GTA IV, depression and general stuff

I have an admission. I'm bored of GTA IV. I'm about 35% in and I'm finding it really hard going.

1) Missions are all the same crap, over and over again. Pick up some people who proceed to talk shite. Steal something/kill someone. Escape from police/gang while outnumbered and accompanied by stupid companions who usually get killed. Repeat. There are no side missions to speak of other than the racing, but with those you can usually tell in the first minute or so that either you will win incredibly easily, or be completely defeated.

2) The AI is hardly improved from the older games. It seems so at first and the police are better. But you watch it when people get into your car and it's just like GTA III all over again.

3) It locks up or gives the unreadable disk error on a regular basis. Not so bad when you're just playing around but if you're trying to do a mission, it is really annoying. The only other game that has done this on my 360 was Bioshock and it didn't do it anywhere near as much as GTA IV does.

4) Once you've made a few friends, they become a real annoyance. They constantly call you and want to go out and drink or play darts or whatever. If you don't answer, they start to hate you. It is really tedious. You can switch the phone off but then you miss things.

5) It's just not fun. Primarily because of the tedious, repetitive missions and the lack of anything to do outside of the missions.

Yes, it looks incredible, the cars drive great and the animation is good and the detail of the city is truly breathtaking. But the actual game content is GTA III all over again. It was good back then, but now, no. I expected much, much more from GTA IV but it feels like a step backwards from San Andreas. To be fair, I suppose I'll keep plugging away at it, but not with the same delight that Vice City and San Andreas brought me.

Also my Xbox Live subscription has expired - not bothered about renewing it to be honest.

No blog updates for a while, had a slightly strange few days where I was feeling very down. Didn't feel like doing anything or talking to anyone. Thursday evening was spent at an Indian meal with some people from work, which was pretty decent. I tend to judge Indian restaurance on their kormas - it's easy enough to make an average spicy dish but the milder ones need to have taste, and the korma I had was pretty good.

Saturday was spent watching the end of Doctor Who Series 3 and then lots of ancient Doctor Who on Youtube. I also sanded down the headstock of the Frankencaster and lacquered a new decal on, so it's now a Bitzer Partsocaster. I've never done this before but it came out OK. Still no pickup, annoyingly. I've discovered the wiring for two pickups is actually easier than the single pickup due to less capacitors and resistors...doh.

Spent most of the day at Rob and Em's playing Boom Blox on the Wii with Will, Vicky and Andy, also eating very nice burgers and trying out Andy's chocolate fountain.

Boom Blox is a simple game but very compelling, and good fun. The various multiplayer modes are excellent. I might actually buy it, which would make it my first Wii purchase since Mario Galaxy in November. Also had a look at the Spore creature creator on Will's MacBook. It looks great fun but I don't think I've got anything that will run it. I might look into selling my Toshiba laptop and some other stuff and getting one with a graphics card. There's nothing wrong with the Toshiba other than the crappy graphics chip though, so that's annoying.

I'm going to sell my DS and PSP. I don't use them any more. I think I'll see if I can get a Phat DS though, there's still some games I'd like to play and I think the Phat suits my hands better. After I built a working Phat DS from spare parts (which I gave to Steve and Kara), I looked into the possibility of creating a hybrid Phat DS with Lite screens, but the electronics are very different unfortunately.

Videos

Weird Al Yankovic - Angry White Boy Polka

I would post a link to another video but nobody else would like it. Or even care. Or read any of the other shit that I spew on here. There's probably a reason why my blog has twice the number of posts as anyone else's but if I think about it too much I'll depress myself.

Car snobbery

It dawned on me recently that my car is probably the oldest and shittest looking car when I park in any of the work sites. Sometimes this really bothers me and I wonder why I'm always resigned to driving crappy cars, especially if I end up parked next to something nice (the answer is my near retardation with finances). But then I remember that there's no point having a nice car because it would lose shitloads of value the instant I drove it up the track and it got scratched and covered in mud.

On the other hand, I've found it's quite a relief not giving a sod about scratches or dents. So long as it drives well, and the panels are approximately the right shape and the doors and windows open and close properly, I've decided it doesn't matter too much what it looks like. Especially as I've discovered the AX must have been in a crash once as the bumper, bonnet, offside wing, door and headlights are from a white older model and have been resprayed in an almost but not quite right shade of red.

I was thinking that if I ever did modify a car, it would be more fun to keep it looking shed-like but upgrade the mechanicals so it drove and handled really well, like a stealth thing. I think people do this already and call them 'sleepers'.

Woohoo, soldering

Got a new soldering iron for a mere £8.50 today and some new solder for 85p. It revealed just how shit my old iron was. Solder melts in an instant, attaches to anything I want, and basically it works really well. I was able to complete the wiring for the Telecaster (other than the pickup) and resolder some joints I wasn't sure about, with no problems at all. Hurrah.

Just waiting for the pickup to arrive. Once it arrives I can finish the wiring, put some strings on it, and see if the damn thing works. I hope it does. The wire I used was some cloth covered wire I had lying around which looks nice and vintage but is a bit of a pain to strip.

If it does work and actually play, I'll take the Squier logo off and put one of these on it:

Looks close enough to a Fender logo but not. If I was building a copy of a Jazz copy I could put his interpretation of the logo - a Fecker Jizz Bass. Hmm. Or perhaps it could be a Fecker Testicaster. Not keen on that either...

Spent some time GIMPing an image of a Telecaster which would have two bass strings and then two dual course octave strings. The idea being that you'd have bass and other sounds on the same thing. No idea if it would work in reality but it was fun doing it. It would probably be easier to use a short-scale bass in reality.

Slow-worm and soldering

While walking the dog, we came across this enormous slow-worm in the middle of the road. It was easily a foot long. I wasn't sure if it was dead until it blinked, which is one way of telling them apart from snakes. It looked really glossy and healthy and was a really nice deep brown. It stayed patiently while I took some pictures and then I gave it a prod and it slithered away across the road, which was good as I didn't want it to get run over. The hound didn't quite know what to make of it and just stared at it with pricked ears. Having just read about them, this could have been a pregnant female.

Most of the bits arrived for the Frankencaster today, everything except the pickup. I started to put them together only to find that the potentiometers wouldn't fit into the control plate as the holes were too small. The pots I got were real Fender parts so whoever made the control plate cocked that up rather. I had to file out the holes so the controls could be mounted. I then spent quite a bit of time soldering the various wires and resistors and capacitors in. This is the wiring diagram I am using, which is for the Esquire (the original single pickup version of the Telecaster).

How I hate soldering. It never seems to attach to the terminals like it should and the diagram said to solder wires and things to the body of the pots, but it never sticks for me. I don't know why. I was cut short when the end of the soldering iron I was using unexpectedly broke off, so I'll have to find a new one now. I should also get some new solder as perhaps the stuff I am using is just crap. It's also very old I think. I was a bit concerned when the control plate almost didn't fit back in as the 3-way switch is so deep. It did go in after I tweaked a few things. I'm not sure how well the crappy soldering will hold up to be honest once it's all together though. If it does turn out to be crappy solder I can redo it with good stuff though.

Busy day

My hopes for a peaceful Monday were dashed the instant I entered the building. I quickly received a call that there was a loud noise coming from the server room and the door was hot to the touch, which pointed to air conditioning failure. Nobody had been able to get in because it's kept locked so I had to leg it and get the key.

Upon opening the door, the caretaker and I were almost bowled over by the heat and the sound of screaming fans as the servers tried to cope with the sauna-like conditions. The air conditioning had failed. So we spent the next few minutes opening the window and stealing a load of desk fans from various desks to provide some airflow. Eventually the room cooled down a bit and the fans began to spin back down. Amazingly none of the servers had crashed. The air conditioning was fixed by lunchtime and the room returned to it's usual tranquil calm.

I was bombarded with calls all day long, everything from a blue-screening PC to misplaced phone numbers to a laser printer with a hole in it, causing me to dash around like a demented bluebottle all day long.

It was a relief to come home and take the dog for a walk. Other than that watched some more Doctor Who and things.

A VERY windy day

It was unbelievably windy this morning. I had a weekend task from work, to drive around the village and see what the GPRS coverage was like from my laptop with a 3G data card. This was made hard by huge chunks of tree in the road, and at one point when I was getting out of the car to move one, the door was suddenly ripped out of my hand and bent right back, putting a massive dent in it. Great. It was also blowing the power lines so hard that the electricity kept flickering off and on, causing problems with computers and things. It did calm down eventually but then it rained for the rest of the day, so no dog walk unfortunately.

There was an interesting moment this evening when the wind farm was caught in the sunset so that the turbines shone bright gold against a background of grey cloud. It was made slightly surreal because all the turbines were shut down.

Wedding

Today was the wedding of a woman I used to work with called Amy. There's a few of us who have kept in touch which is nice and we meet up every now and again for Chinese food and video games. I remember how she'd talk about the upcoming wedding in the office, and we'd mock because it was five years off. It seems unbelievable that the wedding actually happened today. Fortunately it all went off perfectly.

