Give it a Puch

This morning I took the Puch up to a quiet road to test it out. It goes very well. I had to tweak the rear wheel, the front derailleur and lift the saddle slightly but it feels really stable and fast. The gearing is going to take a little getting used to with only 10 gears which are higher than the mountain bike, but it has a fairly usable range. I only realised today that by putting the smaller 700c wheels on it the gearing would have changed. The brakes are pretty awful but my Dad reckons a set of double pull calipers would make them much better and I think the new brake blocks need to bed in properly. It's probably the most uncool bike of all time but I like it so far.

Haven't done much else really, made a nice batch of chilli and put some aside for work, watched the latest Torchwood episode and played some Dragon Age. Just got to a huge new area so I stopped as I didn't want to start things and then turn it off.

I woke up with a pain in my foot which has been getting steadily worse, very annoying. It's done this before but not in the same spot. It's so bad now I've retired early to bed with the DS.

A fun day

Today went to my Dad's and my cousin Pauline was down. We basically spent the day pulling the Puch to bits and making it work again, aided by Pauline's commentary.

First we decided there was no point keeping the 27" wheels due to there being hardly any tyres available. Fortunately my Dad had an old Raleigh with 700c wheels that also had 5 gears on the back and the wheels fitted onto it OK and the brakes were adjustable to reach the rims. Disaster loomed when the gears wouldn't select properly though, until I worked out how to adjust the derailleur. The problem then was that the rather fat tyres didn't fit through the brakes so it was a pain to get the wheels on and off. So we went out and got some new tyres and inner tubes and some fresh brake blocks. Once they were all fitted and the brakes and the gearing lubricated, it all worked OK. So it all came together. The only thing I really think it needs now is a quick-release front wheel really, otherwise it's fine. It feels quite different from a mountain bike but in a good way.

Other than that we chilled, ate scones for breakfast and chips for lunch. All good.

Found the talk radio stations from GTA III and San Andreas with Lazlo, which I always really enjoyed. Pretty fun to listen to.

Weird dreams

Well, I've had some fucked-up dreams recently. Two nights in a row I distinctly remembering smashing up my phone, once intentionally, once by accident. Hope it's not an omen - I really like the Galaxy S. I need to treat it to an updated ROM though, the one on it isn't factory and has a couple of bugs.

Then I had a dream where someone was coming at me to attack me. I had my camera in my hand and holding it by the lense, I smacked him across the face. He went down, but the camera broke apart and inside it was all flesh and blood. Disturbing. You could probably read a lot into that, but let's not. I mean I love the Nikon but not like that, haha.

Today wasn't bad, job count sensible, backups running, and it was generally OK.

In the evening had a proper look at the Puch (Pook? Poosh?). It's actually purple and gold, very classy and retro. I think it looks fantastic as I've always liked the look of racers even if I've never really owned one, just something about the shape of the frame and the skinny tyres.

It's only got 10 gears but has Shimano Positron shifters which is apparently one of the first attempts to make indexed ones, so that's interesting. Perhaps most intriguingly, the brakes appear to have plenty of adjustment, meaning I could perhaps replace the nearly obsolete 27" wheels with the slightly smaller modern 700c wheels to allow a much wider range of tyres to fit. It also it looks like there's enough clearance to put some slightly more chunky tyres to make it a bit more versatile - cyclocross ones would be ideal. Anyway, taking it to my Dad's tomorrow to check it out properly and hopefully get it rideable again.

Then went to the pub and had a nice long chat with Andy, Rob and Em although Em went a bit early due to tiredness, but it was nice to hang out. It's good that it's become a regular thing as it's so nice to hang out as a group and brings the work week to a nice close.

Picked up a couple more games for the DSi. The first Trauma Center as I thought it would be easier on the bigger XL screens and the second Professor Layton game since I enjoyed the first one so much. Just need to find the time to play them though since I've still got Dragon Age to get through.

Tired now. It's been a long but good day overall.

The day just got better

Today wasn't great in work, quite a bit going on and I felt quite down through most of it.

Then just before the end, Andy texted me to say to go to his for an inpromptu BBQ in St Asaph, so that was great fun. It was nice to sit out in the sunshine eating stuff. Then I remembered Rob's Mum had offered me an old bike that was in her garage so I headed over and picked that up. It's a Puch Maxima in a very retro brown and gold colour scheme. It's in pretty good nick considering it hasn't been used in over 15 years and probably only needs tyres and even they might be salvageable.

