Locked out

Today Bruce and I tried to get access to the colocated server held at the datacentre in Manchester in order to restart a failed service and do some maintaince I have been trying to contact Lee our provider for sometime but he is priving ellusive at best and evasive at worst.

A few days ago Ian remarked to me he was worried about the amount of spam he is recieving ever loyal to a customer I decided to have a go at improving things. Last night after sorting out the dead fan dead tape drive problems started working on Mars as a sandbox before takign it live onto alpha. Last night I added the free clamav which will virus check on e-mail relayed through mars.

I have been following the tutorial on the excellent debian administration site.

Had a couple of hiccops when setting up maildrop I kept getting the following error

status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: /usr/bin/maildrop: Invalid home directory permissions - world writable. )

In /var/log/mail.log after much messing about I found that root can receive mail in this sort of scenario using another user as an alias for root and everything worked fine.

Next is to implment on alpha, then future work move the domain handling to a database that should make things a lot easier to handle than the text file structure it would also mean we could replicate the set up much faster.

Technology Hates me

Some days no matter how hard you try everything goes wrong, for example you come to the end of a long and tricky project at to be told the staekholders have changed their minds and want different outcomes.
Or worse the backup drive fails rather horrifically, you reboot, still failed the error is physical so take the option to remove the drive only when you boot up afterward the system just beeps at you. Well that was my day, I had to take the secondary server to bits eventually I found a littlle iny fan had failed and the system wouldnt boot properly without it :-S After much decontruction I filnally got to the bottom of it, I also took the opportunty to add clam av to the mail relay, just need to get some spam checking I have been recieveing a lot recently and Ina has been complaining too, so I guess I should do something.

I am a little drunk writing tis it didnt take much I havent been getting much slep recently, saw Claire for the 3 time this week I think I am handling it outwardsly but on the inside its hard I cant drop my feelings for her not matter how craply she treated me nor how long ago on an intellectual level I know its completely stupid and I have control of the feelings now but, it dosnt stop me feeling them. I guess I am just lonely its been so so long since I had a meaningful relationship, and with so many of my friend in them its like a double blow.

Finally recieved my copy of soviet kitsch today I ordered it weeks ago, so good to be able to listen to it without pops and crackles though. Damn its cold sat typing this there is snow and ice outside must be well below freezing.

Deep Freeze

Wow its gone so cold this week my snowing all day today it didnt really stick though. When I got out of the gym it was bitter -2c by my car's thermometer but it felt colder.
Watched Domino tonight it was well different than I expected certainly not as bad as I feared it passed the time on a cold winters evening. Basically Domino is a bounty hunter, the film starts with her in a prison cell, the recounts her life as a bounty hunter interspersed with the last few day events. A tangled web of personal lives, armour car robberies and the mob, its very long and winding but the ending played out way too fast. Personally my favorite character was Christopher Walking as the hollywood guy producing a reality tv show about the bounty hunters.
I can hardly believe its already march seems that time is flying by and yet I dont seem to be moving on, been doing a few things to get inspiration reading the Intellegent invesor at the moment I am only a third thrrough but I can already say its an excellent read and well worth it for any budding investor. Its taught me that at least a few of my deals are more speculation than investment, which isnt a bad thing in itself as long as its onl a part of my portfolio. Ill write some more of II when I have finished reading it, bu value investment all the way from here!

Delayed

Tonight Danny and I went to see the Delays at the academy 3, it was a pretty damn good gig. The supporting act captain were ok a kind of electro pop ensamble they had a couple of pretty good tunes.
In a kind of post modern irony there was a delay in them coming on stage, whilst the most thorough sound check I have every watched was carried out, it didnt stop things messing up on the last song though.
The Delays were fab, his voice is simply mesmerising to listen to, they also did the best recovery from technical failure ive heard since a broken guitar forced Radiohead to played Creep at South Park. My particular favorites were the solo job on bedroom scene and Nearer than heaven. On was a great crowd thumping tine and Valentine was amwsome as well.

Danny was good company for a change he seems a little more mellow though he still never lets me get a word in edgeways :P Seems is back with Lyn or he? I couldnt really tell what was going on to be honest I guess he enjoys the complexity, he kept gong on how g4reat the "physical side" was, whilst pushing the revolting mental images out it made me kind of jelious. Well not jelious in the sense I want what he has but more worried that everyone is settled but not me.

Whilst enjoying the evening emensly one thing put me in a downer, standing in front of my was a pretty nice girl she kept leaning back into me, her hair in my face the sweet smell of her perfune was intoxicating, I really longed to reach forward and wrap my arms around her, but I couldnt even pluct up the courage to speak. I am not sure if it was in my head or not but I am fairly sure she was insterested given there was not eason for her to press up so close there was plenty of room. Another wasted opportunity maybe or did I prevent myself from getting mugged on display, I will never know the truth. Sometimes I live too much inside my head and not enough in the real world I just wish I could find the courage and works to comminicate and build relationships, Danny's lovelife is going well why I am alone?

Mums Birthday

It is my Mums bithday today, got her a card and took her and my dad out to te La Quila 2 in Handforth for a curry, it was as usual up to a high standard and we all had a good time. It was nice after such a horrific week of computer problems and general working too much. Friday was the Trade Union Congress national work you real hours day so I did, I think it was well deserved after doing 14 hours sunday, and an extra two hours Monday.
I feel so tired and full now at least I am warm sat with map laptop by the fire with the cat laid on the arm of the chair, on tv is the rather dreadful movie Island, it started off well but unfortunatly it descended into hollywood trash fairly quickly.

I started reading the rather excellent Intellegent Investor by Ben Graham its amazing reading about the markets of the 50s, 60s and 70s and realising nothing really changes. Ben Graham was a profetic figure, rather than predicting hot shares he gives excellent advice on how not to lose money, a strange conept maybe but a lot of hs advice seems to be more about how not to lose money rather and how to make money. So far the chapters I have read cover nitial ideas inflaion and the different types of investor, I think its proved some of my "investments" thus far are mere speculation rather than investing. I think that cash in isas and dollar cost averaging of the trakers funds would count as intellgent defensive stratergies though.

Phil and I went to the gm and played squash today, I think it must be a year since we last went togther, I really enjoyed it was very relaxing. Except for seeing Clare running round the track, perhaps she is the universe laughing at me for what I have done to others. I dont really believe that though, I think what upsets me the most is that she is still single an yet somehow I wasn' good enough. In her eyes anyway, in mine I am alway good enough I just wish more people could see it.

311

After a very long two days at work I was feeling very very tired however it was Faye's birthay party (her actual birthday was on Saturday). She hasnt been well recently so it was good to see her back on form, also a load of the people I know / vaugly know were about. I wish I had taken my camera but after the weekend and day I had my brain was not working 100%
It was good to see everyone but alcohol and fatiuge made me chat jibberish and generally not remember what i said, it was a good evening though.