The weather was absolute shite this morning but by the time everyone got to the church, it was actually not too bad. The ceremony went off without a hitch although the vicar spouted some rather strange stuff at one point. Churches bother me.

I came home and started watching Doctor Who Series 3 until it was time to head back to the evening do. It was your typical evening do with lots of drink, food and a questionable DJ. The two extended families get on fine and it was basically a good laugh all round. Amy's brother Martin came out with outrageous scatalogical humour which is normal but it gets worse when he's drunk. Fortunately the other people I used to work with were there so we formed a little huddle with people we knew and watched as various family members gyrated unsteadily on the dance floor.

Also met a guy with the same name as me which is very unusual. Annoyingly he was also rather like me in appearance but with all the bad aspects removed, ie, no excess flab, no glasses, perfect skin, no grey or disappearing hair. DoubleL v2, new and improved.

Tired now, it's pretty late.

Frankencaster

The Frankencaster

I put this together this evening. I had decided a while ago to put humbuckers in my £15 Squier Strat to stop it buzzing. But the humbucker pickguard I bought didn't fit properly. I didn't feel like putting it back together and wondered what to do. The other thing I didn't like about it was the tremolo because it made it really hard to keep in tune, and I wondered about blocking it so it didn't move.

Then I remembered the metallic blue Telecaster body I bought a long time ago. Some investigation showed the Strat neck fitted but the holes in the body were too narrowly spaced. After attacking them with a drill, I found the neck bolted on fine, although there is a gap because Strat necks are rounded at the end and Telecaster necks are square. Also the headstocks are different so it looks unusual.

All the black hardware I bought for the quilted maple body fitted near enough, and so it should work fine. Not all the screw holes for the pickguard line up but that isn't a major issue. The reason it has a single string on it is because I was using it to make sure everything lined up. I think the blue and black go together pretty well.

I managed to find someone in work to buy my Xbox so I've put that towards the remaining parts I need - a pickup, controls, various screws and an output jack. I've only gone for one pickup at the moment even though it has space for two, as I'm still not too good at the wiring side.

Double neck bass...

...with one string per neck. It's silly but I really like it. It was actually made by a guy called Jens Ritter who makes insanely expensive, beautifully crafted basses. I remember hearing about it being made but this is the first time I've seen a picture of it.

In other news, the weather was ultra crappy today, wind and rain all day long. It was payday today so I celebrated by having a nacho chicken wrap from Morrisons - I've started to try and eat more sensibly so this was a departure from the rest of the week.

I also filled up my car as the needle was down in the red and the mileometer was up to 399 miles since the last fill up. In fact it was so low that the warning light came on as I went round a bend. I wasn't actually sure if it worked so that' s good to know. Diesel is £1.31 in Morrisons and for the first time ever it cost more than £40 to fill up the AX. Madness. I've said this so many times now, but I'm so glad I got rid of the Discovery when I did.

I found an IBM JS20 Blade server on Ebay today. It is a POWER based blade which can run AIX. Normally they go for £2000 or so but this one (and 7 more) had a starting bit of £60. It didn't have any memory but that isn't expensive. It sold for £60 in the end as well. Insane. It's a shame that they only work in a Bladecenter chassis, which are huge, heavy, hot, noisy and expensive.

Had a brief play with FreeNAS on a VMmare box his evening. Actually seems quite good. Also Firefox 3 seems pretty decent.

Currently reading Desperation by Stephen King, which is quite odd. It's very long and though I've read it before, I can't remember any of it at all for some reason.

Writing for the sake of it

Not much to say really.

Here is another strange German music video, this time by Tanzwut. Quite good.

Powered up the old Xbox today for the first time since I got the 360. I didn't have the Xbox all that long really before I got the 360, but I had quite a bit of fun with it. I played quite a lot of Half-Life 2, made lots of maps and had multiplayer fun in Far Cry Instincts: Evolution, and painted a Jaguar E-type purple in Forza Motorsport.

I've decided to sell it as I'll probably never use it again and it's quite big and takes up room. I suppose I could mod it to run Linux but quite frankly I'm bored of trying to run Linux on every single piece of hardware I get my hands on. Not that original Xboxes seem to have any value at all but hopefully with five games and a good SCART cable, it should sell.

Met the greyhound woman on the walk today. I last encountered her a long time ago. She has two greyhounds, one black and one white and brown. The black one is really friendly and does the leaning thing whenever he sees you. The white one on the other hand is timid, and takes a while to get used to people.

Firefox 3

Don't forget to download Firefox 3 tomorrow! (June 17th)

Stan Winston RIP

Stan Winston, creator of many special effects in Aliens, Terminator, Jurassic Park, etc has died. I first heard of him when I read the Making of Jurassic Park and was seriously impressed by the various work he has done.

A weird dream

It was really weird. I was looking into a big mirror except it wasn't a mirror, it was a screen. The image was generated by computer. If I moved too quickly I could see myself as a monster, before the image updated to show my normal face. It was really disturbing. Close up it looked like the face of the Cloverfield monster combined with a Predator.

Odd indeed.

Pork & Beans

It's been a long time since I listened to any Weezer stuff, after my copy of the Blue album cracked and the Green one vanished. This is a decent track and the internet meme video is great.

Recap

Ted: "Dougal, fantastic news!"
Dougal: "You're getting married."
Ted stares at Dougal in disbelief.

Father Ted is genius.

Recap of the last couple of days:

Friday evening was a pub crawl with everyone in St Asaph. I was late as shortly after I left I heard a strange slapping noise from the left front wheel. Turned out the tyre was falling apart and the right one looked a bit past it as well. Both of them looked to be remoulds. Went back home and changed the wheel after some hassle. Eventually made it. It was a fairly short pub crawl as it was only four pubs in total.

Saturday morning was expensive, got a pair of new front tyres. After that, picked up Andy and we headed to the BBQ at Em's parents. Lots of drinks, food, general hilarity and experiments with fire. They've got a stove that caused some chaos as occasionally varnished or laminated wood was put in it, causing sparks and hideous smoke. We headed back to Rob and Em's in the early hours and crashed out.

A fried breakfast revived everyone this morning.

Random and incoherant, feeling a bit tired.

The Shuttlecock Has Landed

Busy and frustrating day in work.

Badminton was good, didn't win any games and screwed up a lot of shots but had a good time. I think what I need to learn now is to anticipate where to be on the court, something I find hard. Best moment was landing a shuttle perfectly on a beam. By our reckoning, Em and I should have automatically won by default for this move but sadly the other team didn't agree. Good thing the shuttle was knackered anyway. I had to do some post processing on the image, using the despeckle feature of the GIMP to make it look a bit better.

Burnt toast

Evacuation in work caused by burnt toast. Again. Other than that it was a fairly ordinary day. Cut my hair this evening, a bit of a pain and always itchy afterwards.

Went back into Second Life. I found a beach which existed solely to allow people to stand around looking pretty, or bonk if they wanted to. When you walk into the middle of the beautiful crowd looking like this...
...it causes a certain amount of dismay and confusion. I just stood there as the conversation erupted. Some people laughed, some were offended, some told me quite seriously that I was missing the point of the place and disturbingly one person sent me a private message with offers of naughty things.

Perhaps the saddest thing I found today was a fake Starfleet Academy where you could sign up and work your way up the ranks so you can board a fake starship. At that point I looked normal and was wearing a toga which someone randomly gave me.

Worst book ever. For some reason I want to read it.

Fecking Ubuntu updates broke VMware Server again. Really bloody annoying, having to reconfigure it and build the module for the new kernel. I don't know why this version of Ubuntu does this as the old one was fine. Perhaps it's time to try VirtualBox instead.

Meh

A very Meh day. The only thing worth mentioning was randomly seeing a fire engine in an unlikely place on a field while walking the dog. As I watched it started to come back down and I saw a farmer who I vaguely know by sight. Inquiries showed that there was a gorse fire they were trying to keep under control due to wind. They took it up the road to a hydrant and refilled it while I was there.

I didn't realise that a full size two wheel drive fire engine would be so capable at going over a field, it was quite steep after all.

Fire engines are great in GTA, they are fast and handle well for their size and are nearly unstoppable. Also you can spray pedestrians with water.

Phatty phatty boom boom

Work was OK, got a lot done. My attempts to have a healthy lunch were thwarted slightly by being offered a choc-ice while fixing someone's distorted printing, and chocolate in celebration of someone having won something on the lottery. Also had a slightly bizarre moment when two of the AIX machines sent error messages about fibre channel connection failures. Obviously this was serious until I looked at the date the errors occurred - May 10th. Quite why it suddenly triggered an alert now, I don't know.

Took the dog for a walk which for some reason was a real struggle. I don't think I slept very well last night and I woke up this morning feeling more tired than when I went to bed.

