Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Bad day helped by ludicrous burger

Not a great day in work. Forced to move desks pointlessly. All I'm going to say is there's lies, damn lies and statistics. Fuck's sake it's hard sometimes. Also root access to Unix servers tends to be restricted to a limited group of people for a fucking reason.

Went to Wetherspoons for lunch with a colleague. I'd intended to get a waffle, but we both ended up getting large burgers. Mine consisted of lower bun, cheese, bacon, burger, burger, fried egg, onion rings, upper bun. Plus a few more onion rings and chips. It was good but not really good for afternoon productivity due to being bloated and sleepy. Got to stop doing things like that, I've been eating far too much recently.

Came home in a fairly crappy mood, but sat down and watched the DVD of Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, which I haven't seen in years. It cheered me right up, absolute classic comedy. I'd forgotten about how much John Cleese swears in the Albatross bit - 'Course you don't get fucking wafers with it you cunt!' Also reminded me of that thing that is coming out round about now, the animated version of Graham Chapman's autobiography, which should be quite interesting as the book is completely bonkers. Graham Chapman is definitely my favourite Python, for a variety of reasons.

Unfortunately I missed the radio show that Rob was on tonight, since I completely forgot about it. Balls. Looks like it'll be put on the website at some point though, so that's good.

Tired but edgy now, like I might not sleep when I go to bed. Hate that feeling because it usually ends up true. Argh.

Monday, 29 October 2012

Fat (again)

Thursday badminton was OK, had some good games, including a late one with just Rob, Em and Steve. This was unexpectedly fun as we could swear to our hearts content.

Friday was Andrea in work's Halloween party. I'd been persuaded to go as Mario with Robert, who was going as Luigi. The costumes were actually pretty good and it was a great evening. Really good fun.

Saturday was a bike ride with Rob from St Asaph to Prestatyn. It was a bright day but cold and windy. Still, it was fun and we weren't the only nutters out on bikes. We met an old couple on a tandem and several guys on expensive carbon bikes and lycra. There was also a short but very steep hill towards the end of the ride which I managed to get up without stopping to my own and Rob's astonishment. The only thing that went wrong was me wrecking the Presta valve on Rob's back wheel with an incorrectly set up pump so we had to change the inner tube.

In the evening it was time to meet up for an Indian for Rob P's birthday, which was really good. There was a curious delay before the main course, but the food was spectacular. I was boring and went for a butter chicken, but it was absolutely delicious.

Sunday was a quiet day except for a trip to set up the laptop I'd got for Vicky. It took a little while since her music and photos were on an iMac which was a right faff since Mac OS X would't write to my NTFS formatted external hard drive and copying over wireless would have taken forever. In the end I had to reformat the drive and do it that way.

Sometimes I hate my fucking life, today is not a good day and I don't see the week getting any better. to be honest and it becomes quite difficult to maintain the facade of cheerfulness and professionalism. Fortunately though I have booked a trip to Berlin next week to see my brother, so that will hopefully lift my spirits.

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Absolute total cobblers

Not much to report today except spending much of the day in a bleh mood.

The Galaxy Note has been treated to a silicone case and a 32gb memory card, because both were startlingly cheap. I don't normally like cases but since the Note is big and a bit slippery I thought one would be an idea. It does make the thing a little bigger but grippier, and also means the camera lense isn't flush with the case.

The Astra went in today for an oil change and to get the creaking suspension and handbrake checked out. They said the suspension bushes seem to be rubbing but there isn't anything actually amiss. The handbrake has been adjusted and cleaned so it hopefully won't stick on when it gets cold like my old Focus used to, which was infuriating. I realised on the way home that I miscalculated so it had the oil change 500 miles early but it can't hurt. 10w40 semi-synthetic.

Against everything I've ever been told, I watched Red Dwarf Back to Earth. What a total load of cobblers. I honestly went into it thinking that after all the anti-hype it might have at least some OK moments but no. The whole concept was utterly ridiculous and it just wasn't funny in the slightest. The only redeeming thing was the nice CGI shots that showed the scale of Red Dwarf itself, but even that isn't really in keeping with the show.

Fortunately the two episodes I've seen of Red Dwarf X are infinitely better. Looking forward to when the DVD is available.

I think I like Skrillex's music, which bothers me. I somehow feel at a fundamental level that it's too young for me.

