Lying Liars

I discovered yesterday that some random person is claiming to have ‘completed’ a certain classified ads site.  He worked there for three months at the most, and I know for a fact that it wasn’t him developing the site anyway.

I found myself a tad angered at this, not necessarily on behalf of the classified ads site – they are too apathetic to do anything about it – but because there is no realistic way of preventing this blatant lie from existing.

I have quite a well-developed ‘offense against rightness’ sensitivity, and it agitates me no end to discover that people lie bare-facedly and unashamedly. Admittedly, the Internet makes it very easy to do this in a quasi-anonymous way and not have to face the people you are lying to, but there should be *something* done to defend truth and integrity as valuable character traits. It should most emphatically *not* be rewarding to be a weasel.

Full of righteous rage, I was all set to start up a new blog for outing blatant lies like this, but Phil pointed out, admittedly correctly, that I would, as they say in the vernacular, ‘get my arse sued off’. I could do with less arse, but I need to hold onto the pennies for that house on Mull.. So it stands uncontested, and it riles me.

What would be a more constructive (and less legally risky) way of Putting The World To Rights? People shouldn’t be able to get away with blatant lies like this.

This guy is going to use that ‘achievement’ to blag his way into yet another job where he can provide miniscule input but have another site to put on his portfolio page, repeat ad nauseum.

He’s the kind of person that gives ‘IT people’ a bad name – overstating achievements and underperforming. I remember when you used to have to have some kind of talent to work in IT. Now they let me do it. No, seriously, it used to be a skilled job. Now you just have to know the right words and claim other people’s work and you can get paid silly money as the people employing you haven’t a clue.

The IT infrastructure of just about everywhere is degrading at a frightening rate as we’re all in the hands of people who got ‘into IT’ because it was an easy way to make money as no-one knew if you were making it all up or not.

Large government IT projects are in the hands of muppets (no offense, my puppety friends) because the majority of people don’t understand technical things and are now in charge of them.

Oh it’s all doom, and it’s all caused by bloody liars.

Rows of owlses

Rows of owlses

Rows of owlses,
originally uploaded by synx508.

I forgot to mention this, but it is an important moment. We have lived in this house for nearly 2 years. The owls have lived in tissue-paper cocoons in a series of boxes for many many more.

I have been stalking display cabinets for nearly 2 years. Finally I found one that didn’t cause philb to pull the toddler-face. So I bid. I won it for £15, but I gave them £25 as the husband delivered it to our front room, which was very nice of him.

So, owls now safely contained, although it is a little snug in there, almost as snug as the tissue-paper and box solution, but at least we can see the hundreds of staring eyes.

As I was putting them on the shelves, I kept thinking/singing ‘rows of owlses, are staring down at me’. Apologies to Radiohead: I’ve broken your song forever, in my mind.

purpled hairs

new hair

new hair,
originally uploaded by Purplekitten.

Deep Purple by Special Effects stains like nothing on earth. I went to get out of the bath this morning when my husband pointed out that I was roughly the colour of Ribena. As this is not a flattering skin tone, I scrubbed once more.

I do like the hair though. Mmmmm purple :)

all booked out

I’ve spent most of today re-cataloging my random scattering of books. It was getting to the state where piles of books were everywhere, waiting to be listed (to stop me buying duplicates because I can’t remember if I borrowed it or have it). Me being me, I’ve managed to lose the file that I made last time so I started again.

I use Tellico, which lets me type in ISBN/UPC and retrieve the rest of the detail from Amazon. I’ve been using it for a couple of years now and I think it’s fantastic. I didn’t get on with Alexandria (but I can’t remember why) and I couldn’t be bothered making my own, when Tellico (previously Bookcase) does such a good job.

I’m going to have to learn XSLT it seems, as I don’t like the reports that come out the other end, and they appear to be hackable, but not by mere mortals like me. Something for another day, perhaps. In the meantime, here is the new book list.

Looking again at Alexandria, its output is more along the lines of what I was looking for, plus it’s Ruby, which wins points automatically. I shall give it another try. But not right now. After a day spent hoiking books around, I’m all graunchy around the edges, so I shall now have a bath.

Teenage Pantgst

On the 07:38 to Basingstoke, there is generally a herd of college kids sharing the train with me. Mostly, they are unobjectionable, but there is one young man who insists on wearing his trousers only half-way up so that anyone walking behind gets a good view of his scrawny emo-kid be-panted butt.

What the hell is that about? I’m aware that I’m approximately 10 years older than him, but even if I cast my mind back, I’m still not empathising. It’s not like that other strange craze I observed a few years back: the one where men wore jeans with elongated posteriors so the crotch was at knee-level but the waistband was at normal height. I confess to not understanding *that* one either. What’s wrong with just having a butt in the normal place?
I see emo-pants-boy every morning, and every morning I get the urge to grab his trousers and yank them skywards (probably with a mad triumphant cackle, you never can tell) for the good of my fellow passengers. It’s not even as if he wears attractive pants. This morning’s offering were baggy and white.

I find myself wondering what his mother thinks about this (yes, I’m *that* old) and have come to the conclusion that he probably leaves the house in a normal state. Once out of sight of the parental abode, a hasty adjustment leaves his butt safely uncovered and he can walk tall and proud.

Emo-pants-boy, if you’re reading this (which you aren’t), for bob’s sake, keep it *entirely* in your painfully-fashionable trousers. Thanks.

bbc booboo

It would appear that the bbc writers save their documents in the ‘My Ebooks’ folder, logged in as Administrator. Classy.

Here’s a screenshot

gratuitous spam post

arss!
It amused me, anyway.

Okay, I exaggerated a tad..

Okay, it’s not *all* gone. It just feels like it

red hair

Hair gone

I’ve had all my hair cut off. That is all.

Wedding Anniversary #3

Three years ago today, we were in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull. Getting married. Time sure has flown past..

To celebrate the recurrance of this date, I decided to make philb breakfast in bed. As his breakfast of choice is Weetabixâ„¢, this wasn’t too much of an effort..

weetabixBreakfast for philb

Also on this day (this year), the Mogret device performed the funniest operation to date. It should be noted that she has climbed in the washing machine before. Today, she climbed in and managed to start the drum revolving, so there was a brief session of hamster-like scrambling in the washing machine before she leaped out in horror and embarrassment. I laughed. Hard. She panic-washed and then exited through the cat flap.