8 strings = pain and frustration

I think I've said before I like my mandolin. It's small and fun. But I put some new strings on it today. My God, it was worse than the 8 string bass. It is an absolute pain to restring because the strings don't have ball ends like a guitar, they have little loops that fit over small retainers. The 3rd and 4th strings weren't too bad, but the skinny ones drove me INSANE. ARGH. At least it does actually sound better now once it was tuned (another world of pain). I actually thought about just putting it away and getting one of those nice Crafter guitar-shaped ones that USE NORMAL STRINGS!

The image at the top is of a bouzouki. I was actually after one of these when I got my mandolin but they are far less common. It's basically the same but much longer. Also it has a fun name. Bouzouki. Bouzouki. Say it a few times and enjoy it's weirdness. It's basically the same scale length as a guitar.

It was the last ever badminton this evening, boo and hiss. Well, until September or so anyway. I hadn't really realised how much I'd got used to spending Friday evening throwing myself around a court and occasionally hitting a shuttlecock.

The GTA IV trailer looks interesting. It's more like a teaser though, hopefully more information will be released later. The look of the city was pretty amazing, and they have said the trailer was made with real-time footage from the game.

Sleepy now.

Hatred and Badminton

Hate isn't a nice word. To say you hate something or someone is a big thing to say. And it's even more rare for me to say I hate someone I know. Even the guy in work who has some opinions I very seriously disagree with only merits mild dislike.

Right, the story is this: I play badminton on a Thursday and Friday. On Thursday it's at a little club with people who are slightly getting on in years. Myself and two friends who go are younger than everyone else by decades.

The object of my hatred is a woman who goes there. I hate her. I really...just HATE her. I hate everything about her. I hate her stupid pouchy face, I hate her stupid hair, I hate her gormless expression. I hate her voice, and I hate the way she talks about total shite that nobody finds interesting, and expects you to be interested in it all. I hate the way she serves so smugly. I hate her stupid laugh when her opponent makes a mistake. I hate the way she looks when she gets a point. I hate the way she looks when she does a crap shot. Most of all, I hate the way she treats a game of badminton as something to be won at all costs.

I'm not great at badminton, I like to think I'm getting better and can pull off some decent shots every now and again. But it really does depend who I'm playing with. Most people are fine, you can show some sympathy if they screw up a shot or congratulate them on a good one, and vice versa. However, to play with someone who you just can't relate to at all, when they fuck up you just...don't do anything. When you fuck up, you don't look at them. I hate it. When I am forced to play with this woman (twice this evening!), I freeze up, I just can't play. I miss the most easy shots, and it just makes you feel more wretched. It's not so much intimidation, more something else entirely. The last game I played with her this evening was a peculiar mix of hatred and laughter, at one point I just found it all extremely funny and just nearly broke down in hysterics.

One reason I hate her more happened this evening. One of the people on the opposite site tripped over and somehow managed to land on her face. She lay there with her hands over her cheek, saying how much it hurt. Her partner and I dashed over to see if she was all right (she was after a minute or two). But this other person, nope, she just stood there like it was just a temporary inconvenience. I mean when someone hurts themselves, you at least should go and see if they're OK.

But from what I gather, she should be pitied. She apparently has never worked, has no friends and the badminton night is the only chance she gets to talk to people apart from her husband. OK, that does kind of explain why she is like she is...

Doesn't mean I have to like her though.

This is rather surreal - a bluegrass version of Ace of Spades by Motorhead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFh6IU4ukjo

This band has done a lot of things including a few AC/DC tracks. Pretty cool.

Looks like the demand for the GTA IV trailer has killed their server, I either get a time out or a black page with nothing on it.

Escalators, skiiing, and Harry Potter

I don't know if you've seen the video of the guy who went skiing down the escalators at the Angel tube station in London. It's the longest escalator in Europe, and the video is genius. I don't know why, but it makes me laugh every time. It's the fact that someone shouts 'Oi! Oi!' just as he's poised on the brink, or the sheer speed and noise of his descent, but it just tickles me. Of course the police are all in a bad mood and it's been shown on all the news channels as a Bad Thing. Next we'll hear about 10 year olds trying to copy it and being sucked down into the mechanism or something.

