(Car) Tax doesn't have to be taxing

Isn't the internet brilliant..
I mean we take it as read that it's a handy tool for discussing shit on blog sites, whupping people at various online games, finding out information about the new series of Doctor Who and locating pornography, but sometimes you just find something which is really, really useful.
For example it's coming up to the end of the month and my Car Tax is about to expire.
Now this normally means gathering your documents (Certificate of Insurance, MOT certificate (well, thankfully, not yet but soon enough) and the crappy reminder the DVLA send you) and trudging down to the post office to queue for ages in order to hand over a huge sum of cash for a three inch circle of perforated paper. This experience is never fun mostly because you have to sacrifice most of your precious lunch time in order to do it but mostly because a lot of the pensioners stood in front of you in the queue whiff ever so slightly of wee.
But hang on..
Re-reading the DVLA's reminder I spied that you can now get your Car Tax on T'Internet! So rather than spending an entire lunch time in some grimy sub-Post Office, I spent five minutes on the internet, clicking a few buttons and it was all done! Joy of joys!
This truly is a time and pain-in-the-arse saving device. I approve!

Not been on the blog for a while (as regular visitors will know) - sorry full of cold and nose has been too snotty to type (not a pleasant image, I'll grant you but true all the same). And whilst I'm here, apologies in advance - am off to see Nine Inch Nails in London tomorrow so am buggering off down South for the weekend. A few torrents of the last weeks show's have appeared on the internet, so if you use BitTorrent, you can hear Nine Nails Live Here.

Bank Holiday Gut Buster Special

It would seem wherever I have worked there is some sort of food-related regular fixture each week. In London we had the fabled "Plough Special", which was consumed in an eating area (I am loathed to use the term restaurant as it really wasn't anywhere near that plush - it kinda looked like a working man's club) in the downstairs of a pub (called The Plough, obviously) in the middle of the City of London. The Plough Special saw more chips than you can ever imagine assembled on one plate (there were other foodstuffs there, but they were dwarfed next to this deep fried potato mountain), just breathing nearby could actually make your arteries harden.. In my former job it used to be a weekly lunchtime run to the Kebab and Pizza stores, which meant every Friday afternoon there was the distinct whiff of chili (and the side-effect of chili) lingering in the office.. funky!
Here, it's the Friday morning breakfast run.. We have a fabulous butty shop not far from us (and they deliver).. Now as tomorrow is Good Friday we've had to bring it forward a day and we've managed to go for a "Bank Holiday Gut-Buster Special" - which essentially means that 8 people have managed to order nearly eighteen quid's worth of food (and when you consider you can get a bacon muffin for £1.30 you may begin to appreciate how much food that actually means we're getting!!). In about an hour's time there'll be more lard in our office than is usually required to get an Elephant in a telephone box!!
Have a nice Easter y'all!

Win NIN stuff

Hyperlaunch New Media (media promotions site) have this THTF related page up on their site. It loops a sample of the single, with a neat little jerky visualisation. Not only that, if you register with the site, you get entered into a competition to win an exclusive limited edition 9" vinyl boxset (one of 1000).

I don't actually have a record player any more but, what the fuck, I'm entering anyway..

Just browsing

I've decided to ditch Internet Explorer..
I know lots of other people have probably done this ages ago, but I finally got fed up with it (mainly because IE's pop-up blocker seems to be a big pile of festering shite) and decided to look at the alternatives available. I decided, in the end, to go for Avant Browser, mainly because it's free (as annoying as pop ups are, they can be closed, so why pay for something that gets bundled with Windows anyway?) but also because it was the highest rated alternative to Internet Explorer (that you didn't have to pay for) in a recent PC magazine that was knocking about the office.

For those who cannot be arsed to click the link above (and are, therefore, obviously not running a multi-tabbed web browser), here's the top ten reasons to install Avant:

"Flash Animation Filter: More than 85% of all flash animation on web pages is advertising. These flash files are pretty large, and normally take up to 90% of the size of the page you're visiting. With Avant Browser you can save this bandwidth by blocking the download of these flash files with just one easy click. Avant Browser also provides options to block downloads of pictures, videos, sounds and ActiveX components. With these options users can control their bandwidth and speed up page loading.

