Went out and got some stuff this morning including euros for Berlin, then had a bonfire with a load of crap that had accumulated, good fun.
Watched another episode of Band of Brothers, did some admin work on the computers including making sure the backups were up to date and did some more of my renegade Shepard. He's got to the point where he has glowing eyes and looks like a fucking Terminator, which made it all the more jarring when he had a tender conversation with an alien who he is falling in love with. You'd have thought people would comment on the glowing rents in his skin and the glowing eyes but nope, nobody even seems to notice.
Saturday 26 March 2011
Friday 25 March 2011
Holidays
Not a bad day in work before my holiday, got my jobs to the lowest level they've been this year, and got loads done so was able to leave a little early with a clear conscience.
Lazy evening today although had a tantrum and a tidy up.
Finished ME1 with my alternate Shepard. Somehow completed it in ten hours less than the first time round, but at a higher level, which seems odd.
Tired now.
Lazy evening today although had a tantrum and a tidy up.
Finished ME1 with my alternate Shepard. Somehow completed it in ten hours less than the first time round, but at a higher level, which seems odd.
Tired now.
Thursday 24 March 2011
Fat bastard badminton
Fairly uneventful week. Today was good though. Spent the morning doing Unix which was good, and then had a *long* lunch break having a really nice meal at Annie's in Ruthin in the sunshine before heading out to do some geocaching. It was fairly successful although as usual I got scratched and we found several small bogs, not good in work shoes.
This evening Rob, Em and I went to Pizza Hut before badminton to consume approximately our own body weight in pizza because Rob had a voucher to get a free pizza. It was delicious but did compromise our ability to play badminton. Even so it was a fun evening.
Really tired now, it's been a good but long day.
This evening Rob, Em and I went to Pizza Hut before badminton to consume approximately our own body weight in pizza because Rob had a voucher to get a free pizza. It was delicious but did compromise our ability to play badminton. Even so it was a fun evening.
Really tired now, it's been a good but long day.
Sunday 20 March 2011
A good weekend
Yesterday was a good day. The morning and early afternoon were spent hanging out with my Dad. After that, made my way over to Andy's where we watched rugby and had Chinese before heading over to Rob and Em's for the last game, Wales vs France, which didn't go very well. Fun evening though.
Today went on an epic geocaching hunt with Andrea from work and another cacher. They got the ones in the village that I already had and we got some new ones. Then there was a new series that went live on Tuesday, which was great. 10 caches in a great circle around a hill, with a secret 11th cache that could only be found by retrieving the coordinates in bits from three of the previous 10. Really good series though, very well thought out.
The mysterious entry yesterday was because I had finally caved in and bought a Kindle, and I was playing with the web browser. It's pretty decent and the clarity of the e-ink screen is really nice. I'd love a laptop with an e-ink display just for typing stuff out on. It'll be interesting to see if they can eventually sort out the refresh rate issue and make it colour. I guess at this point it's at the same state as early LCD technology, like those old laptops with mono screens that lost the pointer if it moved too fast.
My new renegade game in ME2 is going well. I'm actually quite enjoying the experience. It's not so much about just being a twat, rather being very ruthless to get the mission going at any cost although there is plenty of opportunity to rude and inconsiderate for no real reason. The renegade scars are pretty cool too. So far they are all sunken in and there's red points of light glowing in his irises but it should get a lot worse as the game progresses.
Today went on an epic geocaching hunt with Andrea from work and another cacher. They got the ones in the village that I already had and we got some new ones. Then there was a new series that went live on Tuesday, which was great. 10 caches in a great circle around a hill, with a secret 11th cache that could only be found by retrieving the coordinates in bits from three of the previous 10. Really good series though, very well thought out.
The mysterious entry yesterday was because I had finally caved in and bought a Kindle, and I was playing with the web browser. It's pretty decent and the clarity of the e-ink screen is really nice. I'd love a laptop with an e-ink display just for typing stuff out on. It'll be interesting to see if they can eventually sort out the refresh rate issue and make it colour. I guess at this point it's at the same state as early LCD technology, like those old laptops with mono screens that lost the pointer if it moved too fast.
My new renegade game in ME2 is going well. I'm actually quite enjoying the experience. It's not so much about just being a twat, rather being very ruthless to get the mission going at any cost although there is plenty of opportunity to rude and inconsiderate for no real reason. The renegade scars are pretty cool too. So far they are all sunken in and there's red points of light glowing in his irises but it should get a lot worse as the game progresses.
