Nothing inparticular

Gatehouse of fleet

2006-08-02T21:19:00.000Z

Torch procession. What a find after a superb meal at the ship inn. Boys night out. Superb luck to pick here, tonight.

Shipwreck beach

2006-07-27T16:06:00.000Z

Otherwise dull but has a cool wreck that hannah and i walked to.

The island

2006-07-26T18:03:00.000Z

From midway

From the island

2006-07-26T17:25:00.000Z

Yeah. Made it.

Trip to the island

2006-07-26T16:46:00.000Z

Waiting for the tide to go out :)

Sunset

2006-07-24T20:18:00.000Z

Attempt 3. Monday.

Jost

2006-07-24T15:16:00.000Z

Looking for the missing 7 in the car.

Scotland

2006-07-23T20:01:00.000Z

On beach. Having nice time. Looking at this.

The office

2006-07-20T16:37:00.000Z

The view from the window.

Late

2006-07-18T16:31:00.000Z

Bored hot and late. Stuck on late train on hot day wondering how to make it up to sarah. I shudda been home half an hour ago. Knowing my luck it'll in straight through didcot without stopping.

Sad and lonely

2006-07-05T19:55:00.000Z

Train skillfully missed my station. I hate trains.

Bloody trains

2006-07-05T19:32:00.000Z

Train says its gonna take me home. Train lies. Drove right past my house:( grrr @ trains.

Wet day

2006-07-05T09:27:00.000Z

Cold morning, well not cold really. Just wet. On the train to work.

Sleep

2006-05-14T01:42:00.000Z

So recently I've been debating sleep with my boss. He is a morning person and gets up at 3am whereas I am a night person and often catch him before I go to bed :D.

Thinking that too much sleep is a bad thing (and sometimes I sleep for 16 hours) we agreed to try 7 days of 6 hours sleep a night. Easy enough. It's tough tbh, but it's also a little early to tell. Initial reactions on day three are that I'm getting more done.

Sleep on the internet is a very interesting topic, and hopefully I'll blog about it again soon.

Danny Wilson

2006-05-14T01:41:00.000Z

Since I haven't posted for a while, I have to start by welcoming my 3rd child, Danny Wilson into the world. He's 9 weeks old, happy, heathly and reasonably calm.

Transformers

2006-02-13T02:26:00.000Z

Found this link on Slashdot.... it's very cool if you like robot transforming type things...

Tunebite & Napster

2006-01-24T02:34:00.000Z

As someone who likes to purchase legal copies of software and music, it's not hard to fall for a subscription service such as Napster. It may cost £10 a month but I defy anyone to be able to listen to whatever takes their fancy through nefarious means as easily as I can. It's so good that I've actually also bought some to create my own complilations for the car at £0.79 each.

The other great thing about it is that I don't need to back up my music. I can just delete it and download it again when I want it. Or can I...... GRRRRR.

It would transpire that music I've PURCHASED from them AND COULD LISTEN TO AS A PAYING SUBSCRIBER is only available for download 3 times. This means that i've lost about half my tracks. I'm obviously happy about that. It is all the fault of DRM, and clearly being the pirate (or is that pilot) that I am it's only right that it makes my life hard.

An email from Napster support confirms their suggested method... and I quote them... "an alternative is to burn the track to CD, then rip the track to MP3". THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD. All of that took me strolling through the Internet to discover that there is increasing pressure on the music industry (who have stupidly tight contracts over Napster et al) to provide purchased copies as MP3. Probably not enough to make any difference though. But... Find of the day was... Tunebite.

Actually I am a believer in DRM for subscription models, because otherwise it would enable any old muppet to sign up for a month - download everything and rip it to MP3, thus lowering the quality of my paid for service. So it saddens me that I might actually have to dig around for (and perhaps buy) a piece of software like this. It actually rips to MP3 without the middle step of the CD and since it bypasses the whole DRM problem it causes other headaches for the subscription model.

It's beyond ridiculous that I should need to go surfing for MP3 ripping software to use the tracks that I've purchased because I can't back them up.

Windows live messenger

2006-01-24T02:17:00.000Z

Having failed dismally to keep up with the ball I discovered that windows live messenger is the new name for MSN messenger 8 AND that it's on BETA AND that it's got an invite scheme (much like the rather excellent gmail).

I discovered that for the small fee of £5 i could purchase myself an invite: the rest is history.

So I didn't actually buy it, but I signed up to their registration program and 24 hours later received my free invite :D.

Subjective as you like, but I actually prefer the look and feel of it. No butterfly, orange and green. Despite this first impressions were not high.

Having found and disabled the "expand on mouse hover" option, it started to get better. Here are some of the cool features that I've found and like.

a) search for contact
b) shared folders (which are offline and can be used to distribute stuff)
c) send offline messages - now you can send messages to your contacts that are offline :D
c) send messages while appearing offline - for those interested in stealth
d) sign in with different statuses

So actually i quite like it as it goes.

And now for the downside. I have to uninstall it.... Sarah can't log into MSN with this version and you can't run both side by side :(:( Perhaps an example of a BETA trial that wasn't thought through quite as well as it might be.....

One month and virtually no posts... :$

2006-01-21T01:41:00.000Z

I seem to have gone from posting five entries in a night to none in a month. This clearly isn't good, so i've slapped myself about a bit and decided to write.

Baby is due in a month so we are working flat out to prepare. We've been through the process twice before so we hoped it would be easier. I guess not.

Current fun projects:

Finish Garage/Playroom conversion
Decorate Hall/Stairs/Landing
Tile bathroom floor (finish too :$)
Finish Kitchen

Actually I could go on, but it gets embarrasing so I won't.

Current Dilemmas:

Bike: needs a drive upgrade (such as chainset and rear mech :()
Folding Bike: needs a service (which will cost money)
Mobile phone: needs a paragraph....

