Bit of an update

By Paul | June 19, 2009

Hello everyone. It has been a little while. Since I last posted I have pretty much kicked alcohol and been running lots on my treadmill in my garage. I am feeling quite fit and have managed to lose a little weight which is always good eh.

Last weekend I went to Oslo with Angela and we had a pretty ace time. If anyone fancies it you should be aware that you need a mortgage to get drunk. It is whoringly expensive. So do not go there trying to get pissed!

Do go there with the intention of walking around the place and seeing stuff. Do get an Oslo pass. We got a 72 hour one because with that you get a “free” 2 hour cruise around the Fjord. This came with a free prawn buffet and so long as you like pulling their little prawn heads and tails off you are in luck. The pass also gets you access to every bus, train, tram and underground (metro) which is very useful. The magical pass also gets you money off at loads of restaurants and entry to all the museums and galleries. So in short; every city should definitely do this for tourists !

I have shaved my head…. Again. So I am once more feeling like a monkey ready to be shot into space. I was happily feeling badass about it until I made a desk shaped wound right in the middle of my head. It bled a lot. Though I seem to have avoided concussion, I may however have a scar forever. But.. Hey, I will look more like a thug and that isnt a bad thing probably.

I am almost done reading Charlie Brooker’s: Dawn of the Dumb. Which is a collection of his articles for the Guardian from about 2005 to 2008 ish. I think. I really like the writting style and have, ofcourse, loved when he wrote way back when for PC Zone.

I have bought the complete West Wing (Thats 7 seasons people). I have never seen any of it before and I am trying to immerse myself in it. It is good playing spot the extra. I have enjoyed Lisa Cuddy (from house) and the mother fucking badass Admiral Adama (from Battlestar).

It is an enjoyable show to watch. Even if sometimes I think there is so much flag waving going on the boxed set should issue you with an old glory and a projector. So you can just project the drama straight onto the flag and thus cutout the area of doubt.

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Why?

By Paul | June 4, 2009

I tried to vote today. It kind of had to be today because they are not going to open up the polling stations again when it is convenient for me to go. So last year I registered to vote at my flat in St Clements. I moved house about 2 months ago and, while I did not cancel my utility bills at the old place, I *did* get a form sent to me to change my registration to my new address.

So yesterday I realise that I have no Polling card? Not an issue you can go and vote anyway. Not having a card though meant I didnt know where to go. So I opened a frankly terrible list of addresses where not all of them have post codes. While I am on the subject. The list was in PDF format and so when I got a mite lost I was totally unable to read the list again from the blackberry work gave me. Not that it would have helped because the thing has an awful interface to a mapping utility.

Found the nearest one in Headington which had a post code. It is about a 7 minute walk so I bounded off on my bike and was there in a couple of minutes.

Not my polling station.. The actual place nearest was literally 1 small side street away, but I didnt recognise the street name as it is so small and there was no postcode for it on the list. They didnt have me on their polling list. I get told here that the polling list is made up on October 14th and moving house doesnt count for shit. I would still be registered down in St Clements.

I called up the Oxfordshire Election people at the council and true enough I am registered in St Clements. Had this been city council elections this would have meant me voting for someone to represent me who wouldnt end up representing me. Eight months is a hell of a cut off point. Most students will move twice a year. I am not a student, but there is rather a lot of them and you can probably see why I avoided voting all through Uni. I was never in the same place for 8 months.

I think the voting system is fundamentally designed to allow old people to vote. Having seen 3 polling stations today I can say that vote they do ! Bimbling in to tick BNP, UKIP or whatever then scooting off for tea and a bun. Jolly day out for them, and what a sunny day it was too.

So 1 day, 3 polling stations and finally I got to place my mark around 9:20pm. After an excellent day where I had a nurse take 3 (which seems to be the recurring number of the day) vials of my blood so a bunch of tests can be done.

A day where my client gave me 3 URLs to test with none of them actually being live. A working day which ended at 3pm when the client called up (it probably rang 3 times) to say that the testing was off for today at least. A day where I cut the grass emptying the mower, you guessed it, THREE times!

Ending with watching night at the museum 2 which I would give 3 out of 5 stars. A good laugh but nothing utterly spectacular. I will probably enjoy seeing it at christmas for the rest of my natural born life on ITV (which is channel 3).

By the time you have read this you can no longer vote.

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So a good week then.

