Yesterday was spent doing useful things until it was time to proceed to Will's with everyone for an evening of fun antics. The journey was a little frustrating as I'm wary of pushing the car too hard until it's fixed as the suspension is definitely knocking. Unfortunately other people can be right arseholes when you're trying to stay at 45-50mph.
We got to Will's and decided to have a quick game of Talisman, a board game Will played in his younger days. He assured us that a game would last about 15-20 minutes, after which we'd do other things, such as Wii games or whatever. Many hours later, with alcohol consumption making play erratic, the game was still going on. Eventually it did get the point where cheating was allowed to the game could actually finish. It was a good game to play though, but with more time and less alcohol. After that, it was time for a game of Boom Blox before everyone retired.
The weather was crap in the morning so I came straight home and have done pretty much nothing but watch DVDs all day. Tired and headachy now for some odd reason.
Sunday 31 August 2008
Saturday 30 August 2008
The smell of FIRE
Today turned out to be rather a nice day, so I celebrated by lugging a load of old crap outside and burning it. Great fun. After that let the dog out for a run around in the sun. Smell of smoke now so need a shower.
Found a baby ash tree outside which is about four feet tall. It seems healthy but is in a bit of an inconvenient place so might look into relocating it somewhere more suitable.
Typing this on the Eee with Ubuntu. While it ran XP nicely enough, Ubuntu seems a better fit for it. I installed the specally adapted version of Ubuntu 8.04 which has all the right drivers and things.
My Dad has picked up one of the new Acer Aspire One Eee-like laptops. It looks like it has a better keyboard than the Eee to be honest and the design seems a bit nicer. Also it has the Atom processor as do most of the newer Netbooks. It'll be interesting to check that out the next time I'm over there. I have to admit that while I love my Eee to bits, I think I may have purchased a month or so too early, given that all these newer models are out.
I just tried the Linux version of Defcon on the Eee. It started up with about one frame a second, but once the smooth lines and shaded oceans were turned off, it ran pretty well.
The success of the Eee has got to be one of the most unexpected events in computing history. Who would have thought a tiny laptop with a 7" screen, minuscule storage and Linux would have such an impact? Small laptops were around before (like the Toshiba Libretto) but it took the Eee to make them mainstream. Everyone is making them now, even Dell. I'd be surprised if Apple wasn't working on one too.
Found a baby ash tree outside which is about four feet tall. It seems healthy but is in a bit of an inconvenient place so might look into relocating it somewhere more suitable.
Typing this on the Eee with Ubuntu. While it ran XP nicely enough, Ubuntu seems a better fit for it. I installed the specally adapted version of Ubuntu 8.04 which has all the right drivers and things.
My Dad has picked up one of the new Acer Aspire One Eee-like laptops. It looks like it has a better keyboard than the Eee to be honest and the design seems a bit nicer. Also it has the Atom processor as do most of the newer Netbooks. It'll be interesting to check that out the next time I'm over there. I have to admit that while I love my Eee to bits, I think I may have purchased a month or so too early, given that all these newer models are out.
I just tried the Linux version of Defcon on the Eee. It started up with about one frame a second, but once the smooth lines and shaded oceans were turned off, it ran pretty well.
The success of the Eee has got to be one of the most unexpected events in computing history. Who would have thought a tiny laptop with a 7" screen, minuscule storage and Linux would have such an impact? Small laptops were around before (like the Toshiba Libretto) but it took the Eee to make them mainstream. Everyone is making them now, even Dell. I'd be surprised if Apple wasn't working on one too.
Friday 29 August 2008
It's the weekend!
I don't think I've ever wanted it to be the weekend quite so badly. It's been a really strange few weeks.
Watched The Mummy this evening. It's not a bad film but it hasn't aged particularly well. The CGI in particular is looking quite ropey in places. Mind you, anything in the original is better than the horrendous scene in the Mummy Returns where you see the Rock as the Scorpion King.
Watched The Mummy this evening. It's not a bad film but it hasn't aged particularly well. The CGI in particular is looking quite ropey in places. Mind you, anything in the original is better than the horrendous scene in the Mummy Returns where you see the Rock as the Scorpion King.
Thursday 28 August 2008
Broken car and more GTA IV.
The AX suspension is basically knackered. It needs new struts and springs on both the left and right sides at the front. Going to cost £210, which isn't so bad I guess. It's going in to get it sorted next Tuesday. It's OK to drive until then.
Got a few more missions done in GTA IV including the ones I ranted about. But now on another one which is yet another one where you have to go to a building, find some guy and kill him while killing everyone who gets in your way. It's the same old crap over and over again. But even the gun battles are annoying. They've obviously tried to copy the Gears of War mechanic, but it gets really annoying because all the enemies hide...peek...shoot all the time in exactly the same way.
Got a few more missions done in GTA IV including the ones I ranted about. But now on another one which is yet another one where you have to go to a building, find some guy and kill him while killing everyone who gets in your way. It's the same old crap over and over again. But even the gun battles are annoying. They've obviously tried to copy the Gears of War mechanic, but it gets really annoying because all the enemies hide...peek...shoot all the time in exactly the same way.
Wednesday 27 August 2008
It continues to grow
I came home and didn't feel like doing anything and the weather was looking grim. It's been a bad day, it was stressful and busy and at one point I lost it completely and had two bars of chocolate out of the machine to try and compensate.
But then I decided to have a go at the Monstrosity again. I took the neck off and put a shim in to make it angled a bit to help the setup. Then I attacked the body with a drill so there was enough room to mount the bridge pickup using a (badly) home-made mounting ring. It's meant for a full size humbucker, but it worked OK for the mini one other than the big gaps around it. I then mounted the pots in the control plate and wired it up. It works fine but annoyingly the gap in the body is too narrow for the controls to fit in. I filed it a bit but got tired. They do go in slightly now though.
