Sunday, 28 February 2010

Weekend

Friday was spent with Andy, Rob and the usual gang watching the rugby in the local pub. It was a good evening, made slightly more interesting by there being a whole load of people from the last company I worked for including someone who left before I was made redundant. Wales didn't win but otherwise it was a good evening.

Yesterday was off to Crewe for a Wii night with the people I used to work with. It was a good evening, although calling it a Wii night was a bit wrong as the hosts now have a PS3 as well and it was that which saw all the action. First there was a mixture of Rock Band and some retro gaming (including nearly completing Streets of Rage on the Megadrive collection), then yet more Rock Band, and then after a Chinese feast, everyone settled down to watch the new Star Trek movie on Bluray before finally retiring to bed. This morning it was up for an excellent fried breakfast, before heading back home.

Spent the rest of the day not doing much due to tiredness. Played around on the laptop and watched half of Terminator Salvation before getting bored. Also found the black base coat on the double neck body had dried so put the colour coat on. Looks identical to the other body so far, so it should look OK.

Listed some more retro computer stuff on Ebay and for the first time had rather a weird feeling about doing it. Collecting retro computers and stuff has been something I've done since my mid-teens and to now start clearing it all out is making me feel rather strange. Been in a weird mood the last couple of days though, so who knows.

I got some new clippers last week and so was able to shave my head again yesterday morning, what a great feeling it was. I'm not used to having any hair growth at all so it was nice to get rid of it.

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Crap

Sometimes, the idea of getting a one way ticket to somewhere new and just leaving everything behind seems so damned appealing.

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Red Bull chaos

Felt really tired in work in the morning so when I went out for lunch, picked up a can of Red Bull. I did have my doubts as to whether this was a good idea or not but it did get me going for the afternoon, but the comedown wasn't good.

Really tired this evening now, but about to have a nice shower as the water has finally unfrozen.

Wish the plaster would dry in the wall, want to paint it and get the room done. The double neck seems to be drying nicely, shouldn't be too long before I can smooth the primer off and put the black base coat on.

Hair is getting too long but my clippers died. Need new ones, bah. I hate my hair now, it's so shit. It's disappearing but in a really stupid way.

Caved in and put the money from Ebay into a Toughbook CF-18, the convertible tablet one. It's a cheap one that's seen plenty of action judging by the wear on it but it works fine. It's frustrating that Panasonic make the hardware top notch but their support for drivers and things is absolutely atrocious. I tried XP on it, but had issues. Windows 7 was even worse, and so now it's got Ubuntu 9.10 on it as it installed and everything works straightaway. The only thing which is proving a bit annoying is screen rotation - doable with a bit of shell scripting though. It could do with some more RAM and possibly a bigger faster hard drive, but otherwise is nice.

Tried several creams on my face, and all they seem to do is make the flaky bits that come off soft, so that's not really very helpful. I think I'm going to have to see the doctor about it, as it's getting really annoying and disgusting.

Monday, 22 February 2010

Brrr

Car one solid piece of ice this morning, really bloody cold.

Frustrating and annoying day in work, not hugely productive and due to a completely ridiculous issue with payroll details, unable to put a laptop in for a new starter as there were no login details, and so I ended up being hassled three times by different people about it, even though it wasn't my fault.

Can't wait for one site to close down and go away but it's been apparently closing every Easter for the last three years. While attempting to locate someone's dead backup server, I found a different mysterious server tucked away in a room humming away to itself. Someone had mentioned it to me before wondering what it was and what it did, turned out it's the Notes server. It's now redundant so it might be captured and put to better use - i.e, replacing the dead backup server which shows no signs of life at all.

Went to the gym again, had a good session although there's only two cross trainers and one was broken so didn't get to go on that frustratingly. Did everything else though so feel OK. I love the weights machines there, really easy to use.

Sunday, 21 February 2010

Lazy day

Quite a lazy day. The morning was spent playing some more Halo 3 with Rob and Will as Rob's copy of Stories from Liberty City hadn't turned up. Halo is a frustrating game, sometimes it really is so blatantly obvious that it's a very linear game and the last level of Halo 3 is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

The rest of the day was a bit lazy really, just flobbed around and didn't do much. Read some stuff and fooled around on the CPC emulator again.

The three Ebay auctions ended. I got £57 for the Acorn Atom, £19 for the Toshiba HX-10 and £22.50 for the Z88. Not too shabby really. Made a profit on them all, even the Z88 which I think I paid £15 for originally. I did have a slight hope that the Atom might turn out to be one of those freak auctions where it went for a ridiculous amount, but since I'm sure I only paid a quid for it, £57 isn't half bad. There's still a lot more I can put on there but I'm running out of things like boxes and bubblewrap. It feels great to be finally clearing out all the crap though, just need to have the resolve to not get more crap instead.

