DougWeb – Doug's home on the Web

Apart from Planet Doug which has ‘Bigger Issues’ (like not updating…), I think I’ve got everything switched over successfully to the new design.

I’ve also moved my blog to the front page of the site – the front page was just a waste of space before.

Sizewell A and Dungeness A were the first two commericial nuclear power stations in the UK, and both will be shut down at the end of today.

Trivia: Several years ago I had a guided tour of the inside of the Sizewell complex (Sizewell has 2 plants – A and B) – including the parts that are normally off limits to the public (i.e. not just the visitor centre). At one point I got to stand pretty much next to one of the reactors inside plant A – I was about 10m away from it. The reactor itself wasn’t very impressive looking – but then it was encased in concrete…

This year, I have spent approx £3520 on train tickets. That’s a lot of money…

Mainly, because they do things like this to get rid of a swarm of bees…

…so I’m designing something better. I hope to finish tomorrow.

To Everyone I Know (both online and/or in the real world),

Have a very Merry Xmas, and a fantastic New Year.

Doug

Back when I was a poor student, and worked part-time at McD, “I’m Lovin’ It” made my life hell. There was nothing like customers (drunk or sober) who thought it was funny to start singing it…

But, “Dick in a box” is pure genius.

I released DVDFolks 0.8 back in May 2005. At that time I said that I wouldn’t be doing any further development work on it, but I would be providing similar functionality as part of the hadn’t-yet-been-started DVD Profiler Companion.

Since then IMDb have changed things around a bit on their pages breaking DVDFolks in various ways. Where possible I have made the necessary compatibility fixes, but episodic TV has been broken for a long time.

Yesterday, I decided that it was actually time to do something about. And this is what I have…

Even in it’s early state, it’s a lot better than DVDFolks ever was – the code doesn’t make me cry when I look at it, it looks a lot prettier, it’s faster and I fixed a couple of bugs I noticed in DVDFolks.

TODO:
Remove hard-coded strings, so that people can translate it…
Add a mechanism for selecting which episodes to extract information for in TV mode (it currently extracts the entire lot, which isn’t particularly useful)
Release a beta
Add a mechanism for editing the extracted names/roles (not a priority for beta 1, since other tools can do this)
Release another beta.

To the 1000+ people who are using DVDFolks – I’m sorry (really!) for the wait.

A few minutes ago, DougWeb racked up visit #1000000. That’s a lot of visitors. Thanks to you all!

I’m going to stop madly hitting refresh on the visit count now…¹

¹The visit count doesn’t include me…

Q: What has a mouth that doesn’t speak, and a bed but doesn’t sleep?
A: A river

Q: What does an auctioneer need to know?
A: A lot

Q: Who invented fire?
A: A bright spark

Q: Where did we go for our Xmas lunch today?
A: The ever-excellent Cross Kings

Q: How long were we there for?
A: Approx 3.5hrs

Q: How many people went?
A: 13

Q: How much did we spend?
A: Over £400

Q: How?!
A: Not sure of the exact figures, but it was something like £120 on lunch itself, £270 on alcohol and a £40 tip.

Q: Would we do it again?
A: Absolutely

Thursday was my work Xmas party. We hired out an entire pub (Newmarket Arms), and had a fun (albeit cheesy) 6 hours (5pm-11pm). It’s also the first (and last!) time that I’ll find myself at the front of a conga line…

I just don’t see the point – especially this example from Transport for London I was invited to fill in after making a complaint earlier this afternoon.

Do they have targets to meet? What would happen if they failed to meet their quota of 0.5% of complaints being filed by “Disabled transgendered, bisexual Hindu females of White & Black Caribbean origin who are in the age range 52-61″?

Seriously – what would they do if the numbers revealed that a certain ethnic/racial/religious/age group didn’t use the buses as much as other groups? Somehow, I don’t think they’d be introducing a ‘whites only’ (or any other group-only) bus service…

I stubbed my toe this morning when trying to get back into bed after turning off my alarm clock (it’s positioned on the other side of my room from the bed, so that I actually have to wake up to turn it off).

It fuckin’ hurts.

I’ve never been in so much pain – and that includes the 48hr buildup to the time my eardrum burst, and I got blood pouring out my ear. Just putting a sock on my foot made my whole body recoil/shudder due to the pain.

See here for the latest reason why. Fucking wankers.

Is it weird that 4 number 390 buses drove past me within half a minute on my way home tonight? That’s 4 all heading in the same direction, and all 4 with passengers…