Everyone in the office went for a pub lunch today because we had visitors from America and Germany, plus our database admin contractor was in too. I'd been waxing lyrical to one of my American colleagues about how great Fullers pubs are, not least because all of their bottled beers are vegan, and was quite pleased when I found that the pub we were going to was a Fullers owned pub.

Anyway when we went in they didn't have any of their usual classics in bottle form so I had the only vegan adds available: Golden Pride. Then, when it came to ordering food I said "I'm vegan, do you have anything vegan?" and she laughed at me. Fucking cunt.

When the chips arrived they came with mayonnaise and some had even managed to get onto one of my chips.

As if that wasn't enough I now have a god awful stomach which I am quite convinced is a direct result of eating their food.

So to summarise: Avoid The Volunteer ("The Volly") in Theale. It's shit.

Man asks officer wearing badge for meth

Yahoo! Odd News, Friday August 17th 2007.

Tonight, against all odds, the second Newbury FlickrMeet shall be taking place. I was a little annoyed as somebody who i had repeatedly worked around to make this thing happen pulled at the very last minute leaving just me and one other Flickrite. However i'm now looking forward to it. I nearly cancelled the event but both i and the other Flickrer had been looking forward to it, so it made sense to go ahead with it.

Tomorrow Liz's mum and her partner are paying us a visit en-route to the rugby in Twickenham. Liz is also going along so i'll have to find some way to entertain myself. I could always go for the guitar and kazoo one-man came again.

Then on monday two of my German colleagues and two of my American colleagues are visiting. So next week should be a little more exciting than this one has been.

A-level results

Why oh why is it that every year when the a-level results are announced that the media have to do a big steaming shit all over the good news that grades are improving?

Aside from the fact that it's unfair on the students it's also just not news because they report the same thing every year.

The good news is that the BBC seem to be trying to be a little less biased and a little more balanced in their approach to reporting on the topic this year.

I've mobilised my blog! You can now access the mobile version at http://nic-nac-project.de/~lowey/cgi-bin/moblog.cgi where the pages use much simpler styling.

I've also set it up so that i can blog directly from my phone, meaning i can blog from nearly anywhere. Why? Because it seems inappropriate to blog from work, and i can never be bothered to get my computer out at home ... So i'm now thinking that on the train is the best place for me to make updates now.

Of course, writing blog entries on a phone is much harder work than on a computer, but at least i'll have a fighting chance of staying on top of the updates.

All of this leads me onto an important piece of news: after 5 years i have finally got a new phone. It really was about time. My number hasn't transferred across yet though, that won't happen until monday, so many prank calls shall be made before then.

Anyway if you happen to bother to use the mobile version let of know what you think of it.

Smoking Ban!

The smoking ban comes into effect tomorrow. :-D There's something to look forward to. I think I'm going to go out and have a drink to celebrate.

Work

Well I'm certainly settling in now. I've been given some coding to do at last and have had fun with it so far. It's so nice to not get up every day dreading the rest of the day. The weeks are zipping past now as I am actually enjoying what I do and I'm learning new stuff.

The only problem is that now when I look at the Perl code I've done during my spare time in the past it all looks pretty crumby in comparison to what I produce at work. I've started rewriting loads of my own personal code as a result...

Dosh

I got my bonus from Fujitsu just before I left, which meant I had ~£600 more this month than I did last. Excellent! And there was I thinking that I wouldn't be able to afford to finally pay off my credit card next month. Well, it turns out I could pay it off this month instead. Excellent! I've not done it yet (want to keep enough money in savings for emergencies) but the end is most definitely in sight.

New Job

I have now started my new job, in fact I've been there a week now. It's been good so far: My colleagues all seem cool to work with, the work seems quite varied and interesting and the working environment is much more pleasant than the last place I was working.

As of yet I've not had a chance to get my teeth into any real coding, that's still to come. At present I'm just acquainting myself with the software and the environment and building my machine. I did try CentOS on the recommendation of one of the guys I work with, but it sucks so I've decided to sling Gentoo on - which is what I'm doing right now. Better the devil you know...

