Osama binNED Kelly

I woke up this morning, got ready for work and - as you do - decided to check the weather first before going out.

I turned on the TV and was greeted with another video released by Mr. bin Laden. I couldnt help but grin and think.... "He really is sticking up his finger at them aint he?". The next thought that crossed my mind was about what people will think of him in the future.

Think Robin Hood, think Billy the Kid, think Jesse James. I'm sure in their time they got lots of bad press as well. But now dont the movies make 'em out to be heroes of some sort?

I kind of think Osama is not going to go down in history as Hitler or Idi Amin. How many years it takes before a holywood blockbuster comes out almost glorfiing Osama actions and how he eluded Coalition forces in the caves and moutians of Afghanistan... i dont know. But i wouldnt bet against it.

The funny thing -- not funny haha -- is that i would want to see it. Hell i'd even download it off mIRC or Kazaa. [For those that know... that means i really would want to see it]. In fact any film about Osama... whether it makes him out to be and evil cocksucking bastard or a hero to the oppressed Arabs is most likely to be way up there in the public's ratings.

Heath Ledger as Ned Kelly, legendary bushranger and leader of the Kelly Gang.

Osama bin Laden as himself, the elusive terrorist and leader of Al-Qaeda

The question though is... which western director or film company will put their necks on the line to make such a movie? Cos as much as the publich will go see it... the critics will slate it... and some goverments will ban it.

Last 40 Hour Week

As you may already know, I'm starting Uni on Monday. I'm enrolling on sunday and i'm supposed to fill all these details of some forms for then. These include my weight and height of which i have no idea. Someone get me a scale and a tape measure.

Anyway yesterday was my last 40hour week working for Carphone Warehouse. And a really hectic one at that. People living in the UK may know that the company is moving into the landline market and as such is expanding. It's landline service is TalkTalk.

Now as i mentioned in those times when entries came by more often, I've been employed on a sort of Projects environmet to look at the current processes that the admin team does and find way to cut down on manula entry.

It used to be like, I'd go to work, spend 5hours surfing around. Pick one of my earlier scripts and modify it a bit. Do something clever with it. Get heaps of praise. Blog and gloat about it and get paid as well as have loads of prai heaped on me.

Well now with all this expansion and my being moved to a dedicated Projects team. That means i have to find ompany-wide solutions for manual entry. Basically now i'm having to work for every single penny. The demand for scripts and databases is so high that i've been given a priority system to assign to each new project that is requested

I barely have time to complete one before another one is thrust in my face with a "highest priority tag". Normally I dont like droping things in the middle to go on another project becasue well... i dont take notes. And i forget where i was. The good thing about all the pressure is that it's making me a good programmer. I take notes and make a note of every change i make.

What they havent got out of me though is a good manual writer. I've written a few but i dont like them myself. Anyway... so back to school it is. I was 'laxing about the whole thing until late Friday when i got hit with a bomp. The IT department is making a massive change to the billing backend.

Now before i joined CPW, used to be a manual system for most connections but my scripts have made it possible to push a few buttons thruout the day and get, on average, about 500 customers a day connected. Now when they used to do it manually, people didnt use to hate the job of connecting customers onto the system that much, but thanks to urs truly, no one will be willing to sit down connecting 500 individual accounts.

Not a problem you think? Just modify the script for the new system you think? The mu'fuckas are changing the system over on Monday. Of all days... it had to be my indcution week. I had to spend all day yesterday making sure the processes that couldnt wait have their scripts, templates and macros modified to reflect the new system.

The problem is that i cant test it till the system goes live on Monday. I dont have my timetable yet so i dont even know whether i cna go in on Monday to test the new system before re-leasing the scripts for use.

The only good thing that will come out of all this is that they'll realise how much i'm worth. I hope they wont equate it to "We better not be so reliant on him".

Anyway... just so you guys know, i'm blogging from home. This is the first entry from home i've made in a long time 'cos i cut off my 56k connection over a yr ago and just got broadband installed on the 13th.

Consider me back. Hopefully. Sort of.

It's Official!

I'm now officially a student at Kingston University. I'm reading Computer Science and i have to remember to tell people my name is Faf.

We dont want people runnig around calling me Kofi or Fred [or bussabus or sum'in]. Or any of my million other names. i still dont have my timetable... but i've been told to turn up at 11.30 and take it from there.

Hmm...

Prejudice: Mummy's Boys, Dumb Blondes

I dunno but it seems whenever i meet new people i got into my "i'm-better-than-ya" mode.

I've only seem people today and i'e already created an image in my head of what they're like and why i wouldnt wanna be seen with them. Let's just call it guilty until proven innocent.

There's this one guy i saw yesterday at the registration tailing his mum and acting like he couldnt even go register himself into uni without parental guidance. I mean this is some tall indian dude we're talking about. You look at him and you see someone who bound to smoke and indulge in all sorts of vices his mum doesnt look like she's permit... but he brins his mum along to register.

So maybe he lives far away and his mum had to drive him... i dont care. Big people like that dont need minders. It's not like anyone is gonna jump him or anything.

Anyway, forget yesterday. I see him today again. He' turned up late for the first day of induction and what does he try to do? Bring his mum into the lecture theatre. WTF? Why doesnt she come take the whole course for him then. i felt a bit embarassed for him when the head of faculty asked his mum whether she was taking the course too and she hadto leave.

I dunno.... but i dont like him. I'll be watching him and let you guys know what he does once his mum goes away.