Otherwise it works great. The two pickups give quite different sounds so you can get different tones out of it quite easily. Also, the nice thing about the rail humbuckers is that there is no buzz at all. The only thing is that for some reason the bottom bass string isn't picked up very well by either pickup, so it's a bit quieter. Not sure if anything can be done about that.
The car is going in tomorrow for the suspension to be looked at. It's a good thing I managed to sell my old laptop today to someone in work.
But then I decided to have a go at the Monstrosity again. I took the neck off and put a shim in to make it angled a bit to help the setup. Then I attacked the body with a drill so there was enough room to mount the bridge pickup using a (badly) home-made mounting ring. It's meant for a full size humbucker, but it worked OK for the mini one other than the big gaps around it. I then mounted the pots in the control plate and wired it up. It works fine but annoyingly the gap in the body is too narrow for the controls to fit in. I filed it a bit but got tired. They do go in slightly now though.
Otherwise it works great. The two pickups give quite different sounds so you can get different tones out of it quite easily. Also, the nice thing about the rail humbuckers is that there is no buzz at all. The only thing is that for some reason the bottom bass string isn't picked up very well by either pickup, so it's a bit quieter. Not sure if anything can be done about that.The car is going in tomorrow for the suspension to be looked at. It's a good thing I managed to sell my old laptop today to someone in work.
Odd
I find cluster computing really interesting, like the IBM Roadrunner. It's the kind of thing I'd like to play with at home, except I'd have nothing to run on it.
Tuesday 26 August 2008
Nothing
Yesterday was spent doing nothing much. Today was just the usual stuff. Took the dog for a walk which was good but it was very windy.
Sunday 24 August 2008
Update
Thursday - nothing worth mentioning.
Spent the day in work on Friday feeling great relief that people will be back in next week and that it is a bank holiday weekend. The evening was spent round at Rob's with him, Will, Vicky and my Xbox 360. We played a lot of Call of Duty 4, Halo 3 and some other things. This combined with pizza and chocolate made it pretty much the perfect geekfest.
Saturday was spent watching a couple of DVDs before heading out for another geekfest with some people from my last workplace. Guitar Hero featured prominently in the evening as well as quite a few Wii games, a really good Chinese takeaway and a lot of snacks. Good stuff.
Today went to Rhyl in search of a Dremel so I can have a go at cutting out the pickguard for the Monstrosity, but I didn't realise they were so expensive - £50 for the cheapest one. I can't afford to spend that much on one, even though they are really useful. Especially as the sagging corner of the AX seems to have weakened more. It doesn't seem to sit any lower but it now makes a very loud clunk if you go over a hump too quickly or something, almost like it's bottoming out. So that'll need to be looked at next week.
I did however go to the car boot, which was made obligatory since as usual it was causing traffic chaos and I found I was pretty much trapped in the B&Q car park, which was opposite the field where it is held. It was pretty massive but didn't see anything too interesting. On the way back had a look in Woolies and found that the V TV series has been released. I realy liked it when they were showing it on Sky in the early 90's so I picked it up.
Spent the day in work on Friday feeling great relief that people will be back in next week and that it is a bank holiday weekend. The evening was spent round at Rob's with him, Will, Vicky and my Xbox 360. We played a lot of Call of Duty 4, Halo 3 and some other things. This combined with pizza and chocolate made it pretty much the perfect geekfest.
Saturday was spent watching a couple of DVDs before heading out for another geekfest with some people from my last workplace. Guitar Hero featured prominently in the evening as well as quite a few Wii games, a really good Chinese takeaway and a lot of snacks. Good stuff.
Today went to Rhyl in search of a Dremel so I can have a go at cutting out the pickguard for the Monstrosity, but I didn't realise they were so expensive - £50 for the cheapest one. I can't afford to spend that much on one, even though they are really useful. Especially as the sagging corner of the AX seems to have weakened more. It doesn't seem to sit any lower but it now makes a very loud clunk if you go over a hump too quickly or something, almost like it's bottoming out. So that'll need to be looked at next week.
I did however go to the car boot, which was made obligatory since as usual it was causing traffic chaos and I found I was pretty much trapped in the B&Q car park, which was opposite the field where it is held. It was pretty massive but didn't see anything too interesting. On the way back had a look in Woolies and found that the V TV series has been released. I realy liked it when they were showing it on Sky in the early 90's so I picked it up.
Wednesday 20 August 2008
And yet again
Another mission on GTA IV. I have to go to a strip club and kill the managers, before escaping from the police. Naturally everyone in the place is carrying machine guns. And if the girls get caught in the cross-fire, tough titty. All so some whinging crybaby can get his strip club back.
Not just repetitive but inane too. Maybe I missed something early on that would have made me care.
Not just repetitive but inane too. Maybe I missed something early on that would have made me care.
It roars like a vanquished demon
The Monstrosity finally has a proper voice. I got hold of a pair of pickups and put one in temporarily and wired it up to an output jack. The problem is that I had to make the hole bigger for the pickup to fit and I wasn't really paying attention when I did it so it's off centre.
Anyway, the plan now is to get my friendly neighbourhood carpenter to route out a nice big space between the bridge and neck and then make my own pickguard to cover it up, which will also hide the gap next to the control plate. This will then allow pretty much any pickup combination imaginable. The current plan is to have two of these rail pickups connected to two volume controls and a tone control. Bass pickups might work better though. Or a motherbucker.
With a proper pickup under the strings it sounds quite decent. The setup isn't quite right though, the whole thing needs pulling to bits again and playing with.