Saturday 19 March 2011
Thursday 17 March 2011
Fibre fun or not
A slightly frustrating Unix day today because the backup system is being moved to a new server which involves all sorts of shenanigans with the database and all sorts. It's a real nightmare and rather above my level of knowledge, particularly as nobody thinks it might be an idea to go on a course with IBM to cover the details of the migration and the differences between the old and new versions. Annoying as the new version uses a completely different database structure.
Plus a lot of today was getting the new server to talk to the SAN so I got to feed a few orange fibre cables under the floor but didn't really have a clue why as I've never had much to do with it. Oh well. SAN technology is one thing I'd really like to learn more about but not really something I could get equipment at home to play with.
Had a 'rest' day from exercise, due to chips for lunch to comfort Em after it looks like they're going to fuck her over regarding her secondment, and cake for someone's birthday. Cabbaged out with my renegade Shepard in ME2. It's actually quite good fun choosing the renegade options. They're not as twatty as I expected, just rather more forceful and inconsiderate in some cases. It's made amusing by him prancing around in pink armour.
Plus a lot of today was getting the new server to talk to the SAN so I got to feed a few orange fibre cables under the floor but didn't really have a clue why as I've never had much to do with it. Oh well. SAN technology is one thing I'd really like to learn more about but not really something I could get equipment at home to play with.
Had a 'rest' day from exercise, due to chips for lunch to comfort Em after it looks like they're going to fuck her over regarding her secondment, and cake for someone's birthday. Cabbaged out with my renegade Shepard in ME2. It's actually quite good fun choosing the renegade options. They're not as twatty as I expected, just rather more forceful and inconsiderate in some cases. It's made amusing by him prancing around in pink armour.
Wednesday 16 March 2011
Giant week of meh
Work and stuff been fairly dull this week, not much going on at all really.
However have been eating relatively well and done quite a bit of exercise, so feeling rather better in that regard. New trainers working out very well indeed.
At the risk of still sounding hopelessly obsessed with the games, I completed an important mission yesterday in ME1 with my alternate Shepard, and started a new game tonight of ME2. Reimported my paragon Shepard from ME1 but made him into a vanguard instead of an adept and playing it so that something went wrong when they brought him back from the dead so he's now a twat. Wasn't sure at first how easy it would be to choose the renegade options all the time, but it's not actually too bad. Some of the renegade options are actually pretty cool. Also should be interesting to see what my Shepard looks like with the hideous renegade scarring and glowing eyes.
Watched another episode of Band of Brothers tonight. It's really pretty good. Can't quite not see David Schwimmer as Ross though.
Had the issue of my media playing HP DV7 having no real remote control so I found a thing called a Rii keyboard. It's a dinky little wireless keyboard with a trackpad, which works superbly.
However have been eating relatively well and done quite a bit of exercise, so feeling rather better in that regard. New trainers working out very well indeed.
At the risk of still sounding hopelessly obsessed with the games, I completed an important mission yesterday in ME1 with my alternate Shepard, and started a new game tonight of ME2. Reimported my paragon Shepard from ME1 but made him into a vanguard instead of an adept and playing it so that something went wrong when they brought him back from the dead so he's now a twat. Wasn't sure at first how easy it would be to choose the renegade options all the time, but it's not actually too bad. Some of the renegade options are actually pretty cool. Also should be interesting to see what my Shepard looks like with the hideous renegade scarring and glowing eyes.
Watched another episode of Band of Brothers tonight. It's really pretty good. Can't quite not see David Schwimmer as Ross though.
Had the issue of my media playing HP DV7 having no real remote control so I found a thing called a Rii keyboard. It's a dinky little wireless keyboard with a trackpad, which works superbly.
Sunday 13 March 2011
Blam, kablooey
Didn't do all that much yesterday until the evening when I went round to Ed and Kat's. We ate pizza and watched Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Very strange film. Think it deserves a rewatching. Also ate chocolate so the exercise I did earlier in the day was completely negated.
Today went and dug bits of the track out where my car was catching and repaired the car door yet again. I watched another episode of Band of Brothers, and then settled down to play ME2 again. After I deleted some of my saves a little while back to get the DLC done, it was bugging me that the game was sat there unfinished. I found there was still some more DLC to be done, so I did that before progressing with the main game. I've kicked off the last mission but I've done it a little differently this time so will have to see how it goes.
The music in both ME games is bloody good too, really adds to the atmosphere. For some reason I really like this track which is featured in the lower level of the Afterlife club in the Omega station. It reminds me also of the mission where Shepard dances like an idiot which brought me to near hysterics when I saw it the first time.
Track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsN8FxYpxTc
Idiot dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSAUa3QY-kE
Today went and dug bits of the track out where my car was catching and repaired the car door yet again. I watched another episode of Band of Brothers, and then settled down to play ME2 again. After I deleted some of my saves a little while back to get the DLC done, it was bugging me that the game was sat there unfinished. I found there was still some more DLC to be done, so I did that before progressing with the main game. I've kicked off the last mission but I've done it a little differently this time so will have to see how it goes.
