Predictions of the future

I'm watching Johnny Mnemonic and it's interesting in some ways, the VR headset he's using looks a bit like the Video goggles, but not much (hint for Christmas there :D ). Laughed to myself when he was barking instructions for the bits of kit he wanted, including a "Thomson i phone." Might have been "eye-phone" but was worth a giggle.
Nowt much else happening. I think I've managed to finish half of the remaining NVQ units, going to try to finish the rest this week (said that before) and I've been told I can sign off the hours at the gym, which is a good reason to go more.
Got a bit depressed when I realised that I have one friend on XBox live, even my fish have more of a social life than I do. On the plus side it's been good catching up with Danni on Facebook.
Wow, that actually is a fair summary of my week. Bit sad really.

Sir Arthur C Clarke

He was buried today in Sri Lanka after dying on Wednesday.
I never met him, like most of us, but he's one of those authors that's made a huge impact, both on me and on people who've never heard of him. As well as being an amazing author, his 20001 (or as I prefer, Sentinel) is one of the great films, although the book's better.
He worked on RADAR in the second world war with the RAF and developed the specifics of the Clarke Geostationary orbit that allows so much of modern life.
I haven't read all that much of his work, in fact I was amazed how much there was, but one of the books that I did read when I was younger was a collection of his short stories, including the Sentinel. One of the ones that stuck with me was "The Nine Billion Names Of God." It turns out it's also one of Neil Gaiman's favourites. Like so many of his stories the end isn't what you expect. I think he was one of the writers that make me start to think that there was more to the world than I could see, and that finding out more about it could be the best thing possible.
Sir, you will be sorely missed and fondly remembered.

Little bit hungover right now

First off, cheers to Morgan for pointing out that I've been misspelling caffeine for two years.
At the mess last night heard some great tales and had a great time. Have a type 2 hangover right now and was worried when I got up because I had made a load of comments on facebook when I got back in.
Having a look at them I think they're okay but I really shouldn't drunk type.
In case you're wondering, there are 6 levels of hangover.

1. In a type 1 you have a little bit of a headache but nothing special, probably don't even need an aspirin.
2. Now you want an aspirin/fizzy-headache-cure of your choice. You've got a mild headache, your stomach feels a bit off-colour but give it a couple of hours and you'll be fine.
3. This one is what my friend used to call a "hangover in the form of poo." It's worse than a type 2 but only until you go to the loo, at which point everything clears up.
4. Here things start getting serious. Your stomach is growling, your head is pounding and you don't want to be moving much.
5. By this point you're swearing off booze forever. Your head isn't pounding, it's a constant pain. Your stomach is not your friend - it's trying to eat itself. If you decide to stand up (fool!) you'll soon sit down again, trying to move is a bad idea.
6. This is the biggy. It's self inflicted so don't expect people to be sympathetic, although it would be nice if they were. Your head and gut will be horrific, light should be avoided, pure water is a waste - I'd recommend fruit juice. Stay in bed, you're not going anywhere.

There's the old rule that four o'clock is the magic time when a hangover will clear but that only counts for type two and four. Type 5 can only be cleared by sleep and type six is a two day suffering that can only be cured on Sunday afternoon in the pub with friends, by which point you'll be drinking soft drinks with your roast lunch.
This brings me onto hangover cures - there are none! If you can be cured, any cure will work. My preference is alka-seltzer xs, but at the moment nurofen is enough. Replacing electrolytes and re-hydration drinks help but as my dad once told me, the only thing that cures a hangover is 24 hours with sleep. Once you get in, you're not actually asleep. You're not conscious but it's not proper sleep, that comes later. Mixing drinks will usually make the hangover worse, it's a chemical imbalance after all and different types of drink will have different effects on your blood chemistry.

Not sure why I'm blogging this, but I just felt like putting it down.

Anyway, hopefully England will play the rugby better today than last weeks abysmal performance against Scotland.