The iPod Shuffle started playing a track on the way home which I really liked, but for the life of me couldn't remember who it was. I went through the library for ages and couldn't find it. In the end I had to listen to the tracks before and after it, which I recognised and then look at the Shuffle playlist on the PC. It turned out to be a Frank Zappa track, but in the meantime I rediscovered the joys of Nine Inch Nails.
Also discovered that Amazon has a record of everything I have ever ordered from them. The very first thing I ordered was the Hackers soundtrack almost exactly seven years ago. Scary. Also a few things I completely forgot about. Apparently I have a book about Flea's bass style and technique but goodness knows where it is.
Tuesday 19 August 2008
GTA IV hatred
Since my previous complaints about GTA IV, I have occasionally fired it up to have a go on it. As it seemed to be running OK without freezing up or complaining about the disk, I thought I'd try a mission or two.
The first mission involved finding a guy, choosing whether or not to kill his girlfriend and then chasing him on a bike. On the first go, the guy went away on his bike and then I was informed that I'd lost him before I'd barely even started moving. On the second go I parked up in a nice fast car because I know I'm better in cars than bikes, but nope, it despawned the car and replaced it with a bike. Despite me being on a superbike and him being on a chopper, he was stupidly hard to keep up with, even after I shot out his rear tyre. This happens quite a lot, you have to chase a vehicle that performs and handles way beyond the way it would if you were driving it. Anyway, this proved frustrating but eventually I got it done. After some more inane dialogue, I thought I'd try another mission.
It turned out to be exactly the same, but with you chasing a helicopter instead of a bike. And it has the gall to tell you all the time 'You're losing the helicopter'. Of COURSE I'm fucking losing it, the damn thing can fly over buildings and I'm stuck in the middle of a group of moronic taxis blocking the road for some godforsaken reason. After finding the helicopter and being shot as per usual by a load of people, I threw the controller on the floor and turned it off.
The missions kill this game for me. They are repetitive and dull and I've lost any interest I may have had in the plot. They make a big thing of whether you should kill certain people or not in a couple of missions - never mind the fact that you are required to kill literally hundreds of people in the other missions.
In San Andreas, if you wanted a break from the main missions, there was so much to do and places to explore. In this you can play pool, or darts, or...well, that's it. Oh yeah, bowling too. Or you can take part in a race which will either be hugely unfair or ridiculously easy. It's just not fun.
Things that are missing from GTA IV (from the intertubes):
-Customizable Cars
-Hair cuts
-Tattoos
-Planes/Jets
-Jetpacks
-Parachutes
-Tanks
-Fun Weapons (Ex:Flame Thrower, Miniguns, Chainsaws)
-Buyable Real estate
-Tons of Clothing Apparel
-Custom Soundtracks
-Bicycles
-Taxi Missions
-Fire Dep. Missions
-Ambulance Mission
-Spike Strips
-Skydiving
-Loads of Fun Cheats
-Garages
-Night-Vision Goggles
-Finishing Moves (with the knife)
-Pizza Delivery Missions
-Hydraulics
-NOS
-Monster Trucks
-Gambling
-RC Cars
-Slo-Mo Pills
-Police Roadblocks
-Underwater Swimming
-The Moon
-Basketball
-Rampage Minigame
-Rewards for finding hidden packages
-Duel Wielding
-Leveling up
Multiplayer would be fun if Xbox Live didn't largely consist of underage twats hurling homophobic insults at each other. And it's also stupidly glitchy, especially at speed. I would say that it is understandable given what there is to keep in sync, but Crackdown managed it much better over a year ago.
Perhaps the downloadable content will help but I doubt it will be free and my Xbox Live subscription expired ages ago.
Perhaps GTA IV.1 will be the same leap that Vice City was over GTA III.
The first mission involved finding a guy, choosing whether or not to kill his girlfriend and then chasing him on a bike. On the first go, the guy went away on his bike and then I was informed that I'd lost him before I'd barely even started moving. On the second go I parked up in a nice fast car because I know I'm better in cars than bikes, but nope, it despawned the car and replaced it with a bike. Despite me being on a superbike and him being on a chopper, he was stupidly hard to keep up with, even after I shot out his rear tyre. This happens quite a lot, you have to chase a vehicle that performs and handles way beyond the way it would if you were driving it. Anyway, this proved frustrating but eventually I got it done. After some more inane dialogue, I thought I'd try another mission.
It turned out to be exactly the same, but with you chasing a helicopter instead of a bike. And it has the gall to tell you all the time 'You're losing the helicopter'. Of COURSE I'm fucking losing it, the damn thing can fly over buildings and I'm stuck in the middle of a group of moronic taxis blocking the road for some godforsaken reason. After finding the helicopter and being shot as per usual by a load of people, I threw the controller on the floor and turned it off.
The missions kill this game for me. They are repetitive and dull and I've lost any interest I may have had in the plot. They make a big thing of whether you should kill certain people or not in a couple of missions - never mind the fact that you are required to kill literally hundreds of people in the other missions.
In San Andreas, if you wanted a break from the main missions, there was so much to do and places to explore. In this you can play pool, or darts, or...well, that's it. Oh yeah, bowling too. Or you can take part in a race which will either be hugely unfair or ridiculously easy. It's just not fun.