The video on YouTube
The BBC article about the event

The cover of the final Harry Potter book has been revealed. God knows what's going on with the UK cover, something about the expressions on Ron and Hermione's faces is very funny indeed, and the whole image is chaotic and random. Like Emissary pointed out, is JK Rowling trying to say something with the money and gold all over the cover? 'Ha ha! I'm rich from all you fanboys buying my books!' I'm glad now I've pre-ordered the adult cover version, which looks almost sensible. The US version of the book has a much better cover and is much more interesting - what are they both looking at?

I gave the local Land Rover specialist garage a ring, in the hope that they would have a replacement mirror for the Discovery - much to my surprise they did, and it was even an electric one like I needed. The price? The princely sum of £15! That was good news indeed. Then again to be fair they do have about 2-3 Discoverys in various stages of being dismantled.

Can't think of much more to say. I plugged my mandolin into the computer to see what it sounded like through Ableton Live. The answer was SHITE because the pickup is crap and seems to pick up on every single buzz and hum it possibly can, and it's also very quiet. The mandolin was only cheap, so it's to be expected. However careful measuring showed that the pickup is actually a guitar pickup, and is the same size and design as those fitted to the average Stratocaster. So I'm wondering if a hum-cancelling Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup might fit. However it is designed for heavy metal use - the guitarists in Iron Maiden use them. Interesting...

Xbox 360 Core systems don't seem to be dropping below £200 yet. DAMN not getting one a few months ago when Play had them at £150. The only thing I want in the Premium package is the hard drive, and you don't even really need that.

1 day 1 hour and 45 minutes till the GTA IV trailer! ARGH!

Good mood crashes

Remember how I said I was in a good mood yesterday? Today started out well, but then as the day went by, I just started to get more and more pissed off. It didn't seem to correspond to any particular events or anything. Perhaps I got one of the positive viruses mentioned in the Red Dwarf episode Quarantine. Weird. Obviously the incident with the Transit didn't help my mood.

Yet another Enzo Ferrari has been crashed. Video and news story below. I was trying to come up with a witty comment, but I can't be arsed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6500867.stm
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kvijGdyvRFs

If you played and enjoyed the Lego Star Wars games, apparently there will soon be a Lego Batman game. Let's hope they make it as fun as the Lego Star Wars games.

http://geeksofdoom.com/2007/03/27/lego-batman-videogame-in-the-works/

What next? Lego Spider-Man? Lego Resident Evil? Lego Dawn of the Dead? Lego Deep Throat?

Wait, scratch that last one.

Images of Megatron and Optimus Prime from the new Transformers movie. As much as I hope this will be good, ever since I saw the trailer I've had a bad feeling that it's going to to be utter bollocks.

Bastard in a Transit

This is what happens when some fuckwad in a Transit cuts a blind corner at 60mph. I had no chance to react and his mirror smashed mine to pieces. It also left a huge black mark on the paint further back where one of the pieces of my mirror was pressed against the bodywork. And did the fucker stop? Did he hell, I stopped and turned around but nope, the bastard had just driven away.

Woo, I'm a Tennis God!

I made it to Pro level on Tennis! Surely now buxom babes will throw themselves at my feet, salivating over my rugged physique! Except...my body is round and tapered! And my hands float in mid air with no arms to hold them, and my legs are skinny and weird! Argh!

Considering I don't play Wii Sports very often, I'm quite pleased I made to Pro. It took several games and much swearing. What's interesting is that I had my sound system set to play music, and the game was still fully playable due to the sound effects coming out of the Wiimote. I think it was the rather intense music pounding away that got me through the tennis games.

