Spent most of the day with Rob and Em. First Rob and went through some proofreading I'd done for him. Normally I leave it with him but this time we went through it together, and it worked really well. Being able to explain my reasoning for changing something was good and sometimes we'd change it again or rewrite bits entirely. All good except it took two hours to do three pages of twenty-seven. Oh well.
After that we went into town to have lunch and to pick up some things and also so I could see how Specsavers had fucked up my new glasses. Turns out that the frames I'd ordered didn't take my prescription with standard lenses, even though the woman said they would. The manager tried to say it was my fault but I didn't have any of that. I don't mind paying extra for the thinner lenses, just wish they'd got it right the first time.
After that we sat and watched a film called Salt, which was quite strange and basically consisted of a scarily skeletal Angelina Jolie charging round blowing stuff up. It wasn't too bad.
Lazy evening. Also it's cold.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Friday, 28 January 2011
Wait, what?
Fable 3 was quite fun for a while, charging round making people like you so you could defeat your evil tyrant brother. And then, after short and easy battle, you've defeated him and are suddenly king. Then you find out that some evil dark is going to consume the country in exactly a year's time and it's now up to you to sort it out. So basically you can either spend some money to do up the country and make people happy but then they will die, or you can save money to build an army to defeat the dark but in doing so make everyone hate you. Also there's some git who now hassles you to make decisions on tax regulations, castle decorations and other things. Great.
It's like the Kobayashi Maru all over again. I'd done the same as Fable 2, been generally good with a slight hint of menace. I'm somewhat doubtful that my property empire will pay for the battle so I think the populace is fucked. Oh well.
It's like the Kobayashi Maru all over again. I'd done the same as Fable 2, been generally good with a slight hint of menace. I'm somewhat doubtful that my property empire will pay for the battle so I think the populace is fucked. Oh well.
Blampy week
It's been an odd week. Work has been continuously busy and very stressful, and most days I've come home in no fit state to do anything except blurge in front of a DVD or the Xbox.
Got the car fixed on Monday afternoon. It took a little while but I took The Algebraist by Iain M Banks which I'm still ploughing through. At least the car now feels good again. I hate it when the car is loud, makes it feel slower. One curious thing, nobody seemed to notice my rather loud car, except for hoody wearing chavs who would spin around to see if it was one of their boy racer pals. How odd.
On Wednesday I took my sister's new laptop around to hers and we had a good chat and catch up. I tried to imply subtly she should look after it a bit better than the previous one...
Not much else. No badminton due to Rob and Em doing stuff. Met up with Amy and Simon from my last workplace for a farewell lunch before Simon heads off to Gibraltar with his company. Embarrassingly I got Gibraltar confused with Guernsey for some reason which led to a thoroughly confusing conversation for a few minutes.
Did some light painting and stencilling this evening. The stencil worked OK but the light painting was more of a success. The best was where I drew around the car with an LED torch, that came out really well.
Got the car fixed on Monday afternoon. It took a little while but I took The Algebraist by Iain M Banks which I'm still ploughing through. At least the car now feels good again. I hate it when the car is loud, makes it feel slower. One curious thing, nobody seemed to notice my rather loud car, except for hoody wearing chavs who would spin around to see if it was one of their boy racer pals. How odd.
On Wednesday I took my sister's new laptop around to hers and we had a good chat and catch up. I tried to imply subtly she should look after it a bit better than the previous one...
Not much else. No badminton due to Rob and Em doing stuff. Met up with Amy and Simon from my last workplace for a farewell lunch before Simon heads off to Gibraltar with his company. Embarrassingly I got Gibraltar confused with Guernsey for some reason which led to a thoroughly confusing conversation for a few minutes.
Did some light painting and stencilling this evening. The stencil worked OK but the light painting was more of a success. The best was where I drew around the car with an LED torch, that came out really well.
Sunday, 23 January 2011
I hate cars
Took the car to be looked at and it's gone at the front end. There's a flexible bit after the manifold and it's that which has gone. Annoyingly it's all one piece so it all needs to be replaced, expensive. It's going in tomorrow afternoon for that to be done.
After that watched Eastern Promises which was really good, wasn't sure if it was my type of film but I thought it was great. Not really what you expect from the premise.
