Hello dear crawlers of the interwebs!
It's about time I gave you something long and boring to read, so here it is.

For the last week or so, I've been up 'til around 2am day. Why?
Because I'm a nutcase.
No, really.
Who else would deprive themselves of that much sleep, to do work they weren't even being paid to do? (if you answer "me!" to that question (Marianne), then you can join my small and exlusive club)
Last Sunday I had nothing to do. I was sitting there at the breakfast bar, dead bored. The previous night, I'd been skating around the interwebs looking for free hosting and domain names - more out of curiousity than anything. Upon mentioning this to a friend, albeit, a friend with lots of webspace, he offered me hosting if I ever needed it. I then found a free domain name.
Anyway, back to Monday morning. Munching away at my bowl of Wheetos I suddenly though "I know... I could make that website for work that everyone suggested, but no-one did!". And so, the saga begins.

Day 1

I hastily dash to my laptop, grab my phone, a cup of coffee and some food, before settling at my desk. Ready. Vista takes an age to load, as if teasing me. I log on to msn and, to my releif, my friend is online. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: Hello Josh =]
Josh: Oh, hi!
Me: Remember you were offering me webspace ...
Josh: Yeah sure =]
Me: Iloveyou.

So, I dive into dreamweaver, before realising "hang on ... I need a background image first"
So, I dive into paint, before realising "Hang on ... I'm in paint. Bad!"
So, I dive into a better photo editor and start beavering away at a banner type background image. Back into dreamweaver, and I discover the cool flash buttons. In they go. I upload the logo, pester my friend for the details for his FTP server, and I'm away - the first page is up! (time not to scale)
By now, it's lunchtime. I eat.
I repeat the same process another 5 times throughout the day, constantly updating the other pages as well, as I make them look better.
Bed - 2:18am

Day 2

I'm straight onto my laptop. Josh offers a bit of help, becuase I don't know how to use css stylesheets. Josh sorts the css out for me. Wow. It all looks so much better!
Today, I continue editing pages to make them look good, and upload another page.
Bed - 1:08am

Day 3

Monday morning sees me waking up at about 1pm. I eat lunch, and get to work. (note, I am still wearing my PJs)
Today I realise that I've only been testing the website on my laptop, in firefox. So, today, I hastily open up IE7 on my laptop and log on to the main PC. To my horror, IE7 and big screens appear to mess things up. So, today is full of making thigs compatible with different screens and browsers. I email my team lead, saying something along the lines of
"Hey, Lynds! I'm making a website for us! It works, kind of. See you tomorrow".
To which, she phoned me back ... and asked for someones phone number.
Bed - 10:45

Day 4

Shopping with family for most of today. I get home at 3:45, grab my laptop and head straight back out again. To the town hall for our monthly team meeting.
I show everyone the website, they love it! (I am muchos pleased!) Ideas arise about getting a blog put in, and getting a proper domain name.
I go home, and perfect it a bit more.
Bed - 12:39

Day 5

Today, I'm off paintballing with a few friends. We loose. Dismally. But it was fun.
Get home at about 5:45 ish. Eat.
On computer, get hold of Josh and pester him about a blog. He complies. Quickly set up the blog, run by wordpress, and make some sneaky edits to the default coding for it, so that it looks more like part of the main site. Upload new copies of everything, with the link to the blog. A bit more tweaking.
Bed - 2:13

Day 6

I wake up, an hour before I'm meant to be at the other end of the borough for work.
I rush out of the house, before realising that the rough school down the road aren't on half term. So I take a detour, to avoid the hoards of kids going to school, to the bus stop.
Spend 49 minutes on a bus crawling through the borough (frankly, I could be walking faster).
Best friend texts me, she's away in West Sussex with my girlfriend. Spend the journey texting her. Get to work, dash down the corridor, emerge into a big conference room. They're running late. I'm fine. I train some foster carers, eat, train some more foster carers, then get in a cab with some collegues and go back to the office, where I bump into my sister who is being trained to do something. Get paid, and get on the considerably faster bus home.
On to the computer. Decide to fiddle around with Google apps to give everyone "name@domain.co.nr" email addresses. Realise I can't do this with free domains. Sit there looking dejected. Discuss with Josh. Out of blue, he goes, "I'll buy a proper domain name now and you can use that!".
Me: "O.o You'd do that!?"
Josh "Yeah, sure"
Me: "How much do I owe you?"
Josh "£5:18"
Me: "Make it £40"
Josh: "Whaa?"
Me: "That's for hosting, domain, and an unprecidented amount of help"
Josh: "You really don't need to"
Me: "Yes, yes I do."
Josh: "Mmmkay then. lovoo"