The music in question? 'Vater Unser' by E Nomine. Think electronica dance music with an angry German chanting the Lord's Prayer with some kind of choir thing going on as well. It's a fairly odd track, really good, even though the religious aspect of it is totally irrelevant to me. It'll be a good track to freak out my colleague in work, who always listens to godawful slushy romantic crap so my aggressive German music tends to upset him. Read what you like into my dislike of romantic love songs, but the fact is I just don't like them.

I overslept today for the first time in years. When resetting the time yesterday on the Psion PDA I use as an alarm clock, I somehow managed to persuade it that it was 12 hours in the past. So my alarm didn't go off. I was in the middle of a weird dream where I was trying to find my Discovery in a car park which had somehow become a luxury hotel. I had just found it parked next to an ornamental fountain and realised I was on a train when I woke up feeling that something wasn't right. It was 8:00am. For some reason, I spent the rest of the day in an bizarrely cheerful mood. The slightest thing seemed to be full of joy. Finding that nobody in work had thought to inform me of a new starter, having to resurrect a dead laptop, forgetting my toolkit when I had to install a CDRW drive. None of them phased me at all. Weird indeed.

Even finding that the Discovery (pic is not of mine) has developed a distinct lean to the right didn't bother me. Before anyone says I'm a fat bastard and broken the suspension, I've lost quite a bit of weight since December. However the garage has said it does need new springs all round and front shocks, which will cost £240. Oh well. I suppose it's a good thing I never did that 6x6 conversion I was thinking about... The new springs are blue and stiffer, which will hopefully make it less boat like, though it'll never handle like a sports car. Also the bodywork has survived quite well and it'll only need a very small amount of welding for the MOT in May which really cheered me up as I was worried it was a festering mass of rusty holes underneath. Not sure when I'll get the springs fitted yet as it's not too bad at the moment.

Why is there never anything cool like this for sale in the UK? I love Rickenbacker basses, and this would be so cool to rebuild: Stripped 70's Rickenbacker 4001

Some guy I used to work with appeared on MSN and wanted to buy stuff off me. For some reason, when selling things, I get really paranoid and guilty. It's very odd. I don't know why it is. It's like I'm scared that they'll find something wrong with it and attack me. Even when I sold my old car on Ebay and said very specifically it was a piece of shit in many ways, when the guy came to pick it up, I was really paranoid about it. However I regarded this guy wanting my old laptops as the first step in 'The Purge' and so hopefully he'll buy them off me.

The joy of ragdoll physics

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ctNrAaqtu5A

This link is responsible for my reinforced desire to get an Xbox 360. It's great when games let you just try stuff out and have fun in the world and see what happens. The amount of fun you can have just playing around with the game engine is great. And then if you get bored of that, hey, you could go and do a mission or something...

GTA is a good example of this type of game, and Saint's Row looks like it has taken a lot of inspiration from GTA in that regard. I wasn't planning to get an Xbox 360 until October - when GTA 4 comes out. But there are now several games that I really want to play on it. However the point is pretty much moot at the moment as I have a trip to Madrid coming up along with car tax and the Discovery has it's MOT in May. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

Isn't it weird how you can get preoccupied with THINGS. I would like to get an Xbox 360, and some upgrades for this computer, I have several guitars and basses that I'd like various parts for, and I'd like one of those electro-acoustic mandolins that look like a mini guitar. Sometimes you just need to sit back and take stock of things and see what's really important. It's odd when it happens though, you kind of sit there and it's like a strange transcendental (is that a word?) experience, and you see things almost from outside. Very odd.

The big problem for me these days is the Internet has made it just so damn easy to buy things. You can find pretty much anything you want, and with a few clicks, it's yours. You just sit and wait for it to arrive, and in the meantime, browse for more stuff to buy. It's absolutely insane. Previously you'd actually have to go somewhere to buy something, and by the time you had, you could think about whether you actually needed it or not.

