1. General ramblings on TF2 (yeah I'm late, and I've been badly out of touch with the TF fandom for well over a year, but whatever):

( Cut just in case of spoilers. )

2. The weather:

( Cut for geeking out about the weather. Raven is weird like that 'kay? )

- R.

Children of Bodom. Covering Alice Cooper.

...

THANK-YOU GSP RADIO. <3

That is all.

Funniest shit I've seen in a while. Demands the use of the Admiral Norrington icon, just because of how bloody fitting it is. oljomo, if this was really your brother (which I highly doubt) you need to tell him to quit being such a n00bcake-ish jackass.

And with that said, scammer log is GO!

( Read more... )

- R.

I would like it to be known that reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

...well okay, not greatly. But I'm still hanging in here.

Despite not being around on journals any more I've kept paying for my LJ, so I suppose that says something about me not being willing to let go of it just yet. I haven't really "left" the blogging community. I've just... taken an extended break I suppose. Creativity has still been shot to hell thanks to college so don't expect any of the old stuff to come back any time soon. But for those who've been wondering where the fuck I've been, yes I'm still alive.

I miss Cambridge. I miss the various people connected with Cambridge who I've been useless about keeping in touch with. I miss being able to write pointless drivel and fictional tales because my own creativity allowed me to and because I enjoyed doing it (and I miss the community connected with that too). I miss having the time to dabble in artwork or outdoor sports or the other from-all-areas-of-interest stuff I used to stick my nose into from time to time. I miss the regular contact I used to have with science and technology, and the study thereof. I miss the old optimism and the aspirations and the dreams of traveling the world, meeting new people, experiencing other cultures, and generally getting the most you can out of life. I miss all those little things that I thought would stick around but seem to have melted away in time without clear cause or warning. I'm scared shitless that if and when I graduate I'm not going to be able to find a job and my mother is going to worry herself to death over it. I'm pissed off at the typically-my-luck timing of the "global credit crunch."

I plan on going to the Sunderland Airshow again this year. College is starting to feel a bit like it's caging me in and I need to get out more. That and the homesickness has finally started to kick in after almost three years.

I need a distraction.

I am still alive, though.

- R.

Hi, gang. Remember this old rant from days gone by? Well I found a thingy this morning. Here it is:

--> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7702930.stm

I don't have the ability to be angry at the moment. I suppose it's a sign of how much college has sapped away my energy that I'm rarely angry enough about anything that I'd be able to type up a rant of the same intensity as I used to back then. That old rant kinda says everything I would have said at this point anyway, so repeating myself would just be wasting everyone's time.

I guess I really only have a couple of things to add. My biological father is an asshole and treated my mother badly. They divorced when I was a toddler. I feel like my mother and I have been fighting my whole life to chase up my biological father and make him accept that he's got some responsibility as a father, and the CSA have only made things difficult for us. I'm twenty years old now and studying to become a lawyer. That's almost two decades during which the CSA have failed to hold my biological father to account, while my mother really struggled to make ends meet for both of us. And since my father has now left the country, there is nothing we can do. We've exhausted all avenues. In short, the lucky bugger has gotten away with it because the CSA were incompetent.

All I can say is I hope this new thing they're planning doesn't go the same way. Because that's gonna be another huge number of people they'll end up letting down if it does.

Half of me wants to watch its development like a hawk and the other half just doesn't want to know any more.

- R.

Well the old reliable cellphone I've had for about 4 years if not more has finally died (I miss it already), forcing me to purchase one of those new shiny cellphones with the unnecessary gimmicks that I hate so much. On the up side, it's black (yeah y'all saw that coming I know. Hush now). On the down side, because the screen on my old cellphone was the first thing to go kaput, I can't transfer over my old contacts list to the new cellphone because I couldn't read the contacts list from the old cellphone. No screen, no show.

So.

I need y'all who've given me your numbers over the years to do so again, because I literally don't have any at all. All posts will of course be screened.

My number's the same, or it should be according to my provider.

That's all for now. Be seein' you.

- R.

So I got home after my last final and signed onto teh intarwebs for a little while, then told everyone I was talking to at the time that I would go take a nap for just a few hours because my brain was fried and I needed to reboot it.

I ended up sleeping for close to 10 hours.

I think that's just indicative of how much school has sapped from my energy this year.

- R.

Quick note.

- I have not checked my f-list for several months. Apologies for being out of the loop.
- I have not posted anything in a long time. Sorry for the inactivity.
- I am still around, just not very much right now.
- I will be back ASAP.

*waves a flag reading "RL got busy. brb." and scampers off again*

- R.

Userpic says it all. Does anyone know who the hell is in charge of making the decision as to whether fares increase and by how much for the rail network here in the UK? I want a telephone number. I wish to have a personal chat with him or her and ask some questions so that the latest fucking increase at least makes fucking sense to me.

Sonuvabitch. This is fucking ridiculous. It should not be cheaper to get a goddamn domestic flight than it is to travel by train. Especially when we're all about reducing carbon emissions and whatnot and encouraging people to use alteratives to air travel. Jesus Christ, what are they thinking?!

