Month: January 2002

We saw Serendipity on Sunday at 2.45. Good film. Kate Beckinsale looked very elegant and it’s sort of good that British women are popular as leading ladies. Cusack alone has starred opposite Catherine Zeta Jones twice, Kate Beckinsale once and Minnie Driver once. Anyway, it was a good film.

I’m meant to be booking dinner for Lesley’s birthday in the Japanese restaurant up on the Ballyrobert road. I’m looking forward to it a lot. I’ve no idea what “real” oriental food tastes like because the Chinese and Thai restaurants sometimes seem so westernised. We’ve been to the Ginger Tree (the Japanese restaurant) once before and I loved it. I was being conservative. Next time I’m going to go a bit mad now that I know I like it.

My friend Jane is Korean and she tells me about these wonderful-sounding dishes she prepares. Again – I think that unless you are in the country – you don’t GET what the meal is meant to be. My parents went to Hong Kong years ago and they said that Chinese food was TOTALLY different to what we get here. Of course, I’m well into my Chicken Massaman and Chiang Ban Riang (or however it’s spelled) and haven’t had a “Fried Rice with Curry Sauce” in years but it leaves me wondering. I guess I’ll have to pester her for a recipe for a meal. Sort of reminds me of when we went to the Chinese supermarket in Belfast. There’s some wonderful stuff there but I feel like I’m missing out on so much of it. I don’t know what a lot of it is (it’s only labelled in Chinese) and I wouldn’t know what to do with it – I’ve mishandled Bean Curd before in my curiosity.

I got my hair cut today. It’s very short. Feels very comfortable and will be very easy to deal with in the morning – something that was actually becoming frustrating. Am I getting lazy? I’d like to think that I’m getting focused. Might just be wishful thinking.

Plan for tomorrow?
10:30 – Scan at the hospital
Should be fun and we should have a few more pics for the webserver.
12:00 – Hopefully write more training course stuff.
17:00 – pick up Lesley from work.
19:00 – Computer Architecture class
It’s on an hour earlier so that should be good. Probably an hour early from now on.
22:00 – Sleep
I’ve got to be in the centre of Belfast for 6 am to drive to Dublin for 9. There’s this whole Mac OS X seminar thing going on and I’m going to be talking to a nice lady about some extra work training people how to use Mac OS X. It’ll be a long day.

Had a weird dream last night. Lesley was the MD of a company we co-owned. It provided consulting services and contract work and was all Mac-based. Very vivid. We both hope it comes true.

So, I’m applying for another job.

There’s a job I could do in Lisburn – IM & T Development and Operations Manager. I could do it. It’s about the same money but it’s a management step rather than a purely technical job.

I think I’d like that.

I have to train some people but it’s worse than that. I have write the training course as well. I’ve written bits and pieces but it wasn’t until tonight that everything began to crystalise in my tiny mind. Trying also to organise a course that would keep everyone entertained, teach everyone what they needed to know and also pitch it at the right level. Some people will be coming to the course with considerable knowledge of the subject while others may be casual Mac users.

Of course, I need the money that the course will bring. Last year I joked about being paid in hardware which would keep my upgrade needs satisfied but the cash is really what I need especially with the baby coming, the creche being costly and Lesley having trouble with work – I’ve said she can stop when she wants but I’m not going to demand that she stop – she knows her own limits and to help her through the day I’ll be meeting her for lunch so she can have a lie down in the car. It’ll be nice – sort of the highlight of the day.

In this day and age I don’t know why Novell continues. It’s like they haven’t got the message or something. It’s actually a bit sad. Every now and then I come across some poor bugger having big problems and all I can say is: if you were using an open standard then you’d be sorted mate.

I’m probably reacting to the mood my darling wife was in when her machine was “put on the network” at the University. The machine was from then on a hell of a lot slower (get this: it’s 166 MHz) and would crash every time she tried to shut down. As a result I’m becoming convinced that Novell is punishment for shoplifting in some countries.

Great quality control there guys. As a result she is now forced to use her iBook for just about everything. Course then you realise that Novell’s support for the Mac has always been crap – last update from them was 1999. No loss.

Oh, and their website is slow as hell.

Some things just weird me out. Slashdot is a hang out for geeks and gets more than it’s fair share of mindless drivel in the comments after every story. This story, a criticism of Apple’s strategy seems to have brought the Linux geeks in to …protect…Apple….

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/14/1647208&mode=thread

Weird.

Best Quote: “P.S. I’m not a Mac user… but, I may be one soon.”

Weird.

So weird, in fact, I’m off to have a shower. Was back at the gym for the first time in months and did only a little workout. Not too bad. The lack of pain might mean I’ll keep it up.

While looking up this word using Omnidictionary I stumbled across several meanings.

fundament
n 1: the fundamental assumptions underlying an explanation;
2: lowest supporting part of a structure;
3: the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on

I finally understand what a fundamentalist is.

And yes, I’m listening to the same CD as last time. Wonderful.

This morning, a loyalist paramilitary group shot dead a 20 year old catholic postman on his way to work in a dominantly protestant area.

I don’t want to live in this country any more. I don’t want to raise my children here. I don’t love this place, I don’t love the people and I don’t love living here. I feel ashamed to say I’m from Northern Ireland.

I’m getting mighty sick of this country and rampant bigotry. Turn on the news and see what a mess this place is in. The smell of burning reached as far as Mallusk.

As someone wrote on the BBC News site (when that blast bomb was chucked at the children):

“Isn’t it about time that we started treating the people of Northern Ireland like the animals they are.”

I think that’s why I applied for three jobs this morning – none of which are in Northern Ireland. Anything important to me is portable.

I’m tired of the speculation. Apple says that this new thing will blow us away. They say it is something never done in the PC world before. They say it’s going to be big – even bigger than other things they have done before.

I’ve seen the iWalk fakes. I’ve heard the speculation from MacRumors, MacOSRumors, AppleInsider and ThinkSecret and frankly I’m getting a little tired of it all. I’m looking forward to the weekend as the rumour sites don’t tend to get updated at the weekend.

We’ve had a death in the family as well and it’s very sad. Tsunami.