I realised a couple of weeks ago that I was spending a LOT of time just browsing Ebay for anything, old computers, bass parts, guitars, stuff like that. I realised that having the Internet accessible anywhere was a Bad Thing. Sometimes I'd just lie in bed and look at the Internet on a laptop. It's not a good thing. I mean there's a lot of great stuff out there, but it's easy to just follow link after link after link, and before you know it, hours have passed.

As a result of this realisation, I've decomissioned all my wireless enabled laptops, and forced myself to make this desktop computer the only one I use for Internet access. Hopefully then I can wean myself off the giant information flow from the Internet's vast electronic teat.

I feel a purge coming on. Sometimes you just need to get rid of some stuff that you don't need or want. Years ago the drummer in a band I was in did it. He gave away pretty much ALL of his posessions and said he felt much better for it. Mind you, he did cut himself an awful lot. You could play tic-tac-toe on his arm with all the scars. Oh well. I know I've managed to accumulate a lot of stuff that seemed important at the time but doesn't really now. Odd how your perceptions change like that.

This video is just amazing, I had no idea that you could do this kind of stuff on a ukulele. Tiny instruments like the mandolin and ukulele are quite appealing after the bass guitar because you can make insane reaches. I love my mandolin, I only know two chords on it and I can't play any real tunes on it yet, but it's insanely fun to just play around on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSkP3uym5k&

Wii wouldn't want it any other way

The Wii is possibly the greatest thing ever made. Yeah, you know the story, it's got people into games who wouldn't normally play, it's accessible, friendly, blah blah blah. But if you've never played on a Wii, then you can't understand the joy of holding the remote and watching it respond to your every movement. Yeah, some of the original launch titles had issues, the sword fighting in Red Steel was dreadful for example. But the DS had a bad few months after launch, and just look at the games catalogue now, there are some absolutely stunning games out for it. Given that the Wii is selling like...something incredibly popular, I'm sure we'll see some amazing games coming out for it.

What prompted this Wii love fest? Well, today was a very decent day. Walked the dog first thing, and then went round to a mate's house to spend the day watching rugby and playing Wii. I'm not massively fussed about rugby, but I'll watch it happily enough. It's quite possibly the most complicated game ever though, so I usually have no idea what's going on. This was followed by a long session of Wario Ware and Wii Sports. As I was the only one not drinking, you'd have thought I'd have had a distinct advantage - to a certain degree, maybe. Oh well, we played until we couldn't stand up any more and finished the day with a calm round of golf.

This is the latest I've been up for a while. Very tired now. Must sleep...

On the left is my project guitar. I usually play bass but when I decided I wanted to put a guitar together from parts, it was a lot easier to find guitar parts. It's a replica of a Fender Telecaster, or it will be. It's going to be natural with all black hardware and hopefully it should look quite nice if I ever finish it. To be fair I've had the parts shown for over a year now, but I need a load more parts and also access to a drill press, and it'll need some sort of finish applied. Oh well, it'll be done when it's done.

The displays turned up for the machine today. It's so much better now, the only monitor I had before was a hideous 14" CRT so going to dual 17" TFTs was totally a insane difference. Having two monitors is a complete revelation. I did once have a Mac Quadra set up with two 640x480 screens, but this now has a desktop of 2650x1024, which is quite nice. It looks like my transition from using mainly laptops back to a single powerful desktop is complete (other than some pending upgrades). If anyone wants any laptops, I have a few sub-1ghz machines knocking about which I may be persuaded to part with...

If you're at all interested, the monitors I bought are HANNS.G JC171D 17" TFTs. Nope, I've never heard of them either but they were cheap and had many good reviews on Ebuyer. The picture quality is great and they have both DVI and VGA inputs. I recently found out an Xbox 360 could run on them at 1280x1024 - HD resolution. Admittedly they are much smaller than a real HDTV.

Played badminton tonight. Started out playing like utter shit, but picked up through the evening. I was pleased with the last game as the score was equal right up to the end.

I still have only watched 1 hour of Casino Royale. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep watching it for some reason.

