OK day in work, much of a muchness.
Circuit training after work. It was hard this evening and my legs complained bitterly, especially the front of my shins for some things. Very knackering. Also went for a brisk 2 mile walk at lunchtime with Steve P in work, which was good. It's odd walking down a road that I've driven down so many times and noticing so many details I hadn't seen before.
Came home and decided to try and tune the Razorback to something sensible since I had no idea what the hell it was supposed to be set up for as both E and D tunings weren't in reach of the fine tuners. I've never tried to set up a Floyd Rose style tremolo before so it was a bit of a learning curve. It's a right faff as it has to be level with the body which then means adjusting the strings in the back to match the string tension, but then as you tune it, it goes off whack again and it's a bit of a balancing act. After a bit though I got it set up in standard E tuning, and happily once the strings were locked down it only needed a very little tweaking on the fine tuners and it was all good. Sounds better now anyway.
Still no Vodafone signal at home. Faults have been logged on the website for our postcode but no update yet. I hope it's not something permanent like they've moved a mast or something.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Sunday, 24 February 2013
Zoos are fun
The rest of last week was OK. Rob was still not well on Thursday so there was no badminton. I went over to Steve's where we ate pizza, fixed up an old laptop and played around on the Xbox. Also teased little Binx with the laser pointer - she absolutely loves it, which is hilarious to see.
After work on Friday I got in the car and headed up to Kirkham as I was visiting my cousin Pauline. The drive up was pretty OK given the time of day, only a couple of slowdowns, the worst being where the M56 joins the M6.
On Saturday we went to Blackpool Zoo, which was fun. The weather wasn't great though, and for the first couple of hours there, we were walking round in quite heavy snow. It certainly made things interesting, seeing animals in snow. It's not a huge zoo but exhibits it has are pretty well done. The definite highlight was seeing the four giraffes they have there, as they have a special place where you can see them from ground level or from above, which is great. I always find giraffes fascinating to watch, especially when they walk and run.
Other highlights were the elephants having their feet cleaned and manicured, lots of tiny monkeys and strangely, the rhea. They were in an enclosure where you could get right up to the fence and see them up close. They seem a lot nicer than ostriches, which are scary as fuck. The rhea seem to be more intelligent and quite inquisitive although I don't know if they actually are.
We saw a couple of the talks about the animals when they were being fed, which were interesting. After the last one we just headed back home for a quiet evening where we watched a bit of TV and played around on laptops.
Today it was off to a garden centre for breakfast where we met up with two of my cousin's friends who are shortly having their civil partnership. We spent some time there before we came home again and after a slightly unhealthy snacky lunch I came home. The drive back was fine, no traffic problems at all and it seemed to go by surprisingly quickly.
Was bored after I got back and unpacked, and on a whim I put the Dragon Age Origins disk back in to the 360. I created a new character with a different origin and played through it until it came to the main game. It was quite interesting.
Tired now. It's been a long but fun weekend.
After work on Friday I got in the car and headed up to Kirkham as I was visiting my cousin Pauline. The drive up was pretty OK given the time of day, only a couple of slowdowns, the worst being where the M56 joins the M6.
On Saturday we went to Blackpool Zoo, which was fun. The weather wasn't great though, and for the first couple of hours there, we were walking round in quite heavy snow. It certainly made things interesting, seeing animals in snow. It's not a huge zoo but exhibits it has are pretty well done. The definite highlight was seeing the four giraffes they have there, as they have a special place where you can see them from ground level or from above, which is great. I always find giraffes fascinating to watch, especially when they walk and run.
Other highlights were the elephants having their feet cleaned and manicured, lots of tiny monkeys and strangely, the rhea. They were in an enclosure where you could get right up to the fence and see them up close. They seem a lot nicer than ostriches, which are scary as fuck. The rhea seem to be more intelligent and quite inquisitive although I don't know if they actually are.
We saw a couple of the talks about the animals when they were being fed, which were interesting. After the last one we just headed back home for a quiet evening where we watched a bit of TV and played around on laptops.
