New Year's Irresolution

So, resolutely ignoring the hollow rattle of the bucket as it hits the parched bottom of the Well of Creativity, I’m going to try and do a blog post a week from now on.

Someone once said something like “Inspiration may not turn up, but you have to.”  This is a good point; sometimes you just need to write and damn the consequences.   Sometimes the act of writing primes the pump and ideas then begin to flow.

I really hope that’s the case.

So what have I been doing with all my non-blogging days then?

Well, we got three adorable kittens in the middle of last year, making our cat-count five in total.  I’ve always only ever had full-grown cats before and I have to say I think I’ve been missing out.  Watching them develop has been a real joy; seeing them do one day something they couldn’t manage the day before, then seeing them improve on it the next day is just delightful.

I’ve also done a couple of open mic spots at a local venue – on my own (previously, I’ve appeared with Don’t Feed the Pixies).  This was mega-scary, but mega-satisfying.  The venue is one where the open mic night is the best organised and resourced I’ve seen to date: a proper stage with monitoring so you can hear yourself, and a really supportive atmosphere.  This is an event where people come purposefully to listen and enjoy live music, not just drink and talk with their mates.  Hoping to do more and maybe video it and post it here, you never know.

DftP and I did the second NaSoWriMo (National Song-Writing Month - DftP’s invention of writing 10 songs in the month of December) and I’m pretty pleased with most of the ones I managed to crank out – seems some creativity remains, which gives me a bit of hope.

Anyway, back to work.

Thanks for sticking with me (if you have) and I don’t blame you if you haven’t – not that you’ll be reading this anyway.

Assuming anyone's still around to read this....

It's been a while and I've no credible excuses either.

Anyway, here's an old Wordzzle:

Words to include: Speech, local, crowd, rock fall, back-scratcher

Sam did not consider hismself a hero – local or otherwise, and eyed the front page of the Town Gazette with distaste.  ‘Local hero saves OAP from rock fall!’ screeched the headlines.  A small crowd had formed outside his house, which was very annoying when, hero or not, he still had to get to work.  Headlines didn’t pay the mortgage after all, did they?  Sighing, he pulled open the front door and tried to push his way through  to his old car.  “Speech!  Speech!” chanted the crowd.  “Unctious! Dish-mop!  Perfidy!  Herringbone! Back-scratcher!” he shouted back at them.  Startled, the people quieted immediately, then began to mutter in puzzlement to one another.  While they were thus occuppied, Sam jumped into his trusty old Volvo and executed his getaway,  which while not exactly speedy, was at least effective.
And some more Harold - almost there now, folks!  Catch-up, top right.

At the far end of the hall from where Harold, India, Box and Mr Teeth were grouped, a set of steel security doors swung open and a small group of Infinity employees trooped out, led by a middle-aged,  clip-board wielding woman, sporting a hastily-donned hi-vis vest blazoned with the words ‘Fire Marshal’.

Harold and India, invisible still in their suits, instinctively shrank back against the wall as the small group passed, no doubt heading for the door to the underground parking garage, which would be the nearest exit.  The fire marshal, seeing Box and Mr Teeth making no apparent move to exit the building, halted by them and began to insist that they leave with her group.
This was a tough one for Box: if he and Mr teeth failed to act normally and leave, suspicions would be aroused.  On the other hand, if they did as they were told, the demon and Agent India would be left on their own.  There was no way he could even tell where those two were right now, much less get any kind of signal to them.

“It’s probably just a drill,” he said quite loudly, ostensibly to the woman, “we’ll be all trouping back in here again in a minute, I bet.  Nothing to get worried about.”

She gave Box a slightly quizzical look and held out an arm in an ‘after you’ gesture.  Box and Mr teeth reluctantly turned and started walking.

Harold and India had discovered early on that they could see each other whilst the suits were powered up, even if nobody else could see them – a most sensible feature for a suit with military applications.  As the group of employees filed past, Harold beckoned to India and began running towards the security door, which was beginning to swing closed.  He had noticed that the doors were very thick steel and beyond them was a large, well-lit area.  Perhaps, he thought, Agents Mercury, Othello and Prada were being hed in there somewhere.  Not knowing what better to do and very keen not to get separated, India trotted after him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The door to the conference room opened and four grim-looking guards stood in the corridor beyond.  The nearest of them barked at Mercury, Prada and Othello to accompany him and no nonsense.  The three agents did as they were told.

“Where’s Moon?”  Mercury asked the guard.

“Not here.” Replied the man, in a flat voice.

Outside, in the hallway, there was a quiet orderly bustle as the relatively few employees present in the building at this time of night made their way to the nearest exit, just like they’d no doubt drilled.

Pretty soon, they were in the Infinity parking lot.  The guards ushered them to stand apart from the main body of employees.

