write.as/jonbeckett

jonathan.beckett@gmail.com

I got up from my office chair this afternoon, and realised I hadn’t got up since arriving in the office in the morning. I knew this because my legs didn’t seem to be too keen about the idea of bending, which is odd given that I cycle to work every day.

After wandering out onto the landing just outside the office (I’m on the third floor), I gazed out at the various workers outside renovating a nearby building, and shook my head at the blanket of dark clouds overhead. It has rained almost every day for weeks. Not heavy rain – just the consistent, insistent rain that pervades your entire being.

I also took a selfie. The first in weeks. Months even. I will admit that the choice of location and angle purposely cropped out co-workers, computers, and screens. I live in fear of releasing intellectual property.

I’m not really sure why I stopped taking photos. Not having a smart-phone of my own any more is probably a major factor. At the beginning of the year, I gave my phone to my other half – she dropped her iPhone late last year, and needed it far more than me. I bought a little Nokia 3310, and wrote about the experience at the time. Here’s the thing though – my work gives me a smartphone, with a fully-paid-up contract. It occurred to me today that I should perhaps use it a bit more, and not care so much about using it only for professional purposes.

While standing on the landing, looking out at the rain, I installed Twitter, WordPress, and Tumblr, I took a photo of myself. It’s attached to this post.

I always feel incredibly self-conscious – taking ‘selfies’ – which probably explains why I so rarely do it. Sure, I’ve taken macro photos of my eyes for the 'Freyeday’ meme in the past, but full-on mugshots have become a rarity.

People don’t really want to see each other’s faces, do they? You would be far more interested in seeing the world around me, wouldn’t you? Maybe I’m over-thinking it all. Maybe I should just take more photos, and throw them at the wall like spaghetti – watching to see which stick better than others.

It’s no secret that my favorite TV show of the last several years was ‘Community’ – a comedy about a group of misfits that end up at community college together for various reasons. It was written by Dan Harmon after attending community college to be near a girl he was seeing at the time – he became fascinated with the unlikely collection of people thrown together in college, and wrote the TV series off the back of it.

If you watch TV shows like Community, and movies like Larry Crowne, you end up wondering what it would be like if you ditched your job and went back to college. Of course the chances of ending up in a study group in the first place – let alone one where the participants become friends is extremely unlikely.

Then I started thinking. Maybe the likes of WordPress, Tumblr, Twitter, and so on – the surviving social communities on the internet – maybe they are the equivalent to the misfits of Community or Larry Crowne.

I have made some amazing friends by taking the chance on the internet, and sharing a little of my weirdness. I have often wondered if my mundane posts about this and that are really worth posting – and written as much – and ever time I have done so, I have received almost immediate encouragement to keep posting.

I don’t think I really have a point to make here. Or maybe I do. Maybe the point is that being a misfit isn’t all that bad. We’re not so much weird – just different – and different makes us interesting to each other.

This morning I gave my Chromebook to my other half, leaving me without a laptop. She had been soldiering on with a second-hand laptop from the place I work for the last couple of years, and it has slowly been falling to pieces. I don’t think the hilariously bad battery life, or variously broken keys were the deciding factor – it was more a case of Windows taking several months to boot up, and churning ridiculously all the time – usually while trying to look something up quickly for the children. Faced with a Chromebook that just works, lasts all day away from a plug socket, and that boots from cold in seconds, it wasn’t much of a decision to make.

Of course there had to be another laptop somewhere in the house. The one my eldest daughter got for Christmas three years ago, and never used. She inherited my previous chromebook, which she immediately preferred over the laptop. If I was Microsoft, faced with an army of college kids that have used Chromebooks, I would be very, very worried about the future of any kind of consumer market for Windows.

Anyway. I plugged the cast-off laptop in this morning, to see if I might make some use of it. It had Windows 10 on it, which almost crippled it before you used it for anything. A couple of hours later it was re-installed with Ubuntu Linux. I won’t bore you with having to re-install it three times while learning the vagueries of UEFI, and “Secure Boot”. I’ll reserve a special fiery seat in hell (if it exists) for the person that invented Secure Boot. I won in the end, but not before almost losing the plot with the damn thing.

So – I have a laptop once again. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it, because I prefer sitting at a desk with a proper keyboard than slouching on the sofa with a laptop. Even when I do use a computer for any length of time in the lounge, I sit at the dining table (our dining table is at the far end of the lounge, surrounded by bookcases). I suppose the anarchic part of me is quietly pleased that it’s running Linux instead of Windows – perhaps an ice breaker while sitting on a train, or in a hotel lobby.