Set up proper email addresses for everyone, note down passwords, then use the same passwords to create individual accounts on the blog (so everyone can update it). Compile all information into a spreadsheet, attach to an email, and send to all my YA collegues. At 3:12am.
Bed - 3:23am

Day 6

Today, I get woken up by screaming kids. I yawn and drag myself out of my bed. Miss breakfast.
Make some last fixes, and make sure everything works, in all the browsers, on all the screens.

IT DOES.
Finished. 4pm.

and now .... I give you ...

www.wfyoungadvisors.org.uk

If you're still reading, congratz.

Bai.

x

Well, in all honesty, I have nothing really to blog about. But, uh, I'm going to anyway as I realise I have neglected my poor pretty blog. You can blame a friend from work for this - she started blogging again, and I felt I should probably register the fact that I can still type in a vaguely coherant manner.
Basically, I have a cold at the moment, so I'm a little bunged up/runny depending on what my biological makeup feels like. But, I'm fairly content xD Some good news at work - insofar as things are actually working again, thanks to a team lead who is actually competant and suited to the job. On top of that (despite my school being generally full of complete idiots) my social life has continued on its upward trend (y'know, the one that started back down there \/ somewhere, in december?) with my nice set of friends.
In yet more news, (as you might've realised from my other blog) our battle against the oppresion that is Scientology is going well. We have another protest tomorrow. (Queen Victoria Street, Blackfriars, 11am, 15th March).

Those of you who know me, will know about my various jobs in and around my borough, and you'll probably also know of my bragging about getting Wednesday off school to host a CHALLENGE event. But yeah, days off are cool. That means I get a 3 day week, as we also have Good Friday off. As a result of all of this, I'm going to be rich soon. Drinks for all!

Oh, and once again, I'll continue my plea for blogfriendship, coz I'm a lonely child.
Love you all, (unless you're a 56 year old paedophile - all other ages are fine).

Monday nights programming on terrestrial TV was diabolical at best. But whoever was responsible for this needs a brick shoved up there arse.

Panorama: One Click From Danger was broadcast much to the dismay of most of the internets younger users. The aim was to make parents more aware of the threats that there kids face on the internet. The reality was mindless scaremongering and lies.
For starters, Panorama seemed to promote the stereotype that young people are naive and stupid on the internet. It told parents to monitor kids online activities and move the computer. What made me laugh the most was the opening line by Jeremy Vine. "Is your child in his or her bedroom right now, on their computer? If so, this is the programme for you!". To be honest, the whole programme was perfectly lollable. They were training aging parents how the internet works, and they taught the parents what "asl" and "pos" meant. That was funny in itself.
They also decided to create decoy accounts under the name of Jane Brown on Myspace, Facebook and Bebo in an attempt to see how many paedophiles tried to make contact. All fair enough, apart from the fact that the person behind the Jane Brown alias obviously didn't have a clue about teenagers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7174814.stm
That should show you what I mean. 14 year old girls are really not that frightened by the prospect of sex.
Panorama, basically mislead the public, the facts and figures they used were all grossly exaggerated and manipulative. It was a full on "Parents, save your children" propaganda punch.  The interviews were all biased, they only interviewed people who had somehow gotten into some sort of problem on the net. They didn't bother with the majority. For instance, I've met people from thei nternet at least 15 times. The thing is, we have enough common sense to meet as a group in a public place (as I've mentioned before in this blog). That's all it takes, common sense.
The comments page was overflowing with comments from angry teenagers (a lot of whom, I know) and naive parents.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7176709.stm

I also posted a rant on the BBC parenting message board, which pretty much sums up my feelings and argument against such programming. Here it is:

http://seanywonders.blogspot.com/2008/01/panorama-paedorama.html

So, any parents reading this, please do take these points into consideration if you intend on doing such things to your teenagers. Any comments welcome, I'll answer as soon as I can.

