Grim

I notice that winter has started outside the window of the office today.

The tree's seem to be being mercilessly blown about in the wind and it looks thoroughly grey and miserable out there.  Almost makes me want to hug my PC for the warmth.  It's usually quite difficult for me to judge how the weather is doing during the winter as I generally arrive for work in the dark and go home in the dark (actually I got home in the Golf, but that's not important right now). 

 

Occasionally, if I venture out at lunchtimes to forage for food (which is as rare, as there is still fuck all to do in Chadderton during any given lunch time), I may be affected by the weather -adversely or otherwise- but, apart from that, trapped in my office cocoon it's difficult to gauge what's going on.  Probably for the best.

 

I am beginning to realise that I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to coding.  At the moment I'm on a project that seems to be spiralling out of control and running out of time.  So I am freaked out.  Pity as well as I'm arguably working with some of the finest coders (me being on the team finally proving that "birds of a feather do NOT flock together"), so it's not an IT problem, it's the business who are fucking us over.  I can only console myself by reminding myself that I have two weeks off in seven weeks time.. ..and then it will be 2007 - wow!

 

However, my cheap copy of FIFA 07 has been shipped (I know this as I got a SMS from shopto.net - how cool is that!?), so there is some good news after all.  I fully expect to be on the receiving end of seven - nil thrashings on XBox live anytime soon.  Wicked.  Hopefully I'll clock up a few gamerpoints too as the 70 I currently have (see gamercard above) is woeful compared to my online peers.

 

 

Chicken Licken, The Sky Is Falling In!

Ok, it's not exactly falling in, but there's certainly a lot falling out of it. 
Look. 
Watery shit. 
It's landing everywhere, in large quantities. 
There's puddles the size of Lake Windermere in the car park outside. 
This is not the weather I wanted to see with 48 hours to go to the big day, I can tell thee. 

As you may imagine, weather sites like the excellent MetCheck (http://www.metcheck.com) are being heavily consulted at the moment.  Indeed last night we were comparing and contrasting three different forecasts (the beeb, the Met Office and MetCheck) desperately looking for hope in their predictions for Saturday's weather.  At present it doesn't look too great, I must admit.. there's like 90% cloud predicted for around the 4 o'clock mark.  Okay, at the moment, they're not saying it will rain, but if you've seen how wildly the forecasts have changed in the last 72 hours you'd be wise to expect anything.

Not that rain will spoil the day, of course, it just would have been nice if people could have seen the surroundings as they were when we went up there on Monday (24 degrees, blue sky).  As you descend into Ruthin along the A494 you can get some breathtaking views when the weather is fine, and it will be a shame if people miss out on that (particularly for those visiting that neck of the woods for the first time).

So..
Let's all join hands,
And let's do a little chant to bring out the sun...
He's a little shy, but I think I can see him skulking behind that big, black cloud over there.
If we're all really nice to him perhaps we can get him back to his former self for Saturday