Built-in Pop-up Blocker: Easily eliminate unwanted pop-up pages automatically with just one click. (and this one actually works - Ed)

Additional Mouse Functions: If you click a link in the web page with the middle mouse button, the link will be opened in a new window in the background. And there are two handy mouse gestures in Avant Browser. The first allows you to navigate backward one step by holding the right button down and then clicking on the left button simultaneously. The second allows you to navigate forward one step by reversing the buttons used: hold left, and click right.

Multi-Window Browsing: Browse multiple web pages simultaneously. All opened pages can be easily stopped, refreshed, closed or arranged with one click.

Real Full Screen Mode and Alternative Full Desktop mode: When you enable Full Screen Mode, all you see is the webspace, with no toolbars or other clutter. They are simply autohidden! Move your mouse over the top or bottom and find the toolbar and tab bar respectively. Avant Browser also provides Full Desktop Mode, which is the same as Full screen mode, but differs in that your windows task bar stays visible.

Built-in Yahoo/Google Search Engine: Avant Browser provides a built-in search engines, Yahoo and Google. Built-in search engines enable user to search for web pages, images, groups, directories, news, lyrics and software in Internet. International users will be glad to know that you can set avant to utilize any of up to 64 google mirrors by default!

Full IE Compatibility: Avant Browser comes with all Internet Explorer functions, including Cookies, ActiveX Controls, Java Script, Real player and Macromedia Flash. IE bookmarks are automatically imported into Avant Browser.

Records Cleaner: With Avant Browser, you can easily keep your privacy by deleting Typed Addresses, Auto-Complete Passwords, Cookies, History of Visited Web Sites, Temporary Internet Files and Search Keywords.

Safe Recovery: If Avant Browser is closed improperly, all open web pages are saved and will be automatically reopened at next startup.

Skins: Express your creativity by making a skin for Avant using a custom, easy to use program called Avant Browser Skin Factory, or use any of the many and varied skins made by other users."

Am using it now and am very happy with it..
The multi-tabbed feature (having several web pages displayed in a single window) is particularly helpful for blogging to be honest, particularly when you're trying to include links in the entry you're writing and saves the hassle of having multiple Internet Explorer windows open. The fact that you can move forward and back on each of these tabbed windows is also a nice touch. Plus it imported all my IE favourites for me (so the browser was ready to go straight out of the box) and it just looks cleaner somehow.. it's a much nicer interface. Is early days, I know, but I doubt I'll be heading back to Internet Explorer anytime soon..

Ciao

Thank fuck for that

Blogger was shite last week, the servers seemed to be running on low powered AA batteries and it would take fucking ages to post updates..
Things seem to have improved somewhat today - ha haa!
Might post more regularly now (although I fucking doubt it)

Appy-polly-logies

Sorry, yet another hectic weekend has meant the updates have been a tad thin on the ground. Well, of course, I say thin, when I actually mean non-existent. Still exhausted to be honest, there's a mass of chores that need to be done, and all I want to do is crawl under my duvet and sleep for eighteen hours..
Ah well, bank holiday weekend this weekend, maybe I can get some sleep then, eh?
Of course the bank holiday means that as I write this I've already completed a quarter of the working week - fabulous and next week will be even shorter thanks to a quick trip to London to see the rather fabulous Nine Inch Nails. ("The Hand That Feeds" continues to grow on me, by the way ) So I get only two days in work and I get to see my favourite band love with only approximately 2000 other people. Good stuff.

I have become increasingly appalled this weekend as to how much of a hoarder I have become in the last five years. When growing up I was always having a go at my parents for the amount of "clutter" the family home had (mainly because Mum couldn't bear to see a bit of surface, be it shelf-space or mantel piece, without some sort of figurine or something on it - there were more porcelain elephants knocking round the house than there probably were real elephants roaming about on the plains, I tell thee). So upon getting my own place I originally had the resolve to not hoard stuff, to keep surfaces clean and uncluttered, to have a lot of actual space in my living space. It's only when you come to actually create more space that you realise that if you have space then you ultimately try to fill it. Honestly the amount of unnecessary books, back issues of Empire, tour programs, etc, etc, I had in my possession was truly scary. I think I have pushed the limit as to just how many bin bags of crap that the council will take away on a weekly basis recently but still there's so much more stuff knocking about - I think a trip to the tip is in order!! Unfortunately, not much of it is suitable for whacking on eBay to see if some poor schmuck will shell out his/her hard-earned for my unwanted shite, but may have to add a few auctions over the next couple of days!! So if you've money to burn, shelves to fill and a prediliction for unwanted clutter - watch that space!!