So I got the W800i phone, and was very impressed with the looks (despite being told it looked like a gay phone by jealous people who must surely come out of the closet sooner or later ;) Sadly it had a few faults. Couldn't surf. Couldn't check email. Didn't support Napster and it broke. The sum of these problems meant that it went back to Orange for a "refund" (free phone - meant it was just a contract extension cancellation). Ironically gmail for mobiles came out between me requesting to send it back and the replacement arriving....

So I ordered the Orange SPV C600 thinking that it would support Napster. Sadly it didn't and the old phone the C500 is more likely to support it..... So that went back too.... In fact, on the subject of the Napster C500 support, a press release was issued by Napster on 31st August 2005 stating that "Napster To Go-compatible phones include: Audiovox PPC4100...... Orange SPV C500"

When I phone them they of course told me that "compatible" simply meant that it had the potential to work and that it was totally unsupported...... GRRRRRRRR... Still they gave me a free months subscription for my troubles (and 20 minute hold time).

That leaves me back on Sarahs C500 since mine is broken (just on the phone now to see if the £60 Orangecare can help... haha) with a new phone begging to be taken and no clue what to have. There is simply nothing out there that satisfies my now simple requirements.

a) basic phone
b) camera of 1.3MP + (2MP was fine, but i'll buy a cheap camera instead)
c) basic surfing
d) music compatibility with something (vodafone have just launched a download service and napster and sony in theory have a partnership to offer music on mobiles ... :S)

I'm gonna leave it a month or two....

"page cannot be found" - 404 errors

2006-01-04T13:51:00.000Z

Well, mostly they are pretty dull, which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find this... :D

Mobiles phones

2005-12-18T19:31:00.000Z

So it turns out my broken mobile is caused by a memory card. If I take the card out, the phone works "so it's not broken then is it" said the charming and delightful customer care assistant at Orange. "ermm, where shall I begin". After not very long at all we agreed that it was "not fit for the purpose for which it was sold" as I had suggested they could have the whole bloody thing back.

Just remembered that I'd forgotten she told me "most of these phones have the same problem as you, we are waiting for Sony to advise us". "oh really, so your stringent test that means phones are always 2 months later to market on Orange doesn't really work so well". After a little more chat it appeared she meant she remembered speaking to another one. GRRRR.

"would you like a replacement", erm no. So I had decided to get the Orange SPV C600 (cunningly it supports Napster :D through the integrated Windows Media Player 10). Then a funny thing happened, Google released a new version of gmail. gmail mobile which solves all the mail problems and I discovered that really as long as I kept to the WAP websites I had no real use for the full Internet experience - as good as it is.

So now I don't know what to do. I could wait for the W900i when it comes out. Bigger, bulkier, no better in all probability. A smartphone that's bigger? Its all tricky. Not that it matters - the envelope that I'm waiting for to send my phone back hasn't arrived :(

Christmas Trees and Christmas with Thomas

2005-12-18T19:22:00.000Z

Sunday (7 full days ago :$) found us looking for a Christmas tree at Millets Farm. The whole place is quite exensive and we bought a 6' tree. I can't actually think about anything interesting on that trip so I'll leave it as "we bought a tree"

The afternoon offered a trip to see Santa at Didcot on one of their Thomas Days in essence, this consists of a trip of around 400 yards on Thomas the tank engine before being herded through an old carriage to see Santa. There can be no faulting the man himself (for who could crititise Santa) but the experience was so good, we couldn't wait to leave. Ironically the trip cost £36 which is more than a trip to see Santa in Harrods. If Harrods were to rate as an 8/10 experience - yes i'm a harsh marker - Thomas and Santa rates a poor 1/10. I'm not sure it helped that it was very cold. In fairness we went the year before and the whole experience was OK but this was terrible. We all went to the pub so we could get over it.

I think the children thought enjoyed the pub with the ballpool play area more than the Thomas experience.

Harrods at Christmas

2005-12-18T12:39:00.000Z

The original plan was to go to Hamleys to see father Christmas with the children as a special day in memory of my grandmother. Although it wasn't long before Carl from work had convinced me that Harrods was a much better bet.

Trips like this really require a level of pre planning that doesn't sit too easily with me. Give me a "hey lets go now" plan and I'm there. Despite this, my phobia of queueing is stronger and thus I phoned Harrods the day before for some top tips on timing. Their best suggestion was 6pm which is a little late for two young children not to mention two wilting adults. Second best was lunchtime. I was gutted as this made a lie in possible although obviously I didn't in protest*. Not wanting to spend the day rushing around London we decided to just go to Harrods and come home.

We arrived at the station and got on a very busy and late train. After 10 minutes someone very kindly gave up her seat having (eventually) noticed that Sarah was both standing and pregnant. A bit of train trouble in Reading saw the whole train empty and run across to the sardine tin on the opposite platform. There was no way we were going through that so we waited. In a terrific display of irony. We had not only a table but a carriage to ourselves and our train left first... :D. A quick bit of lunch on the train was in order and was alright but nothing special.

Having very cunningly bought a family ticket (even though the kids are too young to need it) we saved a few quid and had three tickets so Hannah and Joes got to operate the ticket machines. Hannah on her own, and me holding Joes. They both really enjoyed that part. Eventually the tube pulled up at Knightsbridge and we strolled along to Harrods. Somebody had decided to use golden Christmas trees that just looked dirty - just like the rest of the building. That said, I doubt a place like Harrods really needs to spend much on the facia of the store.

We went in and straight to Santa. All in all it was about an hour and a half queue, which was both expected and acceptable. Entertainment was provided as were free gingerbread men and bottles of mineral water. Joes slept all the way through so we chatted and played and generally passed time. The big debate was of course the number of cubicles they had. I guessed on four and was right :D. We didn't feel rushed at all when we got in, he was nice and friendly and they took a family photo that we could buy. This was the only cost - purchasing the optional photo for a tenner. That is fantastic in my book as it could mean a trip to see santa in Harrods for a family of four costs as little as £35.20 (train fare). OK, so we are their target audience, we strolled around and played with toys. I went off in search of the gents and covered a few miles in a circular motion listening to everyone i asked saying their virtually pre-recorded response... "down there, left there, you can't miss it". Well I could - and did. It transpires that it was just next to Santa. lol.