“What on earth is that operating system on your computer”

“Oh, please excuse me while I slip this propeller hat on my head, and start preaching about the open source software movement, and the life and times of Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttleworth, and Richard Stallman”

“Who?”

“You have a Macbook in your bag, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Pffft.” (I roll my eyes theatrically, before pretending to call somebody on my Nokia 3310)

My entire life seems to be a continual treadmill at the moment. Get up, shower, go to work, stress out for several hours, go grocery shopping, come home, eat, wash up, decompress, write a blog post, go to bed. Again, and again, and again.

It doesn’t help that I’m carrying an enormous project on my shoulders single handed at work again. I suppose in some ways working alone means I don’t have to trust anybody, which is preferable to having to watch anybody else’s back.

I bumped into my boss in the kitchen the other day, and he took an interest in what I’m working on, in that way bosses do. He remarked that I’m ‘good at the high burn-rate projects’. I thought 'yes, I’m good at being an obsessive, OCD asshole that jumps into unfathomably deep holes, and works like a lunatic to invent a way out without questioning if I should really be trying this hard’. I didn’t say that though – I just smiled, and tried to remember what drinks I was making for who.

I’m terrible at remembering the drinks round in the office. Thankfully most people seem to ask for the same thing every time – if they didn’t, it would become a lottery. I always tend to have some sort of epiphany while waiting for the kettle to boil – either the solution to something I’m working on, or an idea for a blog post. I never write any of it down, so forget most of it.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could rewind our daydreams – to recall the things we forget.

Making friends on the internet is a curious thing. While some of us are open books, posting our daily adventures for anybody to read, many are not. While some leave comments, likes, or find a way to contact those they cross paths with, many choose not to. We know they are out there – the various analytical tools record the ripples they leave behind.

Here’s the thing though – among the sea of people swirling past, occasionally you make metaphorical eye contact with somebody, and the seeds of a potential friendship are sewn. Of course then it’s down to us to get over ourselves and make the connection happen – and I imagine that’s why the internet can be such a lonely place at times. We are all a little like Marvin – Nemo’s Dad – leaving the cover of the reef for a few moments before retreating to safety.

I remember standing in a bar with friends many years ago, and making eye contact with a woman across the bar. I looked back, and met her gaze more than once. I didn’t do anything, and I’ve sometimes wondered ‘what if?’. I imagine everybody has a similar story – a sliding door moment from their past – perhaps many moments.

What am I trying to say here? Maybe that taking a chance is worth it.

You might not meet the love of your life, but you might make a friend – and in this lonely kingdom of high castles that we have raced to construct, friendship may be more rare and valuable than ever before.

I wrote code from the moment I sat down this morning, straight through until the moment I got up to come home. I stopped for a few minutes to make a coffee, but other than that – just pushed on through. I can’t tell you what the code does, and even if I did, you might fall asleep mid-sentence. Don’t worry – I get that a lot.

Although the chances to write code are becoming increasingly rare, it’s still the thing I enjoy the most – conjuring a tool that does something from imagination, knowledge, and experience.

Anyway. Enough about work.

I got sucked into watching ‘Night at the Museum’ this evening. While watching I remarked to the children about 'The Indian in the Cupboard’ – a book I read when I was their age. It’s up there with 'Stig of the Dump’, and 'Peter Pan’ in my list of favourite childhood books. Of course now I’m searching Amazon, and debating on buying it for my Kindle. And that’s why I need to stay away from Amazon. Thank god we don’t have an Echo – imagine how tempting it would be to just shout 'Hey Alexa, can you get a copy of (insert book name) and put put it on my Kindle?’

I’m sitting in the living room writing this. My other half is watching NCIS, which appears to always be playing on a channel somewhere, at any time of day. I’m sure if you view the programme guide anywhere in the world, you’ll find re-runs of CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, and Big Bang Theory playing simultaneously on some channel or another.

I’m still amazed that 'Community’ didn’t become more popular. I discovered it during season two after a co-worker tipped me off, and quickly became addicted. I still miss the antics of Jeff, Britta, Annie, Pearce, Troy, Shirley and Abed now. I introduced my eldest daughter to it too, and the various tropes from the show still continue in our house. When Miss 17 messes something up, she has 'Britta’d’ it. When we make coffee for each other, we sing 'Troy and Abed in the Morning’ upon delivery.

I rarely watch TV these days. Sure, I catch the odd half episode of whatever is running in the living room, but quickly lose interest, or have other things to get on with – washing dishes, folding clothes, or tinkering with the old computer in the junk room. I’m often castigated for playing around with computers, but then I get random calls from friends – such as last week when a WordPress website got hacked – and I appear Flynn-like from the shadows to put things right.