Mercury looked around, eyes narrowed, seeking possible escape opportunities.  There weren’t any but as his eyes swept over the small crowd of Infinity people, he was astonished to see….could it be?  Reverend Box and the big enforcer, Mr Teeth, dressed in something that looked like what the guards that captured them had been wearing.

He nudged Othello and gave a slight twitch of his head.  The other agent glanced casually over to where Mercury had indicated and his eyes widened slightly, but that was all.  He was not going to do anything to alert the guards.
Mr Teeth felt the vibration of the phone in his pocket.   He pulled it out and held it to his ear.  It was Pauli, asking for instructions now that things had apparently changed.  No part of their plan had included an inpromptu fire-drill after all.

“Wait ‘till we’reall  back inside, then carry on as agreed,” He said. 

Why You Should Clean Your Keyboard More Often Than You Do

Keybaords are seriously disgusting.  I cleaned mine a short while ago and was horrified at the astonishing diversity and sheer volume of crud that came out of it.

I'm sure I never ate THAT much crumbly cake while sitting at the computer.

Anyway, here's a cartoon about it.

Tip: kids' paintbrushes are excellent for the purpose.

The Curious Contingency of Human Happiness

What a difference a day makes.

On Tuesday, I was working on a piece of code for a client, a piece of code that should have been easy.

Should have been.

Thing was: no matter what I did with it, the darn thing Just. Would. Not. Run. 

I eyeballed it line by line, I printed it out and scrutinised it line by line (for some reason, printouts seem easier to read than screens) but, for the life of me,  I could not see where the problem was.

Now, this kind of thing really bugs me.  Being able to cut code is one of the things that I feel proud of and it’s kind of central to my image of myself as a competent techie (OK, I acknowledge the fact that most people wouldn’t WANT that to be part of their core belief about themselves, but there it is).  Like it or not, it's a key part of my self-worth.

This, of course, fuelled my mule-stubborn refusal to admit defeat.  It was after-hours, so bugging someone else with the problem wasn’t really an option either.  I was getting increasingly angry with myself for not being able to fix this stupid bit of code.

After a while, the insistent sound of my own fool head knocking against a brick wall finally woke me up to the fact that I was getting nowhere and, after a long day (getting longer with each resounding thud) the likelihood of a breakthrough was becoming increasingly remote.

So, with a heavy heart, I logged out and went home. 

It was not the search for the Higgs Boson.

It was not the search for the cure for cancer

It was just a stupid bit of code to allow some people in a stupid call centre to see potentially challenging cases coming up. 

Big Whoop.

But it had beaten me and I felt rubbish. 

The people in my head smelt blood in the water: my inner child threw itself on the ground and unleashed an epic tantrum while my inner critic got out his Big Book of Everything that’s Crap About You and began to read it in his foghorn of a voice.

The bad feelings pervaded the the evening at home like a kind of vile octopus ink; sometimes seemingly gone, only to swirl in and darken the water unpredictably the next moment.  It was nearly bedtime before the passing of time (assisted by a good session on the ukulele) diluted it.

I know I was ascribing way more importance to the incident than it deserved. 

I know there are millions starving and homeless in the world. 

I know I should be grateful for the good life that I have (and am, actually, very).

All good reasons to stop whingeing and get on with my life.

But reason doesn’t enter into it.

Next day, as you might guess, the problem could not have been more obvious if it had been waving a red flag whilst riding a white elephant at the head of parade featuring the massed marching bands of the Royal Marines.

And the sun was shining.

Maybe it was because of that, or maybe my inner child and inner critic had simply taken the day off to go to the beach or something, but either way, I felt good all of a sudden.

A New Home in the Sky - Nowt as Queer as Folk

My boss and I have many things in common: same number of legs (two, in case you were worried); we went to the same school/terror training camp, and we both enjoy eating our breakfast granola dry – no milk, no cream, no crème fraiche, no yoghurt nor any other dairy-based contaminant.

This fact in itself is not hugely important, but I needed something to start this entry off with, right?

Anyway, the other day, we just are about to tuck in when we discover ourselves to be spoonless.  I duly volunteer to rectify the situation by means of a quick raid on the staff kitchen.

“Don’t get any of the spoons with the blue handles,” says the Boss.

I should have been a bit suspicious at this point, but OK, no spoon with a blue handle it is.  He’s da Boss, after all.

Trouble is, I’m totally colour-blind, so I have no idea which of our many and delightfully diverse collection of Spoons Through the Ages have blue handles.  So, upon arriving at the kitchen (which has a pool table in it, incidentally) I cleverly decide to duck the issue by bringing back an all-metal spoon.  No colour means no BLUE colour, right?  

Damn, I'm so sharp it's a wonder I don't cut myself!

I sashay back to the office, smugly bearing a couple of metal spoons as if they are some kind of breakfast-y Olympic Torch.

Pride goeth before a fall…

Boss looks at the proffered utensil and shakes his head.

