A Broadcast Engineer Speaks Out

See, that's him speaking out.

Now the really great thing about working in Russia, apart from the rain - yes I do go on, but so does the sodding rain and the one thing you expect at the Winter Olympics is snow. And vodka, and there's been sod all of that too. But that's probably my fault... Any way, the really great thing about working in Russia for the Americans is that you get to watch night time TV. This is like daytime TV but for the challenged. No honest, it the same three infomercials every day. Dean Martin Roasts, Soul Sounds of the 70s and this sodding Clear TV. Which is an aerial for digital TV. And they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on - and to give me my due, I did type that, not cut and paste - 'bout how cable and satellite rip you off for $10,000 - over a period of many years - when you could buy this for just $19.99 plus processing and shipping. And, you've guessed it, call now and we'll double that to two shitty aerials for $19.99 you just pay the additional P&S.

So take a look here for a review and here to buy two of the sodding things. And I hope you get to watch the infomercial too. And those pictures on the TV are simulated, it even says so on the sodding advert. AND at one point they tell you that cable and satellite TV is compressed digital but ClearTV is uncompressed HD digital. Feck OFF I scream at the TV. And the only thing I'm grateful for is that we seem to finally have fixed seek and shuttle and I don't have to watch this any more...  So check it out, especially the actors acting surprised.

Actually there are four ads, no five, no countless. You could spend a fortune on shite like a grill pan with a polar bear shaped handle or a chair that will help you lose weight whilst you sleep and an oxygen purifier cos some oxygen isn't as pure as others. And a cat coffin and burial kit with free fake wounds and a no way window - which is just a wall, really - and some bloke called Gavin from Gavins  Inc where if you call now you can get two Gavins for the price of one.

I should stop now. Because I have this to show you.

Welcome to the phone of the 21st Century

The unnecto psx-1200. Actually I made the model name up but not the manufacturer. What a great name - get Unnected - there's a slogan for you. I mean, it's almost what you say when you complain about a phone - uh oh, just got unnecto'ed. It's like disconnected, but more so.

So these are the phones that Customer is giving out for local number access. Everyone can have one, they've got literally thousands - I've seen the boxes. You might be thinking they look like a BlackBerry, nah. You might be thinking they have capacitative touch screens. Well they're more resistive in that respect, in that they resist touch. It's more like a jab screen. Not that there's anything to jab, really. If you took a feature phone, and then took all the features away; this is what you would get. A lack of feature phone, a dumb phone. A brick. Bring an unlocked phone, take the SIM out of the phone they give you and you're good.

And now, as the building site clears and the offices become obvious. Allow me to introduce you to the

Corridor of Doom

This is the central corridor down the engineering wing. We're situated about 3/4 of the way down on the right. Before us is production, logistics, runners, studio entrance - with makeup, wardrode, hair - and after us is the tape library, tape ops, graphics and ingest. It's not until you see this that you get an idea of the scale of the place. As we walked in, there was a door open and in there was another studio, I think I've found 6 now. If not more, they're like Easter eggs on a DVD.

Another Colleague came in today, after a 30 hour journey from Denver - NE USA weather - and I think it took him back a bit. The scale of the operation, I don't think Meridian was ever this big, even in it's heyday, is just monumental. Or mental, you choose. And every day some new happens in the commissary, last night - for the first time - we got something other that cake for pudding. It was a tiramisu, complete with Russian spelling. And tonight they have installed the ice-cream cabinet, probably ready for tomorrow. Starbucks is now open 8:00 till 7:00 and slowly but surely the 24 hour rota are going up. The place is coming alive, and it's kinda fun.

Some random notes

Django is brilliant. We've got some issues with the data source in that we want to do stuff it can't. And due to network issues, and this being a cloud solution, there is often sod all data. With a bit of Django, and I mean a bit like 20 lines, we now have a database that can provide multiple lineups just like the real thing. It is stupidly scary. Complete with management interface and everything. It took about 90 minutes to code.

Yesterday I alluded to dogs having a crap time, but they're not the worst off. The worst off are the folks that have to pick the litter up on the highways. Every morning you see them walking against the traffic picking up litter. There are no 'Workforce in Road' signs nor do they wear high-viz jackets. They must be tired of life, is all I can think.

You may have heard of the Ring of Steel, fnarr fnarr Mr Putin, that surrounds Sochi. It is getting stronger by the day as more and more military, police and security guards become present - you can tell them apart by the quality of their footwear. They normally lurk, like trolls, under bridges and for a while I thought this was their nature. But actually it stops them getting wet.

From all the SODDING RAIN.