Took the dog out for a walk, which was good, and then took the bike out. For some reason it was a complete sod to start today, had to jump it off the Focus again and even then it took ages to get it going. Once it evenntually started though it went fine.
Didn't do much else except listen to music and build a new Asus laptop for my sister to replace her old broken HP which I recently flogged on Ebay.
After that watched Eastern Promises which was really good, wasn't sure if it was my type of film but I thought it was great. Not really what you expect from the premise.
Took the dog out for a walk, which was good, and then took the bike out. For some reason it was a complete sod to start today, had to jump it off the Focus again and even then it took ages to get it going. Once it evenntually started though it went fine.
Didn't do much else except listen to music and build a new Asus laptop for my sister to replace her old broken HP which I recently flogged on Ebay.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Success
The overtime this morning was pretty pointless, we were done in an hour and a half. After that, went to Rhyl and ordered new glasses, and managed to find a HDMI to DVI adapter for the HP.
Got home and attempted to fit the new wing to the car, but it was a pain so gave up and will get someone to do it who actually knows what they're doing.
Watched Inception on Bluray. Such a good film, even on a repeat viewing. It looked good, but not really sure if the Bluray makes all that much difference. The copy I got included a DVD too, so I suppose I could compare if I get bored enough. The HP is hooked up to the amp using standard stereo at the moment, which worked pretty well. I will look into the possibility of getting a digital audio signal out of it, but annoyingly that might require more hardware. The other thing that would be nice is a remote, and I know some HP DV series laptops came with a small remote that slotted into the ExpressCard slot but I don't know if this one did.
Decided to scrap the VirtualBox machine and just share out the second hard drive using Windows, seemed a bit silly really to have all that when it can just do it anyway.
Off to Maz's birthday meal in a bit, can't wait.
Got home and attempted to fit the new wing to the car, but it was a pain so gave up and will get someone to do it who actually knows what they're doing.
Watched Inception on Bluray. Such a good film, even on a repeat viewing. It looked good, but not really sure if the Bluray makes all that much difference. The copy I got included a DVD too, so I suppose I could compare if I get bored enough. The HP is hooked up to the amp using standard stereo at the moment, which worked pretty well. I will look into the possibility of getting a digital audio signal out of it, but annoyingly that might require more hardware. The other thing that would be nice is a remote, and I know some HP DV series laptops came with a small remote that slotted into the ExpressCard slot but I don't know if this one did.
Decided to scrap the VirtualBox machine and just share out the second hard drive using Windows, seemed a bit silly really to have all that when it can just do it anyway.
Off to Maz's birthday meal in a bit, can't wait.
Friday, 21 January 2011
RARGH week
Work = dreadful, and I'm doing more overtime tomorrow morning, which I really don't want to do. Oh well.
Decided the Latitude D400 has got a bit past it when it comes to running as my MP3 player as I wanted to try playing video from a machine attached to the 23" monitor I use instead of a TV. The D400 does have DVI via the dock but it just hasn't got the graphics poke to play any meaningful form of video.
So the cunning plan is replace it with a HP DV7-1103ea laptop bought with Ebay proceeds. It's a big fat thing with gobbets of tasteless chrome and white LEDs, a 17" screen, a dual-core Turion, 4gb RAM, 250gb hard drive and, most importantly, a Bluray drive. The idea is to get a HDMI to DVI adapter to hook it up to the screen and some sort of digital audio connection to the surround amp. The second part was to stick a spare second 250gb hard drive in it (dual bays rule) and set up a VirtualBox machine on it to replace the FreeNAS VM on the Atom server, which I can then get rid of. The Atom machine hasn't been used for much beyond that as the 7741g can do virtualisation much faster.
So far the HP is working OK. It's missing the battery, the case is a little battered and the screen is a bit dim, but none of those matter for what it will be used for. I've rebuilt it with a fresh install of Windows 7 and it plays Blurays quite happily. The VirtualBox and FreeNAS setup went fine with the only real issue being that file transfers to it are rather slower than to the ESXi VM, even though the HP is using gigabit. Not sure why, but perhaps VirtualBox only emulates a 100mb network card. Shouldn't matter too much though.