Oh and I cannot go without mentioning a certain football match that took place over the weekend. Yay! We spanked the bitter bluenoses right back across Stanley Park. Mwaaa haa ha ha ha ha haaa.. Just hope the victory didn't come at too high a price and that, with Morientes injured and Milan Baros suspended (after missing two sitters that a blind cripple could have stuck in the back of the net) it might actually come to pass that Rafa might not be joking when he says that he might have to pick himself to play upfront for our game against Bolton!!

Bank Holiday Countdown

Well that was the last full week at work for a few weeks, kids. Praise be for Bank Holiday weekends! They rock! They rule! They give us a four day working week and that's just fucking sweet.

HALO 18

nin.com has some updates on the new single from Nine Inch Nails (only available in the UK and Europe apparently).
Here's the blurb:
(Here comes the science part, concentrate)

"The Hand that Feeds" has begun airplay on radio stations worldwide.
The Hand That Feeds single will be released in the UK/Europe on April 18th. It will be available as a 2-track slimline and a limited edition 4-track digipack package. The digipack will only be available for the first two weeks of release.
This single will not be released in North America.

The site also has a rehearsal video for the track, dubbed with the studio version of the song - fuck me, it's awesome.
Haven't enjoyed a vid this much since I first saw "We're in this together" in August 1999! Fair do's this version is a lot better than the "internet leak" we heard a couple of weeks ago..

Yup sorry it is another Nine Inch Nails related posting, but I'm seeing them in two weeks (for the first time since December 1999) so am fairly excited.

No score bore

Yawn..
Stretch..

Sorry just got back from the Liverpool v Blackburn game (amazingly never actually slipped into a coma during the match, but it was close at times). Thats two points pissed away for starters.. In all fairness to Blackburn they must be pleased to come away with a point and the sense of a professional job well done. As for us, well we never showed up, what a difference a week can make.. Did I dream we got into the final 8 of the Champion's League last week..?

Have decided, despite tonight's "performance", that I'm going to be back at Anfield this coming Easter Sunday though. There's charity match to raise money for the Tsunami appeal, with the Liverpool legends taking on a celebrity eleven. I must say I am fucking impressed with the legends taking part. Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Kevin Keegan, John Barnes, Robbie Fowler, Steve Macmanaman, Alan Hansen, and Phil Thompson are amongst the starting team for the reds (yes "Razor" Ruddock is there too, but "legend"? Please) and they'll be facing the likes of Ralph Little, Kasabian, Shane Ritchie, Niall Quinn and others on the celebrity side. The match is a bargain too, only costing £15 for adults or £5.00 for kids and it's all for charity, mate, so who can possibly complain? Know there are some footy fans who read this, so if you fancy a giggle why not pop along? Call 0870 220 0056 and buy some tickets and raise money for a good cause (and remember a time when players weren't greedy little cunts, manipulated by agents).

Anyway, bedways is rightways now..
Nighty night

Episode III Trailer

Revenge of the Sith trailer is online.
Check it out here

Actually this is one hell of a trailer.. and doesn't it look like the grim chapter we've all been waiting for (after all we've always know that Darth Vader helped the Empire hunt down the Jedi).. certainly there seems to be no obvious Jar Jar Binks references (pity, as I was hoping to see him being gratuitously decapitated in the first fifteen minutes)..

Trying to keep excitement in check (as Phantom Menace sucked and Attack of the Clones wasn't great) but am mildly looking forward to this..

sigh

Once again the ugly "Process" word has reared its ugly head..

For those of you not involved in Software Development it would seem that an unfeasibly large amount of time is dedicated to this word, trying to define the perfect process (or methodology, if you will) for producing quality software..

Once again, however, it would appear that the approach undertaken is all wrong, wrong, wrong.. before I knew it the whole meeting had launched into a lengthy discussion about what documents need to be produced and whether there should be checklists or reviews of these documents, yadda.. yadda.. yadda..

So we're basically back to defining a Document Development process..
At no point did anyone (in authority) say: "Hey why don't we spend some time on defining a way of ensuring that the products we deliver to the user are of the highest quality, meet all of the requirements and are delivered within time and budget".

You see, after the meeting (once I'd finished spitting blood and there was no longer steam coming out of my ears) I realised that the approach undertaken was all wrong.. People were already thinking about what documents need to be produced, and who needs to be in review meetings, etc when really they need to turn their thinking around a little.

