Fun fun fun

Unix day today. Always a nice change from the usual tedium of dealing with hapless users, incorrigable printers and the near constant annoyance of HP machines with failing hard drives. Whenever I hear of one, it's always a Maxtor drive.

One thing that caused me near panic was my laptop having a network spasm. I was logged onto a live system and I nearly shat myself when it suddenly stopped responding. Also I was downloading 2.5gb of updates for one of the machines, and it was at 98% when it froze. Fortunately for some reason it was easily sorted with an ipconfig release and renew. The download wasn't lost, fortunately enough.

Played some more BioShock this evening, but didn't get much done, it must be said. Wasn't in the mood or something and got annoyed at it.

It occurred to me that the G3 might be overheating, so I had a look at the CPU heatsink. It doesn't need a fan on it, but I found that the standard thermal stuff was rather crap. So I scraped it off and put some Arctic Silver on instead. Perhaps that'll help.

This is an AWFUL promotional video for MS-DOS 5. It is a MUST see, simply because it is just astonishingly bad. Not sure if it's a real Microsoft video or not, but someone had to pay for all those effects. MS-DOS was truly dreadful. It boggles the mind that Microsoft managed to dominate the world on the back of that piece of shit.

Currently listening to The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails. Also two-thirds of the way through Look to Windward by Iain M Banks. His Culture novels are really good.

Remember when cool computers were blue and translucent?

Well, this evening, I decided to rebuild my MP3 playing Blue & White G3 with the latest version of OS X (10.4 Tiger). I'm not sure why other than I've been meaning to do it for at least a year. The music and everything important is held on an external FireWire 160gb drive, so it's easy enough to rebuild without affecting that.

The CPU in this old beast is only 350mhz and it only has 384mb RAM, but all it does is rip my CDs into iTunes, play them back and sync it to my antique 20gb 3G iPod and my Shuffle. It also shares the 160gb hard drive over the network. But for some reason it's not the most stable machine, and is susceptible to crashes. I've swapped out the hard drive, memory, video card and the CPU and also tried various versions of the OS, and it still does it. Possibly it's caused by the problems with the crappy Revision 1 motherboard IDE controller.

I suspected it would have problems booting from the install DVD using the Sony drive that was in it, as this was why I hadn't upgraded it in the first place. I tried another drive, which turned out to be faulty, so I put the Sony back in, and tried that. And it worked. Why now, when it wouldn't all those times I tried it last year? Stupid thing.

As the machine runs without a monitor or anything, I was intrigued to find that Apple integrated VNC into Tiger. This appears to work well with the client on my Windows 2000 machine, but the wretched thing is a touch unstable and keeps dying. The machine keeps running though, so I can log on via SSH and restart the VNC server.

So it was a bit of a geeky day today. Apart from that, I didn't achieve much. I was hoping to continue BioShock, but that'll be tomorrow now. Perhaps I've been playing it too much though. After I had a marathon session last week, I had a weird dream where I was in work, but the offices were underwater and water was leaking in and it was all dark. It was quite odd.

South Park won an Emmy for the World of Warcraft episode. If you haven't seen it, watch it NOW. It's on YouTube (admittedly in chunks), so there's no excuses.

Not listening to music right now, the G3 is still syncing the iPod and I don't want to worry it in case it crashes.

Rob's put the honeymoon photos online. No, not what you're thinking. Take a look, they're pretty good.

Overtime and yet more rugby

This morning was overtime. It should have been a simple case of connecting up PCs, logging in, updating the network config and the printers. But this job was made harder by stupid desk layouts with not enough power sockets and a distinct lack of keyboards and mice which were all packed away in boxes. We got it all done in the end but it wasn't as easy as it should have been.

Rugby was on at Andy's house, so we watched that intermingled with Family Guy and some really nice pasta bolognaise.

Tired now.

Family Guy has it's moments.

Rugby. Then rugby. Followed by more rugby. Then Wii.

My arm ached all today from badminton. Bah.

Went to Rob and Em's with Andy at midday and watched some rugby. First it was New Zealand defeating Italy, 76-14, followed by Australia defeating Japan, 91-3 and then finally England defeating the USA with 28-10. The scores don't show the true facts though, Japan battled valiantly against Australia and New Zealand were 'a bunch of cheating bastards' to quote Em on the matter. Also England played shite. This was followed by Wii bowling and laser hockey before everyone declared exhaustion.

This was accompanied by Pringles, pizza, homebrew beer, and we were introduced to a new Andy personality - Export Andy, who is very competitive even in the face of utter defeat. All good fun.

Working tomorrow. Boo. I could use the money but I really don't feel like going. Oh well.

Really tired now. Need sleep.

Today's random pic is of a Silicon Graphics IRIS Indigo workstation. This company made computers that looked aesthetically pleasing, way before Apple did. Very nice high-end systems, running a Unix variant called Iris and very solidly built. They commonly had very powerful 3D graphics and were used for film work. The other cool thing was the names: Indigo, Indy, Onyx, Crimson and Octane were just some of them.

Work and Badminton

Work was OK, but annoying. It was supposed to be my Unix day but I also had to cover helpdesk so it was a bit fractured. Still got a bit done though. Also it was someone's birthday so there was cake, which is always good.

First badminton day of the season. I think I played reasonably well, but it was quite interesting to see how people were out of practice. Even people who are terrifyingly good were playing less well. Also it was very busy and the sports hall was very warm for some reason. But it was all really good fun.

Also just learned that my Dad's wife's Mum died today. She was 90 and very frail and ended up breaking a leg and then developing pneumonia.

Talking Linux

Day off today. I had to take my Mum for an eye test after which she couldn't drive. The rest of the day I played BioShock and experimented with a talking Linux distribution called Oralux (dodgy name!)

It's designed for the blind and so it starts up with speech synthesis and various screenreading desktops. I ran it on an old Toshiba Portege laptop and it seems to run quite well. However the non-GUI desktops are rather peculiar and quite hard to use without looking at the screen. Or at least I thought they were. Perhaps you just have to get used to them.

Ow

Attempting to play slap bass is probably one of the more painful ways of discovering you have a splinter in your thumb...

New Apple stuff...

Wow, new iPods. Again. There was a time when I would wait on the Internet during an Apple announcement, hitting reload every minute to see what the new stuff was. New iPods or Macs would be examined minutely, looking for every detail of the sleek and shiny new hardware.

That time has passed. However I still think Apple makes some interesting things. The multi-touch interface on the iPhone and the new iPod Touch (Nintendo? Is that you?) intrigues me because I've always liked touch screens but found them limited. The new fat Nano looks interesting, and the Shuffle is always good. But my antiquated 20gb 3G iPod works well enough for listening to music in bed, and my two year old 1g Shuffle still works great for the car, where a screen is just a distraction.

Had a performance appraisal in work which went OK. Just need to get myself on an AIX course before the next appraisal in November.

