It's been quite eventful in some ways but not others.
Exercise has gone out the window and eating is out of control, but bringing it back now. I've reached the conclusion that I'm now too heavy to run effectively so I'm working on bringing my diet back under cotnrol and going to the gym.
Last weekend was busy and interesting. Saturday was visiting the film set for Ed's new movie. I was to double for James Cosmo as he wasn't too keen on spending ages lying on the floor dead. There was a lot of standing around and waiting but it was fascinating to see a proper scale movie being made. Also I had to wear James Cosmo's actual clothes which were rather big for me, and actually being on set with Gareth David Lloyd was pretty cool, if slightly intimidating.
Sunday was the archery clout shoot. I borrowed Rob's old recurve. It was really good fun to just launch arrows into the air as far as they could go. Unfortunately my arrows either fell short or didn't go near the flag so I came last. Still really good fun though and the weather held out until just after the finish when it started raining. The week before was the tag archery with the field laid out so you could run around shooting squashy arrows at each other. It was ridiculously good fun and very energetic. So that's two weeks I've not had a chance to shoot Blue Steel. This Sunday though, definitely. I have also got hold of a Carter Chocolate Addiction release aid for it. It's much, much nicer than the Booster one that came with the bow, and is much easier to clip onto the string. Also, it has the MOST appropriate name for me, hah.
Started Voyager season 7 and it's much like the rest of it, a few good episodes and a lot of meh. Reached level 30 in Skyrim and it's suddenly got harder, which is proving frustrating. Still really good fun though.
Work has been OK. I've written a very long and boring document on the procedure for recovering the AS/400 from scratch. It was a pain in the arse but on the plus side I've learnt a load mroe about the system and how it works. The big test now is for my colleague to repeat the process from scratch using my document.
I've finally decided to spend a bit of cash on the car after neglecting the poor thing since I had it. It's having four new tyres and the tracking sorted out tomorrow and then I'll get it booked in for a service.
On a whim I fired up Minecraft on the Yoga 13 today, having not played it since I sold the Alienware machines earlier this year. Much to my surprise it played perfectly fine using the processor's internal graphics. The fan sped up quite a bit as the machine started to get warm but the CPU never went over 70 degrees, which is pretty impressive. I did think about trying it on the Yoga 2 Pro which has a newer Haswell CPU but I don't think it would run well at 3200x1800 resolution. Also randomly found an Asteroids-type game I used to play on my old Acorn Archimedes called Spheres of Chaos is still being developed and there's a fully modernised version for the PC. It's hard to play but good fun and has crazy visuals. I absolutely adore the Yoga 13, it's the perfect size and shape and the fact it can have more RAM and has two SSD slots is amazing. The Pro 2 does have the 3200x1800 screen but otherwise it's a step back with only a single SSD slot and soldered RAM.
The big Asus G73 is still running nicely but I think the heatsinks might need cleaning. The only problem with that is the amount of dismantling it takes to get to them. If I did it though, I could also get to the fourth memory slot, which is stupidly on top of the motherboard, and in theory put even more RAM in it. 20gb is crazy enough though I guess, but it's brilliant to be able to fire up VMs without worrying about RAM.
The house sale is still going through, forms have been flying back and forth and the buyers had a survery done today. I've been collecting boxes from work and it's probably about time we started to actually pack things.
Wednesday 27 August 2014
Wednesday 13 August 2014
Blue Steel
Work: Much the same, still a few things going on. I've learnt quite a lot recently about the AS/400 boot process which is interesting and frustrating in equal measures. The new head of ICT is also cutting the number of desks to enforce hotdesking and I'm being made homeless. Due to issues with the docking stations I've perfected the art of piling my laptop, second USB screen, USB headset, mouse and power supply into a neat carryable heap that I can put in my locker. The challenge is unpiling it all in the right order so the cables don't get tangled.
Exercise: I am a pathetic and useless fat bastard, all there is to say about that.
Archery: Got the new bow set up and working on Sunday. It's heavier and much harder to draw than the club bow, which makes it more challenging, but at the same time it shoots much more quietly and accurately. I was a bit dubious about the sight and release aid, but they work OK and will do for now. The shoulder workout I get at the same time is a bonus. Due to the rather nice blue flame finish, Em nicknamed it Blue Steel, and it's stuck.