By Paul | May 30, 2009

Last weekend I bought myself a bike (the only one I have ever actually paid for since I basically stole my brothers mountain bike when I got tall enough to). I have not spent much time on it as I was whisked away to Glasgow for a week of work. The hotel was pretty good over looking the Clyde and right next to the SECC.

They had an executive lounge which is a concept I have never seen before outside of airports. It is basically just a room on one of the upper floors with a TV, Computer and some board games which no1 used. They have a fridge full of corona and wine and you just help yourself basically. My colleague has so many priority club points he got free entry to this room. He had a copy of his door card made for me and I went in pretending to be him.

I stole quite a lot of beer and food this week :D . To make it double cheeky I then got Joe over one night and he helped me swindle some more beers. Good curry out with Joe and Alison on the Tuesday then off to a little pub cause there was live 50’s blues being played. Some random old gent came over and appeared to try and chat up Alison without using any words. Just did a strange little dance and covered his right eye with his hand and pointed at her with the other.

Watched the champions league final in my favourite pub in all the universe. The Beer Halle Republic in Glasgow on Gordon Street. This place is just awesome. The pizza is amazing and cheap. The staff are friendly and.. No two ways about it are pretty gorgeous. Also serve you beer in 2 pint stein glasses. I recommend it. I recommend it.

I do not think it is a coincidence that Park Ji Sung was playing in the champions league final just days after North Korea started reminding us all they can wipe out all of man kind on the whim of a rather ill lunatic. So I was speaking very loudly like Kim Jong as depicted in Team America and saying; “awww swir awrex. Hewro pwease. We got the nuke now. You pway Park Ji Sung now.” … Then what are the chances that an elderly chinese women would walk into the pub and come sit behind us as I was doing this. Oh well.. She didnt appear to hear so I kept doing it anyway.

Erm, caught up with Douglas that night and he and his lady are putting off getting married on account of her being a bit pregnant. Congrats eh!

Last night it was good to see people from work show up to wave goodbye to the boss who is offski for whatever cagey future venture he has in the pipeline. There is one. He just aint telling us.

I have a feeling the corporate asshole brigade are going to rock in and shower shit down onto us like shit is going out of fashion. Whereas what a pentest team needs is to have work lined up for us, the information past onto the tester in a timely fashion, and then to be left to do the testing and reporting. If we stop producing the work ontime then pretty much yea beat us with a stick but until we do you will have happy techies forever if you just adopt a bit of laissez faire.

It was a pretty simple method of management as you only hear from us when shit is going wrong. Pretty much if it starts to go the other way with; timesheets, suits, tied to the desk 9-5 in an office. I will pretty much have to fuck off and find something else. Bit of a pre-emptive whinge there just incase the end of the Ken era heralds too much wank to splatter.

Aaaand to a BBQ round Johns. So a good week then.

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Officially Timed

By Paul | May 18, 2009

So despite me not being able to train for 2 weeks or being able to sit down effectively cause of my back I still dragged myself around the 10km circuit for the Bupa Great Manchester Run. I think I am still running on adrenaline because my back doesnt hurt so much (or my thigh has simply superceeded it on the pain chart).

Here you go stats fans:

bupa Great Manchester Run 2009

I said I’d do it under an hour and I did. So suck it world I have run it for all the clinically obese people

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On the eve of things

By Paul | May 16, 2009

Hello everybody peeps,

So I was training to run the manchester 10km for a few months. It all came to a halt about 2 weeks ago when my back started to hurt (not as a result of training, and I have not identified the culprit of why it is sore yet). Anyway, I am up in Huddersfield tonight and I still intend on going through and running it as walking seems ok it is more a problem while seated. So I hope it is ok for tomorrow then I will go seek medical opinions after the event.

To make things even better I am feeling a little like a cold is coming on. Damn my nephew! Kids may be fun to run about with but they are little germ ridden swines.

After Magdalena came to my house warming with a potrait of my beautiful face I have become a little obsessed by having people paint or draw me. Yes, it is quite odd I get that. But I have a number of peoples artistic interpretations and I will get a gallery on the go.

Tonight Philippa has painted one of me to add to the List:

me!

My sister has kindly carved me from a potato but I can’t upload the pictures now as I dont have the data cable. You should all be aware that it is suitably awesome.

As I type this my nephew is doing an artistic rendering of me in crayon. Apparently I have a silver beard and a yellow nose.

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