I can't get over this. It's pissing me the hell off. And if I had more energy in me I'd type up a proper Ravenological Bitchfest detailing exactly why. With statistics and links and goddamn pictures if I can find some suitable ones. Those of you who've been used to my ranting about Stagecoach from when I used to live in a different town can perhaps look forward to a new bitchfest target: Network Rail. Different company, same fucking uselessness in the public transport system.

Goddammit, but I hate some things about my country sometimes.

- R.

Also a GIP, but mostly just because this bitch of a paper has been causing me so much goddamn tearing-out-of-hair over the past coupla weeks that I just HAVE to take a brief break from writing it to inflict the given question on you all and share the pain. You've been warned! Never study Law! It will drive you nuts!

( CUT TO SAVE YOUR SANITY. NO WANT BRAINASPLODE? NO CLICKY! )

It wants RESEARCH. It wants CITATIONS. It wants a CLEARLY STRUCTURED ARGUMENT. It wants you to back up like EVERY POINT YOU MAKE with some kind of AUTHORITY. It wants STUFF.

It also wants to EAT ME ALIVE.

Me? I just kinda want my brain back to being in functional order. :\ I kinda feel like I'm slowly dying here. Seriously.

- R.

( Microscopically small Ravenological Bitchfest )

In other news, I am such a dork. I wandered into the local Wilko store to buy a shit-cheap ringbinder file to stick all my school notes into, and ended up picking up something else while I was there. But hey, it was only £0.49 and now my room looks a bit more reflective of the time of year. Yes, folks, I bought Christmas tinsel from Wilko. And now my deskspace looks like this:

--> Click here for picstuffs!
--> Close-up of the tinsel itself

Toldja I was a dork, didn't I.

The continental markets have arrived in the central square of the city, by the way. Distractingly shiny handcrafted trinkets, cute gift ideas, embroidered clothing, farmed produce and homemade dishes are everywhere being crowded around by curious townspeople looking for something to buy. Lights and decorations add to the atmosphere and the smell of good food being cooked in some of the market stalls wafts around the area and fills the air like a curling, slightly hazy smoke.

It's nice to be reminded of why I can learn to love this time of year sometimes. More traditional stuff like the markets helps take the edge off the commercialized feel of the modern Christmas season that can gnaw at me from time to time. I wish there was more stuff like this around, but at least it's something. Now if only we could get some snow to round it off, things would be that little bit nearer perfect.

It's probably a good thing I went for a bit of a wander around the city today. When one has coursework papers to write, it does wonders for one's mood just to see -- and I don't just mean simply looking at it like you normally would when rushing from one location to another in the course of daily life, I mean really look closely and see properly -- the place around you and have something unidentifiable about it make you smile. For no apparent reason other than just because.

It's oddly uplifting.

- R.

Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God.

The new neighbors have acquired a new sound system. With SERIOUS bass. Which sounds EXACTLY like the one LAST year's neighbors had. You know the one. Don't tell me you don't.

...

I DO NOT FUCKING BELIEVE THIS.

Asdfghjklkjhgflail.

- R.

So, mostly because I am a slow learner and a dunce and having a revision/study guide to use as a guideline to help me keep track of what we're actually studying right now is actually helpful, I went ahead and bought one of the cheaper ones sold by my school, which are tailored to reflect our particular syllabus/curriculum for the Public Law module of the course.

Then I got home and actually looked at it.

Essentially? IT'S JUST A-LEVEL POLITICS ALL OVER AGAIN. In fact, it's not even full A2 but just AS Level. Zomg.

...I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, on the one hand, the fact that I've already done at least the basics of the Public Law module I'm studying this year is good and I therefore should probably shut the fuck up and stop complaining, but at the same time the repetitiveness is really starting to grate on my nerves. For instance, this is the FOURTH year in a row that I've had people stand in front of a classroom and ramble at me about the fucking Constitution: the AS-Level Politics year was when I first got introduced to the UK Constitution, such as it exists, then the next year in A2-Level we took that definition and compared it with the US Constitution. Then the year after that (which would be last year. My freshman year) we got told about some relatively basic (I suppose) stuff as part of the Foundations module that introduced us to how legislation and stuff is made. Constitution came up there, too. And now we have this year.

FOUR YEARS IN A ROW, DOOD. There you have it.

...

@_@

I'm seriously considering emailing my old A-Level teachers for Politics out of the blue just to say "HAY GUYZ GUESS WHUT I'M STUDYING THIS YEAR OMG. :D" or something equally silly, just for the hell of it. Though I should probably not use Lolcat Netspeak because I'm not sure they'd understand me if they did. Oh well. I'll think of something... perhaps...

- R.

So it's some weird-ass hour of the morning and I'm TOTALLY AWAKE doing preparation for some seminars that I will be having this week. One of the questions is one of those "give reasons why blah blah blah should or shouldn't be blah blah blah" questions, and it's sitting here in front of me... and all I can think of to write in answer is:

"Because it's stupid. So there."

...yeah. I've been trying to convince my brain that's not an acceptable answer for the past half hour now. Please send help.

That is all.

-R.

