Flaming software… grrr

 I.T and similar  No Responses »
Jul 272007

Software seems to have gone haywire – again.

From here it looks as though the ads and sidebars have all dropped to the bottom of the page for some reason. I have *no* idea why they’d do that… but that’s what it looks like

Will have to try to sort it out in the morning, right now I’m off to bed… shattered! :)

Edit:

Sorted th s/w issue out. Seemed to be caused by the accidental inclusion of an unpaired ‘div’ tag in the html. No idea where it came from… can only suppose I added it with the Technorati tags now removed. Still, so long as it works :)

Posted by The Dog at 9:47 pm  

Potter – my entry to The Times Online Comp.

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Jul 272007

Wrote most of this on the 19th July… then edited it in light of the new book. This was my entry to the competition… 100% wrong… so no prize for the Dog!! :)

=======================
Molly Weasley is the one going to die.
The wedding between Bill and Fleur takes place at the Burrow. During the proceedings the Death Eaters attack.

Molly fights to defend home and family but her actual death results from throwing herself in front of Ginny to protect her just as Lily died to save Harry.

Dobby moves from Hogwarts to The Burrow to help the family cope after her death. A devastated Percy will return in sorrow to the family.

————-

Lets see… yes the Death Eaters *did* attack the wedding… but Molly lived. However, later in the book, Dobby died… ah well. How much more wrong could I be?
————-

On a theme, I’m not really sure what lessons we are supposed to learn from the series. For example, even allowing for the author’s need to reduce complexity, it’s off how little the characters reflect real life social mores.

One example that comes to mind is how few of the adults we are introduced to have children of their own. As far as we know not one teacher has children whilst there are three families on the nasty side (Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle) who do. Of those defending truth, justice and treacle tart (which seems to be the English side’s equivalent to mom’s apple pie) there is only the Weasley’s family which contains children… all others are unattached adults despite being it seems in their late 30’s or early 40’s! Not only that, many of the children we’ve met have lost one or more parents and/or grandparents. Seems it’s dangerous being a wizard and you either live to be ancient as in Dumbledore’s case… or die very early in, let’s say ‘odd’ circumstances!

Come to that, in the last book Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks got married, had a child… and then both its parents were killed!! More orphans!

Maybe one lesson is that mostly, it’s those who have least to lose who fight the hardest for those who have most to lose??

Except that Ron and Hermione had kids… and so did Harry and Ginny… so the moral is… ??

Posted by The Dog at 9:45 pm  

Rain at last

 General Ramblings  No Responses »
Jul 272007

Was getting a bit worried because it’s been dry for a few days but the rain is drizzling down slowly. Of course… today *had* to be the day we sent the dogs off for a wash and polish.

I hope they manage to dry them off before they catch cold :)

Posted by The Dog at 9:33 pm  

What’s going on in Victoria??

 Government  No Responses »
Jul 272007

The Premier and Vice Premier both quit in one afternoon? Sounds ominous. Both are leaving to spend more time with their families… heard *that* one before!

Is it co-incidence there is a hoo-ha about them refusing to join in the water management scheme for the Murray-Darling?? Who knows… either way they’re gone

Not exactly a common occurrence that.

Posted by The Dog at 9:31 pm  

Bright Ideas

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Jul 252007

I suggested to Sally, my trainer in the gym, that I’d be happy to sort out a blog for her and even a personal website… not to hard really because it’s fundamentally all automated. I also suggested I’d have a look at her ‘business’ site Fitness Recruiter but I think working on that wouldn’t be as easy as it might appear. Much of what she’d like is straightforward enough is she has sufficient space already. Both the blog and/or personal site can be located in a sub-directory or even sub-domain however selecting *and applying* a unifying theme to the blog, personal page, *and* business site is where we might hit a snag.
As basic as it is, the site seems to be utilising a database to store information and trying to impose a unified theme on someone else’s database isn’t as straightforward as it might appear. Still, I dug out a variety of ‘fitness’ themes for her to look at and if she likes any of them I’ll get her site passwords and see what we can do. Ultimately it’s really a case of arranging the fields such that they display correctly when accessed so who knows… might work! :)
As if I don’t have enough of my own to be getting on with :)

Posted by The Dog at 7:08 am  

Ok… really back this time

 Home and Hearth  No Responses »
Jul 252007

It’s been an odd sort of week. Actually quite ‘potty’ in its way. Those Pottermaniacs amongst have had our final dose of Harry and have had time to read and digest most of the overall story… though maybe not really come to terms with the end of the series. I’ve run through the Deathly Hallows three times (so far) and have to say it was a reasonably satisfying conclusion for the most part. The majority of loose ends were tied up we had an epilogue to indicate that those who remained had happy contented lives. Could have been worse.

