Addicted

Work was OK today, had a slight catastrophe in the morning with a mail server after a test backup accidently chewed up all the bandwidth and caused some problems.

Was supposed to go to the gym but felt rough after work so I didn't, but did go and see my sister and niece as I had planned. We had a nice evening and ended up having a Chinese.

Not much else to report except the computer shuffle I mentioned means replacing the Acer 7741g and the HP DV7 with a second hand Alienware M15x. So yeah. It arrived today, just finished building it and getting it ready. Very nice. It's basically the same as the other two, just medium sized.

I h8 fuking swalowz

Work was OK, did some more on the backup system. AIX might have it's issues but the Logical Volume Manager is fucking ace, being able to add and remove disks, expand and mirror filesystems all while the system is running is so handy. I know Linux has an implementation of LVM but I've never really played with it. Should do at some point although I gather it's a bit different from the AIX version. And AGAIN I got asked about the bloody AS/400s! I don't know where the idea came from that I know all about the AS/400s but I don't! It's like a nightmare.

Bad day for food, I did well in work until I got home when I consumed Pot Noodle and wagon wheels. Watched some more DS9. So far it's been OK, not as bad as I remember the 1st season being.

Finished Feersum Endjinn. It's a bloody hard read to be honest, it gets very complicated and the dyslexic sections require a kind of mental gearchange when you encounter them. It's so worth it though at the end when it all comes together. I think this is the third or fourth time I've read it and I always nearly give up half way through.

I sprayed the bike frame with the black coat after smoothing down the primer and cleaning off the shit that the fucking swallows had thoughtfully deposited on it. Bloody things, surely they're old enough now to sod off out of the shed, but no, they have to flutter round and squawk at me like they own the place. Tossers. I had to make a sort of tent roof thing to stop them perching above where the frame is suspended.

The black paint wasn't as easy to apply as the primer for some reason so it was a bit of a faff, but it looks OK. Once it's dried for a few days I'll put the colour coat on. I hope it's going to be OK. Disposing of the frame, pretending it never happened and denying all knowledge of it and then having to edit out any reference to it from the blog would be a real pain.

Phone reborn

Spent the day at my Dad's just hanging out and watching the Tour of Spain cycling which was quite interesting as it was a time trial stage.

Finally got sick of the stupid non-standard firmware on the Galaxy S that had some really stupid quirks. I wiped it in favour of Darky's ROM 10.2, which is also non-standard but a lot better. It's based on Gingerbread. It definitely feels faster and the Gingerbread keyboard is a LOT better than the Samsung one. I was able to use an app to dump my text messages to an XML file on the SD card and then restore them when the upgrade was complete.

The bike frame seems to have dried nicely. Will perhaps put the black coat on tomorrow. I just hope the four swallows that are still living in there don't crap on it. The stupid things get all hysterical and flutter about when I go in there to check.

I for one welcome our robot unicorn overlords. The singularity approaches.

Work tomorrow, boo.

Primed

It's been a funny day really, one of achieving not much.

I did clean down the bike frame, strung it up and sprayed it in primer. Bloody hell bike frames are awkward to paint, all angles and tubes and things behind other things, but I got it done. It actually looks pretty decent, although I think there's some bits that will need smoothing out before I start putting the colour coats on.

Watched some more DS9, and then the latest available episode of Torchwood off iPlayer, which bizarrely had Nana Visitor in it who plays Major Kira in DS9, how odd. It was actually pretty good I thought. However, I'm fairly open minded but I thought the soft-porn scenes were a bit drawn out although I'm sure the outcry would have been less if he'd been shagging a woman.

I've got a nice big shiny head again (ahem) after my monthly head shave. It's always a nice sensation when it's freshly done although the increasing grey in the hair that comes off is a little depressing.

Listed my Acer 7741g on Ebay since I don't use or need it any more, and it's a bit of a waste having it sat around not doing anything. The HP I use to play music, Blurays and other media might go too, since I could probably run the display and amp from my normal machine, just need long cables.