“But it’s definitely not got a blue handle,” I protest, “You said no blue handle, this has… no blue handle.”  I wave it about a bit for emphasis.

“Yeah,” he sighs, “But I have this phobia about all-metal cutlery.”

You see what I have to put up with?

When Cakes Square Off...

I'd like to introduce this cartoon with some intelligent, witty commentary about how I thought it up, but I can't.  I was eating cake, that's all.

Enjoy.

Finally - A Harold Episode

If you've not been following this story, you can catch up using the Story So Far link, top right sidebar.

The van rumbled to a halt at the security barrier outside Infinity Recycling. A uniformed guard emerged from the gatehouse and approached. Box nudged the barrel against the van driver's ribs and hissed at him not to try any funny business. The driver wound down the van's window as the guard approached, and held up his id.

The guard examined it briefly, checked the photo against the driver’s face, nodded and went back into the gatehouse. A few moments later, the barrier swung up and the white van rolled into the compound.

'Take us to where you'd go if your mission had been successful,' ordered Box.

The driver nodded and swung the wheel around, piloting the vehicle around to the back of the building. He drew to a halt facing what looked to be a blank wall. Box looked at him quizzically. the man shrugged and pressed a button on the van's key fob.

Ahead of them, two sections of the wall slid apart, revealing a well-lit tunnel within.

'Wow, that was certainly well disguised,' murmured India from the back of the van. The vehicle jolted into motion once more and they headed into the tunnel which curved away to the right and sharply downwards.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Prada was pacing the room once more.

“It’ll be light soon,” she said to no-one in particular.

No-one bothered to answer her. Mercury was slumped in his chair, eyes closed, while Othello stared out of the window. A few triangular sandwich packets littered the long conference table, along with a few cans of drink.

Since a silent guard had dropped off the food and drink, they had been left to themselves. Prada sighed and moved to stand next to Othello at the window. There wasn’t much to see; the window looked out into an internal courtyard which boasted a patch of grass, some planting and a few seats – presumably for the Infinity staff members to take breaks.

“I can’t help feeling we should be doing more,” she continued.

“Like what?” asked Othello. “We can’t get out, we can’t contact anyone. Best we wait it out for now and see what happens.”

Prada sighed and turned to face into the room once more. Out or boredom, she let her eyes wander where they would, although she didn’t expect to see anything she hadn’t seen before: long, polished conference table; squeaky leather conference chairs, cupboards with nothing in them. Her eyes wandered to the ceiling. It was the usual suspended affair made up of tiles interspersed with long fluorescent light fittings.

“Could we get out through there?” she wondered aloud.

Othello turned to see what she was looking at.

“Doubt it,” he said, “The space above isn’t that big and I don’t think the structure would bear any of our weight.”

“Pity,” Prada sighed. Then she drew in a quick breath, before speaking in a low voice. “What about that?”

She pointed at the centre of the ceiling where a small round smoke detector protruded from the middle of a tile.

“Interesting,” agreed Othello, also in a low voice “but unless you’ve got some boy scouts to rub together…”

“I just might have,” grinned Prada.

She grabbed her jacket from where it hung on the back of one of the chairs and began ferreting in one of the pockets.

“A-ha!” she whispered, triumphantly, holding up a small, flat square of folded cardboard.

“Who knew a hole in one’s pocket could actually be useful?”

Othello stepped over to get a better view as Prada opened out the cardboard.

“Thank you, Crazy Jake’s Bar and Grill,” she breathed.

Inside the cardboard there were two matches

-0-0-0-0-0-

They left their erstwhile chauffeur gagged and bound in the rear of the van. There was a solid-looking door set in one wall of the basement car park and Mr Teeth and Box headed over to it. A few steps behind them, Harold and India followed.

A quick swipe of the Infinity goon’s id card resulted in a most satisfying clunk as the door’s locking mechanism disengaged. Box pushed the door open to reveal an empty, brightly-lit hallway leading away into the building’s interior.

“Looks clear enough,” grunted Mr Teeth.

He went through the door, followed by the others. Behind them, the door swung closed on its spring, locking with a click. Box glanced at his watch.

“Five minutes,” he said quietly.

Mr Teeth grunted acknowledgement.

The little party made its way along the hallway, Mr Teeth and Box leading, followed by an invisible India and Harold. They soon reached an intersection of corridors. There was nothing much to indicate the best way for them to go to find Mercury and the others. The goon hadn’t known – or had pretended not to know – where they would have been taken.

“There are some stairs through those doors up ahead,” said Box, indicating a set of double doors, above which someone had helpfully placed an emergency sign.

They began trotting down the corridor towards the stairwell.

Just as Box reached out his hand to push open the double doors, the air was split by the wail of a klaxon.

“Too early!” yelled Box above the racket. “Go to plan B!”