Right. Let's go back to early December.  Happy days for most of us, yeah? School was drawing to an end, Christmas was getting closer, everyone had myspace christmas countdowns, everyone was out buying presents etc.
It was pretty great for me too! I suddenly had a social life! Had 2 christmas parties, missed loads of school because of technical crew and rehearsals for the upcoming school concerts, finally had my life in order.
Then it was christmas, I got some good presents and had a generally alright time, albeit missing my girlfriend a lot. It wasn't the best christmas ever, but I've had worse. Then, boxing day.
I stayed in bed the whole day, simply because of the fact that if I tried to get out, I would go all dizzy and then faint. It's the worst I've felt in my life. The day after that, I went out with my church choir, ice skating. While still feeling generally dizzy and rather out of it, I managed to force myself to have a good time, and surprisingly, given my dizziness, managed not to fall over once while skating. Then followed a trip to the cinema, and I Am Legend. A genuinely scary film, when watched at 3am (as I had done a week previously), but on the big screen, it played more like an average zombie movie.
Then, I was taken away. To the New Forest, of all places. Now, I don't mind the area, christ, I lived in it for a year, it's lovely!
But when you're stuck in an isolated holday cottage along with various other friends and their families, no internet, no London New Years party (which I intended on attending) and missing a great day out with other friends, it can get extremely, extremely tiresomely boring.
On New Years Eve, I sat watching the TV. Watching the fireworks in London. Missing all my other friends. I've never been so close to tears in the last 2 years. I think what annoyed me most was the amount of walking we did. I lived there (as I said), and every day, I did nothing but walk. So going back on "holiday" and walking every single day was not my idea of fun.
Anyway, got back from there on the 2nd, and spent 3 days with my girlfriend. ^____^ That was good.

Then, today, (Monday), back to school. That, is not good. It's fucking depressing. To add insult to injury, today we had Maths, English, Science (Bio), Maths Science (Chem). Fucking awful.

I'm sure there's more I could moan about, both politically, socially and personally, but my fingers are aching now. So I'll be back sometine soon with something else to rant about.

Bye bye!

P.S. Someone please befriend poor little me!? It get's lonely!

Hello dear readers!
You may have noticed a distinct lack of my ramblings recently.
There are three main reasons for this.

1)There's not much to ramble about lately, bar the government data losses and the football tradjedy.
2)I'm a lazy tosspot, and I forgot
3)My internet time is being spent much more effectively, recently. Her name's Sinéad.

I tell you that, becuase everyone knows now anyway, although, I've managed to keep quiet since September ...
According to my friends, she's in fact called Dave, has a beard and originates from Cosovo. None of this, I assure you, is true.

Enough of that.
 
I need something to rant and rave about, so first, I'll pick on our diabolical excuse for a government. In the last 3 weeks, government organisations have managed to lose two sets of data. HMRC lost details for child benefits (although the figure of 25 million was rather exaggerated), and this week, the DVLA announced that they'd lost details of over 6000 car owners in N. Ireland. What amazes me is this:
In a world of high technology and easy-to-use ICT facilities, why the fuck would a government send personal details around on unencrypted CDs in public mail? If it's absolutely necessary to send things, I'm sure any government organisation (there's an oxymoron for you) can cough up about a tenner for a special delivery.
That aside, you'd have thought that the DVLA would've maybe decided to at least encrypt their information, after only weeks before, HMRC made the same mistake.
So, what the government have pretty much proved is that they obviously can't be trusted. Yet, they wonder why less people are voting these days. They've also proved that they have a knack for employing stupid people and a have a blatent colective lack of common sense.
What really gets me is the fact that the DVLA addressed everyone affected as "customers". Customers are people who go to a business or agency to pay for their services. If that service isn't good enough, they can take their custom elsewhere. We, on the other hand, are stuck with an incompetant and unreliable "service" that we have to pay for whether we like it or not.