The beta version of Firefox 3 is pissing me off, when you right click it sometimes instantly randomly selects something from the contextual menu. Also it did that thing where it makes the graphics card have a spasm and throws one of the monitors off, necessitating a reboot. Hopefully the final version will be better.

New 3G iPhone. It'll be $199 in the USA, noticably there are no prices on the UK store but it'll probably be another case of swapping the $ for a £. I know a few people who were intrigued by old one but didn't want to shell out for it. If only Apple sold it unlocked.

Image is from a nightmarish week not so long ago when I had six BlackBerrys to set up at once. It was like they were breeding or something.

Interesting thing I picked up last week in the delicatessen - Sweet Garlic Pickle. It's got quite a kick but it's really nice. Goes very well with cold salady meals.

Currently listening to Antikörper (Antibodies) by Eisbrecher. Not as good as the first album but does have some outstanding tracks on it. Vergissmeinicht (Forget me not) is my favourite one on it.

A lazy day

Will and I went to the car boot. It was a warm day so it was quite large, but it was the usual load of crap. There was one item which was interesting, a fairly high-end 16-port network switch, but it was only 10mb so I didn't bother with it.

After that finished off the first series of Torchwood. I rather liked it but as Rob put it, when it's good, it's very good, but when it's bad, it's very very bad. Heard mixed things about the second series, so that remains to be seen.

The rest of the day was spent alternating between the 360 and the amazing weather outside. I went and visited a tree I like, which has got a conveniently low branch and you can climb up and sit on it, which is nice.

Downloaded some game demos for the 360, some stupid racing game, a weird game called Warlords which is basically four player Breakout, a Castlevania game which I hated and the very odd Penny Arcade game.

You make me SICK

"Computer Freaks" - priceless.

This could be a really clever ironic joke. But it's not, which is really quite sad.

Creationism

A look at the Creation Museum.

Various things

Went to my Dad's house this morning for his birthday, which was good. After that, went down to meet Andy, Rob, Will and Vicky in the pub to watch the rugby. This was followed by a gentle pub crawl before heading back to Andy's in my car for a Chinese. All good.

Tired so not writing much.

Pancakes - PANCAKES!

Slow day in work, enlivened by the discovery at lunchtime of a new sweetshop in Ruthin. Lots of oldschool sweets and even a reasonably complete collection of Jelly Belly jellybeans. But, even better, they do pancakes with various fillings. Several of us tried it, most had pancakes and ice cream, but I was different and had one with chocolate spread and marshmallow. It was absolutely superb too.

Spent most of the evening watching more Torchwood. I'm up to about episode 8 and quite liking it so far. It can get a little silly sometimes but it's entertaining on the whole.

Ventured briefly back into Second Life and it is just as crappy as always.

Frankensteining, Badminton and a Strange Mist

Work has been OK. I created another Frankenstein laptop by stripping out the LCD from a broken Samsung laptop and installing it in a working Dell Latitude with a smashed screen. This involved about a million screws and a certain loss of sanity. I didn't expect the connections to be compatible but it actually worked. For some reason the inverter whines a little and today two lines appeared down the screen but it still goes OK. I then inflicted Windows Vista on the poor thing for testing purposes. Actually, the more I play with Vista, and get used to where things are in it, the more I tolerate it. I still think it takes up stupid amounts of RAM and hard drive space though.

Badminton was really good this evening. I haven't played for a while and at first I felt really out of practice, and certainly unfit. But once I got going, I had some good games. Unfortunately, becoming a grandmother hadn't mellowed She Who Gets My Back Up, and she was her usual self. But I must have been doing something right because she didn't do her usual grimaces of disgust and actually said I was playing well at one point.

Weird weather this evening, strange bouts of rain and when I came home there was weird mist everywhere. I took this picture with the N93 which didn't really come across all that well.

Talking of the N93 is still working well and despite me treating it like every phone I've ever had (badly), it's still holding together, even after having been used in camcorder mode while very drunk. I was convinced that the crazy hinge would fall apart but it seems fine so far. This is why I don't want a glossy 'fashion' phone because I view it as a tool and if it can't be shoved in and out of pockets and take the occasional knock, then it's pointless. I apply the same reasoning to iPods, I think they look much better scratched up a bit. It would be interesting to see how an iPhone would stand up to my treatment of phones.

Baby emu!

Awww!

A fat day and GTA

AIX day today which was fun. Spent some time trying to figure out why a couple of scripts wouldn't run. Someone brought Spanish sweets in which must have contained cocaine or something as they were very moreish.

Spent much of the evening playing GTA with Will. We did a number of ridiculous things like taking a drive across the city in airport baggage trucks, attempting a huge jump with the pair of us on a bike with flat tyres and other shenanigans. All good fun.

I hate Ricky Gervais

Why oh why did they pick him to be in GTA IV? Making jokes about cancer and AIDS is really funny, right? What a fucking arsehole.

Priceless comedy moment in GTA just now. I was about to grab someone out of a car when someone did it before me. The driver and the carjacker then engaged in a fist fight while I drove off in the unattended car.

Got a Freesat box. Seems pretty good and worked straight off the old Sky dish. It's a HD one too which may come in useful in the future.

WTF?

Amazon Recommends 'Demon Entrails'.

Eventful walk

Today a colleague and I were trying to take the side panel off a LaserJet 1320. Apparently the sides just unclipped but I was having problems getting it off. I started to lever it off with a screwdriver and with a loud bang, it suddenly shot off and hurtled across the room, terrifying everyone. It was very funny.

The weather this evening was very nice so I took the dog for a walk. Ironically after my tirade about the dachshund yesterday, we encountered it off the lead. We had walked past a field and heard a tirade of yapping. This gradually got closer until the damn thing appeared, heading in our direction. Fortunately it didn't attack the hound, just stood there barking. Eventually it stopped and then it looked quite cute. The owner finally appeared and was quite apologetic. I'm glad the hound doesn't generally respond to things like this.

After that, encountered the woman with the rescued red setter and her other dog. Both of them were rather aggressively staring at the hound so we didn't chat for long as they provoked one of the first real growls I've ever heard from him.

This evening was spent at Andy's, eating a large amount of pizza, watching some Robot Chicken and looking up strange things in Google and Uncyclopedia.

Crappy existence

Is this it? Sitting alone and miserable in my room full of shite, listening to music that everyone else hates, writing shit about stuff that nobody else cares about and eating crap that makes me fat?

Apparently so. Why bother.

4x4 Charger

I really like the Dodge Charger. Here's one on a 4x4 chassis. It always intrigues me when people put normal cars on a 4x4 chassis. The one I've always wanted to see is a Jaguar XJ6 on Discovery chassis. It has been done but mostly as monster truck style things. I think at one point I worked out you'd have to extend the Land Rover chassis by 13", but the width of the axles would be about right. Yes, the resulting vehicle would be ludicrously heavy, probably need special suspension to not handle like a barge, and would have to have a powerful V8 to even move, but it would certainly have presence.

One bizarre thing I once encountered was an XJ6 that had been converted into an extended six wheeled pickup. It was even for sale.

ARGH STUPIDITY

HERE

ARGH COMPUTERS

Went to put a CD in the Optiplex and it ignored it. Looked in Windows and as far as it was concerned there was no CD-ROM. Rebooted it. Same again. Complete shutdown. Nothing.

I extricated it with difficulty from the position it has next to the TV and hook it up to a monitor. It complains again about the CMOS battery and reboots, and the drive is there. Bah. The battery issue means it never starts unattended and you have to leave a keyboard plugged in so when it beeps unhappily you can press F1 to make it boot.

I hate computers. The fact that they remain my primary talent and source of income is probably the greatest tragedy of our times.

ARGH DRIVING HOME

Most annoying drive home ever. I went the quicker way along the main road rather than my usual scenic route through the village. Today proved why I don't usually go that way.

First I was nearly hit head on by someone driving a Mitsubishi Delica, one of those stupid Japanese 4x4 people carriers, who obviously thought that because he was bigger than me, he could ignore the rights of way and just force me to stop dead without any warning.

Then I was followed most of the way by a tailgating git in a black Astra who clearly thought he was God's gift to driving. He was cutting corners and generally being stupid, even nearly being hit head on by a TVR didn't stop him. This was particularly annoying as I know the road so well I can jolly the AX along at a good pace without reaching it's limits so there was no reason to tailgate.

Then on the single track road I turned off onto I was following someone and we met a woman in a blue VW Beetle (the ugly new one).

Despite there being two of us and one of her, she utterly refused to even try to reverse to a layby mere metres behind her and so the car in front of me wedged itself into a layby next to us. No room for me as there was a car already parked in it so I reversed about 50 metres up the road to the next one. Eventually the woman in the Beetle drove past without even acknowledging my existence or the fact I'd reversed all that way for her, which annoyed me a little.

I've seen her and her boyfriend/husband/toyboy/whatever around and they have an expensive house, the supposedly trendy Beetle, and a ridiculous unruly long haired dachshund that thinks it can take on a greyhound. I usually like dachshunds but that one is a little untrained vicious monster. Because of this I've never got close enough to speak to them in case it attacks the hound's ankles.

