Right, before any other business can I just exude on the topic of these headphones? That’s rhetorical obviously.

The headphones wrapped around my fat head at this moment are Sony MDR-V300’s that were picked up at a flea-market in East Falls a couple of years ago for a tenner.

Now, I spend the majority of my waking life wearing headphones; the only way to find the required seclusion for software development in open-plan offices necessitates headphones or earphones. At the last place they were “Koss” phones provided on day one by Mr Fritz, and they served me well in their various incarnations. Nowadays I have a cheap pair of in-ear “noise cancelling” cheapo mobile plugs that came with some phone or other.

At home there is rarely a need for headphones and so these Sony cans haven’t had a lot of use. Additionally I’m pretty skeptical about “high quality audio” for reasons too plentiful and intricate to go into here…but by god now I’m using these headphones it’s apparent they are orders of magnitude better than anything I’ve experienced before. Trying to describe how and why they’re better is going to be too difficult but just believe me when I say that it’s extraordinary how different a track sounds in these compared to the usual crap I’m used to. There’s bass – but not muddy, OTT, bass – just a proper bass response. There are details in the recording that were inaudible before. It feels like I was previously listening to music via ear-plugs.

Lifewise things have been pretty unremarkable (apart from a couple of unblogable things) but there have been some high points:

• Discovering an excellent Sonic Youth album I’d not heard before.
• Discovering an excellent Camper Van Beethoven album I’ve not heard before.
• Spending a couple of nice Sundays with a couple of good friends doing fun things – a separate blog is needed to fully describe these; especially Cabelas.

Well that wasn’t what I intended to write at all…

How to deal with middle-age, by Armando Iannucci:

Reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists on the way to work will never feel comfortable. Whether you’re on your way to your decorating job, or on your way to be a hedge fund manager, it will make you think about things; it will, unless you are a complete imbecile, produce existential thoughts. One of the most astonishing and unexpected finds is that if the words “Tories” and “Liberals” were replaced with “Republicans” and “Democrats” it would be exactly descriptive of American Politics today. It was written in 1910.

This week my company organized “The Company Olympics” (where the word “Company” was actually the name of the company, but I’m not giving Google that much help). Even though it mainly involved rain and sport, it was a great afternoon. We also had to dress-up in “fancy dress” the theme of which was “Le Retro Sportif.” For help with this concept, Michele asked my neighbour Tim who suggested I go as Captain Lou Albano. This was brilliant for several reasons:

1. All I had to do was put a rubber band in my beard, wear some gold chain, and put on a Hawaiian shirt.
2. Tim had a suitable shirt he was willing to lend me.
3. The Captain had longish curly hair.

Apart from one dude thinking I hadn’t bothered dressing-up, it was a success.

The rain became so serious that we were, fortunately, bound to abandon the sporty aspect of things and retire to the bar (all facilities were provided by a Ukranian Social Club BTW). The rest of the day/evening became what we Brits would call “a massive piss-up” and joy ensued. [Pictures are available on Flickr/Google+ to friends and family.]

Oh and they also hired the Guapo’s Tacos van for eats which not only provided astonishingly good food, but also Margaritas (all on the company).

You may know that I’m not what you could call an “early adopter” but, despite holding out this long, yesterday I took the plunge into the brave new world of High Definition TV! Yes, it took a lot of courage but I finally took the plunge and splashed out $1.73 (including delivery) on a brand new HDMI cable.
Hooking it up between the Roku and our 42-inch LCD-projection TV revealed a whole new world of glorious sharp detail: the awsum powa of 720p! Now I’m going to have to watch all the Netflix films again in HD.
I’m thinking of switching to stereo sound soon too.

That Harold Camping was right after all – the world is going to end in October. In the last month Philadelphia has suffered an earthquake, a hurricane, and last night we had a fuckload of rain.

This morning was as normal as ever until I got to the bus stop at the bottom of our road. The school crossing lady approached me and gave me an extraordinarily detailed breakdown of the state of the region as part of a general warning that the usual commute would be less than straightforward today. All routes from where we were into Center City were blocked by floodwater, mudslides or the resultant traffic. The trains were stopped, the expressway was closed…in fact the bus I was waiting for, the 62, had the only viable way in: along Ridge Avenue – a long, miserable, busy route. But for me, this was fine: I have a book to finish and care not the slightest about sitting on an air-conditioned bus for a couple of hours.
As I waited by the almost stationary traffic, the usual punters arrived and were given their updated briefing by the de-facto Emergency Response Team. By now, she had received many updates by her people in the field (a friend on the previous 62 who was still stuck on Ridge Avenue, and a few other drivers in the road. ) The service we were being provided with, free, by the School Crossing Guard made me wonder whether she was perhaps a Socialist infiltrator. Obviously I reported her to the local teabag militia as soon as I could.
The 62 arrived shortly, and I settled in for a long drive. The bus filled to capacity very quickly and by the time we were at Shurs lane (the start of the flood related detour that’s about a 20 minute walk from my front door), 45 minutes had elapsed. Every few 1 meter-shuffles the bus made, one of the passengers decided to disembark out of frustration. After the comprehensive rundown of the problems, explained to me by the crossing lady, I knew there was NO other option than to sit on the bus, and so found it funny that people were willing to give yet another option a try. The temptation to shout “SPLITTERS!” as they alighted was only quelled by the knowledge that no-one else on the bus would know what the fuck I was talking about. We continued, and the brave few were augmented by other poor bastards desperate to go…anywhere.