Hurrah not my fault

I arrived at 7.30 after a troubled nights sleep, there were issues for me to lookinto and sql replication was turned off becuase speed was such an issue. Andrew was called in to do some diagnostic work on it (thankfully because I was totally out of my depth). He found there was a problem with the index missing on one of the tables, one of the IS staff had neglected to create it when the schema was changed, that meant 1.5million records had to be searched each update with no key oops!
Thankfully I and the project plan were vindicated, I still feel I need ot be given a higher level of training or supervisions on upgrads of this importance but thats a topic of conversation for my next review.

Upgrade / Downgrade

Some days things go bad not matter how hard you plan and work, today was a major upgrade in order to implement the new workflow system There were major changes to the schema, programs and data. This was also the first major upgrade to be project managed, there was a full implementation plan. We all came in at 7.30am to begin, the changes and get everything ticked off before 12noon so as the call centre could get back to work.
Initially it seemed to go ok, there were a few bugs with the workflow but these wee checked off then problems with speed started occuring, we tried many different way to fix this but it was too slow. Eventually we tracked the problem to a fault with replication to the sql databases. At 5pm we decided to restore the system to the origonal state which was done but the problems persisted. I stayed until 9.30pm with a short breka to go home and get some dinner but there were still faults. Tommorrow is going to be a killer day.

Office Space

Today we moved offices, which was a little bit traumatic especially as I have been so busy trying to fix some last minute bugs before Sundays go live. The good thing is I now have a seat next to the window which is much nicer than being sat in the middle of the office.

Ive just spent another Friday night say behind my computer sorting out things for the ejected brass lan, the server seems to be running well now, I hope it alls goes well tomorrow it promises to be a busy lan if nothing else a lot of people have said they are coming if they all turn up we could be pushed for space.

Talking of space I had a look on Pauls myspace before lots of positive things about his music and his life, I am pleased things are working out. I would really like to meet this Pippa girl I hear so much about, and here the new band. I guess he is a little t busy at the moment though. I think I need some goal and blue sky thought I am falling into the mundane drudgery of the 9-5.30 world and it sucks.

Only one more week until payday, man this month has been a long one, lots of bills like my car insurance and gym membership at least I managed to get that at corporate rate. I should on paper have loads of spare cash but in reality i never seem to have any.

I had an argument with my dad before he really frustrates and annoys me coming in showing off yet another design of his document to my friends, how many pints of view does he need he spends so much time and effort procrastinating if he spent half as much time doing anything he might actually achieve something I really want to get away from my parents they just talk and talk but it never seems to go anywhere there is always another excuse another good reason. Sometimes I feel myself falling into their routine but its not what I want. I might not be as clever but I want fall into the malaise of inaction.

Weight Loss?

Think I finally got the damn deferred product work done, I ended up having to back Mikes changes out and go back to my versions, they might not be the standard way however they appear to work for all circumstances whereas the A programs fails to work under all circumstances. Personally I think its the lender whos wrong but management just want the project finished so in this instance I just did, and hopfully the gamble paid off this time.

Went to the gym tongith for the usuall session actually saw Martin there he is all shook up about the rather tragic death of Charlottes mother. Its realy sad for them, but unfortunatly its the way of the universe its cruel and unfair, but hard as it was at least she died happy and peacfully at home surrounded by a loving family.

Anyway so as not to dwell on the negative for once, did a test tonight and looks like the gym is begining to pay off quiet apart from the increased fitness I was starting to worry I havent lost any weight, howevr today I proved I have lost some fat, did the hips to waist ratio and for the first time im under the 0.92 ratio which means you aint too bad hurrah and ya boo sucks to body mass index rubbish by which scale im obese, I know im carry a few extra kg's but I do not think I am that bad.

Run John Run

I finally caught up with the film Run Lola Run today. It's been one of those films that I have wanted to watch for ages, but for one reason or another haven't. Thanks to love film I finally have finally watched it. It pretty damn good too initially I started watching the English dub but it was so poor I switched back to German with subtitles. Essentially the film is about a girl whose world is turned upside down when a deal goes wrong, it plays the story out in several ways each time showing how minor changes in people actions actions cascade out into the world and cause very different outcomes.

It is a bit like the theory which states a the butterfly flapping wings and causes a hurricane. Its impossible to predict how and what minor changes cause chain reactions through complex systems like the weather or in the case of the film peoples lives.

I am not sure whether to stay with love film though. My major gripe is that they don't send out new films until you return both the old ones whereas the last club sent everything individually which I much preferred. Mind you they sent me a stream of dodgy disks so I'll stick with Love Film a bit longer.

Bruce popped over and we had a bash at the game server in preparation for the lanparty on Saturday. Think I finally got to the bottom of the slow logon in steam also with the help of manlug mailing list might even have sorted the bind problem we shall see on Saturday.

Where is my mind?

Its 11:30, and I have to be back in work I should be in bed asleep already, but then I wouldn't be blogging and you wouldn't get to hear about my day so I am keeping it real.

Today was well pretty good mostly finally got the workflow to a decent level, they had to get Mike in so I guess I felt slightly sidelined as he seemed to manage to make the most difficult things seem simple but he is after all the lead programmer with years of experience on me, I think recently I have become a much better programmer and valuable asset. I guess in a sick way FF must feel like that too or else they would have kept someone else instead of me.
Personally I think given the nature of the beast and the loss of the one third of the development teams it amazing we have got to this stage and shows how hard myself, Mike, Natasha and Andrew have worked.

Turns out the new girl I had been chatting to on msn wasn't all she seemed, though I don't mind being a shoulder to cry on I don't like to be made meaningless after the event I spend far too much time like that, I guess on the personal front its another lonely valentines day. I went to the pub tonight with Phil and watched all the happy couples inside I felt a pretty big pang that I am alone yet everyone else is successful, I just hope my time comes someday.

Phil wants to start up a share club, he has been reading the fool and thinks we can be budding buffets, time to order my copy of the intelligent investor I think!

