New - Photograph section
13th May 2007
Out of Context Quotes
I started the last day of 2007 by throwing up. Not, I think you will agree, the best way to start a day. SWMBO had cooked a duck the previous day and I love duck, especially when it's been cooked in hoisin sauce. Love it. Love it love it love it.
Trouble is, it doesn't love me. Duck is a greasy bird and I think too much of it just sat on my stomach during the night, and...well I'm sure I don't have to paint you a picture.
On the plus side the Sony RDR-HXD970 that I'd ordered from Amazon turned up. Oh - just one point - if you'll take my advice you'll not use Amazon's Express Delivery option. It's supposed to mean that you get the item next day, but it seems to be a way of signaling 'please cock this order up somehow'. I ordered it on a Thursday, selected Express Delivery, and got it on Monday.
Yeah. Amazon Express Delivery coupled with City Link: a fearsome combination.
On the plus side the Sony was worth waiting for. It's a replacement for my video recorder and DVD. Hard drive based (250GB) with a writable DVD drive, Freeview (UK free digital TV) and analogue tuners. You record stuff to the hard drive and then, if you want to keep it, burn it to DVD. It makes standard DVDs, not DivX disks, so they'll play in any player. Every so often it downloads an up-to-date TV guide and you just choose the programs you want to record. Neat.
I love a couple of things about it. First of all I love the styling. I opted for the black version (also available in silver) and it looks like a bit of late-80's tech, right down to the seven-segment LED display. The other thing I love about it - and this will sound odd - is that I'm not exactly sure how it works. Take the downloading of the program guide for instance - I've no idea when it does it, except that it might have to be in standby mode. Maybe. I'm not sure. And I love not being sure in this case - I've got a bit of whimsical tech here that I have to trust. It's great. It's currently set to record Doctor Who - Voyage of the Damned in (checks) 20 minutes, and I'm almost childishly eager to see if it does. 'Course, if it doesn't then I'm damned if I know what I did wrong, but hey.
2008 also didn't start well. At 12:18 - just eighteen minutes into the New Year - my Mother phoned from Germany to inform me that my Uncle Gordon had been rushed into hospital with what was first thought to be a heart attack or stroke, but turns out to have been food poisoning. So okay, not as bad as it could have been but not exactly a great start to the year. He's okay but I think it will be a while before he can look a pork pie in the eye again.
So. I hope that your New Year started better than mine, and I hope that the year improves for all of us.
[edit: it's recording! Or at least I think it is - there's a little red LED on the front that's lit up, and that either means it's recording or it's some sort of 'general device meltdown' error. I'm going to be optimistic and assume it's recording]
Last Thursday and Friday we were home from work, having booked the days off a while ago on the assumption that we'd probably need a couple of extra shopping/visiting days. Those two days off were really cool. Partly they were cool because we weren't in work, but mostly they were cool because it was -1C outside and our heating had failed.
Greeeeeat.
We think it had probably failed the previous evening because it was a wee bit nippy, but we nudged the thermostat up a bit and didn't think to see if this had any effect on the radiators. Strike one for common sense.
A quick check showed us that the pilot light was out (we're on gas) so we went through the usual restart procedure (hold a button in for five seconds and sacrifice a goat when you hear the 'whoomp' noise) but this didn't work - the boiler was in lockout. So we phoned British Gas.
[sigh] Yes, I know.
In fairness I should point out that in all our dealings with them in the past they've been great - they've arrived when they said they would and generally got the job done there and then. This time, however, was a little different. I called them at 7.30am, let them know the situation and they assured me that someone would be out the same day. Also, given that my parents would be here later in the day it would be classed as a priority call as they're technically elderly. The fact that you could lock my Dad in a fridge and the only thing he'd complain about is that the light went out when the door closed and he can't read his book is neither here nor there.
Early afternoon I call them back to try and get some sort of ETA. They confirm that we're still on for today. My confidence drops a wee bit, but I remain hopeful.
At roughly 3pm my parents arrive and I promptly drive my Mum round to one of her friends - she wanted to go there anyway and at least it would be warm. Our gas fire is working but it can only heat one room. I leave it a bit longer then phone the Gas people again. Again I'm assured that someone will be out, but as they work up to 6pm they still can't say when it will be.
6pm comes and goes. The engineer doesn't. We phone the pub where we had a table booked and let them know we might be late. I phone the Gas people again and am told that we're still down for a visit today, even though it's now gone 6pm.
7pm comes and goes and I cancel the table at the pub. Mum is retrieved and alternate food plans are made.
8.30pm comes and...so does the engineer. He plugs a few leads into the boiler, takes a few readings, mutters a few phrases that sound suspiciously like Latin and proclaims the safety valve to be stuck and in need of replacement. He orders a replacement part there and then on his rinky dinky little computer and all is, if not well, is at least facing the prospect of being well soon. He assures us that someone will be out tomorrow to replace the part.
And we believed him.
Friday dawned cold and frosty and after a cozy breakfast we waved goodbye to my parents (having taught my Dad the secret of making DVD slideshows from iPhoto and showing him how to use a webcam I gave him, so all was not lost). We then settled down to wait for the engineer. I left it until about 1pm before phoning because I didn't want to appear too impatient, but having washed my hair in ice cold water once I wasn't in any hurry to repeat it. They assured me that, yes, there would be someone with us today. I mentally wrote the rest of the day off and settled down to watch a few episodes of Sharpe.
5pm arrives and I phone again. We're still down for a visit. I ask them to confirm that the engineer has the part. The lady on the other end of the lines expresses some confusion over said part. I start to get that sinking feeling.
6pm arrives and I phone again. We're still down for a vist. I press them about the part and they say they will phone the engineer and call back.
6.30pm and they call me back to say that they can't raise the engineer but he's still down for a visit. I again ask if he's got the spare part, and they reply that there's no outstanding spare part request. That's not the same thing as "yes", you'll note.
8.30pm they call back and ask if the engineer has been yet. Resisting the urge to reply "shouldn't you be able to tell?" we inform them that he hasn't. They tell us that in that case he won't be there that night, and I express some displeasure at this news. Quite vocally. They ask whether I would prefer an 8-10 slot in the morning or a 10-12 slot. I tell them 8-10 and he'd better have the part. I get back to watching Sharpe, because when you're starting to contemplate the wholesale destruction of an organisation it's always a good idea to get some military hints and tips.
Saturday dawned cold, but not as cold as our mood.
SWMBO phones them at 7.45am to confirm that (a) the engineer is on his way, and (b) he's got the part. They confirm that (a) he's on his way, and (b) they have no reason to believe he doesn't have the part. This is still not the same as "yes".
8am and the engineer phones and informs us he's 15 minutes away. He also confirms that he doesn't have a part down as being required. As he's not the same guy that arrived on Thursday we can't really justify shouting at him, so we don't.
8.15am and he turns up. He does pretty much what the first guy did (leads, readings, Latin) and confirms that, yes, the safety valve is stuck and no, he doesn't have the spare part because it wasn't actually ordered after all.
We phone the Gas Board and express extremely vocal displeasure, making sure to use words like 'farce' and 'debacle'. The expression 'bunch of cocksockets' was vetoed at the last minute, by a very small margin. We ask demand to speak to someone in Customer Support and are assured that we'll get a phone call. I express some doubt over this, given their track record of actually contacting us.