Today it was off to a garden centre for breakfast where we met up with two of my cousin's friends who are shortly having their civil partnership. We spent some time there before we came home again and after a slightly unhealthy snacky lunch I came home. The drive back was fine, no traffic problems at all and it seemed to go by surprisingly quickly.
Was bored after I got back and unpacked, and on a whim I put the Dragon Age Origins disk back in to the 360. I created a new character with a different origin and played through it until it came to the main game. It was quite interesting.
Tired now. It's been a long but fun weekend.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Fundles
Uneventful week so far, not much going on. Circuits was OK on Monday again, different exercises again. I think my body is getting used to it though since this time I didn't ache much.
Last night I randomly tried to make brownies with Rob G's recipe. They came out OK, but the top was a little burnt since we don't have a proper oven, just one of those microwave combi things. Also I didn't have a way to exactly measure the ingredients so that probably didn't help. Still, they were edible.
There wasn't any DnD due to Rob being really ill with a suspected chest infection.
Badminton tomorrow, then on Friday I'm heading up to Kirkham to visit my cousin Pauline, which should be fun. Hope the weather is OK.
Been reading a forum about the old Amstrad CPC for some reason. Quite amazing what people can get that old hardware to do, linking it up to hard drives, SD cards, USB mice, etc. Also had a go on the 3D Construction Kit that took up a lot of my time on the old thing and was amazed at how clunky it is.
Last night I randomly tried to make brownies with Rob G's recipe. They came out OK, but the top was a little burnt since we don't have a proper oven, just one of those microwave combi things. Also I didn't have a way to exactly measure the ingredients so that probably didn't help. Still, they were edible.
There wasn't any DnD due to Rob being really ill with a suspected chest infection.
Badminton tomorrow, then on Friday I'm heading up to Kirkham to visit my cousin Pauline, which should be fun. Hope the weather is OK.
Been reading a forum about the old Amstrad CPC for some reason. Quite amazing what people can get that old hardware to do, linking it up to hard drives, SD cards, USB mice, etc. Also had a go on the 3D Construction Kit that took up a lot of my time on the old thing and was amazed at how clunky it is.
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Deadspot Wobblenums
It's been a funny old week really. Work has been OK with the consultant in for three days and making some changes to the backup system which have mainly been OK but a couple of glitches. Still not sure what is happening regarding the guy who has now left.
Monday evening was circuit training. It felt pretty hard again, but I didnt' feel quite so devastated like I did after the previous session. The exercises were different and there were less people there though.
No DnD on Tuesday.
Wednesday we went to Rob and Em's and watched an episode of something called Black Mirror that I hadn't heard of before, by Charlie Brooker. It was somewhat strange but interesting.
No badminton on Thursday due to illness of various people, so it was a quiet evening in, which came as something of a relief after a day with the consultant.
In theory it was badminton on Friday but that was the day of the backup system glitches and I came home with my head babbled so I just completely forgot.
Yesterday was good. Went for a bike ride with Andy and Robert. We made it from St Asaph to Prestatyn and back, which Andy's phone reckoned was 21 miles about. It was a nice day and unlike last time there was barely any wind.
In the evening it was Steve's birthday meal so we all went to a new Indian in St Asaph. It was OK, but they didn't seem to have it running smoothly yet - no beer on draught, no card payments and two waitresses who nearly came to blows over a couple of plates, which was actually quite entertaining. After the meal we headed back to Steve's for a drink and then headed back.
My car played up - while turning round on Robert's steep driveway it suddenly lost all it's coolant. After the meal we had a look and tried putting some water in but it came straight back out again and was too dark to see why, so Robert kindly gave me a lift home and I said I'd come back today to have a look.
Unfortunately my Mum's car is broken too and I didn't want to drive it down so I ended up going on my bike. Actually riding on the road was a bit of a change from the flat and smooth cycle tracks with potholes, hills and occasional cars to contend with. I made down fine though. Investigation showed that the a pipe had come off the radiator, which was easy enough to fix.
