Notepad Narnia

Hey lady! Got nuts?

2011-11-30T14:11:00.001Z

So THAT'S why the peanuts keep disappearing so quickly ...

Well, that, and the fact that apparently, there are TWO of them, not just the one! :)

It's making me look even more forward to the next Changeling campaign, so Flora can start using her chimeric squirrel companion, Twitchy, which she has had all the time. Just that no one knew about him before this. *cough*

Open letter to IKEA United Kingdom

2011-11-28T17:19:00.001Z

Dear IKEA,

As a Swedish ex-pat in the UK, I (and I'm sure many other Swedes) have come to rely on IKEA to bring the flavours from back home, especially around Christmas. Certain things you just can't get in UK supermarkets. One of these things is the traditional Swedish Christmas beverage julmust. I've lived in the UK since 2004 and we have always been able to buy small bottles of julmust from October to about December at our local IKEA store in Nottingham. The only issue has been that the closer it is to Christmas, the more likely it's been sold out.

This year, we went in October and the Christmas decorations were out in the store, as were the Christmas foods in the Food Market. Except there were no tins of gingerbread to be had (there were cardboard boxes, though, luckily), no chilled gingerbread dough, and - most annoyingly - no julmust. We asked about it, staff said they had got all the Christmas products they were going to have. We went back over the weekend, thinking that maybe they just didn't have anything in October because it was a bit early, but no, still nothing. This suggests that IKEA has simply stopped selling it, which is very disappointing.

I can tell, simply from looking at the products on offer in general, that you're going more and more to own branded food goods (a mistake when it comes to the herring, Abba's is nicer), and as you've not produced own brand julmust, you're not getting any of Nygårda's in either. The same fate seems to have befallen falukorv, come to think of it, and the Christmas crackerbread.

It's a real shame that IKEA seem to put their own interests (i.e. making every food product own brand and if not, drop them) ahead of those of its customers. IKEA takes pride in its Swedish heritage, and if you didn't, what's the whole idea of the Food Market? And yet, the items us ex-pat Swedes care most about because we simply can't get them anywhere else are being phased out. Very disappointed.

Kind regards,
Traxy in Nottingham

(And yes, I did send this to them officially a couple of minutes ago. I'm really pissed off. Sure, I privately grumbled over them only selling 500 ml bottles of julmust, as opposed to the more sensible 1.5 or 2 litre options you can get back home, but beggars can't be choosers.)

Want to know why November sucks?

2011-11-11T16:44:00.001Z

November should be a great month. If you're in North America, you've always got Thanksgiving, and for the rest of the world, there's NaNoWriMo and "hey, next month is Christmas!"

But we go from glorious autumnal colours and warm weather to bare trees, rain and fog and frost and definitely no sun. Cold and dark. Granted, it hasn't been that cold here in the UK yet - we've only had one morning of frost, and that was in October - but dark? Yeah. Turned the clocks back 30 October and been suffering ever since.

My NaNo started out quite well, I was ahead by about 1200 words. And then November caught up with me.

Even if I go to sleep at a reasonable time in the evening, I'm really tired in the morning. My mum would chime in here, saying "that's when you bring your light out!" which is fair enough, but for that, you have to actually get out of bed in the first place and have the time to sit in front of it for at least a few minutes. Which you don't if you've only reluctantly managed to haul yourself out of bed in time for getting ready quickly and then heading out the door because you need to get to work on time. (Something that has failed all week, because traffic has been surprisingly bad, which doesn't help when you're running slightly late to begin with.)

The problem I have is that when my body doesn't get enough rest - and it requires a lot, for which I blame being Highly Sensitive (our bodies get run down quicker and it takes us longer to recuperate) - I don't just get lethargic and can't muster the energy to do anything useful, I also get colds. I can feel one coming on now, brilliant.

Add to that the fact that the shorter days makes me eat more, because my body is going all cavewoman and wants to stock up for the winter, and apparently a side effect of my allergy pills is also "increased appetite", and I do have to keep taking those things every once in a while or I itch like crazy.

Haven't written anything on my NaNovel since the 7th, and I'm now (counting today) 5456 words behind. Hooray. And because I feel like a washed out dishrag, I can't muster the energy to open Word and type anything, because I just feel bleh over what I'm supposed to write about. Which in turn is getting me down, and seeing as how I also tend to turn the depression taps on when I haven't had enough rest, GUESS HOW I FEEL!

Well, I guess that's why they call it "winter depression". Not that it's making me any happier to know that.

