Hilarity, weirdness, Wii and Dismember

Work was an annoying day.

After work, picked up Will, Steve and Kara for a meal and drinks in the pub with Rob and Em. We had a decent meal and lots of drinks, and were entertained by the internet enabled jukebox which claimed to have 2 million tracks available. Steve stumped it on his first go, but I found 'Dismembered' by Dismember, which actually got switched off half way through by the bar staff - boo.

After that we headed round to Rob and Em's for an evening of homebrew beer, general conversation, Tiger Woods golf on the Wii, hilarity, photographs of hypercheeks, Wispas, and various YouTube videos. It was a superb evening, and a good time was had by all. I would type more but it's late and I'm tired. I do have photos though.

Must sleep.

Too much computers and Red Bull

After spending all day faffing around trying to troubleshoot that weird network issue and things, I spent the evening rebuilding the MP3 playing Optiplex with a 120gb hard drive. It went OK and I was able to get it running quite well.

Yesterday found that Morrisons was doing a 12-pack of Red Bull for about £7, which is cheap. Not a good thing though.

Examined my finances again. Next year is going to have to be very lean.

8-string Rickenbacker

This went for a grand on Ebay. I've never been so tempted to increase my debt so much. 8-string Ricks are rare, and I've never seen one in that colour. Amazing.

Fat fat fat

Oh dear God, when will my fat binge stop? I've been eating pasties and cake for the last two weeks with the occasional geek fest which invariably includes vast amounts of crisps, dip, pizza and sweets. Then this evening went to a newish Chinese restaurant with some guys from work for a meal. It was really good but the pudding was a highly unhealthy chocolate concoction. I think I have put on weight over the last couple of weeks. Mind you, it's that time of year again, the urge to do less exercise and eat more has definitely kicked in. It's really hard to get motivated to walk the dog and take other exercise when it's dark and cold and wet.

Other than that it was a frustrating day. Some machine was generating huge amounts of traffic on one of the networks, slowing everything to a crawl. Very annoying as we couldn't work it out at all.

The last episodes of Heroes are on right now, being recorded by my Mum. I had to steer clear because of the returning from the Chinese after the first one started. I'm listening to The Great Southern Trendkill by Pantera to block the sound of the TV from downstairs. To be honest, I rather dislike the shouty vocals on this album, but I've always been really into Dimebag Darrell's guitar sound. Absolutely astonishing stuff. I can't play guitar, too many strings too close together, but if I could, the ones I'd like to be able to play like are Dimebag Darrell and Angus Young of AC/DC.

The Dean ML signatures made in his name after he was shot are very, very metal, but I've always quite liked them. I saw a basic Dean ML bass for $200 while visiting Steve and Kara in January and I was quite tempted to bring it back as it was pretty good for the price, but the logistics were a bit much.

219mph on a public road

Urm, OK, this kind of thing is fun in Burnout and other games, but someone should tell these guys that driving at 219mph on a real road with actual traffic is a bit of a cockish thing to do.

Uneventful day today. Had a go on a simulator of an Underground train, rather dull but much funnier if you don't bother to close the doors and hurtle through stations at top speed.

Computers piss me off

I just spent a few minutes putting some parts into my MP3 playing Dell Optiplex. I upped the RAM to 512mb and found a suitable laptop style DVD/CDRW drive that would fit in it. However, it all went horribly wrong.

The USB card suddenly stopped working with the Code 10 errors that took days to resolve last time. Unplugging it left the BIOS without any power due to the dead battery so it lost all the settings yet again. The replacement DVD/CDRW drive I put in didn't work, and then a horrible smell of burning filled the room as the accidentally unplugged laptop style floppy drive cable shorted out against the metal case. Fortunately no damage was done to anything important, and I never use the floppy anyway so the burnt out cable isn't a problem.

However, after a tantrum, I discovered the DVD/CDRW drive issue was down to just having not pushed the connector in hard enough, and the USB card mysteriously started working again. Just weird. It seems OK again now, so time to put it back where it was and see if it behaves over RDP. Now I just need to work out how to get the tiny 20gb hard drive upgraded without disturbing anything. Ghosting the partition to another drive might work, perhaps. Dunno.

Given that I actually work with computers, it's odd how frustrating I find them. Windows in particular does some very peculiar things on occasion.

Edit: Took the RAM out, it didn't like it and crashed, and now the FUCKING USB CARD is not working again! For crying out loud!

Further edit: The hard drive has bad blocks and is probably about to fail. I hate hard drives, they are so unreliable. Can't wait until solid-state drives become cheap enough to afford.

Sloganising

(19:25:20) DoubleL: I'd Walk a Mile for a Snot.
(19:25:24) William: Lipsmackin' Thirstquenchin' Acetastin' Motivatin' Goodbuzzin' Cooltalkin' Highwalkin' Fastlivin' Evergivin' Coolfizzin' Massive Cocks.
(19:25:43) DoubleL: Penis - The Appetizer!
(19:25:49) William: The Dirt says Hot, The Label says Massive Cocks.
(19:26:11) William: They Drink Big Smelly Flaps In The Congo.
(19:26:14) DoubleL: Poppin' Fresh Ejaculate.
(19:26:32) DoubleL: Two Hours of Faeces in Just Two Calories.
(19:26:41) William: I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole Old Mans Nappy.
(19:27:02) DoubleL: The Smegma that Smiles Back.
(19:27:13) DoubleL: It's Just For Me And My Pustule.
(19:27:20) William: Is Grandmas Anus Cream In You?
(19:27:30) DoubleL: Bulbous Hemorrhoids - It Does a Body Good.
(19:28:00) DoubleL: Beware of Expensive Diarrhoea.
(19:28:19) DoubleL: Diarrhoea Really Satisfies.
(19:28:37) DoubleL: It Makes Your Diarrhoea Smack.
(19:28:46) DoubleL: Nobody Better Lay a Finger on my Diarrhoea.
(19:29:09) DoubleL: You Can't Get Quicker Than a Slippery Genitals Fitter.
(19:29:24) DoubleL: Let The Slippery Genitals Take The Strain.
(19:29:33) William: Hope It's Pussy Chips, It's Pussy Chips, We Hope It's Pussy Chips...
(19:32:05) DoubleL: A Pubic Hair Is Forever.
(19:32:11) William: Wait Till We Get Our Herpes On You.
(19:32:17) DoubleL: You Press the Pubic Hair, We Do the Rest.
(19:32:35) DoubleL: All Flatulence, All The Time.
(19:32:51) DoubleL: Designed for Flatulence, Engineered to Last.
(19:35:19) William: There's First Love, and There's Anus Love.
(19:35:30) DoubleL: The Biggest Inflated Titties Pennies Can Buy.
(19:35:51) DoubleL: You Can Be Sure of Inflated Titties.
(19:36:05) DoubleL: I Want My Infected Boil.
(19:36:08) William: Please Don't Squeeze The Ballsack.
(19:36:23) DoubleL: I'd Like to Buy the World an Infected Boil.
(19:36:36) DoubleL: Built Scrotum Tough.
(19:36:42) William: Only The Crumbliest Flakiest Ballsack.
(19:36:42) DoubleL: Nothing Comes Between Me And My Scrotum.
(19:36:51) DoubleL: You'll Wonder Where the Yellow Went, When You Brush Your Teeth with Scrotum.
(19:37:02) DoubleL: Crunch All You Want. We'll Make Scrotum.
(19:37:14) DoubleL: The Best Part of Waking Up is Scrotum in Your Cup.

Try it here.

Acting drunk, and seeing my nephew off to the army

Yesterday was another Heroes fest. Rob, Em, Vicky and I went into Andy's house and watched the remaining episodes of Heroes that we needed to catch up on. Only two left, and they're being shown on Wednesday. I'm actually out with some people from work at a meal, so I'll have to leave my Mum with detailed instructions to record them. She has a monopoly of the TV all the time, so it's only fair that she can record something for me for once.