Meanwhile the engineer has performed a manual kinetic energy transfer emergency procedure, otherwise called 'hitting it with a hammer' and has got the valve unstuck. We resist the urge to give him our first born or, at least, someone's first born (given that we're out of stock) and settle for thanking him instead. He orders the part, then makes sure that it is ordered. He can't be out next day but can be there Monday morning early. We again thank him profusely and wave him tearfully away. There may have been streamers and balloons, I can't remember.
The upside to his repair is that we had heat again. The downside was that in order to stop the thing going out we had to crank the heat up quite a bit. So, effectively, we froze for two days and then fried for two days.
The engineer did arrive on Monday (with the part) and got it all working as it should, but that's not the point. The engineer was great. The support structure was awful. Half the time (actually scratch that, most of the time) they can't get in touch with their own people. Their parts ordering system is deeply flawed. Their ability to properly track the exact status of a job is farcicle. And to make matters worse we actually did get a call from Customer Services. It was left on our answering machine during Tuesday when we were at work...the guy sounded insincerely apologetic, requested to speak with us and...didn't leave a return number to call. Fabulous.
We've drafted all this in a letter and will post it once every two weeks until we get an answer out of them, even if the response is "we're the electric company and you've got the address wrong".
Well, Christmas has once again crept up on us and that means one thing: eejits who insist of turning our street into Little Blackpool.
Yeah, yeah, I know - bah! Humbug!
But seriously, I've nothing again a nice display of lights but some people just go completely bonkers. If I lived opposite someone who had a 3ft tall 'Merry Christmas' flashing away, an illuminated Santa swinging off the guttering, a radioactive Rudolf clamped to the chimney and a front garden full of rope light animals then there's a very real chance I'd start contemplating how it could be improved with, say, a few gallons of petrol and a single match.
Or a chainsaw. That's always good.
The problem seems to be that some people stop doing it to look good and start doing it to achieve some bizarre one-upmanship - I can only guess that the person with the higher electricity bill wins. My intention tonight is to go for a walk with a camera and document some of the more appalling offenses to common decency and post some of the worst here. Watch this space.
Getting back briefly to the subject of UFO, here's a screen shot from the Moonbase recreation/food hall area:
Note the way you've got food dispensers for American and Russian crew? What you can't see is there's also Chinese, British, Italian and French sections just off camera.
Now let's see it how it would be if it were made today:
Sad, isn't it?
Happy St. Andrew's day!
Three reasons to love Gerry Anderson's UFO:
Reason 1: it's the 'future' baby, yeah! I love retro-futuristic stuff. Look at the sleek curves on that font.
Reason 2: Style. Look at the sleek curves on that car. Apparently a total bitch to drive in reality, but even so.
Reason 3: Gratuitous arse shots. Look at the sleek curves...
Next week: Why Space:1999 wasn't as good, and why Barbara Bain should have been gassed at birth. (Hint: they're the same reason)
So I imagine that most of you are dying, dying to know how the new washing machine is. Yes? Well, it's in, and my socks are clean. That do you? Good.
On Friday we had intended to go shopping in the New Old Fashioned Way, i.e. pour ourselves a couple of large drinks and go online with reckless abandonment and a credit card. However, this plan got scuppered quite nicely as far back as Thursday morning when I fired up the main Mac and was greeted with...vertical purple stripes. On both screens.
Not good.
However, I (foolishly) considered myself up to this challenge. "It's just a corrupted display preference!" I deluded myself, "let's do the Vulcan Nerve Pinch* and that'll almost certainly cure it!"
It didn't.
Not even when I'd done it seven times.
Mild worry was starting to set in and the purple stripes were getting worse. Some of them were flashing. Muttering "Don't panic!" to myself I fired up the laptop and posted a question to my online communal brain-fart of choice, and got the answer back "Your GPU's probably buggered. That or the VRAM. Either way it's something physical".
Not what I wanted to hear.
Now, if this were a typical Windows PC then it would be trivial to fix. Worst case scenario would be to trot down to Purple World, check out what cards they had in my price range, buy one, come back, case off, old card out, new card in, job's a good'un. However, this wasn't a PC, it was a Mac. An old one. With a not-exactly-standard video card in it, an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro with, and this is the clincher, an ADC port. ADC was Apple's answer to DVI (in fact it might even have predated it a bit) and was a way of connecting a monitor to a video card in such a way that you supplied power, digital video signals and USB all over one single cable. It was lovely. Sadly Apple no longer support it and, of course, my main monitor uses it as well. It was going to cost money to get this lot going again, and given that we had intended to replace the machine in the New Year it didn't make much sense to spend money on it.
Which is why we found ourselves in the Trafford Centre in Manchester the following day. Specifically the Applestore, where we bought a 20" 2.4GHz iMac. Wow. Three words: Thing. Of. Beauty. It's got the best screen I've ever seen, it's fast, it's damn-near silent...it's lovely. I even like the weird thin keyboards that Apple now supplies, although I'm still using my battered Matias. It's ultimately going to be Kato's machine when we get the new Tower, but that'll be a few more months now.
Oddly I'm a little despondant by all this. Tycho (the old Mac) is the first Mac we've had that we've had to replace because it's failed. All the others have been donated to friends, still working as well as they did on the day we bought them (with the exception of the original purple iMac, which was working rather better). It's the first time we've been forced to upgrade. The bright side to this is that Tycho is still working fine as a server (somewhat important as we need the data on its IDE drives) and, oddly, screen sharing (Apple's take on VNC) is working. It wasn't before - the corruption showed through even on that. It would seem the video card is only faulty when there's a monitor connected to it.
Hmmm.
Anyway, more thoughts on Callisto (the new iMac) as I get them. And can be bothered.
* The PRAM-reset key combo of command-option-P-R during switch-on
A small conversation in our office yesterday:
A: What does 'Smorgasbord' mean?
Me: It's a type of buffet.
A: Oh, I see.
Me: From the old Norse 'bord', meaning table, and 'smorgas', a type of whelk.
A: .........I have no reply to that.
Me: [eyebrow waggle]
Last night SWMBO and I were watching a couple of episodes of 'UFO', and...what do you mean you don't know what 'UFO' is? It was Gerry Anderson's pretty cracked out live action sci-fi series from 1968. The basic premise is that UFOs are coming to Earth to steal body parts and SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation) is trying to stop them. It was a rather good series and was responsible for, amongst other things, shiny purple wigs and me being scared of trees for a while as a lad.
No, really.
Every time a UFO crashed on Earth it was either in the sea or in a wooded area. Every time. Once it was even a lake in a wood. It was almost uncanny. As a result you had lots of scenes of downed UFOs, glowing eerily and half hidden by trees, which led me to get nervous if there were more than two trees in the same field of view.
Anyhow, we were watching one last night where a UFO had landed on the Moon and the occupant had walked over to Moonbase and shot out one of the windows, resulting in one guy dying through oxygen loss. This was all rather odd for a number of reasons. First of all, when the bullet hit (and punctured) the window, no pressure alarms went off. None. Second, despite the fact that the room wasn't big and there were two people in it playing cards (and smoking - smoking! In an environment where oxygen is hard to replace!) they didn't notice! They were, like, 6 feet tops from the window and they didn't notice something hit it. It's not like there was loud music playing, either. So, no alarms, no heavy airtight shutters slamming down over the window in question, nothing. Nada. Eventually the hole got bigger and they noticed because, you know, there was a bit of a breeze and their cigarettes went out. One guy gets out safely, the other guy just gets it. Which, and I swear I'm not making this up, was symbolised by a balloon popping.