Misc: Went to see Guardians of the Galaxy with Andy and Rob G, what a great film it is. It does sometimes feel like the script is trying a little too hard, but it was still really enjoyable.
My Dad has moved house. It went reasonably OK but I think they miscalculated how much room they had and a lot of stuff went into the garage or storage. It's a nice house though, and I think it'll do them nicely. Another nice coincidence is that Andrea that I used to work with lives just around the corner, and it was nice to catch up with her.
Our own house sale is progressing as far as I know, the solicitors are doing their thing.
Been playing around with computers a bit. I picked up one of the OLPC XO-1 laptops recently. They aren't very common in this country and I've always been quite interested in the hardware. It works fine but needs a software update. It's fun to play with. I could replace the standard OS with a more normal one but I'm not sure how well it would work. My beheaded Latitude E4300 laptop that was running as an ESXi host died again after a power cut, so I've retired it for now.
General state of mind has been up and down a lot recently. Feeling quite unhappy about a lot of things really but at the same time helpless to do anything about them. Seem to be pushing people away but I don't know why. My lack of exercise motivation and failure to do the VoC 5k last Sunday hasn't been helping either and I've put on weight. Some days are OK, others less so.
Still going through Skyrim with the latest thing being that I'm now a werewolf, which is not as fun as I thought it would be as you're surprisingly fragile in beast form. I accidentally became it in the middle of a town as well and the entire place hated me instantly.
The car is getting to the point where I really need to book it in for a service. Since I got it a couple of months ago I've been surprisingly happy with it. The 1.1 litre engine is gutless on hills, but otherwise it's nice to drive and surprisingly comfortable. The exhaust is getting a bit loud though and I think it needs new brake disks as they judder above 40mph. And it's probably well overdue for a service. It was beeping to say it needed one when I bought it but I reset the counter as it was becoming irritating.
Exercise: I am a pathetic and useless fat bastard, all there is to say about that.
Archery: Got the new bow set up and working on Sunday. It's heavier and much harder to draw than the club bow, which makes it more challenging, but at the same time it shoots much more quietly and accurately. I was a bit dubious about the sight and release aid, but they work OK and will do for now. The shoulder workout I get at the same time is a bonus. Due to the rather nice blue flame finish, Em nicknamed it Blue Steel, and it's stuck.
Misc: Went to see Guardians of the Galaxy with Andy and Rob G, what a great film it is. It does sometimes feel like the script is trying a little too hard, but it was still really enjoyable.
My Dad has moved house. It went reasonably OK but I think they miscalculated how much room they had and a lot of stuff went into the garage or storage. It's a nice house though, and I think it'll do them nicely. Another nice coincidence is that Andrea that I used to work with lives just around the corner, and it was nice to catch up with her.
Our own house sale is progressing as far as I know, the solicitors are doing their thing.
Been playing around with computers a bit. I picked up one of the OLPC XO-1 laptops recently. They aren't very common in this country and I've always been quite interested in the hardware. It works fine but needs a software update. It's fun to play with. I could replace the standard OS with a more normal one but I'm not sure how well it would work. My beheaded Latitude E4300 laptop that was running as an ESXi host died again after a power cut, so I've retired it for now.
General state of mind has been up and down a lot recently. Feeling quite unhappy about a lot of things really but at the same time helpless to do anything about them. Seem to be pushing people away but I don't know why. My lack of exercise motivation and failure to do the VoC 5k last Sunday hasn't been helping either and I've put on weight. Some days are OK, others less so.
Still going through Skyrim with the latest thing being that I'm now a werewolf, which is not as fun as I thought it would be as you're surprisingly fragile in beast form. I accidentally became it in the middle of a town as well and the entire place hated me instantly.
The car is getting to the point where I really need to book it in for a service. Since I got it a couple of months ago I've been surprisingly happy with it. The 1.1 litre engine is gutless on hills, but otherwise it's nice to drive and surprisingly comfortable. The exhaust is getting a bit loud though and I think it needs new brake disks as they judder above 40mph. And it's probably well overdue for a service. It was beeping to say it needed one when I bought it but I reset the counter as it was becoming irritating.
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