Things that are missing from GTA IV (from the intertubes):
-Customizable Cars
-Hair cuts
-Tattoos
-Planes/Jets
-Jetpacks
-Parachutes
-Tanks
-Fun Weapons (Ex:Flame Thrower, Miniguns, Chainsaws)
-Buyable Real estate
-Tons of Clothing Apparel
-Custom Soundtracks
-Bicycles
-Taxi Missions
-Fire Dep. Missions
-Ambulance Mission
-Spike Strips
-Skydiving
-Loads of Fun Cheats
-Garages
-Night-Vision Goggles
-Finishing Moves (with the knife)
-Pizza Delivery Missions
-Hydraulics
-NOS
-Monster Trucks
-Gambling
-RC Cars
-Slo-Mo Pills
-Police Roadblocks
-Underwater Swimming
-The Moon
-Basketball
-Rampage Minigame
-Rewards for finding hidden packages
-Duel Wielding
-Leveling up
Multiplayer would be fun if Xbox Live didn't largely consist of underage twats hurling homophobic insults at each other. And it's also stupidly glitchy, especially at speed. I would say that it is understandable given what there is to keep in sync, but Crackdown managed it much better over a year ago.
Perhaps the downloadable content will help but I doubt it will be free and my Xbox Live subscription expired ages ago.
Perhaps GTA IV.1 will be the same leap that Vice City was over GTA III.
Sunday 17 August 2008
A productive day
Yesterday it was proposed that we go up the the top of Moel Famau and have a look at the Lambanana that was going to be up there. When I woke up the cloud was low and there was occasional rain so I wasn't too keen in the idea. But we went anyway and it was fine. It did rain a little bit but nothing too bad. It was very windy at the top though. Fortunately the view was really good.
The car gave some hassle. On the way up the steep hill to the car park, Will and I were disturbed to see steam pouring from under the bonnet. When I had a look in the car park the filler cap had come off so either it had popped off or I just hadn't put it back on properly. I filled it up with water and we went for a walk. On the way back down from the place, the low water light came on and I found the expansion tank was again empty. Weird. Filled it up yet again and headed back to Andy's, and it was fine. Need to keep an eye on that I think. Also the wheel bearing needs doing as it's pretty noisy.
We stayed at Andy's for a while, watching the latest Futurama movie. It's probably the third time I've watched it. It's funny but does go off on a mad one.
When I came home I had a go at the Monstrosity again. I decided to put the neck on a spare body I got hold of. The neck fits perfectly into the pocket but typically the screw holes didn't line up so I had to drill new ones, and the body holes were too narrow so they had to be widened. It came out all right though, and I put the bridge a bit further back so it now intonates properly. Just need to find some suitable pickups that are reasonably affordable and then wire it up.
Really tired now. I think I'm just going to collapse and watch a DVD or something.
The car gave some hassle. On the way up the steep hill to the car park, Will and I were disturbed to see steam pouring from under the bonnet. When I had a look in the car park the filler cap had come off so either it had popped off or I just hadn't put it back on properly. I filled it up with water and we went for a walk. On the way back down from the place, the low water light came on and I found the expansion tank was again empty. Weird. Filled it up yet again and headed back to Andy's, and it was fine. Need to keep an eye on that I think. Also the wheel bearing needs doing as it's pretty noisy.
We stayed at Andy's for a while, watching the latest Futurama movie. It's probably the third time I've watched it. It's funny but does go off on a mad one.
When I came home I had a go at the Monstrosity again. I decided to put the neck on a spare body I got hold of. The neck fits perfectly into the pocket but typically the screw holes didn't line up so I had to drill new ones, and the body holes were too narrow so they had to be widened. It came out all right though, and I put the bridge a bit further back so it now intonates properly. Just need to find some suitable pickups that are reasonably affordable and then wire it up.
Really tired now. I think I'm just going to collapse and watch a DVD or something.
Saturday 16 August 2008
Stuff
Thursday and Friday = nasty days with no real interest.
Today it was my sister's 40th birthday party, which was fun. A bit intimidating really since I didn't really know anyone there except for her husband and kids and our brother. But it was nice to catch up. The weather wasn't great so people dash down to the barbecue at the end of the garden, grab a burger or kebab and leg it back up to the kitchen. There was also a chocolate fountain which worked OK when it wasn't overflowing or seizing up on a dropped cocktail stick.
After leaving there, met up with the gang at a rather peculiar bowling place. It was lit up like a disco on a bad acid trip and was also very loud. I didn't bowl as I arrived too late but it was fun to watch.
Today it was my sister's 40th birthday party, which was fun. A bit intimidating really since I didn't really know anyone there except for her husband and kids and our brother. But it was nice to catch up. The weather wasn't great so people dash down to the barbecue at the end of the garden, grab a burger or kebab and leg it back up to the kitchen. There was also a chocolate fountain which worked OK when it wasn't overflowing or seizing up on a dropped cocktail stick.
After leaving there, met up with the gang at a rather peculiar bowling place. It was lit up like a disco on a bad acid trip and was also very loud. I didn't bowl as I arrived too late but it was fun to watch.
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Tape woes and rescuing a motorbike
Work was a frustrating and stressful day. First was trying to work out why the belligerent backup system in work had taken a hate to two tapes that it decided that it didn't want anything to do with. As the main Unix and backup guy is on leave it was up to me to calm the tantrums and get it working. I managed to reconcile it with one tape and get it loaded into the library but the other one had to be looked out by the external support. The rest of the day was spent dashing around getting more and more demented.
As a result, I didn't feel like walking the dog when I got home and most of the evening was spent in one of those fugue states where I didn't do very much and didn't feel inspired to do anything. I played with the Monstrosity a bit, and decided that it works well enough to perhaps give it a better body and some proper electronics, and watched some videos on Youtube. It looked to be a slow evening.
But then Andy called. His housemate Steve had come off his bike in Denbigh. He was travelling up the industrial park when a car pulled out right in front of him. Fortunately he seems to be OK other than a bad leg. But the problem was that he'd been whisked off to hospital and his damaged bike was left at the side of the road where the police had left it. So it was up to Andy and I to get it back to Andy's house, by wheeling it along. Sounds easy?