Headspace not quite right at the moment.

Monday, 22 October 2012

Diagrams

A fairly meh day in work. I was working on updating some documentation and had to use Office to create some new diagrams and things. For the first time I appreciated what the new interface that 2007 introduced is trying to do, and it does kind of make sense.

After work it was the final D&D session with James before he moves home to Boston in the USA and then eventually to his new job in Malaysia. We didn't actually play D&D though since his house was upside down so we played Super Munchkin. For such a simple concept it is surprisingly complex and can be almost Mario Kart like in the ability to completely fuck over other players. James also asked us if we wanted anything from the stuff he had left over, so we all took a couple of trophies, in my case a Star Trek mug and a rather beautiful crystal candle holder.

After using the Galaxy Note for a few days, I am getting used to it. The size is fine when it's in my pocket but it can be a bit of a problem when using it in one hand. I've ordered a silicone case for it so hopefully that will make it grippier, which will help.

Not much else to report really. I've booked the Astra in on Wednesday to have the oil changed and the handbrake adjusted and greased up for the winter so it doesn't seize on. Also the suspension creaks loudly when going over speedbumps. Another issue is that when first started from cold it won't rev above 2000rpm without misfires, which a quick Google indicates might be the injectors. But that goes away as soon as it starts to warm up and isn't a major problem at the moment, so I'm going to leave that.

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Splash bars

Ridiculously nice weather today and I was invited on a bike ride by Andy and Maz, unfortunately I'd already arranged to head over to my Dad's to do some work on the road bike.

We put some new tape on the handlebars since the original black tape was worn out. It went on OK and fortunately the yellow and black splash pattern quite suits the bike although the yellow isn't quite the same as the paint on on the bike. The problematic rear dearailleur was sorted out so it now selects all gear and the rear tyre was replaced with a spare one that my Dad had lying around. I hadn't realised how worn the rear tyre was. The new one is slightly larger but not enough to matter. We managed to clean up the chain too, but it looks like the sprockets on the front and rear are pretty worn so they'll need replacing at some point. But that can be a winter project since it's not that bad yet.

Otherwise it's been a fairly dull day. I got a Chinese on the way home and unexpectedly encountered the CEO from work who surprised me by saying hello and then sitting opposite me in an awkward silence until he got his food. I didn't think he had any idea who I was.

Saturday, 20 October 2012

Expensive coaster

Yesterday was OK but fat. We had a bacon breakfast with the somewhat strange revelation that you could have the bacon butties in a box without the bread. So I had bacon, egg and mushrooms in a box with BBQ sauce, and it was delicious. Then we went to the same place for lunch.

Badminton in the evening was OK. I had a couple of good games but was still not quite up to running around properly although I did get some decent shots in. Still getting used to the raquet with the new strings. It even sounds different. It was absolutely heaving with people - probably the busiest I've ever seen it, which is good as it meant lots of variety and will keep the club going.

Today it was off to see the Indiana Jones trilogy on the recently released bluray edition. It was really good,we watched the first three films quite happily but the Crystal Skull disk was relegated to use as a coaster. There was a crazy amount of food as per usual and it was a fantastic day.

Off to my Dad's tomorrow with the road bike to put new handlebar tape on it and hopefully replace the chain too.

Thursday, 18 October 2012

Kies = poo

It was a day off today, not really as a holiday but because my Mum had a hospital appointment. I took the morning to go and see my sister, which was nice but also because the trackpad on her laptop had stopped working. I couldn't figure out why and despite me telling her to use Firefox with Adblock, it had spyware on it and toolbars and crap, so I brought it home with me to sort it out.

I finally got a new phone. I had intended to get a Galaxy S2 as the natural progression from the Galaxy S, but discovered that the Galaxy Note was about the same price. It's rather big with a 5.3" screen but it is a much higher resolution. So I've ended up with one of those. It arrived today but was on the old Gingerbread version so there was no point setting it up until it was on Ice Cream Sandwich. Unfortunately it didn't want to update over the air so I had to use the Samsung Kies application to do it. It did NOT want to cooperate on my Windows 7 machine and was reluctant to do it even on the old Precision M90 with XP. Eventually I just left it to do it's thing while I was out at badminton and when I came home it had finally worked. They are supposed to be releasing Jelly Bean for it at some point so I'll have to go through it all again at some point, arse.

