The end of my doctorate!
Posted on October 19th, 2008 by yss
I’ve added a review of my Doctoral viva. Follow the Review links or go straight to Viva (voce not Las Vegas). It was horrible - trust me, I’m a Doctor 
BitchAboutIT
Usual bitches and moans about stuff.
Writing a F1 game
Posted on October 18th, 2008 by ksb
I am busy writing an online Formula One management game and am looking for Beta testers. If this sort of thing floats your boat then head on over to f1game.org and sign up.
IBA - World’s Toughest Motorcycle Riders
Posted on July 9th, 2008 by ksb
I considered doing some IBA events a few years back partially to try and prove to myself that i am cut out to be a ‘real’ motorcyclist, but also for something to do and achieve, never-the-less the idea got lost in all the hubbub of life.
So now, I fancy it again, and maybe with a new motorcycle, my current contenders are either a Harley Davidson 883 Low, or A Triumph Speedmaster… old man’s bikes, yeah maybe but I like em. Of Course I have my Bandit 12, which is probably far more suited to the job, so maybe I’ll just stick to that.
Anyway, expect some plans for the first challenges, the ‘Saddle Sore’ and ‘Bun Burner’ and who knows, maybe even a Iron Butt rally, the hardest endurance road ride in the world!
What is an employee worth?
Posted on June 28th, 2008 by yss
When people stayed with companies for all their working lives they would get the “gold carriage clock” when they retired. Even more recently when staying at a company for more than a few years has become unusual, when an employee leaves, one expects a small gift. So after leaving the company where I’d worked for two and a half years, regularly in excess of 50 hour weeks, was I wrong to actually expect something?
When members of my team had left I went out of my way to make sure that, for their last day, they had something appropriate as a leaving gift so that they knew they would be missed and that they had been valued. One of my team even bought me gifts when they left!
Today was my last day and although I wasn’t anticipating anything big, I honestly thought that the company was sad to see me go and I’d get something.
At my leaving lunch I was given a card, signed by half the staff, with nothing inside. Back at the office, nothing more was said, so I got ready to slope off. I was told there had been a “modest” collection and would I “like a bottle of scotch?”. I was given nothing as a gesture, not even a bunch of flowers, and I felt that the company didn’t care that I was going.
30 months of dedicated work and I wasn’t valued enough for a leaving gift (or the time to sort one out), which really underlines that I made the correct decision in leaving.
Freemales - FFS!
Posted on June 15th, 2008 by ksb
Not quite sure where I’m going to go with this rant but from watching the TV this morning and learning about Freemales, so far I’m pretty un-impressed, so click on the link, have a read and join me in an adventure down FFS lane.
Lets start with a feature on BBC1 Sunday morning dross tv, on the ‘Freemale’ subject. It features a 20 something woman who considers herself to be one, some 50 year old bat and the two presenters, a typical air headed has-been woman and a guy who comes across as gay as a day… so no real help there for the heterosexual man. Why is this a crucial omission? Well because the interview, like anything to do with this sort of shit, turned into a man-bash.
Surprisingly the 20 something woman is largely irrelevant in this rant, she doesn’t hate men, or think they are crap, or in fact say anything sexist at all. She is just influenced heavily by ‘Sex in the City’ and is, imo, to young and daft to realise she just enjoys being independent. The interviewers are also irrelevant because they are opinion-less fuckwits.
The hag though, well she’s got an agenda. I personally reckon she turned up at the studio with a signed first edition of ‘The female eunuch’ in the back pocket, and a set of knitting needles ready to deal with any woman stupid enough to get inseminated by a man! Yes readers, it’s my guess that she is somewhat of a feminist.
Now, I could write all day about feminists, but we’ll save that, but she definitely seems like the kind who have been turned by a ‘bad’ experience with a bloke. Perhaps an ex who shagged her sister, or potted the brown without asking first, fuck knows but she dives straight into some good old (but subdued for the beeb) man-bashing.
Hag is convinced that men have no idea how to handle an independent young woman (oops, no sorry ‘freemale’) because we are not emotionally mature enough to realise that a 21st century woman may not want a relationship (and of course the un-mentioned notion that ‘freemales’ may just want us for sex and run). This made me laugh because in my experience it has always been the other way round, I know I’m not the only man to hear the dreaded ‘I love you’ after hooking up with a woman for one night, and lets face it normally a woman chosen on the basis that the nightclub was kicking out and all the pretty ones had trapped off with the bouncers.
Hag feels that men could be scared and confused by a woman who doesn’t want kids… bah, can’t even start to say enough about how retarded that sentiment is, so lets just leave my response to ‘bollocks’.
Lets move away from the shower of shite that is Sunday morning TV and back to the article, which doesn’t concentrate on man-bashing, but does quote ’sex in the city’ (more later)
The article I linked to above makes me laugh, ok it’s the daily mail, but damn it surpasses my expectations of vacuous shite. I have to try and ignore that they pulled a ‘relationship psychotherapist’ and a ‘Sociologist’ out of the bag to lend credence to the insanity.
It says that more and more women are boycotting relationships for happiness and I feel suggests that Men are the ones who create unhappiness. It’s just a bunch of fucking control freaks (the women) who, once in a relationship seek to control every aspect of them, they don’t respect their partners right to relative freedom, push him away and eventually lead to the lack of happiness for both. Ok that’s also an unfair, sweeping statement, but I bet it’s closer to the truth. It also works the other way around, I know, but men who seek control, value independence, want one-night stands don’t get a catchy media friendly title, no they are simply labelled as ‘Bastards’.
Part of the reason given for being a ‘freemale’ is that relationships can sometimes fail, and that they are ‘hard work’… So we get even closer to the truth, in this day people don’t want to work for life’s prizes, they don’t want to invest to get returns, they want everything NOW and they fucking deserve it! My arse, simply naive, idiotic crap.
Be single, that’s cool, if you don’t want a partner, fine, if you can’t get one, also fine, whatever, this blog isn’t to council fuck ugly loners, but don’t label those of us who enjoy being with someone and have relationships that exist perfectly alongside professional working requirements and busy social lives as some sort of bad thing.
So, any woman badging herself as a freemale is missing something, there is a gap, I’d even bet they yearn after being in love and just totally fail at it. I think this because people who are happy and content with their lot don’t have to feel like they are in a club, seeking absolution for your own in-adequacies shouts out that you are infact not happy and basically full of shit.
Oh, I said earlier I’d write about ‘Sex in the city’ but I just can’t be arsed, the show centres around four women who are all desperate for Mr. Right and are just far to self-obsessed and air headed to keep them. It is not about four women who have a series of adventures punctuated by wild sex with strangers (although that does seem to happen occasionally). Never-the-less they are not four happy-to-be-single women, and bollocks anyway it’s fiction, modelling yourself after a show/movie? Ok I just watched American Psycho… where did i put that chainsaw?