The HP is running a little hot, but I know Turions tend to anyway from my experiences with the Acer 5535, so it might be normal, and getting at the CPU to clean out and regunk the heatsink might be a pain from what I read. When I played a Bluray, it stayed quite cool as I think most of the work is done by the graphics chip.
Went to the gym twice, did a good walk, and played badminton all this week, so I'm feeling good about that, but less good about the fairly poor diet. But never mind. Tomorrow is bound to be bad, as it's Maz's birthday meal in the new Asia restaurant in Denbigh. I've had a takeaway from there and it was great, so I'm really looking forward to that. Also going to order new glasses, get a haircut (first time in ages) and go to the gym.
Still can't summon up the courage to run on a treadmill. I'm happy enough walking on one, but I'm scared of running on it. It's probably got something to do with when one cut out on me at full speed in Rhyl a few years ago.
Building cars using genetic algorithms, quite fun to watch:
http://megaswf.com/serve/102223/
After getting the latest Oomph! album Monster and liking it, I got the previous one, GlaubeLiebeTod, which is pretty good. Sort of industrial type stuff.
Decided the Latitude D400 has got a bit past it when it comes to running as my MP3 player as I wanted to try playing video from a machine attached to the 23" monitor I use instead of a TV. The D400 does have DVI via the dock but it just hasn't got the graphics poke to play any meaningful form of video.
So the cunning plan is replace it with a HP DV7-1103ea laptop bought with Ebay proceeds. It's a big fat thing with gobbets of tasteless chrome and white LEDs, a 17" screen, a dual-core Turion, 4gb RAM, 250gb hard drive and, most importantly, a Bluray drive. The idea is to get a HDMI to DVI adapter to hook it up to the screen and some sort of digital audio connection to the surround amp. The second part was to stick a spare second 250gb hard drive in it (dual bays rule) and set up a VirtualBox machine on it to replace the FreeNAS VM on the Atom server, which I can then get rid of. The Atom machine hasn't been used for much beyond that as the 7741g can do virtualisation much faster.
So far the HP is working OK. It's missing the battery, the case is a little battered and the screen is a bit dim, but none of those matter for what it will be used for. I've rebuilt it with a fresh install of Windows 7 and it plays Blurays quite happily. The VirtualBox and FreeNAS setup went fine with the only real issue being that file transfers to it are rather slower than to the ESXi VM, even though the HP is using gigabit. Not sure why, but perhaps VirtualBox only emulates a 100mb network card. Shouldn't matter too much though.
The HP is running a little hot, but I know Turions tend to anyway from my experiences with the Acer 5535, so it might be normal, and getting at the CPU to clean out and regunk the heatsink might be a pain from what I read. When I played a Bluray, it stayed quite cool as I think most of the work is done by the graphics chip.
Went to the gym twice, did a good walk, and played badminton all this week, so I'm feeling good about that, but less good about the fairly poor diet. But never mind. Tomorrow is bound to be bad, as it's Maz's birthday meal in the new Asia restaurant in Denbigh. I've had a takeaway from there and it was great, so I'm really looking forward to that. Also going to order new glasses, get a haircut (first time in ages) and go to the gym.
Still can't summon up the courage to run on a treadmill. I'm happy enough walking on one, but I'm scared of running on it. It's probably got something to do with when one cut out on me at full speed in Rhyl a few years ago.
Building cars using genetic algorithms, quite fun to watch:
http://megaswf.com/serve/102223/
After getting the latest Oomph! album Monster and liking it, I got the previous one, GlaubeLiebeTod, which is pretty good. Sort of industrial type stuff.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Possessed pocket
Work was decidedly meh today, but not quite as bad as previous days.
Took the dog for a walk after work and remembered to try out the Cardio Trainer app for Android. If you go for a run or walk it uses the GPS to work out how far you've gone and how many calories you've used. It worked quite well but I didn't realise it would speak information every minute so I would get a voice emerging from my pocket telling me how fast I was walking or how far I'd gone. Quite cool though and it seemed fairly accurate. It was a bloody cold walk though. Also I went in my wellies which was a bad idea as I almost got blisters.