The music in both ME games is bloody good too, really adds to the atmosphere. For some reason I really like this track which is featured in the lower level of the Afterlife club in the Omega station. It reminds me also of the mission where Shepard dances like an idiot which brought me to near hysterics when I saw it the first time.
Track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsN8FxYpxTc
Idiot dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSAUa3QY-kE
Friday 11 March 2011
Oops, forgot to update
Forgot to update. Been a fairly decent week outside of work.
New shoes = ace. Really comfortable. Managed to eat pretty well until yesterday, when it was birthday cake in work and cheesy chips with a can of evil Coke for lunch. Today not much better.
Monday was pancakes with Andy and Maz which was great. Really enjoyed them and introduced Andy to the joys of Nutella, which when combined with ice cream on a pancake is really delicious.
Fixed my neighbours laptop, in return he's going to cut me out a bass body. I've got a plan to build an Ashbory bass in the shape of a Dean ML. I've got a bridge with piezo pickups in it, and he's got a huge slab of elm which should be pretty when it's all cut to size and shaped.
Thursday badminton was pretty decent as was the week before as She-Hagg was not there, so it was good fun. I did manage to get in the way of Rob as he smashed a shot and it hit me right on the pointy bit of my elbow and it really hurt. Kept getting twinges for the rest of the evening.
Sold the motorbike on Ebay. The guy came to collect it tonight and fortunately had a nice big Transit to put it in as it wouldn't start. Sad to see it go but I think it was about to need a shitload of work which I didn't have the expertise to do. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Did a bit more of my ME1 guy. I managed to unlock four missions I missed the first time round by having a techy guy in the squad, so that was fun and interesting. Still trying to work out when I can get around to finishing ME2 again, including the remaining DLC I haven't done yet. It's a bit of an undertaking and I need to take time to prepare myself.
New shoes = ace. Really comfortable. Managed to eat pretty well until yesterday, when it was birthday cake in work and cheesy chips with a can of evil Coke for lunch. Today not much better.
Monday was pancakes with Andy and Maz which was great. Really enjoyed them and introduced Andy to the joys of Nutella, which when combined with ice cream on a pancake is really delicious.
Fixed my neighbours laptop, in return he's going to cut me out a bass body. I've got a plan to build an Ashbory bass in the shape of a Dean ML. I've got a bridge with piezo pickups in it, and he's got a huge slab of elm which should be pretty when it's all cut to size and shaped.
Thursday badminton was pretty decent as was the week before as She-Hagg was not there, so it was good fun. I did manage to get in the way of Rob as he smashed a shot and it hit me right on the pointy bit of my elbow and it really hurt. Kept getting twinges for the rest of the evening.
Sold the motorbike on Ebay. The guy came to collect it tonight and fortunately had a nice big Transit to put it in as it wouldn't start. Sad to see it go but I think it was about to need a shitload of work which I didn't have the expertise to do. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Did a bit more of my ME1 guy. I managed to unlock four missions I missed the first time round by having a techy guy in the squad, so that was fun and interesting. Still trying to work out when I can get around to finishing ME2 again, including the remaining DLC I haven't done yet. It's a bit of an undertaking and I need to take time to prepare myself.
Saturday 5 March 2011
Flibble
Feeling better today.
Went to Chester this morning to get new trainers. There's a triathlon shop that does all the gait analysis stuff. The guy was very thorough and made me try on six pairs before he was happy that the fit was good. Ended up with some Mizuno ones which are quite possibly the most comfortable shoes I've ever had. Hilariously the guy was really impressed with my battered old Asics, apparently they were very good in their day. I had to explain that they were my Dad's cast offs. He also optimistically gave me a leaflet about the Chester marathon in October.
Looked in Back Alley Music and saw a Dean Baby ML in metallic purple. I've always liked the shape of the ML and the colour was nicely at at odds with the rather metal shape. Very cool. It was relatively cheap too, but managed to resist tempation, don't play guitar enough to justify it and I don't think the shape works when it's a bass as it becomes much too long to be sensible.
Found a new Currys/PC World there too, where they had a few nice things. Once again admired the e-ink screen of a Kindle, and also had a look at the Advent Vega tablet which runs Android 2.2. Looks like quite a decent device and half the price of an iPad, but again, what use is it really?
