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the most embarrassing night of my life

Working title: the dangers of Facebook, online dating, stranger danger and gross stupidity.

The (now defunct) Chameleons remain one of my favourite bands but were responsible for the most embarrassing night of my life.

After the band reformed, I went to their London gigs and occasionally frequented the (now defunct) Wishville forums for discussion about the band, concert reviews, banter about football, discovering new bands - all the usual stuff we did before Twitter and Last.fm came along.

wit and wisdom of David Thorne

I’m not sure if it was Doug or Michael who first pointed me towards David Thorne’s 27bslash6 site but his latest exchange of correspondence with Michael Harding of the South Australian police is hilarious and had me in stitches.

I’ve read the article four times now and am still smiling. You can’t really quote sentences in isolation to pay justice to the brilliant humour so just enjoy the full article. The guy is a truly brilliant writer.

HDIA day declared

London, near England - Thursday 18 February 2010

British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, astounded the world today by announcing the total and immediate withdrawal of all British troops from the current areas of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Speaking exclusively to Piers Morgan on a prime-time chat show with tears in his eye, Brown explained: ‘During the course of the Chilcott Inquiry (led by that England rugby prop forward), a few facts became clear; Tony Blair misled Parliament and lied to the British public.’

open door policy

‘Who’s there ?’

‘It’s me - Jamie.’

Thinks to myself - I don’t know anyone called Jamie. My son isn’t called Jamie. My daughter isn’t called ‘Janie’. Even though the wife is visiting her parents and I have the house to myself, I don’t suppose it’s that bizarre, twisted fantasy featuring Jamie Lee Curtis.

I reached for a 3 iron to defend myself and finally get myself in the Daily Mail as a selfless vigilante, wrongly imprisoned for 7 years for simply defending his own property. An Englishman’s home is his castle and all that.

press the eject and give me the tape

Those 2010 Brit Awards in full:

• British male solo artist - Dizzee Rascal
• British female solo artist - Lilly Allen
• British breakthrough act - JLS
• British group - Kasabian
• British Album - Florence & the Machine - Lungs
• British Single - Beat Again (JLS)
• International male solo artist - Jay-Z
• International female solo artist - Lady GaGa
• International album - Lady GaGa - The Fame
• Outstanding contribution to music - Robbie Williams

…and Liam Gallagher swearing and throwing a microphone into the audience. Who said rock’n’roll is dead ? I bet Joe Strummer is turning in his grave.

untold riches with next generation Adsense

One of the reasons for the reduced blogging frequency, Kenneth, is that I spend every waking hour devoting time to the thorny problem of monetizing this humble blog. Previously, I experimented with Adsense but sadly the revenue stream was insufficient to enable me to retire.

I am now pleased to announce the results of my research and contemplations.

Do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Be patient. Wait. Don’t get frustrated. Just wait.

Sooner or later, you will receive an email promising you riches and wealth beyond your wildest dreams.

taking a back seat

Rich Manalang is taking a back seat and suspending some but not all of his online activities which is an interesting exercise I will follow as it unfolds. Or, rather I won’t, because he won’t be blogging about it. I suppose I could always email him at work.

I suspect Google Buzz was the final nail in his Web coffin. It certainly was for me. The privacy issues, the multiple, loud and prolonged orgasms from the Technorati, the same old avatars gradually showing up in my ‘Friends’ list quickly followed by the immediate same sense of ‘Emperors New Clothes’ and the inevitable post coital cigarette: ‘How was it for you, darling ?’

float in isolation

Many years ago, in a parallel universe not far from here, I worked for a small dot com Internet company.

One day, the boss walked in and proudly announced: ‘Right - I’ve bought everyone three sessions at the London Float Centre’. I thanked him but told him I wasn’t interested and he could give my three sessions away to a more needy case but he was insistent and he was the boss.

why can't people understand date arithmetic ?

    AND TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(appt_start_dt + 9/24, 'YYYYMMDDHH24MISS')) <=
    TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR((TO_DATE(:b1, 'DD/MM/YYYY HH24:MI:SS')),
                                     'YYYYMMDDHH24MISS'))`

Please can a clever Oracle person explain, in English, the precise semantics of this WHERE clause snippet in the comments below.

I realise this construct and variants thereof have probably been discussed ad infinitum on Oracle WTF but I just don’t get it.

I don’t know whether this SQL was written by a human being or a third party ETL tool but it doesn’t matter. Currently, all ETL tools are written by humans in any case.

Happy Anniversary

This year’s Carling Cup Final between Aston Villa and Manchester United will take place at Wembley on Sunday 28th February 2010.Curiously, this date marks the exact 34th anniversary, to the very day, of Manchester City’s last trophy.

After United defeated Millwall 3-0 in the 2004 FA Cup Final, all the United players changed into shirts numbered ‘36’ in a tribute to the young player, Jimmy Davis, who had recently died in a car accident.