Weblog Quotes

I want!

Me; Me; Me; Ben; Ben; Ben; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Me; Ben; Me; Me; Me; Me.

That’s the current status of Planet ZB. ¹

Ha!

Although I must say, Ben’s postings out-way mine in every aspect; except awesomeness.

Ooo, Ben! If you appear; can you change my avatar link?

1: Everyone else needs to start randomly posting rubbish on web-logs again.

Whaaa? That’s right! I have a job interview! :D :D

Oh my gawd!

This is my first this year. When I had loads last year. This recession thing is getting old now.

There are, I think, four other interviewees tagging along for the same job, which is a massive shame; and really stupid. I also have transport to the interview, which sucks. I would prefer to drive.

I’m taking my recent certificate with me, to show it off; and will be mentioning my return to college for a Pasty Course in October ¹.

Wish me luck if you see this before I leave, at 2:20pm.

1: when I en-roll.

Oh gawd. I wish I never bothered getting out of bed at 06:30 this morning, after not having any sleep at all.

I had decided the day before to head to town and partake in a bit of grocery shopping; popping to the veg shop; the butchers; the card shop; a few game shops; a few book shops; the fruit stall; and the supermarket.

What. A. Day. Gahh! Never again. From now on I shall promise to go when I need items, and not all at once. It’s a good job I have a car. My boot was seriously full.

How much had this day of suffering cost me? £89.50! I had £1.20 off my supermarket bill due to parking. Worst part? I never managed to find a cake tin!

Oh, I never bought a book either. I did find a set of knives I liked the look of, at £49.99. I shall ask Pertemps if they will buy them for me; but that may only be after I find employment.

Someone employ me so I can have a shiny new thirteen piece set of swexi knives!

I received my certificate for the NVQ Level 2 course in Professional Cookery, of which I studied for the past several months, yesterday.

Yay.

It has the names of each module I studied ( all seventeen ) and is slightly different looking to the other certificates I have.

After finishing the course, I was able to keep my log-book; which is great, as I can look back through it for nostalgia stuff and what-not.

Hmm, I require a frame.

Today was an interesting day for me. As you may have read in the entry below (or on the next page (just preparing for when it moves)) I cut my hair. Okay, enough about that.

Amidst the number of other items I had to do today, I took the time to visit my local library. .. I know!!!

The main reason for going was to borrow 1984 for the Zathyus book club. Guess what. There wasn’t a copy available, so they have to order one in for me; which I need to pay £1.20 for. It better be a blooming good read!

Whilst there, I perused the shelves and came across three books I liked the sound of; after skimming through a number of separate pages. I’ll list them:

• Point Blank by Richard Stark
• Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky
• Contact Zero by David Wolstencroft

Yes, only three; but I’m a slow reader; and I can always go back for more . . .

I’m likely to post a tiny review of these books, but do try and remember; I suck at reviews; so they will be what they will be.

If you have already read these three books, leave a little comment about it; and the same if you have a recommendation. My library card needs wearing out.

Yay. I finally managed to get around to cutting my hair earlier today. I think I became sick of how long it was getting, and because I was having a busy day, I decided I would do it.

My head kind of feels itchy now.

Ah well, at least I can slop some gell on.

Okay, I know I’m late to the party, and everyone has already gone home; but I feel like blogging. So there!

Over the past few weeks I have been playing the latest in the series of Grand Theft Auto games, and I’m disappointed. I’m all for advancements in technology and games, but when you start removing things that other people like; and work so well, it becomes an issue.

Yes, up-date the game engine; give those hex shape thingies rounded corners; enhance the colours; use sharper images; *insert more technical stuff here*; but don’t take away the original, and classic, game play. A handful of people complained about the Flying Rats, and the fact you gain practically nothing from shooting 200 of them. I have to agree; where are the stashes of weapons?

If the aim was to mirror realism, then where are the co-ordinated police roadblocks; the swapping of insurance details; the ability to find paid employment; the paying of bills; everything else that is real? It isn’t there because it isn’t realistic. It’s a game. So it should play like a game. Like the old games.

I’m one person who enjoys side-missions, as I hate completing something and never playing on it again. So why are there no paramedic missions; pizza deliveries; taxi drop-off’s (that count for something); bus drop-off’s; fire truck missions; buying businesses (vice city stories); the army on six stars; ice-cream deliveries; I’m missing a few, but you get the idea. Everything here is real, they are real jobs, people do them daily. I suppose if someone was causing enough destruction, and killing all your swat dudes, you would call the army in.

On top of the above, what’s with the character movement? Who the fudge walks like that?

I’m hoping, albeit not too much, that an up-date is sent out to add all of this back in. Somewhat a downloadable content package, for free; and optional since some people hate side-missions.

/me looks around the empty party. /me starts to dance.

Over the weekend, I spent a few hours jiggling files about for the main website and projects area, which allows for easier management on my part.

Whilst I was doing this, I made a small number of changes to some of the files; which meant I had to up-date the tabindex attribute on most of the links. Ever since I began using them I have hated them. They are nothing but a pain in the rear to organise. Every time I add a link into the middle of others, the tabindex below has to be increased to avoid conflict. For some reason, I end up needing to add new links every now and then.

I do have an idea on how to avoid this level of up-dating, but it’s finding the motivation to edit the damn things again.

Also, if anyone knows of a way php can be used to auto-magically increment the number every time a tabindex attribute is found throughout a page, let me know! I had tried to do this some time ago, but failed. It would be nice to be able to use that idea instead.

As some of you may know, I have been scouring the on-line world for better car insurance quotes now that my policy is drawing to a close.

During this time, I used the three main comparison websites to narrow down my search. Now, for many people, these websites can be useful; as there renewal price is a couple of hundred pounds, or even less.

But for those of us (un-?)fortunate to be freshies, quotes are hitting above £700 or even over £1000. Some people are smart when it comes to saving a bit of money; but some people aren’t.

Whether you know or not, what you need to realise about these comparison sites, is they use something of a ‘best guess system‘ for some of the details in the forms they are retrieving quotes from. Take, for example, the number of years a named driver has held a licence. On the comparison site, you have a limit of 12+; but on a companies site that limit may be higher. Whether or not that higher limit saves a few pounds is open to experiment; but there are other instances where not every field is set to the correct value.

For those people who click the buy button and input their card details, take a look through the companies form for your next re-newel, either by amending the quote; or go directly to the site and start fresh.

Performing this my-self, the quote I received from the comparison sites was over £994. Using the companies site directly, the quote was under £799. Amending the quote from the comparison gave me a quote under £793, saving £4..ish ¹.

So as you can see, I saved £200 just checking details. And this includes an incident; zero no-claims; licence for less than a year; on comprehensive cover, with a named driver and £150 voluntary excess.

It’s a shame I only have less than £5 in my account.

So now you know, if you didn’t already. Amend your quotes!

If you have anything to add to this entry, leave a comment below.

¹ Maybe this is because I went back to the quote after a few days. It would need experimentation.