The wind and rain are drumming on my roof I really hope its not an omen about tomorrows program changes, I am going to put a few things live pre the weekend to hopefully cut down the amount of time spent on Sunday, time for bed I think.

this coming V day...

cookie's world is my last but safest place for blogging, thx cookie for authorising me as one of the contributors here :)))
i always believe that distance can be a kind of beauty as well as treasures, cuz sometimes i just can't tell any friends no matter how close they are. now i understand why we both rely on our conversation and cherish our friendship.
as i said in your blog of "Friday night", i'm in a relationship with no future, i don't want to dwell on this too much, but this coming V day forces me to make a decision, thats why i wrote my blog "deadline". parents have their point that he would never bring happiness to me, mom complains so many times "you can just be his friend, but never girlfriend".
lulu was so pressured...
thinking of his care & love, every friday he would come and wait for my time for offwork, sometimes even no dinner together, just to send me home. but i know i was moved and touched, passively, its not love.
anyways, happy Valentine day tomorrow cookie*

Fixed Pc

Felt very tired this morning didnt sleep to well thanks to the excessive alcohol and curry consumption last night. The comedy night was good though escpecially as so many people turned up. I finally got to have a decent chat with Charlotte Martins girlfriend she seems nice, though her and endos missus and endo started questioning my lack of companion. T a hanks for adding insult to injury guys :P
Finally finished Emily's pc and got it back to her today, she was pleased though she managed to hurt her hand yesterday in a weird food processor related accident, fortunatly its not too bad a fingers still attached :)
Think she was happy to be able to play the Sims again, I got the impression there was a bit of tension in the house for whatever reason so I didnt stay too long.
Went to the pub tonight with Nick and Jono was quite fun Nick was on good form, as was Jono I felt a bit tired after going to the gym, think I might have been a bit ambitious. However its been a few days since I last went so needed to have a decent session. Mens health have finally got a conversion to metric so I no longer have to go through and recalculate my workout which is a real bonus.

I heart Life?

This evening watched a film call I heart Huckabees A surreal film based around existensial dectectives examining the interactions between a seris of characters and the universe. I guess watching fimls that examine life so much was maybe overkill for me I guess I indentified a little too much with the central character Albert, a nerotic self obsessed nut (though he identifed through poetry and social action whereas I blog and simply feel agnst about real world issues;of course I am real whereas this was just a film, mind you if you are reading this blog then I guess a film is just as real as my online persona (you get where I am going right?).

So in order to balance this post I am going to start with a success, at the minute I am writing this post on Emily freshly built PC, its working really well and is surprisingly quiet I hope she likes it. Unfortunatly I am going to temper this good news with some darker stuff. My dad is currently working on his own projects and has been getting advice off his old friend Tony. Over the years I have on occasion helped Tony and his wife out with PC issues just like a number of people I know, I *had* alwyas thought they were happy with my work having recieved no complaint and sometimes praise. However my dad relayed to me that Tony was very unhappy with what I had done for Nick and that basically I ripped him off, only one thing last time I spoke to Nick was about 3 years ago when he carried his pc out of my place after I had rebuilt it and shown him how to use his keyboard. Now fogive me but he left happy handing over some dosh (£20 if I remember rightly took about 5 hours for a total rebuild and mess about getting his keyboard to work). I never had a call back to tell me anything was wrong and I ahe done work for Tony since and in fact been for a meal with him. So I was somewhat shicked and upset after all this time he decided to launch into an attack on my dad of all people. I am sure if Nick told me at the time there was an issue I would have sorted it but he didnt and I do not really see what having a go years after the fact can achieve.

Work was up and down today, succeeded kind of at getting the training system updated thought it proved difficult due to the amount of information going across. I still feel very pressured and not really prepared, also some of the other work I have done has a few issues which is a real pain. Martin failed to arrive so I wasn't able to have a discussion with him about the current situation which upset me quiet a bit given our conversation earlier this week. Not really sure where I stand now but I certainly don't feel very valued at the moment.

Murphy's Law

Today was a real pain I was mad busy finishing off all the little bit in order that some programs can be put on the training system and trained out in time for next weeks go live.

Somehow at problems only appear at the most inopportune moment just as in Murphy's law "whatever can go wrong will go wrong" somehow at 5 pm after a ong and hard but productive day of fixing bug the server decided to through a wobbler. Bizarre errors started to appear programs wouldn&pos;t compile with out of disk space errors. Last time this happened it was a permissioning issue and on running df showed 31% free space on device. It tooke hours to sort out and find the disk was incorrectly set up so displayed free space incorrectly :-S I didn't leave work until 19.15 what a pain.

Tomorrow is another day, hopefully the transfer to training will go smoothly then I can have a more relaxed weekend. Though I do now have a large pile of papers for NPF to dig through and try to decipher how in the heck their fees work.

Started building Emily's PC tonight and realised to me horror after horseshoeing the motherboard in that it was a very old ATX supply without an extra power connector so Ill need to get hold of a replacement. Should be a nice pc when its all done though.

Another Bad Day

As a wage slave I find everyday is basically a compromise between the conflicting desires of the need to earn money and the need not to be exploited. Recently the exploitation side has been rather overtaking the money side. Additionally my worth as an employee and faith in the company has been seriously devalued by a number of event and a lack of communication of these.
Firstly on Monday I went into work early to put some software live on the request of FF, only to find my account locked out. When questioned about this I am given a very abusive answer along the lines of it being a new policy well if that is a new policy then my new policy is not to bother coming in early!
Next I am told that although we are already overstretched FF have cut down the number of hours Tbred staff work so that instead of having two other tbred people working 3 days each Mike will be working one day. This means my workload has dramatically increased to a point where I now no longer feel I am able to cope and though I am still officially a trainee I now no longer have other people I can turn too. Though this might be a fun challenge if the workload was managed FF's current wheeze is too increase the work and cut the time estimates for completion, whilst Mike might be able to deal with that I am finding it increasingly difficult especially with an increasingly confrontational attitude from FF management especially the line manager he is acting like a real pigeon at the moment. I hope if I ever reach that level I will not treat my staff with such contempt and have the balls to stand up to the other management rather than always capitulating.

All the while with Tbred I feel totally out of the loop completely excluded from the ProvideX project barely kept informed about anything that's going on all the promises of training and development have proved to be empty. There has also been no talk of this years annual reviews yet thought it has been a year since the last one. To be honest I think I have reached the end of my goodwill and if changes don't happen soon then I will have to make some of my own.

Tonight I went round to pick up some pc bits E new parts have arrived so I needed the case and hard drive. Spent a pleasant evening having a chat it was a very welcome change after such a hard day, though I now have a pile of pc gear in the corner of my room.

The last few night I have been speaking to a new friend on MSN a student of Salford she has been pretty interesting company and has tolerated my whining about work and life which is incredible. Talking to people like her and Emily makes me miss university life the debate interesting conversations and ideas, but there was always the flip side the one up-manship arguments and arrogance of some of the people. Coupled with the deliberate obtrusification and wording in order to protect the image of intelligence and I think no maybe not for me after all.

Jazzy Kecks

Today was a pretty productive day finally sorted out my backup strategy rsyncing the websites automatically by cron job and creating a weekly tar of the config and log files. I also finally managed (I think) to get the backup mail server to relay mail not delivered to the main server. Result ;-)
This evening went to Matt and Phreds with Joe, Holly, Phil, Bruce, Nina, Nick, Becs and some of Joes friends. It was another great night for food and jazz, had a good chat with Phil was nice to find we haven't totally grown apart. Becky wondered why myself and Phil didn't try to pickup, I cant speak for Phil but I personally I have never really been able to talk or bravado my way into conversation despite my abilities or in spite of them I am really bad at meeting people and I guess people (read women) pick up on this and don't want to talk to me.

