Nixta Sinks

A few years ago I gave up the crap option of writing my "blog" as an ad-hoc static site with occasional updates every few weeks or months and moved on to a custom blog engine that I wrote myself as a (successful) exercise in training myself in C#, since none of my employers deemed it worth their while to get me trained in anything. Note that back then it wasn't called a blog, at least not in my mind.

From static, to dynamic, to wholesale
So I designed and implemented the beast, and from it was born nixta.com. That became Nixtasinks when I got fed up with the lack of a decent interface for me to add to my site (it wasn't a blog yet), especially when compared with something like Blogger, which although in only a very rudimentary way, nonetheless provided a better way to manage my posts. I also didn't think it was worth my time. I chose Nixtasinks as a name in the vain hope that it would turn out to be ironic somehow. Little could I anticipate how prophetic that name would be of the decline in my ability to write anything amusing or in the end readable.

Missed Ops
As a little aside: It turns out that what I had planned and even created from a database schema point of view (and which also put me off since the engine's capabilities grew in proportion to the interface to make use of them becoming more unreachable) is only now being used in some way with Facebook and Flickr's ability to label photos (Facebook in particular which will reference them back to an actual account). Turns out, I had the basics of a social networking site without even realising it. Even Facebook doesn't let you cross-reference emotions and locations with their photo tagging.

I'll put that in the failed great ideas basket along with online casinos which I allowed Simon Barber to talk me out of in 1996. When I say I allowed him to talk me out of it, I mean that he said it was a stupid idea on one occasion and such has been my historic and enormously inflated opinion of my friends that this was enough for me to drop the idea there and then, a habit I full intend to put behind me forthwith.

Decline and balls
All that aside, my pre-blog-engine nixta.com website was so much better than the dross I've put out lately (blog-engined nixta.com also showed signs of a brain in contrast to my post-blogger.com transition). I don't think I'll be updating nixtasinks.nixta.com any further.

Instead, I'm going to do what Hedgy told me to do 6 months ago and use Tumblr. It nearly does everything I want it to. It'll do. The turning point? Lindsay's awesome Tumblelog.

Ladies and Gentlemen, set your RSS feeds to Nixtarolls...

I lived in the Midwest for 5 and a bit years. Specifically in Denver. Although I had a fantastic time and loved the place, I never really fit in entirely, if only because my clock was very different from the average over there (also, I dressed very differently and entertained myself very differently to many locals). In to work at 10:30am or 11. Leave work at 7 or 8pm. Most locals thought I was the laziest bastard around, because it seldom crossed their minds to consider that I actually continued to work after they left at 3pm, having got in at 7am. Likewise, it rarely crossed my mind to consider that they had already been working 4 hours by the time I got in.

I usually kept the same hours in London when I was over there between 2004 and 2006, and when I worked for Linkspoint here in New York/Connecticut between 2001 and 2003.

Now I start work at 9am, because I'm working with England and if I started at 11am, then the salarymen over there would be getting ready to pack up at 4pm (those slacker UK work hours), but I start from the couch and stay on the couch until I have breakfast at 11am.

I was just talking to an old chum over there, and he's been brought lunch (Chinese no less, which will be delicious, but heavy), and it was 11:30am. That's just mental. Heavy lunch at 11:30 in the morning?

I miss Denver at times, but I do not miss that.

Culture, innit.

Like dough, only less intelligent

In what will become an ongoing piece (and which has been ongoing for some time already in other mediums, as friends of mine will wearily tell you), I am going to document my idiot findings in a brief form. Perhaps I should tumble it. I'll look into that in a bit.

• 10/10 (Becta) - Are you fucking kidding me - Three Little Pigs is offensive to Muslims? Stop giving Muslims a bad name, you fucking idiots.
• 10/10 (bloggers), 2/10 (BBC) - Rule Number 1: Do not quote "bloggers" as a source. Rule number 2: Do not listen to what they have to say. BBC gets two idiot points coz even though it's clearly a joke, it's a waste of the internets.

More to come shortly, I'm sure.

Escariot Hotels, How Can I Direct Your Call?

Just a quick taster for those of you who haven't seen this (there was only one terribly shit one up on YouTube, so I put this together having watched the first 4 minutes of this so far superb Rock Opera parody). Quite how I missed this, I have no idea. Thank goodness for TheBox.bz, and thank goodness for Niel Stone for putting me on to this.

Update: I rather stupidly forgot to link to what it actually was. AD/BC, A Rock Opera - some BBC Christmas Special from last year or the year before or sommat. Now that I've watched it I confirm that it's a masterpiece. A work of genius. Making such a spot-on parody of something so shit is really rather tough.

Bob is back, running The Velvet Onion	Watch out for the squashed-in Frenchman

The inimitable TSF has previously (un)covered the retarded psychopath Bob Fossil, but an update never hurts.

This happened in 1974 (from info gleaned here)

I never really realised that there was a West Yorkshire and a North Yorkshire until today. I mean, I sort of knew it, but I'd never really thought about it.

In all my growings up and being beaten about the head taught, I seem to recall their being only one Yorkshire, where Last of the Summer Wine happened (is that *still* going on?) and where there was a town with not only a railway museum, but also a viking museum complete with authentic viking smells (and a hologram!) - there's a far too detailed review here. I think I first heard about it on Blue Peter (I have a Blue Peter story to tell sometime soon, but I'm going to play in the snow first). Yorkshire was also, of course, the place you wish you'd been born if you had any interest in cricket. Nowadays they'll let anyone play.

