Drew's Blog. The dots in .co.uk

Drew Wagar's Weblog.

Thursday September 14, 2006

Off to pastures new!

Well folks!

Been a bit lax on my blog for a while, but there is a good reason. I'm off! I'll soon be ex-sun, sun-alumni, a dead parrot, I will have passed on....this employee will be no more...

I'm off to KPMG. Thus this blog will also cease to be, it will be... (insert badly plagarised monty pythonige)

Thanks for reading this blog over the years. Not sure if I'll be allowed one at KPMG, but if not you can follow the new blog I've started on my home page.

Here > http://www.wagar.org.uk

Look forward to seeing you there and thanks, you're great! You knew that didn't you!

Cheers, Drew.

( Sep 14 2006, 06:52:57 PM BST / Sep 14 2006, 06:52:36 PM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/off_to_pastures_new

Tuesday June 27, 2006

Stupidest piece of tat with football branding on...?

I appreciate I'm only supposed to whinge about something once a week, but this football malarky is just getting out of hand.

I was in B&Q the other day (national hardware supplier for you colonials out there) to buy a piece of dowling. I discovered, to my horror, you could now buy a set of 'Patriotic England Red and White striped screwdrivers'.

Can anyone beat that for the most idiotic piece of trash daubed up to flog at double the price to undiscerning punters by simply sticking an england flag on it?

Answers below!

( Jun 27 2006, 08:33:29 AM BST / Jun 27 2006, 08:33:29 AM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/stupidest_piece_of_tat_with

Wednesday June 21, 2006

Football

How I hate football!

I don't know if I'm the only person in the whole of Europe who hasn't got the slightest interest in this overhyped and pointless game, but it seems like it. Work stops, traffic stops, people get stupidly drunk and all the decent pubs are ruined for the duration.

Not that I've watched it, but apparently England haven't been playing very well so far. Big question then, what do they actually do that makes them worth their utterly stupid salaries?

Worse than this though are the stupid flags people are sticking on their cars. I bet they are popular with bikers as they are ripped off at highspeed on the motorway. Duh. I saw one car with its wing mirrors painted with an England flag, enough is enough!

I expressed my opinion that I hoped we got knocked out soon and was told I was being unpatriotic! (Well, I'm not english anyway so I didn't care).

I listened to our rubbish entry in the Eurovision song contest, how much more patriotic can I be? ;-)

( Jun 21 2006, 11:20:46 AM BST / Jun 21 2006, 11:20:46 AM BST ) Permalink Comments [3]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/football

Friday April 28, 2006

When I rule the world...

Ok, whinge time!

Most of you will probably have read the 'If I were an Evil Overlord' stuff. It's great. If you haven't it's here.

This occasionally gets me to thinking... (when I'm in a bad mood) What kind of people would I totally irradicate from the world if I was in charge and having one of my Evil Overlord tempers? A quick blast from a star trek style phaser, no mess, no hassle... ;-)

My list goes thusly so far, please make appropriate suggestions! Let's tidy up this planet! Bwah ha ha ha ;-)

People who pierce bits of their body (exceptions for women with earrings, but only one set allowed)
People with tattoes
People who swear (exceptions for people who almost get run over by a truck or similar near death event or appropriate reason)
People who say "Nufink" instead of Nothing
People who don't understand what is wrong with "I didn't do nothing."
People who don't understand what is wrong with "I could of been there."
People who drive SUVS/4x4s to take their kids to school
People who wear anything from FCUK
People who don't laugh at my jokes (forced laughter not accepted, must be the genuine article)
People who use mobile phones on trains (in fact anywhere near me when I'm in a bad mood)
People who answer their phones when talking to me
People who are late for meetings
People who sit next to me on trains when there is a seat available somewhere else
People who take too damn long using ATMs/Electronic Ticketing Machines
People who are ahead of me in the queue at the supermarket
People who snore on trains/planes/buses etc...

That'll do for starters. Who would you remove? Doesn't have to be fair, equitable or even justifiable, remember, us Evil Overlords have carte blanche!

*** For the humour impaired. THIS ISN'T TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY OK?!! ***

( Apr 28 2006, 05:48:40 PM BST / Apr 28 2006, 05:34:37 PM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/when_i_rule_the_world

Thursday April 06, 2006

Office Shenanigans...

Been a bit lax with my whinge of the week (whinge of the last two months!), and the blog in general, but I've been busy, yada yada, excuse, excuse... ;-)

My current pet hate is my wonderful colleagues, can I say that on here? Well, I'm going to. They're not that bad really...