Nope. For a start, motorbikes are heavier than they look. If this one, a nice Aprilia of some sort, had fallen over, it would have taken both of us to get it upright again. It was also stuck in gear, and the handlebar with the clutch on it was broken off. Not a good start. Somewhat embarassingly, we couldn't work out how to get the gearbox into neutral. So Steve called a mate of his who came along and got it into neutral after a bit of fuss, which let us finally get it moving. The first bit was downhill and we found that the front brake is rather aggressive when you're trundling it at about 3mph and it took several abrupt halts before we got used to using it to hold the thing back.
Of course, two guys trundling a nice looking bike along in the dusk gets quite a bit of attention. Boy racers in their farting Corsas jeered as they went past and one guy on a moped stopped to see what was going on. The journey took quite a while and some bits were quite awkward and there were occasional moments of panic when one of us thought the other was dropping it. It was also leaking some fluid, which didn't seem to be petrol. I somehow managed to run it over my foot on a couple of occasions too. One bit which felt dodgy was when we took it past the motorbike shop where it was actually bought and we got paranoid that it looked like we were nicking it.
After putting it safe in the garage, Andy gave me a lift back to where we'd picked up the bike and left my car, only to find a security guy examining it suspiciously. It turned out that a nearby place had recently had a robbery with people stealing diesel. When he saw my diesel AX parked outside a JCB storage place, he'd assumed the worst, and was very relieved when he found out the true story.
As a result, I didn't feel like walking the dog when I got home and most of the evening was spent in one of those fugue states where I didn't do very much and didn't feel inspired to do anything. I played with the Monstrosity a bit, and decided that it works well enough to perhaps give it a better body and some proper electronics, and watched some videos on Youtube. It looked to be a slow evening.
But then Andy called. His housemate Steve had come off his bike in Denbigh. He was travelling up the industrial park when a car pulled out right in front of him. Fortunately he seems to be OK other than a bad leg. But the problem was that he'd been whisked off to hospital and his damaged bike was left at the side of the road where the police had left it. So it was up to Andy and I to get it back to Andy's house, by wheeling it along. Sounds easy?
Nope. For a start, motorbikes are heavier than they look. If this one, a nice Aprilia of some sort, had fallen over, it would have taken both of us to get it upright again. It was also stuck in gear, and the handlebar with the clutch on it was broken off. Not a good start. Somewhat embarassingly, we couldn't work out how to get the gearbox into neutral. So Steve called a mate of his who came along and got it into neutral after a bit of fuss, which let us finally get it moving. The first bit was downhill and we found that the front brake is rather aggressive when you're trundling it at about 3mph and it took several abrupt halts before we got used to using it to hold the thing back.
Of course, two guys trundling a nice looking bike along in the dusk gets quite a bit of attention. Boy racers in their farting Corsas jeered as they went past and one guy on a moped stopped to see what was going on. The journey took quite a while and some bits were quite awkward and there were occasional moments of panic when one of us thought the other was dropping it. It was also leaking some fluid, which didn't seem to be petrol. I somehow managed to run it over my foot on a couple of occasions too. One bit which felt dodgy was when we took it past the motorbike shop where it was actually bought and we got paranoid that it looked like we were nicking it.
After putting it safe in the garage, Andy gave me a lift back to where we'd picked up the bike and left my car, only to find a security guy examining it suspiciously. It turned out that a nearby place had recently had a robbery with people stealing diesel. When he saw my diesel AX parked outside a JCB storage place, he'd assumed the worst, and was very relieved when he found out the true story.
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Visageaggregation
Created a Facebook account after months of pestering by various people. I don't know yet if I like it or not. We'll see.
Granularity flatulantical groblence
Walked the dog and it turned out OK, despite a RIDICULOUS rainstorm a couple of hours beforehand. I was walking through reception and someone literally sprinted outside and returned, utterly soaked through, a minute or so later. He'd left the sunroof open on his car.
I saw little Squish again at lunchtime. She's doing great, has grown a lot and is starting to get playful. Apparently she even miaowed for the first time last night, so that's got to be good!
I saw little Squish again at lunchtime. She's doing great, has grown a lot and is starting to get playful. Apparently she even miaowed for the first time last night, so that's got to be good!
Monday 11 August 2008
Just why do these things happen?
Big update once again.
Friday
Had a another go with Bacula and this time it made sense enough to get a machine to run a backup. I'm going to have another play with it some time at home.
Went to see Wall-E again in the evening with some people from work. This was preceded by a meal at Frankie and Benny's, which was good as always. They do really good calamari and calzones.
Saturday
Spent the morning and afternoon at my Dad's as it was his wife's birthday. We did the usual coffee and scones and the fish and chip lunch. We did some work on my car too, fixed the rear light that wasn't working and found out why it was losing coolant. Fortunately this was just a hose clip that had fallen off. There is a droning noise however which is getting louder, which is probably a wheel bearing. Bah.
The evening was spent at Rob's with the usual crowd. The point of the evening was to watch the new Futurama, but stupidly I didn't put it in the car in the morning and didn't have time to get it. So we watched various TV shows and played some silly games. Will and I also had a go at networked Defcon, which was actually pretty good fun.
Sunday
Didn't do much, just watched an awful lot of random Futurama episodes. Also rebuilt the Eee with Windows XP, which runs nicely on it. This was a bit fraught as I didn't have any CD-ROM drive that would work on it, so I had to use some complicated way of doing it where you set up a pendrive as a boot device and use that to install the OS. It worked, but was a touch complicated.