Just realised the new WTC building has made quite a bit of progress, interesting to see.

A curious day

The weather today was stupid, bright sunshine and torrential rain in 10 minute intervals, basically all day. Went to the gym with Andy which was good. After that basically fooled around with computers and watched some more DS9.

Made chilli which came out really well this time. Mmmm.

Not much else to report. Having another shuffle around with computers, tired of so many machines lying around doing different things. Listed some more stuff on Ebay.

Ronan Goldacre

Using Saints Row 2 to visualise what my character for The Call of Cthulhu looks like.

Circulation...dropping

The Alienware M17x R2 isn't the most practical 'laptop' to use in bed. The battery life is rather crap and it's so heavy that you risk cutting the blood supply to your legs. It's an epic machine though. I have no complaints at all. It has the best screen I have ever seen on anything.

I should have just got one of these instead of faffing about with Acers and suchlike for so long that were never quite right. The M11x is brilliant too, and it's nice that the two share the same design. Perhaps I should find the medium sized M15x to round out the set, or perhaps not given the cost of these things. I can only imagine what the new M18x must be like, absolutely monstrous since in photos it makes the M17x look small.

Mind you I can see why people call Alienwares obnoxious and tasteless but I think with the lights switched off they look pretty decent, although a backlit keyboard is surprisingly useful.

I forgot it was a bank holiday weekend until yesterday afternoon which was nice.

Gym this morning, then I need to find some primer for the bike frame and clean it up ready for painting. No idea for the rest of the weekend.

Started watching DS9 from the beginning since I haven't seen it in YEARS and the DVDs are so cheap now. I know the first couple of seasons were a bit shaky but it got a lot better later on.

Crisis point

Work reached crisis point and I have been instructed to work solely on the backup system to sort out the troubles with it. At least now I can concentrate on one thing and not go mad trying to do both that and desktop support.

Watched Unknown this evening. It's a pretty decent movie, long, but interesting. Also the added bonus of it being set in Berlin meant lots of fun seeing places I knew, and even a pretty cool car chase. I always said W124 Mercs were tough...

Haven't done much else.

Conflict

Went to the gym, then ate shit, so cancelled it out. Went to visit my sister afterward. Strange but nice having her living so much closer.

After that came home and thought about the character for the alternate game we are setting up for Monday evenings, Call of Cthulhu. I chose to be a parapyschologist as it sounded cool, and named him Ronan Goldacre after picking random names from book covers.

I always enjoy the process of building a character in video games that let you do it, like Saints Row 2, Mass Effect, etc, so this feels quite similar. Probably some form of escapism it would be wise not to look into too much.

Rediscovered Piece of Mind by Iron Maiden in the car today, what a fucking EPIC album.

A fun evening

Work was meh.

I was planning on going to the gym after work, but instead I finished sanding the bike except for a few little bits, set up the washer jets on the 306 properly, finally set up a new playlist in iTunes for my iPods, having got bored of all the stuff on them, listened to and played bass along to the Offspring for the first time in ages, and did some long exposure stuff with the camera when it got dark.

It's the first time in AGES where an evening where nothing was going on has flown past and didn't feel like it had been wasted.

These two songs by the Offspring are two of my favourites by them:

Amazed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVTlH3NOdaM
Gone Away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO5cEta01Dw&feature=related

Depressing moment of the day: Finding my belt and being unable to remember the last time I actually needed it.

Tired for no reason

Tired but I did fuck all today. Watched a couple of movies and listened to some of the commentary in Portal 2, which is really interesting.

Work tomorrow. Not looking forward to it. I need a holiday, but can't take one without causing hassle and confusion due to covering the backup system and Unix servers and high workload in general. Anyway, holidays seem to be pretty lonely these days, it appears that being single and not fascinated by pubs and alcohol are a definite handicap.