The day was also enlivened by lots of alcohol (except for the drivers, Em and myself) and Andy's home-made lemon cake, the fairly horrific Wales vs South Africa game and some totally random conversations. It's interesting how you can kind of adopt the mindset of someone drunk and join in the inane conversation. Some of the stuff was so random (and indeed disgusting) that it can't be repeated here. The perpetrator knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Today I played some more Mario Galaxy (up to 60 stars) and went to my sister's house. My nephew is going off to the army tomorrow and after his basic training, will be going to Afghanistan round about September time. Bit weird though, he was born when I was 10 and I remember it well. Scary that he's now taller than me. He seems to be quite calm about the whole business, but then he's always had a chirpy optimistic view of the world and gets on with pretty much everyone, so hopefully he'll be fine.Several of my brother-in-law's relations came round to wish him well too, so it became quite a gathering. Even my brother called from Berlin to speak to him.

Next weekend, my other brother and his wife are coming up. I saw them in March in Berlin, but I haven't seen my nieces for a while, so it'll be good to see them again. One of them is due to give birth to a girl in January, causing much dismay to the future grandfather and great-grandfather (not because of the actual pregnancy, but the being a grandfather part). Not to mention the future great-uncles and great-aunt. It sounds so old somehow to be a great-uncle.

Image is from Superdickery, cited as the best use of shapeshifting powers ever. I have to agree.

I need a pair of Hot Slags

By now you are probably confused, so let me explain. The Hot Slags in question are guitar pickups. Despite my attempts at thriftiness and saving, I still have the urge to tinker with things.

So I'm stripping the pickups and electronics out of my Squier Strat and replacing them as a long-term project. I was looking at some IronGear pickups which are called, yes, Hot Slags.

Not all that interesting, but I thought it would be a funny title for a blog post.

Black Crusade

Well, the Black Crusade was certainly interesting. Five bands in six hours, all full-on metal. I went with Ally and his mate Stu, who drove. We headed to Manchester at about 1:30 and got there an hour before the doors opened. We got some Chinese which was really nice, but Stu and I had the chilli chicken, which was very hot. Good though. And then we headed in. It was weird, being amongst the oldest there and the three of us were in the minority, not wearing some band t-shirt or having piercings or tattoos. Ally was wearing a white t-shirt so he was easy to find in the sea of black. We got a spot by the mixing desk in the middle of the arena, which was pretty decent. I got stuck next to a bunch of weirdos watching the England game on their phones, which was entertaining when they lost. Also one of them kept flashing around an iPhone, which he hilariously dropped face down onto a filthy piece of chewing gum on the floor. Also I kept standing on something squashy which turned out to be a Machine Head t-shirt one of them had bought for £30 or so which I had then trodden thoroughly into the beer soaked floor.

Shadows Fall were loud and not that great. Arch Enemy were pretty good although the woman's shouty vocals were a bit much. I was expecting to enjoy DragonForce more than I did but their guitar wankery based songs didn't go down very well and were pretty tedious. The last bands were Trivium and Machine Head, both of whom were really good.

I'm not sure which band the picture is of, but that person doing the devil horns did it just at the right moment, and I thought it summed up the evening quite well.

I quite enjoyed it, although it was seriously loud. Full-on metal isn't really my thing these days and I'm more into the AC/DC style of rock, but I did have a good time. I was worried about going as crowds bother me, but I stayed well clear of the pit and it was fine.

Today went round to my Dad's and had a look at his wife's new car. She got an ex-demo Mercedes C200 Kompressor, which she got with basically every extra you can imagine for the price of a basic model. It even has the sat-nav which is a £2000 option. It works really well and I was able to plot a route to my brother's apartment in Berlin and to the hotel we stayed in at Madrid. The stereo also has iPod integration and we tested the iPod Touch on it. It worked perfectly and even displays the song on the little display in the middle of the speedo. It was a bit embarassing as the first song it played was 'Fucking Hostile' by Pantera.

We had a look at my wipers and had dismantled quite a lot of it before realising we didn't actually have to. Oh well, it was interesting to see how the mechanism worked, and we cleaned it all up and greased it. One is a little off, but at least they both work OK now.

There was very nearly a disaster too. I had left my Discovery at the end of their driveway so it was out of the way. My Dad forgot it was there, and reversed at top speed towards it in his new Fabia. Fortunately my frantic cries of 'STOP!' got through and he braked, inches from collision. His rear bumper probably wouldn't have stood much of a chance against my towbar, so that was lucky.

Black Crusade

Just got back from the Black Crusade. It was good, and also LOUD. Full report tomorrow.

50 Stars and counting

Up to 50 stars in Super Mario Galaxy. I think other stuff happened today...but I can't remember...must get more stars...

Games, rugby and food

Spent most of yesterday in a rugby club with Rob,Em, Andy and Vicky, Em's sister. In theory we were watching Rugby but most of the time there was spent talking about various things. This was then followed by an epic Chinese meal and a nostalgia fest of old kids shows off YouTube. Highlights were SuperTed (HOW camp is Skeleton) and the Rainbow Twangers episode.

Today walked the dog which was really annoying. If you have two very excitable dogs, you keep them on a lead right? Not this guy we met while trying to get out the way of a madman in a Volvo who hurtled in a junction without looking. This black shaggy thing suddenly shot across the road and went for the hound. All he was doing was sniffing but he did it so aggressively that my dog was terrified. Then the Volvo moron reversed unexpectedly and things got even worse. The guy with the two insane dogs was very apologetic but I still think he is a fool. I've had the hound attacked before by out of control dogs with idiot owners. Annoying.

Then spent the day playing Galaxy for a rather long time. I've got back to where we were the other day and found a couple of secrets along the way. Superb game. It's inspired me to dig out my copy of New Super Mario Bros on the DS. Work tomorrow. Boo. But have got Wed and Thu off as going to see the Black Crusade in Manchester. Should be fun.

Sleepy now.

Too much?

Time spent playing Super Mario Galaxy today: 9 hours. That doesn't include the time spent on Assassin's Creed (about an hour and a half), Portal (at least 45 minutes) and Tiger Wood (at least 20 minutes).

Needless to say, my head is somewhat babbled right now.

Honestly though, Super Mario Galaxy is amazing. I am actually relishing having to play my copy again for 9 hours to get where Will, Rob and I got to today. Plus, the two player mode, while not full two player, works well enough to make it fun for two people to play. It is the defining game for the Wii, rather like Super Mario 64 defined the N64.

Super Mario Assassin

So we are taking a break from the wonderful world of Super Mario Galaxy by attempting to complete the inordinately hard tutorial for tiger Woods Golf. It works but seems to be incredibly hard. Assassin's Creed? Yeah well. It looked like it was going to be al period but unfortunately it has a gimpy Matrix style futuristic storyline involving genetic memory, which drove Rob to tears of anger. When it was actuallly in the game though, it was pretty playable. Spent some time playing the Portal game out of the Orange Box, which is genius.

But Mario Galaxy is awesome. It is a total joy to play, looks fantastic, and is just awesome. Unlike Tiger Wood, which actually seems broken as it is so hard.

Incidentally, I got £55 for the six games I traded, which wasn't too bad. We went to GameStation in the end which as worth it for the two trained chimps behind the counter. We also got rather a lot of crisps. Definitely try the Honey Barbecue and Sweet Chilli Kettle Chips.

Got that slightly disorientated feeling I get when concentrating too hard on a game I really like, not felt like that for a while. This has got to be the longest thing I have ever typed in one go on the iPod Touch.

Tiger Woods is hard. Actually rather like real golf, which kind of makes it not fun. Give me Mario Golf or Wii Sports any time. Also Mario Golf has cool treehouse courses and things. Rob and Will are getting frustrated, the tension is high and the language ripe.

cue mass hilarity at discovering the face editor in Toget Woods has a field called "Nostril Detail". Worrying. Will's golfer is a fat, scarred squat ugly man with a hideous face and horribe teeth. Reminds me of Second Life where we set out to make our characters as ugly as possible to go against the norm of tall beautiful people.