Now before I get lambasted by anyone, yes I hold my hand up: I am fond of agile methodoligies and approaches such as eXtreme Programming in order to develop software solutions. But before you declare me the "Anti-Christ of Documentation", accept the fact that I realise that there must be a certain level of documentation. As we have external customers for our software they expect a certain amount of documentation in order to sign off agreements so that we can go ahead and actually write the fucking software. Also we are audited by all sort of Quality bodies, and I know they will expect to see evidence of a process being followed, and some documentation should be presented as evidence of that..

But..

and it's a big but..
(not a big butt, that's something entirely different)
It's such a big but, let's make it bold..

But..
that's better..

We are a Software Development department. The primary output of the department should be the software solutions we provide. Let's first look at how we can make them of the highest quality, and then see what comes out of that process in terms of documentation.

So what is quality software?

Well I'd argue (and by Christ, I think I'm arguing to myself here, but I'm on a roll here so don't stop me now, if you're bored go search for some porn or something), that quality software must fulfill the users expectations, in terms of meeting their needs and requirements. It must be reliable (so it cannot meet their requirements, but crash every five minutes, that won't do). It should be maintainable (so if the user has further requirements in the future, we are not required to re-write the system from scratch because no other fucker understands the system delivered and the original programmer fucked off to work for our competitors two months ago). It should work

Okay, I'm over simplifying here, but people have written books on this shit and, as annoyed as I am, I don't intend to write a novel myself this evening.

So in order to ensure that I have delivered a quality system I must ensure that I fully understand exactly what is required.

How do I do that?

Before anyone shouts "Write a specification" (actually, don't. Not even in jest. Don't make me come over there and slap you stupid), stop a minute. First I need to know who wants the software, I must identify the customer, the person who needs the information that my system will produce or requires me to model the process they hope to automate. If I don't know who they are, then who the fuck am I going to go to to find out what needs to be done?

So.. firstly locate the appropriate people from whom I can get this information from.

Now, as self-important as they like to be, this may not necessarily be a list of directors and upper-management (as in my experience they know fuck all, apart from how to draw a massive salary and sit in their offices listening to their arses getting fatter). Of course it might be them (depends on the size of the company I guess), but they might not actually be close enough to the process I'm trying to model to actually provide me with any relevant information. They, of course, might need to bankroll the development, and should be kept in the loop somewhere (maybe as something like a project sponsor or something). But, in most cases, in terms of what I'm actually expected to deliver, they probably don't know their arses from a hole in the ground, so they should never be the person I speak to if I need to find out what the software actually needs to do, or later on if I find that one of my requirements is a little ambiguous and requires some clarity.

So I assemble my little list of customers or users or whatever the fuck you want to call them (seriously, I don't care what you call them. I know every methodology has a variation on a theme as to what they should be called but this is superfluous detail in my fucking opinion).

Actually, for the sake of argument, let's call them Wookiees.

So I have a list of Wookiees.

The Wookiees possess the knowledge that I need to capture in order to know what my software needs to do (and most importantly to let me know when I'm done).
I also need to agree with the Wookiees that they're going to be available for me to get information from them, no point appointing a load of Wookiees if they're going to be working for the next six Months in Australia and will never turn up to a fucking meeting (whether I put a reminder on the meeting request or not).

Also it's no good someone giving me a list of Wookiees, when the Wookiees have no idea they've got any involvement in the fucking project, as the Wookiees probably have their own work to do and will be quite pissed off when I come along badgering them for information when they're trying to get the rear stabilisers on the Millennium Falcon fixed.

So I have a list of Wookiees who have agreed to work with me to help me deliver my software.

Now, to me, that seems to be some sort of project deliverable. It's a document that details who is available for me to go talk to when I need some information (stay with me you Agile developers, you have nothing to fear except maybe a slight paper cut (and then only if you print the fucking thing)), it has the names of the Wookiees, maybe the department they work in or their job description and maybe (if we're feeling adventurous) their telephone extention or something. This adds value to the process of developing the quality software as I now can always refer to this list to find out who I should speak to if I run into a problem later on, or when it comes to gathering requirements.

Therefore it's not a document produced just for the sake of producing a document.