It came as a rather depressing realisation that the reason I get such good battery life from my Galaxy S is because it sits idle for the vast majority of the time. Same goes for my annual leave in work, I have so little reason to use it these days.

Realised from pictures at the BBQ yesterday just how much of a fat fuck I am at the moment. Hate it but hate my lack of motivation more.

Full of meat

Haha.

Today was Em's parents BBQ that happens about this time of year, but this time it was special since they have both just retired. It was the usual excellent food and stuff but this time the extended family were there so there was a bewildering amount of relatives and kids running around. A great day though.

Overtime yesterday was OK. Weird to be in the office so late. I got in just before 7pm. My side of things, the AIX and backup servers behaved fine, the others, not so much. It was 1:20am before I got home. I was so tired.

Otherwise it's been quiet. I started sanding the bike down and managed to get a huge blister on my thumb when sanding over the glue from one of the stickers generated an unexpectedly large amount of heat. I've done the forks and half the rest of it.

Trains are fun

It was a half day in work today. The morning wasn't good.

In the afternoon, me and a woman from work took in a great big circle of geocaches around Llangollen and Corwen, which was brilliant. We got 15 in total and chased the steam train from Llangollen to Carrog. Really good fun.

Feeling really drained at the moment, no energy or motivation, just feeling under the weather and hating every damn minute I spend in the office right now. I'm sure work is mostly why I'm feeling so shit and it probably doesn't help that I've got fuck all to come home to.

D&D is still fun

Work was OK today, although one of those days where everything I did seemed to be tinged with failure. What should have been a simple fix on a laptop turned into two hours of agony.

D&D was good fun again today. This time we were approaching a farm and there was a woman being chased by evil soldiers. Naturally we attempted a rescue.

The word 'rescue' is used advisedly because while trying to knock out the first group of soldiers, Ed managed to launch a pretty solid attack at the woman we were trying to rescue, throwing her through the air and leaving her in a twitching bleeding heap. Rob managed to heal her from the point of death, just in time for a wolf to grab her by the throat and throw her around a bit, once again leaving her at the point of death requiring yet more healing.

Then another, larger, group of soldiers appeared, and this time Ed managed to launch a cloud of daggers at the poor woman, leaving her again nearly dead. Fortunately nothing else happened to her and once the rest of the soldiers had been despatched, we were able to heal her and talk to her. It took some persuading and many apologies from Ed and nearly accidentally paying her for sexual favours before she trusted us enough, and then she went and hid in a neighbours house.

Again it was all good fun.

ANR0379W A server database deadlock situation has been encountered: Lock request will be denied to resolve this deadlock.

Today was fairly decent. This morning I lazed around until heading into Denbigh to go to the gym with Andy. Sunday midday is definitely the time to go, we had the whole place to ourselves for most of it. It was hard though and according to the machine there my last workout was March. I honestly didn't think it had been that long. I felt good afterwards though. Need to get back into the habit of going.

After that I watched some movies and played with the bikes a bit. I oiled the chain and things on the Puch and the mountain bike and tweaked the saddle and handlebar heights on both. I hadn't ridden the mountain bike in ages and it felt quite strange after the Puch, and I hadn't quite realised how much smaller the wheels were. I want to build the strength up in my legs as at the moment I think any hill would bring me to an embarrassing halt on the bike, especially the Puch with the higher gearing.

Other than that it's been fairly peaceful today. Still awaiting payment on Ebay item, frustrating.

ANR0195W: Attempting to remove extraneous database entries for volume [volume name]

A better day. Spent the morning with my Dad consuming home made scones for breakfast and chips for lunch and in the meantime dismantling my cousin's old bike down to the frame. It had already donated the wheels to the Puch. While pulling it apart we found the bearings in the fork and the bottom bracket were absolutely fucked so it'll need some of those and other parts. I have a cunning plan but don't want to say much yet in case it goes horribly wrong.

I wish I could weld.

After that it was off to the pub to watch rugby. It was quite enjoyable and Wales won, which was nice.