Had a play with the 7741g. Found a utility that monitors the i7 and tells you what the CPU is doing. I was surprised how often it would overclock if one core was being hammered, up to 2.8ghz but it stayed relatively cool. When Intel first announced the TurboBoost thing, I thought it sounded stupid but it makes more sense seeing it working. The extra RAM and the i7 really have helped VirtualBox though, the VMs feel like they're running on the native hardware. The only other upgrades I could do now are a 7200rpm hard drive and possibly a Bluray optical drive, but they are hardly necessary.
Booked flight to Berlin at the end of March to go over for the half-marathon which Amogharatna is running. Really looking forward to it.
Took the dog for a walk after work and remembered to try out the Cardio Trainer app for Android. If you go for a run or walk it uses the GPS to work out how far you've gone and how many calories you've used. It worked quite well but I didn't realise it would speak information every minute so I would get a voice emerging from my pocket telling me how fast I was walking or how far I'd gone. Quite cool though and it seemed fairly accurate. It was a bloody cold walk though. Also I went in my wellies which was a bad idea as I almost got blisters.
Had a play with the 7741g. Found a utility that monitors the i7 and tells you what the CPU is doing. I was surprised how often it would overclock if one core was being hammered, up to 2.8ghz but it stayed relatively cool. When Intel first announced the TurboBoost thing, I thought it sounded stupid but it makes more sense seeing it working. The extra RAM and the i7 really have helped VirtualBox though, the VMs feel like they're running on the native hardware. The only other upgrades I could do now are a 7200rpm hard drive and possibly a Bluray optical drive, but they are hardly necessary.
Booked flight to Berlin at the end of March to go over for the half-marathon which Amogharatna is running. Really looking forward to it.
Monday, 17 January 2011
Shaky legs
After the laptop upgrade success, I went to the gym for the first time in ages. It was really good in the end, and I feel good afterwards.I can see why they say exercise is therapeutic as I was feeling rather crap after work but feel much better now.
Laptop still running OK. The i7 is idling at about 40 degrees which isn't bad. It did get a little warm when I ran a stress test that maxed it out completely but I doubt that will ever happen under normal use.
Laptop still running OK. The i7 is idling at about 40 degrees which isn't bad. It did get a little warm when I ran a stress test that maxed it out completely but I doubt that will ever happen under normal use.
The Great Experiment
The weekend was good, my cousin Pauline and Amogharatna were both staying over at my Dad's so I spent Saturday and Sunday morning hanging out there with them. It was a good day, with a great lunch and lots of conversation and things. We watched Dinner for One three times, once the original, once in colour, and once in Lego. Very funny. Also did some long exposure stuff.
After some consultation on a forum with someone who knew intimate details about the BIOS, I decided to order a quad Core i7-720m for my 7741g laptop as I was pondering last week. It arrived today.
Getting at the CPU socket was rather troublesome because of the way it's mounted. It's actually on the underside of the motherboard so the whole thing has to come apart and the motherboard removed. Also, once it was all in bits, the somewhat fragile Acer build quality was evident. But I got it in, put my favoured Actic Silver 5 thermal paste on the heatsinks and fired it up. And there it was in the BIOS - Intel Core i7-720. Once back together, Windows 7 installed some new drivers and rebooted. A quick check showed 8 processor graphs in Task Manager as the i7 does hyperthreading.
In terms of clock speed, the i7 is actually slower than the i3 it replaced, 1.6ghz vs 2.1ghz. But the two extra physical cores are worth it, and if one core is maxed out, it can use the TurboBoost feature to speed up that core, something the i3 lacked. It also seems to run cooler than the i3, even with all four cores at full load.
So far, the experiment is looking like a success, so I don't feel quite so bad about ripping apart a laptop that was only a few months old and voiding the warranty. Also I might be able to sell the old CPU and get some cash back.
After some consultation on a forum with someone who knew intimate details about the BIOS, I decided to order a quad Core i7-720m for my 7741g laptop as I was pondering last week. It arrived today.
Getting at the CPU socket was rather troublesome because of the way it's mounted. It's actually on the underside of the motherboard so the whole thing has to come apart and the motherboard removed. Also, once it was all in bits, the somewhat fragile Acer build quality was evident. But I got it in, put my favoured Actic Silver 5 thermal paste on the heatsinks and fired it up. And there it was in the BIOS - Intel Core i7-720. Once back together, Windows 7 installed some new drivers and rebooted. A quick check showed 8 processor graphs in Task Manager as the i7 does hyperthreading.