Shit, this is actually handy (particularly if I'm not the coder who is actaully gonna write this, some other poor sap might need to pick this project up later now he or she knows who can help them out too!). It might even detail who's paying for the fucking project (as they might need to give me some go ahead later, but we've not even got there yet, so let's not worry about it). Right now, all I imagine is that on a sheet of paper I have a list of Wookiees (as this is all I've considered about how I'm going to produce my quality software), but it's a fucking start.

So now I need to get the information from the Wookiees about what the fuck they want..

Now I'm not going to go on and on and end up writing my own Utopian software development process here, and I will probably find that even here there's a couple of things that need to be ironed out to really make it work.

However my point is that I'm coming at this from the angle of "How do I ensure we deliver a quality software solution" as opposed to "How do I write a shit load of documents".

Documents may ultimately be a product of some of the things I ultimately end up doing and if they add value to producing my software (as I'd argue my list of Wookiees did above) then I don't see it being a fruitless task to produce them.

I wish I could convince a couple of other people to think like this, and just consider what it is that Software Engineers actually need to produce as I'm sure it would make everyone's life a lot better (particularly the poor Wookiees who end up using the bloody software), but instead I'll just get it off my chest on my blog.

Gonna hit the brandy now, thanks for listening (if you stayed this long)..

Strangers..

Keep getting hits on this page from.. strangers.
People who are not local..
Outsiders.
Interlopers.
Actually, I think that they might be engaging in a little "left-handed browsing" as nearly all of them are doing image searches for Sarah Alexander and whilst I did once post a picture of her once on this blog, frigging ages ago (the search engines at Lycos and Yahoo! must have only just have caught up, fucking amatuers!), you'll not find any porn here, and certainly nothing of note to have a quick hand shandy over so move along, move along..



Right..
Kiddies gone now?
Are the adults still here?
Are you sitting comfortably?
Oh, good then I can begin..
Constantine did not disappoint, it was a good solid two hours of top entertainment so PJ can sleep soundly knowing that his recommendation will not be scoffed at on these hallowed pages (although still waiting to hear your opinions on Doctor Who you git!). Not having read the graphic novels I cannot say I was disappointed at all (although I'm sure there's places where you can discuss the changes to the underlying story, not to mention the country of origin of your favourite Exorcisor. Try alt.movies.suck.whinge.whinge (I'll see you there after the Hitchhikers' movie comes out -if it blows goats!))

Nothing else of note happened today, though, so there..
Will be inspired to write more at some point in the future, no doubt..

Til then, keep watching the pies..

18 Months and Counting..

It's been a relatively quiet weekend you know.. which is a good thing as batteries needed recharging and sometimes it's good just to step off the pace a little, breathe deeply and chill the fuck out. And I have, and am feeling pretty damn good for it too thank you all the same..
Not that it's been an uneventful weekend, oh no, as there have been a few items of note..
First is I the annual insurance reminder from Liverpool Victoria. Shite. Just spent money servicing the bastard car, the tax is due at the end of the month and now the fucking insurance needs doing. It never fucking rains but it pours, huh? Anyway these fuckers were the cheapest by a country mile last year, but this year they have engaged the "financial rape probe" and the premium has shot up (much like the probe, I'd imagine). So have had to spend two bastard hours looking for a more competitive quote. Now, for the first time in fucking years The AA have actually "quoted me happy" (yes I am well aware that the quote is the slogan for another insurance, but they fucking quoted me depressed so they can fuck right off!) - knocking over £50 off the quote I got from my current insurers. But, alas, could I make the purchase right away? Could I fuck. Will have to try again during business hours. Bastards, the lot of them - what a horrific necessary evil car insurance is.. It's all the fault of those fuckers who put in bogus injury claims after a little bit of whiplash becomes a sudden spinal injury once some cunt waves a compensation cash reward under their noses. Anyway, sorry, rant over.
Also off to see a preview of Constantine tonight. Frequent blog browsers may be aware that my good friend PJ got to the premiere of this flick whilst he was off globe trotting, so am taking his recommendation seriously and am parting with some hard-earned to watch the movie. If it's shite, I'll flame him publicly on his blog!! ;)
And finally, big news, we've finally booked the Wedding, it's going to be (service and reception - and if you're invited to one, you're invited to both) at Ruthin Castle. As a programmer who is fond of agile methodologies, I am taking the planning for this whole thing like an eXtreme Programming project, and am breaking down the whole project into short iterations. Well that's iteration one marked as complete, onto the next CRC card to see what needs to be done next!! Sad I know, but it does seem to be making the whole planning/paying-for process a little less daunting (trust me, there's seemingly fucking thousands of things to do when one considers the wedding as a whole!).