The rest of the day was spent not doing much, completed Portal 2 for the second time and played around on the 360 a bit more.

I went to the shed to get something out of the freezer and heard a noise like something out of a horror film. My blood froze for a couple of seconds before I remembered the swallows that were nesting in there. The babies had hatched and were sticking their heads up out of the nest for food.

ANS0326E: This node has exceeded its maximum number of mount points

If I see that error message again, I might actually cry. I've spent two weeks trying to stop it with no success because I just haven't got the time to delve into it properly.

I would normally say thank fuck it's Friday but all that means is another evening contemplating my mind state. I got some strings for the Westfield Strat but wasn't able to summon up the energy to put them on it.

It occurred to me while having a Yorkie for breakfast that my inability to stick to exercise and relapse into eating shit food is perhaps some form of subsconscious self punishment. There must be some reason why I can't do it. Perhaps that's why I always drive shit cars too, because deep down I don't feel I deserve anything better and why I manage to fuck up my finances all the time. It's a curious feeling to realise your mental state might not be as normal or as stable as you thought.

Put a bunch of old Game Boy stuff on Ebay and got £26 for it. Oh well, gets it out of the house at least. Plenty more to go on there when I can get the energy to do it. I think I need an impartial observer to come up and go through all the shite I've got and make me get rid of it all. That bit in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says that the the things you own, own you, keeps cropping up in my head. I think it's got to the point where it would actually be easier to take the stuff I need out of the house and trash anything left behind and then put it back.

Fooled around in Saints Row 2 for lack of anything better to do and found that while making your character into a big fat transvestite or drag queen makes the cut-scenes amusing, somehow a respectable businessman in a suit is much funnier for some reason. Especially with the pimp cane shotgun.

Rob lent me a Kasabian album which I hadn't heard. Very good stuff.

Feeling catastrophically tired, but at the same time I don't think I'm going to sleep easily.

Meh

I've given up worrying about work, it's not doing me any good. Just going to do what I can.

Went to see my sister after work, who has recently moved to the town after splitting up from her husband. She's got a really nice cottage in the middle of town, which is freshly done up and is pretty sizable and the rent is good. We had a nice evening watching shit TV and went and got chips from the good fish& chip shop. My neice gave me a guitar she's had under her bed since she was 14 or so. Turned out to be a Westfield Strat copy, which is actually pretty good although needs new strings. Timing couldn't be more perfect since I've decided that the Telecaster copy I built doesn't work as the parts never really gelled together. That was really nice of her.

Not much else. Been waking up too early and not getting back to sleep so feeling qutie tired in the evenigns.

Eye improving, hopefully it should be back to normal tomorrow.

Such fun

Today was OK. Foot back to normal but my right eye is playing up, watering all the time. It doesn't hurt, just keeps making me look weepy which was embarrassing when I was complaining to a user about my workload delaying the job I had to do for him and it looked like I was getting over-emotional about it. Not sure he believed me when I tried to explain my eye was playing up.

This evening was fun. Went to Andy and Maz's and had FISH PIE which was actually really nice. I fixed the Enter key back onto their laptop and lent the first two Discworld books to Andy. After that we played with phones - Maz has the new Galaxy S II and we found that it was possible to make the talking dog and cat apps talk to each other, which while fun, led to a horrendous feedback loop of screeching despair that sounded like something from a horror movie overlaid with our hysterical laughter. It was funny but rather disturbing.

Not much else to report except fuck the riots, it's utter bullshit.

D&D is fun

Work = productive but still not nice.

D&D was absolutely fucking hilarious this evening. After the battle with the dragon we found ourselves stranded in its cavern with no way out except an apparently bottomless pit. This wasn't such an issue as there was a magic table that made food and a magic cask that made ale. So the suggestion was mooted that we simply stay in the cave and eat, drink, and shit down the bottomless pit for the reset of eternity.