It remains to be seen if the Note will be as good as the Galaxy S was. The size is...well, yes, a concern. It's big. I have a feeling that I'll be mocked when I use it, much like I was when I had the old Nokia N-gage. Despite the size, it feels OK to use and the screen is downright beautiful. The Galaxy S has been running various ROMs with normal Android since I had it so it's odd to see the Samsung Touchwiz interface again. The Note doesn't seem to have quite the same level of support in custom ROMs so I'll probably just stick with that for the time being.

My badminton racquet has returned with a new handle and strings. The handle is rather weird as the new tape is almost sticky and it feels different. The new strings are amazingly tight which meant it was difficult to control my shots and also since I've not exercised in a while after I was ill it wasn't a particularly good evening for me. Also the new strings stink, which is odd.

Friday tomorrow, thank goodness.

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Slow week then noise

It's been a fairly uneventful week. Work has been OK. Today I helped deal with a hapless Latitude E5410 that had been subjected to an entire mug of tea emptied into it. It was thoroughly soaked inside, right through to the underside cover. We took it apart, cleaned it out as best we could and pointed a heater at it for an hour or so and somewhat amazingly it booted up quite happily except the trackpad doesn't work and the keyboard is a little sticky.

Tonight went with the gang to see the Mugenkyo Taiko drummers in Wrexham, which was a performance of Japanese drumming. It was really good, and very loud, and it was interesting how they combined martial arts and drumming. The first half was kind of serious but they really lightened up in the second half. Very good fun to watch. It made me think of the Djembe drumming workshops that an old friend of mine started up briefly and how much fun they were.

Really tired now, it's been a long day and I was woken up at 4am by monsoon rain and then found it really hard to get back to sleep again.

Sunday, 14 October 2012

The Aztecs built Notre Dame in Birmingham

It's been a good weekend. Yesterday was Andy's birthday meal which was at Romeo's in Llandudno. I think I'd been there a long time ago but it's a very good Italian restaurant. There quite quite a few of us there and we all had an awesome time and the food was great.

I gave Civilisation V a go when I wasn't well the other week and it was too much for my ill brain to cope with, especially since it has the least helpful tutorials I've seen. Today was good though, had a nice long game with some random elements introduced. I ended up playing as the Aztecs and named all their cities after English ones, and then it came to the time when you could add wonders to the cities, so I ended up with the curious situation of the Aztecs building Notre Dame in Birmingham. Having never played Civilisation before it took some time to adapt to it but I think it's really good fun.

Also carried on with Halo ODST with Rob on Live this morning. It's a bit repetitive and I'm not very clear on what's actually going on half the time but it's good fun. Same old Halo really, just in a city.

The Galaxy S has been reflashed again. I decided I wasn't hugely keen on the version of Darky's ROM on it so I've switched it to the stable release of Cyanogenmod 9, which Darky is based on. So far it seems pretty good - it feels smoother and faster anyway. I'm at the point where I'm tempted to pick up a Galaxy S2 since they have come down a lot in price and I coild probably still get a decent amount for the Galaxy S, despite it's rather worn appearance. An interesting option is the Galaxy Note but it woudl just be too big I think, although I do like the idea of the stylus. I'd still love one with a physical QWERTY but there aren't that many options, and the Android phones that do have them tend to be low-end and a bit cheesy.

Friday, 12 October 2012

WARRRGH

Last night was badminton. It wasn't too bad but I really started to cough and suffer towards the end. Still, it was great to hang out at Steve's and play with Binx who is becoming very brave and sociable. She's such a dainty little cat though.

Today in work was bad this morning - I just felt awful, my ears ached and I felt tired and unable to focus. It was really bad. I think something nutritional was out of kilter becuase I was drawn to the vending machine and had something like six packets of crisps after which I started to feel more normal. I really wasn't up to badminton this evening.

I experimented with pizza making earlier in the week. First was a fairly ordinary cheese and pepperoni one that came out nicely, but then I tried something a bit different. I made another one with tomato puree, sweetcorn, crumbled blue cheese, mozarrella and pepperoni. It was bloody delicious, and instead of dominating the flavour the blue cheese was a subtle background taste. Really nice.