Deep.
It gets better. After everything has calmed down a bit (and they've replaced the window) it's determined that the UFO is still on the lunar surface, so they set out to take a gander. Now, this is Moonbase remember. They have craft called Interceptors that are fast and armed and that are used to blow up UFOs. That's their whole purpose - to get somewhere quickly and blow the shi..stuffing out of what they find there. Granted they don't want to blow this one up if possible, but even so. So what do they take? Two slow moving, unarmed targets moon mobiles. Really clever, guys.
They get to the crater where the UFO is hiding and get out of their clay pidgeons moon mobiles and one of them climbs up the crater wall, where he is promptly shot at by the UFO.
SWMBO: It just shot one of the sheep.
Me: Sheep? Sheep?
SWMBO: um...
Me: Lunar sheep? Are we watching the same thing? What was in that pasta you had?
SWMBO: I meant ship. It shot one of the ships.
Me: It shot a rock!
SWMBO: Leave me alone...
The guy that was climbing the crater has now fallen down out of sight of the other three, and has damaged his radio by tapping it lightly against a small rock thus continuing the theme of them using equipment purchased from the lowest bidder. In order to convey this to the audience we see (and hear) him trying to talk to the other three who, in order to convey the fact that they can't hear him, appear to be silently grooving, as though their helmet radios are playing The Girl from Ipanema or something.
The rest of the episode involves the Interceptors finally getting off their ars...er, launch pads, and blowing the now moving UFO out of the sky, in such a way that it crashes on one of the sitting ducks moon mobiles. The other three believe that Dead Radio Guy is dead and go back in the remaining moon mobile, leaving him to walk back in the company of the alien pilot who, it turns out, survived the crash. The two bond despite the alien being responsible for the murder of a Moonbase crewmember and being there to harvest body parts (although they'd be wise to avoid the liver and lungs, trust me on this), then they are rescued. Well, Dead Radio Guy is rescued, and the alien is shot in a moment of ironic pathos and mediocre acting.
I can't wait to watch the next one tonight.
We're having a short week at work this week as we've booked Thursday and Friday off. Friday will almost certainly involve going to some shopping centre or other to trudge around looking for Christmas presents in a slowly growing sense of panic, but Thursday involves...having a new washing machine delivered.
Yeah. We're living the dream, baby. Woo.
Turns out the washing machine was rather more sick than I thought it was, and this culminated in it blowing out our power. Several times. Which in turn did something fatal to my Airport Express, so that had to be replaced. The only bright side is that it (the washing machine) managed to die before its warranty ran out. Not by much, mind, but enough to make replacing it Not Our Problem.
One intention I have is that I'll try to learn how to actually use this one. Washing machines baffle me for some reason. I have, in the past, tried to learn how to operate them but I guess I'm just one of those people that could do with a "I'm a bloke" button on the front, which would trigger some sort of Q&A session ("What are you washing? Press 1 for socks, 2 for jeans, 3 for t-shirts. Press '*' if curry is involved...") that ultimately ends with "put the clothes in, close the door, press 'Go', sod off". It seems to me that there's a market here. Either that or I need to check to see if there's a Washing Machines For Dummies book available...[EDIT: There isn't, at least not on Amazon]
I've had my iPod Touch for a few days now (since mid-Saturday in fact) and here are my initial thoughts: it's one of only a few things I've bought in my life that have lived up to all of my expectations. Seriously. And I can't even remember what the last thing was. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a perfect device - it isn't. It's way too slippery for one, forever trying to jump, slip or slide out of your hands to land with an expensive sound on the floor, so a case is going to be a must. The lack of an email app is mildly vexing, especially given the quality of the web browsing (the best I've ever experienced on a handheld device). The thing is though, I knew all this before I bought it so these glitches didn't come as some unexpected blemish.
Now, some very clever people (one of whom is only 13 years old) have found a way of getting the iPhone apps (as well as others) onto the iPod Touch in a procedure generally called Jailbreaking. Unlike the iPhone, Jailbreaking the iPod Touch is (so far as people can tell) a no-lose situation. If the procedure goes wrong you can get iTunes to restore the software and you're back to a stock out-of-the-box iPod with no harm done. Load up your music again and you're good to go.
I'm still not doing it though. Oh, I've thought about it, believe me, but I'm going to leave it as it is for three reasons:
Reason 1 - Even though I'd quite like a Mail app on it, it's far from essential and, besides, I can only check mail at home anyway as I run my own mailserver that isn't visible to the outside world. If I'm at home I've got at least three machines already that I can check mail on, and they've all got full size keyboards and bigger screens.
Reason 2 - I'm actually very happy with it as it is. I didn't buy it for some whimsical promise of what it might be able to do next week, next month or next year, I got it for what it can do out of the box today.
Reason 3 - The main reason: I don't want to get used to features that might (in fact almost certainly will) get removed when Apple release new firmware. Oh I know I could always just not apply the new firmware, especially if it doesn't add anything I consider important, but I'd no doubt have to upgrade eventually because sooner or later there will be a feature I want. Besides, they're opening software development on it early next year anyway, so I may as well wait for all those apps that I consider non-essential-but-nice, such as Mail, an SSH client, etc.
Now if they'd included a Mail app but not the Safari web browser then it would be a different matter entirely - I'd Jailbreak it like a shot, but there's also a chance that I wouldn't have bought it in the first place because, as I've said earlier, I'm trying not to buy stuff on the basis of what it might be able to do.
The good news (on a slightly different topic) is that Amazon sent the "we've received your returned package" email. I'd been slightly worried that the iPod Classic they'd sent me by mistake might have got lost in the post - my luck being what it is - and Amazon then billing me for it. It wasn't until SWMBO pointed out that they'd probably bill me for an iPod Touch (on the basis that they only have my word for it that they sent a Classic) that I realised that I'd been a wee bit stupid in not sending it back by registered or recorded mail.
Whoops.
Still, it all worked out well in the end.
Yesterday: I order a brand new, sparkling, shiny iPod touch 16GB from Amazon. I perform the Happy Dance with almost no regard for other peoples' sensibilities.
Today: Amazon deliver a brand new, sparkling, shiny iPod...Classic. I perform the "I'd like to return this item right damn now!" dance.
I don't know if you've ever had to phone Amazon UK to clarify the return of an item, but it's a deeply strange routine. You initiate the call by going to their web site and requesting a call. So far so good. Your phone rings and you're told by a recording that it's Amazon and you're about to be put through. You then select, broadly, the nature of your call from one of those "Press 1 for muffins, press 2 for kittens"-type lists. You then get put through to...something. Or someone. I'm still not sure whether it's a person whose every response is being looked up on a list and recited carefully, or a very clever voice recognition and artificial intelligence system. Seriously...it's weird. I'm fairly sure it's a human because I'd like to believe that an AI system wouldn't sign off with "You have a very good day now, and God bless you" and wouldn't have a voice that's almost stereotypically American Nasal Female (Estate Agent model). The odd thing was, almost every time I cleared my throat she replied "Thank you, sir". Honestly. I even did it deliberately a few times just to check. And yet...she asked if I minded if she called me James, I replied that I'd prefer Jim, and she called me Jim from that point on.