Perhaps I'm just in a bitter mood today.

Finished Michael Crichton's latest book, Next, which is a lot of silly waffle about genetics. It did raise some interesting points, but didn't draw me in. I finished it and put it down, and just...didn't think anything about it. The only book I read of his which is any good is Jurassic Park. It's a lot better than the film and is where I first learnt of Chaos Theory.

Also just finished the last episode of Futurama season 4. What a great show. It never should have been cancelled.

Geeky Linux fun

Today was dull, nothing really happened. Doing overtime on Saturday and perhaps Sunday as well due to massive office moves. I really don't feel like doing overtime right now but I could use the money.

Didn't do much this evening. Played around with my dual-PIII Linux box and also the Gutsy Gibbon Ubuntu release on a couple of old laptops. Considering it's still under development, I've not had any problems with it really. My Toshiba Satellite A40 runs it pretty well. Also ran some network monitoring software to see what was going on with the network. Interesting how it picks up the Wii talking to WiiConnect24.

Spoke to Rob, he and Em have returned from their honeymoon into the harsh reality of life. But they had a great time, so that's OK.

Random pic today is of an albino peacock - how cool is that!

Currently listening to Thunderstruck from the AC/DC Live album. Superb.

Screwed up eyes and the 1 string bass

Behold, the 1-string bass in all it's crappy glory. It actually works now after I changed how the string is attached. The other main thing is I put fretlines on it so it can be played in tune. Measuring those up was annoying and fiddly, but they seem close enough. Pic is too small, but click on it for a larger version.

Had the day off work today so I could go and have an eye test. Usually these are pretty much a formality, but the optician was concerned that my eyesight seemed to be changing almost from moment to moment. He did a blood flow test and found that the flow in my eyes is really low. He thinks it's either a problem with my diet, or a food allergy, which could also explain the eczema on my face. So now I have to take a special supplement each day and go back in six weeks to have another test. Also need to see if I can find out what I'm allergic to, if anything. One of the weirder things about my eyes is that I don't have proper binocular vision, and I can choose which eye to look out of, something my optician says is quite unusual.

Other than that, got a couple of books while I was out, and watched yet more Futurama. I am now half way through the fourth series.

Back to work tomorrow, bah.

Wow, I found it, after 19 years!

No, not my self-esteem...

I blogged a while back about a tape I had when I was about 10 which had a whole load of stuff on it, but I didn't know who it was. The Motley Crue stuff I figured out, but I still didn't know what the rest of it was and there was one track in particular that seemed to stick in my mind.

I've just discovered at least some of it was Whitesnake. The one I remember in particular turned out to be the track 'The Still of the Night'. To be honest the only bit that I really remember is the cool guitar riff. The rest of it's a bit...hmm.

The video is here on YouTube. Scary stuff. I really don't think it could BE any more 80's...

So there you go, a mystery solved after 19 years.

PS3 thoughts and adventures in minimalistic bass

Last night met up with some people I used to work with in Ruthin. The guy whose house we went to has a PS3 and a 40" LCD TV. So we spent the evening playing games and in between eating crisps and dip, followed by chips and chocolate cake. Yeah, it was a fat evening. After the Indian the previous night, cue massive guilt trip.

The PS3 was interesting. The machine itself isn't particularly pretty, it looks like a shiny, overly bulbous PS2. The menus are pretty much the same XMB interface as the PSP, which I always found easy to use.

The controllers...well, they feel just like any PlayStation controller from the last ten years, just much lighter and because of that, flimsier. Played MotorStorm and some F1 game which used the motion sensing. It worked, but was nothing like as good as the Wii sensitivity. Resistance: Fall of Man was better, and looked pretty good. Also watched a bit of Casino Royale on Blu-ray. It looked quite decent, but does HD really add anything to films?

In conclusion, the PS3 is OK. However it does appear to be a better hardware design than the Xbox 360. Mine has crashed twice while playing BioShock in the last week and also twice claimed that the disk was unreadable. It really does seem to be a case of not if it will fail, but when.

I revisited my homemade 2-string bass today. I had previously attempted to add a Precision Bass pickup to it and got pissed off with the wiring, before throwing it under my bed in disgust. I've modified it to have only one string, but the pickup works and it even has a jack socket. The whole thing is held together with duct tape and bits of plastic, but it can now actually be played like a normal bass guitar. If nothing else, it has taught me that I cannot play an unlined fretless in tune.

Other than that I didn't do much other than tidy the downstairs room. Quite a lot of the stuff in there hadn't been touched since I moved out of my old flat, and I found quite a few treasures. One of the things was a Milton Bradley Big Trak, which I think I paid £1 for at a car boot sale in St Asaph cathedral. I don't know if it works, it needs a lot of batteries. One day I'll get some and try it. It was one of those toys that I found fascinating as a child but never had myself, but I knew a couple of people who had one.

Also downstairs is a shedload of retro gaming stuff. In the flat I had a complex series of switchboxes hooked up to my TV which let me switch between a NES, SNES, N64, MegaDrive (with Master System adaptor), Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2 and GameCube. It was slightly OTT and very geeky, but it allowed us to have many and varied gaming sessions. Such as doing a direct and somewhat hilarious comparison between the Saturn Resident Evil and the GameCube remake, or switching between the NES, MegaDrive and N64 versions of Micro Machines. Somehow I never got around to reconnecting it all up when I moved home, so it's all down there in boxes.

I really, really, really need to have a clearout.

Currently listening to Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger by Iron Maiden, one of the few decent tracks from the not so great Blaze Bayley era (The X-Factor and Virtual XI). I edited a couple of minutes out of the middle of the track and it's much better.

Mmm...Indian...

Went out with some people from work last night for an Indian. The venue was the Saffron in Mold, which proved to be very good indeed. I had onion bhajis to start and a slightly unadventurous chicken tikka korma for the main course with a portion of keema nan instead of rice. It was all really good stuff.

Somehow got sandwiched between two Corsas loaded up with chavs on the way home through Denbigh. One pulled out in front and one behind me. The people in front were driving slowly trying to see if the other one was there, while the one behind was tailgating, trying to see the one in front. A bit annoying, but when the first one turned off, I took great satisfaction in leaving the other one behind in a great cloud of diesel fumes.

Oversleeping

Today was the first time I overslept in a very long time. Fortunately I wasn't all that late for work, and there is some benefit to having flexitime.

I don't regret buying that Peavey bass at all. It's really nice to play, and I got used to the extra string quite quickly. It sounds good, plays well and is really good. It could probably use some new strings, but the ones on it are fine for now. It's also surprisingly light which is good.

Deep fried Twinkies - probably the US equivalent of the deep fried Mars bar. Now, I've had deep fried Mars bars, and they are nice, though sickly. Also they are about a healthy as jumping off a cliff (to quote The Cat from Red Dwarf).