New neighbors are getting really fucking annoying. Girl From Some Flat Down The Hall Who Shrieks When She's Drunk (IE. All The Damn Time) -- who will henceforth be referred to as "Shrieky" -- keeps knocking on my door and running away giggling cackling like a maniac. I swear she's insane or something. In any case it's annoying as fuck, especially when she does it to all the doors along my corridor at about 3AM in the morning and brings a bunch of friends along to help her out. I'm considering waiting behind the door with a heavy, blunt object so I'll be ready to open the door and swing it at her next time she comes along.

Also, a note to my fellow dorm residents: I dunno which one of you fucktards on my floor decided to use up all the hot water today, but suffice to say you are a wanker for doing so. Have I mentioned how much I hate taking cold showers when I pay rent with the aim of ensuring that I will have hot or at least warm water to shower in? Well, now you know. I hate you all, goddammit to hell.

I have four seminars to prepare for next week. I'm-a gonna wander off now.

Bye.

- R.

I hate going shopping for textbooks because of the subject I study. I attend college in the UK which means there aren't any subjects to major in as such; you don't major in anything, you just study one subject and only that one subject for the whole time you attend college.

My subject is Law, because I am crazy enough to study it. Within that subject I have four sub-areas to focus on per year. Last year, for example, the four sub-areas were:

--> Property law relating to Land
--> Contract law
--> Criminal law including litigation and evidence
--> Foundations and workings of the English and European legal systems

Every year means you get four new sub-areas to study, so every year I have to buy new textbooks. And here's the part that really pisses me off.

I need a textbook for all of the sub-areas that I study, and because they don't remain the same from one year to another I have to have a new textbook for four new sub-areas every year. But that's not all. Oh no. I also need a separate case book for every sub-area that I study at this institution, and if the sub-area has an "open book" final exam I will also need a separate statute book. So that's potentially three books per sub-area each year. I have to buy at least eight books at the start of each new year, and potentially twelve books if the finals are open-book.

Both case and statute books are thick enough to count as textbooks, and the prices certainly reflect that. You can see now why this is such a hassle. I went textbook shopping today rather than earlier in the week because I heard the book shop were doing a 10% discount offer today. Even with that discount, today's bill still ran up to £116.52 GBP. And that's only six books worth of money; I still have to go back next week to pick up the three or four for which they didn't have any stock today.

Yes, you heard that right. £116.52. For only six books.

And while we're on the subject of money-related gripes, my student loan for this year still has yet to come through. I'm living off my savings right now, and my weekly rent has gone up to about £112 this year. Oh yeah, and the extra tuition fee that we have to pay because we're studying for a partially vocational course rather than a purely academic one (an extra tuition fee which is NOT covered by the Student Loans Company, by the way) has increased this year too. The school blames inflation, or so I've been told. Last year we had to pay £900 for this extra fee. They haven't told us how much it's increased to this year yet.

If I don't get a decent job after the four years I will be spending at this institution I am going to be fucking pissed at how much money I'll have wasted. And then I can look the Government in the face, flip them the bird, and say, "Ha! You told me to go to college so I'd get a better job. Hell, I wanted to go to college even without your encouragement, because unlike other lazy bastards out there I DON'T like the idea of living off the State for the rest of my life like I had to through childhood. But look at how it's worked out. I'm £30,000 in debt and have very little to show for it."

Hopefully it won't come to that, but I'm feeling like my usual pessimistic self today. So there you go, I said it anyway.

And now I'm going to wander away from the computer and locate some food. I haven't had lunch yet today and I should probably make a move to rectify that soon.

Be seein' ya, folks.

- R.

Time for a little good ol' fashioned Ravenological Whinging, everyone. It's not like a week ever seems to go by without me finding something pointless to complain about, after all. Today's topic is Microsoft Windows. In particular, the newer stuff that Microsoft have been punting at the consumer market lately.

Our tale begins in the free access (at least to those who hold a valid passcard) computer lab in the basement of one of my college's campus buildings. Namely the Computer Science school, unsurprisingly enough. The computer I chose to use was running Microsoft Windows XP. So there I was, browsing through my college's intranet to find a file to print off, and when I open it I am greeted with... well, you'll see for yourself later when I post the screengrabs. But to cut a long story short, I suddenly and unexpectedly find that Microsoft Word has been "upgraded" -- to Microsoft Word 2007.

I take one look at the thing, blink twice, and have to clamp down on the urge to run away screaming.

Lemme try and give you some idea of what I'm disliking here. Y'know when you walk into any electronics or computer store these days and all the desktops and laptops that aren't Apple Macs now have this thing called 'Vista' installed on them? This thing called 'Vista' which is eye-wateringly uber-shiny and uber-blue, and all the buttons look like massive glass orbs, and all the menus look like massive blue glass slabs, and everything is bloated and puffy and takes up too much space on the damn screen so you can hardly see what the hell you're doing? Yeah. It's kinda like that.

It. Is. Ugly.

I fumble around for a little while and try to find the "Print" button. Apparently, in addition to making the menus at the top of the window ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE and stupidly blue-ish, they have also gotten rid of the usual File, Edit, View, etc. drop-down menus. Which is why I was having so much trouble trying to establish where they'd hidden the goddamn button that would allow me to print something. After several excruciating moments I happen upon a thought: I'm going to take a screengrab of this new version of Microsoft Word and inflict it upon the poor, suffering fools who still stick around to read my blog. Share the pain and all that, y'know. In fact, I actually ended up with a screengrab not just for Microsoft Word 2007, but for every single Microsoft Office 2007 program that had been installed on this particular computer. I couldn't resist opening them all up to see how badly they'd been mutilated. Trainwreck syndrome, or something.

