Checking out Swurl

There are a few aggregating sites out there on these Internets. It's mindboggling that we actually need them. I do know I can barely get through my day without Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo! mail, Livejournal and Bloglines. Some need more aggregation than others, like Facebook, Livejournal, this blog and my others.

So, here's where Swurl comes in. It allows you to add feeds from a variety of different social networking style sites into one big thing.

I don't like the actual Swurl homepage. But, I absolutely adore the timeline. For some reason some Flickr updates aren't being picked up, but some are. I think it might have to do with permissions on upload. I changed my default to Private.

It's super easy to setup as long as you know the urls for all of your stuff. I'd imagine most people do.

I'm not sure I like Swurl as a site, or the concept more. But when they add Livejournal support, I'll be more than happy!

Darling, what do crystal pixie castles look like? Via my lovely friend Dave

Sometimes the UK government says or does something that surprises me. It is, however, rarely good.

Every worker in Britain, from the head of a blue chip company to an office or domestic cleaner, must accept pay awards in line with the government's 2% inflation target if Britain is to avoid a return to the 1970s, Alistair Darling declared yesterday.

In one of the government's toughest warnings on the need for pay restraint, the chancellor said that "each and every one of us, from the top to the bottom" will have to accept pay awards consistent with the Treasury's inflation target.

Really?! Really? How much did you vote yourself Mr. Darling? Oh wait, yes, you guys generously gave up your 1.5%. However, you're more than happy to take 40,000 a year tax free on top of a 60,000 a year salary when you scrap your second homes allowance. You know what? I don't get a second home allowance. My company doesn't even pay for my extortionate 122 pound a month train ticket.

And your inflation index is almost as far behind actual projections as your lead in Henley! What, what's that..... a whopping 9% for some?! (I know it's the Torygraph, but the data is good.)

So, you want me to take a paltry 1.5% raise, the number your screwed up inflation calculations give you, when in actuality my cost of living might rise by 9%. By taking your advice, I am losing money. Thank god you're not a stock broker.

Oh wait, what was that? That 1.5% is your dreamland target and the actual rate of inflation is 3.3%? So, you want me to take a pay cut this year? Is that it? So, what do chocolate waterfalls and candy unicorns taste like? Do you like having a pillow made of fairy elf hair? Because you're off in damned fairy world while the rest of us are wondering how the hell we're going to afford our extra taxed gin to drink the pain and stupidity of your request away.

The chancellor said: "Pay awards in both the private and pubic sector have to be consistent with our inflation target, which is 2%. It doesn't mean they have to be 2%. But if you look at wage increases overall at the moment they're running at just about under 4%."

Wait, wait. Right. So. You know, part of the reason I have a review and perform well at my job is so I make more money. Essentially Mr. Darling is asking all of us to possibly lose money or stay the same by accepting lower pay awards. Which means, if you take the good Chancellor's advice, you're never any better off. Ever!

Darling's strong warning came days after Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, was forced to write an open letter to the chancellor to inform him that inflation hit 3.3% in May. King will have to write an explanatory letter every quarter as long as inflation remains above 3%.

The Bank governor told the chancellor that the increase in the annual cost of living was caused by global food and fuel price rises.

The chancellor seized on this yesterday when he said: "Unlike in the past, the inflationary pressures in this country are not homegrown."

Ok, so the inflation pressures aren't originated in the UK, but if we make less money it might stave off inflation? Really? Even though the UK consumer, presumably, isn't at all involved in what's causing inflation? Someone please explain to me how this works. Please.

Please.

Screw you Darling.

Darling begs Britain to accept 2% pay rises

The misadventures of one American

I sat on the windowsill on Friday and had a listen to the visitors to downstairs. It wasn't hard, or particularly taxing. The girl that lives diagonal to us has a voice that could penetrate the standing Berlin Wall. But even with a sound that seemed like it came from next to me, I could only make out certain phrases and sentences. The Wigan accent, whilst not lilting or particularly irritating, is thick and brutish, a mix of hard vowels, dropped words and strange tenses. Interpreting it can be interesting.

What I did hear were a number of things about my husband and I. Like what to do if the council asks you if you were playing music, 'I just say no....' she trailed off, apparently making some kind of gesture. The insinuation being, lying is easy. A light bulb went on over my head and I realized why the estate manager hadn't believed us. As bizarre and paranoid as it sounds, we'd been ganged up on. I remembered what Dot told me 'you're outsiders here. They stick with their own.'

The girl from 14 went on to say we 'needed to understand we aren't the end all be all.' Because, apparently, wanting to go to sleep at a reasonable time meant we thought we were. I thought it meant I wanted to go to work without a splitting headache and some modicum of awareness. I guess not.

I couldn't understand much more, so I closed the window and plonked back down on the couch. I don't know how it all got this far. My husband and I didn't and don't see them as enemies. We see them as neighbors, just ones we don't pay a lot of attention to. Our first interaction with Lyndsey, the diagonal neighbor, was when we came home from dinner with friends to find the whole block having a party. On a Sunday night/Monday morning. It went until 3:00am.

A few times she showed she was a little saner than our direct next door neighbor, the Alcoholic. When he accused us of banging on the load bearing concrete wall between our flats during their... intimate... times, she looked at him as strangely as we did.

But somehow, through all of our noise complaints and intolerance of their behavior, we've become their enemy. Because Lyndsey can stay up until 4:00am on workdays, we should be able to as well. And no doubt this is also in some small part due to our getting next door a Good Behavior Agreement (expired in February, sadly.) Emma downstairs sees that as us 'ruining people's lives.' I saw it as an assurance of a peaceful life.

I can't understand this mentality. When I thought I was disturbing people in the past, I was only belligerent if they hadn't spoken to me first. And we tried and tried to talk to them. The girl at 14 had the gall to tell us not to bang on her door at 4:00am when her music was too loud 'from Paris to Berlin in every disco I get in.....' I think you can damned well beat on anything disturbing you at 4:00 in the morning. And no loud music at 2:00am for next door turned into blaring music throughout the apartment during the day that you could hear over everything.

Emma and Dom downstairs and no doubt the Alcoholic and Lyndsey say they have 'rights.' What about ours? What about mine right now to be free of fear from retribution because we allegedly live in a civilized society? What about not setting up cameras to watch the car at night? Or know I can sleep? Do I forgo those because I choose to live in a neighborhood that isn't middle class? Does benefit dependency mean a lack of respect for everyone around you? Or are we unreasonable?

Either way, the next 2 months will be rough.