This is why I usually go the scenic route through the village. It's slower and the roads are narrow but there's much less traffic on it and this hardly ever happens.

Help Firefox 3 set a new record.

Bass workout

Just played the entirety of 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Iron Maiden, all 13 minutes of it (except the dull bit in the middle). My fingers ache.

Work wasn't too bad today. It was my turn to have the work experience kid following me around. Fortunately for once we had one that actually was interesting in working in IT, knew something about computers and listened to what I told him to do so I only had to tell him once and not stand over him every time. Also he asked intelligent questions about how things worked and what we did. The worst one we had was a girl who had absolutely no interest in computers or IT at all, and whose sole ambition was to get a job doing filing.

Rained all day. Couldn't take dog for a walk. Boo.

Bomb her womb with your love cannon

Most spam is annoying but that subject line did make me laugh.

Frustrating

I've been keeping an eye out for an RS/6000 so I can learn more about AIX for work. But they are hard to get hold of. And then lo and behold, one turns up on Ebay. Really good spec with dual 1.45ghz POWER4 processors, 2gb RAM, a DDS4 tape drive and even a graphics card. No hard drives but they are standard hotswap SCSI and easy enough to get hold of. In fact it's only a generation behind the ones we have in work. Starting bid of £99 with no bids. Sounds great.

Except that the damn thing is in London and is collection only. It ended at £101 - ludicrously cheap.

Countdown to Extinction, another great track.

Why do dog owners have to pick up after their animals but horse riders can leave their epic piles of steaming droppings in the middle of the road for any absent-minded dreamer to stand in and trip over?

When articles like this come up, there's always some twat who says 'Use public transport!'. Typically, they are from London and benefit from the Tube and buses. Round here it's just not that simple. I hope something is going to be done about fuel prices or things could get nasty.

I pretty much had a beard this morning as I hadn't shaved since last Wednesday and it grows so fast. Scary.

Got hiccups. Bah.

Excessive geekery

Could today have been any more geeky?

Knackered tape drive

I'm sure it shouldn't make that bad noise.

I have sound, and a small Linux machine

Something is gimpy with audio in Hardy Heron. I got it working by playing with the main volume control panel as described by someone. Turning everything off and on again sorted it. I'm sure I already did that though.

Found a HP Jornada 690 at the car boot this morning for £8. It's one of the mini laptops running Windows CE that were vaguely popular at the end of the 90s. It has a 133mhz Hitachi SH3 processor, 32mb RAM, a 640x240 colour screen and a surprisingly usable keyboard. I had to make a power supply for it as it had the standard connector but needed 12v. It's in good nick but the non-TFT LCD seems a bit dim.

The built in operating system is Windows CE 2.11. While this was a BIG improvement over the useless pieces of crap that were CE 1.0 and 2.0, it's still not great. The huge flaw for me was the inability to install network card drivers without connecting it to a Windows PC. This was impossible because I don't have the correct cable. Giving up on that, I quickly found that both Linux and NetBSD have been ported to this machine and so I thought that would be preferable.

I partitioned up a 256mb Compact Flash I had lying round, and after some judicious copying of files, including the WinCE program that actually loads the kernel, it actually booted Linux. It works but I haven't had much of a chance to see what it can do.

I just took a load of crap laptops outside for the scrap pile. Any thoughts about keeping them were quickly halted as it then rained on them very hard.

Random pictures

Wow


Boredom doodling


Inquisitive and friendly cows

The AX doing it's grumpy smoky diesel thing when started from cold

Megadeth

Just recently I seem to have been getting into Megadeth more. Dave Mustaine is certainly a character, and often a bit of a cock, and seems to have managed to alienate everyone who has ever been in the band, but he does write good music. He may have formed the band to get back at Metallica after he was booted, but I think Megadeth have remained more consistent over the years. Metallica have never really been convincing since the black album to be honest. St Anger was a step in the right direction but it sounded so awful nobody cared.

I've had a couple of Megadeth albums for years, but thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I've been able to check out some more songs, and it's pretty good stuff.

It's not often I want to learn to play normal guitar but Megadeth is one of those bands that has that effect on me, especially a pointy V shaped one.

A warm day

It was certainly rather sunny today. Rather than spent the morning in bed I thought I'd go and see if any car boot sales were on. There's usually one at a racetrack near Rhyl and it was particularly large today. It had a lot of proper car boot stuff rather than the usual tons of market stalls selling tat. Didn't get anything though except for a Motorola V3i. It's the one phone that came close to tempting me away from Nokia simply due to the hardware design. Oh, and one guy was selling an iPhone for £240. At a car boot sale. I mean, who is going to buy an iPhone from a car boot sale? Maybe in a few years when the craze has ended.

Although the V3i design still looks good four years after the original model came out, this is one of the remarkably tasteless Dolce & Gabbana limited editions. Apart from the gaudy gold colour, it also has the special D&G firmware so when it's turned on and off a scary voice growls 'Dolce Gabbana' very loudly.

Basically I got it because it was cheap (because it's very battered and worn) and I thought it would be interesting to compare to Nokia. It must be said that the design is really good. It's really thin and light but doesn't feel too fragile. The display is nice and the thing has a surprisingly powerful speaker and vibration motor. I keep looking at it and wondering how they were able to cram it all in. I can see why this phone was so insanely popular in it's time, to the point where it was called the iPod of the phone world.

The software is a bit crappy compared to the Nokia Series 60 platform, and why can't they standardise which is the space button? Nokia has it on 0, Sony Ericcsons have it on # and this has it on *. Also the predictive text and general use of messaging is awkward.

Also got a 2gb card for the N93 the other day as I did a bit of resaerch and found out which was the recommended model (Sandisk Ultra II), as the N93 is apparently picky about memory cards. It's been fine so far with this one. It was just £12.

I went through a phase a couple of years ago of collecting Nokia phones. As a result I have a shitload of them, none of which ever really worked. They are about to be packed up and given to one of the people in work is collecting them for schools so they can recycle them. In fact I've been through a lot of phases, hence the sheer amount of crap I have which I'm now trying to get rid of.

Took the dog for a walk in the sun, which was good, and saw the people down the road who recently rescued a red setter. It was neglected to the point where half it's tail went rotten and dropped off. The poor thing is still a bit underweight but is looking much better and seems quite happy considering.

Big fat Mexican

A meal that is. There's a new Mexican takeaway round the corner from County Hall. I tried it out with a colleague yesterday. He got a burrito and I got a quesadilla, along with some potato wedges. It was really good. So good in fact, that we went back today with another colleague who wanted to try it out (any excuse!). Two of us got a chilli bowl each, which was basically a load of potato wedges with an epic portion of some of the best chilli I have ever had on top, with some sour cream and cheese. The other guy also had Armadillo eggs which were jalapeno peppers, stuffed with cream cheese and covered in breadcrumbs. We also got a portion of nachos between us. It was all really, really good. Mexican food has taken a little while to grow on me, particularly after getting the squits from both Chipotle and Taco Bell in the USA, but now I really like it.

The afternoon was spent having our usual Friday meeting, which took place with a rather completative atmosphere and the occasional digestional rumblings.

Subways

Ah, subways are fun. When you push someone onto the track in front of a train, and they only get winged by it and run up and down the tracks crying out in German.

GTA has a lot to answer for.

Still no fecking sound!