Anyway, here they are in order along with a little on-screen commentary because I felt like putting some in. As some extra background info, the computer I was using had a monitor with resolution 1280 x 1024 pixels. It was running Windows XP.

1. -- Microsoft Word 2007
2. -- Microsoft Excel 2007
3. -- Microsoft Powerpoint 2007
4. -- Microsoft Publisher 2007
5. -- Microsoft Outlook 2007
6. -- Microsoft Access 2007
7. -- Microsoft Infopath 2007

The goggles. They do nothing.

I do not like the trend I'm seeing in the latest Microsoft products at all. Everything is huge (like X-box, for those of you who'll get the joke) and too shiny and too puffy and blue and eww and stuff. And let's not even get started on how slow Vista runs. Funny how they spend so much effort on the all-new user interface to make it look nice and shiny, sacrificing performance in the process, and yet said sacrifice is made for nothing because in the end the user interface still looks ugly as shit. It's horrible and blue and shiny and massive. Kinda like staring at a computer screen full of huge, shiny, sometimes squared-off, glassy bubbles. That's what all the damn buttons look like. And I hate it.

I've been saying this for a while, but the current trend in Microsoft products has banged the last nail into the coffin; the next computer I buy is going to be a Mac. That, or I'm switching over to Linux. I do rather like the look of Ubuntu, and now that I actually have a Linux computer (albeit a very small one that runs DSL instead of Ubuntu, but it's still a Linux computer nevertheless) to familiarize myself with, the switchover probably won't be too bad. My current laptop runs Windows XP. If I'm ever told that I "need" to upgrade to Vista because support for XP will be fizzling out in the near future, I'm just going to tell the messenger to kiss my ass because I'm switching to Linux. And that will be that.

One thing I won't have as much control over is the college campus computers. They may well be upgraded to Vista in the near future, and there is nothing I can do about it. This will mean that whenever I have to use a campus computer, I will be forced to work with Vista and the equally godawful Microsoft Windows 2007. This will be the cause of much frustration, the clawing out of my own eyeballs, and many future Ravenological Bitchfests -- unless I can work out a way to boot a campus computer straight from my little DSL computer, without breaking too many of the computer use regulations imposed on us students. Simply booting the DSL computer within Windows works too, of course. But it tends to run noticeably slower this way.

...and it's now gone half past midnight. I think I'll stop here. Later, all.

- R.

Ah, laws. Funny little things, aren't they. On one side, society probably couldn't function without a lot of them. And on the other side, there're some aspects to them that are so fundamentally stupid you just want to tear all your hair out and beat your newly bald head against the nearest goddamn wall. Repeatedly.

Take the Data Protection Act, for instance.

Yes, I get the fact that to The Home Insurance Call Center I could be just about anyone. In theory. Yes, I get the fact that my mother, as their customer, wouldn't want them giving out details to any old moron who decides to call them up. Yes, I get the fact that this law is in place to stop ID theft and all sorts of other shit that exists out there. Yes, I do appreciate the reasons why this law was brought in. However, when things start to noticeably lack in that rare and valuable property called common sense, I start getting annoyed and go around screaming "Ohnoez, bureaucracy!" in that highly disruptive spastic-flail manner displayed by outraged fanboys everywhere (just be glad I don't start capslocking like they do).

Has anyone else out there noticed that sometimes, The Law and Common Sense clash just a little bit too often? And that Common Sense tends to be the losing side when this happens?

Coming back to my conversation with The Home Insurance Call Center today, I called 'em up because Mother Dear was in a bit of a state over the renewal apparently not getting through. She asked me to try giving them a call and asking them whether there was a problem, because the fee should have been drawn out of her bank account by direct debit by now (she's been making trips to the local branch of her bank, checking her bank statements, and so on. There's nothing there to indicate that it's gotten through). So I thought fine, I'll call 'em up and see what the fuck was going on. Easy, right?

Wrong. And you know what pissed me off the most? The fact that it was only AFTER I'd confirmed all the goddamn details over the phone that Call Center Guy said something along the lines of, "...actually, I'm sorry, but I can't answer your query because we need your mother to be there to confirm that you're authorized to receive the information. Data Protection Act and all, y'know."

Yeah. After I'd been on the phone for all this time confirming a bunch of goddamn details and wasted money on the phone bill because hey, turns out I got nothing useful out of it after all; after I'd given him the policy number and told him the background and confirmed the address and telephone number and so on. AFTER. So, y'know, Common Sense at this point would probably lean towards my story being legitimate. Probably. But The Law's view is that I could still be some kinda uber-criminal who's managed to get hold of the details somehow. And admittedly, I suppose I could be. But I'm not. And no, I can't get my mother to confirm over the phone right now. Because I'm still in my college town and my mother is at home. We are over 200 miles away from each other as the crow flies. How the fuck am I supposed to be able to get her to confirm over the goddamn phone? Throw my cell in her general direction and hope it'll make the entire 200+ mile journey?