In terms of clock speed, the i7 is actually slower than the i3 it replaced, 1.6ghz vs 2.1ghz. But the two extra physical cores are worth it, and if one core is maxed out, it can use the TurboBoost feature to speed up that core, something the i3 lacked. It also seems to run cooler than the i3, even with all four cores at full load.
So far, the experiment is looking like a success, so I don't feel quite so bad about ripping apart a laptop that was only a few months old and voiding the warranty. Also I might be able to sell the old CPU and get some cash back.
Friday, 14 January 2011
ARSE
Good:
Upgraded 7741g to 8gb RAM, big boost to virtual machine performance. It should also be possible to replace the dual-core Core i3 for a quad-core i7. Tempting...very tempting.
Only bottleneck now is the hard drive, a 5400rpm 500gb drive. Shame it doesn't have dual hard drive bays like some 17" laptops.
Have hopefully sold my old iPod touch to someone in work.
Bad:
Work is shit, hate it right now.
Haven't eaten well this week at all.
Car has issues.
- Exhaust now very noisy indeed, but nothing hanging down that I can see.
- Chequered wing kicked in by persons unknown, severely dented and indicator smashed. Not sure if if can be pulled out or not. Tempted to try with the floor tile lifter in work.
- Brakes noisy and not performing as well as they should.
Upgraded 7741g to 8gb RAM, big boost to virtual machine performance. It should also be possible to replace the dual-core Core i3 for a quad-core i7. Tempting...very tempting.
Only bottleneck now is the hard drive, a 5400rpm 500gb drive. Shame it doesn't have dual hard drive bays like some 17" laptops.
Have hopefully sold my old iPod touch to someone in work.
Bad:
Work is shit, hate it right now.
Haven't eaten well this week at all.
Car has issues.
- Exhaust now very noisy indeed, but nothing hanging down that I can see.
- Chequered wing kicked in by persons unknown, severely dented and indicator smashed. Not sure if if can be pulled out or not. Tempted to try with the floor tile lifter in work.
- Brakes noisy and not performing as well as they should.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Fable fun
A fairly OK, if busy day in work and nearly had a furious row with someone from another council who was having a strop about not being able to use our network. I had to seriously count to ten and calm down before I responded to her infuriating comments.
Played Fable III with Will for a bit this evening, which was good fun. Did some more missions and gave him a shitload of gold as I was earning quite a lot through the properties I'd bought. It's making a bit more sense now.
Played Fable III with Will for a bit this evening, which was good fun. Did some more missions and gave him a shitload of gold as I was earning quite a lot through the properties I'd bought. It's making a bit more sense now.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
He's dead
Felt better today although had a cough. Work wasn't too bad.
Got home and watched Akira on DVD, which I've had for years but never actually watched before. what a weird film, some really fucked up stuff in it. Can see why it's a cult favourite though.
After that played RE5 with Rob again, and got the final battle done. The ending was OK. Great game.
Got home and watched Akira on DVD, which I've had for years but never actually watched before. what a weird film, some really fucked up stuff in it. Can see why it's a cult favourite though.
After that played RE5 with Rob again, and got the final battle done. The ending was OK. Great game.
Monday, 10 January 2011
Fun things and possible flu or chest infection
Today was basically spent sorting out the aftermath of the work on Saturday. It went OK and there weren't that many problems in the end. The main issues were getting people printing and a couple of telephone issues.
Still don't feel well. When it came to lunch I didn't fancy anything at all, which is unusual for me. I ate half a sandwich but felt like I was going to throw up. Some Mini Eggs did settle my stomach in the end though. Spent the evening in bed mostly.
Someone in work was selling a new generation iPod touch so I picked it up. It's pretty good, with much snappier performance and the 960x640 screen is very impressive. The camera isn't too bad and the new OS is nice. I played through a few levels of Angry Birds which is fun but I'm not sure it deserves the massive hype. The screen is vey responsive too
Watched a couple of clips of Stromberg, the German version of The Office. Kind of weird to see a German guy who looks nothing like Ricky Gervais copying David Brent's mannerisms and behaviour.
