fouldsy.com

but I finally had a laptop returned with a complaint that the CD drive never plays any music and work can’t be loaded from CD either. Maybe because I disabled the CD-ROM within device manager last time it was brought in… I know the CD drive worked back then as the Toshiba recovery CD booted fine and managed to wipe the machine and re-install itself. They shouldn’t have disabled Windows Updates, anti-virus updates, made themselves an admin user and stuck their friend on with admin rights too. Shame about the cat photos though, honestly didn’t mean to delete them all. Ah well.

On a brighter note, managed to get an old classic working on a member of staff earlier. Telephone message from a Mr Plane, please could you call him back. Of course, the telephone number was for Newcastle Airport. Still, light amusement always breaks the day up a little!

So, I got bored at lunchtime. I always steal a newspaper from whichever nice person leaves one lying around. Inconsiderate sods that they are, didn’t leave it on the table where it should be, ready for me to half-inch whilst eating my sandwiches.

That lead to messing around playing uber-geek. Messing around with my Palm, I setup the Bluetooth connection into my Nokia 6820 to automatically bring up the o2 Active GPRS connection to use web-browsing and e-mail on the Palm. It’s never something I could be arsed to do as I never saw the point, but that’s what boredom does to me I guess.

Anyway, that all ran fine, so then I configured the e-mail client on my Nokia to grab my o2 e-mail, which I never used. It downloaded my welcome message from January… But, it got me thinking about moblogging.

Like accessing the Internet off my Palm, I’ve never really seen the need for posting crap on here from my mobile, mainly because pMachine can’t do it. A minor setback. Newer weblogs can, or at least posting via e-mai which most mobiles can do easily, and there is stuff floating around about adding in functionality to post via e-mail, but the couple of scripts that were done a couple of years back aren’t available anymore. So, I grabbed the WordPress wp-mail code and the SquirelMail POP3 class and knocked up some code.

So long as this appears, it works fine! Not that hard, fairly basic stuff, and includes basic authentication to ensure every Tom, Dick + Harry can’t post via e-mail. Nicely cleans things up by deleting e-mail after processing, though doesn’t include posting images. If I can be arsed, might include that at some point. Probably won’t even use all this anyways!

Of course, this might not even work…

Not the most re-assuring things to find out first thing on a morning – hearing NorthWest Airlines have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Considering I’ve got about Ã�£1200 worth of flights with them to take me up to Alaska at Christmas it’s not ideal. Laying off 400 pilots in November isn’t going to help matters, though I’m hopful that the flights won’t be cancelled. Amsterdam – Minneapolis should be safe considering Minneapolis is their base, and would hope the same with Minneapolis – Anchorage will hold true.

Having to re-book flights won’t be much fun if things turn nasty, especially with transatlantic flights out of Newcastle pretty much booked out for the route I need to take and NWA being the main airline running to Minneapolis and on to Alaska. Makes me a little nervous about things though, as I was already concerned the weather on the flights out of Anchorage might cause problems – now I get to be a little uneasy about getting there in first place!

Think I’ll go cause some trouble to cheer me up a little…

Was about time my attention was turned on the head of ICT for a few windups. After crawling across the library floor a couple of days ago to spook him out by making ghost noises from under the table after he was told when you’re alone in there, strange things happen as if the library is haunted, decided moved things up a notch yesterday.

Actually, it worked out nicely with another little joke as one of the science teachers had been trying to e-mail an audio clip of “Hey Joe” to him until I pointed out it would be much more fun to have it played as soon as he logged on to his computer. That got coupled with nabbing a ghost from clipart, a speech bubble with the caption reading “I know who you are…” and blue-tacking it plum in the middle of his monitor. Cue him sitting down and him seeing this cartoon image, take it off his screen chuckling to himself, and then finding all 4mins 52secs. of “Hey Joe” playing.

Well, wouldn’t have been as much fun if he’d been able to stop it playing…

but since stuffing the Aussies down in Oz to win the Rugby World Cup back in 2003, hammering the Aussies (again!) back on home turf to regain the Ashes, how about beating the Germans in Germany (on penalties…?) to win the football World Cup next year?

That’s if we get past the qualifiers after such wonder/woe ful performances against Wales and then Northern Ireland.

Ah well, least us English folk will still be able to grumble about one national team!

… and this morning seemed like the perfect opportunity. Not a wind up as such, but playing on language barriers with one of our French teachers who is starting to smatter his English sayings with bits of broken Geordie:

“How did you get into the photocopying room earlier on?”
“Sorry?”
“Well, the door was locked, so how did you get in?”
“Uhm, I have key”
“Yes, but the new sign on the door says ‘This door must be kept locked at all times’”
“Ah, but look, I have key!”
“OK, but the door must be kept locked at all times. The sign says so. It’s a school rule, apparently”
“Ah, I lock behind me!”
“So, you locked the door behind you? But how did you get in?”
“I have key!”
“Yes, I can see that, but the door was locked.”
“I have key. I unlock door!”

Cue gasping from another member of staff quickly picking up on things…

“But, the school rule is that the door must be kept locked at all times”
“Yes, I open with key.”
“So, you’re admitting you broke the rule and unlocked the door?”
“I have paper to copy. I need to get into room.”
“But you broke the rule! The sign says ‘This door must be kept locked at all times’. You unlocked it!”
“I lock behind me. I go in, I lock door again.”
“Yes, but you still unlocked it though. There’s a camera right outside that door too!”

More gasping, and nodding of heads. Someone even chips in with it being a high-definition colour camera. Actually, it is. Easier for the police to review footage with apparently…

“How I get in if I not unlock door?”
“Through the window outside. You need to ask the caretaker for a ladder and climb through the window”
“No, you silly!”
“Nope, honestly. The sign says you’re not allowed to unlock the door at all”
“No, you silly! Sign is silly!”
“Maybe, but you still need to climb in through the window. Can’t unlock the door. Sign says so.”
“I don’t understand sign. Make no sense. Why sign say that?”
“Don’t know, I didn’t do it. Maybe ask one of the ladies in the office…”
“They make sign?”
“Yup, they’ll know what it means. They’ll explain it”
“OK, I go see.”

Just waiting for an abuse phone call from the admin office now wanting to know what the hell he’s been rambling on about for 5 minutes!

Well, peace shattered and fun over. The teachers returned to school today, which I never like. Not that I don’t like being able to sit and chat + joke on with them, but invarably after the holidays, especially the summer, they come back all happy and smiling, refreshed after a long break and a nice holiday away. Then muggins here has to sit and hear all the stories when usually I’ve been in school most of the time With only having the first couple of weeks where I got out and about a bit, haven’t done anything the rest of the time through lack of money, my back, or having to be in work.

But, at least they’re grumbling “it’s always bloody warm + sunny when we come back to school; been bloody awful the last couple of days”. Not gettin’ no sympathy from me!