I hope that I can try to pick up a bit with my NaNovel, because I do want to write that story ... albeit not in its current format - I really should have thought of this before November. But still, if I can get it down on paper, I'll worry about making it the way I want in the editing phase, because I'll have to re-write it anyway then.

I also hope that things will improve on the 21st, when I no longer will have to drive out to Derby every morning, which means I can sleep in for maybe half an hour or so, and then plonk myself in front of said daylight lamp for most of the morning, should I feel like it. My central nervous system can also chillax a bit, not having the added overstimulation of being in a busy office with lots of people around.

Back to just me and the cat. My central nervous system is looking forward to my new job as much as I am myself, and I bet Daisy is going to be chuffed when she can get on-demand cuddles during the day again. So yeah, things are looking up. But right now, I want to crawl into bed with a hot water bottle and sleep.

Wake me up when November ends?

It's not me, it's you (but technically me)

2011-08-26T13:09:00.001+01:00

Here's what having house guests mean to someone who, like a plant, needs lots of air and space to thrive: living in a constant state of fight or flight. It's exhausting. I'm knackered and tomorrow we're even set to have a house party. No escape. Can't even lock myself in the toilet or shut myself in the bedroom to have some alone time. Partly because it doesn't work and partly because too long an absence is rude.

It's been a week tomorrow, and today my throat has started to react the way it normally does after inadequate rest: by playing up. Not that I don't get enough sleep, because I do, realistically. Not that there are loads of stuff everywhere to drain my energy (which would be mum's guess if I brought it up). It's because there are people around 24/7, and I've never been particularly good with that.

Could go on about why I don't like parties or rather, hosting them, but communal coffee beckons. The other thing could always be a topic for tomorrow night when I need to retreat for a few minutes just to cope. Lest I become uncivil, which I've bordered on since around ... last Sunday, or at least Monday at the latest.

Fuck I'm glad not to have children at the moment. On the other hand, for once maybe if I did, they'd be out of my hair and in the loving, doting hair of a grandparent or two instead. Still, would only be for a week and that just wouldn't be enough.

Total Sensory Overload, or why Rock City doesn't work for me

2011-08-22T23:15:00.000+01:00

I can just about deal with being upstairs in a pub drinking with friends for a few hours. Quite enjoyed it too, as it happens. :) Then the group decided to go to Rock City, a rock themed nightclub kinda thing in Nottingham. I had previously voiced my concerns about going there to Dearest Husband, but tried being a sport anyway. (Having had a few drinks helped.)

As soon as we had got inside, heavy metal blaring, I had the urge to back away. But didn't. Can't really bail out in the foyer on my first ever visit, that would be silly, right?

So I stuck to it. Went upstairs, lots of noise and lights and smoke machines. Went to the bar. What did I fancy? To be honest, a bus ride home. Settled for a Jägerbomb (Jägermeister and Red Bull - I could totally have more of that), which then turned into a double (DH opted for a Kopparberg :D pear cider so I got to finish his drink), in my efforts of becoming catatonic and not care where I was.

Well, that didn't work.

After standing to one side for a bit, I was then dragged onto the dancefloor, which I managed for ... not that long, as I was struggling not to start crying. Then I hit the point where I could no longer stop myself, and ran out of the room, closely followed by DH who offered a shoulder to cry on (which also worked as a partial sound barrier), wondering what was up. "It's too much!" was the only thing I managed to say, trying to pull myself together.

Concerned friends had joined us by this time, and wondered what had happened. Nothing, really. Kudos to roleplayers for being awesome though. They just went "okay, fair enough" at my explanatory sobbing and didn't try anything silly like saying "it's not that bad, surely" or words to that ilk. Appreciate it, guys, cheers. :)

How do you explain something you don't fully understand yourself? Yes, I get the bit about the central nervous system, but experiencing it in person is different. I don't quite know why I get the sudden urge to run away and cry the very few times I've been to nightclubs. I just do. Which is why I don't go to them.

Oh well, at least I can say I've been to Rock City now. Not that I'm ever planning on going back. I'll stick to sitting quietly in a corner in a pub instead; that'll do me.

And this post has only been nearly two months in the making, but there ya go.

Presumptuous much?

2011-07-16T00:38:00.030+01:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all females in their mid- to late twenties must be in want of a baby. It must be true, everyone keeps going on about it. You get married, "when are you starting a family?" You buy a new house, "new house, new baby!" People around you get pregnant, "ohhh it'll be your turn next!" They proudly show off their new offspring, "are you getting broody yet?"