Today
Nearly ended up with a Jack Russell this evening. I was walking past the old school and saw this cute little one just stood there. After persuading Sandy and it to be friends I found he didn't have a collar or anything to identify him. I wasn't sure what to do because it didn't look like a stray, but fortunately the owner suddenly arrived on the scene and was very grateful that I'd held onto him until she arrived. Apparently they'd just been washing him and he'd wandered off, hence why he didn't have a collar.
Also returned the umbrella I borrowed back to it's owners, which was good as I got to see the house that I helped shift the timber for last year. It looks great now that it has the outside walls all done and the roof. It was difficult to visualise it when it was just a frame, now it makes much more sense.
Friday
Had a another go with Bacula and this time it made sense enough to get a machine to run a backup. I'm going to have another play with it some time at home.
Went to see Wall-E again in the evening with some people from work. This was preceded by a meal at Frankie and Benny's, which was good as always. They do really good calamari and calzones.
Saturday
Spent the morning and afternoon at my Dad's as it was his wife's birthday. We did the usual coffee and scones and the fish and chip lunch. We did some work on my car too, fixed the rear light that wasn't working and found out why it was losing coolant. Fortunately this was just a hose clip that had fallen off. There is a droning noise however which is getting louder, which is probably a wheel bearing. Bah.
The evening was spent at Rob's with the usual crowd. The point of the evening was to watch the new Futurama, but stupidly I didn't put it in the car in the morning and didn't have time to get it. So we watched various TV shows and played some silly games. Will and I also had a go at networked Defcon, which was actually pretty good fun.
Sunday
Didn't do much, just watched an awful lot of random Futurama episodes. Also rebuilt the Eee with Windows XP, which runs nicely on it. This was a bit fraught as I didn't have any CD-ROM drive that would work on it, so I had to use some complicated way of doing it where you set up a pendrive as a boot device and use that to install the OS. It worked, but was a touch complicated.
Today
Nearly ended up with a Jack Russell this evening. I was walking past the old school and saw this cute little one just stood there. After persuading Sandy and it to be friends I found he didn't have a collar or anything to identify him. I wasn't sure what to do because it didn't look like a stray, but fortunately the owner suddenly arrived on the scene and was very grateful that I'd held onto him until she arrived. Apparently they'd just been washing him and he'd wandered off, hence why he didn't have a collar.
Also returned the umbrella I borrowed back to it's owners, which was good as I got to see the house that I helped shift the timber for last year. It looks great now that it has the outside walls all done and the roof. It was difficult to visualise it when it was just a frame, now it makes much more sense.
Thursday 7 August 2008
Funny anger
Work was reasonable. Nothing particularly interesting.
Badminton was good, had a couple of games and a shit one. Typically the shit one was when I was playing with She Who Takes It Too Seriously. Amusingly she was having a shit game too and so she got more and more angry. Unfortunately I was in one of those moods where I found it really funny so it was hard to concentrate on playing and not crack up in hysterics when she kept muttering 'shit' and once even the f-bomb. At one point her racket went rattling across the floor, whether she threw it in anger or not I don't know as I was looking the other way but it went suspiciously far.
Badminton was good, had a couple of games and a shit one. Typically the shit one was when I was playing with She Who Takes It Too Seriously. Amusingly she was having a shit game too and so she got more and more angry. Unfortunately I was in one of those moods where I found it really funny so it was hard to concentrate on playing and not crack up in hysterics when she kept muttering 'shit' and once even the f-bomb. At one point her racket went rattling across the floor, whether she threw it in anger or not I don't know as I was looking the other way but it went suspiciously far.
Wednesday 6 August 2008
XP...dark
Well, XP is finally installed and working. It took a little while to get all the drivers installed and working, especially the wireless, and then to put all the updates on. It definitely feels more responsive and the memory and hard drive footprint is much less than Vista. Also it just feels more...normal. It feels like Vista makes things harder to find with no good reason. The only game I've got on here so far is the Spore Creature Creator, which seems to run a bit better than on Vista with all the graphics options set to high.
I installed Royale Noir, an unreleased version of the Media Centre theme. It looks much better than the default Luna theme.
I installed Royale Noir, an unreleased version of the Media Centre theme. It looks much better than the default Luna theme.
Damp damp damp
Well, I completely misjudged the weather today when I took the dog for a walk. It was warm and sunny so I cheerfully set out in a t-shirt. And about half-way round, it rained. Very hard. So I found myself sheltering under a tree. Of course, the road which is usually dead quiet suddenly became full of cars with people staring at the forlorn figures under the tree. I made my way a bit further on until I found a nice alcove under another tree which kept us completely dry.
Fortunately someone I knew stopped and lent me an umbrella, which caused some stress for the dog as he found the way it suddenly and unexpectedly erected itself rather frightening and if I tried to shelter him under it as well, he didn't like it at all. Nothing looks quite as forlorn as a wet greyhound for some reason. The final indignity for him was when he got in the car, he shook himself just as I was shutting the boot and I trapped his tail in it. Not too badly fortunately but enough to make him squeak and try to run away, but with the car being so small he simply went round in a very tight circle.
I've reinstalled the spare hard drive into the Inspiron and am currently installing XP on it. I'm pretty sure that XP is going to spank Vista completely on the same hardware. I'll probably dual-boot it with Ubuntu as well to see how that runs. I wish Mac OS X ran better on it but the lack of dual-core support is a bit of a problem. One thing that annoys me is when you download drivers from Dell or whoever, they never have useful filenames.
Fortunately someone I knew stopped and lent me an umbrella, which caused some stress for the dog as he found the way it suddenly and unexpectedly erected itself rather frightening and if I tried to shelter him under it as well, he didn't like it at all. Nothing looks quite as forlorn as a wet greyhound for some reason. The final indignity for him was when he got in the car, he shook himself just as I was shutting the boot and I trapped his tail in it. Not too badly fortunately but enough to make him squeak and try to run away, but with the car being so small he simply went round in a very tight circle.
