Flotsam and jetsam

hoiho didn't get the job in Edinburgh. I am really sorry that he still hasn't got a job, but I honestly can't help feeling relieved that he didn't get this one. (For one thing, it means I can stop fretting at the apparently total lack of jobs I could do with a salary I could live on in Scotland.) I do feel guilty for feeling relieved, though.

My shipment of CDs from Duffelbag turned up this morning. One extremely obscure CD which will be a Christmas present for my dad (and which I'm not going to name here just in case he reads this!) and some random stuff that I bought on impulse for myself (Shania Twain, "The Woman in Me"; The Waterboys, "Dream Harder"; Offspring, "Americana"; and Paula Cole, "This Fire").

I'd use Duffelbag again -- they're in the USA so postage/customs is potentially a bit pricey; however, they do seem to have a pretty good selection; payment online was easy; they shipped the stuff they said they would, when they said they would; and they kept me informed by email. Much better than Play, who have still so far failed to send me the CD I ordered about a month ago. On the other hand they've refunded payment for incorrect CDs, and postage for returns, so this ongoing farce is only costing them money (and costing me some faff, I guess).

New CDs are helping to keep me awake at work, at least; I'm still absolutely shattered and very fuzzy-headed (my own stupid fault, I know) and I think when I get home tonight I'm just going to go straight to bed. :-/ In the meantime I have to pretend to be writing some Perl to mumble mumble MARC quackety-oink original information honk! honk! lost in translation.

...

Words, words. I feel like I'm wandering along an endless shoreline, waiting for the waves to return something that I didn't realise I'd lost. I just want the tide to come in. Or to go out. ... Actually, I'd settle for just knowing that there's a difference.

English as she is spoke

If there's one thing worse than working through a list of "errors" recorded by somebody else and trying to turn them into a list of unambiguous change requests ... it's doing this when the errors have been recorded by somebody whose grasp of English is, shall we say, eccentric:

• Numbering is funny, year is not stated on the issue, just in the webapage as a separator)


• Is funny on that very 71:12 issue (due to not having month name I believe)


• Between 39:42 and 39:45 theres two chaotic numbers


• Before January 1997 issues arent monthed


• Issue 50:2 (winter 1998) stands out from the rest


• Seems to go offsync along the issues (not according to the year)


• Issue 31:6 is orphan, surrounded by 32s and 22s


• There are two separators unaware of what goes on with the other issues: (1999) and (2000)

I have no idea what half of these mean, and it's taking me as long to decipher what this guy means as it would take me to just go and look for any errors myself. I keep spotting things he's missed, too, so I'm having to look pretty carefully anyway.

* * *

While being slowly driven insane by this, however, I was cheered momentarily by a thesis title which my mum claims to have seen submitted today at Leicester University:

"The perceived hazardness and attention-gettingness of fluorescent and non-fluorescent colours"

This gem, mind you, was apparently submitted by somebody whose native language is English... the mind boggleth.

A tangled web

They're currently recruiting for the position of Junior Web Developer (or "Junior Wed Developer" if you believe their website -- <giggle>) at the Cambridge Evening News. They say they'd like somebody with some experience but they're willing to train the right candidate. There's no indication of the sort of salary they'd be offering, though, and other jobs I've seen at the CEN have been staggeringly badly paid. Anybody think it's worth me applying for it?