But sadly this idea was not to be, and after some intense, fruitless discussion, we sold all our story points to persuade the DM to allow the most sensible idea we had to go ahead. This was to fashion the dead dragon's skin into parachutes to get down the bottomless pit. It wasn't actually bottomless and after a long trip down a river which involved much swimming, cursing and wishing we'd brought the magic table as a kind of food producing raft, we finally reached the outside world.

Naturally we set up camp, and of course people had to keep watch. First watch was Rob, who noticed some crows in a tree that were staring at the camp. Some arcana from Ed and I showed that they were enchanted, so we decided to attack them. Ed, somehow, managed to use a shock staff he has that never works, and rolled a 20 on his attack that instantly decimated the crows and caused a gigantic lightning storm and fire.

Second watch was Ed, who saw two evil guys coming to find out what the fuck was going on. We managed to capture them and intimidate them for information. The first one, cunningly named A by us, was a hapless 17 year old, who promptly shat himself and blabbed everything in fear of Ed's terrifying intimidation dice roll. The other, B, was 27 and a bit more tough to break but he talked as well after being threatened with a dagger. After a prolonged discussion as to what we were going to do with them afterwards, we decided to knock them out. B was knocked out quite easily but Ed managed somehow to smash the poor crying 17 year old's head in, splattering his brains everywhere.

Somewhat dumbfounded by this, our initial guilt was quickly forgotten as we tried to work out what to do with the body. Cannibalism was quickly dismissed, then we wondered about the possiblity of using the body as a kind of puppet to scare the other guy more once he woke up, or fashioning his internal organs into some sort of message saying sorry he was dead and leave us alone. Eventually we just left in the dead of night, and found a farm where the next adventure begins, hopefully next week.

It's impossible to explain just how fucking funny this all was, and we reduced the poor DM to confusion and dumfoundedness several times as he tried desperately to incorporate our bizarre ideas into his story.

Fuck all that shit in London. However it all started, now they're just being a bunch of cunts.

Not feeling good and it's not all down to work. Just feeling a bit like the odd-one out at the moment, the odd number that makes things a little awkward. It's my own fault but I can't think what the fuck to do about it.

Crippled, nearly

It's been a funny old week. My damned foot has been playing up a lot and prevented me from playing badminton on Thursday, and I was really hoping to take the Puch out for another ride.

Work has been shit. It was implied the other day that I was prioritising the wrong things. I wasn't happy about that at all, since it was beyond my control. And if anyone asks me yet again about the fucking AS/400s...well, I'll probably just say again that I know nothing about them, but in my head I'll be screaming obscenities.

Yesterday evening was brilliant, went out with the gang for a meal in the Brookhouse Mill, which was typically excellent, and had lots of entertanining conversation. Most memorable was me mishearing something that Rob P said which led to a long and convoluted discussion about the role of fluffers in pr0n movies, sounds weird but it was bloody funny and wildly inappropriate for the setting.

Last night my foot felt perfectly fine, or very nearly, and then this morning it was so bad I couldn't put it on the ground. Spent the day not doing much and taking ibuprofen, and again now it feels OK again. I wish I knew what was wrong with it.

Tired now, bed beckons.

I have an idea building in my head about something I could do with the remains of my cousin's old bike after it donated it's wheels to the Puch, but not sure if it would work.

Game over boys

Mind is blank, nothing worth saying at all.

Epic meh.

Rotund

A slow day.

Really liking the DSi XL. The big screens and general chunkiness make it worthwhile. The giant pixels take some getting used to though.

Realised I have reaches the age where not being married and having kids is not usual. If I have that instinct I haven't found it yet. I worry that I'm missing out ob something but then again I'm told quite often that I should be grateful to be single.

Dentist this morning to repair chipped tooth. Painless but weird to not have that sharp edge against my tongue any more.

Why does the bloody dog come upstairs and onsist on sleeping on my bed and then get all fretful and growly when I move around. Stupid dog.

Typos vecause of iPod touch.