By then we were all hungry and we found the planet restaurant. Headline prices were OK. £10 for a chicken breast burger and chips. Till receipt told a different story. £2.10 for a small, and I mean small cup of on-tap coke. Cream tea was nice and the additional touch of offering scones with and without fruit was nice (i don't like fruit much in mine and have been known to spend hours taking them out painstakingly - ok so Becky, next time you eat Chilli and pluck all the kidney beans out first, you can be confident that i'm worse).

We went to a couple more sections and bought some Christmas presents that weren't much more than they would have been in Reading. A Starbucks sandwich for the kids (and coffee for me) accompanied us on the train. I swear there was no chicken in it. Hannah even asked where the Chicken was.... I'll add a picture of it when I find it.

It was a fantastic day out with my family. This will become a regular Christmas event.

*This statement contains little by way of fact

Bike Blues

2005-12-14T00:45:00.000Z

Seems as though I'm out of luck with bikes at the moment.

My road bike has a slipping saddle. The seat clamp is very broken. Mefinx it's a design fault but I am certain that I won't ride it again until it's fixed. The last time I rode it my knees were so sore that I hobbled for 2 days afterwards. On the positive side I won't be riding this bike until at least April next year as the winter months are dedicated to mountain biking... :D

My mountain bike is suffering from chain suck. I could do the whole technical thing but its much more simple than that. The pedals just lock. I nearly went over the handlebars due to it over the weekend. Sadly it seems as though it's a bit of a tricky one to fix without costing lots of money on new chainrings, chain and hell you've got to throw a cassette in really.

My folding bike. My favourite bike. It's not well. I'm not entirely sure what's wrong or how to go about fixing it without breaking the piggy bank but I suspect it's simply wear and tear. I ride it a lot and I ride it hard.

The only question is what do do about it all. An easy win is to leave the road bike until the spring. I don't ride it all that much anyway. I have 3 mountain bike rides in the next 6 weeks. I suppose I could live with it for a while and see how it is next time. The folding bike is so much more tricky. Hmmm... more next time.

A whole week

2005-12-13T02:17:00.000Z

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

A whole week

Has really past since I last blogged. So tonight’s blog is a to-do list of blogable items:

a) Harrods trip
b) Christmas trees and a Christmas day out with Thomas
c) Mobile phones. ANGRY ONE.
d) Broken computers
e) Running update

I was intending to write it all up tonight, but after my quick trip to Sainsbury’s turned into an hour and a half time warp where I can only remember listening to a supremely slow George Michael track whilst aimlessly meandering around the same aisles and navigating the shopping list from hell. It would be my personal pleasure to meet the bright spark who decided not to put Icing sugar with the sugar. Probably because Icing sugar is more like flour than caster sugar????. I'd like to shake your hand and set you a trivial task to waste your time by way of thanks.

Almost managed to get a game of poker going with Insight and Pocket Angel tonight - except Insight seemingly forgot how to find the register button and the game started without him. Not that it mattered in the end since I was out first... At least Pocket won. Well played.

Google word of the day... I quite liked - Tmesis.

In other news, my rather lovely wife Sarah turns 30 weeks pregnant today. She is a fantastic mum - I'm not entirely sure I could stay home and entertain kids all day long. In fact, just 2 hours and I'm shattered :D. How she does this having not really slept all that well whilst carrying a baby is beyond me.

Only 10 more weeks of having her insides kicked before we have another addition to our family. OK, so it's more like 12 weeks given the likelihood of it being late. It is almost certain to be a boy (not that we know) because it "just is". If only we could agree on a name that doesn't begin with 'J' we'd be laughing. It's not reasonable for 4 out of 5 grandchildren to have names beginning with 'J'....... is it?????

Philosopher

2005-12-05T00:06:00.000Z

Its funny how things come together and random events from your past seem to dove tail things that one stumbles upon in life.

Actually I think it's part of the same syndrome that affects all acquisitive people. So you go and buy a shiny new car; a type X. From that day on everybody else on the road is driving a type X car. You buy yourself something from Ikea; everybody has the same thing.

I hate that shop. I hate it because on the one trip we made there I got lost. Lost? in a shop? I only wanted a light - a humble light. Me being me walked straight in to the light section and it wasn't long before I was spinning round in circles lost. Confused by the signposts that 'show' you the way by weaving through EVERY section before eventually getting somewhere desirable (if desirable is the right word for anything in Ikea). Oh and the lights all take non standard bulbs that we struggle to replace. I don't doubt that Ikea sells bulbs to fit - like i'm going back. I really would throw out the lights before going back.

Digression over, I was meaning to blog about Nietzsche. Many years ago I worked with a nice girl called Patricia in LEGO in Hammersmith. For reasons I can't remember she told me it was her password and I always had problems spelling it. "He's my favourite philosopher" she'd said and I had thought nothing of it. That is until today, when the Google desktop quote of the day was by Nietzsche (quotes) and I remembered. So I clicked the link and read a few more of his quotes. Quite funny. James would appreciate them mefinx.

I particulaly like "Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?", Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows.

Blonde Joke

2005-12-02T02:31:00.000Z

For whatever reason, this made me smile. Given Becky's recent joke trend, hair colour and academic standing I thought she would appreciate this.

Two bored casino dealers are waiting at the craps table. A very attractive blonde woman arrived and bet twenty thousand dollars on a single roll of the dice.
She said "I hope you don't mind, but I feel much luckier when I'm completely nude."
With that, she stripped from the neck down, rolled the dice and yelled,
"Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!"
As the dice came to a stop she jumped up and down and squealed...
"YES! YES! I WON, I WON!"
She hugged each of the dealers and then picked up her winnings and her clothes and quickly departed. The dealers stared at each other dumfounded.
Finally, one of them asked, "What did she roll?"
The other answered, "I don't know - I thought you were watching"
Moral - Not all blondes are dumb, but all men are men.