I have been talking to Lulu about going to meet her and see some of China my main worry being I won't be able to get away without knowing Mandarin or Cantonese. She thinks Ill be fine but you know me alway's stressing about things. I think I would love it thought I always seem to like going to the places that are not quiet as mainstream. I think it would be really great to meet her even though it does stress me out that she likes the idea of me rather than the person I am. Mind you somtimes I think far too much about things rather than doing them.

£48,000 Fuckup

I think at one point today I came closest to mental breakdown I have ever been. There was a period of pacing back and forth whilst on hold waiting to hear if I really owed nearly £50,000s.

OK I'll start at the beginning, earlier today I got a share tip from Jo, whilst I am not usually brave enough to act upon tips, had a quick look and decided it was worth a few quid for a punt, bit like a lottery ticket. In my lunch hour I fired up my share dealing site and placed an order for £500 as usual it presented me with an in principle contract to buy 415 shares at 1.16 what happened next though completely took me by surprise, it was showing 416 shares, but the cash balance was £-48,000 I and when I looked at the dealing form I had paid not 116 pence a share but 1160 ten time the market rate. Given my account limit is £5000 it shouldn't have been able to go through.

At this stage I was totally panicking losing 400 was bad but 50000 would be catastrophic I might as well forget the next 10 years saving for a house :-S, I basically run out of the office got sat in my car shaking partly because it was -1c partly from the fear I eventually got through to an operator explained the problem then waited on hold whilst she went off to find out what had happened. I think the next few minutes were the longest of my life sat listening to hold music pacing about the car park.

After about 10 minutes of listening to the company hold music looping every 30 seconds of so I was very stressed out, all sorts of thoughts were going through my head, I wondered whether I could declare myself bankrupt or fake my pc getting hacked or jump off a cliff. By the time she got back I was pretty worked up at first I thought she was going to pt the blame on me, but after a short explanation she told me they had made a mistake, I was very relieved so much so I didn't ask questions like, how did this happen, how could you let me trade so very far over my limit? How do I stop it happening again?

I got back into the office and I must of checked about once every thirty minutes to see if the share site updated, finally at 5.15 it did, what a relief.

Personally I am not sure where I would have stood had they tried to foist the blame onto me, I had no evidence of the site (in future I'll print each page off). I might have been able to wriggle out given the amount of money as so extremely high way beyond my limits. I think I'll brokers as well try might be a one of the worlds largest banks but they sure fucked up my trade. Oh well at least I don't owe £50000!

3 Films

Stayed in tonight and watched movies, its cold and I am poor so I decided to have a night in save cash, so went straight out and rented movies, oh well cheaper than the pub.
First film was a Korean anime called blue sky. It was fairly entertaining, in a post apocalyptic world (Anime and the end of the world seem to go hand in hand don't they) one city remains surrounded by a rag tag of oppressed people called the diggers, has the time come for a revolutions. Then rendering and mixture of traditional and modern graphics were in places breathtaking. As usual from anime though I wasn't sure which side was really correct the decadent citizens or the peasant diggers anime make me think even if all them films end up being so abstract they are bearly followable.
The second film was “Made in Britain” in which Tim Roth plays a young nationalist youth trapped into a steady decline highlighting some of the social problem in Britain had in the 70s. Its a rather grim look at the UK kind of in the same vein of Romper Stomper in the UK
The third film was one I watched on tv, Phil went home before the end of Made in Britain and when it finished I kind of flicked over and started watching TV, just caught the start of Best Laid Plans, it then got into the twisty plot in which Resse Wetherspoon was excellent, as the long suffering girlfriend prepared to do anything for her man, its also a film that demonstrates how white lies spiral out of control.

Friday night

Once upon a time Friday night used to mean party night each one spent at the footage or 5 Avenue or 42nd street. Recently Friday night means a break from work, too tired or cowardly to still make it out into town.
Nowadays I seem to be lucky to make it out to the unicorn for a few drinks before tiredness overtakes me. Lucking at the girls I will never have, feeling more and more alone and wondering why nothing ever happens for me.

Tonight I chatted about money and the FTSE because its something I know a little about I guess I am becoming more divorce from what "normal people" are interested in. I hate evening they always seem t hold a mirror up to me which reflects back all my faults, why do I always go to sleep alone is their no one out there that could love someone like me?

Nick invited me over before but I went to the unicorn instead I wonder which would have been more torturous. Being with Nick and Beck as a gooseberry, or sat at the Unicorn watching Claire. Academic anyway, I feel so dark tonight. What is the point of this sort of life? There is no future, no love only existence. I am I coward for continuing or is it the right thing to do?

What's a pound of flesh between friends?

I wanted to post last night but for some bizarre reason I couldn't get onto blogger.

Last night I went to see Regina Spektor at academy 3 in Manchester it was a truly amazing event Regina was completely captivating, vocally brilliant and talented piano and guitarist. She did a pretty great set mixing old of new from the sublime carbon monoxide to out There was a phenomenal crowd all in all on of the best gigs I have ever been to. If you're wondering the title of this article is a line from one of the songs. I really hope she is successful, and comes back to Manchester again soon.

I am so glad this week is over my head has been taxed to the limit by long days and complicated programs; I think I am finally getting to the bottom of things.

As I write this there is a program on channel 4 about pensions it's made me quite angry according to the program council tax rises are mostly to blame on central government putting the pension black hole onto local government causing council tax rises. Over 26% of council tax goes to pay civil service pensions!!

Right I am off out for a drink with Phil and Bruce laters all

LETTER ARRIVED~

finally got your letter! sooooooo happy this morning~
i love that goat and that lovely chinese character, really a good job, where did you get it by the way? n__n
thanks so much i like your letter, i'll keep it and lets see if we exchanged one letter every year how many of them i would get from cookie... hehe, maybe you can even improve your handwriting gradually ;-)

Longs days and Computer repairs

Today was an up and down day, good things included getting an email from an old colleague it was great to hear from Becky M. Also went round to the chief's house Emily Chiefs girlfriend is having Pc trouble, managed to save her data even though I think the pc is a total write off, either a motherboard of CPU failure. At least I managed to save her university work and get Andy's PC on the net so at least its all usable.

Work was a real pain today I went in early so I could leave and be in Manchester in time for the British Computer Society, Turing lecture. However thanks to a business reorganisation which wasn't even mentioned until 3.30 I had to make a series of quick system changes and left late, I also have to go in early tomorrow 8am in stead of the usual 9, at least the changes fairly straight forward hopefully won't be too difficult to

I have just installed the Mac version of Google and have been looking at Shanghai on Google Earth (whist listening to the latest c64 takeaway podcast) I wasn't able to find the address of Lulu's work, perhaps if your reading this Lulu you can post me a place location? I must say the Mac version is very slow. My Powerbook not very powerful but then again neither is my work laptop and that runs Google Earth without any problems.