Still don't feel well. When it came to lunch I didn't fancy anything at all, which is unusual for me. I ate half a sandwich but felt like I was going to throw up. Some Mini Eggs did settle my stomach in the end though. Spent the evening in bed mostly.
Someone in work was selling a new generation iPod touch so I picked it up. It's pretty good, with much snappier performance and the 960x640 screen is very impressive. The camera isn't too bad and the new OS is nice. I played through a few levels of Angry Birds which is fun but I'm not sure it deserves the massive hype. The screen is vey responsive too
Watched a couple of clips of Stromberg, the German version of The Office. Kind of weird to see a German guy who looks nothing like Ricky Gervais copying David Brent's mannerisms and behaviour.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Die Wesker, die, you stupid arrogant fuck!
More RE5 with Rob this morning. We were hoping to finish it, but we had to stop just before the big final chapter, we might have done it if we hadn't kept getting stuck and worked up on things that turned out to be relatively simple. It's really good fun and I like the way it has an updated feel but still some of the elements of the original game.
After that went into town with the dog and took him for a walk on the way back. I hadn't anticipated the freeze last night though, as every road that the sun hadn't reached was covered in a lethal sheet of ice which made things interesting.
Watched the first series of The Office on DVD, ten years late. I didn't expect to like it but oddly I did, it's really funny and has the occasional deep moment. Also listened to the radio on iPlayer for the first time in years, to catch I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which is just so stupidly funny. I didn't know Jack Dee was hosting it now and he was pretty funny to be fair.
After that went into town with the dog and took him for a walk on the way back. I hadn't anticipated the freeze last night though, as every road that the sun hadn't reached was covered in a lethal sheet of ice which made things interesting.
Watched the first series of The Office on DVD, ten years late. I didn't expect to like it but oddly I did, it's really funny and has the occasional deep moment. Also listened to the radio on iPlayer for the first time in years, to catch I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which is just so stupidly funny. I didn't know Jack Dee was hosting it now and he was pretty funny to be fair.
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Fecking exhausts
It was overtime this morning to work for another office move. It went OK and we got chips for lunch, which was welcome but didn't help with the healthy eating. On the way home, the Focus exhaust suddenly got quite loud. It's been blowing quietly for a little while now, but now it's quite a bit louder. Arse.
Failed to go the gym this afternoon as I didn't realise the opening times had changed so I got there ten minutes after it had shut. So spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cabbaging out. Not feeling very good this evening though, coughing a bit and my chest is feeling odd. Hope I'm not becoming ill again, that would be really annoying.
Failed to go the gym this afternoon as I didn't realise the opening times had changed so I got there ten minutes after it had shut. So spent the rest of the afternoon and evening cabbaging out. Not feeling very good this evening though, coughing a bit and my chest is feeling odd. Hope I'm not becoming ill again, that would be really annoying.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
Back to the grindstone
Work has been OK this week, but today was a bit stressful. It's got busy again after a couple of days which seemed relatively quiet. Got office moves coming up so that means overtime on Saturday, but at least it means a bit of extra cash.
Badminton started today but I had to leave work late to get a document done and I didn't have my stuff. Ended up having dinner with Rob and Em but didn't go to badminton. I got some freaky (and delicious) pasta from the deli in Ruthin. Not quite as freaky as the black spaghetti, which I was tempted to get but wasn't sure about. I think I will next week.
I've eaten fairly well this week and reactivated my gym membership last night and had a look at the new machines. It seems pretty good. I'm going to go properly tomorrow evening. Also haven't had any Coke at all since New Years Eve, so that's got to be good. I think just cutting out the vending machine snacks and Coke will be a big start in sorting out my shitty eating habits.
Not much else to report. Put a 1.13ghz processor in the C810 to replace the 866mhz that was in there. Not sure if it'll make much difference though. I've had it apart so many times now I can do it blindfold almost.
Tried doing star trails the other night with the camera by leaving it outside with the shutter open for half an hour or so. It did work but I think the ISO was too low so it didn't really pick up much. I've pointed it at a different area of the sky to try it again.