Also, "I'm sorry I can't help you, but if I do I and the company could both get sued" doesn't serve to mollify me at all. In fact, it only serves to piss me off more. Nobody's going to fucking sue you for letting me help my mother! Jesus Christ. I'd be more likely to kick up a fuss about the fact that I can't help her and because I couldn't, she's only going to get more stressed. Then you can talk to our family doctor about her existing stress problems and the fact that you're not supposed to make them worse. Or maybe not, 'cause y'know, I suppose the fucking Data Protection Act applies there too. But that's okay, because I'll just say it myself instead. I have no problem with ranting explaining my story to its fullest extent, after all.

I think I already did, too. To his credit, Call Center Guy agreed afterwards that it was all rather stupid too. So he does have some Common Sense in him. However, neither of us could do anything about The Law as it stood, so I gave up and ended the call. Later on this evening, I'm going to have to break the news to Mother Dear that I can't help her thanks to some law that's intended to protect her information from thieves, and that she'll have to get someone closer to her geographical location to make a call while she's there to confirm over the phone instead. I'm hoping she doesn't react to the bad news by having a nervous breakdown or something. And the sad part is that even if she did and I somehow found the grounds to take Home Insurance Company to Court for the stress they've caused her, it would be a really stupid move that couldn't possibly work; they'd just quote the Data Protection Act as their reason for doing what they did, and the fact that they're required by Law to follow the Act's provisions. Therefore, it ain't their fault.

Laws. I'm all for 'em when they're actually constructive, but I honestly think sometimes they need more goddamn flexibility. Just... argh. It's been an irritating day so far, and to top it all off I'm going to have to continue studying for my retake now. Excuse me while I stare blankly at the ridiculously convoluted Land and Property laws which I'm supposed to know inside-out by 23rd August.

In other news, I actually remembered dreaming for the first time in ages last night. It was another of those movie-quality vividness dreams that I get sometimes, with the usual amount of crack thrown in. Because let's face it, all dreams are pretty cracky. They mix and shift and tangle and one completely unconnected thing will often happen before another. It's only after you wake up that you suddenly realize, "Hey, that was one really fucked up dream."

And on that note, your dose of Ravenogical Blogness is concluded for today. Be seein' ye.

- R.

My country is liquefying.

It feels like over a month since the heavy rain started, and ever since then it's been wave after damn wave of fucking floods. I am fortunate not to know anyone who's been amongst the worst affected -- yet. But the principle of the thing is still pissing me off.


And meanwhile, we get to watch Gordon Brown totter around on TV and attempt to make it look like the Government's making itself useful. It would be nice if we saw some action to accompany all that talk. Just sayin', you know.


Here. Have a link to some more pictures. Raven loves visual aids; seeing pictures helps to give you a better idea of things. Usually.

--> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/629/629/6911778.stm

I would like my Summer back. I'm sick of rain. I want blazing sunshine and temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

This shit is fucked up.

- R.

----------

UPDATE: The latest victim of Floodfest UK 2007 -- Oxford. Click here for a video link.

Brief update regarding the internet connection problem I've been poking at recently:

Turns out there IS no faster service available until September 3rd, due to upgrades / maintenance / whatever they have to do to it over the summer vacation. So I'm stuck with the slower, more limited service until then. And they've blocked all ports save for 80, which means things like Skype don't work any more. Poo.

There's not much to do around here when your options have been limited so.

*flops again*

- R.

Woke up to a shock this morning upon realizing that my internet access token had expired, since normally the students in this dorm are expected to have moved out by today. I'm an exceptional case, which is why I'm still here. My internet, however, had to expire in the same way as everyone else's.

Mother Dear happens to be visiting and she didn't see why I thought losing my internet access was such a big thing, but after a while I finally managed to persuade her to let me go downstairs and ask to renew the connection, because yes I really DID need it back ASAP or else I will start breaking things, k-thx-bye.

I'm now connected on a free service they've given for the moment. It's noticeably slower than the service I paid for in September when I first moved in, but for the moment I'm just happy that it exists. I don't know what I would've done if I had to wait until tomorrow, which is what I recall being told I'd have to do earlier. The faster service will be available from Monday, which is when I will toddle downstairs to the office to pay £300+ so that I can start using it again for another year.

In other (equally irritating but slightly less likely to make me go on a violent rampage if unremedied) news, British Gas suck ass. I kept being forwarded to the wrong damn place and had to call about three different numbers before finally being able to sort out the problem for Mother Dear that she'd complained about when she got here. It really SHOULDN'T have been that hard, but I guess British Gas just employ too many incompetent morons. That, and their use of call centers tends to mean data gets somehow misplaced after the person you talk to on the phone signs off at the end of their shift. Or at least, that's the impression I've gotten from having to deal with too many call centers for my sanity's wellbeing. Argh.

I should type up a rant, I really should. But I feel too lethargic today. Maybe some other time.

- R.

So after feeling like the entire world was one big damn mass of cotton wool to be waded through yesterday, I crawl off to bed only to be interrupted after no more than three hours by the sound of some asshole apparently trying to break into my room. I was most displeased.

I'm even more displeased now than I was then, in fact. Because after being woken up I could not, no matter how hard I tried, get back to sleep again. So there's your warning. Today is completely the wrong day to go poking me with sticks. I am sleep-deprived and cranky, and will most likely bite your head off. Painfully, and messily.