The Most Depressing Time of Year

Apparently scientists believe this is the most depressing time of year, a number of factors including financial (Christmas overspend), psychological (new years resolutions broken) and environmental (bad weather) combine to make January a very dull month. I think this effect might have aught up with me I feel irrationally depressed at the moment, on the face of it I have had a pleasant evening with Mike and Ali. After going to the gym I popped over to install some software on Mikes PC, I was invited to dinner, and had a tasty meal. I got to see Frank the Dashound, who is pretty cute, but somehow I came away feeling upset. Somewhere at the back of my mind the darkness inside pushed it way to the fore drowning out my feelings dulling logic until all I felt is alone.

I left and came home alone to sleep alone, in my little corner or my parent's house cold tired unfulfilled and uncertain about the future. The darkness and paranoia worsen did he invite me because I am cheap, is my worth only measurable by the favours I can do for people. The more agonising why do I fee like this?

Now I sit alone and cold wondering what is wrong why can';t I find happiness am I strange or worse am I crazy I am not sure I even know who I am anymore. I have always worked towards a goal now stuck in a job with seemingly no future, as my friend are finding who they are and who they want to be with I am more alone than I have ever been. I think about the people I chat to online and realise only a couple I have ever met in persons. Some refuse, and yet I do not more on, with others seem like we are close but when it gets down to it we could not be further apart.

I must change I must find a new way living like this is tearing me apart each day I step further into the machine just another pawn another cog in the machine. I was never popular at school in fact other than Phil I no longer am in touch with anyone from school or college, neither do I see anyone from university, Salma talks to me sometimes but it always seem like she wants to get away back to her friends.

Crash Screens

Found these whilst going through some photos I found these amusing crash screens photos by myself and Bruce. Unfortunatly they were all taken with camera phones so please excuse the poor quality.

The first photo was taken at Manchester airport by Bruce looks like they use Mandrivia there.

 

Photo 2 is of a Nationwide cash machine. It looks like somethings gone wrong.

 

I took this one at a service station was amausing walking to be confronted by in on the big plasma.

More Linux, and Lost

I felt so tired waking up this morning; fortunately to cheer me up I received Lulu's new year card today, was such a welcome surprise hiding in amongst my junk mail. It was lovely to read and made me smile a lot. I wish I had been able to put the same level of sentiment into my letter t her I guess I am just not as good at expressing my feelings as she.

I decided to do something productive with my, so I read some of my latest buy does anything eat wasps a book published from the last word articles from the back of New Scientist. There are some really freaking / interesting questions and answers well worth an afternoon read. I also managed to clean the layer of dirt off my car its black again now!

After that I went to the gym for my first weights routine of 2006, a month off weights certainly makes a massive difference I was a lot weaker, hopefully I should be able to build back up fairly rapidly though.
I the evening Bruce and Phil came over we upgraded the memory in the terminal tournaments server and also built a new Linux kernel optimised for the server. Hopefully this will give a significant performance benefit. I also started downloading a fresh steam installation in an effort to fix the weird start-up issues we had at the last Lan. The next one should probably be the biggest yet with a load of returnees who couldn't make it to the Christmas bash and some of the new Christmas players coming back for more. I can't wait!

Whilst it was downloading we watched episodes 10 and 11 of lost series two, I know I have said it before but lost is getting more and more weird diverging from what I liked about it in the first place. It's still enjoyable to watch just not quiet as cool as series one. We also watched a bizarre Japanese film called Dead or Alive it was violent weird and visual Phil's going to have a great time when he visits there in March.

Martins PVR

Its been a long, long week at work. I have been trying to decipher a lenders calculations. It has kept me very busy both at work and some nights at home. My January of cutting down drinking meaning I have been going out much less.

Today was successful in a couple of ways, firstly with Keith's help finally managed to get my APR to match the banks so hopefully that can be tested next week. in parallel we have attempted to tick off a couple of annoying bugs for the workflow project..

Then in the evening went round to Martins house to have a look at building a PVR. Some time last year we stared installing SuSE on and old AMD 800 with a Hauppauge PVR 350, at first tried SuSE 9 which for various reasons never really worked since then about 5 months ago its sat in the corner of Martins lounge. He has been rumbling about installing media centre so I decided fuck it I will get Linux working especially after recent successes with SuSE 10 on my laptop and Debian on the various servers.

So one SuSE installation later and hours spent pissing about with various guides found ivtvs own install guides the most useful. Unfortunately SuSE 10 comes with old ivtv drivers which didn’t work with the extracted firmware, and worse SuSE 10 comes with GCC 4 which wont compile ivtv new drivers, so after several hours I gave up on SuSE as a bust. Fortunately Januarys edition of Linux format had a Mythtv special and they recommended knoppmyth a version of Knoppix especially configured to run myth tv. One download later and it was installing, the install is a little rough round the edges simply wiping out whatever is on the driver (which was ok in our case). The system installs runs through a series of configurations dialogues which guide setting up Mythtv. The setup is mostly command line based, but fairly straightforward. A couple of bugs later and I was in the myth setup I chose the card and the TV guide feed restarted the interface and hey presto working myth. Event the remote that came with the card worked yay!

There was an issue with the XML download for the TV guide not working but given it was 1.30am and I was tired I decided to call it a night. At least the PVR works recording pausing live TV and all that.

Whilst that was going on Martin Jim (Phil's Brother) and Endo were building and testing Endo's speakers with Clio what a weird program it does various tests on speakers all very cool.

funny dressing link ;-)

have to post a new blog as i couldn't do the comment for no reason :"(
just read your "Coding Hell" and clicked into that dressing room link, it was pretty funny. that dance was okay but now it has become a tool for creating the image of my prince charming, like his hair, eyes, nose, lip and what he dresses~~~ so interesting! :DDD

Coding Hell

Sometimes the world can be a very weird place, In my function as a code monkey I have dome some pretty boring stuff. This week I have mostly been busy writing a system which calculates apr and repayments changes them in fact so they are much less accurate! Believe it or not one of the lenders systems it actually less accurate than ours and they refuse to believe our figures so I have been copiing their web calculator which as far as I can see has three major areas in which mathmatically it is far less preceise than advances. Apart from the fact its very difficult to follow the mess of java script and bizzaro way in which they round figures or choose not to round others; division by 12 on a number which is not divisable by three leaving trailing 3 or 6 into infinty is not smart.
Anyway I am fed up this has taken so long and my figures still don't match they rubbish its driving me to distraction. Add into that the volume of work sat for me to do and its not a very happy John writing this.