What always astonishes me about emergencies is how well the mobile phone companies do out of it. Every single person in sight was obviously off to work, and it’s certain that around 99% of them, like me, do something of absolutely no use to mankind, but EVERYONE calls the boss to explain they will be late to do their vitally important job. Listening in to others’ conversations it becomes apparent that the responses from the twats who got in early range from “whatever! why are you telling me?” right up to “well I’m going to have to deduct a days pay because those TPS reports don’t write themselves.” And overall it strikes me as a bit fucking weird that we’re all on this bus to wanksville, when we could be doing something useful instead. So I laugh.

After an hour and a half, we had reached Wissahickon – a good 30 minute walk from my house. Suddenly people started getting up from their seats to stand in the aisle, point ahead, and say “oh my god” repeatedly. The bus pulled over. The driver got out to find out what was going on. After a while everyone got off of the bus in order to rubberneck the scene which, predictably, involved the road being flooded. But this was very unusual – the creek fed into the river at this point, and the level was so high it was level with the road.

The boss told me it was probably better to work from home and it didn’t take long to realise the only way back there was going to be a long walk, uphill, in the rain. I got home at 10:45 (after leaving home at 7:30), soaked, knackered, sweaty (it’s still warm and muggy), and irritated. The only good aspect was that I stopped to pick up a hoagie from the ropey looking deli on Lyceum Ave, and it turned out to be really rather good.

The UK had a day off last week, and tomorrow the US follows suit: Labor Day. This has become my de-facto year marker over here (judging from previous blog-posts). What’s irritating about this particular holiday is how misjudged it has become. Ask people about Labor day and they will talk about cook-outs and grilling (barbecues), the end of summer, and the approach of autumn. This is part of the original cynical plan, and saddens me. Especially as I’m in the middle of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, and shortly after watching a great documentary on the history of Council Housing.

Yesterday was a great Saturday: It started with going for an amazing Dim Sum with Jon and Miko. Michele was also supposed to attend but had been suffering with a headache that kept her awake. By the time we returned to Manayunk Michele was feeling better and suggested that we go to a farm in Plymouth Meeting to buy a new chicken for the SWRC. So Helen, Michele and I did just that, and we consumed some smoothies made from harvested strawberries/lavender while we were there.

Since then I’ve been happily been playing in Cocoaland while Michele was slaving away at work. And the best thing is there’s no work tomorrow! Woohoo!

Except that Michele does have to work. Which is really bollocks. Hopefully her schedule will be toned down a notch after the baby squirrels have all been released.

Work and life continue. Over here in the comfortable heat and air-conditioned blanket we missed out on the most recent set of London riots; and for the first time in my life I’m quite glad they vanished. Even from here we were genuinely concerned for the well-being of friends and family back there in the face of the mass anger and frustration. Topic-change.

Today I experienced my first earthquake.
The new office occupies the 3X floor of a high-rise block in Center City Philadelphia (genuine Philadelphia, not the one being reconstructed in Glasgow at the moment). In the early afternoon I started getting irritated with all of the fat blokes stomping around my desk, making the floor shake. I looked around to see who the culprits were, but all I could observe was a crowd of slightly nervous looking people. The floor was still undulating. For a split second the idea that the floor below was hosting the Obese Aerobic Olympics came to mind, but was quickly extinguished by the look of fear and confusion on the faces of most people within viewing distance. Someone exclaimed “Earthquake!” which had a mixed reaction. Some people decided to go for the lifts, some chose the OSHA-safe option of the stairs, but the majority of us stayed put, recognising a fruitless situation when we saw one. After a short while the undulation of the floor calmed down, which led to a common calm. The tech-support team continued asking the users at the end of the phone “if it was plugged in” and we all went back to normal. It turns out to have been a big quake – even if not in magnitude then in geological reach.
It’s good to let nature remind you how insignificant you are once in a while.

After work I accidentally went to the Apple Store and bought myself a new MacBook Pro, on which I’m typing at this moment. Buying things in the Apple Store is a surprisingly, or perhaps disturbingly, simple task. Sadly, it is ultimately rewarding. The two events of the purchase and earthquake are probably unrelated, but frankly I don’t care because it feels like using a machine that was built to integrate directly with my brain and body.