PCs - Long boring geek rant

2005-12-02T02:04:00.000Z

Of course, this week I found out the difference between a geek and a nerd having followed this link from my rather excellent google desktop. So I figured i'd use it here since I'm gonna whinge about PC bits and pieces.

LowestOnWeb may have proven to be stupidly cheap but only by providing such an antiquated service fully backed up by a comprehensive selection of poor processes. I ordered my stuff on Monday at 4pm. My card was declined at 4pm on Tuesday so I reordered within 10 minutes, new card. This was authorised at 7pm (missing that evening delivery) so was scheduled to go out on Wednesday. Hahaha. On Wednesday I phoned, emailed, phoned and emailed, and was assured it would arrive on Thursday and that "Picking" meant ready to go on the van... Never happened, so I cancelled the lot today and went to PCWorld to buy them. I'd have done that on Sunday when I went to PCWorld if they'd had had more than 1 PCI-X graphics card in stock.....

I couldn't help thinking that if Tesco's ever decided to take 3 days thinking about authorising a card chaos would surely ensue. Bizarrely, they seem to have made a mistake on their recruitment program back at Evesham (who own LowestOnWeb) so I must say thanks to Jenni who despite continually telling me that it wasn't going too well was very polite and courteous. Why is she working there???

Side Issue

If I had a pound for the number of conversations I get into with people incredulous at my aparent stupidity for buying at "that shop"... "i never ever shop there, it's full of idiots" .... "i go there and ask lots of questions just to see whether they know the answer"... "their customer services is rubbish"... "they are very expensive"....

Well anyway, I'd have about £50. Further than that I'd still shop there. I don't feel much need to prove myself more technically capable than the average Saturday job employee who has at least 3 technical training courses to write on his CV. Perhaps because I'd come off rather badly... :$ It doesn't worry me that they have a store full of rubbish, often more expensive than I could scour the Internet and find it for. Their customer service doesn't really interest me, most shops will replace things if you put a strong case forward. Or maybe those words are in the wrong order...:P

I've bought quite a bit there recently:

Monitor, Motherboard, Graphics Card, Couple of Mouse Mats, Speakers.

Have I paid over the odds? Probably. Much over the odds? No. I could have shaved 5% off the price of the montitor, 10% off the graphics card and about 10% on the speakers. That's a rather gobsmacking £30.

What have I gained from this £30? My monitor doesn't have any dead pixels (I opened and tested it in store) I don't care that they "largely go unnoticed". I do notice. I walked away with the speakers, motherboard and graphics card. Lovely - no time wasted. Sunday afternoon availability. Superb.

End of side issue

So I got my new pieces home and kept Hannah up for another hour to help me fix the computer "i'm good at fixing daddy" ... "can i have a turn with the screwdriver daddy". So we did it together. Except that I disovered that the motherboard has a new connector to the power supply. Turns out to be ATX standard 2.01. 24 pins instead of the 20 that my power supply has. Obviously they sell adapters and equally obviously I didn't buy one. So, google to the rescue again and I discovered that "as long as you don't load the motherboard, you can plug the 20 pin power supply in".. hmmm. HMMM... So i checked the pin diagrams and discovered that apart 1 pin, they were identical, and I decided that since it wasn't carrying current it would be ok. Not much risk (new motherboard, graphics card, processor, raid controller, memory) what the hell. Anyway it works. :D. I shall pick up an adapter tommorrow anyway, as I'd rather do it properly but job is good for now. In all probability Sarah will have a computer to use tomorrow. I'm happy with that.

Few problems left to fix, but not all that bad really considering what the problems were.

Sport

2005-12-02T02:02:00.000Z

I've not managed to do much sport this week and am feeling the withdrawal symptoms already. No running on Wednesday pretty much due to lack of sleep.

The plan is to go running next week, and of course the ride on the 10th...

Ah yes, I must remember to tell Sarah that a ride might be happening on the 27th Dec.

Mobile telephones

2005-12-02T01:51:00.000Z

So in the last two days, I've had the pleasure of using my Orange SPV C500 again. To my complete amazement it was actually quite good. Ok, so it takes 4 hours to boot up (it does run Windows) but the interface is clean and easy to use, the screen is reasonable.

There can be no denying that the W800i is a superb telephone. It looks great, it has a 2 Megapixel camera, 512MB memory stick (that might possibly work), has a radio... with RDS... that follows the frequency....

I have to say, current thoughts are that it's tough to call. Both charge on the USB port (essential imho). The ideal phone would be constructed thus...

Look and feel from W800i
Radio from W800i
Headphones from W800i
Menu from C500
Screen from c500
Camera from W800i
Web browser from C500
Boot up time from W800i
Musical capability from W800i
Memory card by A.N. Other - i've always got an adapter, just always the wrong one.

Orange

2005-12-02T01:42:00.000Z

Four more phone calls to orange and around 48 hours worth of waiting, I phone them to be told to "remove the memory stick" and try again. Efficiency at it's finest.

So that works...

"if you could plug your memory stick into a computer and see if that works"
"i don't have a computer to plug it on to"
"if you could plug it into someone elses computer then"
"i don't know anyone with a memory stick slot"
"ok, then you can always go to your nearest orange shop and they'll test it for you"
"[big long argument basically equating to no, not a chance]"
"ok, we've put it in the technical queue"
"the back?"
"yes"
"so this means i wait another 1 - 3 days for a response?"
"yes"
"oh :("
[lots of thoughts that I can't recount here]
"ok - in extremely resigned voice"
"you can write to our complaints department"
"i will"

I now have a phone that works without a memory stick. Obviously either the phone or the memory is at fault and it will be interesting to hear how Orange diagnose it.

An abhorrent day with a truly excellent ending

2005-11-30T01:20:00.000Z

Imagine a day where everything that could go wrong does. Imagine my day.

Except the powers of blogging mean that my reality is scripted into digestable (or not) chunks.