See what I mean? Either a very good AI or a seriously overtrained human with a bad case of Lists.
Anyway, it's done and the New Shiny should be with me tomorrow.
Either that or a kitten.
Apple recently released version 1.1.1 of the iPhone software. This is notable simply because they warned people who had applied unsupported software modifications to their phones that this 1.1.1 update might break their iPhones. As, indeed, it did. There are people out there now who have non-functioning iPhones because they've applied Joe Random Hacker's software mod, then Apple's official update.
Leo Laporte is livid and thinks that Apple have acted very, very badly. And he's wrong. He uses an analogy: I buy a cow from you, and you specify that I can only use that cow to make milk. I do so. After a while I decide "to Hells with that agreement, let's make cheese" and you...kill my cow.
As analogies go, it sucks. Sticking with his 'cow' theme, here's how I see it: I buy a cow from you. After a while I think "Hmmm, let's alter the cow's DNA so it produces strawberry milk!". I do so. It works. You then come along with an authorised Cow DNA Update that, say, improves the creamyness of the milk. You warn me that if I've made any changes to the cow's DNA then it might go badly, and what's more I don't have to apply the update if I don't want to. I apply the update anyway. It reacts badly with the DNA mod I did and the cow dies as a result.
Tough. Them's the breaks. If you make unauthorised modifications to a device then you have no right to complain if an official update breaks it. None at all. Not even a little bit. Especially if, as in this case, you have the option of applying it or not. Apple are under no obligation to fix these iPhones because you have ended the agreement between yourself and Apple. You. You did this. Apple will happily sell you a replacement and that's where their obligation ends.
"Ah!" I hear you say, "but why can't Apple fix them for a small fee? It's just software, right?" Right. It is, indeed, just software. But...and here's the rub...why should they? Why should they go to the time and expense of doing this?
What I will say is that it should be possible for iTunes to factory default the iPhones software and firmware, and I don't know why it can't. Maybe there's a genuine technical reason why not, and maybe it's Apple playing hardball.
Either way it's still your fault.
Like a lot of people my age (and boy do I hate having to say that) I started my online life not on the Internet, but on BBSs. Bulletin Board Systems. These were computers that you dialled into over the telephone system, using a modem and some comms software. You connected your computer to a single other computer that was running software that answered the phone and sent text to you.
If you grew up on the Internet then you'll have no way of understanding what the Hells I'm talking about, so here's the deal: buy this DVD. Yes, I know that's an American Amazon link but it's not available in the U.K.
It charts the rise and fall of the BBS scene (from, granted, an American perspective) and if all you've ever know is the Internet it'll come as something of an eye-opener. It's three DVDs consisting of two or three documentaries dealing with one aspect of running or using a Bulletin Board System, and they range in time from 45 mins down to 20mins or so, and the subject matter is...variable...in quality and interest. Nevertheless it's a fascinating look into a world that no longer exists to any significant degree.
NO CARRIER
Have you heard of Cloverfield? It's the code name for a new film coming out early next year - you can watch the teaser here. There's not a lot currently known about it, other than it might be about a monster attack on New York. What's different is that it's filmed mostly on hand-held video cameras, giving it a sort of Blair Witch feel (although hopefully it will actually be good, rather than deeply irritating). The trailer looks interesting, I must admit.
Catherine Tate is the new Doctor Who assistant? link
Catherine Tate?!
I popped into our local Asda supermarket this morning with the express interest in buying a book. It's a book that I'd intended to buy on Saturday when we were in Birmingham, but I got distracted by buying a coffee and a new coat. It was that sort of day. The coat, incidentally, was a rather nice leather one to replace the rather nice leather one that I accidentally destroyed. Bought it from a place called Fonz's Leather, which shows a charming lack of regard for the fact that we're not living in 60's America anymore or, indeed, ever did. On the other hand the coffee was from Starbuck's, so I suppose I can't really comment on other people's taste. Incidentally, whenever I'm in one of those places (which is gratifyingly rare) I always get the urge to order 'a coffee'. Just 'a coffee'. If nothing else it drives the assistents crazy.
Where was I? Oh yes, book. The local Asda is about three miles away and pretty much on my route in to work - in fact it's where I refuel. This morning Mother Nature (bitch) conspired against me by flooding a local road and closing it. This road, I hardly need explain, is the one I normally use in the morning. This meant I had to take the alternative route in via a charming road that contains a double-mini roundabout that we call the Bollocks, sometimes quite loudly and with feeling.
The book I was after was Bill Bryson's latest, The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. I'm a big fan of his work in general, but he's also produced a few that were, frankly, tedious. Generally he's at his best when he's writing travelogues. For instance, his book Down Under is the only book I've ever read that made me want to visit Australia. My feelings on the matter were that if he could survive there, so could I.
Life and Times isn't a travelogue though, it's a book about his childhood in 1950's America. This meant that it had to be approached with a degree of caution. I decided that in the event that Asda had it in (which was no certain thing) I would open it and skim a couple of sections just the get a feel, then decide . Asda, bless their little cotton socks, did have it in and I managed to get there at a time that meant I wouldn't be late for work (in fact I would be but for completely different reasons). I opened it up early in the book and read one line at the bottom of the page:
"As a rule you knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven."
I bought it.
It's a fact of life that it's very hard to fall on your arse in a puddle and maintain any dignity. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's actually impossible, unless it's being deliberately staged and even then it's dodgy.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I fell on my arse in a puddle on Saturday. I then went to see Fantastic Four:The Rise Of The Silver Surfer, but the two events aren't really related, except that I fell by trying to get into the car that was going to take me to see the film.
When we go to see a film in Birmingham we go to a place called Star City, which is one of those biggish cinema complexes. We tend to book the Gold seats, which cost more but have the advantage of (a) no kids allowed, no matter what the film is, and (b) electric reclining seats. So basically we park up at Star City in the morning, then Karl picks us up from there and we go into Birmingham for a spot of shopping/mooching before we drive back to Star City and watch the film.
Karl always parks on the same open air car park, only this time when I opened the car door there was a puddle there. Quite a big puddle. Loch Brum in fact. By dint of having fairly long legs and a greatly dimished ability to be sensible, I managed to get out of the car and onto dry land without a trip into the puddle first. I was pleased.
We then walked into the town centre and did what we normally do there. Then we came back to the car. I opened the door and regarded the distance I would have to hop to get in without getting my feet wet. No, I don't know why I didn't just ask Karl to move the car forward. It simply didn't occur to me. I hopped onto the door ledge with one foot, got the other into position so that I was actually standing on the door ledge, then realised two things: One, I was leaning backwards, and two, I wasn't gripping the roof anywhere near strongly enough. Gravity took notice of me at that point, which is the point I'd say it started to go wrong...
There was a moment (almost certainly no longer than half a second) where the only thing I was touching was air. Then I hit the puddle. Very, very shortly after that I hit the tarmac. It totally stopped being fun at that point, except for the spectators.
I was, to put it mildy, sore. I was also wet. I'm not a great fan of either condition. Luckily Karl had a towel in the car (seasoned Hitch Hiker that he is) so I was able to dimish the 'wet' part to merely 'very damp'. We then went to the cinema...
