Mathew Browne

I haven’t blogged in over a month - a symptom of being busy, I’m afraid.

In 5 days I leave London for the relative calm of South Wales, so my time is consumed by box-packing and wrapping up those websites I’ve got left over from the past few weeks. At perhaps the worst possible time, I decided to revamp my MB Web Design website and this one concurrently. The latest Wordpress release has largely fuelled this change, it really is fantastic by the way.

I’m starting a web design blog via MB Web Design and letting this one be my personal venting place.  A side effect of being linked to from my business site is that this blog got a pretty large pagerank very quickly, and resultantly has been a big attraction for commenters. Sifting through the hundreds of comments to moderate is rather a drain on my time, so I’m going to relax the emphasis on this site for the time being. (And also plug the Pagerank leak from the business site*)

* For the smart arses: Pagerank doesn’t mean anything, blah blah blah. Tell that to the 440 commenters in the last week or so.

My fiancee finished her final exam yesterday, with fingers crossed I say that in a month or so she will officially be a doctor. When business success goes to my head she will always be there to remind me that I just sit at a desk all day, and that no matter how much money I make, my job doesn’t save lives. (There is a rant about people not appreciating the hard work of doctors, but that can wait for another day.)

I’ll check back in a couple of days to report on the move.

About half an hour ago I’m tapping away at my computer, minding my own business when it dawns on me that I’m rocking in my chair, yet my feet aren’t touching anything to propel me. And the tea in my mug is rippling, Jurassic Park-style. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me until I saw Louise seconds later (who’d gone to bed an hour earlier) who’d been woken from her sleep. Early reports from BBC say the earthquake (or earth tremor… when does a ‘tremor’ become a ‘quake’?) was in the Midlands, but it was strong here too.

Louise found out today that one of her applications for doctor’s job in Llanelli and/or Carmarthen has been successful, so in just over 5 months I’ll be back in my old manor. I’ll miss London, but I won’t miss the cramped public transport, the extortionate property prices necessitating an equally extortionate rental, the threat of randoms blowing me up on my way to work, the beggars, the general misery etched onto people’s face as they go about their daily lives.

A calmer existance and the appetising prospect of freelancing fulltime from my home office beckons.

I can’t wait.

This month I have elected to use up all of my remaining annual leave entitlement at UCL, meaning I’m only working Thursdays and Fridays. The timing of this was intended to conincide with an anticipated flood of New Years work, and that presumption has proved to be well-founded. I’m pleased to say I’ve got several interesting contracts on the table at the minute, not your run-of-the-mill websites but all databasey, functional sites. These are, of course, harder to design for as one has to work within the constraints of the system. On the other hand, it is quite satisfying to turn the bog-standard skin of an Open Source app into something pretty. It’s a double-edged sword.

However, with so many work opportunities presenting and in the hope that I can actually afford a mortgage in 6 months time, my time has become completely monopolised - it has become quite common for me to be up until 5am working on the various sites if I’m not expected at UCL the following day. This is unsustainable, but I’ve always been able to work better in the evening. So today, I’ve made Louise force me out of bed early to adjust this punishing schedule. I have bags under my eyes that are so bad it looks like I’ve been in a fight.

But where exactly? Looks like I have another nervous wait…

Louise - nudged into it in no small part by myself - applied to Wales for her foundation training as a doctor, and got in. This is the good news. The bad news is that competition is fierce for jobs in South Wales; nobody wants to live in the North or West of the country.  Of course, places like Rhyl and Bangor need doctors too, but unfortunately for them, their allocation of doctors will be the ones who were unsuccessful elsewhere and were given their spot via clearing.

She has ranked 8 or the 106 courses on offer in order of preference; now we play the waiting game. On January 22nd we find out if she needs to rank another 8 posts in order of preference from those with spots remaining. In other words, if we don’t hear anything on the 22nd, then we can safely presume that one of the original choices was successful. (We find out which one on February 20.)

Having jumped through hoops just to get a place with only a guarantee of employment for 2 years, she then has the significant task of passing her finals this May. I don’t envy her one bit. This year will mark 3 years since I graduated, and if I have to sit any other exam (other than my driving test) it’ll be too soon.