When putting the seats down to put the Puch in the 306 I found astonishing amounts of rubbish from sweet wrappers to pistachio shells, and also £1.50! Hurrah. It is a mess though, will have to moan at the previous owner tomorrow.

Got a weird game for the DS called The World Ends With You. It's fun but it's got complex fights where you have to control two characters at the same time, one on each screen. Weird, but fun. One of the best games on the DS apparently so we'll see on that one.

Bye Focus

Well, the Focus went today, for a pittance really but hey. The people came from Wrexham to buy it and again I had to go and get them after they got lost. In this case they were in a slammed Audi A3 with huge wheels so it would never have got up the track anyway. But it's gone, and now I can relax.

Pong by Eisenfunk. I find this oddly fascinating, not quite sure why.

Not much else. Tired now.

Epic Struggle

So, in D&D tonight we encountered a dragon. At first it went really well and we absolutely kicked it's arse for a couple of rounds and then it came back and did some damage, but finally it died. Not before it kicked one of the party into a bottomless canyon.

Fun.

Work = meh. Had a tiredy headache most of the day and still feel a bit rough and also full of the snacks and pizza that seem to be a D&D prerequisite.

Mega update

Last week it was over to Gibraltar to hang out with Simon. Getting up at 3am was quite grim as the weather was horrible. It was bad enough trying to manage a torch, the umbrella and a bag with my shoes in it, let along coping with the wind turning the umbrella inside out. The drive there was pretty ghastly too, but once there, everything went OK.

Gibraltar airport is pretty minimal, and since I didn't have any bags, I was out of the airport in about five minutes. I had to get a bus into the town but the bus had to wait to cross the runway and it was bloody hot. But finally I found Simon and we went to a Spanish themed place to eat. This was large because Simon miscalculated the size of the tapas portions, but it was delicious. After that we went on a dolphin spotting trip, which was ace. It was run to be on a boat and we saw loads of dolphins. In the evening everything caught up with me and I got really tired.

Tuesday morning we got the cable car up to the top of the Rock which had astonishing views over the town and across to Spain. We also encountered the apes, which are kind of cute and interesting and have a interesting history. We made our way back down the Rock and saw various things including St Michael's cave, and the World War II tunnels. After that we chilled out before going to a really good steak place called Gaucho's.

On Wednesday we went shopping along Main Street and then had a rest while watching some TV, and then headed over to have a look at Spain. This involved crossing the runway which was pretty cool and happened to take place just when the traffic chaos begins - every evening the roads clog up and policemen have to direct traffic around. It was pretty cool to see La Linea and after we had a nice food in a Spanish restaurant we went to see a fair that was set up right next to the border. This was pretty cool because there weren't any other British people there.

On Thursday it was time to go back so I walked over to the airport and managed to ignore the huge massive queue for check-in because I only had hand luggage. The flight back was pretty uneventful but I saw a big city with a distinctive airport and wondered if it was Madrid. When I went and have a looked at Google Maps at home, it was indeed Madrid, which was pretty cool. Gibraltar is an interesting place and I'm glad I've seen it. A weird little British outpost that feels like the UK in many ways except it's hot and they drive on the other side of the road.

The rest of Thursday was spent relaxing. Friday was back into work which was a little worrying and a bit of a culture shock but not bad really. Friday evening was spent at the Prosperity in Rhuddlan for Rob's birthday, which was ace. Good food, good conversation and general banter.
Saturday was spent in Crewe for another meetup with my old workmates, which was good fun and this time we actually managed to moderate the amount of food there so that was good. Back this morning and all I've done very little except watch the second episode of the new Torchwood series and the Fifth Element.

I'm gigantically fat as it's basically been a solid week of pigging out. Ifeel absolutely horrible at the moment.

Lazy weekend

It's been a bloody lazy weekend. Have achieved absolutely fuck all except for watching some movies (if that counts). Also failed to either watch the new Torchwood episode or play Dragon Age, both of which I'd intended to. Bit of a lonely weekend really. It rained massively all day today.

Played bass properly for the first time in a while after being distracted by the Telecaster. The 6-string is such a monster but I love playing it even though the pickups are crap, the selector pot is broken and the strings are dead. I wish 6-string pickups were cheaper and more readily available.

Dentist the other day. Nothing up except I've chipped a bit off one of my lower front teeth which they say needs to be repaired so have to go back for that. Also my usual biannual bollocking about flossing.

Need to be up at 3am to get to Manchester for Gibraltar flight, but can't sleep, argh.

