Cas is currently…

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.

Cas is currently…

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.

Cas is currently…

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?

Cas is currently…

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?

Cas is currently…

I know I’ve already blogged today, but I am having a ten minute tea break to give the buzzing in my right arm time to settle down (not quite got the desk here at Meadow Towers at optimal anti-RSI configuration), and I found the following article:
Is Sex Necessary? on Forbes.com

I will leave you pondering the delivery mechanism of the mineral that strengthens teeth – never heard it compared to squeezing a tube of toothpaste before…
And challenge all you men out there not to wince just a teeny bit when you reach the end of the article.

Cas is currently…

Spooky is a blog minion par excellence. Not only does he animate some very cute penguins, he also finds some of the funniest-slash-most surreal sites imaginable.

Just in case you missed his comment on this past week’s sunday roast, here is the site:

Lejo. You can choose to see the site in a variety of languages (warning, english is not the default), and there are some supreme videos to be seen. So beautifully stripped back and elegantly simple, yet so very very effective. Here’s a taster – DJ.

Cas is currently…

Last Saturday (the 19th), the Cute Canadian and myself took ourselves off up to London for the day. The trip was originally planned to celebrate my freedom from that hell known as “thesis”, and three months managing not to kill each other. Due to my total inadequacy and inability to finish what I bloody well started over six months ago now (ARG!), we came to a mutual agreement that, ok it wasn’t time to celebrate yet, but I still needed a day off before my head exploded.

We took in the British Library, the British Museum, the London Eye, and Polar Express in 3D at the IMAX. All in 9 hours. Oh, and we found time for some lovely food too at Azzurro, though by the time we ate I was so tired I think a Big Mac would have tasted good to me.

We had a wonderful time and, whilst it probably served the opposite purpose of de-stressing me because now I am even more behind and panicked, I wouldn’t have not gone. We even rode the tube an extra stop so I could get off at Mornington Crescent and get my picture take by a sign. I have no excuse other than that I grew up listening to Radio 4 and “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue“. (If you are still baffled, and you will be, read this article, then give up and just listen to a show. Trust me, you will laugh if you have one iota of humour in your body).

I have uploaded some of the better pictures to Flickr, and the set can be found here. You can also find them under the tag londontrip2005.

My favourite of all of them, though I can’t put into words why, is this one:

(Click to see full set and to comment etc).

If you are ever in London, I really would recommend a trip on the Eye. I’ve been twice now and loved it both times. Do book online before hand, because it will cut a good 30 minutes off your queueing time, and you can specify (roughly) what flight you would like. One word of warning though, even if you book in advance you will be standing in a queue to board for about 30 minutes. The line moves quickly, and there’s plenty to see if you like people watching, but you will be standing. If you have any elderly/young/infirm in your party, I would suggest paying that little extra and getting a fast-track ticket, or investing in a shooting stick. The views are worth it though, and if you can time it for dusk, do so – beautiful.