I don't want to play it at all.

Randomness and Galaxy GAN

Frustrating and busy day today in work. For the first time ever I came very close to losing my rag completely with a user. Fortunately it was resolved easily enough but it was a very tense moment.

Badminton was OK, but frustrating. I know I can pull off some good shots on occasion but I'm still shit at being in the right place when it matters. This is why I tend to prefer singles, but never really get a chance to play it.

Super Mario Galaxy is out tomorrow and Assassin's Creed, which I'm getting despite mixed reviews. Will and I are calling the day 'Super Mario Assassin' but Rob is going to have to call it 'Super Mario Wood' as he seems intent on getting the new Tiger Woods golf game for the Wii.

I'm going to trade the following Xbox 360 and Wii games:

Excite Truck: Fun, but repetitive after a while and I never really got into it.

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam: Actually a really good game but I got as far as I could and got frustrated. Probably the only Tony Hawk game I actually really enjoyed since Tony Hawk 3 on the PS2.

Rayman Raving Rabbids: It was OK until Wario Ware: Smooth Moves came out which was better all ro und and more fun.

Test Drive Unlimited: OK but boring after you've painted your fifth Lamborghini in tasteless colours and multiplayer is just your typical Xbox Live crap, being insulted by 12 year olds in Enzo Ferraris.

Gears of War: It was undoubtedly a good game and looked incredible. But the campaign was too sh ort, I don't like the control system and the multiplayer sucks (IMHO).

Viva Pinata: Oddly enough I bought this game and never actually played it. I am determined to one day...but not just right now. Also there is a DS version coming out.

After years of (allegedly) playing the bass, I can finally manage to come close to playing Iron Maiden bass lines. Steve Harris has a fairly unique way of playing and I've found it quite hard to get the hang of it. But it's worth it. He's the reason my dream bass has always been a Fender Precision Bass.

Say what you like about Iron Maiden, but I've liked them since I was 10 years old and was lent the Powerslave album. The first album I ever bought for myself was their debut album. My proudest moment was getting an enormous poster cover for the 'Can I Play with Madness' single. Why? Because my Mum thought it was the most revolting thing she'd ever seen and refused to come into my room when it was up on the wall. You can see it above. I still think it's an awesome image.

Icky sticky mud, yuck

Need to underseal the Discovery. But it's rather intimidating. It needs to be completely clean and dry before applying Waxoyl or something, but given that I live up a muddy, wet track it's not easy. I did look into getting it done professionally and there's a company called BeforeNAfter which is quite highly recommended. The catch is that it would cost about £460 for the Discovery, which I can't afford and is about half of what the vehicle is worth anyway, though you could argue that having it done would increase it's value.

Oh well. I think the best idea would be to get it steam cleaned underneath and then take it to my Dad's and do it there on top of a huge tarpaulin or something. While I'm at it, the engine could do with a clean and the axles aren't too pretty either.

It's weird having only one wiper. It's like there's something wrong with your left eye. So it needs that fixing (which I can do), a track rod end and the steering wheel straightened. Also the springs still need replacing and the gearbox/transfer box main shaft is clunking. But hopefully that'll keep going until it's up to at least 150,000 miles. If it starts jumping out of gear, then I'll worry.

Got rained on while walking the dog, annoyingly. It was fairly repulsive today, cold, windy and wet.

The pic is of a cyclops and when I first saw this at about 7 years old, it scared the shit out of me. I still don't like it now.

Tiredness

Woke up early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, which was annoying. Then when I was defrosting the car, I accidentally hit the wipers while the windscreen was still frozen. The driver's side wiper went, but the other didn't. Now it just sits at the bottom of the windscreen and twitches occasionally. I was hoping to take a look at it after work but was thwarted by the Mystery of the Missing Socket Set. I hope it doesn't rain before I can fix it.

Played with the new Mii contest channel on the Wii. Looks quite fun, or it will be when it's properly running. Also dug out Amplitude for the PS2, a rhythm action game I got bored of rather quickly last year because while it's a good game, the button combos are a bit crap. It's fun to mess with though.

Feh. That sums up the day pretty much. The Monorail Cat always makes me giggle. Also LOLCODE is awesome.

Trumpets of Depression

Friday was meh, had a dull day in work and then went to badminton and just hated every minute of it. For some reason I wasn't in the mood. The pub afterwards was OK though.

Saturday was better, met up with some old work colleagues, one of whom is going home to China for ever. That was good and if I ever want to visit Beijing, I know I've got somewhere to crash (seriously!). After that went to Andy's to join him, Rob and Em in a mad Heroes fest. I missed the first few episodes but we watched so many I picked up fairly quickly what was going on. I think there's about four left, so that should be interesting. It's a pretty good series.

Today was a fairly useless day. Weather was treacherously changable so didn't walk the dog, but did take him for a run and play. In the last few months he seems to have realised how to be playful, which is nice, as he's always been a bit of a serious minded creature.

Also played around with my crappy Squier Strat and made some atrocious noises because it won't stay in tune, but then it did only cost £15 from a car boot sale and needs some new machine heads. Then watched some DVDs and read the trade paperback Chronicles of Wormwood. Probably not recommended if you're religious (like most of Garth Ennis' stuff) but I really liked it.

Didn't achieve anything else other than realising that if just specified the width (480) when ripping the DVD, the height is worked out for you and it then displays OK on the iPod. It should also work on the PSP as the screen is the same width, but less height (touch=320, PSP=272).

The iPhone is out. If it wasn't so ludicrously expensive to get one (£270 for the phone plus £35 for 18 months on O2) in the UK, it might have been the first thing to tempt me away from Nokia. Interesting that in France it's illegal to not sell an unlocked version of a phone.

I have rediscovered the joys of Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes, the greatest cereal of all time. Also the Wispa has returned, cue dancing girls and orgies in the streets.

Soup, stuff and touch video

Work was not notable. Except I went to to the delicatessen which does great sandwiches. At this time of year though, they also do nice soup and I had some of the Cream of Vegetable. It's really tasty and you get a bread roll with it. Superb.

This evening I experimented with a program called Handbrake that Steve told me about. It lets you rip DVDs into formats suitable for playing on iPods and things. I used the Linux version which operates solely from the command line. Even then it was a simple matter to rip a DVD into the 480x320 resolution of the iPod touch. The resultant file was small and looked great on the device itself. The first test was Rubber Johnny, as it's only short and was only 48mb. The next test was Star Wars Episode III which squidged into a 1.1gb file. It worked, but the aspect ratio wasn't right, so it was stretched. Played OK though.

I'm really happy with the Touch. I just wish I could have got the 16gb version and I'm sure there'll be a 32gb version when flash prices drop. If I could afford it, I'd certainly pick one up if it came out.

Cinema

Went to the cinema with Rob, Em and Will, preceded by a visit to Pizza Hut. Amazingly the meal was OK, on time and correct. Service at Pizza Hut can be patchy so that was a nice change. Maybe it's because they seem to pick their staff on looks rather than competence. The film we went to see was Elizabeth. It wasn't dreadful, but had a lot of montages and things that made it drag rather. Also Clive Owen was dreadful.

Other than that, a fairly uneventful day. Nothing else springs to mind as being blog worthy. Tired now and the touch keyboard is a bit of a pain for much typing...

Underground

Work was meh. This evening was meh, cold and dark.

The Jubilee line trains make that interesting sound that always reminds me of holidays, because there are similar sounding trains on the Madrid and Berlin Metros. I'm not sure what that sound actually is, but I like it. The Washington DC Metro made a similar sound, but it was a thin hum.

While you're appreciating the sound the trains make, how about having a dinner party on the train? Wish I'd seen something like that on the Underground rather than the usual boring miserable commuters.

Got the 16th November off for Super Mario Galaxy - hurrah! I think that may be payday and if it is, I'm hoping to pick up a copy of Assassin's Creed at the same time.

