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.