As the eagle eyed may be aware, my computer is broken. The bits were scheduled to arrive today, ready to be fixed in a pacify my lovely wife (Sarah) masterstroke. The day was going to go swimmingly. I was sitting on the train, quietly listening to Chris Moyles on Radio 1 when I noticed that my mobile was loosing charge. I switched it off and on again, to load the power saving walkman mode. Except.... it didn't come back on. Oh. Nothing I could do would make my phone work.

So in the office, simple tasks. Some coding, get my mobile replaced from the Orange £5 a month care suite. All was still good.

Then it collapsed on me.

Orange have basically refused to believe it's broken (despite the clear evidence to the contrary) and i've been told I must wait a) 2 hours, b) 7 days, c) 48 hours, d) 24 hours for them to agree that when a phone doesn't switch on, it's broken. Their technical team must be talented. GRRR.

My computer parts order confirmation email arrived earlier at around 11 to say that it was ready for dispatch (hang on didn't I pay £5 for express delivery for today...) "ahh yes sir, that's from authorisation of your card not when you place the order". OK, so their system is poor. It does state that, I'll learn the lesson. Except that at precicely 4pm, 24 hours after placing the order. "your card was declined". OH. I suspect it was the card I cancelled last year, and am not too shocked. but 24 HOURS. WHAT ARE THEY ON. So I placed the same order again, and it was not authorised until 7pm meaning it won't arrive tomorrow either... :(

2pm saw the toothache arrive. I rarely get toothache and it was horribly painful. I went out for a walk because I couldn't concentrate.

Throughout this, I discovered that my work plan was disrupted again as ever at stupidly short notice and most importantly that the film I'd promised to take my fine sister Kathryn to see (kiss kiss bang bang) wasn't showing anywhere much anymore.

Of course, the lack of jelly babies didn't help....:D

It was a poor poor day. I'm sure I've missed out half of the terrible things that happened.

And then..................................................................

I left, met the kids and Sarah at the station who kindly brough Kathryn to meet me. Seeing the family all smile and pleased to see me was the first of the highlights of the day. I'd already told the nice lady at the station that I was fed up and she kindly recommended chocolate buttons. "They even make you younger". I liked her sense of humour, obviously I bought some and it became the second highlight of the day.

The day before the station cafe had served me a luke warm latte. So when I mentioned it tonight, the very nice lady gave me a free one, and took the trouble to make it the best latte she could. She was lovely and was the third of the evening highlights.

The main highlight of the evening was spending a evening with Kathryn. Although we live close and talk often, it's rare that we actually spend any time talking about anything of consequence and the journey to London was an excellent oppportunity. After the first 30 minutes of "my day has been so shit" griping, we moved on to more pleasant topics collecting a KFC at Paddington somewhere in the midst of the conversation to wolf down on the tube.

The Odeon at Leicester square seemed like a superb place to watch a film, and we couldn't quite work out why we were treated as outcasts when we first walked in (we'd gone to the premium entrance...). Soon we were directed to the tiny entrance where we collected the tickets and bought a few snacks. The warning signs were there for all to see then. Tiny building... Not that we noticed. It was only really when we walked into someone small living room with 150 seats that we realised that perhaps this was the "second rate" part of the 1900 capacity Odeon. It was stupidly tiny. I instantly regretted my decision to sit in the middle and given that we were the only people, we moved to the back. We were probably closer to the screen here than the front row in any of the Reading cinemas. For a 32" screen, it was good. So it was a little bigger than 32" but it didn't seem it. We joked with a few people about the tiny cinema, and watched the film (still funny second time round).

When it was finished, Kathryn and I took a stroll through Soho, down Oxford Street popping quickly down Regent Street to peer through the Hamleys window. A really pleasant walk. The lights on Oxford Street wouldn't have looked out of place on our personal Christmas tree but Regent Street was really good to see.

So we caught the tube, and sat on a delayed train before eventually arriving home abour 1 hour after we should have.

A really nice finish to a not so nice day.

Where is a computer expert when you need one

2005-11-27T18:28:00.000Z

Today my desktop has given up working. First the network card died. Then the second network card died. Finally the mouse and keyboard have died.

Piece of junk.

So in search of shiny new pieces I found myself venturing to my favourite shop, PC World. Just standing at their customer services desk for 20 minutes was entertaining.

"i vowed that i'd never shop here again but since my nephew wanted a printer i'm back. it's ridiculous that i should have to travel 16 miles to get here...."

The usual array of inept replies were around for all to hear but it all washed over me. Today my frustration stemmed from the fact they had only one single PCI-X graphics card in the whole store. There was me thinking that my motherboard was going to be tough to replace.... lol

Oh well, i'm off to the internet to buy me some new bits.

Tonight's performance

2005-11-25T22:02:00.000Z

Tonight I saw my daughter Hannah in her first ever stage performance. It was produced by her ballet teacher and I've been looking forward to it all week. It's funny really, just as I left for work she spent a good 10 minutes explaining how i'd promised to come and why was I going out. "I have to go to work, I'll be back before it starts"....

Performances such as these are the highlight of the annual ballet calendar and we've been talking about it around the house for so long it's almost like Hannah was born shortly after it was arranged. I was thus fairly confident I'd learnt all the words to "chick chick chicken" before I left and wasn't disappointed.

We arrived at around 7 for the 7.30 performance. Just in time to arrange for a round of drinks (sparkling water lol) and several packets of "multipack not for resale" Walkers crisps. Hannah saw me as I walked in; she was filing by all dressed up in her first costume with the other kids and screamed "daddy!!". So cute. I was very proud and the performance was yet to come.

The result of small debate was the selection of four fine seats that probably fell into the "best of the rest" category rather than "best in the house". After an age where the anticipation was almost too much, the first song came on..... the music...... Sadly, one of my many personas is an audiophile and I cringed to the point I stuck my fingers in my ears. All I could hear was hissing and distortion. It was horrible. How a woman who is trained in producing ballet performances missed the bit about the music accompanying rather than distracting is beyond my comprehension. I have no idea who or what was on stage.