[ 0.000000] Linux version 2.6.24-16-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)) #1 SMP Thu Apr 10 13:23:42 UTC 2008 (Ubuntu 2.6.24-16.30-generic)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 00000000000a0000 (usable)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000009ff75000 (usable)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000009ff75000 - 000000009ff77000 (ACPI NVS)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000009ff77000 - 000000009ff98000 (ACPI data)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000009ff98000 - 00000000a0000000 (reserved)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec90000 (reserved)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee10000 (reserved)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000ffb00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
[ 0.000000] 1663MB HIGHMEM available.
[ 0.000000] 896MB LOWMEM available.
[ 0.000000] found SMP MP-table at 000fe710
[ 0.000000] Entering add_active_range(0, 0, 655221) 0 entries of 256 used
[ 0.000000] Zone PFN ranges:
[ 0.000000] DMA 0 -> 4096
[ 0.000000] Normal 4096 -> 229376
[ 0.000000] HighMem 229376 -> 655221
[ 0.000000] Movable zone start PFN for each node
[ 0.000000] early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
[ 0.000000] 0: 0 -> 655221
[ 0.000000] On node 0 totalpages: 655221
[ 0.000000] DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
[ 0.000000] DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
[ 0.000000] DMA zone: 4064 pages, LIFO batch:0
[ 0.000000] Normal zone: 1760 pages used for memmap
[ 0.000000] Normal zone: 223520 pages, LIFO batch:31
[ 0.000000] HighMem zone: 3326 pages used for memmap
[ 0.000000] HighMem zone: 422519 pages, LIFO batch:31
[ 0.000000] Movable zone: 0 pages used for memmap
[ 0.000000] DMI 2.3 present.
[ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDP signature @ 0xC00FEB90 checksum 0
[ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDP 000FEB90, 0014 (r0 DELL )
[ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDT 000FD4E7, 0038 (r1 DELL WS 450 8 ASL 61)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: FACP 000FD51F, 0074 (r1 DELL WS 450 8 ASL 61)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: DSDT FFFD53C5, 2989 (r1 DELL dt_ex 1000 MSFT 100000D)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: FACS 9FF75000, 0040
[ 0.000000] ACPI: SSDT FFFD7E8B, 00BA (r1 DELL st_ex 1000 MSFT 100000D)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: APIC 000FD593, 0084 (r1 DELL WS 450 8 ASL 61)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: BOOT 000FD617, 0028 (r1 DELL WS 450 8 ASL 61)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: ASF! 000FD63F, 0067 (r16 DELL WS 450 8 ASL 61)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808
[ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
[ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
[ 0.000000] Processor #0 15:2 APIC version 20
[ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x06] enabled)
[ 0.000000] Processor #6 15:2 APIC version 20
[ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x01] disabled)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x07] disabled)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x08] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0])
[ 0.000000] IOAPIC[0]: apic_id 8, version 32, address 0xfec00000, GSI 0-23
[ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x09] address[0xfec80000] gsi_base[24])
[ 0.000000] IOAPIC[1]: apic_id 9, version 32, address 0xfec80000, GSI 24-47
[ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x0a] address[0xfec80800] gsi_base[48])
[ 0.000000] IOAPIC[2]: apic_id 10, version 32, address 0xfec80800, GSI 48-71
[ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level)
[ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ0 used by override.
[ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ2 used by override.
[ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override.
[ 0.000000] Enabling APIC mode: Flat. Using 3 I/O APICs
[ 0.000000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information
[ 0.000000] Allocating PCI resources starting at a8000000 (gap: a0000000:5ec00000)
[ 0.000000] swsusp: Registered nosave memory region: 00000000000a0000 - 00000000000f0000
[ 0.000000] swsusp: Registered nosave memory region: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000
[ 0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 650103
[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: root=UUID=14ab892f-ad5a-4d2f-abc2-663b27b61340 ro quiet splash
[ 0.000000] mapped APIC to ffffb000 (fee00000)
[ 0.000000] mapped IOAPIC to ffffa000 (fec00000)
[ 0.000000] mapped IOAPIC to ffff9000 (fec80000)
[ 0.000000] mapped IOAPIC to ffff8000 (fec80800)
[ 0.000000] Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
[ 0.000000] Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
[ 0.000000] Initializing CPU#0
[ 0.000000] PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 12, 16384 bytes)
[ 0.000000] Detected 2392.090 MHz processor.
[ 15.813171] Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
[ 15.813175] console [tty0] enabled
[ 15.813637] Dentry cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
[ 15.814133] Inode-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
[ 16.023897] Memory: 2586392k/2620884k available (2157k kernel code, 33132k reserved, 998k data, 364k init, 1703380k highmem)
[ 16.023907] virtual kernel memory layout:
[ 16.023908] fixmap : 0xfff4b000 - 0xfffff000 ( 720 kB)
[ 16.023909] pkmap : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000 (4096 kB)
[ 16.023910] vmalloc : 0xf8800000 - 0xff7fe000 ( 111 MB)
[ 16.023912] lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xf8000000 ( 896 MB)
[ 16.023913] .init : 0xc041b000 - 0xc0476000 ( 364 kB)
[ 16.023914] .data : 0xc031b5a4 - 0xc0414dc4 ( 998 kB)
[ 16.023915] .text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc031b5a4 (2157 kB)
[ 16.023918] Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
[ 16.023968] SLUB: Genslabs=11, HWalign=64, Order=0-1, MinObjects=4, CPUs=2, Nodes=1
[ 16.103981] Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4788.66 BogoMIPS (lpj=9577320)
[ 16.104016] Security Framework initialized
[ 16.104025] SELinux: Disabled at boot.
[ 16.104042] AppArmor: AppArmor initialized
[ 16.104047] Failure registering capabilities with primary security module.
[ 16.104058] Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
[ 16.104230] CPU: After generic identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00004400 00000000 00000000 00000000
[ 16.104245] CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
[ 16.104248] CPU: L2 cache: 512K
[ 16.104251] CPU: Physical Processor ID: 0
[ 16.104254] CPU: After all inits, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 0000b080 00004400 00000000 00000000 00000000
[ 16.104268] Compat vDSO mapped to ffffe000.
[ 16.104284] Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
[ 16.120391] SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
[ 16.122227] Early unpacking initramfs... done
[ 16.491395] ACPI: Core revision 20070126
[ 16.505256] ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initramfs... error, file /DSDT.aml not found.
[ 16.531975] CPU0: Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz stepping 09
[ 16.531997] SMP alternatives: switching to SMP code
[ 16.532699] Booting processor 1/6 eip 3000
[ 16.542697] Initializing CPU#1
[ 16.619901] Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 4784.46 BogoMIPS (lpj=9568935)
[ 16.619911] CPU: After generic identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 00004400 00000000 00000000 00000000
[ 16.619920] CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
[ 16.619923] CPU: L2 cache: 512K
[ 16.619925] CPU: Physical Processor ID: 3
[ 16.619927] CPU: After all inits, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 0000b080 00004400 00000000 00000000 00000000
[ 16.620146] CPU1: Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz stepping 09
[ 16.620184] Total of 2 processors activated (9573.12 BogoMIPS).
[ 16.620483] ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs
[ 16.620674] ..TIMER: vector=0x31 apic1=0 pin1=2 apic2=-1 pin2=-1
[ 16.768028] checking TSC synchronization [CPU#0 -> CPU#1]: passed.
[ 16.788044] Brought up 2 CPUs
[ 16.788080] CPU0 attaching sched-domain:
[ 16.788084] domain 0: span 03
[ 16.788087] groups: 01 02
[ 16.788092] CPU1 attaching sched-domain:
[ 16.788094] domain 0: span 03
[ 16.788096] groups: 02 01
[ 16.788370] net_namespace: 64 bytes
[ 16.788383] Booting paravirtualized kernel on bare hardware
[ 16.789119] Time: 17:51:49 Date: 05/23/08
[ 16.789151] NET: Registered protocol family 16
[ 16.789455] EISA bus registered
[ 16.789462] ACPI: bus type pci registered
[ 16.808259] PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfbde8, last bus=5
[ 16.808262] PCI: Using configuration type 1
[ 16.808264] Setting up standard PCI resources
[ 16.880130] ACPI: EC: Look up EC in DSDT
[ 16.905309] ACPI: Interpreter enabled
[ 16.905315] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5)
[ 16.905336] ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing
[ 16.946709] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (0000:00)
[ 16.947183] * The chipset may have PM-Timer Bug. Due to workarounds for a bug,
[ 16.947185] * this clock source is slow. If you are sure your timer does not have
[ 16.947186] * this bug, please use "acpi_pm_good" to disable the workaround
[ 16.947236] PCI quirk: region 0800-087f claimed by ICH4 ACPI/GPIO/TCO
[ 16.947240] PCI quirk: region 0880-08bf claimed by ICH4 GPIO
[ 16.948249] PCI: Transparent bridge - 0000:00:1e.0
[ 16.948282] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
[ 16.948753] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCI1._PRT]
[ 16.949109] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCI1.PCI2._PRT]
[ 16.949405] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCI1.PCI3._PRT]
[ 16.949783] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCI4._PRT]
[ 17.144168] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11 12 15)
[ 17.144495] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11 12 15)
[ 17.144819] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 *9 10 11 12 15)
[ 17.145143] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 *10 11 12 15)
[ 17.145464] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 15) *0, disabled.
[ 17.145788] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 15) *0, disabled.
[ 17.146110] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 15) *0, disabled.
[ 17.146437] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 *11 12 15)
[ 17.146707] Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
[ 17.146754] pnp: PnP ACPI init
[ 17.146765] ACPI: bus type pnp registered
[ 17.172456] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 11 devices
[ 17.172460] ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered
[ 17.172465] PnPBIOS: Disabled by ACPI PNP
[ 17.172811] PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
[ 17.172814] PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq". If it helps, post a report
[ 17.199838] NET: Registered protocol family 8
[ 17.199841] NET: Registered protocol family 20
[ 17.199932] AppArmor: AppArmor Filesystem Enabled
[ 17.203825] Time: tsc clocksource has been installed.
[ 17.211883] system 00:00: iomem range 0x0-0x9ffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211887] system 00:00: iomem range 0x100000-0xffffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211890] system 00:00: iomem range 0x1000000-0x9ff74fff could not be reserved
[ 17.211894] system 00:00: iomem range 0xf0000-0xfffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211897] system 00:00: iomem range 0xfec00000-0xfec8ffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211901] system 00:00: iomem range 0xfee00000-0xfee0ffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211904] system 00:00: iomem range 0xffb00000-0xffbfffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211908] system 00:00: iomem range 0xffc00000-0xffffffff could not be reserved
[ 17.211926] system 00:0a: ioport range 0x800-0x85f has been reserved
[ 17.211929] system 00:0a: ioport range 0xc00-0xc7f has been reserved
[ 17.211932] system 00:0a: ioport range 0x860-0x8ff could not be reserved
[ 17.242570] PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:01.0
[ 17.242573] IO window: disabled.
[ 17.242578] MEM window: fc000000-fdffffff
[ 17.242582] PREFETCH window: f0000000-f7ffffff
[ 17.242590] PCI: Bridge: 0000:02:1d.0
[ 17.242594] IO window: e000-efff
[ 17.242600] MEM window: fe300000-fe4fffff
[ 17.242604] PREFETCH window: disabled.
[ 17.242610] PCI: Bridge: 0000:02:1f.0
[ 17.242611] IO window: disabled.
[ 17.242616] MEM window: disabled.
[ 17.242620] PREFETCH window: disabled.
[ 17.242626] PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:02.0
[ 17.242629] IO window: e000-efff
[ 17.242633] MEM window: fe100000-fe4fffff
[ 17.242637] PREFETCH window: disabled.
[ 17.242641] PCI: Bridge: 0000:00:1e.0
[ 17.242643] IO window: disabled.
[ 17.242648] MEM window: disabled.
[ 17.242652] PREFETCH window: disabled.
[ 17.242693] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1e.0 to 64
[ 17.242708] NET: Registered protocol family 2
[ 17.279905] IP route cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
[ 17.280289] TCP established hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes)
[ 17.281192] TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
[ 17.281731] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 131072 bind 65536)
[ 17.281736] TCP reno registered
[ 17.292027] checking if image is initramfs... it is
[ 17.739892] Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 1
[ 17.743748] Switched to high resolution mode on CPU 0
[ 18.025527] Freeing initrd memory: 7683k freed
[ 18.025723] Simple Boot Flag value 0x87 read from CMOS RAM was invalid
[ 18.025726] Simple Boot Flag at 0x7a set to 0x1
[ 18.026364] audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
[ 18.026381] audit(1211565109.880:1): initialized
[ 18.026687] highmem bounce pool size: 64 pages
[ 18.029472] VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
[ 18.029579] Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
[ 18.029757] io scheduler noop registered
[ 18.029760] io scheduler anticipatory registered
[ 18.029762] io scheduler deadline registered
[ 18.029776] io scheduler cfq registered (default)
[ 18.029859] Boot video device is 0000:01:00.0
[ 18.030315] isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
[ 18.384424] isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
[ 18.424919] Real Time Clock Driver v1.12ac
[ 18.425048] Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
[ 18.425179] serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[ 18.425337] serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
[ 18.426126] 00:07: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
[ 18.426484] 00:08: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
[ 18.427638] RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 65536K size 1024 blocksize
[ 18.427731] input: Macintosh mouse button emulation as /devices/virtual/input/input0
[ 18.427954] PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
[ 18.430478] serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
[ 18.430484] serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
[ 18.439730] mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[ 18.439907] EISA: Probing bus 0 at eisa.0
[ 18.439949] EISA: Detected 0 cards.
[ 18.439953] cpuidle: using governor ladder
[ 18.439956] cpuidle: using governor menu
[ 18.440071] NET: Registered protocol family 1
[ 18.440106] Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
[ 18.440142] registered taskstats version 1
[ 18.440267] Magic number: 8:863:896
[ 18.440330] hash matches device ptyy6
[ 18.440382] BIOS EDD facility v0.16 2004-Jun-25, 0 devices found
[ 18.440384] EDD information not available.
[ 18.440674] Freeing unused kernel memory: 364k freed
[ 19.749532] fuse init (API version 7.9)
[ 19.778811] ACPI Exception (processor_core-0816): AE_NOT_FOUND, Processor Device is not present [20070126]
[ 19.778828] ACPI Exception (processor_core-0816): AE_NOT_FOUND, Processor Device is not present [20070126]
[ 20.187619] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[ 20.187656] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[ 20.187920] Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.3.20-k2-NAPI
[ 20.187926] Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation.
[ 20.188001] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:0e.0[A] -> GSI 24 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 20.188068] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[ 20.200893] USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