The DVD arrived from Germany. All good except that it doesn't have English subtitles. Or any subtitles. Kind of defeats the point really. Not sure why I just assumed it would have subtitles. Oh well. I'll see if I can find the script and translate it using Google or something.
I still maintain Adblock is the absolute best thing ever made for Internet use. It's only when I fire up Firefox without it installed that I realise just how much of a difference it makes.
Badminton started today but I had to leave work late to get a document done and I didn't have my stuff. Ended up having dinner with Rob and Em but didn't go to badminton. I got some freaky (and delicious) pasta from the deli in Ruthin. Not quite as freaky as the black spaghetti, which I was tempted to get but wasn't sure about. I think I will next week.
I've eaten fairly well this week and reactivated my gym membership last night and had a look at the new machines. It seems pretty good. I'm going to go properly tomorrow evening. Also haven't had any Coke at all since New Years Eve, so that's got to be good. I think just cutting out the vending machine snacks and Coke will be a big start in sorting out my shitty eating habits.
Not much else to report. Put a 1.13ghz processor in the C810 to replace the 866mhz that was in there. Not sure if it'll make much difference though. I've had it apart so many times now I can do it blindfold almost.
Tried doing star trails the other night with the camera by leaving it outside with the shutter open for half an hour or so. It did work but I think the ISO was too low so it didn't really pick up much. I've pointed it at a different area of the sky to try it again.
The DVD arrived from Germany. All good except that it doesn't have English subtitles. Or any subtitles. Kind of defeats the point really. Not sure why I just assumed it would have subtitles. Oh well. I'll see if I can find the script and translate it using Google or something.
I still maintain Adblock is the absolute best thing ever made for Internet use. It's only when I fire up Firefox without it installed that I realise just how much of a difference it makes.
Monday, 3 January 2011
Flingel
Another day of not doing much although I felt quite a bit better.
Rob and I had yet another session of RE5 this morning and were joined by Em who I think watched in bewilderment and dismay before getting bored. We were hoping to finish it today but there's still a few chapters left although the big twist has been revealed.
Other than that, spent much of the day setting up an identical clone of my Latitude C810 writing machine, using a broken one which had a loose screen and a bad optical drive. It's now in the same state as my primary one except it has a 1ghz CPU that came out of another machine. The primary one will shortly be receiving a CPU upgrade too, although I doubt it'll make much difference.
Found out that Iron Maiden had a collection of their B sides which I had never heard before. I had no idea that they had covered things like My Generation, Johnny B Goode and stuff by Led Zeppelin and such like. Some of it is pretty good too.
Back to work tomorrow. Kind of wish I'd done more with my holidays now, but never mind. Going to go to the gym tomorrow lunchtime as well to sort out my membership and stuff. They've changed their programmes so I need to do that or cancel it. I was going to go last week but wasn't able to due to the pump shenanigans and illness.
Rob and I had yet another session of RE5 this morning and were joined by Em who I think watched in bewilderment and dismay before getting bored. We were hoping to finish it today but there's still a few chapters left although the big twist has been revealed.
Other than that, spent much of the day setting up an identical clone of my Latitude C810 writing machine, using a broken one which had a loose screen and a bad optical drive. It's now in the same state as my primary one except it has a 1ghz CPU that came out of another machine. The primary one will shortly be receiving a CPU upgrade too, although I doubt it'll make much difference.
Found out that Iron Maiden had a collection of their B sides which I had never heard before. I had no idea that they had covered things like My Generation, Johnny B Goode and stuff by Led Zeppelin and such like. Some of it is pretty good too.
Back to work tomorrow. Kind of wish I'd done more with my holidays now, but never mind. Going to go to the gym tomorrow lunchtime as well to sort out my membership and stuff. They've changed their programmes so I need to do that or cancel it. I was going to go last week but wasn't able to due to the pump shenanigans and illness.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Blurgh
Cold kicked in with a vengeance today. Rob and I had another session of RE5 this morning which was good fun but I sneezed and snorted snot through most of it so I felt bad for Rob having to listen to it. We got through quite a few levels. Definitely a wise investment for just £6.