Flying V Ukulele. Maybe the coolest thing I've seen today, which is a little sad.

Bang!!!!!

Went round with Will to Rob and Em's after work and had some of the vast vat of chilli that Rob made, along with some of Em's fantastic home made rolls. The went to the huge bonfire opposite Sainsbury's. It was really good too, absolutely enormous and with really good fireworks. We were also kept entertained by a woman behind us who kept saying things like "It's all gunpowder this, there's no electronics". Em and I had a ritual toffee apple though it should really be called a Red Sugar and Crap Apple. All good fun. After that watched some QI before going our separate ways.

Work was OK after a week away, much to my surprise. So that was nice.

Portmanteau

Did nothing yesterday. The weather was crap, the mood oppressive and I just didn't do anything much. Was also tired after the ultra-crappy trip back from London.

Actually I did spent some time downloading album covers to install in iTunes so that the coverflow mode on the iPod touch looked better. That's quite a nice feature, it's like flicking through a CD collection now. I'm quite happy with it. At the moment it's a competent music player and internet browser, and hopefully now that Apple will be releasing an SDK in February, some decent software will come out.

Today went to up where that house was being built and saw the assembled timber frame. It's pretty cool, about 10 metres square and like a tall bungalow. Now that the frame is up it makes more sense. Should be great when it's finished but there's still a lot of work to be done and the planning department of the council love throwing spanners in the works.

Other than that I completed Halo 3 today (sorry Rob, I got impatient). Just like the first game, some levels are amazing, and some are utter pants. The two worst were a Flood ship and the final Warthog dash, which was utter, utter shite. It played like something out of a PS1 game or something. So there. Halo 3 does have good moments and the multiplayer is excellent. But the campaign was lacking, just like Halo and Halo 2.

Back

The course finished at half twelve or thereabouts, so I wandered around a bit before trying to get a train. It was a good course to be fair.

I happened to go into a guitar shop in Denmark Street just as they had a load of guitars come in. I'd been in there before and examined a 1960's Gibson EB-2 (£2,500) and a 1960's Precision Bass in Candy Apple Red (£1995). Not the most expensive, one place there had an immaculate 1963 Strat for £27,500.

So they had some great stuff in there. But as they unpacked this load of guitars, I watched in amazement as vintage Les Pauls were briefly examined and put carelessly on stands, along with a couple of vintage Jazz Basses, and even a Mustang and MusicMaster.

But then they unpacked a black Rickenbacker 4003 (just like the pic above). One of my objectives for this week in London was to play one and so far I hadn't found one. So I asked the guy if I could have a go on it. He quickly hooked it up to a massive amp and left me to it. And wow. This has been one of those things where I was worried that I'd hyped it to myself so much that the real thing would be a big let-down.

But what an instrument. It felt right in every conceivable way, the shape, weight, style, the neck, the sound, everything. It wasn't perfect, the pickup switch was a little wobbly and the E string was too quiet (easy fixes), but what a bass. Oddly enough they unpacked two exactly the same except one was fretless, though I didn't try that one. Also in another place I had a quick go on an example of the tiny rubber stringed Ashbory bass, and in the same place, a full scale double bass, which was interesting.

I didn't inquire as to the price of the 4003. They are not all that common in the UK, and command a huge premium. The answer would have just depressed me anyway.

The train back from Euston was a nightmare. I didn't get a seat until Crewe.

It's odd to be back. Despite my complaints, I'd sort of got used to London. I did take my camera, but as I didn't really do anything touristy, I didn't actually take any pictures.

My feet are killing me. My work shoes suck for walking around in and I've done a hell of a lot of that over the last few days.

London

Things I like about London

The Tube, you can get anywhere on it.
Shops, you can get anything and I've seen several dream basses in the flesh.
Food, shop carefully and you can get bargains, got an all-you-can-eat Thai buffet for £6.50, and it wasn't bad either.
Loads of things to do.
Mix of cultures.
It stays awake into the late evening.

Things I dislike about London

The Tube, noisy, smelly, hot, and horrible when busy.
The Jubilee line gets a special mention because at 8:20am it's hideous.
So many people (which admittedly is the definition of a city)
Regent Street, full of expensive shops with shallow people buying branded stuff like iPods and Lacoste.
Snot shouldn't be black.

It's fun to visit but I wouldn't want to live here.

Cool

This MacBook is running Leopard...cool overload...

Yay, real computer

OK, the Apple Store is insane. It's nearly 8:00pm and the place is absolutely packed. I finally found a MacBook which wasn't being used. The place is scary, it's like some insane cult. It's just mad. You come in here and it's genuinely technology porn. You can't help wanting some of the oh-so-beautiful machinery.

And the iPod touch is sensational. I just spent half an hour browsing the web on one. The interface works so well it's mad. Now that Apple has said they are releasing an SDK in February, I can only imagine the apps that people will create. Imagine a multi-touch Kaoss pad or something like that. The only way that would possibly be cooler is if they released a multi-touch Mac Tablet. The Nokia N800 does basically the same stuff, and runs Linux, and can take SD cards, and has loads of apps out for it, and so-on. But it just hasn't got that sheer design beauty that you get with Apple stuff. I have to admit I think this MacBook is pretty damn nice too.

Anyway, London is treating me well, the Tube has been OK so far except for the Jubilee line this morning. The queues were so bad that five trains went past before I was able to get on and squidge myself into a strangers armpit. Yummy. Luckily I was only going one stop. This evening after the course finished, found an all-you-can-eat Thai buffet for £8.00 including a very nice cup of green tea. I think I should leave the Apple Store before I buy something I can't afford. In fact it may already be too late. My old iPod 3G has a duff battery and can't be charged via USB... OH FUCK IT.

I originally was going to count November and December of 2007 as part of '2008 - The Year of Thriftiness' but I don't think I'll be able to. Damn it! I am such a cock.

Blogging on an iPod touch

OK, this is being thumbtyped on an iPod touch. This thing is beautiful. Also the Regent Street Apple store is terrifying! London is mad. More will come when I can get to a realcomputer

London and a flying dumpster

Off to London in a few hours. Taking DS, camera and laptop, but not sure I'll be able to get on wi-fi. Oh well, we'll see.

And this looks hilariously fun in Halo 3:

That new car smell...

Well, due to one thing and another, my Dad's wife replaced her Mercedes C-class with a BMW 320i a few weeks ago. Nice, but due to a weird seat design, it does her back in and has to go. So we went looking at the Land Rover Freelander 2 as a possible alternative. I was never that keen on the old Freelander, it always looked to me like a miserable bulldog or something. Also it was the vehicle where Land Rover truly sold out to the soft-roader market. However, the new one looks far better and is apparently a massively improved vehicle.

The showroom was quite nice with a couple of Range Rover Sports, a full price Range Rover and a Discovery 3. All very nice, but I was far more interested in the lovely metallic grey Defender pickup. It may have a new dashboard and a new Ford 2.4 diesel engine, but it's the same old look that hasn't changed since the 1958 Series II. The chassis and coil sprung suspension are the same as the original Range Rover which dates back to 1970. It's an absolute classic vehicle. I was actually after a Defender but found early Discoverys were cheaper and more comfortable.

The Freelander 2 was nice though. She sat in one which had the electric seats which she wanted, and then drove another one which had the diesel engine and an automatic gearbox. In motion, it's quiet, refined and feels like a tall car. Not bad, and a world away from my old Discovery. The new Range Rover and Discovery have excellent off-road ability, not sure about the Freelander but it should have some.

I don't like car showrooms. It's just the way that those new cars sit there, gleaming and shining with that new car smell. The salesmen waiting to greet you with their best sales talk also annoy me. But there was still something about it. It was just that feeling that if I was earning more money, it could be me signing my life away for that shiny new car. This persisted throughout the test drive, the shiny interior with no scratches, marks, dents or smells. The perfect handling and the odometer reading only a couple of thousand miles.