I suspect that my prehistoric geography teacher, Az McFarlane never noticed the change and never let us know, although he was more interested in geology, perhaps using us a rudimentary distributed computer to try to figure out which plate movement had isolated him from his friends and family many millions of years earlier...

Want one? Wait like a normal person.

This cock in West Yorkshire has actually managed to confuse/scam/trick stupid people into bidding an outrageous amount FOR AN ENVELOPE.

He claims to have 10 of these things. In West Yorkshire? Are you kidding me? They don't have envelopes up there, and getting them imported is nearly impossible. Castleford no less. Top Google hit for castleford? "My Home Town": what a lovely webshite. I'm impressed that in putting almost nothing on the site at all he's managed to get a Yorkshire Welcome in there managing to use the words "warts" and "arse" without even trying (lad): "This is a "warts an' all" site and if you don't like it then get up off your arse and do something to improve our once great town.". You've got to love it. Those midlanders give Yorkshiremen a bad name - nothing like those Northern fellows.

So, back to the EBAY SCAM:

I have 10 envelopes that each contain 1 piece of paper inside.
All of the envelopes are numbered and sealed, 9 have a blank piece of paper and one says Nintendo Wii.
Please note that you are only bidding on the piece of paper in the envelope and nothing else. Anything else sent to you is considered a gift from me.

You bid shitloads of bucks (cu-nyu just won it for $381!!!) for one envelope in allegedly 10, one of which has a piece of paper with Nintendo Wii written on it, presumably in mud or pig blood, and you're supposed to trust that this thieving Castleford bastard won't pick a blank envelope. I can just imagine the excitement as the auction winner waits on tenterhooks to see which envelope luckylad07 opens.

I think he might actually have had 10 auctions going, raking in $350 on each would land him $3500 (assuming he only stuck to 10), but hopefully a public lynching and an eyeful of fist.

There are two idiots here. One with a frozen brain in NYU (it snowed here, the poor student is probably stoned, hungover and cold) and one a scamming thieving unscrupulous cunting bastard from Castleford.

At least I got to find that superb site about the town and remind myself how open, welcoming and honest the West Yorkshire people can be. They're only people who couldn't afford to live in Leeds after all, which for anyone who's been to Leeds... well, I've said enough.

eBay Listing. A copy of it preserved at Nixtasinks for posterity.

Labels: eBay Scam

This doesn't fit in the luggage...

I recently agreed to pay for a friend's internet order here in the US and get it over to Slovenia because they didn't have a way of paying for it over here.

I thought that a nice set of underwear for his girlfriend was a lovely gift and should be easy to take over even if he was setting her up for life as a lapdancer. Victoria's Secret is out - they make coats and shoes too. And like to give away large bags as freebies.

My brother also ordered some stuff from Macy's on Black Friday. But he's coming out here to collect that.

The picture you see to the right is me with three boxes. The two boxes behind me are his Macy's order. Interestingly, there's about the same number of things in each box. I guess that one is packaged by environmentally conscious staff whilst the other is packaged by angry Fuck You bastards in Texas. He'll have fun getting them back.

The third box on the right is one of three Victoria's Secret orders. One of the two other orders came in a box the same size. The second of the VS orders came in a box larger than the large Macy's one. So far I've managed to package the contents of the first two boxes into one suit carrier.

Now, I face two dilemmas.

1) How to get them into the EU without being stopped at customs. I've never been stopped so far, but I've always gone with one carry-on bag. I don't want to have to carry anything on because as Terry Gilliam sang all those years ago, I'm so worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow. If I can somehow fit them into two bags on the way out, I'll be good (I can put one bag into the other for the way back, or trust the JFK baggage retrieval system which, as far as I'm aware, no-one's written a catchy lament about yet).

2) How to send them from the US to Slovenia if I can't carry them over (which I don't think I can in their entirety) without rousing suspicion? A note to the effect of "Thanks for a great night - here are some things you left behind, and I took the liberty of sending you a coat I had left over as a gift." but that won't cover four coats, a pair of shoes, a VS garment bag, three sets of VS gift bags.

I can't really complain. It's my fault for assuming that VS only made underwear and so I didn't read the invoices before I agreed to have them shipped to me and didn't see that every other item was a winter coat of some description (they're quite nice really, and very good value for money).

I've also had my eyes opened to the wonders of internet shipping. I've been buying computer gear for too long, it seems. It appears to be too well packaged - clothing clearly has some way to go yet.

Now to unpack these boxes and secrete these things around the apartment where they won't be seen until I get to send them...

To those in the industry (the advertising industry), the points outlined here are doubtless familiar and accepted. For the same reason I don't like politics, and that I dislike most advertising, and that I believe that most people live in a blissful naieveté that surpasses even my own (pet rocks, Simply Red, a second term, etc.), I found the article pretty tough to read whilst keeping my blood-pressure down, but it's nonetheless fascinating. As are the numerous comments (I only got in at 350), but you wonder how many were planted as a demonstration of some of the methods talked about.

Still. I got over it. My blood pressure stayed low. Another example of how I'm my own worst enemy.

Viral Marketing can be great

Labels: Advertising