After that retired to bed and spent much of the day there reading. Only went out when it got dark to do some more steel wool shots with the new remote for the camera and the tripod. Experimented with opening the shutter after the wool is lit and spinning, which worked quite well.
One more day of freedom and then back to work. Boo.
The Nintendo 3DS looks quite interesting. I've read quite a lot about it and it gets some impressive write ups from people who have seen the preproduction models. Should be interesting to see what it's like.
Took the bike out the other day. I jump started it from the Focus as it was a pain to bump start it. It started up fine after the usual choke faffing. It was quite funny how much faster it turned over from the more powerful battery in the Focus. It's going to need some attention though as some of the chrome has started to go on the rear springs and the forks, and the exhaust has rusted through in a couple of places. I found a site that does Gilera spares and they wanted £390 for an original exhaust. Seems bonkers as it has the same engine as a Honda CG125 for which an exhaust is about £60. One of those should fit at the engine end, not sure about the other end.
Or perhaps I should stick it on Ebay and look for a Honda XR125, which would be so much more suitable for where I live.
After that retired to bed and spent much of the day there reading. Only went out when it got dark to do some more steel wool shots with the new remote for the camera and the tripod. Experimented with opening the shutter after the wool is lit and spinning, which worked quite well.
One more day of freedom and then back to work. Boo.
The Nintendo 3DS looks quite interesting. I've read quite a lot about it and it gets some impressive write ups from people who have seen the preproduction models. Should be interesting to see what it's like.
Took the bike out the other day. I jump started it from the Focus as it was a pain to bump start it. It started up fine after the usual choke faffing. It was quite funny how much faster it turned over from the more powerful battery in the Focus. It's going to need some attention though as some of the chrome has started to go on the rear springs and the forks, and the exhaust has rusted through in a couple of places. I found a site that does Gilera spares and they wanted £390 for an original exhaust. Seems bonkers as it has the same engine as a Honda CG125 for which an exhaust is about £60. One of those should fit at the engine end, not sure about the other end.
Or perhaps I should stick it on Ebay and look for a Honda XR125, which would be so much more suitable for where I live.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
New year, same shit?
Spent quite a lot of time yesterday and today playing Resident Evil 5 with Rob over Xbox Live. We've got quite far into it, and it's been really fun. It does a good job of breaking up the zombie killing action with puzzles and other things, and it has a decent plot. Can't believe Rob was able to get two copies of it for £6 each.
Last night was round at Rob and Ems. Originally quite a few people were due to go but due to some being ill and others being unable to make it, there weren't that many. In a way this worked as it became a more cosy event and everyone had a good time. I didn't stay long after midnight as I was feeling rough again. As I drove out of Rhyl I got flashed by some drunken guy who was dancing around a pedestrian crossing in a bra and panties.
Played a bit more Fable III. I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. They've messed with it too much. Apparently they tried to simplify it to get rid of all the menus from the last game, but it's gone too far in the other direction, making a lot of stuff less flexible. The story is OK though, although it's veering rather too much to the 'take something to somewhere for someone so they like you' type of quests. But we'll see.
Watched the first Resident Evil movie too, which was mindlessly entertaining. There's a bit where they use a train to travel to the Hive, and I thought the station looked familiar somehow. Turns out it was filmed in the unfinished station for the U55 in Berlin, which I've been in.
Tired now after the late finish last night.
Last night was round at Rob and Ems. Originally quite a few people were due to go but due to some being ill and others being unable to make it, there weren't that many. In a way this worked as it became a more cosy event and everyone had a good time. I didn't stay long after midnight as I was feeling rough again. As I drove out of Rhyl I got flashed by some drunken guy who was dancing around a pedestrian crossing in a bra and panties.
Played a bit more Fable III. I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. They've messed with it too much. Apparently they tried to simplify it to get rid of all the menus from the last game, but it's gone too far in the other direction, making a lot of stuff less flexible. The story is OK though, although it's veering rather too much to the 'take something to somewhere for someone so they like you' type of quests. But we'll see.
Watched the first Resident Evil movie too, which was mindlessly entertaining. There's a bit where they use a train to travel to the Hive, and I thought the station looked familiar somehow. Turns out it was filmed in the unfinished station for the U55 in Berlin, which I've been in.
Tired now after the late finish last night.
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