Then we got back to my Dad's house and reality returned. The Discovery may be everything the Freelander 2 is not, but it's mine, and it's paid for.

Incidentally, my Dad's got one of the new Skoda Fabias, the one they made out of cake for that advert. It's a really nice car, the only fault is the slightly gruff noise from the three cylinder 1.2 litre engine.

Saw a nice V-reg Mercedes S320 for sale. Apart from the engine size and being right-hand drive, it was very similar to the S500 Rob and I drove in Atlanta earlier this year. Stunning cars. Cheap at £8000.

Quick and dirty

Summary of today:

1) Cake day in work for charity, which includes my colleagues incredible brownies. Fat but oh so tasty.

2) Last day in work before London, surprisingly went OK.

3) Got a haircut, which has made my hair civilised again.

4) Badminton was OK, had some good games, some bad. Pub after the game was good.

Dull

Anyone else noticed that this blog has started to follow a simple formula? Start with a whinge about work, followed by some pointless geekery about computers, badminton, basses or cars, and then some pathetic thought of the day and perhaps a link to something equally geeky or pointless.

Dull dull fucking dull.

Wow, I'm boring even myself, how bad is that.

Leopard is out any minute now. I'd be excited about it if I had anything that could run it. Still, I'm sure I'll get to check it out in London next week, and also take a look at the iPod touch and the iPhone.

My 8-string bass is getting a lot of play time recently. It make such a nice sound, and you can do quite a few things with it. I think I made a mistake with the strings on it though,, they were very cheap and sound like arse. The bass strings are just normal strings, but it's the octave strings that are tricky to find. So if I can afford it, new strings will be nice. I'd like to replace the bridge and electronics but not sure if it's worth doing.

Will has his priorities straight

...random stuff...
(18:20:30) DoubleL: Yeah
(18:20:44) William: holy crap
(18:20:46) William: i forgo
(18:20:49) William: i have metroid
(18:20:53) DoubleL: Bye then.
(18:20:55) William: going to play now
(18:20:56) William: hahahaha
(18:20:57) William: sorry
(18:20:59) William: haha
(18:20:59) DoubleL: Heh
(18:21:04) William: laterz dude

His monolithic rod Kurtis

For the first time ever, my primary mail address is getting spam. No idea how that's happened, but it started yesterday. Trying to think what I've done that might cause it.

Bah.

Warren Ellis is a genius

Just read some more chapters of Crooked Little Vein, and I ended up giggling so hysterically I had to put it down.

God, that actually hurt.

Also managed to get Ableton Live running on my MP3 playing Optiplex. It runs quite well and the amazing Asio4All driver lets the crappy Intel AC'97 sound card work with practically no latency. Great stuff.

Also listened to a rather scary but interesting track by Will, which is really good.

Great Balls of Cheese

Work was fairly dismal. I was helping the Unix guy upgrade one of the virtual AIX machines when the console lost connection in the middle of an upgrade and wouldn't come back, leaving it basically buggered. Great. I had to leave it with him as I had to go for an eye blood flow test. The pressure in my eyes has gone down and the blood flow improved by 10%, which is apparently good. My eyes stabilised enough to do a proper test and showed that my right eye is slightly worse and my left eye is rather better. Can't afford new glases just yet though, and I need to get a copy of my prescription.

Made a weird pasta thing this evening with noodles and a peculiar sauce made mostly of cheese. It turned out quite nice.

Rob lent me Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. I didn't realise he wrote normal books as well as graphic novels. Only read the first chapter so far, but it's definitely his style, and looking pretty good.

Car tax this month. Boo. At least you can do it online now, which makes it far easier than trying to find your insurance and MOT and queuing up at the post office.

BUH-URRRRRRRRRRRRP!

I love this one. His face in the second panel cracks me up every time I see it.

Trial by Fire

In my 12 years of driving, I have never towed a trailer. Not even a little one. So when a friend who is building a house asked me to help him move some timber for the house he is building, I agreed with a little trepidation. They have a rough farm track rather like ours and he'd broken his parents VW van by towing the first load up there. with it.

First I had to actually attach a towball to the Discovery, which was easy done by my local Land Rover gurus. I was also pleased (and surprised) that all the electrics actually worked.

The trailer was pretty massive and more than doubled the length of the Discovery. You could feel it there when it was empty, and it was rather disconcerting at first. Just when I thought I was getting used to it, four tons of timber were loaded and things got interesting. It was HEAVY, and also stuck a good six feet out of the back as well. Fortunately the trailer had it's own brakes and the Discovery easily coped. It was an interesting journey as the usual bouncy ride became wallowy and sedate. The most worrying part of the journey was going down a 1in 4 hill, but that wasn't too bad, we just jammed it in 1st gear and used the engine to brake.

I had to reverse it twice, but managed reasonably OK. It's rather weird at first, you basically have to do everything against your normal instincts.

So yay, I can now tow a trailer.

Rugby final last night. Not too interesting though it was mildly amusing to watch Percy Montgomery hurtling over a barrier into a TV camera.

This is an archive of every Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

Frustration, fat and a geeky book

Work was annoying. Why is it so hard to explain to people the dangers of sharing passwords?

This evening went out with a meal with some people I used to work with. Went to Elements, a place that does all you can eat Chinese. It's actually pretty good and they have a grill where you choose what you want and they cook it for you, which is excellent. After that we went to Borders (at 9:45pm) where I bought a very geeky book called 'The Fender Bass: An Illustrated History'.

Are you feeling Gutsy?

Woohoo, Ubuntu 7.10 aka Gutsy Gibbon is officially out! My installation date from an early Alpha version and kept up to date. It's been rock solid right up to the official version. It's not given me any trouble whatsoever, only getting the Nvidia drivers working was a pain at the beginning.

Work today wasn't too bad, got to visit a few sites I'd never been to before. Got quite a bit done to help out a colleague, though I was thwarted by the refurbished office which doesn't have a lift, making it difficult to get enormous printers up to the first floor. It does however have a dumbwaiter, but as it's four feet off the ground and quite small, it's not all that useful. Also it's scary and I don't like it.

Went to Rob and Em's from the office and enjoyed a very nice pasta with bacon, cheese and spices, before heading off to badminton. It was OK, but I played like shite.

As it is payday today, I ordered some Ernie Ball Power Slinky strings for the Peavey 5-string. The B string is 135 gauge, which is quite huge. Should be interesting!

Flamponio

Steve Jobs has posted a message on the Apple website saying an SDK will be out in February for the iPhone. Presumably that includes the iPod touch as well. Fun fun fun. Nokia has announced the N810 which is another updated version of the original 770 tablet. It's not a phone, but this one includes a keyboard. It runs on Linux and there's loads of apps out for these models.

Work is crap at the moment. It's insanely busy in the north of the county so I'm working there tomorrow. Not really a problem but I got a crapload of jobs today too. Bah.

The Discovery had the wheel bearings and tracking sorted out, which is good. It does however need a track rod end and then the steering wheel lined up again, but that's not a big deal. Also the tyre that had the tread rubbed off on the edge should be OK for a couple of months at least. Had a lift today in a colleague's 1997/98 BMW 316i coupe. Never been in one before and it was really nice. Felt a little claustrophobic though as the roof line is quite low.

Help

Covered helpdesk today for a guy who is away on his honeymoon. It was a nightmare, calls came in thick and fast all day and then just as the final hour of the day broke, it got worse. More helpdesk calls, jobs, e-mails and people all descended on me at once and I literally had to hold my hands in the air and tell everyone trying to talk to me to shut the hell up. It was not an easy day.

After the failure to get to my eye test yesterday, I've got a new appointment next Tuesday, so I've got that afternoon off.

Nokia has demonstrated a new touch interface based on the Series 60 platform. Given that Apple has big influence on technology, despite a small market share, this isn't surprising, despite the iPhone being a bag of crap. Well, actually a handheld running OS X could be insanely cool if it wasn't locked down like a bastard. 3rd party apps would make all the difference, but like the Sony and the PSP, Apple is doing everything it can to stop it.