I have never been broody when it comes to human babies in my life. (Cat babies, on the other hand ...)

Next time someone makes a baby comment at me, I'll reply, "thanks, we've tried for years but the doctor says I can't conceive" just to see what reaction I get. It only pisses me off to be badgered about something everyone assumes I must want simply because of my gender - but for someone who genuinely has fertility problems, questions like that must really hurt. But if you're a reasonably healthy woman, everyone (even strangers) will assume you'll have a baby sooner or later, and they love to be smug about it.

No one stops to consider that the would-be mum could have a medical issue that can't be fixed, which means the question is not just rude, it's deeply insensitive. What if she desperately wants to become a mother and has been told that there's no way she can have one, aside from adopting? How would you feel if strangers, co-workers and others (not the sort of people with whom you'd want to discuss your personal medical history) sounded like a broken record?

No one ever considers the option of a woman wanting to remain childfree either, because the whole concept of choosing a life without children is apparently utterly incomprehensible to most people. You're a woman, you have babies - simples. (It's technically the last bastion of sexism, if you think about it. Having children is a choice, both for men and women, so could we please stop pretending like only men have that choice?)

STOP BEING PRESUMPTUOUS ABOUT BABIES! To those who want babies but can't have them, you're rude. To those that can or can't but simply won't, you're annoying. Besides, those who can and want to breed are likely to bring it up themselves - cooing and/or gushing doing so - as soon as you mention the subject at all. But to the rest of us, you're a prick.

Thank you, that is all.

Random acts of navel gazing

2011-07-09T21:57:00.002+01:00

Perhaps not the most brilliant idea in the world to be out on the town and being able to blog because there's an app for that ... because blogging and alcohol is not necessarily a good idea. Still.

Been thinking lots the past couple of days due to reading a book found in a charity shop. Technically the thoughts have been there a lot longer, several since I was a child. But the sort of wishy-washy "shit happens" attitude is quickly eroding. My mind's made up. Hopefully the feelings are shared or we're going to have an issue. But that's not something I'm willing to talk about on a blog. Yet.

Flora and I have some things in common

2011-06-30T00:28:00.000+01:00

I'm a Boggan, just like my actual Changeling: The Dreaming character, Flora!

Boggan

You live to serve and are happy about it! You can't stand seeing people in need and if you're lucky, you might get a tasty bit of gossip while you're pouring them some hot tea! You're also pretty handy. You love painting, drawing, building, and other rudimentary skills. The simple life is good!

Which Changeling: The Dreaming kith are you?

Can has new phone

2011-06-23T14:50:00.001+01:00

This one is new enough to have apps. Yay!

Why pay when you can get qualified people to work for free?

2011-05-27T13:36:00.000+01:00

Reading that a third of the government’s Graduate Talent Pool’s internships are unpaid, I can’t help but not feeling surprised. Like this bit:

But there have been criticisms over how internships can be misused as unpaid labour by some employers - and warnings about the need for them to comply with the minimum-wage regulations.

This was essentially the major flaw in the radio training that I did a few years ago.

One and a half years of study, then a six month internship and at least 70% of the class would be guaranteed a job in the commercial radio industry after graduation. That 70% was the purpose of the qualified professional training programme (Kvalificerad Yrkesutbildning, KY), and programmes with lower employment rates wouldn’t be allowed to continue.

Or at least that’s what we were told as we applied.

Once we started, we quickly learned that there was no money in the business in Sweden and the commercial radio stations – our future employers – were in fact in no position whatsoever to give us any jobs. They had always been broke, even from the start, and it didn’t look as if it was going to change anytime soon.

We did have that six month internship, though …

Which, in effect, meant that the commercial radio stations around Sweden had qualified people working for them for six months a year without them having to spend a penny on salaries. After that time, they weren’t obliged to keep any of us on, unless of course they’d be worse off without us. Then six months business as usual, and then there would be the next batch of fresh-faced and well-trained radio enthusiasts working for nothing, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they’d made enough of an impression to have a job offer at the end of it.

I was in the seventh year of this educational programme. The year before us were apparently surprised the school advertised for new students (i.e. us), we were surprised when they advertised for our successors … and of course, so were the next lot. I don’t know how many years they managed to churn out qualified radio students to false hope and unemployment in the end, but last I heard about it was that they had cancelled the programme.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved doing the education and I loved working with radio. My six month internship was done with a local radio station to where my parents were, who wouldn’t have the money to keep me on anyway. Not that I held my hopes up, but as it turned out, it allowed me to meet with the man I fell in love with and ended up marrying. So all’s well that ends well.