[ 20.200987] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 20.201003] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.0 to 64
[ 20.201008] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: UHCI Host Controller
[ 20.201386] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
[ 20.201417] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: irq 17, io base 0x0000ff80
[ 20.201586] usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 20.201618] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 20.201627] hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
[ 20.211761] SCSI subsystem initialized
[ 20.304194] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.1[B] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[ 20.304208] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.1 to 64
[ 20.304212] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: UHCI Host Controller
[ 20.304242] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
[ 20.304271] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: irq 18, io base 0x0000ff60
[ 20.304486] usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 20.304518] hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 20.304527] hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
[ 20.408172] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.2[C] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
[ 20.408186] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.2 to 64
[ 20.408190] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: UHCI Host Controller
[ 20.408223] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
[ 20.408253] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: irq 19, io base 0x0000ff40
[ 20.408402] usb usb3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 20.408434] hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 20.408443] hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
[ 20.467212] e1000: 0000:03:0e.0: e1000_probe: (PCI-X:100MHz:64-bit) 00:0d:56:11:20:0c
[ 20.482127] Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
[ 20.482730] libata version 3.00 loaded.
[ 20.497118] FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
[ 20.512857] e1000: eth0: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
[ 20.514670] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.7[D] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 20
[ 20.514689] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.7 to 64
[ 20.514694] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI Host Controller
[ 20.514736] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
[ 20.518647] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: debug port 1
[ 20.518655] PCI: cache line size of 128 is not supported by device 0000:00:1d.7
[ 20.518670] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: irq 20, io mem 0xfe500800
[ 20.531045] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB 2.0 started, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
[ 20.531229] usb usb4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 20.531267] hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 20.531276] hub 4-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
[ 20.635310] PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:1f.1 (0005 -> 0007)
[ 20.635319] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.1[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
[ 20.635374] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.1 to 64
[ 20.635393] ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:1f.1 disabled
[ 20.643378] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.12
[ 20.643400] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.1[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
[ 20.643455] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.1 to 64
[ 20.643551] scsi0 : ata_piix
[ 20.643616] scsi1 : ata_piix
[ 20.643654] ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xffa0 irq 14
[ 20.643657] ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xffa8 irq 15
[ 20.832407] ata1.00: ATA-7: WDC WD1600AAJB-00PVA0, 00.07H00, max UDMA/100
[ 20.832413] ata1.00: 312581808 sectors, multi 8: LBA48
[ 20.832442] ata1.01: ATA-5: WDC WD400EB-11CPF0, 06.04G06, max UDMA/100
[ 20.832445] ata1.01: 78165360 sectors, multi 8: LBA
[ 20.839356] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
[ 20.855175] ata1.01: configured for UDMA/100
[ 21.331116] ata2.00: ATAPI: SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615, FDS2, max UDMA/33
[ 21.331145] ata2.01: ATAPI: HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B, 1.05, max UDMA/33
[ 21.495015] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
[ 21.659107] ata2.01: configured for UDMA/33
[ 21.659249] scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA WDC WD1600AAJB-0 00.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 21.659413] scsi 0:0:1:0: Direct-Access ATA WDC WD400EB-11CP 06.0 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 21.660018] scsi 1:0:0:0: CD-ROM SONY DVD-ROM DDU1615 FDS2 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 21.660352] scsi 1:0:1:0: CD-ROM HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8483B 1.05 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 21.674173] Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 21.674294] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 312581808 512-byte hardware sectors (160042 MB)
[ 21.674314] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 21.674318] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 21.674346] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 21.674417] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 312581808 512-byte hardware sectors (160042 MB)
[ 21.674433] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 21.674436] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 21.674464] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 21.674469] sda: sda1 sda2
[ 21.680410] Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 21.703791] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[ 21.704492] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] 78165360 512-byte hardware sectors (40021 MB)
[ 21.704512] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 21.704515] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 21.704543] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 21.704607] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] 78165360 512-byte hardware sectors (40021 MB)
[ 21.704623] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 21.704626] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 21.704653] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 21.704658] sdb: sdb1
[ 21.731359] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[ 21.738569] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 21.738596] sd 0:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[ 21.738621] sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 5
[ 21.738646] scsi 1:0:1:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 5
[ 21.739979] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 4x/48x cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[ 21.739986] Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[ 21.740058] sr 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[ 21.743977] sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 40x/48x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
[ 21.744059] sr 1:0:1:0: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1
[ 21.767783] usb 2-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 21.949893] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 22.065292] Attempting manual resume
[ 22.065297] swsusp: Resume From Partition 8:2
[ 22.065299] PM: Checking swsusp image.
[ 22.065526] PM: Resume from disk failed.
[ 22.119190] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
[ 22.119202] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
[ 22.191622] usb 2-2: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 22.372728] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 22.614522] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
[ 22.793545] usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 22.796599] usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
[ 22.828021] input: Microsoft Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse with Tilt Wheel as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input1
[ 22.838512] input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Microsoft Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse with Tilt Wheel] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1
[ 22.852735] input: Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb2/2-2/2-2:1.0/input/input2
[ 22.862529] input,hidraw1: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-2
[ 22.883649] input: Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.1/usb2/2-2/2-2:1.1/input/input3
[ 22.902500] input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Device [Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic Keyboard 4000] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-2
[ 22.902527] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
[ 22.902532] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/hid/usbhid/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
[ 27.781430] pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
[ 27.829111] shpchp: Standard Hot Plug PCI Controller Driver version: 0.4
[ 27.870484] Linux agpgart interface v0.102
[ 27.912146] agpgart: Detected an Intel E7505 Chipset.
[ 27.915269] agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xec000000
[ 27.978992] EDAC MC: Ver: 2.1.0 Apr 10 2008
[ 28.066271] intel_rng: FWH not detected
[ 28.179120] iTCO_vendor_support: vendor-support=0
[ 28.210254] iTCO_wdt: Intel TCO WatchDog Timer Driver v1.02 (26-Jul-2007)
[ 28.210421] iTCO_wdt: failed to reset NO_REBOOT flag, reboot disabled by hardware
[ 28.210430] iTCO_wdt: No card detected
[ 28.231244] input: Power Button (FF) as /devices/virtual/input/input4
[ 28.246187] ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
[ 28.246306] input: Power Button (CM) as /devices/virtual/input/input5
[ 28.278186] ACPI: Power Button (CM) [VBTN]
[ 28.962257] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 29.727255] input: PC Speaker as /devices/platform/pcspkr/input/input6
[ 29.872958] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:00.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 29.873221] NVRM: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 Kernel Module 96.43.05 Tue Jan 22 19:36:58 PST 2008
[ 29.879961] usbcore: registered new interface driver libusual
[ 30.021816] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[ 30.065883] scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 30.093769] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[ 30.093778] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[ 30.093785] usb-storage: device found at 2
[ 30.093787] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 30.170122] dcdbas dcdbas: Dell Systems Management Base Driver (version 5.6.0-3.2)
[ 30.181602] parport_pc 00:09: reported by Plug and Play ACPI
[ 30.181660] parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, using FIFO [PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,ECP]
[ 30.334065] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.5[B] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 21
[ 30.334090] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.5 to 64
[ 30.752638] intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 55056 usecs
[ 30.752642] intel8x0: clocking to 48000
[ 32.323183] lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
[ 32.391892] Adding 971924k swap on /dev/sda2. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:971924k
[ 32.951446] EXT3 FS on sda1, internal journal
[ 33.703980] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
[ 33.712011] EXT3 FS on sdb1, internal journal
[ 33.712019] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
[ 34.251250] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
[ 34.680118] No dock devices found.
[ 35.093849] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 35.106515] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic USB SD Reader 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 35.108943] scsi 2:0:0:1: Direct-Access Generic USB CF Reader 1.01 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 35.111865] scsi 2:0:0:2: Direct-Access Generic USB SM Reader 1.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 35.122953] scsi 2:0:0:3: Direct-Access Generic USB MS Reader 1.03 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 35.125862] scsi 2:0:0:4: Direct-Access Generic USB FM Reader 1.04 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 35.169902] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 35.169959] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
[ 35.213874] sd 2:0:0:1: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 35.213935] sd 2:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[ 35.257949] sd 2:0:0:2: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 35.258009] sd 2:0:0:2: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 0
[ 35.301839] sd 2:0:0:3: [sdf] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 35.301898] sd 2:0:0:3: Attached scsi generic sg7 type 0
[ 35.441731] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Spinning up disk...<6>apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16ac)
[ 36.412128] apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
[ 36.455218] .<6>ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[ 36.642403] audit(1211565129.410:2): type=1503 operation="inode_permission" requested_mask="a::" denied_mask="a::" name="/dev/tty" pid=5100 profile="/usr/sbin/cupsd" namespace="default"
[ 37.586946] .<6>e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX
[ 37.970298] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.11
[ 37.971503] NET: Registered protocol family 31
[ 37.971509] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[ 37.971515] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[ 37.999229] Bluetooth: L2CAP ver 2.9
[ 37.999235] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[ 38.059942] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[ 38.060692] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[ 38.060697] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.8
[ 38.722686] ..<6>agpgart: Found an AGP 3.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
[ 40.073042] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 8x mode
[ 40.073953] agpgart: Putting AGP V3 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 8x mode
[ 40.999723] .<6>NET: Registered protocol family 17
[ 42.197842] ...<6>NET: Registered protocol family 10
[ 44.680233] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
[ 45.609038] .........<7>eth0: no IPv6 routers present
[ 55.809550] .......................................................................not responding...
[ 135.558379] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] READ CAPACITY failed
[ 135.558386] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
[ 135.558391] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
[ 135.558396] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] <> ASC=0xff ASCQ=0xffASC=0xff <> ASCQ=0xff
[ 135.604365] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[ 135.604374] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 135.604458] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 135.604525] sd 2:0:0:4: Attached scsi generic sg8 type 0
[ 135.804295] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Spinning up disk............................................................................................not responding...
[ 236.965572] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] READ CAPACITY failed
[ 236.965580] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
[ 236.965585] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
[ 236.965592] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] <> ASC=0xff ASCQ=0xffASC=0xff <> ASCQ=0xff
[ 237.012557] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[ 237.012568] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 237.149499] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Spinning up disk............................................................................................not responding...
[ 338.325787] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] READ CAPACITY failed
[ 338.325795] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
[ 338.325804] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
[ 338.325812] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] <> ASC=0xff ASCQ=0xffASC=0xff <> ASCQ=0xff
[ 338.372775] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[ 338.372784] sd 2:0:0:4: [sdg] Assuming drive cache: write through