Also, who the FUCK wants a toothbrush that plays music into your mouth?! Who comes up with this shit?

Stupid day

I had today off work to get a follow up test on my eyes. However, that didn't happen. I set off to Wrexham, but didn't get very far as I realised the Discovery's brakes were being odd. The pedal felt hard and only worked properly if you revved the engine quite hard. Didn't want to drive it like that so I took it (carefully) to the Land Rover gurus up the road. One look was all it took for them to identify a split hose from the vacuum pump and it took a few seconds to fix. Brakes are back to normal now. They also identified the scrubbed front tyre as a tracking or wheel bearing issue, which they are going to check out on Wednesday. I think the tyre will have to be replaced though, the tread is just too worn on the left side. Bah. Anyway, got a new appointment at the optician next Monday and also visiting the doctor that morning to talk about food allergies.

Took some stuff to the tip, part of an ongoing attempt to clear out the spare room downstairs. Used to be my Dad's room before he left and now it's just full of crap.

Also played some Halo 3 with Will, which wasn't too bad. For some reason I wasn't on form today which Will found frustrating, especially when I drove off the same cliff three times in a row. Still, it was entertaining enough. This was followed by a long session of Canis Canem Edit, where I got some more missions out of the way. Then tried to play Wii Sports and Wario Ware but got frustrated. Also made the discovery that the cheap batteries that Rob put in one of my remotes had leaked.

While googling for stuff on Rammstein, somehow came across a forum called the Stormfront White Nationalist Community (Wikipedia). Some of the crap being spouted on it is just sick and it seems worryingly busy as well. Absolutely in-fucking-sane.

4tb hard drives are coming up. Sounds dodgy to me. I still think the 1tb drives are bad enough, how do you back that much data up? I'd rather have a smaller solid state drive.

Can't sleep

Been awake since four. Bah.

Pic is of a Rickenbacker 4003 in Blueburst, a colour I've never seen before. It's absolutely stunning. I've played a 4001 (largely the same) in a guitar shop in Washington DC, but I was frightened of it as it was a 60's model and worth a lot of money, so I didn't really try it out properly. Rickenbackers are expensive in the UK, even second hand, as they're only made in the USA. Even a totally stripped one with no hardware and a cracked neck is over £500 on Ebay. Anyone who tries to make copies, like the absurdly named Rockinbetter by Tokai, are usually shut down by Rickenbacker pretty quickly, as they are fiercely protective of the design.

Just gone downstairs for a pee and found the dog had made an incredible mess. A LAKE of piss, one huge sloppy aromatic turd and lots of small hard turds scattered about. Lovely.

Stuff and things

Didn't do much this morning. Played some bass and listened to some music. Then went to Andy's for 2:30pm to play some games and watch the rugby. Andy was still a bit under the weather after a wild night out to celebrate his 28th birthday* so Rob and I played some more Halo 3 and got another level out of the way. It was fun but a bit annoying in some parts where a tank killed us a ludicrous number of times. Then after Andy woke up a bit, we spent some time playing around in the Forge mode. We don't actually try and kill each other, we just play with things like the Banshees and teleporters and stuff like that.

We had already agreed that we were going to get a Chinese when Will came round, so we got a 4 person banquet. This amounted to rather a lot of food and so by the way the the rugby came round, we were all rather stuffed. It was pretty good though and the chicken and sweetcorn soup was really tasty.

So yeah, a good day overall.

Never been particularly impressed with Vauxhall cars, but the one I have always liked is the Calibra. Yeah, it's just a pretty Cavalier, but it looks amazing, even ten years after they stopped making them. They're cheap now, but that means that all the boy racers are buying them and ruining them with bodykits. My sister had one identical to the one in the picture, and it was a great car.

*Actually 30th but we pretend to believe him when he says 28th.

Firing up the old PS2

It must be said that since I got my Wii and 360, the PS2 has been sadly neglected. Mainly because there wasn't a spare power socket for it and so it had to share the power cable with my practice amp. However with the Optiplex now storing my MP3s on the internal hard drive rather than an external one, I was able to plug in the PS2. Impressively, after about 6 months unplugged, the clock was only half an hour out. I used to think the PS2 was noisy, but after the roaring behemoth of the 360, it's fans are like a gentle breeze.

The main game I was last playing on the PS2 was Canis Canem Edit. Will, Rob and I went and got this on the day of release last year, and it's an excellent game. It's basically GTA in a school, but what makes it work is all the little details. I remember the hilarity when in the first few seconds of playing, Will pressed the wrong button and smacked a girl, incurring the wrath of the headmaster's secretary and having to escape. This is like when we first played GTA: San Andreas and failed the impossibly easy first mission because a Spitfire dropped out of the sky and exploded, killing the guy who was trying to show us where to get pizza.

One of the fun aspects of Canis Canem Edit is goading girls into fighting by kissing one after the other. The same works if you use the controversial 'warm tea' feature where you can kiss some boys, if you get them jealous, they beat the the living shit out of each other which is far funnier.

There's going to be a version of this game coming out on the Wii and Xbox 360 and I'm quite tempted to pick it up again and play it through again. I'm at about 52% complete at the moment.

Shit-kicking

Got into the Discovery this morning to be greeted with a pungent stench of well...shit. Didn't have time to look at it properly and drove to work. When I sat at my desk, realised my left shoe had a lump of presumably greyhound shit on it. Worse, it had dried on and proved near impossible to remove. Getting into the car in the evening, I discovered more dried shit on the clutch pedal.

Bah.

Fun with silly computers

The blue and white G3 proved to be even more unstable after the Tiger upgrade. So I've retired it in favour of a Dell Optiplex GX240. It's an elderly small form factor machine with a 1.7ghz P4, 384mb RAM and a 20gb hard drive, but only USB 1.1 ports. Also the CD drive is a laptop style one and it only has half-height PCI slots which I was hoping to populate with a USB 2 card.

However I found that I had a USB 2 card that fitted, but the rear panel was full height. This was 'solved' by removing the panel and securing the card with duct tape. After next pay day I'll track down a proper half-height USB 2 card. I didn't realise that it wasn't until the GX260 that they had proper PCI slots.

Despite these problems it runs Windows XP nicely enough and seems stable. I've also found that I can connect to it via RDP from Linux without rerouting the audio from the sound card, which is perfect. However, I have encountered a problem I hadn't considered. My iPod is a 3G model, the one with the four buttons under the screen. It can't be charged from USB, only FireWire, which the Dell doesn't have. I guess I could put a FireWire card in instead of the USB, but can you get half-height ones? It's either that or find a broken 4G iPod to put the hard drive out of the 3G one in. Either way it'll have to wait until next payday.

I never thought that the day would come when I would be buying Dell hardware. But Macs are too expensive for what you get, and I've lost interest in building computers from scratch.

I didn't expect to be using Linux as the primary OS on my main computer either. It's always been a side project for me, and I haven't been without a Linux machine in some form for over ten years, but it's never been my main OS until now. The reasoning is that this machine has a Windows 2000 CoA sticker, but 2000 is old and doesn't run very well on this machine. Windows Vista would run OK but it's too expensive and the first service pack isn't out yet and XP is hard to get hold of and again, expensive. A Mac? Yeah, it would be nice and I still really like Mac OS X, but I can't afford one with an Intel processor, so there isn't much point. So the obvious solution was Ubuntu, specifically the Gutsy Gibbon pre-release. I've been running it since one of the early Tribe releases and it's been absolutely fine. It runs far better than Windows 2000 on this machine and has more up-to-date features.

This probably seems like a cop-out to those who seem to regard it as a matter of honour to have as much cracked and pirated software as possible and run it on a cracked version of Windows, but these days I just can't be arsed. Free software works for me. For Windows, there's Ubuntu, for MS Office, there's OpenOffice, for IE, there's FireFox and for Photoshop, there's the GIMP. The only thing I can't do so far on Linux is run Ableton Live, which I do miss, and Bryce, which I haven't used for a while anyway. And who knows, there might be open-source equivalents that I haven't found yet, though that is doubtful when it comes to Live. Blender is supposed to be good, but I found it very hard to use when I looked into it a couple of years ago.

