Archive for the ‘work’ Category

Memo to self: buy an umbrella

Friday, October 21st, 2005

When I left the flat this morning I spotted a notice advising residents that Thames TV was filming an episode of The Bill in my area all day Monday. How cool.

It’s really belting it down outside. If it rained any harder I’d need gills to breathe. Unimpressed.

Got a brand new teaching pack to make at work now – something about mathematics in medical imaging. The challenge is making that look fun, because it certainly doesn’t sound it.

I’m feeling creative, I think I’ll break out the easel and paints at the weekend. I haven’t painted for about 4 months now, though having said that I’d gone about 6 years prior to that. My last painting was a somewhat-unsuccessful attempt at the Northern Lights. I used Interference acrylic paints, which give a shimmering effect and reflect light at different angles. In theory it should have turned out great. Unfortunately, it didn’t – I painted over the Interference with black and it made the black shimmer too, which is really stupid considering I was trying to paint a silhouette.

I just found out I’m being moved to a small desk on the second floor. Great.

What’s wrong with UCL’s lifts?

Tuesday, September 27th, 2005

For years, I had a crippling fear of lifts. I mean panic attack-grade fear. However, working on the 5th floor and being a thoroughly lazy bastard, I have found that recently, laziness has beat out my phobia. Ditto the fact that Goodge St tube station has lifts or 130-something steps to ascend.

Unfortunately, an incident on the lift at UCL today has done some work in resurrecting the fear. Four people got on the lift on the ground floor, pressing the button for the 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th floor. Here is a poorly-written transcript of my journey after that…

Doors close. Lift starts moving.
Voice of the lift: “Second floor”
Doors open. Person leaves. Doors close. Lift start moving.
Voice of the lift: “Third floor”
Doors open. Person leaves. Doors close. Lift start moving.
Voice of the lift: “Fourth floor”
Doors open. Person leaves. Doors close. Lift start moving.
Voice of the Lift: “Third Basement”
Lift stops moving. Doors don’t open. I’m alone in the lift and shitting myself – almost literally. Door finally opens, and the lift is about 18 inches above ground level. I leap out and scuttle off.

Third fucking basement?! The building I work in doesn’t even have a basement.

Fit teachers and computer virii

Friday, September 23rd, 2005

I was up at 6am yesterday. Not a happy bunny. The trip to the school went well, though. Generally, the kids seemed to be positive about the teaching material we came up with. Of course, they may just have been polite because we were still there… I’ll presume they were honest comments for the sake of my fragile ego.

I had the dubious honour of being the worst dressed guy in the building. It was a boys school where the Sixth form uniform was “office wear”, it would seem. The rest of the boys had blazers, and each looked like the long lost member of McFly. Or Busted. Whatever. Considering it was an all boys school, I question the decision to hire so many fit young female teachers. Surely that must prove a huge distraction.

My boss actually said yesterday, and I’m quoting, that a million pounds “isn’t a lot of money”. I hate not being rich. I don’t hate him though. Must buy a lottery ticket later…

In the evening I got a call from a friend saying she’s acquired some virus on her Dad’s PC, and (in an effort to relieve the fury apparently being directed at her) asked me what to do to remove it. By the sound of it, it’s one of those fuckers that changes your locally stored default 404 html file and forwards the user to some bollocks spam page, no doubt promoting some internet dating site or selling penis enlargement pills. Maybe both. Unfortunately, this particular virus has also sodded up the CD drive, apparently. People seem to think that, because I did a degree in Computer Science, I have some magic solution to problems like these. Granted, I hopefully have a headstart over your Average Joe, but ultimately when I get a problem on my PC, I’m usually stumped like other mere mortals. In my entirely-finite wisdom, I advised she does a System Restore and see if the problem has gone. She never called back to tell me how it went. I fear it did fuck all.

EDIT (23-Sep-05): I got a call later this evening confirming that, as I correctly predicted, my “advice” achieved nothing. Oh well. I tried.