My fiancee’s laptop finally gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago - in exactly the same manner as mine, the power socket broke and the cost of fixing it was a bit much. I figured that money would be better spent invested in a new laptop. The Missus wanted a pink one, to go with her pink phone, pink iPod, pink Nintendo DS, etc… it’s a girly thing, I don’t get it. And Apple have a lot to answer for: remember when gadgets were silver or maybe black?

Anyway, I use a Dell laptop these days and I couldn’t be happier with it. It’s robust, it’s expensive but value for money and it’s lasted. So, having found out they do a pink version of their Inspiron laptops I figured, why not? So I ordered her the pink Dell laptop thinking it would be an average laptop with a gimmicky colour but hey, it’s a Dell so it’s not a complete waste of money.

And then it arrived. It’s beautiful! OK, personally I’d prefer it in another colour - they do 7 others - but this is really a nice machine. Guys, buy one for your girlfriend/wife/mistress and she’ll love you forever.

The best of the rest

There are other laptops on the market with a pink or “choose your own colour” gimmick. The specs of the Dell are great, the price is reasonable, but the only thing some buyers might find disappointing is that it isn’t pink all over, i.e. it’s just the screen over that’s pink, the rest is silver. But actually, that looks a lot better than the other models where the whole case has been sprayed a hideous shade of bubblegum pink. The Dell is classy. If I had to get a different one, here’s what I’d go for:

VAIO CR Series Notebook VGN-CR290EAP Make a unique fashion statement with the with the drop-dead gorgeous VAIO CR notebook dressed in Cosmopolitan Pink. Featuring a stunning 14.1″ widescreen LCD with XBRITE-ECO? LCD technology, this thin-and-light style icon is an astonishing sight to behold. Backed by the Windows Vista operating system and Intel Centrino Duo processor technology with Intel Core? 2 Duo processor, this lightning-fast, super-powerful mobile notebook is packed with entertainment and design extras. From a built-in web cam and AV controls to its unique color and comfortable, easy-to-clean keyboard, the remarkable VAIO CR notebook delivers entertainment, power and pizzazz. Computers VAIO Notebooks VGN-CR290EAP

Some absolute tosser has spent the day tearing around the area in his orange Lamborghini. While I appreciate his taste in vehicles, I don’t appreciate the fact that the offensively-loud engine is drowning everything out - comparable to the planes going over from London City Airport - for the 2 seconds he has to speed up between speed bump and traffic lights and/or roundabout.

The title of this post has been shamelessly SEO’d in the hope that he’s vain enough to input “orange lamborgini” and “london” or “docklands” to see if anyone’s mentioned him. Well congratulations pal, you got my attention. Now fuck off to Silverstone where you can race it properly without interrupting my conversation.

P.S. My grumpiness has nothing to do with England beating Australia at the rugby. Honest.

My fiancee will shortly be applying for her foundation medical school as her five years studying medicine at KCL draw to an end. One of the critical elements in this application is the FY1 application form, and it is very annoying indeed. (more…)

While staying with my parents in Wales I encountered several of the bastards. It’s at this time of year that traditionally, every steroid-abusing spider in the vicinity decides to invade wherever I live to scare the crap out of me. Since I’ve moved from Wales, my parents barely see any spiders. I’m there for 2 weeks and I see THREE! They follow me. So, Charlie Brooker’s latest piece was a most entertaining read.

Sextupled. That’s what my workload has done over the last 7 days. Thanks to some residual festive cheer I haven’t thrown myself under a train about the matter yet, though I’m sure I’ll be a worn-down shell of my former self in a month or two. So, don’t expect many posts, not that my blog posting frequency is anything special.

Christmas and New Year were alright. Growing up means that each year these days mean less and less. Don’t you miss being a kid? Having said that, the sense of emptyness you feel come Christmas evening (when it dawns that it’s all over, and you have another year until next Christmas) is lessened too.

Snakes On A Plane is truly a fantastic film. Tongue in cheek Samuel L. Jackson greatness.

My New Years Resolutions are as follows (with current status)

1) Try to get in better shape - sitting at the computer all day means that all the extra padding settles in a hideous tyre around my waist. [I did about 10 sit ups on January 2nd, then gave up.]

2) Catch up with my friends more [Given the workload dumpage, this one's right out the window until about July]

3) Stop leaking money and save, otherwise how will I ever afford a house?! [This one I've had some success with, thanks largely to a pre-Xmas pay rise, backpaid to May last year!]

4) Be more productive at work [I guess I have no choice now!]