One day I'll be able to get a Mac again, and that day will be glorious. The one I really miss is my Pismo PowerBook, which suffered some sort of power manager failure. It accompanied me to Paris and New York and was the platform for some crazy music creation due to the excellent sound circuitry in it.

Didn't go to badminton tonight due to being headachy and tired, and I'm also insanely poor so I'm treasuring the diesel I have the Discovery as I can't afford to fill it up. I also desperately want to put new strings on the Peavey bass, but I can't afford that either, and so-on and so-forth.

Wow, saving sucks.

Wii keyboard flappery

Well, now the Wii finally supports a USB keyboard in the browser, allowing me to type this actually on the Wii itself. Also as a major bonus, this means that the Buffy Swears keyboard at www.rathergood.com works on it. Hurrah!

Ignore earlier post, had a fit of depression and mental anguish, but then wrote a long and somewhat self absorbent article on why I hate the world and then did some exercise which made me feel better - no, not that.

Oh well. Fun fun fun.

One downside to blogging on the Wii - no way to insert a link or pictures, so I edited it on a PC to have them.

Sod it

No point updating this any more.

2008 - Year of Thriftiness

Rob and I have agreed that 2008 has been declared the year of thriftiness. I'm basically shite with money and have little to no self restraint to when it comes to buying things for no apparent reason. This is why I have shedloads of old computer equipment and video game consoles, guitars, radio controlled cars, a diesel guzzling 4x4 and even a damned unicycle.

Recently I realised that this can't go on for ever and so I have tried to become more responsible with my money. This is proving to be surprisingly difficult. I keep seeing things, that I find rather appealing and then I realise that it's just like it was before. Why do I need a rare Psion Organiser II XP which has a translucent case? Or a left-handed Squier Precision Bass which needs some parts, so I could learn bass left handed (which is apparently good for your brain). I'm trying to get myself into the mentality that I must only get things which have some sort of use, and try to rid myself of the crap that I have that I don't need.

Oh well. I have now at least got some more savings put away, but the thing I really want to save up for is a house. But now that house prices have gone so utterly insane, that isn't an option at this point in time. It's basically impossible for a single person on my wages to buy a house. Renting would be an option but it's dead money and the cost is about the same. So I'll just keep saving and trying to cope with the humiliation of living with my mother at nearly 30, and hope that somehow house prices come down again. Either that or get a yurt or something.

The Discovery is being a bit of a worry. It's nice, but the fuel economy isn't great and at some point I'm going to have to get underneath it with a wire brush and a bucket of Waxoyl to get the chassis and body protected before the winter. The pic is what the Discovery chassis should look like, but after 17 years, there's more surface rust than paint.

Also it's eaten the tread off the side of one of the tyres indicating the steering needs adjusting, and needs a few other bits and bobs. The thing is, whenever I see a car for sale that's small and economical, the ground clearance just isn't there and it would probably end up wrecked like my old Xsara did, though that was a total piece of crap before the track ruined it.

Though hopefully, if 2008 is the year of thriftiness, then 2009 is the year of holidays!

More rugby

Watched the Scotland Argentina game at Andy's. Not a bad game but Scotland made too many mistakes. Also somehow consumed an awful lot of chocolate and sweets as Em's idea of a healthy meal was crisps, sweets and chocolate. Hmm.

I only briefly saw Battalion Wars on the GameCube, but now there's a Wii sequel coming out, which should be entertaining.

My Linux backup machine (dual PIII 550mhz, 20gb SCSI boot drive, 160gb IDE drive and a DLT7000 tape drive) was accidentally left running while I was out and when I came home was emitting that acrid smell of overheating electronics. However it was still running and the drives were all OK so I'm not sure what was up with it. I'll have to have a look at it tomorrow. Weird though as it's been left running before with no problems. Perhaps it's sucked up a load of dust or something.

More rugby

Watched the Scotland Argentina game at Andy's. Not a bad game but Scotland made too many mistakes. Also somehow consumed an awful lot of chocolate and sweets as Em's idea of a healthy meal was crisps, sweets and chocolate. Hmm.

I only briefly saw Battalion Wars on the GameCube, but now there's a Wii sequel coming out, which should be entertaining.

My Linux backup machine (dual PIII 550mhz, 20gb SCSI boot drive, 160gb IDE drive and a DLT7000 tape drive) was accidentally left running while I was out and when I came home was emitting that acrid smell of overheating electronics. However it was still running and the drives were all OK so I'm not sure what was up with it. I'll have to have a look at it tomorrow. Weird though as it's been left running before with no problems. Perhaps it's sucked up a load of dust or something.

ARGH! Computers suck!

Why do computers crash when something that takes a while is nearly complete? I was copying my MP3 collection to a network share from the iBook, when it suffered a kernel panic with 97 files remaining. It's probably the second or third time I've ever seen it crash like that in five years.

Also my 80gb external USB hard drive has somehow become unusable by any machine. The only one that even sees it is there is the iBook and it says the partition information is corrupt. It's not making any bad noises, so I could probably put the bare drive into a laptop and reformat it that way, but why can't it just work?!

Bah. Sometimes I wish computers were simpler again. I had a quick play with a Tandy 200 earlier today, which was nice. It's very basic, but is quite versatile and is quite capable of talking to Linux over an RS232 connection. It also has a very, very nice keyboard.

Untitled

Went to badminton tonight but left early as I started to feel unwell again. Wasn't too bad.

A video of Geddy Lee playing bass. Never heard him before. Sounds quite good. I have however played his signature Jazz Bass, and it was really nice.

The Unclyopedia entry about Halo, worth a read.

Gits with guns

Feeling better today but not quite enough to go to badminton. I did however take the dog for a walk for the first time in a few days. The weather was really good too, so that helped.

Then played some Halo 3 with Will online. It was quite good, had some fun with the Forge levels. Found that teleporters can be quite hilarious and if you hit someone on a quad-bike with a gravity hammer, the effects can be quite random. Also played a couple of games with actual people and this is where I get annoyed. I freely admit that my gaming skills are limited when it comes to FPS and so I find that basically everyone on Xbox Live is better than me. So I get annoyed and shouty. Oh well.

Rargh

Frustrating day in work. Various stupidity and things causing untold hassle. Also having to drive miles to pick up a small piece of plastic and electronics. Oh well. Not improved by still feeling stuffed up from this stupid cold which is dragging on.

I finally put the rugby pictures up. They can be found here. As before, please excuse the iPhoto gimpiness (Up takes you to page 1). Also apologies if your photo is in there when caught unawares...

Pictured is a peacock I took a photo of in Cardiff castle.

Nothing to report

Boring day.

Finished Race to Dakar by Charley Boorman, which Andy lent. Having read through all the things that happened, I don't understand why anyone would want to do such a thing.

Bah

My cold turned out to be one of those one day things. Didn't sleep very well last night and my throat did that annoying grainy hoarse thing all day.

Had a test drive today in a Fiat Doblo for work. It was metallic orange and drove OK, though the driving position was rather strange and the pedals too close together. Lots of room in the back though.

Finished labelling the rugby photos, it's currently exporting them so with any luck they'll be up tomorrow.

BioShock

Completed BioShock today. However I reloaded the penultimate save and went back through the game finding things I'd missed.

Forgot to mention, after first setting up the 360 at Andy's yesterday, it did the 3 red lights of death a few times before it came on. Today however, it appears to be fine. Weird.

Didn't do much else today, feeling rather under the weather. I think I have a cold coming on, which isn't a surprise as Rob has had one and quite a few people in work have had one too.

Rugby and Halo 3

Went to Andy's with Rob, Em and Will where we watched two rugby games. We saw Wales playing dreadfully against Fiji and being dumped out of the World Cup. Fiji were playing like a bunch of cheating bastards and the referee was absolutely useless, so that combined with a poor performance from Wales meant it was not a good game to watch. After that there was Scotland vs Italy, which Scotland won.