Some examples of how utterly disgusting the human race can be:

Man beheads 17 year old girl's dog
Man rips wife's eyes out after she refuses him sex

Just insane. I mean, how? I wonder if the human race has a future, or even if it deserves one. However, here are some happier links:

Cute Polar Bear in Berlin Zoo
Drawing on dusty cars

Precision-tastic

Well, the Dell Precision turned up yesterday. It's not a bad machine, runs quite well considering it's a few years old now. With some more RAM and the second CPU added, should be OK. However that means finding a Xeon CPU that's exactly the same as the one in it, and then also the VRM to power it. Oh well, they'll turn up. A few years ago I'd have scorned an OEM machine and built one myself, but I can't be arsed these days.

Apart from that, not much to report. For some reason I'm feeling particularly uninspired this evening, perhaps this is because I'm typing this on the tiny keyboard of a miniscule Panasonic Toughbook. Not very powerful, but very rugged and apparently waterproof too.

I finally found a use for Second Life. There was a club with a DJ streaming music in, and it had a LOT of stuff that I like, found out about an interesting German band called E Nomine. Kind of interesting because she was able to insert her voice into the stream and everything.

I got Casino Royale on DVD, mainly because it was something like 8 quid at Morrisons. It's weird, to me it's one of those ones where you can't watch it without constantly comparing Daniel Craig to all the previous Bonds which kind of distracts from watching the actual film. Oh well, all good fun.

Significance of the snake? The Precision will shortly be a dual-head system.

Oh GOD I'm in a geeky mood today. Enough before I embarass myself, though it's probably too late.

Those damned monkeys in balls

I hate Super Monkey Ball. I hated the GameCube games, because they were the kind of game that made you feel crap when you failed. Also the levels were so well designed that you felt compelled to carry on, despite near constant failure.

The Wii version, Banana Blitz is just the same. It's a bit of a shock using the Wiimote at first, but then it becomes second nature. The tilt sensitive controller is what Monkey Ball has been crying out for. However, this game is just the same as the others. As you watch the ball plummet into the depths for the 50th time, you can scream and shout as much as you want, and you know it's your fault. Not the game, or the controller.

I am half way through the Volcanic Pools level of Banana Blitz and it's driving me crazy. I HATE THIS GAME and yet I can't stop playing it. I won't let it beat me.

I took the greyhound out for a walk in the biting cold wind, which was reasonably fun. At one point though, I met a couple who had a pair of sheepdogs, and they had NO control over either of them and were stupid enough to let one of them off the lead. Note: if you have an uncontrollable dog, keep it on the lead. That way it won't run away down someone's private road while you stand there shouting ineffectually. Also hitting them doesn't work either. I hate situations like this, last time I met someone like this, we were attacked by their enormous shaggy black dog, which was completely out of control.

A house down the road was on the market about a year ago for 600,000 pounds which is just insane. Clearly they failed to sell it as it's now up for rent. At 1500 pounds a MONTH. Unbelievable.

I feel there was something else I was going to mention, but I can't remember what it was. Very tired now, so that's probably why.

Goodbye old friends...

Yesterday was a sad day. I bade farewell to an old pair of friends who have travelled with me for many years, the hills of Wales, the streets of New York, Boston, Paris and Berlin, and supported me during many a match of badminton. Sadly their time has come and they had to go...

My trainers had really got to the point where there was no grip whatsoever, and the side seams had started to fall apart. Also when they got wet, they would smell. The most notorious incident was in Cornwall where the damp grass in the campsite made them unbearable. Not even vast doses of Odor-Eater gas helped made any difference until they dried out. Copious amounts of mud over the years had stained the once white material until it was a dark grey and they had a generally grim appearance.

Not being a follower of fashion, I've never actually paid for a pair of trainers, instead I just use my Dad's cast-offs. This sounds grim, but he is a keen runner and used to replace his trainers every few months. However now he's in his 70's, he doesn't run quite so much and doesn't replace the trainers quite so often. Hence this pair having much more than the usual amount of wear. He had a new pair that he didn't want any more and so it was time to take the old Reeboks out to the bin. It took a lot of effort but with the support of my cousin, I managed it. I did get one last pic of them though.