Currently listening to the first Franz Ferdinand album. Not something I listen to very often, but I do like some of the tracks on it.

Been naughty...

I know.

But it was cheap.

It's a Peavey Millenium 5 BXP and and is really nice. It's scratched up a bit but sounds good and plays well. I did in fact order it before I had the Catastrophic Realisation.

Wisdom tooth approaching critial mass. Hopefully it'll burst soon and the pain will go away. It wasn't helped by an annoying day in work.

Urgh. I should be taking the dog for a walk and getting some exercise but I just don't feel up to it.

I hate money and my face hurts

Back in work today. I was really annoyed that I got the day Rob and Em were going to Paris wrong. I'd have liked to have gone with them to the airport. Especially as today in work was supposed to be my Unix day and due to various silly things happening, it was a completely futile day. Check out Rob's blog, he's already updating it from Paris.

I don't like BlackBerrys. Silly things.

The day was made worse by one of my my idiotic wisdom teeth swelling up and causing pain again. My bottom wisdom teeth are only 'partially erupted' as my dentist put it and every so often they swell up. It's not worth doing anything about it but when they do this it's a real annoyance. Supper this evening was a jacket potato with beans and cheese, nice and sloppy.

Today I was suddenly made horribly aware that my financial position is worse than I thought it was. Two simple words, preceded by suitable expletives (f**king s**tty credit cards) is all you need to know about that. I am going to be very poor for the next few months.

It was that bad, I thought about selling the Discovery. Yes, that bad. Of all the cars I've owned, it ranks in joint 1st place with the Pimpmobile, I like it that much. The problem is that I need something small and economical, but which has good ground clearance and ideally four wheel drive. Such things do exist, but not in my price range. If I were to buy a normal car, any savings on fuel and insurance would soon be eroded by the inevitable damage from the track. I have to admit though, if I didn't live where I did, I wouldn't own a 4x4.

I have formulated a plan to get things back on track. No, it doesn't involve selling my body on the street.

Oh yes, if anyone liked the Famous Five as kids, be sure to check out the new TV series where they'll be all grown up and middle aged, with a descendant of Timmy the Dog. Yes, you read that right. It sounds unspeakably awful.

Played some more BioShock. I'm really liking it. There's a lot more to it than most FPSs. Yes, it's basically blasting away enemies, but at least it lets you do it in lots of new ways. Also I'm enjoying the storyline too, which is good.

The Wedding Report

Well, Rob and Em's wedding. What a day. The whole thing was just a blast from beginning to end. Rob just told me today that 'perfect' is a word that he is hesitant to use about anything – but it is one of those rare cases where it can justifiably be used. Absolutely everything was spot on, the weather was great and the ceremony, reception and the evening do all went really well. The Oriel House proved to be a fantastic venue.

It's hard to put into words everything that happened, but I have got loads of pictures. Unfortunately they are once again in that gimpy iPhoto exported web page thing. When you click Up, it takes you back to the first page. Bah.

Highlights:

Rob and Em - they both looked really good.
The ceremony itself was simple and effective.
The photographs, taken by Rob's cousin Chris.
The reception was great, with excellent food and a good atmosphere.
Dave's (father of the bride) nearly brought everyone to tears with his emotional speech.
Ed's (best man) speech again nearly brought everyone to tears, but this time with laughter.
The cake, which provided fruit, sponge and chocolate for varying tastes.
Cellar Door providing their usual excellent music.
Having my first ever go on a cigar which was interesting and probably won't be repeated.
Watching an entertaining video about Rob and Em's relationship, made by Ed.
Being thrown down some stairs by Ally for no apparent reason, causing rather a stir.
Attempting to write something in the book of messages and taking three tries due to interruptions.

Rob and Em are one of those couples that Just Work. I have rarely seen two people who are so compatible and devoted to each other. It was an honour and a humbling experience to be there to watch them make that commitment formal. And tomorrow they're off to Paris for their honeymoon.

Perfect.

Wedding today

It's Rob and Em's wedding today. I am about to go forth armed with my camera, batteries and a 2gb SD card, so expect photos soon.

Fun with Robots

Went with my Mum to my Dad's today to visit as my cousin was over. Had scones and tea at the twee cafe before spending the rest of the day chatting and having fish and chips for lunch.

If you get your hands on a big robot arm, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Why, weld a seat to it and make it throw someone around, of course. It looks fun but incredibly dodgy, seeing how close his head comes to the ground. This is what the manufacturer had to say on the matter:

"Please be advised that a FANUC robot has been featured in a series of videos called "Robot Ride" which are now playing on many places on the internet, including Google Video. The videos depict a FANUC robot carrying a person like a roller coaster ride. FANUC Robotics was not aware of this video prior to its appearance on Google. The video is an abuse of a FANUC robot - it appears to violate many RIA safety standards, and there is no safety protection for any of the people "riding" the robot. FANUC Robotics does not approve of this video and action has been taken to locate the individuals who are responsible. If you receive any questions or comments regarding this video, please direct them to (full name) in the Legal Department at (phone extension)."

Here's a Wiimote controlled robot arm, which is funky. Imagine if the robot above was controlled like that...

Also played some more BioShock.

Have YOU been BioShocked?

Work was the same as the last two days.

I came home to find a shiny copy of BioShock waiting for me. Having played it for something like five hours straight, it's pretty good. It's not quite as revolutionary as I hoped, but it's still a pretty good game. The presentation of it is very good, graphically it's got to be the best game I've seen on the 360, even on a standard TV. The different abilities are good and the way they can be combined with regular weapons is pretty cool.

The developers call it a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. I never played that, but I did play the original System Shock, which was an amazing game. It combined Doom like gameplay with puzzles and a really good story. It's one of the few games I played completely through more than once.

So if you have an Xbox 360 or a PC capable of running it, give BioShock a go. Preferably the 360 version, there's been reports of trouble with activation and things on the PC version.

I wish my computer would stop saying 'Alert! Previous Fan Failure' every time it is turned on. It's done this since the second Xeon CPU was added, but it's never crashed and neither CPU seems to be overheating. Gimpy.

Busy weekend coming up. Seeing my Dad and cousin tomorrow and then it's Rob and Em's wedding on the Sunday, followed by recovery on Monday. Hurrah for bank holidays.

A two headed calf. Odd. Apparently it had to be euthanised since it couldn't stand and it's lungs collapsed.

Bizzarenessnessness

Work was unspeakably tedious yesterday and today. Last night I felt so demoralised I couldn't even sum up the energy to write an entry. I just vegged out in front of Futurama DVDs again. This evening I came home a bit early feeling absolutely shattered for no apparent reason. Despite the nice weather I didn't even feel up to taking the dog out for a walk, although I did play with him outside for a bit.

What is happening to this country? Nearly every other day you hear of some kid being shot, stabbed or otherwise attacked, usually by other kids. It's insane.

