davidrickard.net

I read this article on theonionavclub.com about Billy West. I have tremendous respect for West, and many other voice actors like Maurice La Marche, Tom Kenny, John DiMaggio, Hank Azaria, Frank Welker – all of them the unsung heroes of the animation world. In this article, West complains about how so many celebrity actors are placed in high profile films, for no good reason other than who they are. I have to say, I’m with him on this one. Go read!

Its going to be ‘One of those days’ I can just feel it. Its already hot and balmy, so I’m sitting here roasting. I managed to drive in in a daze, pull up at the petrol station and miss the pump by about a car’s length. I then drove off with the filler cap open still (noticed it just pulling out of the petrol station) and then about 5 minutes down the road, had to stop for some buses and tried pulling away in third. I sat there wondering “why is my car not moving properly?”. After revving the guts out of it I finally got some movement and then noticed what gear I was in.

Yup. One of those days.

Today’s temperature reached something like 29 degrees C (84F to you other people) – apparently Beating Malaga in Spain. Considering that was with a wind as well, its pretty good going, and a little worrying. It seems to have been getting hotter every year, and unless something really wierd happens in the environment, its going to get hotter. Ten years time we could be looking forward to 40-degree summers possibly. Considering the UK is on the same longitude as a lot of pretty cold countries, its surprising how hot it can get. The Gulf Stream has a lot to do with it also, but that is supposed to be changing.

Roll on winter. I tend to complain less about the cold.

So, I started today on another campus with a meeting. The meeting was at 10am, and I didn’t see much point driving to work, then driving to the other campus only to drive back, so I left home later and went straight there. I got to work proper at about lunch time, and had a fairly normal afternoon. I did a Cisco session (my last! EVER!) and came home. When I got home, it felt like I left about a week ago. Considering I only had a slightly different morning, it made all the difference.

So what with the G8 concert next month, there was something of a big announcement today – Pink Floyd are to reform! Now, whether this is a permanant thing, or a one-off for this show remains to be seen, but it’d be great if it was a long-term arrangement. When The Division Bell came out eleven years ago, my parents bought it. I would listen to that CD almost constantly. It opened my eyes to more guitar driven music. I was about eleven/twelve at the time, so I was like most kids – into pop and not much else. I think that album influenced me a great deal. I didn’t truly appreciate how much until today. Not long after that I moved onto bands like Manic Street Preachers and then found my way into REM and The Beautiful South. Now I’m listening to mostly guitar music, or at least, music made by real musicians. I religiously watch Jools Holland and usually end up buying a CD for one of the bands on the show each week. I consider it a good thing though; I enjoy music for many reasons and I think I can attribute that to Pink Floyd.

Thanks guys!

I changed ISP some time ago to the wonderful Zen ADSL. My old provider, BTOpenworld (as was) gave me a handful of free email addresses. I never used them myself, but other people in my family did. Since I’ve cancelled the account, obviously BT don’t want me using those accounts for free, so I need to provide some other form of email for the family.

I don’t know if Zen provide any free email to users, and I don’t really want to – if I have to change provider again, I’ve got to move all their adresses again, so I’d rather do something else. They’re all pretty comfortable using Outlook/Outlook Express and Thunderbird (soon to all be using Thunderbird I hasten to add), so I need a provider of POP/SMTP. Most free email services don’t do this, and those that do usually want money at some point. I could tack them onto this davidrickard.net domain, but I’d rather not. I’d look a bit old with other family members having email addresses from this domain.

My solution – register a new domain cheaply, park it somewhere, and redirect the emails at my domain and put POP accounts behind it. That way the mail is going somewhere fairly generic to the sender, so its much nicer in that respect. I don’t mind setting up the backend stuff (its so simple with most hosts) so it’ll be all good.

The problem is, I can’t think of a decent domain name! Rickard. anything is pretty much taken unless you want one of the wierd .uk.net domains, and these are usually really expensive. I’ve tried various other versions, but they all sound either lame, or pretty cheesy. Even ‘therickards.co.uk’ was taken. So now its a case of trying to work out a good domain name. Oh, and I’ve only got about 2 weeks to do it.

These things are so fun…

I’ve got a cold. I’m sitting here with a big box of tissues, a pack of Fisherman’s Friends and a stuffed up head. I’ve not had a cold for some time, so naturally I’m spending lots of time moping about and whinging about how horrible it is. I sat in a meeting sniffling and blowing my nose at work today, much to he annoyance of everybody else there I think.

Hopefully this will be gone by Monday.