Well the first week at my new workplace has just passed, and it’s been a great week. I’ve felt a part of the team since day 1, participating in most of the support queries past our way save for some Windows stuff. All the people are very nice and have made me feel right at home.

It’s really a great place to be. On Friday we ran into some trouble on some live machines, so four of us headed to the conference room, set up the projector, and brainstormed for 3 hours until we figured out what the problem was and found a way to reproduce it. At every stage I was included in the discussion, my ideas fully heard out, and I genuinely felt as if I’d worked there for years.

I’m staying my last night at Jess’s parents before Jess leaves back to Huddersfield tomorrow, and I move into our house. We’ve stocked up the fridge, the broadband is working, and there’s even a bed, chair, and hifi! We’re also moving down next weekend instead of in two weeks’ time, since that’s the only time we could get the van. Great stuff!

While catching up on yesterday’s news, BoingBoing alerted me to the CRIA‘s alarming attempts to brainwash children into their ways of thinking: Captain Copyright. BoingBoing also managed to highlight some interesting facts like their mascot borrows features from all sorts of other underwear perverts (“superheroes”™), clearly breaking copyright themselves. Oh, and let’s not mention their ridiculous terms & conditions that include such gems as:

Permission is expressly granted to any person who wishes to place a link in his or her own website to www.accesscopyright.ca or any of its pages with the following exception: permission to link is explicitly withheld from any website the contents of which may, in the opinion of the Access Copyright, be damaging or cause harm to the reputation of, Access Copyright. In the event we contact you and request the link be removed, you agree to comply with that request promptly. If you link to or otherwise include www.captaincopyright.ca on your website, please let us know and create any link to our home page only.

Oops, I clearly broke that rule in two separate instances! OK, here’s another one I broke: “iv. You are not permitted to copy or cut from any page or its HTML source code to the Windowsâ„¢ clipboard (or equivalent on other platforms) onto any other website.” Let’s break it again shall we:

<p class="pageTitle">Welcome kids </p>

<p class="boldA1">Hi kids! </p>
<p>Captain Copyright is busy building this website to make it fun and exciting for
    you! Keep checking back here for
more activities for you to do, stuff that can help you with homework your teacher
    might give you, games you can play,
and much, much more.</p>

Man, I just love the record industry’s collective idiocy.

Last night, Dan and I went to see Zero 7 at Leeds Met. The auditorium was packed and the concert was incredible. They played songs from all of their albums, seven of the band were there, with ‘special guest’ José González who also contributed to their latest album. I was kicking myself for having forgotten both the camera and to charge my phone, so I have no pictures of the event at all.

The supporting act, Fink, were also very good although we missed the beginning of their set because nobody had announced anything at all in the waiting area outside the hall… The ‘doors at 7, start at 7’ information that Dan had been given was completely off: Fink didn’t start until 8:00 or so and Zero 7 not until about 9:15. Once Zero 7 were done the clapping just didn’t end and they ended up performing 2 encores before the 11pm curfew. During one of them the lead singer (Sia Furler) asked what sort of dance she should perform during the solo. After suggestions of caribbean and line dancing were turned down (oh we already did those) she settled on Morris Dancing! Well, it wasn’t quite morris dancing but it was a good laugh!

So all in all an excellent gig and I’d definitely recommend you go if you’re into their sort of music at all!