Bought a Caterham CSR 200 in Test Drive. It's like a mad go-kart, basically an engine and some wheels with a couple of seats bolted on. It reaches it's top speed of 167mph ludicrously quickly, reacts favourably to being hurled round corners and is just hilarious. While not as fast overall, it's far more fun than my Lamborghini Murciélago and was ludicrously cheap in comparison.

Finished Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters. It's not a bad series. It basically tries to be Harry Potter with Greek Gods. It's a nice idea, but the books are definitely meant for kids and it doesn't feel like it's going to change and become more serious like the Potter books did.

Image is of a double neck version of the 1951 Fender Precision Bass reissue. It looks OK except the necks are too close together. Sadly it's not real, it's something I put together in the GIMP. Mind you it's impossible to play a double neck without looking like a total dick unless you're Jimmy Page with a Gibson EDS-1275. But can Steve Vai pull it off with an Ibanez triple neck? You be the judge. Worth watching just because of the funny faces he pulls.

I can hear gunshots outside. Damn farmers with shotguns. Not sure if they're after rabbits or foxes or what.

When Nintendo announced the Wii controller, I stated with certainty that the console would be a complete failure. Fortunately, I was proven completely wrong, having not learned from the success of the DS, which I also predicted would fail horribly.

Lego madness

A robotic Lego production line that builds Lego cars, powered by Mindstorms. Absolutely amazing. When I was little, I liked both robots and Lego, so this to me is really cool. It would be fun to get hold of some of the Mindstorms stuff and play with it.

The DeLorean is going back into production! Yours for only $57,500! Having actually seen one up close at Ed's wedding, it has got to be one of the most attention grabbing cars out there. I've always liked the angular styling and the gull-wing doors.

Someone in work advertised a new in box PlayStation 3 for £300 on the noticeboard. For a brief moment I went 'Oooh!'. Then I realised that apart from not being able to afford it, there are no games on it I want to play. My colleague however did call up about it, but it had already been sold.

Sport Utility Diarrhoea

In January I had a brief go on a MusicMan S.U.B bass. Despite being well used, it played nicely and I rather liked it, but I remember thinking it looked really crappy as the paint was all textured and weird and it had a weird pickguard that looked like chequer plate. I only just found out that it is supposed to look like that as S.U.B stands for Sport Utility Bass. On the plus side it plays and sounds like a StingRay but is lot cheaper.

But it's like those ridiculous Land Rover branded pushchairs that they sold a few years ago with big knobbly tyres. Why does everything have to be Sport Utility? Sport Utility Chairs, Sport Utility Computers, Sport Utility Cake, Sport Utility Buttocks?

That reminds me of a weird dream I had recently, where for some reason I left the Discovery parked up in London, and it was stolen. Myself and some friends googled the registration number and found a blog of the people who had stolen it and were posting videos of themselves joyriding around London in it. This prompted the formation of a task force to track them down and get it back. I don't remember if we succeeded, but it was quite fun. I'm sure there was a car chase involved somewhere.

Uninspired.

Not an inspiring day, being overcast and raining for most of it. Spent the day watching Futurama and playing on the 360. It did let up in the late afternoon though, so I did get a chance to take the dog for a walk.

Wow, could my life be any more boring?

A nice video.

Rugby, Family Guy and Wii

Went into town this morning for no real reason other than to check my bank balance after payday. I've been a good boy this month so it was reasonable. All I need now is for the Discovery to spring an unexpected repair on me or something though.

After that went to Andy's to watch the rugby with him, Rob, Em and Vicky. I know very little about the game so I have to go by other people's reactions. Mind you it can't have been all that interesting since Em fell asleep shortly after the second half started. But after the disastrous game a couple of weeks ago, Wales actually won - yay. After that finished, we watched a lot of Family Guy, some awful 80's music videos and played a bit of Wii. Oh, and ate a lot of Pringles, garlic dip and pizza. Fun.

I like Family Guy but sometimes it's a bit too weird and random. But this clip is very funny, just for the bit at the end.

There's a thing described on a bass forum I read sometimes called GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome and I think I'm a bad case. I was learning some bass lines and a few of them need a 5-string bass. It's not impossible to play them on a 4-string, you can detune the bottom E or play the notes an octave higher, but why shouldn't that stop me from getting a 5-string. I'm so shit when it comes to money and willpower.

Must resist...The Purge must continue...

Also fan fiction can be very disturbing. Someone actually wrote stories about the members of In Extremo randomly deciding to have sex with each other for no apparent reason. Quite apart from the fact that none of them are apparently gay, it's pretty creepy to write this kind of stuff about actual living people. Just...bleugh.

Hysterical surgery

Went round with Will to Andy's to play silly games. Tried out the 360 on Andy's new 32" Toshiba LCD TV with the Bioshock demo and the Flatout party games. All were good but it was only when we fired up Trauma Centre on the Wii that the hysterics began. We took turns to do the missions and I have to admit I was pretty crap. I got the controls confused so when there was a guy lying there with multiple lacerations, and grabbed a scalpel and made some more. Will and Andy did well though, although it was really funny watching the scalpel and needle wobble around the screen as the operator giggled. It was much funnier than it sounds.

And suddenly time hits you in the face. Hard.

Oh dear GOD how old does Krist Novoselic look!

*QOOC

Typed this in MSN to Will:

"DoubleL says: Rob and Em are are Em's parents I think"

Hmm, sounds like a weird time travel film or something.

Badminton was OK, the Ghastly Object was her typical self. I had to play with her in the first game and she played terribly. By the fifth point she'd lost, the fake self-deprecating laughs had gone and the swearing had started. Oh it was funny. I didn't mind losing.

Yay for ground clearance

Work was just as bad today. Took some time to work out why a brand new dual-core Xeon workstation with 4gb RAM was running like a dog, and traced it to Novell. What a surprise.

On the way home I was driving along a narrow country road, being tailgated by a pretty couple in a nice shiny red sports car. Then suddenly another car comes round the corner towards me. It was the work of a moment to drive up the bank and go past the car coming towards me, leaving the two low-slung cars to work out who was going to reverse for whom. Sometimes it really rules having massive ground clearance.

A crappy day made better by a hurdy-gurdy

Another crappy day. I don't think I slept very well again and though I felt OK at the beginning of work, by the end of the day I'd had enough, primarily due to the stupidity and hideousness of AutoCAD licensing. If I have to phone Belgium again to get it sorted, I'll cry, and I mean that.

I was cheered up by finding an In Extremo Live DVD at home, mainly because of the slight absurdity of someone rocking out on stage with a hurdy-gurdy. It's weird to have those and bagpipes and even a nyckelharpa next to guitar, bass and drums, along with vocals in German, Swedish and other languages, but it works really well. At least I think it does.

