hintofsarcasm
am i still ill? Archive for October, 2005
October 28, 2005 at 19:46 · Filed under Uncategorised
I finally caught up with the rest of the world this week and watched ‘The Godfather‘, widely acclaimed to be the best movie ever made.
Having seen what I was missing out on, I am now on a crusade.
The problem, you see, is, although I love movies. I haven’t seen a lot of the classics.
In fact, I’ve seen hardly any of them. I have access to the DVD’s of all the best ones, my father is a total dvd-buff.
So, here is my list.
- Star Wars
- Indiana Jones
- James Bond
- Lord of the rings
- Batman
- Terminator
- Apocalypse Now
- Schindler’s List
- A clockwork orange
Those listed that are part of a series of movies, I haven’t seen any of them.
Before you say it, No, I haven’t seen Star Wars. I know. I know. I’m a loser.
But, at least I’m making up for it now.
October 28, 2005 at 19:27 · Filed under Uncategorised
My home city, Cardiff, is today 100 years old.
Well, to be precise, it’s been 100 years since it was given city status, by King Edward VII on October 28th 1905.
This year is a double anniversary as the city also celebrates 50 years since it was granted Capital City status.
I do feel however it was very inappropriate that the clocktower and most of Cardiff Castle has been obscured for renovation work, this year of all years. Any visitors coming will be surely dissapointed, and that won’t help the tourism industry that Cardiff City Council are so desperate the nurture and make grow. But, it’s not my decision.
I did decide to go out into the city for lunch today, there was a few things going on in celebration, a small stage with some Welsh vocalists and harpists, free entry to the castle, a free concert at St Davids’ hall, so some thought was put into the day, at least.
On another note, did anybody see or hear the RAF Hawk flyover that was scheduled, according to BBC News, to be flying over Cardiff Bay at 11am? I work very near to the bay and was looking out for it, but, nothing. Did I miss it, or did it not happen?
Flickr > Cardiff photo pool
October 18, 2005 at 11:57 · Filed under Uncategorised
I have a fascination with blogs from workers within the service industry, mainly Waiters/Waitresses. They seem to come out with the most fascinating stories that I think most of us, even those not in the waiting industry will be able to relate to, likely because most of us are decent restraunt-going people who would never dream of being as rude, arrogant or behaving in any way like some of the people that they encounter on a day to day basis.
My addiction started when I discovered ‘WaiterRant’ about a year ago. ‘Waiter’ as he is known has now moved from Blogger to his own domain and has a seemingly large fanbase juding by the amount of comments that come with every single post (sometimes upwards of 200). But, this is totally justified, not just because of the content, which I can assure you is pure gold, but his style of writing is so uniquely personified. He writes in first person, with full dialogue and it really does put you in his shoes, giving you that extra empathy. WaiterRant.net
Another favourite of mine is ‘The Insane Waiter’. Following on from WaiterRant using the pseudonym ‘Secret’, it does seem as though these people vye for privacy, which is fair, as if the general public knew where these people worked, they would either be hassled by customers or they would purposely do things to get into the blog, or, they could even get fired.
Insane Waiter delights with stories of couples acting inappropriately, colleagues threatening sexual harassment lawsuits and customers generally being pretty tight around the wallet area. The Insane Waiter
I can certainly tell you something for nothing, reading these blogs has certainly made me appreciate servers much more and has shed a new light into the industry for me. I shall definitely be tipping a much higher percentage in future. (You know us brits, we aren’t customarily very good tippers)
October 13, 2005 at 14:55 · Filed under Uncategorised
Did Apple not just a few weeks ago release iTunes 5?
After we were stuck on version 4 (and its various updates, 4.1, 4.2 etc.) for almost a year, iTunes 5 comes out and three weeks later is superceded by iTunes 6.
What’s the deal with that?
However, the new iPod video (if thats really what you can call it, after all, it is just an iPod photo that has the video function Enabled) does look pretty damn sexy.
Apparently, it’s thinner than any previous classic iPod’s which will be welcomed as I always found them a little too chubby for my liking (hence the fact I went with the iPod mini)
October 12, 2005 at 11:37 · Filed under Uncategorised
Charlotte Church has revealed that her rugger-playing boyfriend Gavin Henson recently woke up in bed with a different girl…
But it was in fact just her with her new brunette locks - poor Gav, he must have had a nervous moment before realising.
