Dom Pannell's Blog

Twice last week I was asked the same question

"So, which online networks do you still mess around with?"

Ahmed, who I've known since we did the Cass MBA - eight years ago - and Graham, who I've known since we hung around Ada Knight's garage drinking homebrew, listening to Spacemen 3 and avoiding doing any homework - about 25 years ago - both asked me this question over beers last week (actually it was a bottle of Côtes du Rhône in Grazza's case...).

I thought about not posting this, 'cos I'm not sure I want the world to know where I hang out online, but then I realised that I owe it to my three avid readers to let them know where I waste several hours every week (day?).

I also realised that it could be fun to write a potted history of my life in online communities, partly as I've realised I had to think quite hard to remember where I'm a member (and I'm still not sure I've got them all).

For them wot can't wait, my current and most likely ongoing haunts are:
- First Monday: a place I regularly visit - I often pop in for a few minutes at a time when I'm at work 'cos it's very effective as a 'breather' between tasks. It's an unruly, sweary place where people tend to get to know and trust one another. I've worked with a dozen or so members over the years, several have become good friends and I am quite happy asking the advice of FMers (I generally get at least a few sensible answers!)
- LinkedIn: essentially an online Rolodex, although it has recently added a useful 'Answers' facility. I pay to have benefits on LinkedIn (well, my employer does) and I definitely think it's worth it for sales leads
- Xing is like LinkedIn, but with more community features built in. I don't use it that much, mainly because I find it rather clunky to navigate, but it can be extremely useful in order to find and contact people, particularly in German-speaking countries [NB they're talking about Xing on Radio 4's The World Tonight right now]
- I'm on Ning - I had abandoned it, but am giving it another go because Justin Kirby invited me to join his vbmaNETWORK... mind you, if the navigation doesn't prove any better, it'll be a short-lived experience!
- Facebook... yeah, I'm on FB, but really only for fun. To be honest, I object to people who invite me to do 'professional stuff' on FB... I'm a Zombie Ninja on there, for heaven's sakes!
- oh and I 'tweat'

Other places
- I have a MySpace profile, but don't ever really log on
- Ditto Ryze. If I lived in California, I might use this site more
- For many years I was a keen member of Swedish community Shortcut, but the longer I've been out of Sweden, the less relevant it has become to me. In the end, I decided not to renew my membership. I'd still recommend it to Swedish-speakers though.

One place I don't go:
- For about five years, I was also a member of Ecademy, but I became thoroughly disenchanted with the way the founders/management run the site, particularly their uncaring attitude towards the people who helped create the site's content and their shadiness when it comes to describing the site to potential members/investors/the press. After challenging the management (all of whom I know personally) about the veracity of their claims I was kicked off and my complaints erased from the site. It turns out that my exit was part of only one purge conducted by Ecademy. One of the more recent ones was reported on El Reg and on The World's Leading blog.

I heard they had another purge of doubters recently.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

[EDIT: 7th August: I just noticed this entry over at Ecad. It made me chuckle - thanks Nikki! /EDIT}

The Facebook song

Thanks to Blonde2.0 for drawing my attention to this

Is this Art? Will it blend?

Covent Garden Night Market

This looks fun. I should be able to make it at least once out of four times...

Every Thursday in August from 5pm to 10pm.

There's more info here.

Anyone fancy popping along? Ping me.

SpinVox - I apologise

Anyone who has the occasion to call me on my mobile knows that I'm a big fan of SpinVox (best value subscription I fork out for every month).

I reckon that SpinVox has saved me hours of time because I can quickly scan voicemails that have been converted to text and sent to my phone rather than having to make a call and listen to them. It means that if someone leaves a number, I can return the call within seconds (just as if they'd sent a text message).

A few people, however, have grumbled that they've been cut off before they'd finished leaving a message.

Now, I've been tempted to direct complainants to Gary Kawasaki's blog post this time last year when he wrote (scroll to point number twelve):

Two power tips: First, slowly say your telephone number once at the beginning of your message and again at the end. You don’t want to make people playback your message to get your phone number, and if either of you are using Cingular, you may not hear all the digits. Second (and this applies to email too), always make progress. Never leave a voicemail or send an email that says, “Call me back, and I’ll tell you what time we can meet.” Just say, “Tuesday, 10:00 am, at your office.”

Unfortunately, at least two people who were mildly annoyed are esteemed clients and since I'm not in the habit of intentionally pissing off my beloved clients, I decided to take a look under the bonnet of my SpinVox account, hence my apology...

