Programmers Fight Club

Phil just sent me a link to this I think I can understand the need for it after a few minutes talking to the lusers.

I see wires

Some days are just frustrating, no matter what you do its wrong today I had promised Russell I would go round and look at putting in some cables to the rooms in his new (parents) bed and breakfast.
What a nightmare, after initial examination the building is an old cottage which has been extended and changed internally several times, so there are all sorts of voids and road blocks in the way of laying cables. Both I and Bruce have been telling Russ for ages just to use wireless and to some extent he agreed but was still adamant certain areas of the house needed wires so we spend ages trying to find a way to squeeze the cable through only to find it was nigh impossible without ripping half the bathroom out.
So in the end we left having acheieved very little for a tiring days work :S

Lan gaming, late night chats and hangovers

Yesterday was terminal tournaments 9 the most popular so far with 16 people present, it went pretty well except for failures with steam. I really wonder why Valve make it so hard to run events off line it just seems like they went totally overboard piracy is a problem but must we all suffer? Had a few new people turn up which is great and generally I think people had a good time.

After the lan I went round to see Ian, Faye is on Holiday so we were able to have a good chat and a few drinks, Nick and Becky were there, she had been out drinking with Nikkie. Nikkie has split up from her long term boyfriend Neil so she and Becs had been drinking and setting the world to rights, I dont think I have ever seen Becky so drunk before. She was on form embarrasing Nick talkign aboutm marrage, and other things. I did take a rather sick pleasure in watching him squirm me bad!

We watched 3 kings together and drank chatting about Frahas birthday which Ina had done providing the bar for her but apparently a load of people started causing trouble so much so the party was stopped early, not a good scene for a memorable birthday. Once the film was over Nick took Becky to bed, and Ian and I stayed up chatting and drinking, we had all the beer than went onto Jonny Walker great stuff. I cant even remeber what we were sayng but by the time i set off home it was getting light.

Today I feel like ive been run over by a train my room is a top, my server imaking horrible noises think it need replacing more money sigh.

Failed Upgrades / Server Failures and other ways to ruin a week

Liz (yes we still talk dispite my best efforts to put her off) wondered why I had stopped blogging, well I havent quiet I have just been very busy. Unfortunatly what I havent been busy with is exicintg life changing things instead I have been working on the things for work.
Sunday night went out for a few drinks felt tired all day Monday but managed to get some decent work done on the discount product, if I could just get the APR correct it would be nearly there.

Monday my server went down again they had a problem with a poweroutage at the server room. It is a little galling my once supurb uptime graph has been decimated by failures out of my control. Oh well.

Wednesday a simple software rollout went bad because testing hadnt been correctly carried out this means more flak for us it couldnt come at a worse time. I am working with my collegue Mike on some new projects visual studio 2005 is really good though I am nowhere near upto Mikes level quiet yet, I think Ill get there eventually though.

I got the one day Spanish guide from the independant I have been trying to learn but I am rubbish at languages.

Last night I went out for a few drinks with Ian Dan Phil Bruce and Nina, we went to the John Millington it was really nice to see Ian its been a while, Danny just kept labouring on about his new car (im going to write an entire blog on that sometime).

Spoke to Lulu today she has a rather ironic post on her blog about losing touch with people and their reactions, at first I felt sad because I konw how the other guy felt then I thought well I guess people make all sort of assumptions about each other all the time, is it fair to prejugde and assume or do you have to in order to get on with you life, I just dont know. Im rambling must be time for bed.

Night.

Weird Requests

Today had a nightmare scenario at work, firstly yesterday Phil Myself Paul Jo Pippa and Holly went for lunch. We had a great time, apart from the dodgy eyed barmaid ripping me off. Basically we all had a nice meal a chat and that was great then Paul and Pippa left for Leamington, and Jo and Holly left ot go shed shopping. So Phil and I stayed for a few pints then some more pints then some more Opps I ended up being so pissed somehw I was chatting incoherently to Nick and becky its all a bit of a blur.
So anyway I am sat at work feeling totally lousey just about able to focus on the lastest project stuff, when I am quiet literally asked out of the blue to give out copies of our source code so the IS manager can assess how it works. Now given this is the guts of our system and tool Andrew Ian and Mike months to write there was no way I could just give it to him, but because I am only a lowly trainee I had to contact my superiours and make them aware, in case he figures out how to print it himself. I dont know whether he really needs to see it or whether he has deicided to hand it over to our competitors either way my boss thought he was out of order for even asking.
I dont know what will happen next

Radiohead

Last night Paul, Phil myself and Pauls Girlfriend Pippa went to see Radiohead at the Blackpool Empress Ballroom, it was a spectacular gig the band were on perfect form totally together and really into the music. I especially loved Thom dancing like a loon to idioteque and playing with the camera whilst on the piano.
Stand out tunes included the excellent nude aka Big Ideas dont get any, Street Spirit (my personal favourite) the new song were sounding good except for one instrumental one which didnt really seem to do anything. They played a lot of Kid A, and several songs off The Bends and OK Computer Concluding the show with Paranoid Android.
As usual for a Radiohead show the sound stage setup was phenomenal the quality of the audio was brilliant
Phil and I managed to get to four rows from the front it was unbelievable dancing like a maniac only a few feet from the band. The crowd were pretty wild not quiet as dangerous as the one at the Streets but I was battered around and had at least one beverage poured over me, despite all that its was a great gig the music was unbelievable.

Setlist: (from atease coulnt quiet remember myself)
01 Everything In Its Right Place
02 The National Anthem
03 2+2=5
04 15 Step
05 Morning Bell
06 Pyramid Song
07 Go Slowly
08 Bangers N Mash
09 Dollars And Cents
10 How To Disappear Completely
11 Nude
12 Karma Police
13 You And Whose Army?
14 Airbag
15 Spooks
16 Idioteque
17 There There

Encore 1:
18 Just
19 Four Minute Warning
20 The Bends
21 Street Spirit

Encore 2:
22 I Want None Of This
23 Paranoid Android

Two Films That Changed My Life

I was going to title this piece "the long slow death of my blog", but I dont want to kill it just yet. You might have noticed the number of posts has been steadily declining so some time, this is in part due to the fact ive been fairly busy but also with less feedback and less interesting to write about I feel that everything I have to say has been said elsewhere. I have also somewhat drifted apart from Lulu to a point where she is no longer an influence on making me want to write. Pity as I received lonely planet Shanghai travel guide this morning.

Tonight I watched two mega films both older the first was good will hunting somehow I never saw this when it came out I am a bit sad really its an excellent movie Robin Williams excels as a jaded psychologist and Matt Damon plays being a genius well. I think it spoke to me because I have some of the same attitudes as Damons character (not that I am a genius sadly) but I do always see plenty of obstacles which stop me from choosing certain paths in life.

The second film was the seventh seal a black and white Swedish film about death and faith, the whole film works on so many levels I dont want to discuss here. The whole film is a metaphor for the struggle between good and evil and between belief in god and the emptiness of doubt. Its an excellent film well worth a watch despite the foreign language and black and white.

Myth

More Myth fun this time it was Phils turn to try and build a box. Using Fedora Core 5 and with the help of myself (and an excellent internet guide)

This was my first chance to use Fedora Core 5 and I must say im impresed, it was faster prettier more simple to use and had better tools (check out the new lvm tool it actually works though still dosnt let you create filesystems other than ext2/3).

It took three nights to perfect one to install Fedora, one to install Myth and run mythfilldatabase, this took a long long time! Finally we got an output just need to sort out changing the channel on SKY which apparently isnt too hard with an IR emitter and job is a gooden!