The came the compere. Oh no... "They aren't quite ready, I'll tell you a joke. Those of you who were here last year may remember this.... 2 crisps were walking down the road.... a car pulled up 'fancy a lift', the crisps looked at each other and smiled 'no thanks we're walkers'"...... Oh no. First the music. Now this.... HELP. For the sake of the record, his jokes got no better.

Apart from the noise, the dancing was sweet. Some of the performers were really quite talented. Most of them were trying hard but to be fair, as I was reminded by my lovely wife Sarah, it was very good that they all had their moment on the stage.

Anyway, after suffering dreadful music and compere for the first few acts Hannah and all the little ones (3 to 5 year olds) came on. It was so sweet. Incredibly funny - they all did their own thing and kept rythm to their own time. Hannah kept getting pushed back by an eager girl to her left, so she stopped to claw her way through to the front every so often. I was really quite proud and cheered very loudly. After a few more rounds where other parents got that gooey heart moment, the little ones came out again and produced another inspiring performance. It was great. Kids are fantastic.

At half time Hannah came to sit with us. 8.34 it was - I remember quite clearly as I was sooo very tempted to run home (20 minute run) in the cold. All this, and with no walkman, rather than endure the second half without the highlight of a lovely little girl to watch. I was quite lucky really - Sarah came to the rescue and agreed with Hannah that we'd watch three acts after the interval and then leave.

So we got home about 9.30 in the end. Hannah was high as a kite. Her bedtime is around 7pm so this was a fairly late night. Not gonna be a good weekend.

Reading: Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
Hearing: Napster weekly playlist - very good this week

Middle layers

2005-11-25T12:34:00.000Z

The problem, it transpires, is not really what jacket to wear but rather what to wear underneath. We had a fantastic evening last night at Didcot town fair and cunningly I trialled my winter cycling wear (jacket/gloves). Not being known for having the best circulation in the world, it was expected that my fingers would get cold - just not _that_ cold.

The jacket is excellent but despite keeping out the wind and rain it is cold. This isn't a bad thing since I can therefore wear it year round. It's just more to think about.

Still I have 18 hours to decide before I ride again. Plenty of time. :D

Reading road runners v2

2005-11-23T23:50:00.000Z

OK so I admit it, i'm wimping out. My legs are still sore from last weeks running session and I'd hate to injure myself by doing too much running too soon. Perhaps i'll go for a run on friday with the dog, just something short and easy going. Not that he has any interest in getting anywhere fast unless there is a handy supply of tasty food at the destination.

Chester

Bloody typical that I manage to pick the least running inclined dog in the universe. He (Chester) is a lovely kind hearted dog who is nothing short of superb with the kids. Patiently he lies there while they both "look after him".

Spending spree

2005-11-23T00:15:00.000Z

Today was an expensive day. I had an inkling that it might sway that way when I managed to add £300 of bike stuff to my basket. That is not to say I ever intended to buy everything, just that more often than not I buy some of it.

As it happens, I often use the shopping basket as a means of controlling my spending. The thing is, I always seem to end up filling my basket/trolley/truck in a supermarket. If I walk in with a thimble, I end up with a thimble full and a few bits under my arms and in my hand. If I walk in with nothing, I end up struggling round the store - nearly always filling 5 bags at the checkout. I can get more into a basket/hand combo than most people can get into a trolley. As for a trolley, well.... I construct my own tribute to the leaning tower of pisa. Funny how I always seem to get to the checkout with few problems, but rarely manage to get everything out to the car without feats of human endurance that defy the belief of at least half of the gods.

I digress. I stick things in the basket where I can consider whether I need them and this time I added the following items:

Sunglasses
Bike Pump
Leggings For Biking
Waterproof Jacket For Biking
Winter Boots For Biking

I've recently been on two rides without a pump and it's getting scary. Sooner of later, the laws of biking will kick in and I'll have three punctures in 100 feet. The sunglasses are also quite an easy justification - it's quite scary flying down a hill with grit forcing one eye to close; living the paranoia of knowing that the next bit of grit is destined to close the other one. That only leaves three other items. Wouldn't be too bad if they didn't account for £270 of it....

I've been lusting after the new Shimano W102 winter boots. For a bike with clipless pedals (meaning they are locked to the pedal without a clip) the shoes must be compatible with cleats which serve the purpose of locking shoe to pedal. It makes a huge difference to riding and I'd recommend them to everyone who rides anywhere. Once the initial shock is over and done with it affords a closeness with the bike that makes riding much more fun. Trouble is, said boots are only compatible with my mountain bike pedals (road bike has different shoes/pedals) and they are only usable for a few months in the year. Also they cost £100. No, not now. Although... Christmas is close..........

Winter leggings are always nice. My first thought riding at winter was to use some manly trousers. Although, I tried that a few years ago and to be honest they were terrible; so terrible that I think I've blanked the reasons from my mind. I was never a fan of the legging type things, but different sports have changed my opinion. In reality, that type of neoprene skin tight wear is a requirement for kayaking to stop the extreme cold, it's compulsory in triathlons to wear a wet suit and they are specifically skin tight for swimming efficiency (and work really well). Even running through the winter requires more than the usual summer shorts. There it is, I admit I have been brow beaten into it. But this time, £40 allows me another ride to think about whether MTB requires more investment.

When I originally purchased my folding bike, I purchased a windproof jacket. It was "shower proof" and I've worn it virtually every day on the bike for a year. Most days it's great. When it rains really heavily it's not so great. It is not hard to understand that the idea of a waterproof jacket has instant appeal and a demands reflection on the last time I had the "windproof or waterproof" debate (that clearly windproof won). Waterproof jackets tend to work like a greenhouse with the sun inside. Oh, and the sun is resting on a couple of angry rain clouds. Anyway, to cut a long story short I discovered the eVENT system is supposedly the best at disposing of perspiration and is totally waterproof. So sue me, I'm a sucker for marketing lines, I bought it today :D

And this all happened before I realised that 512MB memory wasn't quite good enough for my laptop, meaning - as always - that I had to dispose of one chip to buy another. A shiny new 1GB chip will arrive from Crucial tomorrow. I highly recommend their stuff.