At the cinema I left Karl and Kato sorting out drinks/munchies from the rather nice lass behind the bar, while I went to the toilet to see if the hand dryer there would dry more than hands. I wasn't hopeful because, frankly, it doesn't dry your hands at all, rather it leaves them feeling lightly poached and damp. Still, worth a try. Except that it seems the sensors on the dryer react to either skin or something light being held under them, because they failed to react to my black jeans. I was forced to put my hand under, start the dryer, get my jeans into position, hold them there for the half second the dryer stayed on, then repeat the whole tedious process. I eventually gave up and just put my still-very-damp jeans back on and squelched back to my companions.
The girl behind the bar had that look that people get when they're trying very hard not to laugh and almost succeeding.
"You told her, didn't you?" I accused.
"Umm..." replied my companions, "a bit, yes."
I looked at her sternly. "I'll have you know, that maneuver was working splendidly, right up until the end, where it went slightly wrong."
I don't think she bought it.
As an aside, don't believe the bad reviews about F4:Surfer - it's not actually a bad film. It's a bit light and the ending is a bit rushed but overall it's a good film. Even in damp jeans.
Ok, I have to say a couple of words about deep linking. Deep linking is when one website directly links to an image on another site and, generally, it's frowned upon.
A few people are deep linking to images on my site. By and large I don't mind too much, but it would be nice to be asked first. Remember: I'm paying for the bandwidth that's supplying you that image.
So if you start to see this image instead of the one you linked to:
then I've replaced the image. And just be grateful I didn't replace it with something bad.
(Me, in the week, talking to Antony, the resident Doctor Who expert)
Me: So, Jack's back, eh? Does that mean we're down to the last three episodes?
Antony: Yep. A one-parter, followed by a two-parter.
Me: (happy dance)
Fast forward to Saturday:
(Kato and I, watching 'Doctor Who - Utopia')Antony? This is for you:
Just overheard in the office:
Chief Helldesk Dude to problem site: "Hi, I've been asked to phone you every day..."
Normal Helldesk Dude, under his breath: "...to see how you fucking like it."
Just in case anyone cares is interested, I'm (hopefully) going to be at Whisky Live in Glasgow this year.
I'll be a long haired dude in a kilt, but that probably doesn't narrow it down much...
Details on Whisky Live Glasgow 2007 here
About once every five years or so Kato and I make what has always turned out to be a mistake - we eat at a McDonald's.
Yeah, I know.
On Saturday we were in Stockport picking up the new kilt (pictures to follow when I can be bothered get the time) and we found ourselves with about half an hour to kill, and hungry. The only place we could eat was a McD's just down the road from the train station, so we made the tragic mistake of saying "It can't be that bad" and ordering one of their breakfast 'meals'.
What can I say? I had one of their egg and bacon muffin thingies, and I'm actually quite impressed - it must be quite difficult to remove almost 90% of the flavour and still have something solid left at the end. I'm not joking, the thing had almost no taste - it was like eating chewy air with a hint of egg. I know there was bacon in there somewhere because I saw it, but it was completely devoid of flavour. There was also a 'hash brown', but the less said about that the better. Suffice it to say that I wish their flavour-removing technology had been brought to bear on it as well, but sadly it hadn't. That got left on the tray.
The only good thing was the coffee, and even that was only by comparison. Its only real fault was that it wasn't strong enough, but I have very strong coffee and most people don't, so it wasn't any worse than any other coffee vendor's efforts. It's certainly improved from the coffee that they used to serve, which had about as much in common with coffee as hot water poured over cigar ash.
Oh well. Maybe this time we'll remember.
Wow. I guess the washing machine really didn't like those socks. Still, it says it's feeling better now.
In reality I have absolutely no idea what happened here. It's not a faked shot, this is actually what I found when I came downstairs this morning. Answers on a postcard to the usual address please.
Last weekend we spent most of Saturday and a wee bit of Sunday in London, saying goodbye to a couple of good friends who are leaving this septic sceptred isle for San Francisco. We had a fantastic time, although we hadn't realiased that the London Marathon was that weekend. It starts in a place called Blackheath, and guess where our friends live?
Yep.
Sunday was just a tad chaotic.
Saturday, however, was idyllic. We mooched about Blackheath in weather that wouldn't be out of place in July (that's "hot and sunny" by the way, not "torrential downpour"), had a picnic on the heath/common/park/whatever-the-big-green-bit-is-called, had a couple of pints in a local pub (where I bonded with the barman over Scotland and proper pint glasses) and finally had a late meal in a bar that (a) makes big, tasty, inexpensive pizzas and (b) brew their own beer. It's a place called Zero Degrees and I can highly recommend their pizzas and their pale ale. They don't serve it proper glasses (beer should be served in glass tankards, not straight glasses) but I'll let them off.
Tomorrow I'm off to Freedmans in Stockport to collect my second kilt. This one is the RossModern Hunting so I'll officially be a Man With Two Kilts.
I can stop any time, promise.
If you value your time in a productive capacity, do not, I beg you, go to this site and play the Flash game that lives there, because if you do it will almost certainly swallow your soul cause you to lose track of hours.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
This morning I switched on the TV to catch the news, like I do most mornings. And, like most mornings, the TV came on to the same channel that it was on when it was switched off. Unlike most mornings, this meant that when I turned it on I came face-to-face with the beginning of an episode of The Clangers.
I was utterly captivated, so much so that I nearly forgot to drink my coffee.
Now, you have to understand that The Clangers is a very old (late '69) children's TV series, made of wee knitted creatures that live on the Moon, live on soup supplied by the Soup Dragon, and are friends with the Iron Chicken (a sort of bird that lives in an orbiting nest of scrap metal and visits from time-to-time), Froglets (wee orange critters that travel around in a top-hat) and a cloud that rains musical notes.
I swear I am not making this up.
They communicated through hoots and whistles and the whole series was narrated by the delightfully voiced Oliver Postgate, who also wrote it. The episodes aren't very long, about ten minutes. This morning's episode concerened a new star/planet that sailed up close and dropped three Horns (like the end of a tuba) down to the The Clangers. They were trying to find out what had happened to a previous Horn, and it turns out The Clangers had filled it with musical notes and were dancing to it. The Horn was quite happy about this, but the three new Horns were a bit miffed and initiated aggressive peace talks. However, it all ended happily when all four Horns returned to their star, which sailed off. High drama was provided by Major Clanger coming out of his room and telling everyone to shut the hell up as he was trying to sleep. Well, what he actually said was "ooOOOooOOoeeeeOOoo!" but the message was quite clear.
You just don't get telly like that nowadays. And hey, if it's good enough for The Master then it's good enough for me.
Some pictures from the Lake District
It's been pointed out to me that this site doesn't render quite right in IE6.
Good.
Well, the plan to relax over the weekend worked beautifully. I got up at 7.00am instead of 6.00am (15 years of dog owning has me conditioned to get up at 6.00am), mooched around the 'Net for a couple of hours while the caffiene got to work, then we went shopping for the final ingredients - nibbles, basically.
While we were shopping Kato decided she needed some new walking boots, so we stopped off in Millets. Millets is seller of outdoorsy gear - tents, boots, hats, that sort of thing. They also have a small section devoted to stuff like multi-tools and torches - and I have a weakness for such things. Park me next to a display of torches and I may not move for several hours. Maybe it's just that they're the epitome of Shiny Things but I tend to end up buying torches far more frequently than I actually need to. I've only recently, however, found LED torches. These are marvelous things - bright, low power usage, fairly robust. So I've bought two in the last three weeks alone - a metal one that's a general purpose round-the-house type torch, and a smaller one with a belt carrier that I now use in place of my previous Maglite.