Soya

It turns out I am one of the single most awkward vegans alive as I discovered, rather uncomfortably, on Wednesday that I am allergic to Soya. Well, I already knew I was allergic to it: If I eat a lot of it at a meal I get serious stomach cramps and ... well, let's just say "other related problems" ... But little did I know that I could have a really nasty reaction to it. Ever since I went veggie I've had more Soya in my diet, as it seems to be present in an alarming number of veggie dishes. It's almost as if most restaurants don't know how to make foods without meat in, so they just replace the meat with Soya. And, since becoming veggie, I'd noticed some little slightly itchy bumps on two or three of my knuckles. Nothing to be alarmed about, but I had noticed them and pondered their existence.

All of this week I had noticed that the little bumps had started to spread to other knuckles and the backs of my hands had been quite itchy. Then on Wednesday they suddenly covered the backs of my hands and, when I got home from work I discovered I had them all over my back too. Down my legs, and all over my chest I had lots of small (about 2mm wide) red dots that looked worryingly like blood blisters. Every inch of skin on my body itched like hell, and I was incredibly heat sensitive as if I was sunburnt.

After a little background reading, and a hunch, I decided that it had to be Soya that was causing it, and decided to cut it from my diet starting from that evening. The next day the bumps were starting to subside and I was starting to feel a hell of a lot healthier. As of today (2 and a half days on) I still have the marks left behind by them, but they are clearly fading. My back still looks like a million mosquitoes went to town on it, but it too is much better than it was and isn't nearly as itchy as it was. The red spots are all very pale now.

So there you have it: A Soya intolerant Vegan. Next I plan to decide that I don't like vegetables. ;o)

New Job On Monday!

I'll soon be starting my new job! Woo!

On the other hand, my laptop is screwed :-( Boooo...

Luckily it's still in warranty! Woo!

But it's going to be about a week or two before I get it back :-( Boooo...

No internet access at home. No scanning images in on my new film scanner. Plus random people are going to be poking around my data :-( I knew I should have used an encrypted filesystem ;) At least I've managed to get a (text mode) version of my blog. Bloody Fujitsu Siemens hardware.

There are some very ignorant people

I get so tired of people who are completely ignorant of what it means to be a vegetarian or a vegan trying to tell me I am wrong or that I am a hypocrite for caring.

It's not as though I go out of my way to shove my beliefs down people's throats: I hate having to constantly argue the same thing over and over and so I'd personally much rather keep quiet about my lifestyle choices until challenged. And if I am challenged I will, of course, fight my corner. Why people then claim that I am being preachy is beyond me.

If I found out a friend was a Buddhist I wouldn't start demanding to know why and try and prove them wrong on every point they make. First of all I respect their choice to believe in something, secondly because it'd be rude to do so. But let's say for the sake of argument I DID challenge them and they beat me back on every point that I made. I wouldn't then tell them that they're being preachy because I INITIATED THE DISCUSSION.

When I go out to do the shopping and choose not to buy milk, eggs or meat, it does not affect what any omnivores do. So why do they feel the need to argue my lifestyle choices? I don't tell them what to do and they have no right to tell me what to do. The only reason I can think of is that my moral choices have forced them to inconveniently consider their own, and as they don't want to have to think about whether it is right or wrong to slaughter animals their knee-jerk reaction is to attack my own choices.

If people want to debate the morals with me in a calm discussion, that's fine. What I am sick of is all of the ridiculous comments claiming I am a hypocrite, or preachy, or don't know what I am talking about, or that somehow my moral decisions DO affect them.

I wish they'd all go away and do some reading and then get back to me on the matter.

New Job!

After a long period of wanting to move on I have finally done it! I've been offered a role in Theale writing Perl to integrate security systems. The role sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than my current job, much faster moving, closer to home, they have a proper car park, it puts my career path back on course (it was veering dangerously towards software repackaging again), and it moves me into a good market to be in. I'm looking forward to it. :)

IN OTHER NEWS:

Check out these directions, courtesy of Google. It might not seem too odd, until you look at the directions. Step 24 is of particular interest:

Someone at Google has a great sense of humour.