Indy 4

Well, my predictions of Indiana Jones 4 being utter, total shit were reasonably disproved. My first thought as the credits rolled was 'That was diabolical' but having thought about it and been corrected on a couple of things by Will, yeah, it was OK. Certainly not as good as any of the first three but it had that vague feeling of discomfort as the Star Wars prequels. They didn't go 'ho ho, he's old now' all that much which was good, and Shia LaBouf put in a good performance.

We were driving back and I realised that the car was up to 395 miles since the last fill-up and the ridiculous fuel gauge was more in the red than anywhere else. We stopped at a 24 hour garage where diesel was up to £1.25 a litre. The local Morrisons is up to £1.24. This is really getting silly now. My previous record on a tank is 410 miles simply because I just forgot to look at the gauge. Fortunately I was near a petrol station at the time. I think there is a warning light on the gauge but because it's so unreliable I don't want to risk it.

I am so glad I got rid of the Discovery when I did. I kind of wish that I'd got a petrol car instead of diesel though, they're cheaper to maintain and it looks like diesel is going up quicker than petrol. The place actually had a white petrol AX for the same price but I didn't actually look at it. Small diesel cars can be troublesome, for example the front springs on my AX are different because the diesel engine is heavier than the petrol one.

Sayatnim

Here is a handy hint:

If you want to endear yourself to your friendly neighbourhood ICT technician, do not wait until 4:00pm the day before a new temp starts before telling him about it and then expect the said temp to be up and running by 9:00am the next day.

Reasons why I do not want a Sun Enterprise E4500 with 10 processors and 14gb RAM.

1) It is very big.
2) It would use a lot of electricity.
3) Despite the size it would probably require an external SCSI hard drive, possibly an array.
4) It is very heavy.
5) It doesn't run AIX.
6) The 10 processors only run at 400mhz each.
7) It is very noisy.
8) It generates a lot of heat.

The only reason I'd want one is to enjoy the prestige of having a machine which originally cost many thousands of pounds, has a ridiculous number of processors and memory and is generally not something you'd find at home. Rather like the lunatic in Sweden who runs an Enterprise 10000 'Starfire' with 64 processors and 64gb RAM at home. When it's on he can't have any of his usual appliances on (TV, cooker, etc) as it'll overload the electrics in his home. There's one on Ebay right now for £1600, not a bad price but they are apparently a bitch to get running.

I don't really want a Sun machine, but they are readily available when IBM kit isn't.

Sayatnim is the name of my village in Animal Crossing on the DS, a game which seemed great at first but quickly got repetitive and dull.

Handholding a printer

Just had to print 13 pages on our somewhat temperamental HP LaserJet 4. It's a very old beast that I paid just £5 for at a car boot sale with a low page count of just over 17,000. I put a new toner and a JetDirect card in it and it's provided reliable service ever since.