Between rugby we played some Halo 3 multiplayer. We experimented with the Forge levels which was fun. I found that you could spawn a vehicle in the creation mode and drop or hit the other players with it, which proved to be quite entertaining. Found this out quite by accident where Rob was trying to put some barrels down and I dropped a Ghost on his head.

Also saw a bit of Westworld where a guy bonks one of the robots. Scary.

Plopinbon

<-- Huh?

Had to set up remote access for my manager's manager today, which was a bit alarming. But it went OK. Other than that, work was reasonable.

Badminton was great this evening. Had a couple of really good games. I'm not sure why, but I got in there and was waiting to play and just felt really unmotivated and miserable. Then the first game happened and I instantly felt much better.

A remixed, slightly less tedious version of the TECHNOVIKING with better music.

England 36, Tonga 20. Boo.

ALL HAIL TECHNOVIKING

Pieces of Randomness

Firefox is being gimpy. Top reckoned it was somehow using 104% of the CPU - bit weird as apparently the system was 47% idle. Perhaps having dual processors confuses it or something.

Work was meh, helpdesk day. Not too bad though.

Badminton was good, had a couple of decent games, all good fun. Also a nice chat with Rob and Em, which is always good. Exchanged commiserations with Em regarding her car being hit by a lorry while it was parked up, as my old Pimpmobile suffered the same fate.

Here is an exercise...

Compare and contrast (sound required, safe for work):

Video 1

Video 2

Halo 3

Just spent a few hours playing Halo 3 with Will and Rob. Played through a few levels co-op with two 360s Will and Rob shared Will's large TV, while I played on a smaller TV. It was really good fun, and the theatre mode lets you replay all your actions.

The multiplayer was good too and we spent some time playing that as well. Also ended up in wild hysterics after playing the Forge mode where you can edit levels as you play them. We were trying to create as many exploding barrels as possible to then ignite them while standing on them. It was unspeakably hilarious to see three Master Chiefs fussing round the barrels, trying to pile them up neatly, before being thrown violently through the air. It really was funnier than I can describe.

So far the campaign mode looks quite good.

360 weirdness

Ironic that I was going on about how well Ubuntu runs on this machine and then Firefox dies for no apparent reason.

Work was bleh. Got the hotel booked for my AIX course in October, which should be good. Hoping to get a look at the Terracotta Army in the British Museum as well.

Started going through the rugby photos. Some are good, particularly the ones from Sunday evening. Also got a lot of pictures of peacocks for some reason and two bass guitars used by Feeder and Motley Crue

The 360 was misbehaving this evening. When I was playing BioShock, it was flashing up certain textures and areas of the screen as bright green or black. I've read that this can happen on PCs when the GPU is overheating. So not a good sign. Perhaps it's a sign of impending failure. If it does it again or gets worse, perhaps it's time to call Microsoft.

Tried out the Second Life client for Linux. It seems to work as well as the Windows one. Doesn't stop the game itself being a huge pile of crap though, now I know why I haven't been on it for a couple of months. Took one step and then flew into the sky without any way of stopping. It's total cack.

Tedious day

Today was one of those days where I just sat there in work and wondered why I even bother showing up. Most days I can laugh annoying stuff off but today drove me insane. Also a mega boo goes out to Epson laser printers.

Spent the evening taking the dog for a walk and then enjoying a Chinese takeaway. I'm trying to eat more healthily but it was my Mum's birthday and she fancied the food. Oh well. I have however discovered the joy of fresh raw carrots. Mmm.

Tried playing Wii tennis left handed. Apparently doing stuff with your non-dominant hand is good for your brain. Actually managed to play quite well, oddly enough.

Booked the 21st and 22nd of November off work. Going to see The Black Crusade tour in Manchester with Ally. Should be interesting. It features Arch Enemy, DragonForce, Machine Head, Trivium and Shadows Fall. Can't go wrong, though I hadn't heard of Arch Enemy or Shadows Fall. This video is an example of Arch Enemy, and it's good, but I never before heard a woman sing like that. Scary stuff. I have got one of Machine Head's albums and a couple of DragonForce and Trivium's.

About to start Making Money, the latest Diskworld book. Terry Pratchett is one of the few authors whose books I will buy without reading a review.

Games games games

Spent a lazy morning doing nothing much. Came across a cool video of the French train world speed record from earlier this year. It's a modified TGV running on standard rails and it managed to reach 357mph. There's a shot at 03:49 of it going under a bridge at that speed and it's just insane.

Spent the afternoon at Will's messing around with games. We spent some time on Halo 2 and Gears of War on Xbox Live, which was fun, and I had a quick go on Super Paper Mario. It kind of plays like a classic Mario game, but with plenty of twists. Really good stuff. Also tried out Mercury Meltdown, which was also good, but very frustrating.

Restrung the mandolin as the ones on it were crap. I hate doing this, it's such a pain. Sounds better now though.

Odd day

Today has been slightly odd. I've had the house to myself for most of the day, which makes a nice change. Headed into town and jetwashed the mud off the Discovery. I was careless though and managed to hit the sunroof in just the wrong spot, hence a huge puddle in the passenger seat. Unfortunately my newly purchased AA batteries were there. Oh well.

Took the dog for a walk, nothing new there. It didn't rain. Didn't meet anyone or anything. Boring.

Cardiff was good on Thursday and Friday. Got a few pics which I'll soon put online hopefully.

Heading off to Ruthin now, meeting up with some old work colleagues, one of whom is the PS3 owner. Yet I've been asked to take a Wii controller. Hmm.

Gwamprah

Odd encounter this morning. I had just set off for work and there was the tiniest little pure black kitten you could imagine in the middle of the road (single track, very quiet). It was so small and bewildered that it had no idea that I was bearing down on it. So I stopped and rescued it. It was really tiny, it looked like it had just opened it's eyes, had a look at the big wide world and taken it's first wobbly steps, right out onto the road. I knew where it had come from, an irresponsible house that has unneutered cats that breed prolifically, so I took it back there. Hopefully it'll soon learn to stay away from the road. There really is something about kittens. I got a big smile and a wave from a woman in a Freelander who had stopped behind me while I rescued it.

Went round to my Dad's this evening. It was his mother-in-law's funeral today. It all went off well enough. Met her daughter and her boyfriend as well. She lives in Norway and he's Norwegian. Given that she's at least 40 and he's 50-something, they were behaving like love-struck teenagers. It's all very cute but when they're talking to each other in Norwegian, you can't help but wonder if he's saying dirty things. Had a lot of left over food from the buffet, so I ate some and brought some home for the dog.

The Discovery looks manly and rugged with a covering of mud all over it. Our neighbour came up in his tractor and the large wheels pick up all the mud and rub it all over the overgrown plants, which then transfer it to the Discovery when I drive up the track.

Tired now.

I hate computers

Spent the evening (yes, I KNOW I'm a hapless geek) installing Windows XP on an old Compaq iPaq desktop. It's fairly pathetic, being a 500mhz Celeron with 256mb RAM and a 6gb hard drive. But I wanted to see if it would run iTunes reasonably well as a possible replacement for the dodgy G3. I got Windows installed from a spare OEM disk and activated (despite the key being from a broken Acer laptop) and everything was working, when I suddenly realised that it only had USB 1.1. Experiments with an external hard drive showed that it was far, far too slow to use with an iPod.

So now I need something with preferably at least a P4, a PCI slot, and ideally cheap or free. Oh well. Pissed off that I activated Windows, if I try activating with this key again it'll probably tell me to fuck off, like the one off an old Dell laptop did. I only tried it because I was certain it wouldn't work.

Cardiff was a cool place. Weird to come back home again with that slightly different perspective that going somewhere you really like gives you.

Uploaded the photos from the weekend. I'm going to have fun labelling this lot.