I'm helping like a good un'

We're trying to cut a release of our software tonight. Well, to be fair, we've been trying to cut a release all day, and we're just trying to get CVS to stop fucking about.

Whilst everyone has gone to the pub for our celebratory "we've not quite released, but we're getting pissed anyway, even though this was supposed to be a proper release party" drinks, P & Dr D are trying to sort all our problems. I'm here for moral support and my occasional unix skills. So whilst waiting to be useful I'm reading every page in my new Jamie Oliver "Jamie At Home" cookbook, and serenading my team with Maria Mckee's "Show Me Heaven" (If you know what it's like, to dream a dream. Baby hold me tight and let this beeeeee ooooooohhhhh). THIS I know is helpful, and not at all annoying!

At this point in time, we might not be making our "Not releasing today" Release drinks.

Tomorrow though, we're all off to Oxford to go to the Great British Cheese Festival. Not because we all love cheese or anything but because they are supposed to have a massive cider tent, and nothing tastes better with cider from plastic milk bottles than free, smelly cheese. Yum.

SATC and sleeplessness

It's now 2.06 am. I have just spent the last 2 hours watching every single tiny non-episode video about Sex and The City on YouTube. And I entirely blame Li and Superscout. If she hadn't sent me a link to the new S&TC movie, I wouldn't have turned on my laptop in bed at midnight to quickly watch it (since I can't watch it from my work pc), to then find not only all the deleted scenes, but documentaries, people's vidoes of them filming the movie, and yes, ( and I watched it), the Oprah Winfrey Sex and the City special.

So Li, this post is for you. When I am at work yawning tomorrow, you can bet your skinny, cosmo drinking arse I'm blaming you!!

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Well it's going to be a long long time

Today, Dr D and I have got an Elton John song stuck in our heads. I know, it's hard to believe but it's not the Diana version of "Candle in the Wind", but is in fact "Rocket Man". I never really appreciated it until someone did it at one of our parties on Singstar, and now I think it's really a cool 80s song, which I think is quite under appreciated (ok, mostly by me).

Looking at wikipedia today for interesting facts about this, I found out that the Stewie parody on Family Guy is based on a version that The Shat did (that's William to his friends at home). But possibly the funniest version I've seen is this one by Steven Hawkins. My god the internet is full of crap, and a video clip of Steven Hawkins "singing" Rocket Man is definitely up there.

Electronic voice singing "And you know it's gonna be a long long tiiiiiiimmmee" is hilarious. Watch out for the picture of his wife with "Mrs Hawkins" underneath it whizzing past too. Enjoy! (I hope this link still works, cause I tried it his afternoon and have been super scouted again. Grrr)

BTW: As of today, in fact, as of the last hour, I believe we have no gone into our code freeze. So that means a little bit of testing time, and it's our release party!! HOORRAH!!! Any guesses as to what our next release codename is??

Alpacas and cello strings

Argh. It’s been a bit insane at the moment. So where the bloody hell have I been for the last 10 days?

Let me start with saying that for the last 2 years we’ve been writing the new version of our software, which we'd code named "Alpaca". Why? Well, unlike Java, which codenames all it's latest versions cool sounding names like "Kestral", "Tiger", "Mustang" and other fast and interesting things, we decided that, not being anywhere near that cool, should start with the letter A, and name it the stupidest looking animal we could think of. Look at this thing:

Frankly, it's fucking pathetic.

So right this very minute, we’re now on the hairy edge of releasing Alpaca, and have got a code freeze in place for this Wednesday. So we’ve been frantically trying to bug fix for the last few months, which means I've not really been around to blog. Despite having done cool things like stay at the Hotel Li, for a fun weekend of re-aquainting myself with booze (yes, at the dinner table at a very lovely restaurant, whilst Li and C were chatting, I actually turned to the bottle of wine, looked at it sitting in it's silver wine bucked, chilling in icy water, stroked it lovingly over it's white napkin and whispered "oh Alcohol, you crazy thing. I've mised you too. You know I couldn't stay mad at you for too long"), getting my arse slightly kicked at the Sex and the City board game... (which turned from a proper game to a quiz show style affair, with C being the quiz master, and Li and I having to slam the table in lieu of a buzzer everytime we knew the answer. By this stage we'd had a few cosmos, so it was all loud, blustery, and painful for my poor hands), lots of shopping, and saving babies from death.