Let me be the first to say,
What the Fuck!
Sky News apparently think that this story is newsworthy.
I think it’s an absolute waste of bandwith, time and energy on the part of the person who had to write it.
Who knows, we may soon have ‘Charlotte has dream of getting a real life’ next.
Also, in case she hadn’t already noticed, her new hair-do is absolutely disgusting and hopefully will only do more to bring down her already failing career.
My advice. Move out of Cardiff. We don’t want you here bringing down our image.
Yes, that is my qualm with you.
October 10, 2005 at 15:12 · Filed under Uncategorised
New Channel4 channel ‘More4′ is launching tonight at 8pm.
The unfortunately tagged ‘Adult entertainment’ channel is being aimed at 30 to 40 something viewers with shows such as ‘The West Wing’ and ‘Sopranos’ is opening with the feature length satire ‘A very social secretary’, about the affair between David Blunkett and Kimberly Quinn.
I was pleased to find upon looking at the listings for tonights premier evening, that they are to show ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart‘. I love that show. All through the run-up to the US Election I downloaded that show almost every single day and still now, I like to catch it at least once a week.
I discovered it after watching CNN’s ‘Crossfire’ which had Jon on as a guest, the episode saw him argue with the host until it finally came to a head live on daytime TV, and I quote;
Tucker Carlson: I do think you’re more fun on your show. Just my opinion.
Jon Stewart: You know what’s interesting, though? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.
It was amazing that somebody had finally stood up to this right-wing bully who never ceases to ram crap down his guests, audiences and viewers throats.
Being able to watch The Daily Show on a regular basis now will definitely enchance my viewing pleasure in so much as, I don’t think I have any viewing pleasure at the moment, what with all the crap that is on TV these days. (Refer to this post)
Looking at the programme lineup for the rest of the week, there are a few programmes I wouldn’t mind catching.
Monday: A very social secratary
Tuesday: Kidnap Ronnie Biggs
Wedneday: Death in Gaza
More4 homepage
October 3, 2005 at 13:56 · Filed under Uncategorised
We all knew it was going to happen, it has been inevtiable since the inception of NTL back in 1997, when Barclay Knapp instructed the buy-out of the dozens of local cable companies to create one conglomerate which became NTL.
NTL, the largest cable company in the UK has bought Telewest, the second largest cable company, in fact, they are the only two cable companies in the UK. Or, not so much anymore.
What will this mean for us, the customers, of either company?
Well, if you want to believe the press releases, which can be read here, here, here (pdf) and here , then apparently we are in for new technologies rolled out quicker and a ‘broader range of personalised communications and entertainment services and even better value’.
Personally, I think that this will de-stablise NTL as a company again, which have only really been on track for a very short time now.
They have just started to make an operational profit, for the first time in its existance and have only recently, in my view, started performing efficiently. This acquisition may put them on the back foot again and thus customers will start to see cracks in the received service.
Unfortunately, there will be redundancies.
Having worked for ntl for some time, this will come as no shock to anybody within the company, in fact, redundancy has become a way of life for many employees, there always seemed to be some sort of ‘cost-cutting’ going on.
Though, I have to say, from my knowledge of NTL and their previous acquisitions, it tends to be the staff of the company that they acquire that bear the brunt of the job-losses, for example, their takeover of Cable & Wireless (their British consumer arm) in 2000 which saw 1,300 jobs go, primarily in C&W.
Update
I’ve spent some of my afternoon pouring through the various press releases that have been coming throughout the day, in particular this one which appears to continually reference the name “UK Cable”. I did a bit of investigative work, and found that UKCable.com has actually already been registered by Telewest.
Domain name: ukcable.com
Registrant Contact:
Telewest Communications Networks Limited
T Brookes (internet@telewest.co.uk)
+44.08009230033
Fax: +44.01733230909
Telewest Business
Orton Southgate
Peterborough, PE2 6YS
GB
So, it seems though the new merged company name is to be “UK Cable”.
Remember, you heard it here first.