I'm worried about badminton. I've kind of adapted to the lack of grip to make sliding part of my technique. I have a horrible feeling I'm going to go for a shot and fall flat on my face.

It tried to snow today. It was really impressive, strong winds and snow travelling sideways up the valley. But it didn't last and it's nearly all melted now. Oh well.

Spent some time rewatching the Top Gear American road trip, which can be found on Youtube and other places. It's great. One of the most entertaining things I've seen in a very long time.

Visited my Dad today

Today was good, spent all day round at my Dad's house, as I haven't been there for a while. Also my cousin was visting, who I get on with really well. She's 40 something and left her husband some time ago for another woman, which caused much consternation. Sadly the relationship broke up a couple of years ago and she's now single again.

Anyway, we didn't do anything particularly exciting, just looked around a few shops where my cousin bought an awesome toaster, had some interesting chats, looked at my Berlin pics and caught the end of the Wales-England game, which was nice as Wales won! Then watched an episode of Casualty, which truly has sunk to new lows. It was astonishingly predictable, and the plot line with the psychic was laughable. Now I know why I never watch TV except for Top Gear.

Had a chat with my Dad's wife about her grandson in Norway, who has stupidly got his girlfriend pregnant just before she left him. He's 20 and unemployed. Not a good situation. She was also slightly disturbed by the fact that it would make her a great-grandmother at 60 something and her own mother a great-great-grandmother at 80 something. Weird thought really.

We also talked about my sister, who hasn't spoken to my Dad for three years. She's quick to take offense and doens't forgive easily, not a good combination. I really don't know what my Dad did to upset her but I suspect it's when he married his current wife. They didn't tell anyone about it at all but only told people two weeks later. I was a bit miffed but I could understand why, it's the third marriage for both of them and they didn't want to make a big thing of it in case of offending someone. It's troubling, I feel like I should do something but I don't know what or even if I should. I may not agree with many (all?!) of my sister's opinions, but I don't want to alienate her. Though at some point that might be unavoidable if her outlook on certain things doesn't change.

Family. Gotta love it. Sometimes I feel I should keep in touch with my relatives more, but then shit like this happens and I wonder if it's worth it.

Oh yeah, and if you drive an 07 reg black Peugeot and overtook a Discovery this evening and cut it up for no reason on a long straight completely empty road, you're a fucktard.

Work, Second Life, Porridge, a Mandolin and an accidentally purchased computer...

Work was the same as usual today. The only event of any real interest (i.e none) was going to install a laptop only to find that the person wasn't in, despite me being assured that they would be. Great. Also it was dress down for comic relief day, which was nice until I realised that my trainers were releasing a rank odour around me. Got to get some new ones. One department spent the whole day wearing pyjamas and selling cakes. It apparently worked as they made over 250 quid. I admit that I had three pieces of their chocolate cake as it was really nice.

I was supposed to play badminton tonight but ended up eating a bowl of porridge with hot chocolate powder in it instead and noodling around on my mandolin. I know that makes no sense at all. I bought a HUGE box of porridge (Scott's Porage Oats) ages ago and I swear it isn't going down at all despite eating it quite often.

I had another play with Second Life this evening. Once again it just confirmed that it is one of the most irritating experiences ever. It takes ages to download the environments and then after you've taken a few stupidly animated steps into a wall you can't see, it crashes. Then you reload to be confronted by a naked guy with wings and a huge deformed penis saying something like "that;s how u like it btch u derty slut o yah". The very first object I ever saw in Second Life after I left the Welcome area was a giant penis with handlebars and it's basically got worse from there. One day I'll uninstall it but I keep feeling compelled to try and track down an area in it where people aren't trying to have glitchy, badly animated sex.

