Violence and lust

Yesterday went to my Dad's to see him and had Christmas lunch with him and Jean. It was really nice, and good to finally have a Christmas lunch at last. Also finally picked up a tripod for the D50 which came in useful as Will and I went out taking photographs in the afternoon. We went to the beach and took a few shots of a curious robotic lighthouse keeper, before trying to do some steel wool shots. Sadly while I now have the right wool, the battery had gone flat so it wouldn't light most of the time.

In the evening we played a bit of Fable III on Xbox Live. It seems much like the previous one but with quite a few changes and an interesting plot. Not sure all the changes are for the better though, as the interaction with people doesn't seem as flexible, and I think the hand-holding thing is a bit stupid. As I did in the last game I've started building up a property empire.

Feeling a bit rough today, like I'm coming down with something.

Went to town first thing today to go to the bank. Shortly after I got home my phone reminded me that I was supposed to go to the gym to sort out the new programmes and things. By that time though I was sat in the armchair playing Resident Evil 5 over Xbox Live with Rob, surrounded by Monster Munch, Mini Rolls and Coke. We played it for a considerable amount of time, and got a few chapters out of the way. Not sure if I'd have enjoyed it much at all by myself, but as a co-op experience, it's pretty good fun, although frustrating in places.

Didn't really do much else today. I finally got a Mini ITX case for the Atom based VMware server, which is great because it takes up much less room, and it was silly to have a tiny motherboard in a full size case. One thing I hadn't considered was the network card that the machine needed as ESXi doesn't support the onboard network card. My solution was to get a flexible PCI extender lead that extends the PCI slot and relocate the network card. It's a bit kludgy but it works. That combined with a nice little 8-port gigabit switch means my desk has far more room on it which is useful.

House in a state, the dog puked on his bed last night and it smells and due to ongoing problems with the water, it can't be washed, and also I'm running out of clothes. The water seems to be a problem with the pipe, which might take some considerable time to resolve. Oh well.