The old 2006 MacBook is not ready for the knackers yard yet either – but it’s a tad underpowered for Xcode 4. He will continue to live happily.

The new job has one outstanding benefit which eclipses any other: it’s in Center City. Not only does this reduce the commute-stress by 1000SCUM, but it means that a plethora of excellent eateries and boozers are within walking distance from my desk. London friends may wonder why this is notable, but since moving here thus far all lunch options worth mentioning have required a friend with a car. In fairness this has led to many enjoyable lunches in the past; but being able to walk to an excellent sandwich/dosa/falaffel shop etc on my own feels very liberating.

Techwise I’m still out of my comfort zone, but as long as my line-manager manages to deal with my foibles until they are worked out, I’m quite happy. The company makes a product that I like and the entire ethos of the company is anti-printing so, as you may have guessed, I’m very happy about that.

Yesterday a friend from the previous job, Sudatta, arranged a do for a bunch of (ex-)workmates at her house. After my first week at the new job it was really wonderful to hang out with friends from the “old place”. It’s difficult to remember what it feels like to start a new job, and in general the whole thing sucks. It probably felt like that at the last place to begin with but after 3-4 years there the memory is of a warm, happy, family environment. Leaving wasn’t fun, and so it was really bloody great to see people again, especially with beer, wine and astonishing home-made Indian food. Thanks Sudatta (and family).

Objective-C development is proving to be as enjoyable as I’d hoped, even though I am still rusty as fuck. Even though it’s extremely low-level at core, the dev tools allow a level of control that, if used correctly, can get help rid of 99.9% of C-style problems while allowing some serious low-level action.

Apart from watching large chunks of The Martian Chronicles and other good stuff today, I also spent an hour or so talking to the family in England which is always lovely. On this occasion little Lily not only clapped her hands in time with “If you’re happy and you know it”, but she was also introduced to Leo.

Nighty night.

Normally, leaving a job for a new one involves a considerable amount of joy; leaving a place of work is usually motivated by dissatisfaction, and so leaving is pleasurable; a new job should really be a lot better than the old one, otherwise why bother?

This is the only time in my life that the old job wasn’t irritating me, or rather it wasn’t irritating me enough to leave. This is also the only new job I’ve ever taken where I’m not supremely confident about my ability to do it. In self-defence I was totally honest about my skills when I interviewed, and I genuinely think I’m up to it – but it doesn’t have the same comfort level as if it were a Linux admin/developer post. So the nerves are there and strong.

It has been inhumanly hot in the past week, but thanks to civilisation, we have air conditioning, so it was completely cope-able-with. For us. “Civilisation” evidently implies a lot more to me than it does to your average American cracker: I sincerely believe heating, A/C, medicine and transport are all part of being a civilised nation, but that is a very unpopular idea here, especially amongst the oppressed for some reason. They make such great pawns for the ultra rich.

As for last weeks computer problems, it seems the whole problem was down to a simple GRUB issue, which could have been solved in about 10 minutes if we were physically present – or if we had access to an on-site engineer who knew his shit. The RAID (5, not 1 as I previously stated) was fine, as it fucking well should be. That’s what it’s for. The box will be back home next week, but for now we have resurrected most services from backups. Still feels like a shot in the groin though.

New job tomorrow. Hopefully it will be inspiring.

I miss you all.

Not long ago all of my online presence was moved to a VM (a “virtual server”) which was hosted on a trusty physical server that my friend/colleague and I had configured and tested. Obviously we made sure that the drives would be safe by using RAID 1, and it ran like a team of athletes until last Sunday. Because it was “new” and “safe” I worried less about backups and so the universe decided to punish me.

We still don’t know what is wrong. The box is located far away and we can’t physically get to it until Saturday. Also the co-lo don’t do KVMoIP and the engineers are less than enthusiastic. Yeah we have IPMI and yeah it didn’t work when we actually needed it.

What this means is, in the words of Jack Regan from The Sweeney, “I am utterly and abjectly pissed-off”. We moved to a new, safe, well organised server to get the most out of the hardware and keep the data safe; it let us down in the most serious way. I don’t want to deal with this side of things anymore; the tech side of maintaining working servers has lost its magic for me now – JUST WORK YOU BASTARDS!

This time the ennui and disappointment almost made me give up with the hosting altogether; it’s taken me three days to get my blog back into some sort of order. All of the normal people people who use blogger/tumblr/posterous don’t have this crap to deal with so why do I? The other sites are still down, and the idea of resurrecting them is bringing me down. I’m paying cash money now (although not very much at all) and so at some point I’m going to have to ditch the few remaining sites I’ve been hosting as favours; not because of resentment, but just because I need the freedom to be able to say “fuck it” at any time and stop worrying without affecting other people.

We released an owl last night with Brendan. It was refreshing and quite moving. I’ve just finished reading another Hemmingway book and it has obviously affected me and it was grand.