It's just stuff like when you agree to help someone, and you agree to produce a document or similar. Fair enough. Then you read the email summary of the meeting and find that what you agreed has morphed into something much bigger. Grrrr. Solution? Offer to write the minutes. (Evil Grin - Bwah-ha-ha!).

Also the classic non technical evaluation of a technical thing, along the lines of....

"Yes, we can do that!"
"By and large it's straight forward."
"The technical team will be able to give you that immediately."
"Your product has an API does it? Great, no problem then."
"Nothing much has changed, we don't need to retest it."
"How difficult can it be?"

Of course, us techies try to give sensible, intelligible and above all, realistic answers to these questions and attempt to clarify the grey areas, which results in...

"You're being a bit negative aren't you?"
"We all need to be team players."
"I think we're all violently agreeing with each other."
"I don't do detail."

Has anyone got a sure fire way to kill a cliché? I'd love to know!

( Apr 06 2006, 01:37:46 PM BST / Apr 06 2006, 01:37:46 PM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/office_shenanigans

Friday January 27, 2006

Out of the way, I'm coming through!

Whinge of the week time again, and I'm turning to the roads.

Usually I travel mostly by rail, which despite it's bad reputation hasn't been too bad of late, though extortionately expensive for what you get, particularly in the rush hour. You'd have thought £30 a day would guarantee you a seat... but no....

Anyway, this week is all about the motorways, and you get two whinges for the price of one...

1. Middle Lane Morons. This is where some bumbling idiot fails to return to the inside lane after overtaking something, even though the lane is clear far into the distance. Result, to overtake this idiot, you need to move into the fast lane (pedant alert : I know it's not supposed to be called the fast lane, but tough, ok?) and so you end up with a stream of mostly executive cars all queueing up to over take, whilst the inside lane is empty. Inefficient bandwidth utilisation that is. Great website here about it all btw.

2. HGV (Heavy Good Vehicles) or SGSLs as I prefer to call them (Sodding great slow lorries). You get one of these in the inside lane doing 55.5 mph, and then in the second lane another overtaking at 55.6 mph. These HGVs are of course about 600 metres long so it can take them the entire length of the UK for them to overtake one another. I understand it's not entirely their fault as they have speed limiters aboard, but they are guilty of the heinous crime of occasionally venturing into lane 3 (actually illegal) and blocking the entire country. Trouble is many of our motorways (particularly in my neck of the woods) only have 2 lanes anyway, which means I'm stuffed.

Solutions?

HGVs are easy. They should only be allowed in lane 1. No overtaking whatsoever. What's the point, you can only do .1 mph difference anyway.

Middle lane morons are trickier, though I think the latest round of cars is moving in the right direction...

I notice many car manufacturers are now adopting head up displays on the windscreen. All I want is a few small additions: The words 'Missile Armed', 'Target Locked' and a nice red trigger button....

( Jan 27 2006, 11:16:23 AM GMT / Jan 27 2006, 11:01:27 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [1]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/concentrate

Wednesday January 04, 2006

Snow!

Slightly out of date, but I have a household rule that work PC's are switched off over the holidays, along with mobile phones and any other communication routes...

Whinge of the week is therefore whinge from last week... snow!

Now, you really have to live in the UK to understand our peculiar attitude to snow in this country. We have a strange love/hate relationship with it.

We love it because it's (relatively) rare, looks pretty, you can have fun, there's often a day or two off work/school etc..

We hate it because it obliterates our transport system in minutes, is unpredictable, melt and freezes making things treacherous and we're just not set up to cope with it here.

Me? I love the stuff. I live in East Kent, which is a slightly peculiar part of the UK in that it is the most south east point of this green land and, you would have thought, largely immune to snow. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your outlook) due to the nature of the terrain and the exposed northern coast we often get a curious Siberian wind from the northeast, which blows across the north sea, sucks up loads of moisture and then dumps it on us as snow, leaving the rest of the UK wondering what the fuss is all about. By contrast, we all tend to get the hottest temperatures in the summer too. (The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK was recorded in Kent.)

The results? 4 days effectively snowed in over the Christmas break. Not much of a hardship really! This is what we woke up to on the morning of the 27th. 10 Inches of snow and -6 degrees celsius - what my Dad used to call "Frosty 'round the Grampians" ;-)....

My 4WD Audi was about as much use as a chocolate teapot in this because there is a layer of sheet ice under the snow here, and there is a sharp tilt on the driveway which doesn't show up well in the photo. I gave up after almost hitting the neighbours car after 15 mins of sliding around, so we went for a walk instead...