A Futile Day

Spent all day in work in a furious, pissed off state. I really don't know why. I've slept badly the last few nights but last night I slept better, despite the dog having a neurotic moment and thundering up and down the stairs all night. But when I got into work, that was it, boiling with rage all day. I was advised by my colleague to tone down the language as the constant stream of 'f**ks' and 'f**kings' was getting irritating. Everything just seemed futile and pointless, including everything in work and my entire life.

So I got home and watched The Thing, which was good. While I watched that, I set the 360 off downloading the new Bioshock demo, which was done by the end of the film. Gave it a go. It is certainly interesting and the graphics are undeniably impressive.

The 360 has lots of games, but is shoddily designed and hardware failure seems to be a case of when it will fail, not if. The PS3 is built like a rock, but has fewer games, a shit controller and at least in the UK, is very expensive. I think the 360 had a good chance at the market, but now that everyone knows that they fail, it could be doomed. The Wii appears to be unstoppable, though.

Nokia has announced a problem with BL-5c batteries. My 7610 has one and as I mentioned before the battery isn't great any more. Sadly mine isn't recalled, so there went my hope of a new battery for free.

Will finally updated his blog! Hurrah!

Still not feeling quite right. Hope I'm in a better mood tomorrow. Don't like feeling this way.

Big ass van

Had to move a massive amount of CAD workstations from one site to another in work. Due to the pathetic load carrying capabilities of the ICT van, a Peugeot 206, we had to borrow a bigger van. All I knew was that it was a Transit. As the driver, I was a little disconcerted to find that it was a 05 reg long wheelbase model with a high roof, basically the biggest one there is. Fortunately it was really easy to drive and we got the job done with no accidents other than the occasional rear wheel travelling over a kerb and being slightly worried that it really didn't seem to like starting. Given that it was only two years old, it seemed to have been rather abused.

In the evening, watched A Fish Called Wanda and learnt the bass line to Herr Mannelig.

The picture is something I spotted while walking the dog, and perhaps I've been reading too much Eisenhorn (which I'm about two-thirds through, Rob), but the first thing I thought of was an alien skull.

If you think the piano is hard to learn, check this insanity out, a redesigned synth with 312 keys.

Oh, and Superman is a dick.

That is all.

The Battle

I braced myself. I knew this wasn't going to be easy. My enemies were in front of me. They showed no fear of the blades I brandished, they were too numerous. For far too long they had been left to their own devices, and they had grown and spread. I faced them for a moment and then, with a roar, attacked. It was bedlam, I was surrounded by them, clinging and scratching. It looked like I would be overwhelmed, but after an hour, I was victorious. The ground was scattered with the corpses of my enemies, which I piled into a wagon and left in the fields for burning.

Or, in other words, I had a go at the plants outside the house which had become rather overgrown.

After that spent the afternoon walking the dog, and recovering from my exertions and watched a peculiar French film called 'Confusion des Genres' which is really not very good. It succeeds in making all the main characters so unlikeable that you don't care what happens to them. After that and the let-down that was Transformers earlier in the week, I felt the need to watch a good film, so I rewatched Hot Fuzz, which is excellent. I think it ranks equally to Shaun of the Dead.

Also listened to more In Extremo stuff. Interesting stuff it must be said.

Once again typing this on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. Installed a shedloads of updates and my gripes about cursor speed in Firefox remain present.

An interesting day

Went round to my Dad's today. Joined him and his wife Jean for a coffee in a Victorian style cafe in Deganwy, which is very bijou. It's nice, but you're not allowed to use mobile phones in there. They do however have very, very nice scones.

Jean is after a new car and is bored of Mercedes, so we took a trip down to the local Jaguar dealer to take a look at the X-types they have there. They may be a Mondeo underneath, but they're pretty nice. I took the opportunity to sit in a beautiful XJ6 that was in the showroom. It had 10 miles on the clock and was absolutely stunning in metallic grey paint and a cream interior. It had the highest trim level (Sovereign) but had a diesel V6 under the bonnet, meaning it was only £205 to tax for a year, not bad for a car like that. The price of the XJ6 was £58,000 - a few years ago you could have said 'You could buy a house for that!' but now that sadly isn't true...

While in Colwyn Bay I popped into a music shop that I hadn't been to for a long time. It was really cramped, you literally had to make your way through narrow aisles between stacks of amps. But at the back of the shop was something that really tested my limits. It was a Music Man StingRay bass, in metallic teal and a pearloid scratchplate. It had a 2 band EQ and was absolutely beautiful. The price was £650, which isn't bad at all. I tried out both a fretted and fretless StingRay back in January in the US, and they were absolutely superb. The fretless one was the first fretless I managed to play in tune without having to really concentrate on it.

As well as that, they had a nice Trace Elliot bass amp, which along with the StingRay were being sold for a customer. The amp was £450 but he said I could have them both for a grand. Both of these items have been on my bass wishlist pretty much since I started playing, so that was slightly annoying.

After that, went into Llandudno to pick up a set of new headphones after my faithful Panasonic folding ones broke. I bought them in Manchester airport enroute to New York in 2005 after I broke the ones I took with me. I ended up with a pair of Sennheiser HD-215s, a little pricey, but they are absolutely awesome. Really really good sound quality. Also they came in a very nice sensible box that opens up nicely to reveal the headphones and a case, none of this sealed plastic nonsense which you have to attack with scissors, knives and chainsaws.

Trying to find In Extremo stuff in this country is hard. A couple of the albums are available, but the live DVD is proving hard to track down. They aren't quite as extreme as Rammstein live, but do perform in kilt like outfits and things.

This is a great site - it lets you download YouTube videos and save them in FLV format. This can then be played in the VLC media player.

A very VERY fat day

Today was astonishingly fat. I started off my day with yogurts like I usually do. But then when I had been in the office five minutes, my colleague came in bearing sausage baps, which went down well. Then for lunch I found a chocolate cake in the Spar next door, which despite being prepackaged, was actually really nice. This was followed by a packet of crisps mid afternoon, because I was bored. After work, I went round to Rob and Em's and had a portion of Cat Poo. After this I met up with some people from work in the Plough. I didn't join them for a full meal, but I couldn't resist chocolate fudge cake - twice in one day! I know it's Friday, but what the hell?

Today's weird video is Herr Mannelig by In Extremo. Worth watching for the moment near the beginning where the guy playing the weird horn thing accidentally plays completely the wrong notes.

Urgh...what happened?

<-- This is a whippet! She has a genetic disorder which means she has twice the amount of muscle she should, though she's quite normal in every other way. Compare her to a normal whippet...

Work was dull, the highlight of the day was installing seven 24" screens for some of the CAD users. Really decent displays.

Played badminton this evening. Didn't play too badly, and managed to get some good shots in against the object of my hatred. Also I plonked a shuttle in her face, genuinely by accident, but it was quite funny. She was her typical self, and once gave me a really disdainful look after I missed a shot. Oh well. Also on the way there, some gimp pulled out in front of me. I had to slam on my brakes, but not enough to skid. At least they were decent enough to wave after I beeped at them.