I've reinstalled the spare hard drive into the Inspiron and am currently installing XP on it. I'm pretty sure that XP is going to spank Vista completely on the same hardware. I'll probably dual-boot it with Ubuntu as well to see how that runs. I wish Mac OS X ran better on it but the lack of dual-core support is a bit of a problem. One thing that annoys me is when you download drivers from Dell or whoever, they never have useful filenames.
Tuesday 5 August 2008
Damn you Firefox
Firefox has crashed on me twice now, eating half written blog posts. God knows why but it seemed to suddenly have an aversion to Flash. Feck.
Anyway, the gist (yet again) was that I hadn't walked the dog today due to uncertain weather conditions, and that I was wanting to play Gregory Horror Show again after discussing it with Rob today. It was a very peculiar game, based on an anime show of the same name. For some reason it only cost £20 when it was new and got good reviews, so I picked it up.
It plays like a cartoon Resident Evil almost, but the characters in it are actually more disturbing than the monsters in RE. The two bears with axes stuck in their heads who can't work out why they have headaches, the little girl looking for her doll who has tantrums which can kill you, the boy with a roulette wheel built into the top of his head, and the huge pink lizard nurse who goes round draining people's blood with her enormous syringe. Even the mentor character in the early levels is Neko Zombie, a dead cat with his eyes and ears sewn up. The character that I always remember though is Judgement Boy, a living set of scales who would stop you all the time and perform judgements.
Here's an episode of the show featuring Judgement Boy. Weird stuff.
Anyway, the gist (yet again) was that I hadn't walked the dog today due to uncertain weather conditions, and that I was wanting to play Gregory Horror Show again after discussing it with Rob today. It was a very peculiar game, based on an anime show of the same name. For some reason it only cost £20 when it was new and got good reviews, so I picked it up.
It plays like a cartoon Resident Evil almost, but the characters in it are actually more disturbing than the monsters in RE. The two bears with axes stuck in their heads who can't work out why they have headaches, the little girl looking for her doll who has tantrums which can kill you, the boy with a roulette wheel built into the top of his head, and the huge pink lizard nurse who goes round draining people's blood with her enormous syringe. Even the mentor character in the early levels is Neko Zombie, a dead cat with his eyes and ears sewn up. The character that I always remember though is Judgement Boy, a living set of scales who would stop you all the time and perform judgements.
Here's an episode of the show featuring Judgement Boy. Weird stuff.
Monday 4 August 2008
Back to work
Work wasn't as bad as I thought, after a week away. It was a busy day but not as bad as it could have been and nothing had gone catastrophically wrong.
Took the dog for a walk. Didn't quite do the usual whole route but it was still good to get out into the open air after a week in London.
Photo is of the Eee resting on top of the Inspiron 9400. Not so much little and large as little and...epic. That Inspiron really is a beast. As can be seen in the photo, its still running Vista. I'm getting a little tired of it though. The Eee is still running the original Xandros Linux distro, although I've enabled the Advanced Mode which gives you a full desktop. It's pretty cool.
Took the dog for a walk. Didn't quite do the usual whole route but it was still good to get out into the open air after a week in London.
Photo is of the Eee resting on top of the Inspiron 9400. Not so much little and large as little and...epic. That Inspiron really is a beast. As can be seen in the photo, its still running Vista. I'm getting a little tired of it though. The Eee is still running the original Xandros Linux distro, although I've enabled the Advanced Mode which gives you a full desktop. It's pretty cool.
Saturday 2 August 2008
Huge update
Saturday
Saturday was Ed's BBQ, which is always great. This year was no exception and the range of costumes was excellent. I went as the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz, with Rob as the Scarecrow, Andy as the Tin Man, and Em as Dorothy. My costume was a bit shit really, just a brown top with a lion thing off Ebay and a tail. There were some really amazing costumes there, with Wez's Two-face costume being much admired. I have got quite a few pictures from it, some of which I don't remember at all.
Sunday
Sunday was the scene of probably one of the most annoying train journeys I have ever experienced. The tickets were for the usual Rhyl-Crewe-Euston journey. Upon arriving at Crewe, we found that the train from Crewe to London wasn't listed. The information desk was not helpful, just saying there had been “alterations” and refusing to elaborate.
So we had to get a train to Birmingham International on which the shop closed just as we decided we were hungry, and then had to literally jump from one train to another directly opposite. So finally we were on the right train. Unfortunately we somehow managed to get into the carriage that had air conditioning failure, causing water to trickle and sometimes gush from light fittings and gaps in the ceiling panels. The train manager appeared, handed out a few serviettes and went away again.
So finally we arrived in London and got to the hotel. Nothing especially wrong with it except it has no air-con and the weather in London is really, really hot. After the stressful train journey we didn't feel like going far to find food so we got some food in a pub round the corner, and it was pretty decent too.
Monday
First day of the course today which was interesting. We found the place reasonably easily, as it is a very short walk from Bank tube station. After some fairly diabolical sandwiches, we decided that the next day we'd get vouchers instead.
That evening consisted of a wander round the south bank and a Chinese buffet which was pretty good and reasonably priced.
Tuesday
The course continued as normal on Tuesday. Lunch was McDonald's because we took the vouchers out but got lost.
The evening consisted of the Dark Knight on the IMAX. It is a pretty decent film and it was a great introduction to IMAX.
Wednesday
Lunch was Pret a Manger, which I'd never been in before. It was what they called a sandwich without bread, with falafel, humous, salad and various dressings. Really pretty decent.