Remember the scene in Tron Legacy where Flynn arrives at the nightclub in the grid, and roots the entire system? Somebody I know said that was me when they saw the movie. I suppose I should be flattered.

Anyway. It’s getting late. I didn’t set out to write this sprawling brain dump. If you made it this far, I better go buy some more medals.

Today is a bank holiday in the UK. I’ve been up since 8am, and haven’t really got anything done. Sure, I fed the animals, and let the chicken out (we’re looking after it for the local infant school), but other than that – nothing of consequence.

I re-installed the old desktop computer with Ubuntu Linux. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve installed other things on it, then reverted. I need to put a sticky-note on the USB stick – ‘don’t you f*cking do it again, you idiot’.

A friend talked me into signing up with dreamwidth.org a couple of nights ago. I used to have a blog at LiveJournal, with the same content a WordPress, but got uncomfortable when Russia and the entire rest of the world fell out with each other recently, so walked (LiveJournal was sold to a Russian company some years ago). Walking away from LiveJournal meant I lost touch with her. If cross-posting to dreamwidth means we keep in touch, I have agreed to do it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some serious procrastinating to get on with. Perhaps I’ll write out my bullet journal for the week ahead – listing all the things I won’t be doing.

Perhaps a cup of coffee first.

We invited the in-laws over for lunch today – Easter Sunday – which necessitated a frenzied cleaning of the house such has not been seen for quite some time. It began twenty four hours before when it was suggested to me that I might be able to jet-wash the driveway, to remove the moss that has been threatening to envelop the house for the last several months. Of course it wasn’t really a suggestion – it was more an order.

While my other half ran errands, I fetched the jet washer, and set about blasting the moss to kingdom come. Here’s the thing about jet-washers that they don’t show you on adverts – those hundreds of gallons of water that fire at great velocity from the gun have to go somewhere. After ten minutes the drive didn’t so much look like a magazine advert, as like a historical re-enactment of the Somme, circa 1917. Have you ever tried to shovel liquid mud? I may as well have been using a garden fork.

After perhaps half an hour torrential rain decided to fall on me. Directly on me. Truman Show style. I was already soaked and spattered with mud from the jet washer, so carried on regardless. God knows what the new next door neighbours thought of me.

Oh yes! We have new next-door neighbours! A lady moved in yesterday, accompanied by three young boys as far as I can tell. At first I thought an entire circus troop were moving in, but it turned out the vast majority were friends and relatives helping her move house. I’m guessing we will try to introduce ourselves over the next few days.

As befits olive branches, and new neighbours, Miss 14 had a colossal tantrum last night (expertly goaded by Miss 12), and almost shook the house to it’s foundations with her Brian Blessed-esque town-cryer performance on the upstairs landing. I quietly walked upstairs and informed her that our new neighbours would probably be overjoyed at the idea of living in a house adjoined to such ridiculous histrionics. The answer was swift, and even louder than previous rants:

‘IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT – YOU’RE MAKING ME ANGRY! GO AWAY!’ (bedroom door slams in my face)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sit somewhere quietly, and feel sick. I’ve just eaten an entire Easter egg, and I’m not entirely sure why.

There is a laptop on the desk in the junk room – it’s been there since yesterday evening. It belongs to a teaching assistant at the school where my other half works, and arrived at our house after spending two weeks at PC World, where all they achieved was locking him out of his own computer, and then giving him a refund. Needless to say, within half an hour I had broken into it, and set about undoing everything they had done to it.

I had only intended to break into it, but when I heard the back-story – about how little the owner of the laptop knows about computers, and what PC World did to his computer, I decided to go the extra mile. He’ll get a computer back with no crapware, all of the Windows updates installed, and a few extras ready to go – things like LibreOffice, Acrobat Reader, and so on. Quietly, I’m furious that PC World did this to him.

I finally got to the cinema yesterday to see Ready Player One, and came away not really disappointed, but not enthused either.

I guess the biggest problem for the movie is that the book was so good, and in many ways impossible to turn into a movie at all. There was so much missing, and the story was changed in so many ways. Without a lot of the exposition and background the book provides, huge swathes of the story made no sense what-so-ever.

It didn’t help that the local cinema had the sound turned down to perhaps 75% of where it should have been, which caused the most exciting scenes in the movie to be no more dramatic than watching an episode of a soap opera.

If you have not read the book, but have seen the movie, go read the book anyway – because it’s a completely different story, and far better than the movie.