Choooon!

Been listening to the Kaiser Chiefs' debut album, Employment, today and it really is toptastic.. I know a lot of people will be familiar with "Oh my God" as it seems to be getting an absolute shit load of radio airplay at the moment, but for me the track of the album is "I predict a riot" - which I'm sure has been used under loads of goal montages on Sky's Soccer AM show (Lovejoy, whilst knowing fuck all about what team to support, certainly can pick out a tune, pretty sure I first saw Kasabian on that show and you all know how good they are!!).
Anyway, just had to have a quick rave about this - tis fabulous!!

Fuck my old boots

Last 8 in the champions league?
Who'd have thought it?
Now.. why the fuck can we not play like that against the likes of Birmingham and Southampton?
Answers on the back of a fiver to..

Who's The Daddy

Well I have had a few hours to think about the episode of the new Doctor Who series, and the more I think about it the more I like it.
To be fair, it must have been a bitch of an episode to write - the series has been off the screens for ages so the first episode had to "grab" a new audience (and fill them in on who the Doctor is, introduce things like the TARDIS) whilst still pleasing the existing fan base.. Oh and seeing as you cannot just have an episode introducing characters you'd better have a story in there too. I wouldn't have fancied that. All too easy to write a turkey of "Phantom Menace" proportions. Thankfully I'm not a screenwriter (and probably never will be) and Russell T. Davis is, and he's a great one at that.
Gonna try not to give too much away, but here are some non-spoiler opinions.
Christopher Ecclestone will be a fabulous Doctor.. This episode zips along at such a pace that it doesn't give much time for the character to breathe in this episode, but it does serve up enough screen time to seriously hint at just how good he will be.
They've thrown some money at production values!!! So the camera work, sets and special effects don't look shite. Okay it's not a multi-million effects budget (a la Hollywood, or the more expensive US TV shows) but what's there works.. well.. gone are the monsters made out of Baco-foil and bubble wrap anyway! The interior of the TARDIS is fantastic too.
It does have a "darker" edge (as opposed to the campness and, at times, positively comical approaches of the last few series), but it's still a family show..
There's humour, but not inappropriate (or, worse, unintentional) mainly generated by the fact that the Doctor is back to being his best know-it-all, smug self :)
Oh and the theme tune is familiar as is the exterior of the TARDIS (and, yes, the noise when it materialises/dematerialises is the same too!!). Best of all is the return of the sonic screwdriver - about fooking time!!
I really enjoyed it (as you might be able to tell), finally a BBC1 show (not originally on BBC THREE) that's worth watching!

Knock Knock

Who's there?
Doctor
Doctor Who?
Exactly.

Old gag I know, but it's late and I've only just finished watching the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who (god bless internet leaks), entitled "Rose". Never knew the first episode is a one part story, expected a cliff-hanger. Will write more tomorrow, must sleep now - but it's great. It's weird seeing the show with decent production values I must admit, but it's great.
Christopher Ecclestone fucking rocks..

..anyway.. to be continued, will give a considered opinion tomorrow

later peeps

W.O.W

So there's a new craze in the office, and I'm being encouraged to join in, but am doing a good job of resisting so far..
A few of our team now seem to be spending a ridiculous amount of time playing this new online game, "World of Warcraft". Now it would appear that the Warcraft series of games have moved on from the days when it used to be a poor man's "Command and Conquer" (which is the last time I played/saw it really).
No.. now the game has become some sort of MMORPG - which, apparently, is an acronym for "Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game". Honestly. And people have a go at Computer Industry Acronymns?
Anyway, I keep on being dragged into conversations about how one person is a level twenty one, whilst someone else is only a level seven.. And then there's other chats about how someone has a snake as a pet (although this is purely decorative) and somebody else has a mechanical squirrel (WTF?)
Anyway there's been people who have dedicated 6 days of gaming time (real time) to this thing in the last two weeks. And these people work too! How do they find the time? I barely get time these days to check my mail and update this blog (sporadically) but other people seem to have an infinite amount of time to spend in front of a PC slaying orcs and creating mechanical squirrels!!!
I think I need to get a DeLorean if I'm to find that many hours in any given day..
Kinda looks interesting though..
If only I was a student again!!

Don't Panic

Stephen Fry as the book - genius.