Now about dumb blondes. Hmm... i dunno i've got it ingrained in my head that some people JUST cannot handle a Cmputer Science course just cos of the way they look. I'm not talking just blondes here... but the look. I keep on looking at people and quickly pass a judgement on whether they could handle it or not. I dont make the rational thought of asking myself; "How did they get here then?". Cos obviously if they couldnt handle it... they wouldnt have got a palce in the Uni. But then again... that's just one of my irrational thoughts.. among which includes that notion that Chinese girls cant be ugly.

I hope i'm wrong though... cos it'll be bad for those 10 or 20 ppl i've already decided arent good enough. And i hope it doesnt turn out to be me that's unfit for the class.

Take The Money And iPod

So i got back from work on Thursday and i had a letter from the IRS. Cut to the chase... I've been sent back nearly £500 pounds in overpaid taxes. Dude! Sweet! So what do i do with it?

Firstly i send £200 to Ghana for my dad and siblings. Then i waste the rest on an iPod. I got me a 15GB 3rd generation version. If you dont know what it means... dont worry about it cos i aont gonna spend my time explaning it to you.

I spent all of last night and tongiht researching about MP3 players with built in hard-drives and settled on the iPod. I went to Amazon to read the reviews staring from the worst rated to the best rated. One thing i kept coming accross with all the others was the fact that they seemed to last a year and then go dead somehow.

Also the heaver ones seems to take a real beating when dropped even from a short height. Infact the reviews were so confusing that i finally decided to throw caution with the wind and go with aesthetics. hence the iPod.

Even if it goes dead in a year, al least i know the tax man didnt steal my money.

Now about my Uni induction week... I finally got my timetable and i have Wednesdays free, which means i'll be working a full day then. I've got another half-day off i can use to work then i can rest weekends and take my driving lessons as week.

Also i got my first installment of the student loan. Let's just say -- in the words of Robbie Williams -- "I'm Rich!! [for a student]". Now about how to manage it for the next 4months....

Boozy Nights and Bad Timing

I've just spent the weekend in Nottingham with Abe and just like the other 4 or 5 times that i've been there, the journey there and back was fraught with problems.

Firstly, bcause i've started Uni and can only work a few days of the week, my bosses seem bent on using me to the max those days that i'm at work. I ended up leaving work at 5.45pm leaving me 45 minutes to catch my coach from Victoarai Coach Station. Imposible.

I ended up coughing up £46 for a train 1-way ticket to Nottingahm. There was no way to back out of going to Nottingham seeing as Abe's been bent on me visiting before my course starts in full. Thing is, she's on the 3rd year of her Medical Course and she wont be getting any time off to visit London till X'mas. And even then, it's only for a week. After that, the only time of she gets is 2weeks off in the summer. Now that means if i hadnt gone this weekend... the only time i could see her properly would be over X'mas and even then both of us might be too busy working on projects of some sort. Yeah so i turned up.

I'm not gonna tell you what happened whiles i wa there... all personal stuf. Apart from when I got drunk and puked all over Andy's bathroom and blamed Abe for every bad thing that ever happened in my life. Nah actually, i blamed her for not stopping me from binge drinking.

So there. My first proper British binge. I ended up being helped home by Abe. The funny thing with all this is that, even tho i lost proper control of my limbs... my brain seemed to function almost up to par in all that. I didnt get any reports of slurring or any of the classic signs of getting drunk. Granted i feel down the stairs a coupla times and had a lil' Eminem "face-off" with Andy. He wasnt all there himself.

Anyway... I'm going teetotal from now on. It's not like i drunk much before this anyway. I was just telling Marian "Slew" Harris the other day about how she was more likely to find more of my bad side had we still been together. And those included how i never drunk much alcohol and was always the boring sober boyfriend. Then the follwoing day i end up too drunk to walk home. I think i'm gonna restore that "bad" bit of me. So from now on no more alcohol. Not even alcopops.

Oh did i forget to mention that, most of the stuff that got me drunk was um... i forgot... that ladies drink? Lambrini!!! Embarassing huh? Maybe not. cos i had the whole bottle. And a bit of lager. Which i dont normally drink. Actually never drunk.

[Just talked to Abe, aparently i said i wouldnt blog about it. I propably wasnt listening to my self then] Well enough about it anyway.

My journey back. Hm... classic. Seems whenever i go visit Abe, something has to happen with my ticket or timing. This time it was timing. I was supposed to leave to catch my coach at 17:15. I sat around doing fuck-all on the computer till 17:00. I started to get ready and called the cab and was told it'll be 15mins before i could get hold of a cab. Not really surprisingas it was a Sunday. Well i knew i had missed the coach and there nothing i could do about it. So i went online and bought another ticket for the next coach. Sorted then?

Nope. The ticket office closed at 17.15 and Abe left her printer at home so i couldnt print an e-ticket. The only printer available in a house occupied by 5 students had no only color ink in it. And even that wouldnt print. Right now, it was costing me about £24 + £40 just to go visit my girlfriend and I wasnt even gonna get home after spending all that.

The second ticket i'd booked was for 18.30 and there was still no hope of printing off the e-ticket. I couldnt even make changes to my ticket or cancel it o basiccaly i was fucked.

I decided to take the offensive and forge an e-ticket for the next day. And that's how i got back to London. I really pisses me off that i had to spend so much even though it's all my fault. I plan on forging another ticket next time i travel just to cut my costs. If i get caught... well, to hell with the consequencies.

Now i've decided that i'm not gonna EVER bu a ticket in advance when going to visit Abe. I'll always go to the station and buy a ticket from there. At least then i know very little could go wrong.

Oh yeah... unrelated but Abe's pointed out to me that my spelling is going down the toilet. Check the last few entries and see how many mistakes you can spot. It seems i have total disregard for the English language and it's spelling conventions. I ommit lots of trailing and starting letters. A lotta letters are juxtaposed and whatnot. At least in my defence i can say my grammar still holds.