Communications

I consider that different media are appropriate to different messages.

Forum boards/livejournal. A public (ish) medium. A fair amount of stuff worth reading. Usually I will read everything on my LJ. Sooner or later anyway. On a busier forum, I'll often skip stuff that I don't think is/will be of interest.

Email: I'll almost certainly read it. Again, sooner or later. Usually when at work, email gets through fairly quick. But it _is_ a 'store and forward' protocol, and there's no guaranteed delivery constraint.
I'm also not always able to read my email - my work account is work only, and my home account is read maybe daily.
Although spam filters may trap stuff, it's usually fairly good.

SMS/Phone messages.
As email. They'll probably get to me. And i'll probably deal with it. Sooner or later. But bear in mind that phones have batteries that go flat, and signal that gets lost. It's faster and more reliable way to get hold of me than email though.

Phone conversation:
A message, and an acknowledgement all in one. If I need to be aware of something, then phone me. My number is on LJ, and most people I know already have my number.

Now this list is in inverse order of priority. Missed calls I'll almost always return as soon as I can. I will cancel the call if I'm driving, or in a place where it's not terribly practical to answer. (like a meeting). But you'll get a call back as soon as I'm able.

SMS/phone messages will _usually_ get to me in a timely fashion. But don't forget that SMS is a store and forward protocol in much the same way as email. So it can be delayed by days. It's IMHO appropriate for getting messages to me at the weekend and for things like 'so are you up for the pub tonight?'.

Email. Will probably get to me. Sooner or later. At work, this can be within a few minutes. If it's the weekend, it'll probably be monday. I'll typically see it though. Appropriate for things that need a response, or that I need to be aware of, but which aren't time critical.

Forum posts. Well, I might see them. Then again, I might not. And then it might be a week later.
If it's on a forum, and you think I need to see it, then draw my attention to it in one of the ways above. (especially if it's SINergy).

Pay slips

I've just got my pay slip.
Never seems enough does it?

What I want to know though, is which sadistic bastard came up with the idea of cumulative 'year to date' figures on pay slips?

OK. The whole list your gross, then deductions, then what you _actually_ got is bad enough. I know technically, Tax, national insurance and pension contributions aren't _lost_ money, but they seem like it.

You get the 'this is how much you could have won' but actually, we'll be keeping 30% of that.

But no, the _really_ depressing part is the cumulative totals.
The cumulative 'deductions' - this is how much money you never had. That saddens me. I think of all those sad lonely pints of beer I never met, and never will.

And the cumulative 'pay year to date' It's a healthy number. Even given that it's only May. But I can't help looking at it and thinking: "I know as a student, I lived on about 3-4 thousand a year. And here is says, that over the last x months, I've had a notable amount more than that. Where the hell did it all go?"

And I sort of know. It's gone to various big black holes, not least of which is the car. But LARPs events, 'toys', books, beer are not insignificant fractions.

Then I think "ah, what the hell. I've enjoy my life, and being who I am. And it's nearly friday, so I can start putting a dent in my balance again."

Stock prices

Alstom's stock price has just dropped below the 52 week low.

The current price (at time of writing) is 1.17Euro per share.

Not _quite_ the all time low (0.97 euro) but not far off.

Hmm, time to start sorting out my CV I guess...
Anyone looking to hire Unix/Storage geeks? ;p

Pub

Righty ho. Pub tomorrow.
The Old Nursery tavern.
Whence they have good cider (allegedly, don't touch the stuff myself), excellent beer, pork scratchings and good company.

The detachment from Tile Hill will be making their attack runs at about 19:00. Probably.

(no subject)

[Poll #292863]

Kenya!

Live action Kenya

Now I have the fear.

What's worse is someone has set a fiddypee challenge