After we'd fed my torch habit (I can stop any time, honestly) we got the last few odds and ends and went home in preparation for the rugby match. Scotland were expected to lose against Ireland and, technically, they did - by one point. In rugby that's effectively a draw, made all the more annoying by the way that when the final whistle blew we'd just been awarded a penalty which, assuming our man Patterson didn't miss (and he doesn't miss as a rule) would have nudged us two points into the lead. So there was much good natured shouting at the television. Well, mostly good natured. Shouting, certainly.
The rest of the day passed in what can only be described as 'drunken relaxation with added curry', which was exactly what we needed.
On a completely different note I've just discovered a band called Wicked Tinkers. They combine bagpipes, drums, Bronze Age Irish horn and (and I swear I'm not making this up) didgeridoo. Absolutely awesome.
There will be a slight modification to the Saturday relaxation plan, as suggested by RPG (dude - send me you current blog link, I seem to have lost it). The modification is this: get the food before the beer.
A sound idea.
Due to various less-than-stellar events recently I'm fully intending to have a rather indulgent weekend. The plans for Saturday include:
Get up at a time later than 6am for a change.
Perhaps go into town, perhaps not.
Obtain beer.
Obtain more beer.
Start watching rugby at 1.30pm (Scotland v. Ireland)
Drink beer while shouting at TV.
Finish watching rugby.
Continue drinking beer and/or whisky.
Obtain food. Eat food.
Put something trashy on the DVD from our extensive collection of trashy DVDs.
Drink a few more drams.
Fall asleep.
Sunday will probably involve gardening, possibly while whimpering slightly.
A while ago I posted about those nice chaps over at Classic Expressions who were trying to bring two almost lost works of whisky literature back into print, albeit it in a limited run.
The two books are Reminiscences of a Gauger (Joseph Pacy, 1873) and Smuggling in the Highlands (Ian MacDonald, 1914).
The original plan was to limit the run of each to 500 copies, of which the first 100 would be for 'founding subscribers'. The practical upshot of that is that if you were one of the first hundred then you'd get your name in the front of the book. Sounds great, eh?
Trouble is not enough people took the offer up. The books cost 45UKP each so, ok, they're not exactly cheap but you're also not just getting something you could get at W.H.Smiths either. In response to this shortfall of demand (they haven't reached the 100 mark yet on either book) they've gone to what they call 'Plan B', which is to reduce the number of founding subscribers to 75 and reduce the overall print run to 300. Both books are currently in the low 60s so they're nearly, nearly there. So for the princely sum of 45 Pounds you could own a beautiful, rare book, with your name in the front.
So I'm asking - nay, begging you - please buy these books. At least up to the 75 mark...I want my copies...
What do you mean, ulterior motive?
Oh, where to begin..? It's a four port USB2 hub that Kato was given as a birthday gift last week. It wasn't my idea.
If you're in the UK and you're sad enough to want one they're available from Firebox
Quick idea for a product: an electric shaver that makes lightsabre sound effects. Switch on and switch off sounds are obvious, motion sensors could trigger 'wumm' noises, and if you press too hard you get a 'two lightsabres clashing' noise.
You know it makes sense.
A friend of mine loaned me his Nintendo Wii for a couple of nights. Interesting console I must admit.
Bit of background first - I've never been a Nintendo fan. This is not because of some religious dislike of them as a company, it's purely down to the games. Each console tends (or tended, it's not the same now) to have a certain 'style' of games, and Nintendo's just didn't suit me. I've never liked Mario, basically, and nothing else I saw on a Nintendo system ever made me think 'Ooooh'. So I've tended more towards the Playstation side of things (although my first games console in modern history was a Sega Megadrive). Indeed I still use a PS1 more than any other console, and that mostly for a single game - Populous The Beginning. I also own a PS2 and an original XBox. Of the two I probably use them about equally, although I've tended more towards Halo (1&2) as my game-of-choice. The PS2 has ICO though, which is superb.
What I'm trying to get over here is that I look at games, not consoles. I've not got an XBox 360 yet because there's nothing on it I want enough to justify the price (although Gears Of War is tempting). So I didn't really care that the Wii's graphics weren't as good as a 360's or a PS3's - remember the game I play the most is Populous, on a PS1. I care about gameplay, not pixel resolution.
The big selling point of the Wii is, of course, the controllers. They're wireless and motion sensitive. The trick is now going to be to maximise the potential of these controllers in games, and some work and some don't.
Wii Sports (supplied with the console) is a superb example of games that do work really, really well with the controllers. Of all the games on Wii Sports I only ever actually played Bowling and Golf - boxing doesn't interest me, nor does baseball, and I wasn't quite prepared to leap around my front room like a total tool while playing tennis, so that left bowling and golf.
Of the two the bowling is the more faithful recreation, while the golf has perhaps a slightly longer lifespan-of-interest. The bowling is probably about as close to the real thing as you're going to get without some very serious hardware indeed. It recreates the feel of bowling almost perfectly, with the benefit that you can still eat pizza on the lanes if you wish. And no shoe hire. To bowl, you stretch your arm (with controller) out in front, hold the trigger down, swing arm back, then forward, then release the trigger. Sounds more convoluted than it really is, so you'll have to trust me - two minutes after starting you'll be at home with the controlls, mostly. I still flubbed a few but time would fix that.
Golf is similar - stand sideways, bring arm back, then forward while holding a button down. The controllers seemed a little less certain here, and I'm not quite sure why - I think they were measuring positive and negative acceleration (so a swing with an abrupt stop would be counted as a 'strong' stroke, whereas a gentle slowdown would be a soft stroke) but, to be honest, I'm not sure. We got the hang of it eventually though. We played a couple of three-hole games to get the hang of it, then a nine hole game. That was fun, and I'm not generally partial to golf games. However I have to wonder if it would maintain my interest if I only had the one course to play. As an example of what's possible, however, it's very effective indeed. I wouldn't be suprised to find there's a much more comprehensive golf game in the works, giving lots of courses and more options. I hope so, anyway.
Red Steel is another matter - this is a first person shooter. The trouble with this is it feels like it's been adapted to the controllers, not written from the ground up with the controllers in mind. It didn't appeal somehow. It felt clumsy.
So, bottom line: would I buy a Wii? Almost. But not quite. The Wii Sports disk showed me just how good the console can be, but I think I'd like a more normal Ps2/XBox-style controller for some games. Too many games are going to get back-ported to make use of the motion sensitive controllers when they don't really suit them. Also I found the controllers themselves to be just a little flimsy - not much but just enough to notice. I found there was just enough play in the battery covers for me to be aware of it from time to time.
If the price drops a bit more (say sub-150quid) then I suspect I'll be tempted but there will need to be more games.
The last few days have been very strange. While I knew that our routines would be upset, I really hadn't appreciated by how much. The weekend brought it home the most, as was to be expected - so many parts of the day had a dog-shaped hole in them. Those of you who don't have dogs simply can't know how it feels to lose one after so many years - they're a part of your life in a quite fundamental way. They don't ask for much, and in return they love you unconditionally. When you get home from work, no matter how bad your day has been they're ecstatic to see you and, somehow, that brings it all into perspective.
I miss them. I miss them a lot.