On the home front things aren’t exactly perfect. I spent so much time before and after the book in a different world, the real world took a back seat and the house has once again become a bit grubby. For the next few days reality bites and there is work to be done. There is real ‘news’ out there that I’ve missed… or ignored. For a start there have been floods in Middle England where my daughter and family live. I think maybe contacting them to see if they are ok might be a useful strategy :)

Kids are back in school and I’ve got yet another cold. Weight’s going up not down. I’m dog tired despite the pills… and I really need to sort out something drastic to get me to reduce my bulk. Other than that… well there’s just so much to do!! Life goes on. :)

Posted by The Dog at 6:33 am  

Rizana Nafeek – update

 Crime & Punishment  No Responses »
Jul 242007

The Saudi government has announced a suspension of her execution while negotiations are carried out on her behalf, by the Sri Lankan government and an appeal made for clemency or retrial.

All we can do is hope it succeeds and we wish her and her supporters well.

Original OA post on Rizana here, news from Sri Lanka here.

Posted by The Dog at 12:21 pm  

More Potter

 Entertainment  No Responses »
Jul 212007

Sorry… I’m nowhere near finished talking about Harry Potter yet. For a start there’re all the spoilers to go through that I couldn’t read before the book was released in case they were right! For example this site had a long list of spoilers on it that attracted a lot of publicity… but nearly all of them were *wrong*. Have to laugh.

Our own ‘Rampant Theories’ fared little better. Out of the all I think we can claim three and two halves more or less correct. Not a great score. Still not going to discuss the plot… you never know who’ll be watching! :D

Posted by The Dog at 6:27 pm  

Well… I’m back!

 Entertainment  3 Responses »
Jul 212007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Anyone who hasn’t followed the series must be heartily sick of it by now. The other hundred million or so of us who *have* followed the story will have just read the final chapter… for now.

Even so, loads of people haven’t read it yet, I’m not giving spoilers away just yet… though there are so many out there it’ll soon be hard to avoid them. All this aims to be is some quick first impressions.

Due to circumstances beyond my control… grrr… I didn’t start the book until 11:00 this morning… some 3 hours after I’d intended to. Not to worry… I finished it at 4:00 p.m. so it should have been worse. In total 607 pages ranging from incredible excitement, through the mundane… to a climactic ending that was every bit as magical (in the wider sense of the word) as we might have expected.

I think on this first reading I’d say it was a fitting end to the Chronicles of Harry Potter. Yes the writing is a little ‘loose’ in places… and we didn’t have all the plot holes and loose ends tied up… in fact there are more to work through. But it *was* an ending. I’m still not sure why Dumbledore saw himself holding a pair of woollen socks in the Mirror of Erised… but I have a bit of a clue now.

Overall… if you’ve not read any of the series… do so now. Read as a whole it’s a wonderful journey.

And with that I’m off to read through it again :)

By the way… it’s already available online in several different formats. I got it as a .pdf which I can read and search as I need to. Yes it smacks of illegality… but we bought 3 copies so I don’t feel *too* guilty about it.

Posted by The Dog at 4:48 pm  

Xu Jinglei – Whu Xhatei?

 I.T and similar  No Responses »
Jul 202007

Never heard of this woman before today but it seems she is the owner of the most visited blog on the planet… she says. According to Technorati she’s 47th… either way she must be doing or saying something damn good cos I get *nowhere* near that figure :)

In fact, much as I hate to admit it… hardly anyone comes here… except family and friends! Not that I’m complaining. The site was intended as a personal place to deposit my ramblings and complaints about the world and the way simple ordinary things conspire to make each day interesting… in the Chinese sense!

On Technorati itself, this site was reported with “Authority: 4 · Rank: 1,259,603. What does that mean?? God knows. Out of interest I looked up the Phantom’s site and got this: Authority: 1 Rank: 3,888,472. Not sure what that means either… especially when my friend kyte produced this from a site she hardly updates anymore: Authority: 56 Rank: 104,673… it’s all just a damn popularity contest!! ROFL :D

So what does Xu Jinglei do to attract so many visitors… 200 million at the last count… seemingly nothing. She’s a Chinese actress who isn’t that bad looking. Other than that – beats me. Want to go look and see? Click here – but be warned. If you can’t read Mandarin it might be a little hard to follow :)

Posted by Welsh Dog at 3:30 pm  
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