Best "Out of Office" reply EVER

2011-05-26T16:42:00.000+01:00

This is a genuine Out of Office message I received the other day. Amongst all the humdrum "I'm on annual leave", "I'm in a meeting", "I'm away" and so on, this one popped up and took me by surprise and delight. Bask in the awesomeness of:

I have gone to another solar system for a couple of weeks, so due to a combination of distance, time-dilation effects and incompatible broadband services, I won't be able to read e-mails until I am back within the asteroid belt. I anticipate that this will be about the 6th of June (Earth time)

Please send any urgent queries to [deleted] who will hopefully be remaining on the planet

Next time I'm out of the office, I need to write something better than "I'm out of the office and I'm back (date)". The gauntlet has definitely been thrown.

Habitat and geography fail

2011-05-25T09:44:00.000+01:00

Just read on BBC News that two liger cubs are nursed by a dog in China's Xixiakou Zoo. Awwww. However, this sentence really makes me stare at the screen and question the writer's sanity:

Ligers are extremely rare and are thought to only be born in captivity.

Well, duhhh?!

A liger, as the text points out before this line, is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger. There's a bloody good reason why ligers can only be born (and indeed bred) in captivity, thereby making them extremely rare, is because lions live in Africa and tigers live in Asia. (There were Asian lions way back, apparently, but not exactly nowadays.) It's not as if the two species hang out in the wild on a regular basis and go to see each others' etchings ...

You won't get your money back, you had it coming

2011-05-20T16:02:00.000+01:00

The world’s coming to an end, starting this Saturday - or "tomorrow" for short. Or so says some random nutter in the US of whom I read on the BBC News site. Don’t believe any of it personally, of course, but other people do, and one guy has found a way to help the pets of those people who do:

An atheist and entrepreneur from North Hampshire, Bart Centre, is enjoying a boost in business for Eternal Earth-bound Pets, which he set up to look after the pets of those who believe they will be raptured.
He has more than 250 clients who are paying up to $135 (£83) to have their pets picked up and cared for after the rapture.
They would be disappointed twice, he told the Wall Street Journal. "Once because they weren't raptured and again because I don't do refunds."

Have to hand it to him. Great business idea and he has put thought into caring for the animals, which is always a plus in my book. The best part is that he doesn’t plan on giving any money back, which made me giggle. And no, I don’t think he’s exploiting anyone. Clever bugger.

Cats are intelligent conversationalists

2011-04-18T13:04:00.000+01:00

If you've ever had a conversation with a cat, you'd know this image is not wrong.

Shit roleplayers say

2011-04-06T14:47:00.005+01:00

This post has moved to S#!t Roleplayers Say: For those about to roll, we salute you.

Shopping Feedback - The Knight Shop

2011-04-05T11:49:00.000+01:00

Here's a few things I got recently from The Knight Shop, a place in Wales that have all manner of weird and wonderful things. I could have gotten my wedding dress from there, because they used to sell it, but I didn't realise until months after I had already bought it ... from the US. I've posted product reviews on their site, but thought I may as well post it here too. :)

Coat of Arms print -A4 - 1/5

You get a textured paper with a print that looks like it was badly drawn in MS Paint (or possibly extremely cheap ClipArt) and printed on a bog-standard low-resolution inkjet printer. Very disappointed with it and it's definitely NOT worth £15 for a printed piece of paper in a postal tube. If I had seen what it would look like beforehand (the photo used to show the product doesn't look that bad in comparison), I wouldn't even have paid £5. This was supposed to be a nice birthday present, but the recipient was as unimpressed with it as I was. Would NOT recommend.

It also doesn't come with a picture frame, which for that price, you'd expect (although product specs points out that frame is NOT included), but I got a cheap but decent one from Wilkos.

Roman Lamp - 3/5

Good-looking lamp for a candle (not a tealight), the wooden handle makes it reminiscent of a beer jug, and it directs the candle light in a very nice way. You'll need a fairly short candle, as it's not very high, and be careful with the metal top - it will become scorching hot very quickly (not to mention sooty underneath, but you can't see that), so be careful around children.

