Ram-BO: New Blood Part II

Which brings me unpleasantly to something touched upon in the white book...

When pairing, it is essential to maintain a level of personal hygiene that befits the process of sitting very close to another developer for the whole day.

So far one half of our new recruits has proved to be somewhat less than satisfactory in this area. It's hard to know - as an Englishman and a gentleman - quite how to breach the subject, but breach it I must.

I have slightly more confidence in my point of view as I've had this opinion shared by a long standing colleague.

The drinking, however, is not within the scope of my interest, having not as yet had a detrimental effect on any project that I have a current interest in. These things are often over-emphasised in our company, since the drunken antics (several years ago) of one former employee.

Anyhow, three months probation should be sufficient to determine the validity of our choices.

I wish them both the best of good luck.

New Blood Part I

It's hard work breaking in new recruits. I've had a sore throat all week from trying to justify our existing code-base and customer relationships.

As hoped, the new blood is having an almost immediate positive effect. Irritations that had faded into background noise have been brought to the fore.

Someone without the tarnish of several years on the frontline can much easier see the atrocities that are committed in the name of Truth, Justice and the Extreme Way. Not that any blame should be attributed to XP - just to our slow deviation from the path of the righteous.

John Wray - owes me £800

Son of a bitch! Gave him an 800 quid deposit (doh!) for a shed and he disappears without a trace. Apparently moved out of his house with no forwarding address. He sold his workshop and pickup truck to Dave of Wooden Buildings, who has quoted twice as much to do the same job.

If I had any idea where to serve notice, I'd small-claims his ass, but frankly for the sake of £800, it's hardly worth the effort as he'd probably just go bankrupt anyway.

You may infer from the above that this is not the first time I've been Royalled. However, previously it was my employer (Ian Powely) who did the dirty deed. Not before getting me to design the new corporate logo for the pheonix-like company that arose from the ashes.

I blame the parents - and the government - and anyone else who gets in the way!

Nintendo DS Lite

Bought a black Nintendo DS Lite along with Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training and New Super Mario Bros. The idea was to get Penny into playing video games - she'd shown some interest in Brain Training.

It's a lovely unit, nice bright screens (about twice as bright as the old DS), though it didn't come with the strap and thumb stylus that came with the original. It's black and shiny like the PSP, but the build quality is nothing like as good.

New Super Mario Bros. is pretty much the same as the SNES Super Mario Brothers. The only new features are Giant and Tiny power-ups that make Mario about the same height as the screen or half the size of normal Mario respectively. The tiny power-up allows Mario to fit through small holes and reach otherwise inaccessible areas.

Dr. Kawashima is quite a phenomenon, breaking the usual mould for best selling games. I have already noticed an improvement in my mental arithmetic and it is particularly enjoyable playing with more than one user, as your daily efforts are comparable with your friends'/family's.

The DS is a great toy and I've spent a lot of this weekend playing Mario.