My two boys and I (Joshua on my shoulders, and Mark) enjoying a 'Winter Wonderland' in the local woods! Priceless!

( Jan 04 2006, 05:16:42 PM GMT / Jan 04 2006, 05:06:57 PM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/snow

Friday December 09, 2005

Why can't the US make decent film adaptions?

Yes, it's 'whinge of the week time' again...

After blasting the UK media last week, I'm turning my guns on the US this time around. I've getting fed up with Hollywood.

I've been to see three films recently which were adaptions of some of my favourite books.

"War of the Worlds" - H G Wells
"The Polar Express" - Chris Van Allsburg
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" - Roald Dahl

Now, I'm always wary of film adaptions as they generally come up short of expectations (notable exceptions include Lord of the Rings and the first Harry Potter film).

War of the Worlds

Recently redone by none other than Steven Spielburg, nothing wrong with that. Starring Tom Cruise... expectations lowered appropriately... Now, anyone who has read this book in its original form knows two things. It was called war of the worlds for a reason, there are two worlds involved, Earth and Mars. The aliens are 'Martians'. It was also set in the UK in the Victorian age. There has already been a tolerable US version, so why set it in the US again and give up on the Martians? It has virtually nothing in common with the original book other than the title. Special effects are up to the usual quality of course, but role on a film adaption that goes with the original story, in the meantime buy Jeff Waynes' musical version and imagine what might have been.

Summary: Absolute rubbish.

The Polar Express

Another disappointment. I really hope Chris Allsburg wasn't involved in this film, because it utterly ruins a great book. The book is a wonderful tale of innocence, childhood lost yet regained and a gentle comment on not growing up too fast. The film, on the other hand is a complete mismash of mild horror (what on earth was that stupid ghost about?), insultingly painful political correctness (the ethnic minorities smugly save the day despite the inadequacies of the dumb caucasians...again), tedious special effects and action sequences to keep the playstation generation awake because nothing actually explodes... The final nail in the coffin is a script which is meaningless, making the conductor (Properly known as a 'Guard', by the way) friendly one minute, aggressive the next and incomprehensible inbetween. The only upside was the music was pretty good other than the hotpotch "christmas hits" medleys near the end.

Summary: Execrable, but get the book, it's great.

Charlie and the Chocolate factory (starring Johnny Depp)

This had me fuming from almost the start. This story is set in North England, against a backdrop of mid twentieth century recession (coal mining towns going out of business). So what do we get? Daft fake english accents done by the american actors, people buying 'candy' bars (what is a candy bar?)... worst of all (YE GODS!) people using 'dollars' in the UK! Not only are you insulting the whole of the UK by implying we don't actually exist, but you're insulting the intelligence of the whole of the US by assuming they can't actually cope with another country having a different currency. Dumbing down or what? Christopher Lee (Wonka's father, a dentist) was way too typecast for this role as well, I kept expecting him to get out his drills whilst wrestling with a stubborn molar and say "The force is strong with this one..." or "Open wider young halfling." Johnny Depp did a pretty good job though. Get the other version starring Gene Wilder back in 1971, far superior.

Summary : Fun, but badly flawed.

( Dec 09 2005, 02:23:56 PM GMT / Dec 09 2005, 01:43:33 PM GMT ) Permalink Comments [3]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/why_can_t_the_us

Saturday December 03, 2005

Register fails to register...

Is it me or is the quality of stuff being reported on the register going bit downhill?

Now I don't have a problem with the BOFH and stuff like mp3 breast implants as it gives me something to read on a late friday afternoon, but when you get unqualified quotes from people like Gavin Clarke such as "rather poorly architected application server" it makes you wonder where the quality is. How many applications servers have you architectured then mate? And did he totally miss the point of the 'free software' thing or what?

I used to find their 'analysis' quite insightful, even when it was pretty hostile to Sun (hey, we screwed up a few times, fair do's ;-), but I'm picking and choosing nowadays. It's like some of their commentators just like making waves to get noticed, and that's just cheapo journalism.

ps. Gets even worse... This diatribe by Andrew Orlowski on web 2.0 is just comical. Er, guys, I think you need to stop taking your 'surveys' quite so seriously. Every new wave of technology gets over-hyped, live with it. Doesn't make it any less relevant in the long term.

( Dec 03 2005, 10:29:43 PM GMT / Dec 03 2005, 09:26:18 PM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/register_fails_to_register

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