Raithe

Actually that was my original plan, Uni, then Signals. A couple of years back dad was going to retire early to let me apply..and while I blazed through the barb testing and such quite nicely the medical board came down and had to file a reject on me. Because.. and I kid you not.. My left eye. So because my left eye needs a stronger prescription then my right..and it just hovers past the acceptable limits.. All of the armed forces are a no go. That kind of killed my original plans. I'm currently putting my name forward to a bunch of volunteer groups around the city.. one way to help put something on my cv, potentially get some references (even if its just character) and potentially gets me out of the house so dad will start taking over more. Ah well. Okay, thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind. Go back 8 years and most of the IT related jobs seemed to expect fairly generic skills and would concentrate on site for what was needed. Now it seems everyone expects you to be fairly specialised when you arrive..

Okay, trolling for peoples thoughts on the matter.. But here's the basic situation.. some years ago I was doing computers, IT and business at University but had to drop out in the final year to look after a disabled family member.. It's now 8 or so years on and my dad's finally taken retirement so its possible for him to do it.. I need to figure out how to get into the workplace but all my IT skills are out of date and I don't have the full shiny degree letter (just some of the certifications of the units I'd done in the couple of years there). What's the best way to try to modernise my IT skills? Figure out a way to go back to school? Try to get into some really base level job ? Going through the government "back to the workplace" stuff tends to be a total roundabout. You go into meetings and they're all "we can't give you advice on jobhunting until we get your skills back up" then send you off to other meetings where they say "we can't talk about getting your skills up until we figure out what jobs your looking at" then back and forth.. It's very, very head slamming. Plus the whole.. 8 years hole on a CV with your only reference basically being "my mother" doesn't really suit well for sending out to jobs

Assorted music from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtracks..(the series ones, not the film) . For some reason, they always put me in the mood to read Shadowrun stuff...

Did rewatch War, Inc the other evening.. that's kind of fun in that slightly bizarre way. Although it's always a treat to watch the Cusack siblings share scene time.. they do seem to have a great time doing those characters... Plus it feels like they got half the cast from Grosse Point Blank together for it...

I almost feel like I'm on the sidelines watching a tennis match between Oner and WorstUserNameEver... Konstantin Brayko- 12 Omen Deng- 41 (-1) SIE- 40 Scarlet Lake- 41 (+1) - She's a survivor... Sis- 35 Steven Heck - 22

Knight & Day - Tom Cruise goes through it with a ****y grin, and Cameron Diaz with a baffled expression. Still, it has some funny lines and moments in there..

It's more the werewolf goes into a "just because the person is just born.. I'm in love in a uber-bodyguard / uncle type / godfather / family way..but at some random point in the future when the ick factor isn't so big and she's at some undetermined age, it's suddenly going to turn into major sexual love as well.. and anyone who hurts her will get eaten." There's something about that that is just an eeeny-bit creepy.

Albatross - 14 Henry Leland - 13 Konstantin Brayko- 14 (-1) Omen Deng- 30 SIE- 34 Scarlet Lake- 35 (+1) Sis- 30 Steven Heck - 21

Wait until the fourth movie.. there's a really seriously creepy werewolf "love at first sight" factor that creeps in in the book. I'm half-wondering just how hollywood will handle that adaption..

I suppose that's somewhat better then the football fans that were chanting "You can't go swimming any more! You can't go swimming any more!" at the American soccer team during the world cup...

I'm stunned. And yeah, apparently the scene of his death is getting bouquets with statements of "Good on Ya Mate" and assorted anti-police commentary... I thought the whole "northern men who go down the pub, have a beer, then go home to slap the wife around" was a cliche of the past.

To quote Samuel Clemens... "America is built on a tilt. Everything loose ends up in California."

I'll be somewhat impressed when you can type that without needing a keyboard..

And now we're reaching the stage where people aren't bothering to go with reasons... It's all been heard before.. Albatross - 18 Henry Leland - 16 Konstantin Brayko- 15 Omen Deng- 27 SIE- 31 Scarlet Lake- 33 (+1) - She's a redhead. With a sniper rifle.... Sis- 30 Steven Heck - 21 (-1) - Just a bit too crazy

You should be able to use an offline account for that.... You just have to sign in to an offline account.. But because I hadn't signed in period.. all "save game" features were non-responsive... And once you do sign in, you have to start a new game. Ah well.

Just installed Red Faction Guerilla... Had the popup of "If you want to enjoy online play, sign in to Game for Windows Live" which I clicked "no" because I just wanted to play around on single-player. Played it for about 40 minutes.. went to save it.. and found out that until I do sign in to Windows Live I'm not allowed to save even in single-player. Now I have to restart over from the beginning... The frikkin joys.

Michael Caine as Harry Palmer - almost the anti-bond Spy films of the mid to late 60's. The Ipcress File. Funeral in Berlin. Billion Dollar Brain. Or if you wanted a touch more sillyness to things, James Coburn as Derek Flint. (Again, the late 60's). Our Man Flint . In Like Flint.

Hm, Mark Harmon might make a good Marburg... sort of the Evil-Gibbs approach.. Although if you're also using people from tv.. the guy in Burn Notice to play another Michael might be crossing the wires a bit too much.. Hm, Clooney might make an interesting Leland... although that might be bias from Syriana. Or.. .. John Cusack .. I'm getting flashes of a non-spoofy War, Inc...

I couldn't finish GTAIV. I kept getting around 75-80% of the way through and totally running out of steam. I was worried I'd stopped enjoying the sandbox roaming games and then picked up Saints Row 2 and had major fun. It makes me wonder if GTAIV made themselves almost a touch too... serious? and lost some of the silly fun aspect. Although Mafia never went hte silly fun route and was a rather good game.. hmmm..

That, and quite often the physical copies in stores will have "special price off" when released. Nearly everything you get via Amazon these days has between 10-30% off when its first released.. The difference between paying

What I also like about this brother who is now ranting about the police handling of the situation and how they treated his poor sibling... it turns out that they've barely spoken to each other over the last twenty years. Now that speaks to a truly deep fraternal relationship.. don't talk to him for twenty years and then complain bitterly to get your spot on national tv....

Nah, he looks too noble to be Marburg. But he can do intense professional like nobodies business... Not that you get to see it a lot in most roles he plays

Clint Eastwood as Marburg is as blasphemous as it gets. The man's man that taught a whole generation how to be men playing a spy queen, its just wrong. Heh, could you imagine the aging Roger Moore playing Marburg as a straight role? More like an uber cynical version of the Saint then the light-hearted Bond they kept writing scripts for... Although with Christopher Lee's background in the SOE during WW2 I wonder how he might play the part... although people might get stuck on thinking of him as Dracula/Dooku.....But mayhaps a bit too elderly now for Marburg.

Well, that's around 20+ years of reading material gathered together. The term "triple stacked shelves" comes to mind * Just to derail things for a moment.. As things looked when I had to empty the "library" section to redecorate my room..

And now that one of them shot himself to end the manhunt.. the brother is complaining about the Police.. Insisting that there should be a second postmortem to check for taser wounds in case the use of tasers caused the guy to pull the trigger... And this is a guy who deliberately shot one policeman, and took the time to reduce the powder charge so he could shoot the ex-gf and inflict scars with a much less likelihood of actually killing her... So, fairly bulky guy, who shoots someone, deliberately scars up a woman, shoots at a police officer..and runs around like that... and whose mother basically said the best outcome would be if someone just shot him.... And now there's complaints about how the police handled the situation... yeesh.