That is all.

- R.

My day started off with very little sleep for the second... no, wait, possibly third (I've lost count) time running, because after crawling off to bed I unexpectedly woke up two hours later for no apparent reason whatsoever, and then couldn't get back to sleep again to save my life. Eventually I admitted defeat and concluded that This Totally Wasn't Working, said "Fuck this", gave up, and crawled back out of bed again. The next few hours were inevitably spent in 'Sleep Deprived, Cranky, And Craving Strong Coffee' mode.

HOWEVER. Despite the bad start, I actually got a lot of things done today. Go me, or something.

First chore of the day: go get groceries. So off I toddled with my pack over one shoulder and headed for the grocery store. Filled the pack to bursting with various foodstuffs and toddled back home. Shoved everything into the fridge, then toddled back out again to do the second run (this time for household supplies).

I actually ended up getting distracted from my initial plan to head to the store again. Instead of going back to buy supplies, I bumped the supply run down the Priority List by a few places and headed for the Civic Center instead. "While I actually, y'know, remember to do so," I told myself. "Before I forget again due to my being an idiot." For those of you who don't know, the Civic Center in this town is basically City Council HQ. I'd been pointed in this direction in regards to potential job-hunting opportunities, so I figured it couldn't hurt to try asking around. I hung around in the lobby for what felt like ages, waiting in a queue, and eventually got a negative response; basically, I'd missed the application deadline for job vacancies over the summer vacation already. Bah.

(Note to self: in future, no matter how panicked you might be about the fubarred clusterfuck that is Finals Season, don't leave it until AFTER finals are over to start applying for jobs. Because otherwise you will be far too late. Yes, this means you have to juggle job applications alongside studying, but guess what? Life doesn't give two shits if you get stressed as a result. That's just the way things are. Either learn to fucking cope with it, you moron, or quit whinging about your resulting lack of employment afterwards. You've only got yourself to blame.)

...er. Where were we? Oh yeah. Negative responses. I'll admit I was a bit disappointed by the Civic Center telling me 'no', because it's just another failed result to add to an already long list of negative responses. I'm sure I'm not that useless, but at the same time I seem to get turned down everywhere I go. It's kinda disheartening, y'know? Nevertheless, I decided to go on a bit of a job-hunting roll while I was at it and I headed back to my college's office to find out if they knew of any job vacancies over the summer vacation for students like me. They gave me a few suggestions, but when I looked into the details I ran into another roadblock.

Folks? Meet the Problem -- Raven's Desperation For Money vs. Raven's Preference For A Job That She'll Actually LIKE Doing.

Details on the jobs from the college office: "a photographic company" turned out to be what sounded like a beautician which also took photos of glammed-up youngsters hoping for a career in the modelling industry. "A retail vacancy" turned out to be a placement at a store selling designer clothing; they even specified in the details that the successful applicant should "have an interest in all areas of fashion", or something like that. Me? I found the descriptions for these placements to be an incredible turn-off. No way was I working for some beauty parlor or some over-expensive rag store. If nothing else, I'd be coming into close, regular contact with the kind of bimbos that have too much money to spend on over-the-top, catwalk-esque fashionstuffs, and not enough common sense to go with the wealth. A pair of jeans for £112 is "tacky"? Excuse me? Some of us live in clothes bought from frickin' Primark and TK Maxx, thank-you very much! No need to be all snooty about it by turning down something from Fenwicks as loudly and pointedly as possible, just because you have the fucking money to let you do so. Jesus. I hate those people.

So in the end, I left the college's job office with another negative result to add to the list. I wasn't going to apply for those vacancies unless I literally had no other option, and while I'm getting pretty damn desperate, I'm not quite THAT desperate yet. Let's see how much longer I could hold out for.

I headed for MZ next. MZ (Model Zone) is the place where I bought my 1:72 die-cast back in January. It's been a while since I'd dropped by, so I figured it was high time I did so. Staff Guy happened to be there when I walked in, and he even remembered me despite my having not visited for literally months. We chatted for a bit, and I eventually got it into my head to ask whether or not he knew of any vacancies at MZ. He said the Boss Lady was upstairs and that I'd best ask her, so I wandered upstairs to do so.

A few minutes later, I left the store after getting another negative response. I don't know whether she recognized me (I saw her less often than Staff Guy when I used to drop into the store more often), but I've actually already spoken to the Boss Lady about job vacancies once before. I even got to the stage where I handed her a copy of my resume, but I wasn't successful. This time, the Boss Lady said MZ were all full up, so unless someone quit they'd have no vacancies whatsoever.

All this made me a rather sad Raven.

"One last shot," I decided. "One last shot, and then I'll call it a day. At least for today." There was one more place that I'd thought of to ask, so I headed on over to the building which sits in the middle of what I've dubbed Nightclub Central. Basically, it's a building filled with restaurants, bars, and other such places for people to wander into when partying in the evening. There's also a casino on one of the levels and a movie theater on the top level. It was the theater on the top level that I now headed for. Wasn't sure where to head after I got to the top level, so I just joined the box office queue, waited with everyone else, finally got to the front of the queue, and then put forward the "Have you got any job vacancies?" question point blank.