The rest of the day has been productive, once I got home I unloaded the bike, had a big bonfire of crap, let the dog have a run and then dug out two ditches, before finally sitting down in front of a Star Trek DVD with a pizza.
I dug out some old vintage ADB Mac keyboards earlier in the week and listed them on Ebay. Didn't expect to get much for them but they went for £74. Yet when I listed two old LC class Macs they got no bids at all - might relist them.
Monday evening was circuit training. It felt pretty hard again, but I didnt' feel quite so devastated like I did after the previous session. The exercises were different and there were less people there though.
No DnD on Tuesday.
Wednesday we went to Rob and Em's and watched an episode of something called Black Mirror that I hadn't heard of before, by Charlie Brooker. It was somewhat strange but interesting.
No badminton on Thursday due to illness of various people, so it was a quiet evening in, which came as something of a relief after a day with the consultant.
In theory it was badminton on Friday but that was the day of the backup system glitches and I came home with my head babbled so I just completely forgot.
Yesterday was good. Went for a bike ride with Andy and Robert. We made it from St Asaph to Prestatyn and back, which Andy's phone reckoned was 21 miles about. It was a nice day and unlike last time there was barely any wind.
In the evening it was Steve's birthday meal so we all went to a new Indian in St Asaph. It was OK, but they didn't seem to have it running smoothly yet - no beer on draught, no card payments and two waitresses who nearly came to blows over a couple of plates, which was actually quite entertaining. After the meal we headed back to Steve's for a drink and then headed back.
My car played up - while turning round on Robert's steep driveway it suddenly lost all it's coolant. After the meal we had a look and tried putting some water in but it came straight back out again and was too dark to see why, so Robert kindly gave me a lift home and I said I'd come back today to have a look.
Unfortunately my Mum's car is broken too and I didn't want to drive it down so I ended up going on my bike. Actually riding on the road was a bit of a change from the flat and smooth cycle tracks with potholes, hills and occasional cars to contend with. I made down fine though. Investigation showed that the a pipe had come off the radiator, which was easy enough to fix.
The rest of the day has been productive, once I got home I unloaded the bike, had a big bonfire of crap, let the dog have a run and then dug out two ditches, before finally sitting down in front of a Star Trek DVD with a pizza.
I dug out some old vintage ADB Mac keyboards earlier in the week and listed them on Ebay. Didn't expect to get much for them but they went for £74. Yet when I listed two old LC class Macs they got no bids at all - might relist them.
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Bitchy tantrum
In a hacked off ranty mood.
The latest version of iTunes is complete total shite. The new layout is completely senseless and makes things unnecessarily difficult to find, the new search is useless, finding anything in it is a complete ballache, and what stupid cunt decided it would be a good idea to have no border at all on the window? Total cobblers. Hate it. It's about time that Apple fucked off and died again so we can get back to software and hardware that isn't just designed to look pretty above all else, including usability. It would be nice to go into a shop and not see rows and rows of laptops that nearly all attempt to imitate the look of Apple machines.
Also decided to have a go on GTA IV again. It's been years since I played it and I'd almost forgotten about it after the much superior Saints Row 2 and the not quite so superior Saints Row 3. But I thought that perhaps I'd been too harsh, and GTA IV deserved another chance. Nope, I was wrong. What a pile of shit. Idiotic, hypocritical unlikeable characters, awkward controls, tedious and repetitive missions, and just generally pointless and boring gameplay. Ironically, the one thing I liked about it - the car physics, is the feature that everyone else hated.
Otherwise all I've done today is make a batch of chilli and consume it in front of Star Trek and that's about it. The chilli came out really nice though, so that was good. Also listed a couple of old Macs I found downstairs on Ebay. One of them was dead but the other one powered up all right and I spent a few minutes reliving the old days of System 7.5. Curious times.
I think I might be coming down with something, if so it could be the cause of my crappy mood today.
Then again I just found the new EP by Jason Newsted, ex-bassist of Metallica. It's pretty fucking good and has cheered me up a bit.