On another note ... I'm standing here in the pouring rain, where the fuck's my fucking train!? ...
All they say is "please mind the doors" , and they learn that on the two day course ...
So don't tell me to "mind the gap", I want my fucking money back!
Awesome song, I'm sure most Londoners would agree. I know a few tube drivers, they say they find it vaguely offensive, and naive, but, nevertheless they see the funny side.
Never in my life, did I think I'd actually find a real excuse to draw any real comparison to the song. Needless to say, I did on Saturday.
After going to the Hyde Park Winter Wonder Land, we decided to go to Namco (something to do with the fact that WWL wasn't really that good ) . So we thought we could rely on good old London Underground to provide a service that vaguely suited our needs.
Never have I seen such a total fuckfest. Hyde Park Corner station was packed. The platform was literally packed, full of screaming kids, grandparents, mules, and generally wet people.
Yet, the twat who LU had let loose with the station tannoy announcer system saw fit to inform us of this :

"You are causing an obstruction on the platform. Please turn to your left and move down. Put on foot in front of the other and move.
Please don't delay this train from leaving, otherwise the next one will take longer to get in, besides, if you didn't get this one, you're unlikely to get the next on, let the customers behind you get on. Your next train has just left Knightsbridge, it will arrive shortly. By the way, it's just as packed as the last one, you probably won't get on, so just move further down the platform"

Condesending prick. That wasn't the worst of it either. So we wrote a sign saying "Have a nice day" and held it up against the CCTV camera. Before getting the train in the opposite direction and taking a long winding route to Namco.

Anyway, that's me for today.
Oh and guys, add me as a friend for gods sake! I feel like a complete loser!

Well, upon looking through the Greenpeace website yesterday, while doing a bit of research, I was reminded of all the cool stuff they've done, and, pretty much why I'm a member. During my little forage, I can across a link to a website : www.blogactionday.org  ...
"Well" I thought "that's tomorrow!". So I decided to register and join in. So, here we go. Blog Action Day!
Basically, the idea of today is to raise awareness of our enviroment and why we should take care of our planet.
My particular musing on this was "What can one person do? Is it worth it? Have we already killed our planet?".
And, once again, I found myself reading through the Greenpeace website. Well - that pretty much answers the first question. Greenpeace is the result of lots of "one person"s put together. On Monday they took over a coal power station in Kent, in protest to Gordon Browns seeming "green light" strategy to polluting the planet. That takes some guts. Not only that, it takes a lot of care as well. Greenpeace activists put their life on the line just trying to make the world better for us all. So, maybe you don't fancy doing that? Well, there're plenty of other things you can do. If you were to replace 2 light bulbs in your house with energy efficient ones, not only would you save £30 a year, you'd create 3 cubic tonnes less carbon dioxide every year. So once again, that leaves you on your own. Wrong. Let's say 6 people see this blog, and change their light fittings, already that's 18 tonnes less carbon dioxide. Now, combined, every blog on Blog Action Day, takes around 30 million veiws. Maybe only 1 million of those veiwers will take action on what they read, but still that's a reduction of 3 million cubic tonnes. Gettting the jist now?
Is it really worth it?
I mean, by the time anything serious starts happening, we'll be dead, right?
Wrong.
In the next 5 years we WILL start drastically noticing the effects of climate change.
I suggest, along with the other 6000 bloggers postng today, that we all start taking this seriously. I mean, is it really so much trouble to switch the heating down by a degree, or turn off a light? If we carry on like we do, live will not be so convenient.
Have we already killed our planet?
I'll be blunt here: possibly.
But that doesn't stop us trying to make it better. Perhaps, when we start getting tornados ripping down the thames, or snow falling in Egypt, people might start taking global warming seriously.
People refuse to help with the effort to reduce climate change becuase of "money" (no names mentioned, America) or simply because they can't be arsed. I feel ashamed to be human, if that is indeed what the human race dictates.
Maybe tomorrow, you can walk out of a room smiling, having turned a light off. I know I will.

Yeah. Right.
I spent five minutes last week literally crying with laughter after David Camerons speech to the conservative party conference.
More specifically, his approach to gang culture and behaviour in the UK. Which seemed to be "I'm going to stop the gangs! Just like that! All you need is love! and lots of money .." .
I work for my local Childrens Rights Service, through which I end up sitting through countless meetings and seminars where some bright young spark has come up with suggestions like "If we just pump it full of money, it'll go away" or "they have nothing to do! Build the poor lads a youth group and they'll all play happily together and not shoot each others heads off!". Or even one councellor who came up with the gem of "Send them all back to Africa where they came from". I should note, that I actually asked him to leave the meeting becuase of that.
Waltham Forest (my local authority) recently commissioned a bloke from some university or other, to compile a report on the cause of gang culture in London. Yes, he did it. Came back and presented it to the council. They, and the media lapped it all up. However, when our team analysed it, we found that most of the information was incorrect. Such as gang names, the reasons people join gangs, the number of people in each gang, the amount of gangs, where they were getting there weapons from ,etc.
We were able to do that, because we are young people. We know what happens out there better than any adult ever could. Amazing, isn't it, how a team of dedicated young people can pretty much pull a 50 page report to tatters?
And, that is the way forward. Gangs won't stop being violent simply becuase some kind soul builds a youth shelter or starts a youth group. It's down to the young people who get involved in gangs, and those who know them, to gradually slow it down. Yes, authorities would never use such tactics, because it puts young peoples lives in danger. But I can tell you now, it does work. We've tried it (off the books of course), and it worked. It's time that society in general started to wake up to the fact that young people should be listened to and valued just as much as a guy with a PhD in social science (or whatever he had), because, more often than not, young people know the things that adults won't. Such as the "grass phenominom" where, the police in their upmost naivity tell young people to come forward and divulge information about gangs and drug suppliers, under the promise that they'll be protected. 38% of these young people end up either shot or stabbed within the next two weeks, a further 9% of these will die from their injuries.
That's my rant for today, in stark contrast to whinging about mobile phone masts.
Do think about it, and take it seriously, trust me, it may safe you one day.

My church (Chingford Parish Church - Ss Peter & Pauls, for all you paedophiles out there) was asked, about four months ago, whether they'd consider having a mobile phone mast on the spire. As it's the tallest building around, it seemed like a perfectly logical idea.
The incentive was that the church gets £3000 a year for it.
Upon discussion, our church decided that this was perfectly reasonable, and accepted the offer. As most of you know, this is the point where you get mad idiots protesting about something they know nothing about. Let me explain...

People were worried about radiation frying the poor little urchins brains at the RC school. So, they protested outside our church on a Sunday morning. How mature.
Firstly, in their haste to point the finger of blame, they overlooked the fact that there is already a phone mast less than 20 metres from the school (which is alot more powerful than the proposed on for our church). Secondly, they overlooked the fact that both the police station and the fire station have radio masts that are 10 times more powerful than the 30 watt one proposed for the church.
On aforementioned sunday morning, said protesters were protesting (as protesters do). One of these protesters got a bit lost. She couldn't find the rest of her group. So, she takes out her mobile phone, and calls her friend.  (Using a mobile phone is actually more dangerous than the phone mast itself, becuase you're holding it for a prolonged period against the weakest part of your skull - radiation can get through more easliy). Anyway, ironic, no?
After all of the above facts had been pointed out to the protesters, they took a different approach.
Hate mail.
I'm sorry, but how the fuck can you justify yourself as a christian (which these people are), when you send hate male to the rector of a neighbouring church (that church being ours)??
Father Tom is a great man. He had to put up with these idiots sending hate mail and various other complimentary ... gifts, all over a phone mast. He actually got really emotionally upset over it. I'd like to know how anybody could justifiy doing something like that?
It wasn't just Tom that got the mail though, it was every member of the Parish Council. Some of these people, married with children, No child should ever be able to read something so ... vile. Especially aimed at their own parents.
Immature much?
Upon realising (due to lack of scientific back up) that their argument would never hold up, our disgustingly clueless protesters decided to use the rather obvious arguement that "phone masts transmit pornography - this is an immoral thing for a church to do".

What can you actually say to people like that?

Ps. The 3K a year that will hopefully be raised by having a mast, will be used for charitable purposes.,

Carrying on from my sentimental saga, I've decided to devote todays entry to about 5/6 very special people. I won't name them - they know who they are.
Friends are a part of our lives that we'd pretty much crumble without. Best friends, are the pillars of our being.
The 6 or so best friends I'm talking about really do match that description, and more.
In no particular order :

Person one:
You're amazing. I've told you this so many times, but you really are. The amount of times I've come running to you with problems, and you've always been there, to talk to. Even if you can't help sort it out, just talking to you makes me feel better. The 4am text message conversations, random msn karaokes and voice recordings all mean so much to me. I've only really met you once, and you truly are great.

Person two:
Randomness for the win! Once again you're (for want of a better word) amazing.
You were the person that really taught me to beleive in friends. You pushed me to tell you what was wrong, and I'm grateful for it. I'll always remember the way you never picked up the phone, until one day when I phoned you at 3am, and we ended up having a 2 hour discussion about people and religion and other randomness, it was great. Ever since then I've known I can always rely on you.

Person three:
At last, a person I actually know from school! You're probably the smartest kid I know who has such a great sense of homour. Randomness, intelligence and long hair are an odd mix for a boy, but they work for you. I remember my first day at infant school in year two, seven years ago. It was you who let me into the "gang". I think you're the only person I've never argued with. Thankyou.

Person four:
Yay, another school person. You've been known to be tempremental, and in fairness, I did rather provoke you (probably still do =D) when we were younger. We've had our fall outs, who doesn't. You're still a great person, always trying to point out the simplicity in everything. True, you can be pretty harsh with your insults, but hey, I'll live

Person five:
Flirtacious, much? Nah, you're awesome. Our late night phone conversations are always fun, and awesome . Thanks for being there for me, even though I was a prick to you.

Person six:
I think you'll know who you are and what I mean, by this: I hope we're still alright. you still mean alot to me

Guys, I mean everything I say here, I've probably told you most of it before but it's here just in case.
There's one final addition (and I'd rather this person didn't know I was talking about them =D). :

Person sevenish:
I can't wait til I see you again. Last time was awesome.

And to everyone else I know who has read this:
Even if you aren't on the list, or don't think you are, it doesn't mean you don't mean a lot to me. (Well, that's not strictly true, there are about four people who may read this, who I wouldn't trust with a piece of paper, let alone my deepest secrets).

Everyone else:
Respect your friends, you never know when you'll truly need them - I certainly found that out.

My City. As much as I hate it, I love it.
Yes, the busses are always late. The Victoria line is never running. There are people shoving thelondonpapaer or the metro up your nose wherever you choose to go, tourists stepping on your feet. But nevertheless, it's something special to be a part of. To me, London means alot. Being able to see the Gherkin at night from my room, watching a bus head into central london, watching a plane line up on the approach for Heathrow airport, sitting on the central line shaking my head along to the rhythm of the vibration (in commuter like fashion) watching the headlines on peoples newspapers. I feel like I'm part of something big. Knowing that whatever way I look, I know where I am.
London seems big on a map. Very big. I live on the edge of it. Yet, I'm only a twenty minute train ride from one of my best freinds who lives pretty much right in the middle.  To me, it's normal having to find a different way through the maze of trains every time I go into town. The announcements of "Central line closed due to maintenance and there are heavy delays on the circle and district lines, sorry for any inconvenience", as annoying as they are, are all part of London.
For those fellow Londoners out there, our city is one of the most cultural, fun and different places in the world. Next time you're annoyed that the northern line is under maintenance, or the train is packed with fun-flash wielding Japanese people, or loud Americans, just remember, remember there's nowhere quite like London. Each one of us, from the high up buisnesspeople working in office blocks in central London, to government offiicials over in Westminster, to the social workers working in various boroughs even down to the dustbin men and post men running around in the early hours of the morning, are a vital part of what keeps London alive, and what it is today. It's through everyone of us that London lives, not through the physical city. Without us, London would be nothing. Without London, we'd be nothing.
For everyone else, if you ever do come to London, please don't step on the commuters feet, and please don't take pictures of the busses - they're not that amazing. Please don't shout on the underground at 8am, and please, please, loose the kodak funflash, and fijifilm cameras, you've no idea how annoying they are. Also, don't follow the majority - as amazing as it is, the tower of London isn't the only thing to see in London. If you go down a little side street anywhere, you're guaranteed to see parts of London that are just as amazing.

I'm sorry for my sentiment, but I felt it was about time someone showed our city a bit of sympathy.