Rant over, Liz sent me a funny link to dressing room website which made me smile, thanks.

Other amusment includes my boss and his son also on staff entering the London marathon, I hope theyy make it must be some serious training going on they neither struck me as the marathon type, but I wish them luck wish I was fit or motivated enough. Even the Manchester 10k seemed scary to me.

Becky's Birthday

To celebrate Becky's 24th birthday (pictures here) we went to the Merlin bar / restaurant in Alderley Edge. It was a great evening, eating too much, drinking too much chatting and generally having fun. The food was excellent; I had a Salmon Wasabi dish, and a Chicken and Spice ham pasta dish with were excellent and I feel well stuffed now. It's a good job I managed to get to the gym for a run today. Hopefully the intake / output evens out somewhere…

Becky Nick's girlfriend has been talking about how she loves the Caribbean for a while. So I bought her a Lonely Planet Caribbean guide and highlighted the Antigua section, she was amused and liked it I think. Nick on the other hand thinks it's going to cause him to spend money. Personally I don't think Nick needs anymore reason to hoard money, he needs to learn to enjoy life a little more.

Website Madness

Spent the evening working on Ian website, Zanshin (in case you are wondering it Japanese for "fighting spirit", the business is mobile bartending and flair hence the spirit ;-) I think it looks a lot better now some subtle changes and a load more images. So its not all text now, please give me your thoughts.

Work dragged today got a problem hidden away in the depths of the system, the lenders have started to introduce deferred products in which you get a holiday period before repayments begin, unfortunatly as usual each lender does it in a slightly different way causeing me headaches.

Posted my return letter to the sudent loans company and a begging letter to Business Link to see if they will confirm my payments, I really think it should be the SLCs responsibility but hey who am I to comment just another government shambles.

Men are from Mars

Ah blogging, I dont think I have ever done anything as contnsious as starting off this blog. So far I have managed to upset two exs, a friend, and even some random weirdo off the net who took exception to something I said.

Tonight I spent a good hour talking to one of the exs (via msn) it was a very long drawn out and painful conversation, of which there was no real point. Whilst we might have esablished she was out of order, that niether of us communicated and that I cannot read directions, it just added to the misery. I didnt want to go over those feeling again, I felt angry and upset enough at the time without having to remind myself about it all, at this later date.

I guess maybe I am just not meant to be in a relationship, when look at Nick and Becky or Bruce and Nina I can see all the great things about relationships but could I really compromise so much? I have done the dutiful boyfriend stuff and had it thrown in my face far too often, I am not enough of a bastard to treat someone else like crap (though from what I have seen a lot of girls confuse this for love go figure!) . I suppose time and space and maybe losing a few pounds will help me feel better, I also really would like to get my own place so I dont have the embarressment of telling people I live with my parents, its not really cool at 26, but thats a whole other blog in itself.

Back to the Gym

Finally managed to get back to the gym=, only did a cardio session but its a start. I can't believe how busy it was, I know I say so each year but really this January is the busiest I have ever seen the place I almost had to queue for a running machine!

Work has been going quiet well touch wood, look like I am finally getting into the flow properly it only taken 18 months. Only problem is the imminent switch to ProvideX might put me right back to the beginning again. Today I got my Basic to XSL stylesheet program working it should plugin to Mikes webservice and make quiet a competant little system for exchanging data.

Bruce and I did some work on a database design for a new Sirco system, I think I proved once again I am actually quiet good at designing databases ;-)

More John Cooke Madness

In this mornings email contact from another John Cooke

Hi John

Isn't it amazing how many John Cooke's there are in the world! Maybe we should start a club and hold a convention in Australia one year? It wouldn't matter how many beers were consumed, no one would forget anyone else's name, or variations on it - Cookie, JC, Cookster, Cookemeister etc. Keep up the good work Cookie!

Cheers
John

Sounds like a plan to me any excuse to go to Australia and get drunk

Student Loan Woes

In response to my letter asking where the money taken out of my wages is actually going, the Student Loans Company simply wrote back and asked me to confirm the information by sending my payslips. Strangely enough I thought they would offer to do their job and sort out the mess with the inland revenue, No such luck! Now I am forced to write back to the SLC with copies of the payslips I have, and the inland revenue as they hold some of my payslips due to a prior cock up (on their part). As a precaution I have also written to business link to see if they will detail my payments whilst in their employment. Oh well hopefully work wont mind me photo coping a years worth of payslips.

Post 100

Todays post is a milestone, I am amazed at myself sticking at this for so long now, 100 posts its incredible normally I lose interest and stop after a couple of goes. Spurred on by Lulu, and a few other people I have tried hard to put some real emotion enrgy and I hope some decent writing onto the my website.

Phils Despair calendar lasted only one day by Wednesday morning it had been quietly taken down and returned to my desk. Nevermind everyone was amused by it and we all had a look at the funny items on it before I took it home and put it up in my bedroom. Andrew has the daily dilbert calendar which is equally as good and allowable in our office.

I finally got an interesting piece of software to work on abiet briefly Mike D has designed a web service to allow xml results to be pst and results returned from advances to the outside world this is vastly superior to the current clunky interface. I got to write a basic stylesheet outputter which was actually kind of interesting a lot more so than fixing bugs in the archaic notes system.

Its satuday and one week on I still feel rough as hell worse both my dad and Bruce have succumbed to the mystery illness its a real pain. I am really missing being able to exercise and I could very much do with getting into it soon, Christmas was a bad time for my diet and I have put on a few kilos. I did manage to eat pretty heathly this week though so that is a bonus. I have replaced chocolate and chrips with fruit and nuts so that should help a little also I have cut down meal portions and snacks its actually easier at work not to snack on things than whilst I am at home.

Today I got totally ripped off by my local pet store I had to replace some of the filters on my fish tank, it wa quiet urgent I do not want to let the tank get behind the cleaning schedual its very bad for the fish and plants in their so I paid twice the normal price from the internet shops to by the carbon filters :-S

Phil came over last night, we were both feeling under the weather still so we rented a few films including land of the dead (pretty good) Napolean Dynamite (offbeat American humor) and the excellent Hotel Rwanda. After seeing Don Cheadle in both Hotel Rwanda and Crash I must say he is a really excellent actor. As I write this though Phil is off skiing with his dad in Austria lucky sod.

Hope you enjoyed post 100!

Back to work

Today wasnt too bad I mostly worked on some documentation rather than coding got a project to docuemtn how a group of programs works. Its actually quiet a large program and might take some time.
I am still feeling under the weather my throats still really sore no fun at all I hope that it will start to clear up in the near future. Chatted to a my German bloke this evening he icq me I have no idea why, to be honest he was by far the rudest german I have ever met whilst I was travelling I met some really great people from Germany, I really hope the level of racism he had isnt indicative of other it was really rather nasty. I guess you do meet a lot of weirdos online me for example ;-) I also managed to catch Sweeny Todd, pretty nasty slitting peoles throats a good dramitisation by the BBC though.
Right I am off to bed I try and get rid of this cold.