The result was an improvement. Staff Lady said they DID have some vacancies, and that I'd need to give them a copy of my resume as a first step. Of course, the chance that I'll actually get offered a job is very low, judging by previous history. However, this was still the best result I'd gotten so far (says something about how hopeless I am if THIS is the best I've been able to manage after all this time, doesn't it? ¬_¬), so I thought I might as well give it a try. I promised Staff Lady I'd be back with a copy of my resume tomorrow, and then I left.

Back to the supply run again. Finally. The spontaneous decision to do a little job-hunting had cost me a few hours, and I needed to get back on track. I went back to the store, picked up the supplies, and headed for the checkout queue. And then? Well, you'll never guess what I did whilst standing in the middle of that queue for the self-service checkout.

I decided I'd go home after I was finished with the supply run, rewrite the existing craptastic version of my resume that sat around somewhere on my hard drive, find a place to print off a hard copy of it, and then head back to the movie theater to hand it in. Today. Not tomorrow, but today.

Of all the places to come to yet another of my stupid spontaneous decisions, eh? I guess I'm just that desperate for a job. Working at the theater would beat working for Bimbos Inc. by miles, so the instinct to pounce on the opportunity while it was there was gnawing at me. Insistently. Like a... really insistent... thing. Yeah.

Of course, this meant for a while that I was stuck in the middle of a queue that didn't seem to be going anywhere, shifting my weight from foot to foot impatiently because I wanted to be home and writing up my resume instead of standing here, and all the while thinking over and over: "Hurry up already. Make this queue shorten faster, goddammit. Hurry the hell up. Hurrythehellup, hurrythehellup, HURRYTHEHELLUP PEOPLE FERGODSAKES, PLEASE!" I swear, watching some of them trying to figure out the computer-y gizmo that served as a DIY checkout... brought a new meaning to the phrase 'painfully slow'. Seriously. I wanted to cry in frustration or something.

Sometime later, I finally got back home. Dumped the supplies where they needed to be and hunted around on my computer for the current version of my resume. Tweaked it. Rewrote whole sections of it and changed the layout to make it look more 'professional' (presentation is an important factor, yo). Saved the edited version to my hard drive. Punted a copy over the internetz to an AIM buddy who happened to be online at the time for a brief proofread. Stuck a copy onto a removable USB storage drive and headed for the building next door to my dorm (gotta love living next door to your college's computer science labs sometimes. It's ever so convenient). Printed off a copy of the new resume. Begged Asked the reception desk if I could borrow their stapler (the printout was 4 pages long). Headed back out, walked across the bridge, and speed-walked back to the movie theater without even realizing that I was going so damn fast. Handed in the resume, left. Felt a teensy weensy bit better about life in general.

I passed by my bank on the way home, and thought to ask about upgrading my cashpoint card to a debit card while I remembered. Bank Lady pressed zee buttonz on zee keyboard and said my new card should arrive in the mail within ten working days.

Boo-yah. That was easy.

I probably shouldn't have wandered into one last place before going home, but I did. The lure of -- wait for it -- W.H. Smiths compelled me. So there I am, browsing through the usual magazine sections (y'know the ones. Cars, motorsport, computer software, politics, business...), when something catches my eye. By the time I left, I'd parted with a few coins' worth of GBP, and had a copy of Air Force Magazine tucked into my pack. Yes, I know I'm a plane geek. Shush, okay? >_>

Finally got home late in the afternoon and pondered taking a nap. Then, because I'm me, I changed my mind. Sleep is for the weak, yo. Eheheheh.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put the ringtone volume on my cell up to maximum. And open a Firefox tab in which to load my college email, so I can keep coming back and refreshing the damn thing over and over again. And hope like fuck that the movie theater actually contacts me at some point over the next few weeks. I really, really could do with that job.

And as a last note for today, a deep-blue-colored Dodge Ram went past as I crossed the pedestrian footbridge to head back to my dorm. I am a rather happier Raven now, yes.

That's all for now. Be seein' ya.

- R.

Some of you may have already heard me whining about the near-constant rain I've been getting in my town lately. Last week brought flood warnings to various parts of the UK, as well as actual floods.

And then, we have today. Hoo boy. Take a look at some of the main stories on the BBC's news pages for England.

Also, have some pictures. Because pictures help to explain things better.

Luckily I don't think the river running through my current location has had anywhere near as many problems as the Yorkshire area, though the fact that I've been holed up in my dorm room while the shit keeps falling from the sky might explain my ignorance if there were any incidents in this city.

Just... WTF, weather. WTF, yo.

- R.

Stuff that happened to-a-day-a.

Got the grocery run done. Finally. It helped that it wasn't raining again today. In fact, for the first time in weeks, I actually had to dress for summery weather when I went outside because it was fucking boiling. Despite the tendency to make me melt, I decided this was a definite improvement from the previous status quo.

Gotta package in the mail from the Triad and spent about half an hour being utterly fascinated by the hamster-bedding protective stuffing inside the box, yarr. Thanks guys. Y'all rock, you know that? *fluffs*

Came home and took a nap, partly because I was tired and mainly because I don't have classes or finals anymore and therefore I can take naps whenever the hell I feel like it, nyar-har-har. Then woke up. Then checked my computer and found I had some new mail. Curious, I fired up the inbox and went to see what was up.