The latest version of iTunes is complete total shite. The new layout is completely senseless and makes things unnecessarily difficult to find, the new search is useless, finding anything in it is a complete ballache, and what stupid cunt decided it would be a good idea to have no border at all on the window? Total cobblers. Hate it. It's about time that Apple fucked off and died again so we can get back to software and hardware that isn't just designed to look pretty above all else, including usability. It would be nice to go into a shop and not see rows and rows of laptops that nearly all attempt to imitate the look of Apple machines.
Also decided to have a go on GTA IV again. It's been years since I played it and I'd almost forgotten about it after the much superior Saints Row 2 and the not quite so superior Saints Row 3. But I thought that perhaps I'd been too harsh, and GTA IV deserved another chance. Nope, I was wrong. What a pile of shit. Idiotic, hypocritical unlikeable characters, awkward controls, tedious and repetitive missions, and just generally pointless and boring gameplay. Ironically, the one thing I liked about it - the car physics, is the feature that everyone else hated.
Otherwise all I've done today is make a batch of chilli and consume it in front of Star Trek and that's about it. The chilli came out really nice though, so that was good. Also listed a couple of old Macs I found downstairs on Ebay. One of them was dead but the other one powered up all right and I spent a few minutes reliving the old days of System 7.5. Curious times.
I think I might be coming down with something, if so it could be the cause of my crappy mood today.
Then again I just found the new EP by Jason Newsted, ex-bassist of Metallica. It's pretty fucking good and has cheered me up a bit.
Saturday, 9 February 2013
A long week...
Not updated this week much. It's been a week of ups and quite significant downs to be honest.
Work was meh, until Friday, when the news came that the guy I've been covering for over the last couple of years has finally had his contract terminated. It has been on the cards for some time but to be told it had actually happened was still something of a shock, and then I had to log onto the servers and disabled his access. I feel so bad for him, it's not his fault of any of it happened and it must be such a shitty situation to be in. Also on Friday we had a guy in to help with the backup system, which I always find a bit intimidating but fortunately is nice and tolerates my what must be to him rather stupid questions.
Thursday was the Rhuddlan badminton club Christmas meal, which was really good. Put off for some time because of the St Asaph floods, we had it at the recently reopened Trefnant pub. It was typical pub food but pretty good all round. Really good.
Last night went to Rob and Em's to hang out with them and Andy. We sat down and watched some TB and a movie called Looper, which was a really interesting concept, and pretty good. I think it could have been shorter in the middle, but otherwise it was pretty enjoyable.
Today was good. In the morning I posted another Atari ST off, this time an STE that only went for £10 - hardly worth it! I'm still surprised at how little interest they had. In the afternoon we all went round to Steve's to watch the rugby, consume vast amounts of food, engage in fatuous banter and watch people try to act in the Kinect film karaoke game. We also found the time to play with little Binx the cat, who is a tiny dainty thing who knows she is is a cute as she is. It was fun to load up a cat game on my phone and watch her try to get her head around a virtual mouse walking around the screen. Later on we got to gawp in awe at Rob P's new vehicle, a full size Range Rover Vogue 3.0TD. It's a few years old but in nice condition. It's the kind of thing I'd secretly love to be able to drive but I'd feel guilty about how much fuel it would drink, even if I could afford to run one.
I had a slight relapse in money over the last week or so. My plan to get a decent guitar and bass went hugely awry, due to lethargy at work and an itchy mouse finger. Unfortunately this led to a bit of reckless spending and the result that I've ended up with a few extra that I didn't need or want, and which I now need to get rid of. I started to feel really down at my lapse but decided that what's done is done and instead of beating myself up about it, come up with a plan to rectify it.
Fortunately I have found a nice bass to complement the Ibanez RG. It's an Ibanez BTB07LTD, which is a limited edition 'Wild X' model of a BTB200. It's pretty much a perfectly ordinary bass with dark green military paint job and a big X daubed on the front. There's a chip on the edge of the body and there's red paint underneath, so I reckon they had a bunch of BTB series basses lying around and made the special edition with a new paint job to get rid. It's got a pretty hefty body and a longer 35" scale neck than I'm used to, but I rather like it. It did sound rather dull when I got it but a new set of strings really boosted the sound.