1
After that I took a wander up to Tottenham Court Road where there are various electronics shops. I was vaguely looking for an Asus Eee PC, as I hadn't brought anything with me and I know they are cheap and decent. Bizarrely, I ran into a guy from the course in a shop, who had taken a totally different route to get there and was also shopping for an Eee. He was after the new high-end 901, while I was after the basic 701 with the smallest 7” screen. I had a change of heart though at the last minute, and I ended up with a 900, in black, with Linux. The Windows version is the same price but only has a 12gb SSD while the Linux version has a 20gb. The 901 has some significant improvements, a 1.6ghz Atom processor and a better battery and power management, but the cost is also more. I wish I'd got the 701 though it was quite a bit cheaper. Still, I'm happy with it and it really is a anti-behemoth after the Inspiron 9400.
After a horrendous journey on the Piccadilly line, I dropped the Eee back at the hotel and met up with my colleague again at Covent Garden. We went to the nearby Belgo's for a meal as recommended by Rob. It is a brilliant place. I had the Wild Boar sausage and mash, which was fantastic. This was followed by proper schnapps, none of this Archer's crap. The place also has really bizarre and interesting toilets.
Thursday and Friday
Thursday evening basically consisted of a visit to Hamburger Union which was pretty good, and the frustration of just missing an east bound Piccadilly line train, and then being told that the east bound line was shutting down. Friday was another crappy train journey, with a far too short overfilled train, but at least it was direct this time.
Today
I had been planning to have a lazy day but when Rob texted me that the Ospreys were training in Rhyl, I thought it might be interesting. It was actually pretty cool and the weather was really good. It was slightly bizarre to see the players close up, they looked huge but also surprisingly human if that makes sense. The undoubted highlight was seeing Vicky getting all flustered as she got her picture taken with James Hook. She said to him “You're very tall,” showing that humans truly do take to stating the obvious under stress.
Saturday was Ed's BBQ, which is always great. This year was no exception and the range of costumes was excellent. I went as the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz, with Rob as the Scarecrow, Andy as the Tin Man, and Em as Dorothy. My costume was a bit shit really, just a brown top with a lion thing off Ebay and a tail. There were some really amazing costumes there, with Wez's Two-face costume being much admired. I have got quite a few pictures from it, some of which I don't remember at all.
Sunday
Sunday was the scene of probably one of the most annoying train journeys I have ever experienced. The tickets were for the usual Rhyl-Crewe-Euston journey. Upon arriving at Crewe, we found that the train from Crewe to London wasn't listed. The information desk was not helpful, just saying there had been “alterations” and refusing to elaborate.
So we had to get a train to Birmingham International on which the shop closed just as we decided we were hungry, and then had to literally jump from one train to another directly opposite. So finally we were on the right train. Unfortunately we somehow managed to get into the carriage that had air conditioning failure, causing water to trickle and sometimes gush from light fittings and gaps in the ceiling panels. The train manager appeared, handed out a few serviettes and went away again.
So finally we arrived in London and got to the hotel. Nothing especially wrong with it except it has no air-con and the weather in London is really, really hot. After the stressful train journey we didn't feel like going far to find food so we got some food in a pub round the corner, and it was pretty decent too.
Monday
First day of the course today which was interesting. We found the place reasonably easily, as it is a very short walk from Bank tube station. After some fairly diabolical sandwiches, we decided that the next day we'd get vouchers instead.
That evening consisted of a wander round the south bank and a Chinese buffet which was pretty good and reasonably priced.
Tuesday
The course continued as normal on Tuesday. Lunch was McDonald's because we took the vouchers out but got lost.
The evening consisted of the Dark Knight on the IMAX. It is a pretty decent film and it was a great introduction to IMAX.
Wednesday
Lunch was Pret a Manger, which I'd never been in before. It was what they called a sandwich without bread, with falafel, humous, salad and various dressings. Really pretty decent.
1
After that I took a wander up to Tottenham Court Road where there are various electronics shops. I was vaguely looking for an Asus Eee PC, as I hadn't brought anything with me and I know they are cheap and decent. Bizarrely, I ran into a guy from the course in a shop, who had taken a totally different route to get there and was also shopping for an Eee. He was after the new high-end 901, while I was after the basic 701 with the smallest 7” screen. I had a change of heart though at the last minute, and I ended up with a 900, in black, with Linux. The Windows version is the same price but only has a 12gb SSD while the Linux version has a 20gb. The 901 has some significant improvements, a 1.6ghz Atom processor and a better battery and power management, but the cost is also more. I wish I'd got the 701 though it was quite a bit cheaper. Still, I'm happy with it and it really is a anti-behemoth after the Inspiron 9400.
After a horrendous journey on the Piccadilly line, I dropped the Eee back at the hotel and met up with my colleague again at Covent Garden. We went to the nearby Belgo's for a meal as recommended by Rob. It is a brilliant place. I had the Wild Boar sausage and mash, which was fantastic. This was followed by proper schnapps, none of this Archer's crap. The place also has really bizarre and interesting toilets.
Thursday and Friday
Thursday evening basically consisted of a visit to Hamburger Union which was pretty good, and the frustration of just missing an east bound Piccadilly line train, and then being told that the east bound line was shutting down. Friday was another crappy train journey, with a far too short overfilled train, but at least it was direct this time.Today
I had been planning to have a lazy day but when Rob texted me that the Ospreys were training in Rhyl, I thought it might be interesting. It was actually pretty cool and the weather was really good. It was slightly bizarre to see the players close up, they looked huge but also surprisingly human if that makes sense. The undoubted highlight was seeing Vicky getting all flustered as she got her picture taken with James Hook. She said to him “You're very tall,” showing that humans truly do take to stating the obvious under stress.
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