An odd sort of week

Well for one thing it's been a long week and it's not over yet! Actually a long two weeks.
One of our guys was sick last week and then when he came back another had a member of his family taken into hospital very ill. Had to organise for us to shut down overnight so told everyone except the helicopter guys- felt bad for forgetting them. As it was the man in charge of operations was told, as was air traffic control and sorted out next door to cover for us and produce the documents. I was on leave the next day so would have come in if needed but I'd been told not to do that. Then this week the situation had got worse so we had to cover the staff member's shifts. Wouldn't have been a problem as the boss was back up this week so able to cover but after my second night shift he called in sick at about 4 am. The other forecaster was asleep before his scheduled nightshift so it was a while before we could get contact with him.
In the end I've been on nights all week, including the extra four and a half hours on Tuesday morning (ended up being a 16.5 hour shift, although did get to come in a bit later on the next night shift) and I've got tonight on as well. There's a possibility of having to come in over the weekend as well but hopefully someone else will be able to cover that.
Just realised some of you may not know the shift pattern. We work 12 hour shifts from 8 - 8 with 15 minutes of handover each side of the shift, during night shifts I try to catch a bit of time between observations (every hour at ten to the hour) to get some sleep but doesn't always happen and if there's too much work on sleep goes out of the window. Factor in the travel time and I should have enough time between shifts to get some decent kip in, provided no one calls/knocks. I'm not sure how many hours I've worked this week but since 9 pm on Sunday it's been more work than not. Joy.
Thing is, I don't mind doing the extra work, God knows I didn't take this job to just work when I feel like it. We do a job that's quite important to the people we work for, and from the impression I've got from the guys out in Germany, we're doing rather well (working with the Americans, ohh the stories!). I keep getting told by down south that we should shut down and work differently, letting other stations take up the slack but honestly don't think that this would provide the level of cover they need, partly as our briefings have started at five in the morning. So when things go wrong I step up and work.
Wouldn't be so bad if didn't get a recorded delivery, my electricity meter read and two phone calls today while I was trying to sleep. Hence me blogging rather than sleeping at four in the afternoon. Was thinking about hitting the mess tomorrow but don't know about that now. I promised myself I'd have more of a social life this year and the mess is the best place for that at the moment. Meh, don't know what I'm complaining about really, in fact I'm not complaining as such, just grousing. I like my job, I love where I live and work, Be nice to see friends more but I could make more friends up here if I tried harder (or something like that - never been the most outgoing person).
Tash rang up to see if I fancied doing a walk for charity so not I'm in a group climbing An Teallach for the Trail/WaterAid challenge in June. I'll be looking for sponsorship soon, may well hit work for it (corporately, not just the guys in the office) as WaterAid is one of the official charities this year and there's an online system for hitting up you good folks.
I think that at some point in the future I need to get some of you up here and we can go up a few hills.
Right. Buffy, Star Trek, food, Simpsons, work. That's the short term plan, I'll think about a long term one when it becomes a short term one. Only long term one is to get fitter and loose more weight and watch the Terry Pratchett Colour of Magic this Easter (if anyone's up here they're invited over to watch it!). World changing ain't it?

Free as in "You don't pay for it!"

A while back Neil Gaiman ran a pole to find out which of his novels people would like to see online for free.
I was a bit dubious but it turned out that American Gods won and is now available free on the Harper Collins website. Some people may already know about it, some people may not care, but if you want a chance to read a great book about mythology for free (but we don't know for how long), head on over and have a look (or a Loki).
I've been very lucky with these books, a really good friend over in America got me a signed (and personalised) first edition of American Gods! I'll still read the on-line version, if only for something to do in work.

*editted to add* Apparently the free book is only up for this month (March!) so enjoy while you can!

Isn't there something going on over the pond?

It seems to be election season doesn't it?

Dodgy results in Russia, more campaigning than you'd think sensible in the US. People on the BBC news (in the crowd I must stress) shouting "four more years!" in the UK.

So first off, am I the only one that gets annoyed when people in the UK don't know that we vote for our government at least every 5 years, not 4, although it can be sooner? Yeah probably.

As for America, I know if I was over there I'd be a democrat (well, actually I'd be a non-voting alien, but meh), but who would I vote for?

It's allowed in the US constitution for a Clinton-Clinton ticket (Bill can't be elected again, but he is allowed to be vice-pres as gaining the premiership through the sucession of the VP doesn't require a vote) and I liked Bill. I do think Mrs Clinton is more aggresively driven than her husband was.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of politicians campaigning against each other rather than for policy but I'd probably just go with the one with the best advert. Like most people.

Here's one of Mr Obama's.

Couldn't get the gif to save.. Apparently Mr Gaiman is amused by it. Which reminds me (see next post).

Adverts part deux

It's been while since I went to the cinema, and looking at my finances it's going to be a while longer, but up here they have a few different adverts in the trailers. There's an organisation called Project Scotland that is trying to get people to volunteer for stuff. Doesn't sound very interesting yet does it? The thing is their adverts are brilliant. Warning: There's a close up of spider for about 2 seconds near the end.

I want to see teenage wizard transforming spider pirates 3!

It's a shame that these won't get shown down south, Ginger gorilla milky milky sounds just like that line from The Mary Whitehouse Experience.
Oddly enough, went down to London a couple of years ago to see a mate and we went out to watch the November the fifth fireworks on the Thames. His girlfriend and one of her mates were with us and we randomly got talking about the Mary Whitehouse Experience. Was quite a surreal moment.

Answers to the film quotes thingy

I've put the answers to the film quote quiz at the bottom of the entry, if anyone wants to still try it, just don't scroll down too far.