stuff and things

Haven't posted in a while, so I'll combine a few things in this one...

I went to the launch party tonight for VS 2005. I met a few people and can now put bodies to blogs. Frank, I'm impressed that you knew the name of my blog! I, along with Eddie and Geoff "won" copies of VS2005, SQL Server 2005 and Biztalk Server 2006. w00t! (although I don't really know what that means)

I bought Paul Mac's latest album "Panic Room" recently - it's really good. If you liked his first one, then I wholly recommend that you get it.

We had a major release last night. After a long time in development and a change in management, we got it out and apart from a few small issues, it all went well. This is part of the reason that I haven't posted in a while...

I play in an indoor cricket team on Tuesday nights. We're called "Warwick Todd VIII". We won the game last night and are now into the grand final next week. Hope we win.

We have been playing on and off (but mostly on) for about 10 years now. No, that doesn't mean that we're any good. I think that we're going to call our team "Preston's Brothers Brand" next season. I could explain it to you, but trust me you don't want to know.

I've also read a few more books recently, One Minute Manager, Fish! and am half way through Refactoring to Patterns.

Reviews:
One Minute Manager - An easy read and seems to (mostly) make sense. It was originally written in the late '70s, and the reprimand concept using emotions seems a bit dated. But what do I know. Although I agree completely with the praise and goal definition concepts.

Fish! - Nice story, but I don't think that it's that simple. Also an easy read.

Refactoring to Patterns - Very dry in places. Which is a pity. There are some great patterns in this book. The author has a great respect for Martin Fowler. I just wish he'd used his or Kent Beck's writing style. Those guys were much easier to read.