The downfall of forums…

I’ve had a few conversations recently about the state of numerous Oracle forums, including my own. It feels like most posters these days don’t even bother to open the manuals before asking a question. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked a question, that is answered by the first couple of paragraphs in the manual. It’s just lazy beyond words.

Now I’m not having a go at those individuals who struggle to understand the manuals. I realize the documentation is quite dry at times, often involves a lot of cross referencing and English is not everyones first language. Even so, sometimes it is quite apparent that no effort has been made to find the answers for themselves.

I suppose the general lack of effort out there means my skills are even more valuable, but it’s hardly a consolation.

I’m sure it wasn’t like this in the old days… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Merrick…

Last night I finished “Merrick”, book 8 of the “Vampire Chronicles”. Another good read, and a different angle to the previous books, as it is based around witchcraft more than Vampires, although most of the characters in the book happen to be vampires. It’s the beginnings of a tie in between the “Vampire Chronicles” and the “Lives of the Mayfair Witches”, another series of Anne Rice books. I’m hoping not to get caught up in those also. I could do without having to read her other 19 books when I’m finished with this series.

Only 2 more book to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Just like Fight Club…

I feel like Edward Norton at the start of Fight Club. The bit where he’s living in a sleepless limbo. On Monday I got to work 2 hours late. Yesterday I was 4 hours late. Today, I got in on time, but I only got 2 hours sleep so I’m next-to-useless. I feel physically sick and my chest feels really heavy.

Last night I tried an over-the-counter sleeping remedy and some booze. Neither worked!

On the positive side, I got my copies of my PL/SQL Tuning book this morning.

Cheers

Tim…

The Vampire Armand & Blood and Gold…

During the long flights and airport delays, I was able to get through a couple more of the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.

The Vampire Armand – As the name suggests, this fills out the life of the character Armand, introduced in the previous books. As always, it was written in a style that made it very readable, but there were two things that put me off this book. First, there is little new to this story, it just adds more detail to events told in the previous book. It’s not until you read the last 150 pages that you get some good additions to the previous book. Second, the life of Armand is essentially a story of paedophilia. It’s flowered up to make it seem less shocking, but all the same, it’s just plain wrong! I don’t think it would be a crime to ignore the twisted “Mills and Boon” begining and just read the last 150 pages.

Blood and Gold – This book was 746 pages, and the majority of that was re-telling previous stories from the viewpoint of the vampire Marius. There were times where I was sure I had picked up “The Vampire Armand” by accident, such was the similarity. As most of these characters are interwoven, especially Marius and Armand, you expect some crossover, but it just seemed a bit lazy in this case. So much had been said about Marius and Armand in the previous books, there seemed little to justify whole book here. That said, it was very readable and the few additions to the characters were interesting. I guess if you took a break between reading these two books it wouldn’t seem so bad, but reading them back-to-back makes this weakness glaringly obvious.

Cheers

Tim…

SAW III…

I forgot to mention, on my last “planned” night in San Francisco I went to the cinema to watch SAW III. I’f you’ve seen the previous films, this follows the same format. It’s basically a gore-fest! The audience was very vocal, which made the show all the more entertaining. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…