However it has periods where paper jams as it exits the output rollers. I had to keep grabbing each sheet and pulling it gently out to stop it jamming. Like helping a decrepit old dog to eat or something.

I wish I could figure out how to fix it, as I like these printers. They are big and square and remind me of college. We had hours of fun using software to get the network LaserJet 4s to display strange messages like '54.5 Out of Crayons Error' and things like that. Well, maybe not hours.

Fail

What is this instinct to hoard? I really do have a problem with hoarding things and I think it's because I tend to anthropomorphise things so I feel guilty about throwing them away or getting rid of them. I'm dreadful for it and it's something I'd done all my life. It's quite worrying really and probably points to a massive flaw in my psychological makeup.

I'm the same with data on my computer. A little while ago I consolidated all my documents from various machines into one giant folder, and it came up to 17.2gb. That's not including my photo library on the iBook (about 5gb) and the music collection on the Optiplex (about 14gb). Backing up all this shit is becoming a pain. I think the very earliest stuff dates back to about 1994 from college, not the actual work, but the stuff that we created when we were bored.

There's a bit of a gap between about 1996-1998 after the 1.2gb hard drive in my 48mb RAM Pentium 100mhz PC failed and I lost pretty much everything on it except for a few things that were saved on floppies. This was when I learned the value of backups...

After that disaster nothing really happened except for a bit of writing on a Macintosh SE/30. Document creation really started again in 2000 when I got my iMac and since then everything has been stored. Transferring things from a Mac to Windows and then Linux has been a bit troublesome due to some things being in obscure file formats.

The strange thing is that I seemed to get a lot more done on that Pentium PC than I did on any of the machines that came after. I suspect the Internet has a lot to answer for in that respect, especially since broadband came along. Also back then I didn't play video games as much, if at all.

I began tidying up my room today and put some things for scrap but didn't get very far because I started by emptying two bookcases and putting it all back. The problem was that the bookcases didn't just contain books, and so it required rather more sorting than I thought. I still have my very near complete collection of Discworld books in publication order, and I also have rather a lot of Stephen King. Other notable collections in that case are all the James Herriot and Arthur Ransome books. There's also a few Haynes manuals (Fiat Panda, Diesel Land Rover, Jaguar XJ6(!) and Citroen AX), a Greyfriars annual from I think the early 1950s which depicts the scary different world of the era, the original radio scripts for the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I read a million times before hearing the actual thing), and quite a number of completely random books.

The weather has finally deteriorated again. Rain most of the day annoyingly as I was hoping to take the dog for a walk.

Lucretia is probably one of my favourite Megadeth tracks. The bass line is very hard.

Still no sound out of this damn machine. Annoying.

Java (inspired by testing software at my last job)

1) And the vast voice spoke, tinged with doom and dread: 'Null Pointer Exception'. And the crowds shuddered and cried.

2) A great shout went up and as one they wailed ' It is true! Now our fate is sealed!"

3) The crowd cowered once more as the voice continued: 'Illegal State Exception.' And the Java process could not be killed by any mortal man.

4) The cowards amongst them proclaimed "This Java shall surely be the end of all things! It truly is the end of days!", The stupid amongst them turned their faces and voices to heaven seeking answers. The wise remained quiet, knowing that the only fate that awaited them was to perish with dignity.

5) Again and again, they tried to kill the Java, but there was no succeeding. It was not even aware of their pathetic attempts to kill it. The voice spoke again 'NoSuchRecordException' and several oddities were noticed in the obscure and mysterious Log Files.

Housewarming

A guy in work moved into a new house a month or so ago and so there was a good opportunity for a housewarming. 10 or so of us went to his house, following the vague directions (take the sixth left, I think) and then walked up to the nearby Chinese. It was pretty damn good, a few had the banquets but I opted out. This turned out to be a good thing as the portions were enormous. I got crispy wontons followed by crispy beef in Beijing sauce, and lemon sorbet to finish. It was really good. After this went to the pub for a drink before heading back to the house to see how people fared on Guitar Hero III. I didn't embarass myself too badly and found that playing it fingerstyle like a bass actually worked quite well.

Tired now. Great evening.

Hayfever

I don't usually get hayfever but I had it today. Very annoying. Drippy sneezy nose all day long.

Megadeth soundcheck

Crazy film

Went to see Doomsday with Will. Worth watching? Depends, if you like your films to have coherent sensible stories then no. Despite that it was entertaining, simply because of all the quite honestly insane shit that goes on in it. I can see why people would hate it and I have to admit that during it, on occasion I was sighing with despair. But looking back it was definitely different and a welcome relief from the usual sequel/remake pap that is all the rage these days.

Weirdly, on the way back, we passed no less than four limos heading towards Llandudno, one white, one black, one pink and one stretched Hummer.

Mega poo

Work was OK. It was my AIX day and got a lot done.

Didn't do much this evening, took the dog for a walk and put new strings on the acoustic. They were a late birthday present and were the Fender nylon tapewounds I've mentioned before. Basically a normal bass string with nylon tape around it so they are kinder to fingers and don't squeak. Installation went OK eventually but they were a right pain at first.

Took the dog for a walk which was good. Stopped off to visit someone at one point and he got a bit hysterical because he needed a dump. When he actually came to do it, it was truly epic. The dog that is.

Watched some Afro Samurai that a guy lent me in work. Hmm, interesting.

Computers suck

Why do computers do things? This machine has been fine since the upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu. It was a slight struggle to get the dual monitors working again but everything else was fine. But today after a reboot, no sound. At all. The hardware is fine as I booted it from the live CD and it played sound fine. It thinks it's playing sound but no actual sound comes out. Feck. Also had problems setting up a laptop with Windows which refused to install any drivers and the website was a total waste of time. So gave up and put Ubuntu on it which worked first time with everything.

Finished Doctor Who Series 2. Really good, I thought. There were some really good episodes in there.

Birthday weekend

Birthdays aren't something that generally stick in my mind. I remember many of them in my early childhood but after that, they really don't distinguish themselves. I have a feeling I'll remember my 30th though.

The crew (Rob, Em, Andy, Will, Vicky and myself) set off yesterday to go camping and climb Snowdon. We set off early and met up in Betws Y Coed where I was instructed to buy walking boots and proper socks. After some advice from a knowledgeable woman I ended up with a decent pair and also a good pair of socks. The boots were slightly pricey at £80 but they turned out to be well worth it.

After we set up the three tents (I was sharing the extension of Will's) and things at the campsite, next to Llyn Gwynant, we headed off in search of the path. The one recommended by Andy was the Llanberis Path, which is the longest but also the flattest. It also follows the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which was good as the train geek in me was interested in seeing it.

The trip up was hard. I'm not all that fit at the moment so I found it really hard going for some of it. The worst bit was before the summit where it's all slippy shale and it's hard to keep good grip. The weather wasn't bad, cloudy enough to not be too hot but not totally grim either. We had a worrying moment near the Clogwyn railway station where a cloud went past and we thought it was fog coming in. But we made it to the summit without any major problems and joined the seething hordes at the top of the highest mountain in Wales.

Was it worth it? Hell yes. One of the things about living in an area like this is that it's remarkably easy to take it all for granted. Snowdonia is less than an hour's drive from where I live and the scenery around it is just spectacular. It was a little hazy but the view from the summit was still amazing. There was one bit lower down where you could see roads and houses, and it was like looking down from a plane. Very scary.

It was interesting to see the trains pootling up and down, both diesel and steam. It's quite impressive to see the tracks go right the way up to the very top of the mountain. They're rebuilding the top cafe at the moment so only work trains go up to the summit at the moment. I would like to go up on the train some time, just for the experience. As Andy said, now I've walked to the top, it's OK to go on the train now.

The journey back down was pretty uneventful, but by then people were sunburnt and achy so the stream of complaints did get louder. Scarily people were still heading up when we got near the bottom at 5:00pm. Also at one point some maniac actually ran past us heading downhill, possibly training for the Snowdon marathon. When we got back to the car park it was such a relief to drag the boots off and sit down.

After stopping off for a pint in the Pen-Y Gwryd, we headed back to the campsite for food and drinks. It was a good evening on the whole, toasting marshmallows on a reasonably sized campfire and talking nonsense. I had bought a bottle of blue WKD but it somehow didn't make it to the car when I packed it so Will and I went halves on a bottle of sherry. We stayed up till about midnight, talking shite and occasionally watching the antics of the next door group of pyromaniacs who seemed intent on creating the biggest inferno they could using tons of logs and petrol. I found my feet weren't too bad but the area that hurt most after the walk were my hips for some reason, and they were still bad in the morning. Not too bad now though.

Today was roastingly hot. After watching Will swim in the river and dismantling the tents, there was talk of going to the beach and we actually did set off. But we decided we were all too burnt already and so we headed home. On the way noticed that the lake was unnaturally smooth so got some great pictures. Once I got back home I basically spent the day playing some more GTA4 and trying not to walk around too much until a thunderstorm hit.

So yeah, my 30th absolutely ruled!