... whereas I was fairly certain that SpinVox was set up to accept voicemails of up to a minute, it was in fact only set to 30 seconds.

Sorry folks!

I've now set it to accept messages up to two minutes longs, which I hope will be enough for everyone (personally, I always try to keep the ones I leave down to less than one minute, so 2 strikes me as pretty generous).

Interestingly, I've just noticed that SpinVox have a couple of new products; I've just signed up to Spin-my-Memo, 'cos that strikes me as something I could use, but they've also got Spin-my-Blog and Spin-my-Broadcast...

This made me chuckle

An English MP was on a goodwill visit to Scotland and whilst there, he visited a Glasgow hospital. He was taken to a ward full of elderly men. Approaching the first bed he said "Hello, how are you?" The patient replied "Wee sleekit cowrin' tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie, thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, wi murd'ring pattle!"

Nonplussed, the MP smiled and moved to the next bed but before he said anything the occupant of the bed began "Ye flowery banks o bonnie Doon, how can ye blume sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, and I sae fu' o care!"

Moving quickly on he approached the third bed, whose occupant began to rant "Aye wud te gad the grace te gi' us te se ourselves as ithers see us."

Confused, the MP turned to the doctor escorting him and asked "Is this the psychiatric ward?" To which the doctor replied "No, it's the Serious Burns Unit."

*badabing tishhhhhh*

[Thanks to splodge the cat]

Ouch!

Last night I played squash against myself (I'm happy to report that I won quite convincingly for once) before going into the main gym for an upper body workout.

The result?

I'm stiff in my upper body AND my lower back.

(I might have a chance of beating Sven at squash on Wednesday, though - after forty minutes, my accuracy was getting much better).

More musings on Musar

Now I've long defended the price of booze in Sweden. People keep telling me that it's really dear, but I reckon that it's only as pricey as London (admittedly that's too expensive by far).

That doesn't mean that there aren't anomalies. On my recent trip to Stockholm, I took this photo of Château Musar on sale in Systembolaget (the Swedish retail alcohol monopoly):

Do you see the price? SEK 242. That's £17.80. I paid a little over £11 for the case that I bought. Same year. Same wine.

I make that a 60% jump in price.

The exception that proves the rule?

Bloody good wine though and it blimmin' well doesn't taste of Marmite!

Note 1: Systembolaget's mission is "To minimize alcohol-related problems by selling alcohol in a responsible way, without profit motive."

Note 2: Prices may be on the rise in the UK.

Quick!

A gap in the rain... I'm going to rush out to the shops!

Dom and DOMSer

After discovering the joy of DOMS last week, I approached yesterdays lower body weight routine with some trepidation (I would have gone earlier, but the weekend and a glut of client work got in the way).

Happily, it seems that my legs and abs (the latter may come as a surprise to many of my 3 avid readers) are a bit less unfit than my chest and arms. I'm walking normally today and can hardly feel that I was at the gym yesterday evening.

Mind you, I couldn't get the leg curl machine to work (didn't seem to fit my stumpy pins) so I couldn't complete the workout as I'd wanted... must find a member of staff to help me!

Aside: The weighing machine told me I'd lost two kilos, but I suspect that doesn't mean much.

[EDIT:The DOMS kicked in again, especially my hip adductors. The exercise that did it is the Transverse Adduction. I'm having a couple of days off as a result./EDIT]

Dom and DOMS

I went to the gym last Friday to run through some of the exercises I plan to do over the next few months. Golly, did I pay for it?

It's been a while since I suffered 'next day' aching and I wasn't expecting not to be able to use my arms for three days!

I thought the pain was due to the build up of lactic acid during exercising and that cooling down would be sufficient to prevent it. Now, after two days of considerable discomfort, I learn that I was suffering from DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

The good news is that I can now straighten my arms again. Thank the Lordy I decided to warm up/practise before starting to train properly.

I was back in the gym again yesterday to try out a few of the cardiovascular machines - have I told you how much I hate CV exercises? I have? Good.

Ooh, Txakoli

Well, txakoli pourers anyway.

Richard, who lives just outside San Sebastian, has sent me two txakoli pourers so I can have a go at this:

Better still, apparently a couple of bottles of plonk are on their way separately. Can't wait.

Hey Rich, do you want me to send back a bottle of whisky or some other thing in the way of British libationary delight?

I've lost 100 pounds by going to the gym!