In an odd state of mind right now. I feel somehow that I've missed out on things. Basically everyone I know is getting married and/or having kids and have their own houses. I'm stuck living with my Mum at nearly 30, which is humiliating.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Instead of renting a flat back in 2003, I should have bought a house when I might have been able to afford one. Now I'm completely priced out of the market. Even renting is outrageously expensive, no reason why I couldn't rent again, but it wouldn't be the right way to go right now. My salary isn't going anywhere at this point either.

The problem is I'm basically shit with money and willpower. I'll become fixated on an idea, which will usually be pointless and stupid (e.g, buying a rusty Mercedes for £400) and eventually will realise that it's a very stupid thing to do. The problem arises when I don't realise it in time to avoid spending money or wasting a lot of time on it. The Discovery comes into this category, but it has survived 18 months of the track where a normal car probably wouldn't, so that does kind of justify it.

I have also realised that I like things for the wrong reasons. I like to play with computers and build them, but once built, I don't really do anything with them. The same goes for basses, I like to pull them apart and tinker with them more than actually playing them. That probably isn't a bad thing, but becauseI tend to never get rid of anything, it means I have a LOT of stuff lying around that I never use. For example, this double neck bass is on Ebay UK right now. What on earth would I do with a double neck? I can't even play a fretless! Fortunately it looks like it'll go for quite a lot so I won't bother bidding on it, but that's the kind of thing that causes me problems.

Damn it. Why am I so shit?

Transformers

Yes, well, Transformers. It's not a bad film. However, the plot is barely existent, it takes a while to get going and there are things that happen that just make absolutely no sense whatsoever or are totally unbelievable. Example: how can a four foot tall chrome robot with glowing blue eyes walk across a busy airport runway where Air Force One has just landed while gibbering nonsense to itself and not be noticed by ANYONE? I also felt that the actual Transformers themselves were underused, pretty much all the time they were just fighting and they lacked the personality they had in the original comics. Also there was FAR too much wobble-cam. 'Oh my God, something exciting is happening - SHAKE THE CAMERA'.

It doesn't quite work as a 'disengage your brain and just enjoy it' movie because there are too many bits where nothing happens so you try to understand the story. But it's not all bad, there are some really good scenes and ideas and it's worth watching for the effects. The Transformers themselves are absolutely astonishing. They have real depth and weight and are so detailed. It's probably some of the best effects work I've seen, I just wish the wobble-cam wasn't there so you could see the robots themselves more clearly.

Oh well, perhaps the sequel(s) will be better.

Big Iron

Today was my Unix day in work, and I got my hands on an IBM AS/400 (or iSeries/System i) for the first time. I've read about them, but never actually used one before. They are a quaint throwback from the days of mainframes and minicomputers, but were (and still are) quite ahead of their time. In terms of architecture and operation, they are absolutely nothing like a normal PC style computer. The whole system is object orientated, and there is a built in SQL database. Some aspects of Unix have made it into the OS, but even now it's still nothing like a regular computer. They have legendary uptimes, some go for years without any maintenance.

Despite the machines in work only being a few years old, they still use old-school terminals, some even have green screens, and huge clicky keyboards with 24 function keys. There is no GUI, but the whole system is menu based. It was certainly interesting to finally have a go on one anyway, or at least I found it interesting being the hapless geek that I am.

Apple seems to be in the throes of releasing a new iMac. I'm sure it's breathtakingly beautiful, but what's the idea of the MacBook like keyboard? Why have full-travel keyboards suddenly gone out of fashion? Give me an IBM Model M any day! Also it appears to have one of those new glossy LCDs. I hate those with a passion, they reflect everything and the image doesn't look that much better.

Madrid flashback

Isn't it weird how certain things can sit in your memory, dormant, until suddenly triggered. For me, it was this randomly encountered video of a Madrid Metro train pulling out of a station. That distinctive sound triggered a flashback of using the Metro to travel around the city, surrounded by conversations in Spanish and all sorts of people. It was really weird. Also some of the Berlin U-bahn trains make a similar sound, so that was interesting. That sound means holidays and adventures, and new experiences. I definitely want to go back to Madrid at some point, we had a really, really good time there.

Just spent a few minutes watching the Chris Cunningham compilation DVD, which features the videos of Africa Shox by Leftfield, and the genius Windowlicker by Aphex Twin. I've also got the DVD of Rubber Johnny, which is just VERY strange. It's also on YouTube, and is worth watching.

A weird dream

Feeling extremely tired at the moment. For some reason I woke up at about 2:00am and had one of those dreadful contemplative moments where I examined every aspect of my life and found it lacking. So to take my mind off it I started to read a book that Rob lent me called Eisenhorn. It is very thick, and when opened, has distressingly small print. So it may take a while. I did eventually get back to sleep, but not for a while as the bit I read of the book was pretty decent.

After that, I had a very peculiar dream. I was driving along with Will in the Discovery, when I got out without realising the car was still moving. I stood there stupidly and watched it disappear down the road, with Will still inside. Eventually it came to a halt after running into the bank. I caught up with it and berated Will for not stopping it earlier . I got back in and carried on as it didn't appear to be damaged. However it became apparent fairly quickly that the brakes weren't working. This then quickly became a problem as the engine died at the top of a long hill. So we ended up trundling down this hill with no brakes, going faster and faster and with no way to stop. I don't remember what happened after that, but it was a very peculiar dream. Probably caused by playing too much Flatout yesterday.

Will and I went to the car boot this morning as the weather was pretty good. It was big but full of the usual crap that you find there, stuff that you can't imagine why people bought in the first place.

Didn't do much else, watched a couple of DVDs and tidied up the Discovery. I also rebuilt the Toshiba laptop with a fresh install of Windows XP and set it up to dual boot that and the RC version of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. It seems to run quite nicely although the graphics effects it has are very slightly too much for the graphics chip. Also for some reason when typing in Firefox, it lags really far behind and you have to wait for it to catch up.

Ragdoll physics

Firefox just crashed again while I was busy typing away. Pants.

Anyway, spent the afternoon at Will's where we spent most of the time cackling hysterically at the ragdoll physics in Flatout: Ultimate Carnage. The racing itself is a bit like Burnout with ultra destructable scenery, but it's the stunt party games that are best. The basic aim of the game is to launch your hapless driver out of a speeding car into a dartboard, curling rink, or rings of fire. Good fun.

I looked briefly into ragdoll physics and found two games called Stair Dismount and Truck Dismount. You can push a guy down some stairs or make him drive a truck into a wall.

We also played with the AT&T text-to-speech demo. If you want a laugh, cut and paste a question about embarassing feminine problems and get it read out by Charles.

Listening to Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. Always liked them, though I'm not convinced about Billy Joe Armstrong's new look. I'd quite happily play Mike Dirnt's signature Precision Bass though, it's pre-1957 based shape with a post-1957 pickup. Very cool.