Fog lights

2005-11-21T23:54:00.000Z

When will people learn how and when to use them. I've just had the misfortune of driving 15 odd miles at 20 miles an hour following a rather scared driver with his fog lights burning my eyes. I wouldn't mind if they served to aid me or him - but lets face it - I can't even see him brake, such is the dazzling experience his fog lights offer.

I've got the horn

2005-11-20T22:50:00.000Z

I was one of only 12* lucky people to win the prestidigous pot noodle horn. The truth is that it arrived a few weeks ago although it's only today that I had the fortune to locate it.

It is all I have ever dreamed of and has promoted me to a whole new social class.

WOW

MY pot noodle horn

*actual number not known

A tale of two films

2005-11-20T13:19:00.000Z

For the first time in many many months, Sarah and I managed to offload the children for the night and experience something we'd both fogotten about. The cinema.

The day started well, we both got up, took the family swimming before shooting round to my parents for late lunch. We all love swimming, but my heart couldn't take any more of joes throwing himself under the water - a totally fearless chap (good? bad?). Hannah can swim through the water with armbands and in total contrast to her brother, hates water on her face...

We arrived into the oracle, reading, at around 5.30 and had selected two potential films to watch.

"The Constant Gardener" started at 6.45 and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" started at 7.45. Harry potter was already full by the time we got there, although there would have had to be 9 other romantic comedies or horror films for me to choose it.

It wasn't too hard to form the "watch the early one, go for a late meal" plan. Seemed good, so we shopped for a while, then bought some rather expensive drinks and chocolate before settling down to a seat in the middle of the cimema (small screen... didn't bode well...)

It was one of those "flicker vision" film where the camera was held by a hand almost as shaky as mine. After 10 minutes I shut my eyes to stem the inevitable headache. After 20 I decided to apologise to Sarah for ruining her cinema experience by closing my eyes. It couldn't have been scripted better. Sarah was also suffering from this terrible visual experience, so we agreed to leave. Thank god we managed to talk about it before the end. The film was also crap.

Anyway, we left and realised that we could still get to see "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" so we swapped our tickets, free of charge... And sat down with no expectations of anything but headaches.

It was about now something very unusual and strange happened. The opening scene/credits were superb. I was hooked there. I don't usually like movies, and can think of two films that I nearly walked out of during said credits (bark wire - pammy, james bond(last one i think).

Anyway, the film was nothing short of superb. I laughed like a drain throughout and would recommend it for a light hearted evening. Owing an equal debt to strangeness, I can't wait to watch it on DVD when it comes out.

We left, got to Ma Potters for a truly superbly efficient and tasty meal (out in under an hour). Sadly Starbucks was closed for my evening coffee, so we left and went home.

An excellent evening.

The most useless spell checker in the world

2005-11-18T01:44:00.000Z

Yesterday I was inspired by the spell checker offered by the google toolbar that offers the ability to spell check any form in a web browser and also learns words if asked. The interaction between external toolbar and existing page offers great possibilities for extending functionality of software without the pain of recoding it. perhaps.

Anyway, a small lesser known part of the google empire is called blogger. Thus, I assumed that their spell checker would be as good if not better. How wrong could I possibly be.

It has american spellings only, it hasn't got words like "you" in the dictionary and worse of all it managed to place the newly adjusted words inside the old words creating a jumble of random characters. Luckily this afforded me the chance to revist the whole post and spell check it myself.

Great work; I nominate it for the feature of the century award. Just not this century.

Reading road runners

2005-11-18T01:03:00.000Z

For the third time in my life, I have joined the Reading Road Runners. Last time I ended up injuring myself almost weekly so I kinda dropped out. By the time I was well again I had to write my first dissertation; 15000 words on 'Knowledge Management in Software Engineering companies' at Sheffield Hallam University. Then to uni in London straight off the back of that and somehow running never quite worked out. Finding myself back in Reading recently for a month or three provides a great opportunity to take it up again.

First session was yesterday and I was quite worried about my legs collapsing. Shin splints are the usual favourite debilitating thing, although seemingly I can get all sorts of injuries. The only difference this time round is the orthotics that I wear in my shoes. It transpires that I have a strange gait that can be explained in infinite detail to people who understand it, but to me the knowledge that it causes injury will suffice. The orthotics are designed to compensate and enable my legs to operate in their normal range despite my feet not hitting the ground straight.
Conceptually it's all great, but it took 12 months to get them right (ish) and even now I have no idea whether they'll reduce injury. I guess it is more to the point that if they don't work I'll have to consider giving up running. Total waste of time going to the doctor ...

patient: my shins hurt when I run
doctor: don't run
patient: but I like running
doctor: if you want to get better, stop running
etc...

This is in strange contrast to the physio

patient: my shins hurt when I run
physio: running is important to you, we will find a way of enabling your running
patient: cool, I like that idea
physio: it will require 4 sessions of ultrasound, massage and strange gadget operation
patient: ok, thank you. you are my savior
cash register: ka-ching. £150.Thanking you kindly. do come again soon.

Which also contrasts with the podiatrist

patient: my shins hurt when I run
podiatrist: show me how you walk
podiatrist: I can explain all of your injuries in scientific terms for you
(scientific explaination follows)
patient: oh, so I'll be in a wheelchair before I'm 50 if I don't correct it now?
podiatrist: we can't predict the future, but we can help shape it
patient: thank you, you are my saviour
cash register: ka-ching. £350. thanking you kindly, you won't need to come back
patient: thank you very much
(4 visits later and it all seems ok... finally)

So at least I know that both my legs are the same length and that orthotics might help. Actually I did just a little more research than it might seem. My mother has the exact problems that he suggested i'd run into when was older (and she has othotics that she swears by). My new physio would have sent me there if I hadn't already been and suggested that if they were "off the shelf" to throw them away, but if they were custom fitted then they are worth their weight in gold.