Snow is still here although quite a lot of it has melted.

The primer seems to be drying nicely on the double neck although it'll need some smoothing before the paint goes on. Really looking forward to getting it painted and all back together. Going to cost a little though as it'll need the new pickups and two new sets of strings. Then it'll be time to start on the next one...maybe. I think the double neck idea works OK but it would be nice to have a more ergonomically designed body, but then that raises questions of wood, power tools, etc.

Still achy from the gym yesterday, but in a good way.

Saturday, 20 February 2010

It's begun

Yesterday was a fairly stressful day but was over surprisingly quickly. Had a good time at badminton in the evening, although for some reason the floor was really slippery. I thought it was my shoes at first but other people commented on it too. In one match I fell over and slid under the net which was embarrassing, though funny.

Read the latest volume of The Boys that Rob lent me. Just when you think it can't get any more outrageous...well. Still good though.

Snow today. Annoying, but it was crappy slushy stuff and it didn't stop me getting back home after going out. I went to get some primer for the doubleneck body, some shopping and to do my first proper workout at the gym. Saturday lunchtime is obviously a good time to go as there was barely anyone there, which was great.

Pulled the doubleneck apart again, which didn't take long. It's now having the primer put on which is going OK. By the time it comes to reassembling it, it will be payday so I think I'll get a new pair of pickups for it - the ones I was using before weren't very good. Think I'm going to strip the paint off the headstock of the fretted neck too so they match better but that's not too urgent. Also found a guy who will make custom decals and I wondered about getting one made up, but wasn't sure what it could read - then the obvious hit me - 'The DoubleL'. Well, perhaps not, but it would be fun.

Typing this on the little CF-M34 Toughbook again. It's not often I come across a machine that can justifiably be described as 'cute' but this is it. It's small, compact, perfectly proportioned and has a carrying handle. I wish it was a later version of it though, later ones had faster processors and less weird RAM issues. Quite impressed that the battery still holds a good charge though.

Plaster in room drying nicely. Can't wait until I can paint the wall and get the room back together.

Found a site online that has the complete run of Zoids comics, which is proving quite interesting and I remember some of it but not all. I loved the Zoids toys as a kid, absolutely fantastic.

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Fat day

Due to various reasons, for lunch, myself and two colleagues went to the brilliant Spaven's sweet shop in Ruthin and indulged in pancakes. I had two with chocolate spread and marshmallows - beautiful. Otherwise work was a bit meh.

The Atom is up to £25 with 11 bids and 19 watchers - not bad, think I paid a quid for it. The HX-10 and Z88 also have bids, which is nice.

Plaster is drying nicely, can't wait to be able to start painting the wall and getting the room back to normal. Then need to do the other half of the room, although there's not quite so much crap there. Still needs tidying up though.

Went to Thursday badminton for the first time in ages, which was good. Had some pretty energetic games but probably not enough to offset the pancakes. Oh well.

Wednesday, 17 February 2010

Sod

The HX-10 and the Atom have bids already, and quite a few watchers, especially on the Atom. Should be interesting to see how much they go for. Payday tomorrow. Still undecided about getting the data recovery done on the SD card, although if the computer sell for enough, it all helps.

Did my proper gym induction yesterday.

Had a bad moment where I nearly bought a Stagg pointy metal bass with a damaged headstock, but came to my senses. Last thing I need right now is another project bass.

Watched more BSG Season 3, really liking it.

Tired, dispirited. Work is deterioriating again. Just seems so damned pointless sometimes. Feel the same way tonight, can't be motivated to do anything in particular.

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Room fixed (almost)

Well, the roof is sorted out and the wall plastered. The room already feels warmer because of the new insulation in that corner. The plaster needs to dry for a while and then the wall will need to be painted.

Finally got the Commodore stuff sent off. Listed some more stuff on Ebay, a Toshiba HX-10 MSX computer, an Acorn Atom and a Cambridge Z88. Not expecting to get much for them but it all helps and it's nice to reclaim the space. Still loads more to go yet.

Of the three SPs, I still couldn't get the backlit one to display, and the black frontlit one had a water damaged motherboard that worked but had issues. So I moved the good motherboard from pink one into the black one. Now playing Wario Land II on it, which is an excellent game. I had the original black and white version way back when but now got the colour version. Really good game. I never played the third one on the Game Boy Color but did have Wario Land 4 on the Advance.