Dragonfly!

Saw this while walking the dog earlier today. It was huge. The picture doesn't do it justice, if only I'd had my real camera there with Macro mode.

SCRANCHGAN

GTA IV has been delayed until 2008! This calls for a whole new word to be added to the GAN dictionary - SCRANCHGAN, which can be defined as the awful sensation when FANYGAN unexpectedly comes true and it feels like your naughty bits are being dragged along a rusty pipe.

Also with the extra time involved, the likelihood of Xbox 360 failure increases. Also (sad I know) Will, Rob and I took time off specially for the UK release date.

Pissed off with my laptop, a Toshiba Satellite A40 (2.6ghz Celeron, 768mb RAM). Don't get me wrong, other than being a bit bulky, it's a great machine but the thing that lets it down is the integrated Intel graphics. Laptops with decent graphics cards are not all that easy to get hold of and tend to be expensive Mind you, do I really need a new laptop? No, the Toshiba doesn't get much use as it is since I got the dual-headed Dell Precision workstation.

The Purge has been a dismal failure so far. Sometimes I also want (not need!) a new phone, but my Nokia 7610 is so ultra-reliable and solid, I haven't yet found a suitable replacement.

Newer phones are shinier, prettier and have more features, but invariably seem more fragile. I don't like hinges or moving parts, but the ones I dislike the most are the sliders. If you're going to introduce a mechanical weakness by having a moving part, why still leave the screen exposed? My 7610 has been dropped countless times, trodden on, accidentally kicked across a road, had wine poured in it, been left in the sun, rained on and generally mistreated, and the only thing it's needed is a new shell. The only fault is the battery, which doesn't hold a very good charge any more and the camera isn't great. In fact I may look for a new battery for it.

Off to Andy's house fairly soon for Pictionary and hopefully healthy food.

Anthrax video from the 80's - cue big hair and pointy guitars!

Tired and bored

A bridge collapsed in Minneapolis - unbelievable! That must have been terrifying for the people on it. It's just insane how the whole thing just fell straight down.

Talking of collapsing bridges, the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse is worth watching, where the suspension bridge started to twist due to the wind. It's such a weird image to see the very road itself twisting from side to side.

Spent most of the day feeling very tired. I think I had a disturbed night's sleep as I distinctly remember a very weird dream where I was living in China. My Dad came to visit me and was rather disconcerted by the lift to my apartment which was basically a wicker basket lifted up by four bits of string. It spun around as it went up. Odd. I don't remember much else about the dream.

Played Test Drive a bit more, got some more money and bought a new house and a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. Quite nice but easy to spin out at high speeds.

The image is of a shedload of Xserves and even more Xserve RAIDs that Apple set up at an exhibition or something. It looks pretty but I shudder to think what the back of the cabinets must look like.

A screaming printer, stupid parking and a tiny bass guitar

So, today was rather busy. I had a lot of calls come through, ranging from an idiotic laptop that didn't want to run from a fully charged battery, and a printer that screamed loudly (literally!) every time you tried to print. The laptop was fixed by taking the battery out and putting it back in, and the printer settled down after a hefty thwack and some jiggling of the rollers (the warranty had expired).

The day was also made interesting by two selfish people who made a parking space nearly unusable. It was the only one free in the car park because the gap was so narrow. After some calculations, I worked out I could get the Discovery in, but not be able to open the doors. Luckily though, the rear door has a handle on the inside, so after a bit of climbing, I was able to get out. Sadly neither of the people had moved their cars by the time I went back to the car, but I did get a photo which I'm tempted to post on the noticeboard in work. It looks like the BMW mirror is touching, but there was an inch clearance between it and the Discovery.

Despite my resolution that I am trying to save as much as possible, I was unable to resist a cute little bass I saw on Ebay. It's a 3/4 size one meant for kids and has the same scale length as a guitar. It's made by Tanglewood and is somewhat poetically called an 'Elfin Bass'. The strings on it were crap so I put guitar strings on it, making it in effect a four string guitar that plays like a bass. It's really fun and though it's a cheapy thing, it has a mahogany body and a really good sound. I'm planning on getting rid of one of the other basses which I don't use to some guy who is collecting instruments for a kids music centre.

Disaster! Disaster!

Just spent two days in Birmingham assisting with disaster recovery testing. Not very interesting, it basically amounts to loading all the tapes into a library down there and restoring the systems back onto test boxes and seeing if they work. It was quite dull, and some worked, some didn't. So far anyway. I came back today but some people are there all week and some are coming and going. It was quite interesting at the place though, they have absolute shedloads of equipment, so they can match what your systems are.

Got a lift there with a guy from work who has an elderly but very comfortable BMW 518i and then got a train back this evening. The trains were OK. I'm still not sure if I got the one I was supposed to from Crewe, but it still stopped at Rhyl so that was fine. One taxi ride later I was retrieving my car. I bought a book in New Street Station (huge, intimidating and incomprehensible) called 'A Spot of Bother' by Mark Haddon. I'm about half way through and it's quite odd. He also wrote 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time', which was interesting.

I forgot to mention that I saw a shining example of utter stupidity on Sunday. Not far from home is a village with very dodgy crossroads. It has one road that joins at a very sharp angle, and a lot of people tend to treat it like a slip road and barely look before pulling out. Well, I was coming along and some guy in a new red Vectra pulled out without looking, while putting on his seatbelt. Luckily nothing was coming the other way so I was able to go round him while blaring my horn and he absolutely shat himself and nearly went into the wall trying to get out of my way. The best part is that if I'd hit him, he wouldn't have had his seat belt on. Mind you, I have rarely seen anyone look so terrified so perhaps he learnt his lesson.

Back to work tomorrow. Boo.

Test Drive Wisdom

Things I have learnt about Hawaii.

1) In Hawaii, all high powered sports cars are indestructible, do not need maintenance and never run out of fuel.

2) You can test drive any car you desire, including unique prototypes, even when wearing shorts, flip flops and a tank top.

3) On a test drive, you will be accompanied by a woman, who will remain completely unphased by being driven into walls, other cars, or the sea.

4) Hitch-hikers are very ungrateful, demanding to be driven to their destinations at 100mph+ and will get out and walk if you drive too slowly.

5) Women go shopping and become tired when trying to carry their goods home and so try to scrounge a lift. However they will often only accept a lift in one particular car, such as a Jaguar E-type. Also, like hitch-hikers, they demand high-speed journeys.

6) The police will fine you for any collisions, but you will never be arrested or jailed.

However, there's something to be said for blasting down a long, straight road in a McLaren F1 at 200mph with Ride of the Valkyries blasting out the stereo.

I haven't played Viva Pinata yet. However I did come across some old Lego men in a drawer which prompted some experimentation.