The road bike is going to be treated to some new black and yellow handlebar tape to match the paint and I think it needs a new chain as the one on it seems rather floppy. I think the previous owner did rather a a lot of miles on it though. I think the cogs might be worn too, not sure really.

Lance Armstrong is pretty much confirmed to be a doping cheat. I read the report about it all that was released and it's hard to deny it any more. I was kind of hoping it wasn't true despite reports that he was a bit of a twat anyway but oh well. Let's hope this year marks the start of a clean TDF so they can restore the image of cycling.

I just watched Prometheus. It was beautifully made but I think pretty much all of the crew needed a damn good slap for being complete and utter morons. Michael Fassbender was good as usual though.

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Filthy dirty

Yesterday and today were unremarkable. Had to go into work really early today to reconfigure and test some services on one of the Unix boxes, since I'd have to restart them and kick everyone off. Fortunately it worked fine after a bit of fiddling about.

Still coughing well, had a gigantic coughing fit just before I went to work, not good.

Watched a movie that Dave in work lent me, called The Raid. It's set in Jarkarta and is subtitled, and is pretty much unceasingly and loudly violent. But oddly watchable in a disengaged brain kind of way.

Also cleaned up the bikes, which I've been meaning to do for a while. The road bike wasn't too bad but the salt on the coastal trip has made the chain go rusty. I cleaned it up a bit and oiled it. Closer examination showed there's quite a lot of wear to the chain and front and rear cogs, so it might be time to replace them. I've also ordered some new handlebar tape for it, since the stuff on it is very worn. The mountain bike was absolutely filthy and horrible, covered in grainy nasty mud that was a complete sod to clean off. It took some time.

Been eating too much, feel really crappy about it now. I thought I was doing OK but not this week. Bah.

Monday, 8 October 2012

Cough

The weekend was OK. The badminton club meal was on Saturday and was decent enough, although the Indian didn't seem to be able to cope with a group of 20 or so, unusually. Food was OK though.

Went for a bike ride around the Brenig on Sunday with a guy I work with and someone that used to work with us. It went OK but two of us took the off-road route that I didn't know existed and ended up getting very tired and muddy. I felt quite crappy for the rest of the day.

Tired today and still coughing rather. Work was frustrating due to issues with Samba on one of the AIX boxes, and I despise Samba utterly.

Not much to report otherwise. I sometimes think I miss the old days of computing. I look back at something like the Psion Organiser II and think it was amazing what people managed to do with an 8-bit 0.3mhz CPU, 64k of RAM and a 4x20 character display. It seems odd that such a humble machine could be perceived as more powerful than a modern smartphone because you can pick it up and program it directly.

About to re-read the Hobbit since people were talking about it in work today and I haven't read it in years.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Better

Spent much of last night coughing instead of sleeping, and it didn't stop in the morning so I decided to err on the side of caution and stay away from work again, as I was also completely shattered. The coughing has got less over the day though and I finally feel more human, so I'm sure I'll be in work tomorrow.

Not much to report due to being ill. I did finally however manage to identify a remix of a Fluke song called Bullet. I'd heard it on a compilation CD decades ago and loved it but couldn't find out which one of the many remixes it is. The original song is good but I love the remix. Anyway it's this one, although the version on the CD was much shorter.



Monday, 1 October 2012

Still not well

Not been well today at all. Spent pretty much the whole day shivering and sweating in my bed, watching vintage Top Gear on my laptop and random YouTube videos.

Also randomly used the free car check websites to see if there were any details on my old cars. The Prelude has been taxed for a whole year so hopefully is in the hands of someone who can give it the attention it needed. The Focus, somewhat astonishingly, is also taxed but now listed as white. Perhaps someone removed my dreadful black paintjob and did it right, who knows? Sadly the old Vectra hasn't been taxed in over two years. My old Cinquecento that I sold in 2003 hasn't been taxed for four years, shame. That was a fun little thing.

The guilt-free computer parts were installed on Saturday. The M17x is quite happily running with 16gb RAM and has a test virtual machine with 8gb assigned memory running quite nicely. The M15x CPU upgrade was a bit more involved since some of the casing had to come off to get the heatsink out, but otherwise that one's working fine too. The i7 I put into it is actually slower than the i3 in terms of clock speed but I think the extra physical cores and turbo-boost will help. Not sure really.