A few things

I'm not doing very well at keeping this up to date.

The main things that have happened recently are that the house is had quite a bit of decorating done, which is really good. It's made such a difference, even with the horrible old 70s carpets still in place.

I've also got a new car, finally. I did so much digging and research I ended up going in circles, but I had decided that I would like something nice. Eventually I decided to semi-seriously consider the W203 Mercedes C-class. The early ones were shite - rusty electrical nightmares. But the later ones are highly regarded so I decided to go and have a look at two of them. They were both estates, and pretty much exactly the same, but one was a C270 and the other a C220. The 270 was a bit of a shed cosmetically and didn't feel 100%, although the 5-cylinder engine was stonking once it had warmed up.

The C220 was much nicer and after some thought I went back and put a deposit down on it, picking it up last Friday. It's been pretty good so far but is due a service and needs a couple of little things looking at, so those are being done this coming Friday. It's nice to drive something that is so laid back and comfortable at highway speeds and I'm liking having an automatic transmission again. One downside is the lack of an iPod or Aux connector, however the factory stereo should be capable of it with the right cable added. Fuel economy so far is good, not quite as good as the C3, but acceptably close given that it's a bigger and more powerful car. Perhaps the service will help a bit in that regard.

I finally went to archery again the weekend before last. It was OK - I shot better than I thought I would, but not great really. But to be fair it's been three months since I last went. I had a go on someone's new longbow, which was really good - it was quite a beast though as it is the same poundage as my compound.

Not much else to report really. It was Rob G's birthday this last weekend and his girlfriend arranged a secret party. The boys took him out for a drink at the pub while the girls set up and then we took him back. Somehow he had no clue at all and it was really good fun. It's scary how quickly their golden retriever puppy is growing - for six months old he is truly enormous. I got Rob G the Graphic Superhero book as I have a copy and I knew it would be exactly his thing.

I made the pleasing discovery that Eisbrecher have released a new album, back in January. Somehow I missed that, so I've got hold of it. It's really good and perhaps one of their best ones.

I finally sat down and had a look at my little Trace Elliot bass amp. It's been making a weird crackling sound for ages now. The cause was pretty obvious - there is a tear in the speaker cone, but it was so dusty I hadn't seen it. It's a standard 8" Celestion speaker so I've ordered a replacement one for it.

One project at the moment is that I've had this idea to install a small screen in the front drive bays of my PC tower. These days such screens are quite easy to get hold of so I ended up getting a 5" 800x480 screen which is designed to clip onto a Raspberry Pi. But because it uses HDMI it'll work on anything. My first attempt to get it working was with a USB graphics adapter with a HDMI connector mounted inside the machine but I think I'm going to just hook it up to the main graphics card, although this does mean sending the cable outside of the case which won't be quite as tidy.