Still - hard hearted though it may sound there are upsides to our new position. When you have a dog you're sort of limited to some extent in what you can do and where you can go. We never could bring ourselves to put our dogs in kennels because it would feel too much like they were somehow...optional. Disposable, even if only for a short while. When you put a dog in kennels you're conveniently ignoring the fact that that dog isn't going to be happy, if for no other reason than you're not there. So whever we went, our dogs either came with us or we limited ourselves in the time we were away. On a very few occasions someone else looked after them for us, but never for more than a night.
Now, however, we're free to go where we want, when we want, for as long as we want with no restrictions, and I suspect we'll be doing that in the near future.
But for now I'm going to raise a glass to two bonnie, bonnie lads.
This was Macallum - Mac for short. And we just had to take him to the vets for the last time. He was almost thirteen years old, so he failed in his order to live longer than Kheldar (our other dog) but he did his best, bless him. He was a wonderful, loving dog. Not as robust as the previous dog but we accounted for that. We suspect he was starting to get a little arthritic in at least one leg as he limped a fair bit. Beyond that he was basically fine, if old.
On Saturday evening he had some sort of fit or convulsion lasting two or three minutes. It was probably a mild stroke. While it scared the hell out of us, he was sort of ok on Sunday, albeit very withdrawn. Monday he was a little better.
Monday night he must have had another stroke because he was not alright Tuesday morning. Not alright at all.
And so we had to do that thing you have to do. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. But we had to, because there was no way he was going to recover fully and there was no way we were going make him suffer.
In some ways it's worse this time around. Last time we went from two dogs to one dog, so there was still a dog to care for and who needed us. Now...there isn't. The first few mornings are going to be bad, I'm sure. And all the little routines that we probably aren't aware of are going to be upset, shortly followed by us being upset.
We've had two wonderful, bonnie dogs and we'll have more in the future I'm sure. But not for a while.
Remember I said I wasn't going to buy anything frivolous? Well, I caved in slightly. Our main DVD player is a venerable Yelo 800DVD. We bought it about five years ago for the princely sum of 199 of our Pounds Stirling and, for the time, it was a sweet player. One reviewer at the time said words to the effect of "if it's flat, round and shiny, this player will play it". It was multiregion out of the box and had digital coaxial audio out, as well as optical audio out. Now, I don't have many non-region 2 disks (the UK uses region 2) but I do have a few, so in the event that I replaced the player then I would need to get a multi-region capable one. In fact it would have to match the Yelo at bare minimum, but that shouldn't be hard.
We recently bought a new TV. We replaced our old 23" CRT with a 32" LCD (an LG - nice unit). Among the various connectors it has is an HDMI socket, the new digital all-singing, all-dancing, pretend-we're-not-doing-this-for-the-DRM socket. Content played over this is digital from source to destination, so high quality is maintained. I liked the sound of this.
Getting back to the DVD player, I decided to play the "what if?" game and see what modern DVD players could match what I would be theoretically be after in the event that the Yelo went pear shaped - not that I seriously thought it would, but hey, window shopping can be fun. I check out Amazon and eventually decided that the Sony DVP-NS76H met my needs. It's multi-region capable through a remote hack (although you need an All-In-One remote which, luckily, I have), plays DivX files natively (nice) and has digital coaxial audio out, as well as the HDMI socket. It appeared to be getting some great reviews and, best of all, was quite cheap (86 quid).
You can see where this is going, right?
A couple of weekends ago the Yelo did, in fact, act up slightly. It started stuttering when playing a disk that played perfectly well on another player. I noted this with interest, but put it down to 'just one of those things'. The disk was new and hey, these things happen. Then it did the same thing on a disk I know for a fact it had played quite happily before ('The Good, The Bad and The Ugly').
I decided that the minimum required level of justification-for-new-shiny had now been reached - albeit barely - and, after passing it by my chief financial advisor (Kato) ordered the thing. It shipped today, which means it should be here tomorrow or the day after.
Now here's the strange bit: sitting down to a meal tonight we put on another old disk, an episode of 'Farscape'. There was just one problem - no sound was coming through the amp. "Interesting", I thought. Well actually I think it was more like "Ah, crap" but hey. There were a number of possibilities, including (a) the disk had a dodgy digital sound track that the amp wasn't picking up, (b) the amp's coaxial audio in was buggered, (c) the Yelo's coaxial audio out was buggered, (d) the coax cable was buggered, or (e) aliens. We flipped the sound through the TV as a temporary measure and enjoyed the episode.
Then it was problem solving time. We quickly determined that the amp's other inputs were all working fine - the TV-to-amp conection was fine, the video recorder's connection was fine, the Airport Express was fine. The amp appeared not to be at fault but it was always possible that the coaxial audio in was knackered, and the only way to test that was to give it a different source than the Yelo. A while ago I'd bought a Cyberhome 4010 DVD player for upstairs. Cost about 25quid and it's a neat little player, about the size of a couple of paperbacks. It also, I checked, had a coaxial audio out socket. So downstairs it came. The practical upshot of this is that the amp was fine (which given that it cost 800quid a few years ago was something of a concern), the cable was fine, and it was the Yelo that was at fault.
Which means the thing had actually failed the day after I ordered its replacement. I don't know about you but I find that a rather spooky coincidence. So take my advice - if you ever want to replace your microwave, don't discuss it in front of it. Those suckers can get tetchy.
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Well, the Burns Supper we attended was great fun. Strictly speaking it wasn't a fully traditional Burns Supper, as I got the distinct impression that apart from my Dad and I there were only two other people present who could recite any Burns at all - the fellow who was cutting up the haggis, and the piper. And I've got my doubts about the piper. I suspect most people (about 26) were there to simply have a 'Scottish' evening. Nevertheless it was a fun evening, with the haggis being piped in and cut open to the accompiment of a recitation of '(Salute) To a Haggis', as is right and proper. There were only two other people who were kilted (again, the piper and the haggis-slicer) but we were in darkest Yorkshire, so that's not too surprising really. My father recited the Selkirk Grace (which caught a few early eaters out) and to my great surprise (and pleasure) I found the pub had Laphroaig Quarter Cask - one of my favourite whiskies. Ok, it probably cost the same to buy a couple of doubles as it would for me to buy a bottle in Tesco, but that's not the point.
However there were no other readings of Burns, nor were any of the traditional Salutes or Remembrances given. I got the feeling that the pub owner was keen to maintain the tradition but was fairly hazy as to what the tradition actually consisted of. Still, he did his best and good on him for trying.
Just a quick word about why this site is sometimes down. At home (where this server is based) I'm on ADSL. Due to the distance from the exchange I can only get 1Mb down but that's fine for me - more would be nice, obviously, but not essential.
Last year my ISP (Plusnet) changed the way they provide ADSL by moving me to what's called 'LLU', which stands for 'Local Loop Unbundling'. All this means is that British Telecom have to allow third party equipment to be installed in their exchanges - in this case Tiscali ADSL equipment. Sadly, in my case it would be better to refer to it as 'Lucky if your Line stays Up' because since that time I've rarely had a week go by without the connection dropping. Every time this happened I'd have to phone Plusnet and have them lower the line speed, then raise it again - this seemed to give the line a kick and brought the connection back. Now, to my way of thinking this indicates that something's not right at the exchange but it's taken Plusnet quite a while to reach the same conclusion. The result is that on Friday 26th I should be moved off the Tiscali equipment and back onto the BT equipment, which hopefully should be more reliable (although that's never certain where BT are concerned).