Student Loan :-S

Today I decided I would finally do something about my student loan problems. I gathered together all the information I had and contact the student loan company (SLC) with my figures.

The last statement I had from the SLC was in 2004 Nearly two years ago before I started making repayments. Since then I have started working and have had payments deducted from my wages. Both whilst I was work for Business Link and later at Tbred. I decided to try and work out what I had paid off
In the last few days I have phoned the SLC several times to ask how much they thought I currently owed. One time I tried to phone the operator hung up on me after I had been waiting for absolutely ages. Again I had to wait eventually getting put through to someone who said she couldn’t quote over the phone but would send out a valuation.

The valuation arrived in the post a few days later it showed no record of any payment so I phoned up to query this and was told the Inland Revenue has not passed any details of payments on. Personally I think this is appalling I dread to think what sort of punishment the FSA would hand out to one of our lenders if they told a customer that they were waiting for a third party before they could record details of payments.

I decided to work it all out for myself and send them a littler with all the details in. I had to work with slightly incomplete records as the tax office never returned some of the pay slips I sent when they were calculating my tax rebate. Tto make matters more confusing business link I made several payments based on the old threshold of earning over £10,000 not the current £15,000 threshold.

Regardless when I totted up what I have paid it equates to about 10% of my total student loan. I would say is a significant chunk, given II am being charge about £30 a month interest and this is compounding upwards I am losing out heavily for there mistakes in effect currently I have paid extra tax which has had no benefit whatsoever on my financial position.

I have forwarded a letter with photocopies of my remaining payslips and P60's in the hope it will help them sort out the problems. If not I will try writing to my MP as a Liberal he should be against tuition fees and this is a nice case against them I think. I mean what the heck sort of system takes money out of people's wages specifically to pay for their loans and the money never arrives.

Crash

Today was the last day of my Christmas holidays tomorrow I return to work, I feel quite a lot better today thankfully, though I could use another week off. I have defiantly put n weight the end of my holiday mean the start of my diet, I doubt I will be well enough to hit the gym tomorrow and its probably best given the gym will most likely be packed out with people who want to lose weight for New Year, it usually calms down by March.


Today I spent my time watching the first series of The Shield which is pretty damn good I mean its just the same old cops show but with very strong casting and characterisation and a couple of twists take it further down the trail blazed by NYPD blue, Homicide life on the streets and Hill Street Blues but with a post modern look at the characters take VIC he is a bad cop who at the same time has a sense of justice so strong that when the strike team set up the wrong guy Vic goes to any length to sort the mess out.

Tonight rented crash from the video store, it was third time lucky the last two times I have been to get a movie crash has been fully rented out tonight in fact I got the last copy. I can see why it is so popular its in the magnolia style of blending stories from different characters together, it main focus is the complex nature of people racial beliefs, with a subtext of how our actions cascade and affect other peoples lives. I wont try and break it down any more than this phenomenal quote from Matt Dillon "You think you know who you are. You have no idea." Its an excellent watch though one which requires a little attention defiantly needs focus, but worthwhile.

Ill on New Year :-(

I get ill quiet a lot I clearly my immune system is not my greatest asset that being said I wasn't really surprised to fall ill on new years eve. In fact I have been surprised I wasn't Ill earlier the number of people I have been around with colds and the flu recently.

My original plan had been to go to London with Paul. That fell through then the plan was to go down to Leamington Spa and spend New Years with Paul, unfortunately I felt too ill to drive and checked on the price of a train ticket which turned out to be £68 far too much to shell out for one ill night at Paul's given I can drive to Leamington and back on less than £40 of diesel.

Instead I spent New Years Eve 2005 at home after having a rather pleasant curry with my parents, watching TV and for the actual midnight moment I watched the fireworks. I have to admid any fireworks show after the millennium is always going to be a let let down, but it was an impressive sight. The whole sky lit up by thousands of fireworks pops and bangs continuously exploding all over the sky. Even the sentimental I sat outside for about 15 minutes watching it all, I guess its as close to a war zone sound effects track as I ever wish to get.

I did manage to get quiet drunk on Martin Christmas present of grolsh beer, and managed to text virtually everyone in my phone, an annoyingly small number of people replied. It was nice to hear from Bex even though it was only to tell me how happy and in love she was. Pleased as I am for her, its sometimes hard to hear other people are so happy when you are feeling sad. Given she was by far and away the nicest girl I met on internet dating I would prefer to be the one making her happy oh well she was out of my league anyway.

Werid Day

Two very weird unrelated things happened today, one which I cannot talk about publically yet but I will do in due course. The other Nikkie contacting me. Basically she had somehow come across my blog and like Liz before her taken exception to the post I wrote about her. I do care that she was upset, but it dosnt change the fact that how I felt at the time, I wa ery upset at the way she treated me mostly because yes I did like her perhaps we got our wires crossed somewhat but she is not an easy person to talk to. Anyway it was all a bit weird being as the post was months old and the feeling have more or less dissapated since then, in fact I had pretty much put her out of my mind until she messaged me about her computer the other day. I guess Nikkie and Liz are two opposites with Liz I felt like I could talk about anything but I never felt like a equal with Nikkie I felt attraction but in both cases any relationship failed.

I origonally wrote a synopsys of our relationship here but you dont want to read it and in writing it I realised I didnt want to dredge through the past.

Played some counter strike this evening, and spoke to Phil and Bruce about the lan they both feel that it was a success so perhaps I was being over sensative to people comments. However I am still not sure about the future Bruce is still thinking of ong the wireless, I think now if we do it we should do a damn decent job of it rather than bodged together ariels its got to look and function 100% or it will detract from the event.

Its new years eve tomorrow and because the London thing with Paul has collapsed I am now at a loose end I have no idea what to do. I could go join Ali Brooks party but that might just be tempting fate. Ive declined an invite from to Nick to go to Nicky and Neils party I do not really feel I get on with them well enough to spend new years at their house especially the mood I have been in recently.