Also worth noting is that my flippant conversations don't really do justice to the work of the sports physio. They are miracle workers and I can't recommend then highly enough for injuries. They manage to get people back on the road in much less time than they would have been left to their own devices. They aren't cheap though. I am considering a course on this...

So, the question lingers.... can I run without much injury.

I do realise that my competitive nature is not conducive to an injury free lifestyle and I am going to try and tone it down a bit. It's interesting that I became interested in triathlon because I was a runner who like to cycle and couldn't swim. After 1 year, swimming was my best discipline by far and running was a distant third.

I've almost forgotten the session. That evil session. The group was split into pairs. Runner 1 ran 200m while runner 2 did press ups. They swap and then go through 11 other horrible painful things that ensure that your entire body aches with the stress of it. Then a quick 800m round the track and repeat.... ouch, i'm very sore today, but not unhappy because pressups aren't likely taggravatete my shins... :D

Anyway, my short term goal is an adventure race in late January. I'm just hoping I haven't broken both my legs before it starts.

To be continued............

Sharp 3D developer program

2005-11-16T00:25:00.000Z

Almost exactly 15 months ago, I discovered a new type of monitor - one that natively supported 3D technologies.

I'm not entirely sure how it works, but in essense it is able to project different images to each eye. Thus achieving the illusion of 3D. Noticing the rather excellent match with a computer games programming course I was planning to start and this monitor, I signed up for their developer program.

So today an email arrives to say they have reviewed my application (for 15 months???) and are glad to have me on board. Ironically - now that i've completed the course the attraction of such a monitor is lessened greatly, along with my elibility for the program. Perhaps in a couple of years when the graphics card technology has moved on again and new montiors produce greater viewing angles and higher definition I'll look it up again.

The art of customer service

2005-11-16T00:06:00.000Z

Well, my current premium poker site - who I now can't name since they've swallowed a plethora of ineptitude capsules - have screwed almost everything up. comprehensively.

So, you take a flaky poker interface and then you remove all possibility of building your community and creating a nice atmosphere in which to donate all your hard owned dollars. Since you've already made the interface so clunky and unplayable you add a further layer or three of abstraction so that nobody notices it takes 30 minutes to find a table to sit at.

Top work. Then you sit an arrogant tech support person in the lobby who brags about being a "designer/programmer" to tell people that it was due to "technical issues" that they've removed the last bastion of fun.

It is so terrible that I am now certainly going to write my own poker software. Lets face it: it would be hard to write an application more bugs even if i'd never programmed before.

Useless inept fools.

Oh - and it's pokerroom. I challenge you to work out how to sit down at a table. Actually I don't, I'd rather you saved your money and gave it to me.

Fat tyres

2005-11-13T23:45:00.000Z

So today was a good day to take the mountain bike offroad. Trail Break organise some excellent rides and todays was no exception. Six of us headed to Kinbury for a 'Fat Tyres Navigator', an event that I've done several times in previous years.

Route planning

This time, it's gone high tech. Gone are the days of mismarking ones map, and punching the wrong hole on the entrance card. In are the days of wrist straps with electronic chips that record precise timings at every location. So accurate was it, that I couldn't even contest my 55 point penalty. Daft systems.

At a checkpoint

Prior to the event, i'd spent quite a long time musing about how one could achieve an event like this that is essentially competitive with six people each of differing standards (Steve, Steve, Darren, Insight, Becky and my good self). I'm not entirely sure it worked well. Before I started, I decided that I would try to make sure everyone made the best of the event. Despite being one of the most competitive people on the planet - so much so that I'll compete with myself if no-one else is around - I don't have much of a problem doing events like this in a 'non competitive' frame of mind. That said of course i'll always race to the top of a hill and might even, at a push, be guilty of racing random people as they pass (especially on hills :$). Still , in the most part I think people enjoyed it. Next event like that isn't until 15th January 2006 so I guess there is time to think it through properly.

Mars bar break

Got home to get straight in the bath before grabbing a crafty two hours sleep. Then had the pleasure of both nephews and my own two kids to look after for an hour or two. Fantastic as they are they still managed to trash two magazines and a book, whilst playing some bizarre game of filling saucepans with water and carrying it around (i was informed afterwards). Poor Joes (my son) was soaked through. Still, they went to bed and left me with just enough time to settle into a few games of poker :D

Reading: Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
Hearing: Napster weekly playlist
Gadgetry: Sony Ericsson W800i

MSc squared?

2005-11-09T00:13:00.000Z

Whilst largely unofficial, today was the day I learnt that I had in fact passed my degree. Sadly, I think my average left me 2 marks short of a distinction, but it was a comprehensive pass none the less.

The format of the day was quite stressful in the end, for today was the day the external examiners decended on the university. It wasn't meant to be stressful and I'd spent days convincing myself that there wasn't a lot that could happen to change the mark.

I got there at 8.30, as it was due to start at 9. Didn't take too long to get my project up and running, so it was a good opportunity to check the other projects. As always at these presentations, the standard is much higher than I expect - there was some really good work. When Alastair, the principal lecturer, announced that we would have our result that afternoon at 3pm, the day suddenly became stressful. Presentation was OK, external chappie was nice, so then I went shopping for a new mobile before finally meeting everyone in the pub to find out. I did reasonably well, result wise, and stayed in the pub until my headache convinced me to go home.

Screengrab of final project

So, given I don't have a batchelors degree, how am I supposed to produce business cards with MSc MSc on them. I know I have two masters degrees, but to everyone else - surely it's a typo. Oh well, the trials of life... :P

I can thouroughly recommend "MSc Computer Games Programming" at the University of Westminster. Very hard, mathematically biased, and strangely extremely good fun.

The beginning

2005-11-06T07:08:00.000Z

So, having carefully evaded the whole blog thing for as long as i've known about them, i've decided to give it a try. Dutifully, this is my first post, and i'm reasonably certain that at least a couple of people will chuckle that I've actually done one.

Whether it remains up to date is anyones guess, but one post is better than none, despite not even being close to containing pearls of knowledge or shards of wisdom.

Oh well, i'm done now. I'm gonna see how it looks in bright green lights.