After I'm switched over to the BT equipment my line will undergo ten days of 'training', where the equipment tries to determine the maximum stable rate that the line can support, so initially at least I may actually see things go worse. We'll see.
In addition to that I'll be away from 25th to the late on the 27th (Burns' Night celebrations) so I'm just going to power everything off and hope for the best.
There are times when my willpower, my common sense, and my desire to buy new shiny toys conflict.
Take a recent decision: I want to upgrade the main Mac. The main Mac is a dual G4 1.25GHz beastie. It's about four years old at least and is a wee bit noisy. It's also starting to struggle a bit with modern software and I have my doubts that it will play comfortably with Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). In addition, since it's a G4 PPC based machine I can't run software like Parallels on it so I've come to a decision: I'm not going to buy anything frivolous for a couple of months. I need about two and a half grand free and clear to buy the new machine and a monitor to go with it, so I have to save.
However, I also recently upgraded the hard drive in the G4 from an 80GB to a 200GB drive. This is great, but my main backup method is to an external hard drive which now has one problem: it's 160GB. Now, ok, granted I don't actually have 160GB of data so it's not too small yet but, let's face it, it's only a matter of time. So ideally I need a new external hard drive, and it could be argued that I need one sooner rather than later. It would also mean that I could donate the old one to my Dad, who probably isn't backing up his G4 PowerBook at all, and even the thought of that gives me shivers. So all in all getting a new external hard drive now is actually quite a good idea, especially as we're see my Dad next week for Burn's Night.
But my morals started to play up. I'd promised myself not to buy anything frivolous for a few months. Now, ok, a backup device isn't exactly frivolous but it was, technically, a shiny new toy. Frivolity alert.
So I did what I always do in these circumstances: I asked Kato.
Me: "Should we get this drive? It's quite cheap, we could do with the space and we can donate the old one to Dad."
Kato: "Sure thing, get it."
Me: "You sure?"
Kato: "Yep."
Me: "You don't think it's frivolous?"
Kato: "Hell, it's your money."
I know that phrase. It tends to be a bad phrase. It tends to mean "I don't want it but you obviously do and I don't care enough one way or the other, although I'll secretly disapprove".
Me: "So you really don't think I should get it?"
Kato: "Look, just get the drive."
Me: "Sure?"
Kato: "If I say yes will you shut up?"
Me: "Maybe..."
Kato: "YES! Get the [bleep]ing drive!"
Me: "I'll..er..just wait, you know, half a day and see how I feel..."
Practical upshot is that I bought the drive. Backup isn't frivolous and this would enable two people to backup, so it's an all-round good thing, but sometimes my 'trying to be good' instinct just gets in the way of actually making a good decision.
Bloody thing.
A very good friend of mine (Karl: hi Karl) popped around last night. He gave us a belated Christmas present:
I can't quite make up my mind whether or not this is fabulous or deeply, deeply sad, but since I've taken the trouble of extending the power flex and hanging it up I guess I'm leaning towards 'fabulous'...
Two quick thoughts on the Apple product releases:
iPhone: I want one. There's no way I could ever justify getting one because I don't spend a lot on my mobile, but I still want one. I'd want one simply because it supports 802.11 so it would make a very good Internet Tablet. I really hope Apple don't keep the software closed. If they make it open they're going to sell a ton of these things. Ok, they're going to sell a ton of them anyway but even so. Also if Apple don't use the full screen, touch screen form for the next iPod then they're mad.
Apple TV: Doesn't support DivX, which is a huge flaw so far as I'm concerned. Given that Apple almost certainly won't support DivX on it (they prefer H.264) I have to wonder wether anyone will succeed in hacking it to support DivX. If they do then I'll probably get one. If they don't...I'll still probably get one eventually, but I'll probably feel a bit foolish.
On Tuesday Apple will hold their first Expo of the year, with Steve Jobs giving a Keynote presentation to kick it off. They used to stream video of the event as it was happening but bandwidth problems made this impractical, so they now release the video about 12-24hrs afterwards. This means one thing:
The Steve Jobs Keynote Drinking Game.
The rules are simple. While watching the video you must consume one drink (of your choice) for each of the following:
If he is wearing blue jeans with a black top (this one is actually pretty much a given).
Every time something happens that obviously wasn't supposed to (software crashing, machines freezing etc).
Every time he says 'Boom' (this is the one that's likely to be the killer).
Every time he takes a drink himself.
Every time he gets Phil Schiller to do something.
A double measure if he says "There's just one more thing..."
Good luck people.
Well, it's now 2007. You may be idly wondering how Kato and I saw in the New Year - perhaps there were kilts involved? Certainly whisky. Frivolity. Jollity. A certain amount singing and perhaps even dancing?
Nope. Apart from the whisky. What we in fact did was to switch our mobile phones off at about 8pm, unplug the land line at about 10pm, hang a 'fuck off' sign on the door and then go to bed at about 11pm. 2006, you see, had not been a great year for us so we felt no real need to show it to the door on the way out. This fabulous year contained the death of our eldest dog, a certain amount of deaths-in-family (no-one close to us, but close to people who are close to us), the discovery that medical science is apparent baffled by my arse and culminated in me getting a hemorrhoid on Christmas Day of all days. And it wasn't just a minor, don't-move-too-much-and-you-can-basically-ignore-it one, oh no, this was a bad one.
They're funny things, hemorrhoids. Actually 'funny' is a tragically bad word to describe them but you know what I mean. Different people get different symptoms. Some get a lot of itching. I could deal with itching. Some get bleeding which, I confess, must be a bit of a bummer (no pun intended). I get pain. Lots and lots of it. What we're dealing with here is, at heart, a swollen vein. A painfully swollen vein. Emphasis on the word 'pain'. You see what I'm getting at, right? And the really bad thing (from my point of view) was that I've successfully hidden this little aspect of my life from my parents - until now, because we were with them for Christmas and there was no way I could hide this from them given the severity. So they now have something new to take on board. They took it very well, I must admit. My Dad let me know that if private surgery was required and money was an issue, then money wasn't an issue because he'd pay. I honestly wish it were that simple but the operation I had earlier in the year revealed that (a) I certainly get hemorrhoids (well, duh) and (b) they have no idea why. If there was something to fix then they'd fix it, but there isn't. I get them but for absolutely no apparent reason. Great.
So 2006 was not a great year. 2007 hopefully will be better, but as with most things in life there are no guarantees. So my resolutions this year are:
(1) Lose weight. Probably the number 1 resolution in what's laughingly referred to as the civilised world. Weight has to be a factor in my condition and I've gained almost a stone in about a week and a half. That's going to come off and, more importantly, stay off.
(2) Slacken off on my drinking. See (1). Also, although I don't have a drink problem I'm bloody well going to have one if I keep going the way I am so it has to stop now.
(3) Always have something to look forward to and make things to look forward to if needs be. I think that's important. If the next thing you have to look forward to is six months away, that's bad. Everyone needs something good in their future, even if it's only the next box-set of MacGyver (note to self: order). Try to have one thing a month at least that you can honestly look forward to. Doesn't matter what it is.
(4) Stop taking shit that I don't have to. This one's a little more nebulous, but I'm aware that I probably take more shit than I should. That's going to stop.
So, in closing I wish you a happy future, even if you have to manufacture it yourself. To some extent we all have to.