Unfortunately that's 100lb, rather than £100 and it's not due to extortionate pricing either.

It's my fault, I can't blame anyone else. As part of the warm-up to entering my three-month challenge, I went to the gym yesterday to test out the lifting machines and practise some of the exercises that I plan to be doing over the next twelve weeks or so. I actually had a very good workout (witnessed by a pair of very tired arms today) before returning to the changing room to get showered and dressed.

As I approached my locker, I felt for the key, but the pocket in my shorts was empty. There was, however, a key in my locker and the door swung open when I pulled it. One of the pockets in my bag was open and I quickly discovered that my wallet had been removed.

It could have been worse: my flat keys, credit cards and two mobile phones were all in the locker - I guess I'd left the key on the bench where I'd changed into my gym kit and someone, chancing it, grabbed what was most obvious (the pocket holding my wallet was exposed when the door was open).

I did ask at reception, but nothing had been handed in.

Lessons learned:
1) always take two 20 pence pieces for the locker so that I can lock it when I'm in the gym AND when I'm in the shower.
2) remember to put the key straight into a pocket after locking the door.

As I said, it's my fault and I've only got myself to blame. Oh, and the beloved son who thinks it's acceptable to rob someone the moment their back is turned.

Well I knew I was unfit

and Sven has also put on a couple of pounds since we last played a couple of years ago, but we were like a couple of ageing hippos on the squash court last night.

We were both rubbish - huffing and puffing around the court; it really wasn't pretty. Worst of all, when we did manage to shift our bulks across the court and make contact between racquet and ball, we couldn't aim properly. I reckon that half a dozen of the rallies would rate in the 'Video Gallery of Pathetic Squash' if such a thing existed.

Anyway, I don't appear to have injured anything. Besides, it was really part of my warm-up before seriously attacking the gym. At least that's what I muttered as I tucked into my second post-match pint in The Angel - no smoke, yay!!

For the record: I lost (to date I've never beaten Sven).

Unmotivation

A bunch of us at work were discussing motivation versus demotivation versus unmotivation earlier today.

Well, it's a quarter to eight in the evening and I'm completely unmotivated to complete the report that I need to deliver tomorrow. I think I'm going to pack up and finish it early in the morning.

So there.

OK, OK

I know I haven't exactly started my fitness regime properly... I was out last night at a colleague's leaving do for example.

I am, however, playing Sven at squash tomorrow and I'm about to go to the gym. That's right, you read it correctly: I'm going to the gym now.

Oh and as of last night's drunkenness, I now have a bet on with another colleague: over the next three months, she has to lose one stone in weight and I have to shed two. The loser has to pay for dinner in L'Escargot...

Cashless in Stockholm

Actually, that's not quite true, but only because I happened to bring a fair amount of cash with me to Sweden, but I could have been scuppered.

I was on my way round to visit my friends Sam & Agneta and their two kids Alex & Emma for dinner yesterday and I popped into Systembolaget to purchase a bottle of wine, I went to pay and my credit card was refused. This being Sweden, the booze shops close at 15:00 on a Saturday for the rest of the evening, so time was against me.

The checkout girl sent me to the ATM just outside the shop, but I couldn't withdraw any cash. My card didn't work in two other machines either, even though I could see other people withdrawing money and I'm pretty sure that I have cash on my card. By now Systemet was closed. No wine.

I can't be sure, of course, because Capital One's online banking is down and has been since yesterday evening.

They've sent me two text messages urging me to call a UK number to authorize my payment, but it's too late. SYSTEMET IS SHUT FOR THE WEEKEND. Capital One has screwed my opportunity of taking a bottle of wine for my hosts. Presumably this is because I am abroad and had the audacity to use my Mastercard to buy something here. Note that I haven't been particularly profligate.

This happened when I was in Spain in March, but then I was able to go online and send Capital One an email asking them to remove the block on my card. This time I can't do that because they're updating their online banking.

In short, the only way to remove the block on my card is to call a UK number, which will undoubtedly cost me a packet.

I think I prefer to wait until I get back to Blighty later today... it's crap though.

100 today!

Yup, I just checked and I have 100 friends on Facebook.

Actually, make that 103, 'cos Zoë. Andy and Jane have all added me as a friend.

I'm such a popular guy...

"Summer time..."

... and I don't know what I'm doing inside typing this.

The sun has just come out, so I'm off to play with Chris's boat here in Tyresö.

I'll post some of my pictures when I get around to it - that one's from Wikipedia, but it's quite accurate.