Work was meh, until Friday, when the news came that the guy I've been covering for over the last couple of years has finally had his contract terminated. It has been on the cards for some time but to be told it had actually happened was still something of a shock, and then I had to log onto the servers and disabled his access. I feel so bad for him, it's not his fault of any of it happened and it must be such a shitty situation to be in. Also on Friday we had a guy in to help with the backup system, which I always find a bit intimidating but fortunately is nice and tolerates my what must be to him rather stupid questions.
Thursday was the Rhuddlan badminton club Christmas meal, which was really good. Put off for some time because of the St Asaph floods, we had it at the recently reopened Trefnant pub. It was typical pub food but pretty good all round. Really good.
Last night went to Rob and Em's to hang out with them and Andy. We sat down and watched some TB and a movie called Looper, which was a really interesting concept, and pretty good. I think it could have been shorter in the middle, but otherwise it was pretty enjoyable.
Today was good. In the morning I posted another Atari ST off, this time an STE that only went for £10 - hardly worth it! I'm still surprised at how little interest they had. In the afternoon we all went round to Steve's to watch the rugby, consume vast amounts of food, engage in fatuous banter and watch people try to act in the Kinect film karaoke game. We also found the time to play with little Binx the cat, who is a tiny dainty thing who knows she is is a cute as she is. It was fun to load up a cat game on my phone and watch her try to get her head around a virtual mouse walking around the screen. Later on we got to gawp in awe at Rob P's new vehicle, a full size Range Rover Vogue 3.0TD. It's a few years old but in nice condition. It's the kind of thing I'd secretly love to be able to drive but I'd feel guilty about how much fuel it would drink, even if I could afford to run one.
I had a slight relapse in money over the last week or so. My plan to get a decent guitar and bass went hugely awry, due to lethargy at work and an itchy mouse finger. Unfortunately this led to a bit of reckless spending and the result that I've ended up with a few extra that I didn't need or want, and which I now need to get rid of. I started to feel really down at my lapse but decided that what's done is done and instead of beating myself up about it, come up with a plan to rectify it.
Fortunately I have found a nice bass to complement the Ibanez RG. It's an Ibanez BTB07LTD, which is a limited edition 'Wild X' model of a BTB200. It's pretty much a perfectly ordinary bass with dark green military paint job and a big X daubed on the front. There's a chip on the edge of the body and there's red paint underneath, so I reckon they had a bunch of BTB series basses lying around and made the special edition with a new paint job to get rid. It's got a pretty hefty body and a longer 35" scale neck than I'm used to, but I rather like it. It did sound rather dull when I got it but a new set of strings really boosted the sound.
Sunday, 3 February 2013
Bleh
Today was not a productive day - haven't achieved much at all, which is annoying. The weather was meh, my motivation was meh, and so forth.
I did however watch a DVD that Rob lent me, called A Touch of Cloth. I didn't know anything about it but I really enjoyed it. The humour reminded me quite a lot of Airplane, thought it was completely ridiculous and very funny.
Otherwise, that was pretty much it.
I did however watch a DVD that Rob lent me, called A Touch of Cloth. I didn't know anything about it but I really enjoyed it. The humour reminded me quite a lot of Airplane, thought it was completely ridiculous and very funny.
Otherwise, that was pretty much it.
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Random fun
Thursday and Friday were OK in work, not much to report there. Thursday badminton was OK, had some good games and I had unsiezed enough to play well. Friday evening was supposed to badminton again but I came home with a babbled head and decided to cabbage in front of a DVD with snacks.
Today has been a good day except for car woes. I got up early and went to my Dad's to hang out for a bit. Once there I took the chance to look at my front tyres when they were dry and not covered in mud. I didn't like what I saw - they had taken some punishment in the snow and the left one in particular was dodgy as fuck. So we headed down and left it with a tyre place while we had lunch. So it now has two nice new front tyres and had the tracking done which came to a fair bit of money. Had the usual comments about the mileage.
