There’s been a few instances lately where the blog is eating comments. I’ve no idea why – they just aren’t showing. It’s also refusing to notify me of new comments (grr). CoComment is doing a sterling job catching comments for me but if you post a comment and it doesn’t show within five minutes, either try again or shoot me an email – cas.brightmeadow[at]gmail.com
*gives the server a swift kick up the pants*
I apologise if the tone of this week’s Roast is a little grumpier than usual in places. I just got back from grocery shopping where I got rained on for the fourth week in a row. Now, of course, it is glorious and sunny again. Grrrr. I’m off to make cheesecake in the hope that it will cheer me up. Enjoy these snippets 🙂
If, like me, you love reading you will probably have realised that new books are vastly over priced (especially, I noticed, in Canada – $20 or $30 for a paperback? Criminal!). So I bring you BookMooch, the free book trade and exchange community. It seems like a good idea. Register, list the books you have and the books you want, give and receive. It’s that easy. If I didn’t have a pathological hatred of getting rid of books once I own them (I willingly buy second hand books but am incapable of getting rid of any) I’d be using it.
I am not unaware of the pointing you towards an article about why people don’t comment and not commenting on the article myself… Liz has 10 reasons readers don’t leave comments (and I’d suggest taking the time to read the comment thread for the post as well). Now my main reasons for not commenting are 1) I am self-conscious about new groups and fitting in (I am working on it), and… pretty much everything on Liz’s list. What are your reasons, oh lurkers mine?
I do so love it when people can laugh at themselves – how many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?
I’ve always loved the London skyline, especially the way that the London Eye just fits. Yes, the Manhattan skyline is perhaps more iconic and imposing, but London seems more real to me, with the juxtaposition of old and new, the mundane and breathtaking. Have a look at these pictures to get an idea of what I mean.
So what made me think about the London skyline? These two articles.
I’ve always been interested in what makes ‘good’ writing, but it is something I am becoming more and more aware of the more I try and put my thoughts into words. A List Apart has this wonderful piece on how to write to keep your readers. Like Amber I love writing for the web as it can be so personal. I also agree you should write for a single reader rather than an audience. Well, I try.
I don’t care if it is true or not, it is just funny.
Calling something the world’s most photorealistic art is a big claim, but just this once I might be true. Some of these images are frelling awesome!
Clearly this is a ‘writing’ week. Can you tell the difference between content and copy?
Do you remember when the Web was young? The Internet, 1996 style.
Oliver Stone’s film ‘World Trade Centre’ was screened this week in NYC and the New York Times has a brief piece on differing reactions to the film. I’m firmly in the ‘I have no desire to see this film, ever’. My brother should have been there, but a friend went instead. Just my own memories of that day are bad enough – I don’t need a movie to tell me the history.
Then again, perhaps the American’s do need movies to help them remember, because almost a third of them can’t remember what year 9/11 was. 2001 you dumb f**ks.
Remember me saying the other week how pretty anime was? Well now you can have it on your desktop.
Ever pondered using your ‘power’ as a blogger to take revenge? I know I’ve had a few digs at services in my time (British Gas, grrrr…. *fume*) But perhaps you have more power than you think. The moral here? Think before you eviscerate.
And to finish on a lighter-hearted note, something else I don’t care if it is true or not – messages left by the royals…
No, I’m not sure why candy pink either.
I was a little bored this evening, got playing with photoshop and… one thing led to another and I had a new header image. So of course I then had to tweak the CSS…
I do like the lighter colours at the top – that last burgundy always felt a little oppressive to me. Then again, it is very pink. I don’t as a rule do pink.
Ah, I’ve got a few days of work (yippee!!!) so I expect I’ll be playing some more. I might try greens next. Greens are meadowy after all.
(You might have to refresh the page to see the changes, or clear your browser cache 🙂 )
*EDIT*
Just moments after posting this I decided that yes, it was just too pink for me, so I’ve gone green for now. My moment of folly is preserved here.
*EDIT 2*
I got bored with the green quickly too – it didn’t survive past the first “hospital green” comment. See the green here.
Ok, so I have a new episode of the Bright Cast for your listening pleasure.