Tonight, C and I went to the Magic's house to play beautiful music. Well, to play some music. ELLSO starts again this Saturday, and obviously I've not picked up the cello for the last 3 months. I've been the cricket that sung for the summer and has nothing to show for it in the winter, or something random like that. So tonight we decided it would be a good idea to get together, having a drink, and a good bash at our instruments. Would have been lovely if, whilst trying to tune my cello, I hadn't thought "Oh i'll just turn the peg a bit", causing the peg to slip, the string to never get back in tune, and eventually, after much fucking about with the peg, for my A string to SNAP. So much for the practise. Instead C and I alternated between playing cello and playing the piano, and Mag held the treble end up by playing violin. It definitely was a nice way to end my day, since it had all been a bit shite up to that point.

So that's really all i've been up to. An even faster, cliff notes special:

Book I'm currently reading: "The Colditz Story" by P. R. Reid. I've been up to the bit where they attempt to escape at the end for 2 days now. You'd think I'd have finished it, but I keep falling asleep. It really is a great book, but it just makes me sleepy.

Game Currently Playing: Halo 2 on my xbox. "Arbiter, you don't know who you're shooting at cause all the grunts look the same? Arbiter, stop shooting at our ship. It's supposed to have a hull you know. Arbiter, stop fucking about in general"

Last historical thing I toured: The Royal Albert Hall, where we did a private tour, going backstage and underground, for free grâce à the London Open House festival this weekend. Ok this was a bit of a brag, rather than a cliff notes special

Thing I'm most looking forward to right now: Hmm.. sleep? Pie and Mash for lunch tomorrow? Sleep right now? Tricky..

Thing I'm least looking forward to right now: Hmmm... not being able to sleep?

If you have a cliff notes special on your life, then please by all means, post it and let me know, or just leave me a comment. I'm especially interested in the last 2 categories. Whilst I clearly dodged the answers, please leave me proper ones!

So that's it really. A fair bit on, but when our software is out the door, there will hopefully be more imputus and time to blog. Busy, busy, busy.

7 Long Days

If I get through the rest of tonight, I will have not have touched a drink in the last 7 days. 168 hours with no booze. Thats 10,080 minutes, sans alcohols. That will be the longest period in the last six years that I have been on the wagon. Eek.

Why? Last Friday night a big group of us went to my all time favorite East End pub ("knees up mother brown, knees up mother brown") for a night of chat, dinner and drinks. The night started with pints of Bombadier, and then went on huge amounts of Almangacs, and finished with barrels of whiskey.

I should have realised it was going to be quite messy when were were still there at midnight, and the landlord came over to our table and said "well, you might as well have the rest of this" and gave us 1/2 a bottle of Jamesons. One minute I'm pouring more whiskey into the Magic's glass, talking about god knows what, then it's scene missing, then it's 11am, the sun is streaming through my window, I'm in bed with most of my clothes still on, wondering how the hell I got home, with the start of one of the worst hangovers of my life. Children: Heed this lesson: Armagnac is evil. I should have remembered from all the other nights out, or perhaps the infamous champagne-cognac cocktails I had in St Maarten with the Ex-Flatmate. This hangover was quite similar, in that all I could do was lie on the couch, and alternate between drinking water, watching mindless, mindless, mindless Girls Aloud music videos, and clutching onto the bathroom floor, begging the room to stop spinning and throwing up. My hangover did not clear up until Sunday, and even then on and off I have been having headaches, mixed with painful joints, limbs and all over tiredness for the rest of the week, that culminated in me taking this Thursday off, because sitting at my desk with my head in my hands is not fun.

So to mark this momentus occasion, I'm going to watch a Bond flick at The Mag's (where I have to drive, so I can't drink) and tomorrow night I intend to have a glass of champagne. Just to see if I can still leap off the wagon with gusto, because whilst I'm not an alcho, the fact that I'm not missing having a drink is starting to worry me... I'd better not be becoming sensible. That simply will not do.

Which would you do?

Oh lord. Ever since seeing The Bourne Ultimatum last week, I've been a tiny bit Matt Damon obsessed. And popsugar has loads of red carpet pics of him (yes and of his wife) that have been keeping me quite entertained.

However, I found this today on geeksugar and gizmodo and holy crap, I can't stop laughing:

So my question to you is: Which would you do? Answers on a postcard. (Or comment). I defy to you look at either Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, lounging 'seductively' on their desks, nerd style, and not piss yourself laughing... Ooh baby, let me turn you on with my nerd talk. Oohh la la la.