Rude Scrabble and brum brum

Last night was good, Andy and I went to Rob and Em's to eat pancakes with ice cream and play Scrabble. The pancakes were cooked with flair by Andy and Rob and were a distinct success. Oddly though, they weren't enough and we had to go out and get Cat Poo and Chips from the Chinese round the corner. It was really good too. Note, Cat Poo is our name for the Crispy Beef Strips because well, they look like cat poo.

The Scrabble was OK. The second game was a bit poor even with the 20 point bonus for swearwords. Possibley the best game like this was some time last year when Em managed to put 'quim' on a triple word score, which earned her an insane amount of points. The final board for that game can be seen in the attached image.

Today I went to Rhyl and took a look at the car boots as the weather was good. Nothing particularly interesting so I went into the Games Exchange and had a look at the Xbox 360 games. I picked up Test Drive Unlimited and Viva Pinata. So far I've only played Test Drive Unlimited and it's quite decent. The cars are good but the various people in the game are right in the Uncanny Valley. Especially the woman who sits in the car with you when you test drive a car. While I was in the Games Exchange, some guy from GameStation came in and it was quite interesting. They seem to have a friendly rivalry going on between them. I quite like GameStation, mainly because they have a nice retro thing going on. When I looked in there, they had a load of stuff for the Neo Geo Pocket, a really underrated handheld.

Loud cars are only acceptable if they are actually powerful, a Saxo with a 1.0 litre engine and a loud exhaust is pointless. Whilst in Rhyl I walked past a Maserati as the owner started it. What a noise...it was amazing. Bizarrely enough that exact same car was available to test drive in the game, which was fun. The engine sound was spot on too.

I also picked up I, Robot on DVD for £3. It's not really all that good, and nothing like a proper Asimov story. It has elements from Little Lost Robot in parts, but on the whole it's not all that good.

Hideous work days

Yesterday and today in work were hell on toast. Thanks to an untested security program being deployed on the network, s significant number of machines went down. Because of this I spent far too long trying to sort them out. It was really annoying.

I spent this evening around at my sister's house. I haven't seen her in a while. A few weeks ago I got a message from her saying she and her husband were splitting up and then another saying they were trying to work things out. They are still together at the moment but she seems to have changed rather. It was a good evening, we went out and got Chinese food, watched some awful TV and looked at each other's photos of recent events. She was interested in the ones from Berlin in March because she couldn't make it there. All in all it was a really good evening.

Other than that, not much to report. I slept like crap last night, woke up at about 2:00am and couldn't sleep until about 4:30am. The Discovery had it's exhaust done, 77 quid all in, which isn't too bad. It is significantly quieter now.

It's nearly the weekend. I can't wait. Then I'm down in Birmingham for 2 days doing Disaster Recovery testing. Should be a laff.

Life is not a malfunction (but that depends on your point of view)

One of the Johnny 5 robots from Short Circuit was on Ebay. Full size and complete. Amazing. For some reason the auction was cancelled, but some cool pics are here. There are rumours of a remake using CGI. That would be disastrous. Part of the appeal of the old films is that there actually is a real live (well, not quite) robot in all the scenes. I always wanted one of the toy robots from Short Circuit 2. Interestingly the Wikipedia article indicates that Short Circuit was supposed to be a dark thriller with the robot as a villain. That could have been interesting. 'My name's Johnny 5, motherfucker!' *zap*

Also I hate Rubik's Cubes. I can get so far using the layer method and then invariably screw it up trying to do the last layer. Bloody things. Here's someone solving one in 12.30 seconds. Here's the same guy solving a 5x5x5 cube. I have one of these too, but I hate that even more than the normal one. The 2x2x2 is trickier than you'd think, but he can do that quickly too.

Currently listening to 'Whole Lotta Rosie' by AC/DC from the AC/DC Live album. Absolutely amazing track. I think I've mentioned this before, but every time I hear this track, I want a Gibson SG and the ability to play it like Angus Young.

Houses and exhaust pipes and a heck of a lot of water

Work was typical. Not much to say really.

Went to see a house that someone I used to work with bought with her fiance. It's a 3 bedroom semi in the middle of Ruthin. It's really nice, or it will be with a little work. It used to be owned by an elderly lady and you can tell. But it's completely sound and very roomy. I think it set them back just over £135,000. By far the best thing in it was a newspaper from 1987, where we found an enthralling review of the new MG Montego! The property pages were unbelievably depressing, a house like that one was a mere £24,000.

Also headed up to the friendly neighbourhood Land Rover specialist. Luckily they have a suitable exhaust section in stock for £48, which isn't bad. It's going in on Thursday morning to have that sorted out. Also managed to blag some brake fluid to top up the reservoir. I also really need to get it clean underneath and put on some underseal, but the weather really isn't helping.

The sheep are back on our fields, annoyingly. They make noises, and cough like people, and mean that The Dog can't chase rabbits in case he decides sheep are more fun. Also the gates have to be closed.

And that's about it for today other than the ludicrous floods that don't seem to be going away. It's insane! It's interesting how the BBC Have Your Say page about the floods rapidly degenerated into two basic arguments - South vs North and 4x4 drivers vs everyone else.

The pic is of a car that made me chuckle, it's a MkII Golf with a VR6 engine, chameleon paint and a roof chop. It's been vandalised and is therefore cheap. Looks funny though.

Also Craig now has a blog. Hurrah!

Rob's birthday lunch

In order to celebrate Rob's 30th, there was a meal in the Crown Bard. It was pretty decent with various people there, mainly Em's family and some friends. Presents were given, including a big barrel for Rob to put the contents of his new homebrew kit from Em in. It was given a name that I can't remember, but started with a C. Andy and I went halfs on a big bottle of the new Bailey's Creme Caramel, which both Rob and Em like.

So yeah, it was good, lots of nice chatting about stuff, flicking of beer mats, and a lot of nice food. All good. When we left I found that someone had considerately parked right next to the Discovery so I had to get in through the back door. The owners of the car then suddenly appeared and drove away. Annoying. And then, just as we drove out of the pub, it rained. 'Rained' isn't a strong enough word to describe it though - within seconds the road was inches deep in water. The wipers were on fast, and it wasn't coping. This was bad. But Rob and Em and family were walking home. The timing couldn't have been worse! But then three minutes later it stopped, completely. Bizarre. Amazingly the sunroof didn't leak much, I got dripped on slightly but that was it.

With the rear silencer missing, the Discovery is a little noisier, but not so that you'd really notice. That old 200 Tdi is so noisy anyway, you can't tell. If the middle silencer (yes, it has two!) was gone as well, THEN it would be noisy. Oh well.

Not right

Ever wanted to eat a hamburger with 100 burgers in it? No? Thought not.

These guys did. The worst part is, as they point out, the hideous, hideous cheese.

The End

Just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Not going to say anything about it until everyone I know who wants to read it has done.

Kind of weird to think that's it.

Just found out how to set my time zone so the posting times are correct. It only took five months.

%$&^($%"(*!!!!