My new computer plans have gone slightly awry. I somehow accidentally ended up buying a Dell Precision 450 workstation on Ebay. Currently it's a single 2.6ghz Xeon with 512mb RAM, hopefully it could be taken up to a dual 3.4ghz Xeon with a decent graphics card if I can get the parts. Oh well, it'll be something to play with until the new Core 2 Duo Mac Minis come out with Leopard.

It's supposed to snow next week. I hope it doesn't because it causes problems where I live, but then again that is why I drive a big polluting 4x4. Also the dog loves the snow, so if it does, at least he'll enjoy it.

Urm. Possibly the most boring blog post ever, but never mind.

Real Men Love Robocop

http://www.doubleviking.com/real-men-love-robocop-4074-p.html

Well, it appears that I'm a real man, despite the evidence, as I really like Robocop. A couple of years ago I got the trilogy on DVD and the first one rocked. It brought back all the memories of watching a bad VHS copy at a friend's house when I was young. I remember being horrified by the guy getting shot by the ED-209 at the beginning. The second film was nowhere near as good as I remembered, and I forced myself to watch the third one, despite everything I'd heard. I can only imagine the horror of the various TV shows and animated series that came out afterwards.

Apparently real men wear kilts too. Tomorrow is Dress Down for Comic Relief day in work. If I had a kilt, I'd wear one. Well, perhaps not.

I went into work today in quite a good mood for some reason, and came home, disillusioned, depressed and for the first time in 2 years, actually thinking about looking for another job. Urgh.

Attached is a random image I made in Bryce. It's nothing particularly interesting but I think it came out OK. Bryce is fun to play with but I wish I had the time to sit down and get to grips with a real 3D program. I had a lot of fun with Lightwave in college, but it's still very expensive. There's free 3D programs but they are not as good I think.

Not a long entry today, think I'm going to cabbage out this evening and watch a DVD or something.

It's like Christmas, but none of the presents are for you

It's that time of year when lots of people order new IT stuff in work, and it's a lot of hassle getting all the equipment in, setting it up and installing it. Like the title says, it's like Christmas, but none of the presents are for you. Today it was laptops, CAD workstations and lots of TFT monitors. Oh, how the users cooed in delight as the shiny toy was unpacked and set up on their desk. And how quickly they'll get bored and say it's too slow. Or break it. Meanwhile the old, shabby machines were piled up on one side, their fate uncertain.

It's new computer time at home too, my 600mhz Apple iBook is nearly five years old, and apart from a hard drive failure (fixed under warranty) it has been rock solid. It's duties have been mostly taken over by a cheap and nasty Toshiba laptop running XP Home.

But I'm now torn. I really would like a new Intel Mac, but they are expensive, and for the price of a Mac Mini (£400) I could get a PC which would be faster and more expandable. But it wouldn't run OS X. Linux is nice, especially Ubuntu, but I really get tired of it sometimes. Windows is...well, it's Windows. I'll use it, but I won't enjoy it. So I'm slightly torn between getting an old Dell Precision Xeon workstation off Ebay and upgrading it, which appeals to the tinkerer inside me, or just getting a Mac Mini. Either way I need to get a monitor too. Oh well, we'll see.

Walking the dog this evening and I was asked where a house was by a lost guy in his car. Having lived in this small rural village for 25 years, you'd have though I'd know where it is. Nope. Not a clue. Embarassing really. I knew the name but my guess was totally wrong as another guy stopped and gave him directions. Oh well. I hate giving directions anyway, I'm always paranoid I'll send the person the wrong way and they'll get lost and eaten by leopards or something.

New blog

OK, blogging seems to be the hot new thing and several of my friends now have them, so here we go. Coming soon, exciting ramblings about computers, video games, music, bass guitars and the intriguing world of working in local government. Well, not so much the last one.

Probably the most exciting thing I did recently was visit Berlin for my brother's 50th birthday party on the 5th March. It was a great weekend. The party went really well and Berlin is a great place to visit. It wasn't really a sightseeing trip so this is the really the only touristy picture I've got: Checkpoint Charlie in very, very heavy rain.

More soon.