Here's a song that many people won't have heard before.  Back in the 90's there was an animated TV show for kids called The Dreamstone.  It featured a soundtrack by Mike Batt that had no right being THAT good for a kid's show.  It really is that good (or at least I think so). 

The following song from the show features Batt with Ozzy Osbourne, Frank Bruno (yes, really), and Billy Connolly (whose theme to Supergran still lives in my head), accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Well, I got the SysAdmin Appreciation Day wrong.  It was last Friday.  But that didn't stop me from buying my (soon to be ex?) colleagues a couple of cakes.  These ones definitely do not lie.  No. of jobs applied for so far: 65.  Deathly silence.

I've now applied for, or have sent speculative feelers for, a total of 55 jobs (and counting) since the 23rd July.  I've decided to take the weekends off, mainly for the sake of my sanity.  Out of the 55, three has outright rejected my application before ever moving forward to an initial contact/interview, one should be forwarding my details to their client, and I'm waiting a callback from somebody else.

A small taste of my spreadsheet I'm using to keep track.  I'm also keeping tabs on the HR platform because I'd like to know - at least statistically - which ones yield the better responses.  Already I've spotted that many companies that use Greenhouse.io don't do much to customise the templated responses.

Let's keep going!  There's got to be somebody who can make use of my skills..

This Wednesday (30th July) is SysAdmin Appreciation Day (It was last Friday, the 25th July), where companies all over the world should be showing their appreciation to their hard working system admins.  Except for mine.  You could say they're a bit super dismissive about it. 

The cake, as they say, is most definitely a lie.  If that's not an appropriate gaming reference, I don't know what is.

Just watching Netflix's Sandman series 2 having thoroughly enjoyed season 1, and knowing that they shot Dream's Throne Room at Guildford Cathedral for season 1, I had wondered if they had gone back.  Without spoiling things too much - no, it seems they did not, as Dream's realm gets a bit of a DIY SOS makeover at the start of season 2.

But..

As the series progresses, I've noticed a few things that look.. rather familiar.  It turns out that the police station that they use in the show was Duke's Court in Woking (where I once applied for a job in the aircraft fuel industry[ 1 ] - also home to a games company (which reminds me I need to send off a speculative application)) and I pretty much go past that every day when commuting to my (probably soon-to-be former) workplace.  They also shot the cemetery scenes at Brookwood Cemetery which I used to cycle past everyday when I was working for Memset.  They also used an old Debenhams store (in Woking), but it's not something that I've recognised and I've lived here for over 20 years now.

As for the second series itself, I think this has been one of Netflix's best shows in a long while.  It is a great shame that the current situation involving Neil Gaiman has marred things (my only thought at this stage is that it should now be up to the courts to resolve this mess) - but I think that should Allan Heinberg (who has done a sterling job steering the ship) and his team of writers were up for it - I think it could continue without any further issues.  Or least some kind of spin-off series.

However, as I gear up for a potential redundancy, I've cancelled my Netflix subscription.  Once I'm confirmed that I am in regular employment one way or another, I'll resubscribe.  But streaming services have to take a bit of a back seat for a while.

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[ 1 ] Not ideal, but it was an interesting looking job.  Also, way back in the early 1990's I did summer work in the Oil & Gas division of a large international insurance company, and is one of the main reasons I got into IT.  And Macs.