Finally got around to stripping down the HP DV7 laptop. I replaced the noisy CPU fan, which was underneath literally every other component in the machine, necessitating a total stripdown. Also regunked the heatsink with my favourite Arctic Silver 5. Due to the design of the machine, this meant removing about 40 screws to get it apart, and I'm proud to say that once the machine was back together, not one screw was left over. Also replaced the Bluray drive with a new slot-loading one as the original died. Got lucky with the replacement drive - someone on Ebay was selling it cheap because they thought it was just a DVD writer. Once back together the machine works perfectly.
Watching Band of Brothers on Bluray borrowed from Amy. Only two episodes in but it's pretty good so far.
After that carried on my semi-evil character in Mass Effect 1 after not playing either of them in a week. I think when you dream about nothing else it's a sign you've played it too much. Once again ended up earning more paragon points than renegade, but never mind.
Went to Chester this morning to get new trainers. There's a triathlon shop that does all the gait analysis stuff. The guy was very thorough and made me try on six pairs before he was happy that the fit was good. Ended up with some Mizuno ones which are quite possibly the most comfortable shoes I've ever had. Hilariously the guy was really impressed with my battered old Asics, apparently they were very good in their day. I had to explain that they were my Dad's cast offs. He also optimistically gave me a leaflet about the Chester marathon in October.
Looked in Back Alley Music and saw a Dean Baby ML in metallic purple. I've always liked the shape of the ML and the colour was nicely at at odds with the rather metal shape. Very cool. It was relatively cheap too, but managed to resist tempation, don't play guitar enough to justify it and I don't think the shape works when it's a bass as it becomes much too long to be sensible.
Found a new Currys/PC World there too, where they had a few nice things. Once again admired the e-ink screen of a Kindle, and also had a look at the Advent Vega tablet which runs Android 2.2. Looks like quite a decent device and half the price of an iPad, but again, what use is it really?
Finally got around to stripping down the HP DV7 laptop. I replaced the noisy CPU fan, which was underneath literally every other component in the machine, necessitating a total stripdown. Also regunked the heatsink with my favourite Arctic Silver 5. Due to the design of the machine, this meant removing about 40 screws to get it apart, and I'm proud to say that once the machine was back together, not one screw was left over. Also replaced the Bluray drive with a new slot-loading one as the original died. Got lucky with the replacement drive - someone on Ebay was selling it cheap because they thought it was just a DVD writer. Once back together the machine works perfectly.
Watching Band of Brothers on Bluray borrowed from Amy. Only two episodes in but it's pretty good so far.
After that carried on my semi-evil character in Mass Effect 1 after not playing either of them in a week. I think when you dream about nothing else it's a sign you've played it too much. Once again ended up earning more paragon points than renegade, but never mind.
Thursday 3 March 2011
Tuesday 1 March 2011
32gb RAM
This morning was interesting. We hooked up a new AIX server, a Power 720 and had the great ceremonial turning on. Except it didn't fire up. We found after that there was a bracket that we should have removed from the power supply before plugging it all in. Eventually it fired up, and we tried install a mksysb of the old machine on it, which didn't work, but we know why so we can try it again on Thursday. It's a quad-core Power7 with 32gb RAM and will have shedloads of storage attached via the SAN - I think there's 16tb of space but the disks are going to be mirrored, so only 8tb will be available to the system.
Went to the gym last night, and when I went it was nearly empty which was nice. Today walked the dog after work. A bit chilly but nice. Had quite a large wrap for lunch though, containing falafel and humous, delicious but probably rather unhealthy.
Not doing much this evening except checking out a laptop for a guy in work which I think had a faulty hard drive. Swapped it out for a spare and it seems to be running quite well for an elderlyish machine.
Rob has lent me the new Culture book by Iain M Banks - Surface Detail. I'm looking forward to it with some apprehension because while his books are great, it's always a major commitment to start reading one.
New glasses are absolutely spot on with the prescription. I'm amazed at how well I can see with them on, but I'm still adjusting to how they sit on my face as they don't have the same type of nose piece and I think the arms might need tweaking.
Went to the gym last night, and when I went it was nearly empty which was nice. Today walked the dog after work. A bit chilly but nice. Had quite a large wrap for lunch though, containing falafel and humous, delicious but probably rather unhealthy.
Not doing much this evening except checking out a laptop for a guy in work which I think had a faulty hard drive. Swapped it out for a spare and it seems to be running quite well for an elderlyish machine.
Rob has lent me the new Culture book by Iain M Banks - Surface Detail. I'm looking forward to it with some apprehension because while his books are great, it's always a major commitment to start reading one.
New glasses are absolutely spot on with the prescription. I'm amazed at how well I can see with them on, but I'm still adjusting to how they sit on my face as they don't have the same type of nose piece and I think the arms might need tweaking.
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