After lunch it was off to Rob and Em's for rugby and general 'drink what was left after Christmas' random party. It was good fun and a fair few people turned up. Both games of rugby were pretty meh, but it was fun afterwards. A guy called Iain was there who I haven't seen in a long time, which was good. Rob invented a game where people hooked up their iPod or Phone or music playing device up to his amp and put it into shuffle for three tracks. It was good fun, and some surprising songs came up. Mine played two Eisbrecher songs and a Pantera song - much to my astonishment, people actually quite liked the Eisbrecher stuff.
Decided I'm bored with my current guitars and have a cunning plan to swap them out. The 6-string is going to go because I never use the top string and when it comes to the low B I'd rather detune a 4-string to drop-D. The 8-string sounds good and is unusual but hard to play and again I don't need it. The Squier Jazz is OK but the list of things I'd like to do to it is too long. The Vintage SG copy is nice but doesn't have a whammy bar. I've already replaced the Vintage with an Ibanez RG, which is an amazing instrument, sounds so much better and has the Ibanez version of a fully locking trem, which is going to be interesting. It seems like witchcraft when you can bend the strings so low that they are literally flapping on the neck and then they all come right back up to pitch again. Now that I have suitable packaging, I can list the Vintage on Ebay, but not sure what to do with the 8-string and 6-string except make them collection only. The Squier I'll sell in bits because I think it's worth more that way.
I have two things listed on Ebay at the moment - a bunch of old Amstrad 3" floppies, which already have a couple of bids and an Atari 520STE which has no bids. I'm really surprised at how little interest there is in STs, after the boxed one I sold only went for £15 after I relisted it. The STE isn't in as good condition so I'll be lucky if it goes for a tenner. Odd - I thought they were more collectible due to the MIDI ports and music use.
It's been a long day. Tired.
Today has been a good day except for car woes. I got up early and went to my Dad's to hang out for a bit. Once there I took the chance to look at my front tyres when they were dry and not covered in mud. I didn't like what I saw - they had taken some punishment in the snow and the left one in particular was dodgy as fuck. So we headed down and left it with a tyre place while we had lunch. So it now has two nice new front tyres and had the tracking done which came to a fair bit of money. Had the usual comments about the mileage.
After lunch it was off to Rob and Em's for rugby and general 'drink what was left after Christmas' random party. It was good fun and a fair few people turned up. Both games of rugby were pretty meh, but it was fun afterwards. A guy called Iain was there who I haven't seen in a long time, which was good. Rob invented a game where people hooked up their iPod or Phone or music playing device up to his amp and put it into shuffle for three tracks. It was good fun, and some surprising songs came up. Mine played two Eisbrecher songs and a Pantera song - much to my astonishment, people actually quite liked the Eisbrecher stuff.
Decided I'm bored with my current guitars and have a cunning plan to swap them out. The 6-string is going to go because I never use the top string and when it comes to the low B I'd rather detune a 4-string to drop-D. The 8-string sounds good and is unusual but hard to play and again I don't need it. The Squier Jazz is OK but the list of things I'd like to do to it is too long. The Vintage SG copy is nice but doesn't have a whammy bar. I've already replaced the Vintage with an Ibanez RG, which is an amazing instrument, sounds so much better and has the Ibanez version of a fully locking trem, which is going to be interesting. It seems like witchcraft when you can bend the strings so low that they are literally flapping on the neck and then they all come right back up to pitch again. Now that I have suitable packaging, I can list the Vintage on Ebay, but not sure what to do with the 8-string and 6-string except make them collection only. The Squier I'll sell in bits because I think it's worth more that way.
I have two things listed on Ebay at the moment - a bunch of old Amstrad 3" floppies, which already have a couple of bids and an Atari 520STE which has no bids. I'm really surprised at how little interest there is in STs, after the boxed one I sold only went for £15 after I relisted it. The STE isn't in as good condition so I'll be lucky if it goes for a tenner. Odd - I thought they were more collectible due to the MIDI ports and music use.
It's been a long day. Tired.
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