Due to the nature of the horn and brass, they don't exactly fit snugly together and am a bit afraid it will break if I tried fastening the clasp on the front properly. The bottom fell out when I tried fitting the candle (which seemed to burn down in record time for some reason - will try a different make of candle), was it meant to do that to make it easier to fit the candle? It fit together again no problem. The candle also went out when moving the lamp (the wick was above the horn bit), but I guess it's down to technique. One of the pointy bits of the brass decoration is slightly bent outwards, but it might bend back.

Price tag is a bit high (£42). Definitely too high for something mass-produced, but if it's all handmade, it's still a bit high, but understandable. All in all, it looks good and produces a nice light - just be aware of the top getting hot and that the bottom may fall out when fitting the candle.

Wine Chest - 3 Bottles - 4/5

Nice-looking wooden box that looks fairly sturdy and rustic and for a decent price too (£15). My only comment would be that it's slightly too short to fit a 2L plastic bottle (unless you lay it diagonally, but then you can't fit anything else) but that's not the intended sort of bottle anyway. And of course, you could use it for all manner of things, not just bottles, as it's quite roomy.

With the flat rate shipping of £8 within the UK, it's great if you're ordering a lot or ordering bulky/heavy items (and there are plenty of things there that I'd class as "OMG, I want one!" especially when it comes to the clothes). If you just want the coat of arms print, which probably costs a maximum of £1 to send, you're not as lucky. That's why I ended up looking around for more things while I was at it. I'll see if I can take a picture of the piece of paper just to show how bad it actually is.

Do I look like a paint chemist to you?

2011-03-31T12:59:00.000+01:00

From: Recruitment Consultant
To: Traxy
Subject: New Vacancy from Recruitment Agency - Paint Chemist- 22K
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:52:16 +0100

My client based in Yorkshire - North are currently recruiting and I wondered if you might be interested in the position.

Paint Chemist- 22K (to £28000)
Industry: Science Sector:Chemistry - Process
Employment Type: Permanent

My client based are a paint manufacturer based in Yorkshire, they are currently looking for a chemist to join their team.

The suitable candidate should have experience with chemistry formulation and paint formulation. Experience with colour coatings or colour polymers will be strongly considered. The candidate should a minimum in a BSc in Chemistry or a related subject.

Skills Considered:

Paint Formulation

Paint Analysis

Colloid Formulation

Colloid Analysis

Polymer Analysis

Polymer Formulation

Coating Formulation

Coating Analysis

Colour Formulation

Colour Analysis.

If this position is of interest please send a copy of your CV in word MS format to Recruitment Consultant at Recruitment Agency.

From: Traxy
To: Recruitment Consultant
Subject: RE: New Vacancy from Recruitment Agency - Paint Chemist- 22K
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 08:40:40 +0000

Hi Recruitment Consultant,

Thank you for your email.

The first time I was notified of this position, I was sitting scratching my head wondering how on earth anyone would think I'd be even remotely qualified for (or interested in) a position like that. Then suddenly I realised. If any of you had actually opened to read the CV instead of just searching it for keywords, you would have seen that the only chemistry reference in there is "Chemistry Digital", the name of a web development agency in Nottingham for whom I have done some contract work in HTML. You would've also seen that my employment record is lightweight web development, radio broadcasting, and IT support.

So please, if you have any positions in or around Nottingham that is to do with radio or HTML development (NOT IT support and/or callcentres) - feel free to contact me about vacant positions. Chemistry - well let's just say I haven't touched a litmus paper or a bunsen burner since I was 15 and I'm happy to keep it that way. ;)

Wishing you all the best for the weekend,

Traxy

I'm not actually looking for a new job as I'm quite happy where I am (almost a year now and I still don't hate it, hooray!), so my CV was withdrawn from all the job hunting sites at least six months ago. Some agencies have it on file, so every now and then I still get emails with positions available - although I've yet to see one I'm actually qualified for.

With regards to the emails above, I didn't think it would be a good strategy to tell a recruitment agency to eff off, because if they did happen to find a radio job available in Nottingham, you know, not like I wouldn't be listening, and always good to keep your options open.

But seriously, this is at least the third time I've been notified about this position, and on two different email addresses as well, and they would be better off trying to target people who actually do have degrees in chemistry instead of just googling the CVs on file for keywords.

P.S. I also had a reply from the Recruitment Consultant. She was politely and professionally snarky back, pointing out just how many CVs and jobs they have on file and they can't always be right, but it's not half as amusing to read.

Keep your dodgy SEO tactics to yourself!

