23, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… grumpy/bored smilie

    WARNING: What follows is a passive-aggressive grump. I have no excuse, other than I am, well, in a grumpy mood today.

    We all have one in our address books – that one person who doggedly believes every piece of spam they get in their inbox. That one person who continually passes on the “WARNING! Email this to ten people or you will die a horrible and painful death!” emails. I have one such person. She used to be one of my closest friends in college, but I don’t talk to her much any more. This is for a variety of reasons, but no small part is that she doesn’t have a current email address for me.

    What?! I hear you cry? This girl is your friend, but you haven’t given her your new email address? (To be honest, not so new any more). Why does she still languish under the impression that your hotmail addy is the address you check constantly?

    She is incapable of sending email that ISN’T spam, that’s why. She is the forwarding queen. She is the one person who spammers and phishers go to bed at night praying for.

    I had thought that as she approached her mid-twenties, she would start to develop some common sense, or at least a mild level of skepticism. Alas, that is not to be.

    The pick of this weeks spam email from her is something pretending to be from hotmail, the text of which goes as follows (all spelling EXACTLY as appeared in the message. Can you spot their six mistakes?):

    Dear Hotmail User,
    We understand that you have previously recieved many messages that have stated the closing of accounts not being used within our servers. This message, however, is your final warning. Within this message is encoded a small program that will located and debug your account when sent to fifteen other Hotmail users. If you do not send this message to fifteen Hotmail users within 24 hours of recieving the message, your account will be PERMANETLY SHUT-DOWN. When and if you send this, we hereby grant that you will no longer recieve such messages as this one.
    We realize that this process is becoming an annoyance, however, and this is the final message you will recieve from the Hotmail Announcement staff. Thank you for your time and cooperation.
    Sincerely,
    Calvin W. Kreantz
    MSN Accounts Coordinator

    Now, not only does the text of this scream “SPAM, PHISHING, SPAM!”, but it was delivered as gif.

    Yup. Poor Brunhilda.

    I’d email her back, except my actual valid communication would just get drowned out by all the “FW:FW:FW:FW:TRUE FRIENDS” and “URGETN! IMPORTANT INFORMATION WITHIN!” in her inbox. Perhaps if I put “VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM HOTMAIL STAFF” in the subject header she will read it?

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  10. maybe I could learn something if I beat you about the head with a sturdy ladle?

    November 22, 2005 by Cas

    Cas is currently… banging head smilie

    I was wondering what to talk about in this mornings blog post, then this post from Improbulus popped up via RSS, and I thought why not? So I plugged Bright Meadow’s URL into the Marketleap Link Popularity Check tool et voila, 458 links found.

    Ok, so that only classes me as a “limited presence” but phooey to that.

    Going into the results in more depth (oh, come on, you’d do the same!) I found two links I wasn’t expecting – one from a blog post back in 2002 thanking my site for emailing him some links (needless to say, not me, but proof that blogspot recycles domains), and the other from CNET.

    I had been wondering why a lot of people had been coming to view my little grump about Google Print, and this would probably explain it. In CNETs piece “Reaction mixed on Google Print beta, mine is the third “blog community response”.

    Now, of course, this is a huge ego boost. A fair few people out there commented on Google Print, yet what I had to say was one of the few responses chosen. I wasn’t misquoted or even quoted out of context. The journalist took a few moments at least to scan the article and pull out (one of) the more pertinent paragraphs. Still, I am a little on edge because it has illustrated a point I made a while ago – referencing something someone said without contacting them. I had no idea I’d been linked to by CNET, and would probably still be in the dark if I hadn’t done a quick vanity search this morning. It’s a common enough reporting practice in blog-land, one I am all too guilty of myself, but when you’re on the receiving end it does make you stop for a moment and think.

    Still, on the whole I am just a teeny bit smug. You write the words, then let them go off on their own into the big wide Internet, and it’s a pleasure to get proof that a few are doing rather well for themselves.

    Now, if you will excuse me, my ego is now nicely stroked, and I really should be trying to hammer out an introduction and conclusion for the TFH (thesis from hell). I am not sure how well this is going to go, because I had a mammoth 15 minute session with the counsellor this morning (ten minutes of which were spent in silence), which has left me in tears of anger and frustration, shaking from head to foot with the desire to strangle the woman, and having changed counsellors. Still these things are sent to try us, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and all that.

    When to tell the godhead that this thesis has actually broken me?

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