Here's where the day starts to go slightly downhill.

I'll admit I had no clue I ever had the settings on LiveJournal's notifications gizmo set up in such a way that it would email me whenever a new entry got posted at the News community. I really didn't. If I had, I'd have probably done something about it and removed said setting before now. As it was, the checkbox had been ticked, but I had no memory of ever selecting it. Weird, but there it was.

Anyhow. So the settings were there, and consequently, I had a message in my inbox from LJ's notification system. I read it, like a good little munchkin. And then I smelled an oncoming rant.

Let's take this one step at a time.

For reference, the entry I got emailed a copy of can be found here. I'm gonna leave the more trivial stuff out so that the complaining doesn't become too petty, because I'm not in the mood for that particular brand of bitching right now. So the "Oh, right. Vertigo --> vertical; Horizon --> horizontal. Verreh clevar of you. Durr-hur-hur... not" comments can wait for another day. In any case, I really couldn't give two shits about this announcement about the new optional layout. I've had enough new-layoutness already since they changed the default style to Horizon. Sure, it's shiny, but the eye candy seems to have come at a bit of a price in terms of functionality. I'm sick of error messages, and I'm sick of the new code making everything feel more clunky, more superfluously gadgety, and less streamlined. And I still don't like how they made the Update Journal page worse than it used to be. The damn entry box only takes up two thirds of my screen now, which makes it look really fucking stupid. And I'm annoyed that there isn't an option anywhere to let me choose to have the entry box fill the width of my screen like it did before. I liked it better that way, goddammitall. Why not spend less time throwing shiny-but-useless trinkets at us and more time on, y'know, making the damn thing work properly? I'm making myself feel old by saying this, but I could swear it didn't used to be this bad when I first signed up. "Back in the day" and all that, or something. Eh.

Next topic in the same update at news is a heads up about a coupla new posts at lj_biz. This one gets a very brief response from me; "Saw 'em already, and even replied to one of the entries at some point because I was bored and cranky and felt like tossing two cents into the pool just for the heck of it." I wasn't exactly impressed with that particular update either, and judging by the comments neither were a lot of other people. There's enough comments there to make it pointless for me to repeat the sentiments here, but it's pretty obvious that people aren't all that satisfied. Seems to be developing into a bit of a theme lately, that "not satisfied" thing, doesn't it.

The next part made me kerfluffle (and in this case I mean the Fandom Wank breed of kerfluffling, not the "I'm so happy I'm squeeing with glee" kind of kerfluffling. Negative, not positive) to such an extent that I'm going to frickin' quote the damn thing right here:

"Paid members can now turn on the notification to be alerted when someone removes you from their Friends list. Go to your Message Settings to set it up."

What, for the love of Jack-fucking-Daniels, is the point of that?! Seriously!? My brain is imagining all sorts of awful resulting scenarios, and to be perfectly honest, this is a really stupid idea. For one very obvious thing, it's probably only gonna encourage the type of internet drama that results when people go all "OMG, you de-friended me so that must mean you hate my guts! I'm so upset now! You suck!" at someone else for -- *gasp!* -- removing them from their friends list. Ohnoez! It's the end of the world, wrrrrrrryyyy!

...ahem. Yeah, you get the idea. While I appreciate that there're a lotta people who won't react like a pre-teen brat when someone prunes their friends list, creating a pointless means of allowing people to have their attention drawn to it when it happens is just gonna make it worse where people do react like pre-teen brats. It's such a pointless thing! What a waste of fucking development time. They could've been working on something more productive in the meantime, goddammit.

Coupling it with a "drama llama" joke was really the wrong thing to do, too. I hope that footnote at the bottom isn't a jab at the fuss the fandom community put up in the aftermath of the mass suspension/deletion incident. Because me being me, I'm cynicial enough to instinctively read it that way. Especially when I've been seeing talk elsewhere of general joke-making at the expense of the people affected by Strikethrough/Strikeout '07. Cut it out, for cryin' out loud. I'm sick of hearing about that whole clusterfucked mess.

Last but not least, there's the inevitable reminder about the Permanent Account Sale Yey. This is what I have to say:

Fergodsakes, STOP reminding us about the Sale. We already know about it. You've been going on and on and on about it for frickin' ages as it is. Most likely everyone who wanted to know about it already knows by now, and the people who've decided not to purchase a permanent aren't going to change their minds just because you're leaving little reminders everywhere you can in the hopes that people will actually buy one. Bugging people won't make 'em cave. For my part, I am NOT purchasing one. I certainly don't have $150 USD to spare, since I am but a starving student, and even if I did I doubt I'd spend it on a permanent account. Especially after the shit hit the fan during Strikethrough '07. $150 is a hell of a lot of money, and I for one would be very, very careful about how I spend it. Especially with the financial situation I'm in right now.

So there you have it. The complete list of reasons why Raven thinks the recent LJ updates and accompanying notifications were pretty much utterly pointless. I'm left, in short, thinking "...so what?". Count me amongst the unimpressed.

Oh yeah. One more thing before I finish for today...

That is all. Have a nice day.

- R