Wahey!

Saw this on FailBlog:


see more pwn and owned pictures

Reminds me of a toy we did at McDonald's once. A range of dragons that balanced on a rocky outcrop, except that one of the outcrops looked strangely familiar. It was swiftly withdrawn, but I'm sure Jo Coton took one home...

Lies, damned lies and no statistics at all.

Stepdaughter #1 and I were photographed for the AAT Magazine article today. Which was a slightly bizarre experience. How so?

Well, for a start the dress code was 'smart casual'. Now I'm a jeans and t-shirt or work clothes (which with my work history, tend to be some sort of uniform) kinda guy, and so I'm not entirely sure what smart casual is. I therefore took myself to that high class gentlemen's clothing emporium that is Asda, and bought a couple of polo shirts and a pair of chinos. But Mrs MnG told me that I should never wear shirts with horizontal stripes, as they'll make me look fat. So I put on a grey short-sleeved shirt I already had, and took the polo shirts as spares.

We did three sets of photos. The first set took place in one of the computer suites at college. If you've already done AAT Foundation, you'll know that there's no computer element to Intermediate, so SD #1 doesn't even have a Burton College login. No matter, as Johnny the photographer had carefully arranged the computers to show the bright blue Windows XP login screen, with us sat on chairs in the middle. The next few minutes were a montage of Johnny photographing us, getting SD #1 to smile, and running round wiggling mice.

Next up was in the library, where we were photographed in one aisle, whilst Johnny was in the next aisle, poking his well-endowed Nikon through the books. For composition, don't you know...

Finally, we were shot actually studying, or at least pretending to. I was doodling, then pretending to read a text book, when the fire alarm went off. "Just a couple more shots..."

It was fun, and Johnny told us that he'd got some good shots. And hopefully, some accountant somewhere will see my gurning mug, and think "I'll give that man a job." Possibly. Maybe.

I'm a media star!

Sort of. Kind of. Darling Stepdaughter #1 and I are to be featured in a forthcoming issue of AAT Magazine, as part of a feature about families studying the AAT. Watch this space...

New life goal

I have a new life goal. I want to find a job which will enable me to get Nokia's iPhone-killing N97. 32GB memory, touch-screen and slide-out keyboard, 5 megapixel camera, GPS, etcetera etcetera...

In other mobile-related news, I have downloaded Shozu, which will enable me to upload photos straight to Facebook. It'll also make it easy to upload pics to Blogger, when I get that bit to work.

A bit of work.

This last week, I've been temping for a building facilities management company. It's not accounts - the closest I come to invoicing is filing them - but the girls in the office are lovely and it's experience of a sort.
Yesterday, I was sorting out the event files for one of the larger clients. What happens is the client emails up with a job - an event - and we assign an engineer, usually one of the resident engineers. The jobs vary, but are usually small - from unblocking toilets to adjusting the aircon. They come in cycles: in summer people are too hot, and in winter too cold. Christmas brings requests for PAT (Portable Appliance Test - an annual electrical test on everything that plugs into the wall) tests on christmas lights and radios.
Some things I've noticed: every job has a priority, and some people's idea of priority is skewed - adjusting the aircon tends to get top (1-2 hours) priority, whereas fixing a flickering light above an epileptic can wait a day or two. The person typing the emails is in love with the word 'within' - a typical job description is 'Within prepayments it is too cold - please check' instead of 'Please check prepayments as it's too cold'.
And spare a thought for poor Amrit. One day he rang in because of a draught above his desk. A couple of days later, he complained of being too hot.

It's a crying shame.

Jim Jump can't get into Wetherspoon's with this...

According to the Portsmouth News (and several of the national newspapers), two Royal Marines were turned away from a Wetherspoons pub for not having the right ID. Apparently, military ID isn't valid ID for proving you're over 18, as jobsworth bouncers can only accept driving licences, passports and those PASS card thingumys.

Now, I can see this in landlocked Barnsley, say, but this is Portsmouth, where there have been naval dockyards (and hence sailors - military personnel) for centuries. They all have IDs - although not quite like the one above with names, dates of birth and photos clearly displayed.

So it's with regret (because Wetherspoons do serve decent beer) that I've joined the boycott. Until Wetherspoons apologise publically to squaddies everywhere, then I ain't going in.

Bus Slogan Generator

I saw this on the Sabre forums.

Here's a couple of my efforts: