There may be troubles ahead
So, quick recap for anyone who's either new or just not paying attention - every so often (generally once a year or so) my gf gets it into her head that she's not happy, and that perhaps We are the cause. Generally, things are a little odd for a month or two, with talk of splitting up, seeing other people, etc, then she apparently sorts everything out in her own head and all is well again¹.

1 this is sometimes preceded by her leaving me for a few weeks, a few days, a few hours, or however long it takes for her to come to the conclusion that she just can't do it after all

All caught up? Good. Well, it's that time again.

Now this time there's a pretty obvious potential culprit: the failure of the IVF treatment. Hand in hand with that goes the large amount of hormones that she was taking, which she then stopped taking when it transpired that the treatment had failed. Throw in to the mix her long standing issues² and I think a little instability and unhappiness is inevitable. Again there is the talk of perhaps splitting up (not as in "perhaps we should", more "it might happen one day"), again there is talk of seeing other people - of open relationships in all but name.

2 but then, who doesn't have at least some?

Well, you know what? I'm game if she is.

Let's face the music and dance
Apropos of very little, I'm going to Slimelight tonight. I've had a shave and a shower, drunk far too much (and yet not enough), all that remains is to get dressed and get my arse in gear. That last I've been doing by listening to a select list of tunes.

Now, I have to admit that my preferred method of obtaining music over the last couple of years has been, shall we say, frowned upon by the BPI? Blame David Bowie for that - one night a couple of years ago I had to listen to The Heart's Filthy Lesson; if only I'd been able to buy a download, I may never have discovered Kazaa... Well, for the first time this new-fangled pee two pee netwerk has failed me, and so I have had to resort to actually installing iTunes. Note to self: kill iPod service and QuickTime systray task tomorrow

Who'da thunk that iTunes would succeed where the collected efforts of the pee two peers would fail? I can only conclude that Apple has a more refined taste that more closely matches my own³, and that my erstwhile piratical fellows are in fact (and against all evidence) heathens.

3 ie obscure goth bands from the late 70s through to the present day, amongst other stuff that may surprise/disgust you

Anyway, said tunes having the desired effect, and my alcohol supply becoming seriously diminished, I will soon be off. Just enough time for...

Work just gets better and better
So, it's finally been revealed to the (considerable number of) contractors that we're about to be sold, in the time-honoured method of a follow-up to an email that no-one had seen yet. Of course, the ones I feel sorry for are the permies in the other business unit that is also apparently being sold, who knew nothing of it...

Apparently the sale (which we permies have known about for a couple of months) is "at an advanced position", which I take to mean "a month or less away from completion". Now, call me cynical, but July is pay review month; what effect is the sale going to have on that? HHmmmm? Funnily enough, I think you'll find that "annual pay reviews" are actually mentioned in my contract, so I think I may well be holding you to that one...

Oh, and we've not met our targets, so no bonus this year. Oh, that £220m we've promised ourselves if we double the share price over the next four years? Don't worry about that, it's still got to be approved by the share holders...

Apart from that, it seems that my current client may actually have not only found their pen, but also remembered how to sign their name, and so we may finally be about to

• send the last phase of work live (about 4 months worth)
• start on a whole new piece of work that frankly really, really needs to be done

Unfortunately, the release that they're signing off is the one with a couple of minor bugs in ("minor" as in "if you click here it will crash without fail" (don't ask me how that one made it to UAT, let alone through it...)), which we've already fixed in a subsequent build. I foresee much fucking about and pointless patches in my future...

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Anyway, high time I was getting my shit together and getting out of here - time to post this sucker.