Payday tomorrow. It looks like the buyer of the Focus on Ebay has had the account suspended due to irregularities, so guessing that won't go ahead now. Fuck's sake, I REALLY needed that cash.

X-Fusion. I like it. Although again, can't quite work out why. Normally that style of vocal pisses me off.

End of a long week

It's been a long week. Today was OK, got some stuff done, and was able to leave work with a clear conscience for next week.

Spent yesterday evening watching the Terminator and this evening started Terminator 2. I love those films. Also have an urge to watch Flight of the Navigator for some reason.

Set iPlayer to download the new Torchwood series, should be interesting. I think the first two series were OK but it could be so bad on occasional. Third series was really good.

Put a new bridge on the Telecaster with compensated saddles to try and make it intonate better, still needs tweaking.

Tired of being the shape I am and feeling so unfit. Hate it.

A few lines

Work was OK. The AIX server has proven to be reliable and powerful although perhaps 8gb RAM might not be enough when it goes live but it can take 64gb so that's OK.

Got the strimmer running tonight with a piece of a pair of tights taking place of the lost air filter. Did a bit so I could trim down a bush that was getting out of hand. Damn that sounds bad.

I then spent a bit of time playing Mercenary, a game that I absolutely adored on my old Amstrad CPC because it present a fully explorable city in 3D. The graphics are bare minimalist wireframe but the game is brilliantly put together with several ways to complete it. There's a modern replica of the game and the sequels called MDDClone which is excellent. I still like playing it today and I'm still amazed at how they got the game to run so fluidly on that old Amstrad. Very cool.

Tired now. Been fat this evening. I think my mind is fundamentally broken when it comes to being healthy.

This is terrible really but I find it oddly compelling. I know it is metal techno because the scary voice says so.

I just remembered how I told a friend in primary school when I was probably 10 or so that one day I would build a robot and he said I never would. So far he's been right but it's a shame I've got no idea how to prove him wrong. Oh well.

Take that worm

Work was OK. My build of am AIX blade was successful as the Oracle guy was able to do his thimg with only a little tweaking.

After that it was over to Degazio for DnD whivh was ace and really funny. my character was finally released and instantly let loose with his flatulent powers and saved the day. Would write more but doing it on the Kindle so it is taking forever.

A Soggy Quest for Doritos

Went out this morning to the car boots as I hadn't been for a while. The only thing that was at all interesting was a Peugeot racing bike but it looked quite knackered and would have been an arse to get home as it didn't have quick release wheels and I don't really need another bike. Would have been nice to have a matching Peugeot bike and car though.

After that got the ingredients for chilli and came home. Except I realised I'd forgotten to get nachos and to me, chilli is meaningless without nachos. So I went back to town to get some. I timed this badly. By the time I hit the outskirts, it was raining. When I got into town itself, the rain was insane. At one point I stopped at a junction and had a moment of panic because the whole road was covered in flowing water which made me think the car hadn't actually stopped. It took three shops to find some Doritos. On the way home it stopped raining again, like it never had. How weird.

Made chilli, consumed it and put some into pots for work. It was really nice. Spent the rest of the afternoon faffing around on bass, doing some more stuff in Dragon Age and reading. My Telecaster copy is in trouble and needs a new bridge which is frustrating. I've found myself using it rather more than I used to. Also had a look at the strings on the Ashbory and the G-string snapped all over the place, having gone all hard and weird. Fortunately had spares. Strings are easy to put on, just tie a knot in each end but then getting it tuned is a pain in the arse. I must look into some of the Pahoehoe strings for it as they are apparently much better than the silicone ones that come it as standard.

Reading a book by Stephen King called Under the Dome which seems to be a rip off of the Simpsons movie to some degree but I'm not sure which came first.

So far have done about 280 miles in the 306 and it's still got well over half a tank, which is great. Less great is the acceleration. It's not too bad but after the rev-happy Focus, the diesel is a bit of a culture shock. Shifting down a gear and booting it in the Focus would cause the car to leap forward, in the 306 it just makes a lot of noise and doesn't achieve much.

Oh well. I'm quite enjoying the more relaxed driving style and once it's actually up to speed it does cruise nicely. Airbag light still off, yay. Found the splash guard in the driver's side front arch is misaligned so there's a big gap - need to sort that before the track gets muddy again.

Fringe

Friday wasn't too bad but not very productive.