2011-03-31T12:02:00.001+01:00

I love it when I know someone's job better than they do themselves, and they're trying to "sell" me something. If it's a genuine thing, fine. If it's dodgy or they don't know what they're doing and try to mis-sell it or they're trying to cheat at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), they've got another thing coming. Then I'm not going to play nice with them, because they're likely to cause other people real issues more than they're trying to help. And I'm not cool with that.

So here are a couple of warning examples:

From: Person
To: Traxy
Subject: Link exchange request with [URL]
Date: Sat, February 12, 2011 12:34

Hello

I am an seo consultant for http://www.someshoddyecommercewebsite.com

We would like to exchange links with good quality web sites such as yours at [film review on a different blog]

First of all we create a new dedicated page for your site link with a thumb image of your web site home page
Plus we also add your site link to a category page (no more than 25 sites per page) related to your site so your site is in good company
We then submit both these pages to Google for indexing using site maps each day
We also RSS feed all links to RSS aggregators for even more back links for your site

We will link to your site first, and if you accept this free reciprocal link exchange offer, please click this link as we have already prepared your details. You will see you link on our site.

You will then automatically receive an email confirming your link details and our link details to be added to your site - also see our web site details below

If you wish to exchange 3 waylinks, or exchange links manually by email. Just reply to this email with your web site details; title, description, url
We can exchange reciprocal links, 3way links and deep links

Our site details:
Url: http://www.someshoddyecommercewebsite.com/pushchairs/
Title (anchor text): pushchairs
Description: shop online for pushchairs prams and buggies at low internet prices and fast home delivery service - someshoddyecommercewebsite.com

With best Regards

Person
SEO Link Building Team
http://www.someshoddyecommercewebsite.com

From: Traxy
To: Person
Subject: Re: Link exchange request with [URL]
Date: Wed, March 30, 2011 17:00

Hi Person,

Thanks for your email - sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

As an SEO consultant, I would've thought you'd be aware of how page ranking actually works.

For sites sharing links, Google places a high value on sites of similar topics. A baby accessories ecommerce site and a movie review blog post (that doesn't even mention the word "pushchairs" anywhere, nor is it about babies) are not similar content useful for users of both sites and will therefore not be of any particular page ranking value for either of us.

If I had been blogging about babies and children in general, yes, it would be another matter, but the blog in question is about Arts & Entertainment.

Your link exchange page (http://www.someshoddyecommercewebsite.com/infosites/index.php) looks more like a link farm than anything else, and as the only purpose of it is to boost search engine ratings, you're likely to get penalised by Google sooner or later.

A better way for you to optimise someshoddyecommercewebsite.com so that search engines can find it would be to look more into the copy of the site itself and the meta keywords and descriptions listed, as they need improving.

Another thing, which I'm wondering about as a user, is that when you click "Blog", you get transported to the URL /reviews/ but there are no reviews. There are other people's blog posts, taken from other people's sites. And you've not taken the whole posts, you can't click to read more and you've not had the courtesy to link back to the original post.

So, all in all, the site needs a lot of work but instead, you're trying to cheat at SEO - and for that reason, as the Dragons would say, I'm out.

Good luck with the site and I wish you a nice day,

Traxy @ Blog
(who, in real life, works with online marketing)

This was a lot like when we got phoned up at work by someone wanting to sell us something that would get us on top of Google. The call was passed on to me, because I actually knew what he was on about, which admin didn't.

The bloke I spoke to was very shady with his explanations on exactly how this service would work and he assured me it was "not SEO", nor would the website coding need to be touched. Err, what? He also spoke about them having "Google technicians" and all manner of things and we could try them out for free for a month. It was something to do with analysing the text on our website and from that, find unique key phrases that our competitors don't use. Which is what SEO is about anyway, so he lied, and you'd still need to put those keywords in meta tags or something on the page to make it work which means the "no coding required" bit is also a lie.

I really should've noted down where he was calling from so I could make it publicly available that they're more or less a scam. People who don't know about online marketing or SEO would likely be impressed and buy the service off them, and that would be sad, because they'd be paying for a big fat lie. He couldn't fool me, though. Not when I knew more about what he was trying to sell than he seemed to do himself. So there.

I'm an introvert - who'd a-thought it?

2011-03-21T22:57:00.001Z

After reading the excellent blog post by IfByMe entitled I am Introvert, hear me speak in a reasonable tone of voice!, to which I agree wholeheartedly, I followed one of the links to do a test about Extroversion/Introversion. Lo and behold the results:

Your result for The Introversion/Extroversion Test... You are an introvert!