Finally! I hear you cry (or not. Perhaps you had forgotten it even existed. If that’s the case, you might want to familiarise yourself with past episodes).
The story for this one comes from Tristan. Tristan ended up reading Bright Meadow somehow a few weeks back and realised that he actually knew me. Odd how these things happen. Anyway, he seems to have stuck around, so yay! He’s a genius student by day, a crimefighting superhero by night, and he lives in one of my favourite cities (Bath). What more is there to say really, other than that he came up with an installment for Salt and Pepper Chess that quite literally had me falling off my seat in laughter.
Before you press play I should say one thing: I am not an actor. I suck at voices. And I have no idea why Les becomes Northern in the middle of the episode. As I said, I suck at voices.
(If you decide to listen to it outside of Odeo on your iPod or something, apparently you’ll have a three second audio intro “to help spread the word about Odeo”. Why use Odeo to host this and not my own server? Because my own server sucks and I’m perilously close to exceeding my bandwidth again)
Now you’ve listened and (hopefully) enjoyed, please comment and let me and my group of dedicated story-writing minions what you think should happen next. If you don’t comment, well… There’s no way of knowing what will happen next 😉
(If you’d like a transcript of this episode, let me know).
I would like to ask you all one thing – be nice to your admin assistant/admin support/admin officer (whatever it is called in your office).
Admin assistants are remarkably overlooked people, yet without us things really would stop working.
Admin assistants aren’t quite PA’s (a job for which I am rapidly gaining respect). Nor are we secretaries. Our job is not to act as gatekeepers (though we often do). Our job is to make things easier for everyone else. We make you look good. We make sure you have the information you need when you need it.
We’re the facilitators.
The little jobs. The jobs our bosses don’t have time to do. We take the crap off their desks so they have time to do the actual work. We compile 40 page reports so our bosses can go to the chief exec. and pretend it was all their own work. At your request we spend a week trying to identify two people out of 10,000 based on just their first name and a two week window when they might have worked somewhere, then when we do identify them get a “Oh… Er, right. And why were you doing that again?”
It’s the admin assistants who have that weird form of telepathy that means we can work out exactly what you want from a mumbled “I need a report on this… No idea how I want it done or what the end result will be… And I need it for next week…”
We can decipher any handwriting (more or less). We can divine what you meant from a cryptic scrawl on a post-it. We get into work early and leave work late just to make sure projects get done in time. We are experts at any and all computer systems. Yes, we know exactly why your computer froze, and yes we are able to get all your data back.
Admin assistants are a remarkably under appreciated bunch I’ve discovered. Be nice to us, really. We have the power to make your life miserable in ways you haven’t even dreamt of yet.
There’s this coven of admin assistants that exist in any organization. At least it does in ours. You start to build up contacts in other departments. You know who to ask when you’ve got a query about one thing. You know where to go when something else goes wrong. The amount of gossip that flies around is astounding. It’s great when you move teams and you suddenly make other connections. What were two disparate parts of your network suddenly overlap and… Ooooh! Lots of new exciting gossip (and worthwhile information of course) is yours for the taking.
If you ever want to know something, ask an admin assistant.
Yes, that’s our job. We don’t expect recognition from on high for the work we did. It’s an understood, even if it isn’t ever really verbalised. We don’t ask for anything special really. Just… Every once in a while, say something nice to your admin assistant. Even a little email that says “U R a star!” goes a long way. Most of us really do like our jobs – it can be quite interesting. But we’re a part of your team. We may be a fair few grades lower down on the pay scale, but we’re the glue that holds everything together.
It’s hard to get enthusiastic about glue but do try.
Look at it this way – you never know when your admin assistant might have a blog. Who knows what they’re saying about you behind your back 😉
Ok, because I have the memory retention of a mentally deficient guppy, I need to record this somewhere:
feeling – tired, slightly woozy, but determined to do some exercise.
weight – (magic number no-one but me is going to know) + 4
ten minute walk to gym
1.2 km treadmill, 11.00 min (fast walk up incline + 2 x 1 min sprints)
500 m rowing, 2.40 min
ten minute walk home