Today has been nice so far. Spent the day at my Dad's. We had scones with home-made strawberry jam from someone in work and then chilled for the rest of the day. I did some stuff on the 306. The bonnet was really badly faded orange so I got some T-cut on it and that made it shiny and look better but it still doesn't quite match the rest of it, and it's still rusted out at the front - not sure what can be done about the except replacing it. Also fixed the flashing airbag light by disconnecting and reconnecting the sensor under the driver's seat, which was nice. It's still going OK and I'm adapting back to how the diesel drives. Also noticed a light on the right side of the instruments that lit up when the ignition is turned on. I wasn't sure what it meant so I looked in the manual and it looks like it has ABS, hurrah.

Found that there's only 9 geocaches in Gibraltar, would be nice to get as many of those as I can when I go. Would be cool to say that I've got all the caches possible in a country.

It's been warm today. Had Magnums earlier, very welcome. I looked into D&D sets of dice because it would be nice to have my own set but found there's a bewildering amount of varieties out there.

There is some utter garbage on TV these days, don't see the point of it.

I found a USB controller than can run FORTY-EIGHT servos. Again, insanely cool but no idea what I could do with it.

Argh

Yesterday = unremarkable.

Not a good day today in a couple of ways. Work was meh, spent far too long on a laptop fix this morning but the afternoon was OK.

Found that my sister is splitting up from her husband and moving to near me if she can find a house, and a friend and his wife had to have their dog put down. Sad.

Focus sold for not much but it did sell. Buyer is in Oxfordshire which seems a long way to come for a banger, but hey.

Tired. It was a long session of badminton but good fun.

I nearly, very nearly, sent an e-mail with a horrible typo in it. Instead of 'County Hall' I'd accidentally typed 'Cunty Hall.'

Flustered day

This morning had a hospital appointment for my eyes after my eye test last October. The new optician I went to was concerned about my binocular vision issues and a touch of cateract. The people I saw at the hospital agreed that I am catastrophically short sighted and my eyes do have trouble working together, but because I've been dealing with it my whole life, it's not an issue. They also told me not to buy a 3DS and were astonished that I was able to see Avatar in 3D, but thinking about it, I did have to concentrate to see the effect. So, fuck 3D in all it's forms. The cataract has been there all my life and isn't an issue either unless it gets bigger and blocks my vision. So all in all a bit pointless.

Since they didn't end up giving me eye drops I was able to head back into work and get some more stuff done.

I took the dog for a walk in the evening which almost looked like we were going to get very wet but fortunately the rain held off. Then had a nasty incident - I was driving up the track and saw two things in one of the ruts, but realised too late they were baby birds. One was crushed utterly by the car, but the other was still fluttering around. This was bad enough, but I was shocked to see yet another one that had been squashed but had been there a while, probably since this morning.

Not sure what to do, I put the one that was still alive in a box and took it up to the house and then Google told me that's the last thing you should do. It seemed OK and lively so after it had shat twice in the box I put it back where I found it, and it seemed happy enough and started tweeting loudly and I could hear other birds tweeting like it. Then on the way back up to the house another slightly bigger one fluttered out in front of the car, causing an emergency stop. I chased it off the track and it fluttered into a tree.

Feel really guilty about the squashed ones, it's so rare to encounter anything on the track I tend to drive it in autopilot.

Good weekend and car

Saturday was fairly quiet but in the evening went out with everyone for a meal to celebrate Andy basically getting the best mark possible in his degree, a huge achievement. We went to a place called the Groes outside Conwy which I hadn't been to before. It was really good, very nice place with good food.

Sunday morning, Rob, Em and I went for a bike ride along a public footpath type thing which was really good. It was odd because it gave me a new view of the valley and it was so peaceful and quiet. The bike held up well although I need to tweak the handlebars a little. It's heavy to lift over stiles too.

Work was OK today. Well, no, it wasn't, but I'm trying not to let things to to me or I'll just make myself miserable. It was supposed to be D&D tonight but it was cancelled, boo.

Got new car. Peugeot 306 1.9 normally aspirated diesel from a guy in work. I was expecting to hate it after the relative luxury of the Focus but it's actually really nice to drive. The brakes are probably the weirdest thing but otherwise it's fine. The Focus is on Ebay with 6 people watching it. I like diesels, I've always preferred the way they drive, but I can never quite define why.

I booked a flight to Gibralter to hang out with Simon on the 18th July. It's the only chance I'll get before he comes back so to hell with it. My Dad has said he'll run me to the airport, which is really nice of him. Flight was only £86, not bad at all given it's only two weeks off as well.

Servos are really cool and I've discovered now you can get a USB controller that will run 6-8 of them at once from a PC. Amazing but I haven't a clue what I could do with such a thing.