Back to Aber…

Posted by Mister JTA on September 7th, 2006 | 3 comments

Now with emphasis, for your garnering-the-important-points pleasure

…For those of you not yet up with the latest creation of the Lame-O Plan-a-Tron 2000 ™, I’m heading over to Aber on Saturday.

Then I’m going back to Newport sometime during Monday, and I plan to stay there for around about a week…

Then, after a suitable period of hiding (to give people in Aber time to think “Nah, it must’ve been a false alarm, let’s cancel all security) I’m going back to Aber once more, to hang about, make a nuisance of myself, get up people’s noses, and hopefully eat all the curry on Portland Road. and hanging about until somewhere in the region of the 28th.

Please note that, whilst in Aber, I’m likely to be crashing at the Cottage. Please also note that whilst away from Wallingford, I’m not likely to be about much on IRC. (I’m never on Gaim to speak to people via MSN anyway, so that’s irrelevant.) E-mails, however, I get from all over the shop, on a regular basis, so that’s a good way to get in touch with me, if you need to.

And if it’s an emergency, or you’re getting desperate withdrawral symptoms having missed the dulcet sound of my voice, you can give me a ring on my mobile, the number for which you’ll already know if you need it.

Ah… the joys of sounding organised. Also of buggering those programs that read web pages for blind people.
In other news:

“You are lucky! Full moon tonight!” my arse. I’ve played 20 characters, today, and they all died. Bloody RNG.

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Comments

  1. On September 08, 2006 Statto says:

    I’m not likely to be about much on IRC. (I’m never on Gaim to speak to people via MSN anyway, so that’s irrelevant.)

    Whyever not?!

    Even if you take issue with MSN, you should have Gaim open to use Google Talk, or even the Jabber server at Kwazoig… (I’m currently the only user which is a bit lonely.)

    This won’t have bothered me for the last two months, but I should be off home and therefore online by Sunday evening (neatly coinciding with your departure), so get onto one or more of the three I just mentioned and we can have a chat when you’ve got back from Aber/Newport!

    Ah… the joys of sounding organised. Also of buggering those programs that read web pages for blind people.

    I don’t think this web page buggers anything for blind people…it’s all semantically coded with <strong> tags, so it should read the text in a nice emphatic voice for them.

    On second thoughts, do you just mean that it would make the experience really, really annoying?

  2. On September 08, 2006 Mister JTA says:

    Yep. Try reading it and put on a deep voice for the bold bits. Now imgaine you’ve got the voice of Microsoft Sam, or some such other retard. Blech.

    The “why I don’t use things apart from IRC” thing’s a bit weird; what I like about IRC is that it doesn’t demand your attention in quite the same way, I think; you can have it running in the background and check back and see what’s been going on, and it’s more like a proper conversation with several people. Whereas my experience of multi-head conversations on IM channels has been less good.

    I’ve got a copy of Gaim somewhere, but I got out of the habit of that kind of thing sometime during the first year, about the time I realised that what I did was log on to MSN, or similar, and then just sit there for the whole evening, often not talking to the vast bulk of my contacts list – out of about a hundred people, I used to talk to six, tops.

    And… yeah. I like IRC better. Which, in many ways, is handy, because I doubt anyone’s going to thank me if I use IM clients at work, but I might just be OK with IRC because when people say things there, the whole bloody toolbar doesn’t start flashing at you, and demanding that you have a look.

    Yeah, that’s it, mainly; IRC is more laid back and friendly than IM-ing stuff. But, yeah, I can dig out a copy of Gaim or something if you’d like some species of IM conversation when I’m back in Newport!

  3. On September 08, 2006 Statto says:

    None of those complaints are Gaim-vs-IRC specific!

    Gaim can be used as an IRC chat client (I’ve used it in RockMonkey, which is presumably the channel you use), and I very much doubt that there’s no way to turn the flashing-box alerts off such that you can deal with IMs at your leisure rather than feeling like it’s demanding your attention.

    I also can’t see how an employer could justify a bollocking for an IM client and yet not for IRC…if anything, IRC’s worse because you could be downloading all manner of pirated crap from dodgy public servers! Even if you disregard actual employer morality, I think most employers would know what neither Gaim nor IRC was, and consequently either is equally good in a way that well-known time-waster MSN isn’t.

    Surely there’s nothing wrong with your many-contacts-only-a-few-of-whom-I-speak-to accusation levelled at MSN, either? I rarely talk to more than two or three of my MSN contacts, but it’s not really a problem…and if you do find it to be a problem for some reason taht I don’t follow (?), then there’s always Google Talk or Jabber at Kwazoig.

    It does depend a little on how people use MSN etc. There probably does feel like there’s more of an imperative to respond in a one-on-one MSN chat, but if you’re talking to someone who realises that you’re going to be there sporadically all day, and you set your status to “away” and thereby remove the obligation to respond if you can’t be arsed, I don’t think there’s any more pressure than in the laid-back IRC. It’s just another communicaton channel which is slightly easier than e-mail.

    Shift your paradigm, install Gaim, and enter the World of multi-protocol, laid-back instant messaging!

    And, talking of being easier than e-mail, I believe you have e-post from me which you could be responding to… :P