73 Introverted, 7 Extroverted and 21 Balanced!

You are the philosopher, the scientist, the architect. You love to analyze and draw conclusions just for the sake of knowledge. You seek information and stimulation for your own mind. You are unconventional, innovative, and have a vivid imagination.

Because you are so involved with your own ventures, however, you may tend to forget about others around you. Keep in mind that there is a world beyond your own thoughts, but don't abandon your brilliant mind.

Take The Introversion/Extroversion Test at HelloQuizzy

Why am I not in the least surprised by this result?

D&D characters again

2010-11-22T23:26:00.000Z

Funny how scores change over time ... Here's the most recent test. Compare with the old one here.

I Am A: Chaotic Neutral Human Druid (3rd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-10
Dexterity-9
Constitution-9
Intelligence-13
Wisdom-14
Charisma-11

Alignment:
Chaotic Neutral A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal. However, chaotic neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it seeks to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Druids gain power not by ruling nature but by being at one with it. They hate the unnatural, including aberrations or undead, and destroy them where possible. Druids receive divine spells from nature, not the gods, and can gain an array of powers as they gain experience, including the ability to take the shapes of animals. The weapons and armor of a druid are restricted by their traditional oaths, not simply training. A druid's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Alignment:
Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)
Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (26)
Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24)
True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (19)
Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (30)
Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Neutral Evil ---- XXXX (4)
Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)

Law & Chaos:
Law ----- XXXXXXXX (8)
Neutral - XXX (3)
Chaos --- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)

Good & Evil:
Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Evil ---- X (1)

Race:
Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)
Dwarf ---- XXXXXX (6)
Elf ------ XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Gnome ---- XXXXXX (6)
Halfling - XXXXXXXX (8)
Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)
Half-Orc - XXXXXX (6)

Class:
Barbarian - (-4)
Bard ------ (-2)
Cleric ---- (-2)
Druid ----- XXXXXXXX (8)
Fighter --- (-4)
Monk ------ (-21)
Paladin --- (-17)
Ranger ---- (0)
Rogue ----- (-4)
Sorcerer -- (0)
Wizard ---- XXXX (4)

The Bible - I figureds it out!

2010-09-24T22:41:00.002+01:00

On the IMDb Richard Dawkins boards, in the topic "'Christians' who don't know the Bible", someone wrote about the Bible:

"as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and "improved" by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other"

to which my response was:

"So basically, the Bible is like Wikipedia. ;) That would explain a whole LOT of things."

And then I read someone's response to my message:

"The more I think about it, the more apt that analogy seems!"

Touché! <3

Not sure if I love or hate the Richard Dawkins boards on there to be fair, but hey... 's a laugh innit?

Results are in: I'm a wishy-washy fence-sitter

2010-06-22T11:07:00.000+01:00

Did the Belief-o-Matic test again.

And yet again, I'm a wishy-washy fence-sitter, i.e. Unitarian Universalist. Just look up what the Beliefnet description of it is. It doesn't get more fence-sitting than that!

1.	Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2.	Neo-Pagan (97%)
3.	Theravada Buddhism (96%)
4.	New Age (94%)
5.	Mahayana Buddhism (92%)
6.	Liberal Quakers (83%)
7.	Secular Humanism (77%)
8.	Taoism (73%)
9.	New Thought (67%)
10.	Hinduism (64%)
11.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (64%)
12.	Jainism (62%)
13.	Scientology (62%)
14.	Nontheist (54%)
15.	Orthodox Quaker (54%)
16.	Reform Judaism (52%)
17.	Sikhism (47%)
18.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (46%)
19.	Baha'i Faith (35%)
20.	Orthodox Judaism (26%)
21.	Seventh Day Adventist (24%)
22.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (17%)
23.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (15%)
24.	Islam (14%)
25.	Eastern Orthodox (7%)
26.	Roman Catholic (7%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (6%)

» Take the Belief-O-Matic quiz again

70 words a minute!

2010-05-16T20:45:00.000+01:00

70 words

Typing Speed Test

"You type 406 characters per minute
You have 70 correct words and
you have 2 wrong words"

Any trained body emerges above a wonder.

2010-04-29T11:39:00.000+01:00

That being said, it's a nice and sunny day outside. Kitchen's a mess and will need sorting out but all in a day's work, eh?

Should I stop loving something just because I disagree with the creator's ideologies?