The paint has arrived for the doubleneck. Just can't quite face taking it all apart yet and also need to get some primer for it. Tempted to dismantle the pink SP and try giving that a coating of the paint at the same time.

Friday, 12 February 2010

Clearout

So many things turn up when you have a clearout. Found the remnants of a DS from when I built one out of two broken ones, and lots of other things. Got a big pile of stuff to put on Ebay and had a nice bonfire with some various things and some failed bass projects. When I move stuff back in the room will be laid out differently so it will hopefully be easier to keep clean. I'm absolutely determined now not to be so stupid when it comes to impulsively buying crap, for both financial reasons and this reason.

Despite moving a load of stuff, haven't found where the damned mice are lurking. I hate them, they figured out how to get in and out of my industrial humane mouse trap. It's getting to the point where I'm thinking about getting more lethal traps but I hate the aftermath.

Got a battery for the SPs - all three power up and work but the backlit one doesn't display anything - argh! When I've got the room sorted out I'll have a look inside - perhaps a loose connection. Even with just a white screen though, the display quality is much better than the standard SP.

Decided to get a geocoin, called a World Traveller. I'm going to release it and see if it can actually travel anywhere. It's activated now fine so it just needs to be put in a cache somewhere. The problem is with these things is that they look so nice people tend to keep them. Still haven't found the bloody GPS though. I've got the charger and USB cable but where it's gone, I've got no idea. I have found other interesting things though:

A blue PlayStation - one of the developer models
A 233mhz Wallstreet PowerBook G3
Several Macintosh Plus keyboards and mice
A 486 laptop that looks like a clone of PowerBooks of that era, to the point of having SCSI
The remains of several old Dell PII laptops that gradually disintegrated as I used them, so I'd constantly be shuffling parts around and rebuilding them into a working machine. I used them to play the Sims if I remember rightly. Dell stuff is ridiculously better these days.
My old GameBoy Camera, which still has the pictures I took with it, some over ten years ago

Thursday, 11 February 2010

Fun week

Work has been better this week and I've got tomorrow off. Not a day of leisure unfortunately, need to empty my room so the wall can be replastered. Nightmare. Good chance to have a sort out and rearrange stuff though. Might even find the f**king GPS.

Very intrigued by the idea of geocoins and travel bugs, things that you put in geocaches to get people to move them from cache to cache. For example I could drop one in a cache in Berlin with a mission to get back to Wales and see if it makes it back. I've logged discoveries of a few (where you see them but don't take them) and taken two that I need to move on to other caches.

Decided that I really fancied a good retro gaming sesh on some old Game Boy games but I don't have a decent one. The SP was definitely the highlight of the range - I absolutely adored my SP but I traded it and all the games I had for it to get my original DS.

However, having decided on an SP, I wanted to get the later backlit one with a better screen. After some research I found it never seemed to have been released in the UK, so I didn't hold up much hope of finding one. Then I came across a job lot of three SPs on Ebay for £15, which included decent pictures - one of them was the AGS-101 model with the improved screen. It's very worn but seems OK but none of the three had batteries so I haven't been able to test them yet. The other two are the standard ones. One is pink, bleh. Might be a candidate for a repaint if I get bored enough.

My cousin is doing well but will need three sessions of chemo and some radiotherapy too, urgh. Think the prognosis is good though.

Scavenged a load of boxes for the Commodore stuff I just sold on Ebay. Got £70 for it but the guy lives in Kent and wants to send a courier. Oh well.

Tuesday, 9 February 2010

Monday, 8 February 2010

Torn

OK, so I've heard from a company who think they can recover the data from the damaged 8gb SD card. Now, it's just a case of trying to justify the cost of doing it. I think I know why it happened too, I've got a bad habit of constantly removing the card from the E90 and putting it into a card reader rather than just hooking up the Mini USB and I can only imagine that's put stress on the card. SanDisk have a 5 year warranty on them but that doesn't include any form of data recovery.

Oh well. I'm going to have a think about it. Serves me right if I do have to pay for it - given that one of my duties in work is to assist with the backup system I should have kept more on top of it. I do it with my various other machines, damn it. If I do go ahead and do it, it basically means putting the paint bass on hold for another month and perhaps not starting to paint the doubleneck. Bugger and balls.

Still haven't found my GPS either, what a pain. I HATE it when you move something to somewhere safe and then can't remember where that was. I'm worried now that I've actually lost it somewhere outside the house.