2010-02-20T17:44:00.000Z

Just read a blog comment about someone who wasn't sure she could still love and read Jane Eyre because of Charlotte Brontë's more or less blatant racism, which has put me into rant mode.

The thing is, we have to see these books from the perspective of the time they were written in. The Brontës expressed opinions which were common of the mid-1800s and not exclusive to them, but widespread in society. Antisemitism isn't a new concept - they had massacres of Jews in medieval England. Gypsies have always been seen with suspicion - they mended pots and pans and told people their fortune... and stole not just various goods but also children - or at least, those are the prejudices held against them.

Opinions change as society changes, and back in the day of the Brontës, racism was quite acceptable. Nowadays, it's not. Should we stop reading the old classics just because our society no longer supports the same values those classic authors held along with their society? I think that's wrong, and it's foolish. If we stop reading them, we miss out on learning about our past, and that's a big mistake. If we don't learn from the past, how can we prevent history from repeating itself?

We don't have to agree with the views being portrayed, but it's not as if we're making a political statement by refusing to read these books. If it were books written by a contemporary author who writes racist propaganda - yes, then make a conscious decision to not buy those books or read them, because buying them would be supporting their cause.

Refusing to read your favourite book, a book you've loved all your life, written like 160 years ago because all of a sudden you discover the author might have been a tad bit racist... What sort of a knee-jerk response is that? "But I don't want people to think I'm a racist!" Who'd accuse you of being a racist for enjoying Charlotte Brontë? If it was a question of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler - yes, by all means, go ahead and worry about how you will be perceived by others.

I'm sure I've seen similar worries on the IMDb boards, where Christian Buffy fans were wondering if they had to stop enjoying the show just because Joss Whedon is an Atheist. Or, "Can I read Harry Potter even though I'm a Christian?" COME ON! Just because you have your set of beliefs and your favourite show's creator or your favourite book's author happens to have beliefs different to yours, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy it! If it gets preachy and tries shoving a foreign ideology down your throat, fine, object. But the whole "I mustn't enjoy this thing which I've highly enjoyed for as long as I can remember just because I think its creator is wrong" is ridiculous.

I quite enjoy (some of) the Narnia books. They're classics, I've got the whole set and have read the series many times and seen the old TV-series and the new films. Do I have to stop enjoying them because CS Lewis was a devout Christian? No. I can find bits of the books preachy and dull because he's too heavy-handed with his enthusiasm for Christianity, but all in all, they're good fantasy stories for children. Do I have to love Richard Dawkins because he's a devout Atheist? I bloody hope not - he gets a bit too preachy too, not to mention he can be very condescending. In my book, go ahead and believe whatever you want, so long as you don't hurt or annoy others by doing so. By annoy, I mean try to convert, or in other ways trying to impose your belief system on someone else's.

There was something I saw recently, an article that was a few years old, where Dawkins objected to the Harry Potter books (which he hadn't read) because it would make children believe in things like witches and magic, which to him would be just as bad as if they went around believing in Jesus and the resurrection. Bit of a crowbar separation here, please? There is no Church of Holy Potter, it's a fictional character in a fictional story, and people know this. It's not a religion, it's a set of wonderfully imaginative books. Jesus and the resurrection, while we can debate whether or not that too counts as fiction or not, is a religion. Children are generally not born with belief in the ten commandments and such, it's imposed on them by their parents, and taught to be true, even though there is no empirical evidence of there being a god, and so on. Still, to say that both are damaging to children is a bit much.

Okay, that went off the topic completely.

To bring it back a bit, those who can't stomach Philip Pullman's amazing His Dark Materials trilogy because it's about "killing god" haven't got what the story is about, and have issues telling fiction from reality.

Erm, yeah. An illustration:

OMG, I'm going to have to stop enjoying artwork because Hitler was a painter!!! And I can never go to Austria, what if people think I'm a racist?! I really enjoy buying cheap and nice chocolate from Lidl, but that's a German company and I don't want people to think I'm a Nazi, so I can't shop there any more. I'll have to bin my two Cambria orchids that were got from there recently, because even though I used to think they're really beautiful, I can't like them now that I know Lidl is German. This year, I'll boycott the Christmas market around Market Square, because that's German too and if I don't put my foot down now, they'll burn the Reichstag and annex their neighbouring countries and next thing we know, there will be organised mass-murder!!

See what I mean? That's taking things way out of context, just like it is to stop enjoying Jane Eyre because you find out Charlotte Brontë was a bit negative about gypsies and had a character going off to India to be a missionary.

Rant over.