Just found a Sharp PC-1350 which I completely forgot I had. Seems like quite a cool little thing, although it needs new batteries. Oooh, and a Game Boy Pocket with a copy of Faceball 2000, a weird little game in full 3D, awesome. I played a few good games on the old Game Boy, the Wario Land series in particular were excellent games. Hmm, wonder if I've still got any of the old games around.

Oh yeah, and the big fat DSi XL looks hilarious - a giant DS which Nintendo won't admit is for old people. I'd have one though, if it makes it easier on the eyes then I'm all for it.

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Argh

Long day, lots of walking, lots of caches found. Very tired now. Night caching was interesting and pretty cool.

Catastrophe though, at some point in the evening the 8gb MicroSD card in my E90 got corrupted, and nothing will read it any more. Recovery software sees every sector on the card as bad, which indicates the controller on the card has failed. What is really annoying is that I set up a backup system for it but hadn't done it since September. Balls! Took some great pics today too in the mist. It might be possible to send it off to a company to pull it apart and read the flash chip directly but it would probably be expensive. Really annoyed with myself, only the other day I was thinking it was about time I backed it up again. Not too fussed about most of the stuff on there but there was a lot of images on there.

Friday, 5 February 2010

Weekend

Finally the weekend, what a hellish week.

Tomorrow = a geocaching event type thing which unfortunately conflicts with the first rugby games of the Six Nations, a terrible miscalculation on my part as I can't spent the day watching them with Andy and Maz - sorry guys.

Tired after badminton, was feeling really down and depressed before I went but feel much better now. Still gutted about tomorrow though.

The bass body is drying nicely so I've brought it into the house to continue. Looks decent. Probably going to put black hardware on it so as not to distract from the paint.

My cousin is home from the hospital and doing really well, so that's good news.

My skin has been really bad this week, facial dandruff and spots and things all going on, which is really annoying. Perhaps it was the stress in work that caused it to flare up rather than food, which is an intriguing possibility, although rather more difficult to try and avoid.

Fuck it all.

One of those days.

Thursday, 4 February 2010

More Ebay stuff

Unix guy is back in on Monday, hopefully will make work more tolerable, still got loads to do but it will be a relief to not have to worry about the Unix machines and backup system.

Listed a load of old Commodore stuff on Ebay, a huge lot of it. A couple of Amigas and a lot of 8-bite stuff. Hopefully someone will be able to make use of it as I don't want to trash it, but who knows. Ebay can be quite unpredictable as to what will sell and for how much.

Clear coat still drying, but looks good.

In a weird place at the moment, think I've managed to piss someone off but I can't imagine how or why and it's really bothering me.

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Not a particularly good day. Flexi balance improving, should have a couple of hours of credit after being negative since about November.

Tired, depressed and not motivated to do anything about weight, fitness, work, or anything really. No point.

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Chameleon paint 2

OK, forget what I said about the chameleon paint being subtle. After a few more coats were applied the effect was much more pronounced. I fucked up a little though by bringing it in from the shed too soon after applying the last coat, and it got some condensation on it which made it a bit misty. It had dried by this evening though and so I was able to give it a bit of a polish and that made it look better. Started putting the clear coat on and it looks really nice, hopefully it will dry like that without too much hassle. Quite amazed that it came out so well.

I wish I'd kept some of the paint aside and done the headstock of the neck at the same time but I can always do that in the future. I'm not sure the neck is going to look quite right on it as it has a maple fingerboard but it's the only one I have spare and I can't afford to buy a new one for it.

Work improved slightly today so that was good.

Edit: Had a good look at the neck I was going to use and it's actually got issues so will look into a replacement next payday. Gives it plenty of time for the clearcoat to dry anyway.

Monday, 1 February 2010

Chameleon paint

Work is a bit of a nightmare at the moment. If it's a case of sink or swim I'm definitely floundering at the moment.

The black coat on the bass body had dried when I got home so started putting on the chameleon paint layer. The effect is quite subtle but it looks really nice. Should be great when it's all put together. I've got all the parts for it already except the electronics and pickup. To make life easier it's going to have an active EMG pickup and circuit which comes all prewired although it'll be a bit pricey. Definitely a case of making sure it plays well before actually ordering the electronics.

As the paint looks like it's going to be a success, I need to look into getting the doubleneck done. The big downside is of course taking the whole damn thing apart again, which will be a bit of a pain. Also I need to order more paint as it will take more than a normal body and I can't afford to do it this month so I'll have to see how that goes.

Going to watch a film in a minute, just not sure which.