Lantasic

Today was terminal tournaments VI was held today, personally I felt like it went badly, dispite the extra effort getting the server working it still wasnt right. I feel I have failed and came in for a lot of flack, I don't really feel like it was worth the effort I put in, perhaps I am just tired and pissed off, I dont know. Martin thinks it went well.
Got some random and franly unwelcome texts from Liz which really served to blacken my mood, its seems that dispite her intention I feel like she brings out the worst deamons in me. I have been very up an down recently trying to work out where my life is going I feel kind of like I am wasting my time going nowhere but at the same time I haven't really got a clue about what else I should be doing. I just want to have something more creative in my life, I see people like Paul and I want to be able to touch the hearts and minds of other people to be part of something more.
Its not that I hate what I do enotirly its somewhat stimulating, but I am working for something I don't really believe in after my own expeiences in dealing with money or lact of it. Talking of which today I was amazed that everyone around me can afford so many gadgets and gizmos, is it that I am poorer that I dont have a £700 tft monitor or play station portable. Am I right to be saing my money away earning a few pound interest or hoping for stock market growth, should I be more like them making myself happy with the material, or should I be more like Nick finding my own wyas to profit. Should I even care so much about money.
So many things so much on my mind I also feel very alone, I take comfort in my friends both in the real world and the internet, they are leaving my though finding there own paths whilst I stay static. Typical me I end up feeling morose, I can never seem just to be happy.

Games games and more games

I didnt quiet make it the the gym today again as planned, last night I stayed up late watching taxi driver, subsequently slept in and missed the opportunity. I spent the rest of the day (and I do mean it been working on the servers since about midday up until about 10 minutes ago) getting the server ready for tomorrows lan party. Hopefully I will make it to the gym on Friday, definatly need a run feeling out of shape and fat today.
I now have a server with a fully configured Counter Strike including an addon of counter bet, new maps for the unreal 2004 server and half life two devicated multiplayer. As a final aside Quake four is running int tourney mode.
Hurrah finally we have al the games running int he correct way its taken five lans to get it right but today myself Phililp and Bruce iron out loads of little niggles and problems with the setup. There are still a few more cool tweaks to do but its more improvment rather than covering fuck ups.
Tommorrow is a bit of a make or break event if we cant run a decent day and get more people to turn up I think really it might be time to call time on the adventure it really does take an awful lot of organising and when people like Russell dont even bother to turn up anymore after being one of the main proponents of a lan its quiet disheartening.
I did manage to speak to Paul today he is back in Leamington with a cold London for New Years is off which is a bit of a pain but never mind. I offred to go to Leamington instead, I cannot seem much happening here Nick and Becs are going to Nicky and Neils. Bruce and Nina are having a get together, Ian, Faye and Wooler are working so I am at a bit of a loose end.

Boxing Day at Bruces

For everyone not in the UK boxing day might be a slightly strange concept (I think its celebrated in Commonwealth nations and a few other places). Anyway Boxing day the day after Christmas Day has some sort of significance thats slightly lost in the mysts of time, I have searched about but cannot find a definaive answer of what it all means something I think to do with the well healed giving presents to their workers.

Regardless a bit of our own Christmas tradition ha been for Phil and I to join Bruce and his family for a Boxing day meal, today was no exception having an evening meal which consisted well of lot of food, I have unfortunatly got eyes rather bigger than my stomach and I now feel like I might explode with rather unplesent consequences.

As another Christmas tradition we played monopoly, this year using Phils X-Men themed game, unfortunatly luck was not with me tonight and I lost heavily bankrupt. I hope thats not a sign for real life.

Paul did not turn up to collect his present if I am honet I didn"t expect him to when the choice was us or a gathering with Jo. When he mentione Ians name I knew there was little prospect, oh well.

There is a lan party in a few days I need to get prepared for that, I also need to do some exercise I have been very lazy the last few days. My arm is still a little sore though does finally if very slowly starting to get better. Hopefully in the new year I can get back to some weights.

Canada Link

While uploading the Christmas Photos I noticed a couple of new signups on the web

Name John Cooke
Bio Descendant of Irish and British grandparents, 2nd generation Canadian. Married with kids.
I just came across your site and thought to drop a line. I hope your summer is going to be as good as our's was...getting cold now...5 degrees.

How cool is that!

Yoda Doll

Lulu asked me what the heck a Yoda doll is so here we are ;-)
 

Sleigh bells ring are you listening?

Ouch my head hurts, I had far far too many drinks last night, its was a pretty up and down evening and no I don't mean my mood for once it was other people upset.

It's foggy and cold this morning I got up and opened my presents. I got a nice treat of Irish whiskey from Nina, a really cool John Peel book from Nick, an amazing tea selection from Bruce and a Yoda doll from Ian. Started reading it is like listening to home truths, he had a real way with words.

Started the evening by visiting Mike and Ali, they were in fine form having had a do for their other friends with kids, they had also somehow managed to nearly burn own their house by lighting a fire. Never mind was good to see them and Isabel briefly put in an appearance she wanted some food.

Wilmslow was very busy we had to queue up to get in the rectory, I was even asked to show my id! Once in though I had a few drinks to warm myself up. Jo and friends had arrived earlier so we joined them by the stairs, Holly seemed very unhappy I tried to chat to her but I am afraid I probably made the situation worse oops I really must learn when to keep my big mouth shut.

As usual I had my camera with me and you can see all the pictures here

Bruce and Phil arrived after us and had to queue up for some time, but they finally made it in Bruce was on top form snappy away with his camera.

Alison Brook was out, and in an exuberant mood she managed to chat up a guy how trains at the gym regularly. I've somehow promised to do a kind of gym date with her, should be interesting.

Nick was also in a down mood, he has been doing a lot of long hours at work but he really didn't to bring out all that stress with him. Jesus the boy is doing so well for himself I wish I had half of his achievements, and Becky is such a lovely girl he really should try and be nice on night like this.

Went back to the Brook house afterward, and managed to get even more drunk hardly knew what I was saying nor doing by the end of the evening. I walked home in the cold damp and fog alcohol charged. First christmas of not smoking so that all good. Noticed Mike was back on the fags bad boy! Guess it harder to give up when you have done it for longer.

Christmas is coming

Went out last night, Martin and Squeeze Charlotte joined us, I found out she does in fact speak, and is very interesting. Most strange (for someone going out with Martin) was that she is a veggie! Nut cutlet for Christmas lunch anyone ;-)

Not really done much other than play civ and doss about, though its really nice to rest.

Going out tonight for the big night out, should be plenty of us going though not as many as origonally planned, Danny has decided to stay in Romely and go to the Piggy. Paul and Lisa will probably end up joining them as they have money / sleeping arrangement issues. Mike and Ali have Isobelle to look after so Nick, Becky and myself will be going round early to say hello should be nice hardly see them anymore. I guess its ture what they say kids turn perfectly normal people into parents ;-)

Backup

You know how people never take their own advice, for example when I was a systems administrator for Business Link I had a real go at someone for not backing up his important data (he did end up costing the company £500+ for data recovery). However I have a dark secret, I haven't backed up my data since my I went to Australia, before I left I move my dvd writer to my dads pc and its stayed there ever since. I have kept meaning to move it back but in the end I just gave up and bought myself a new one. Also got myself a copy of the excellent Nero 7 and burned a huge six dvd backup set of my computer. I even spurred my dad into action, hurrah I at least it my hard disk crashes now I won't cry at the loss of all my photos.

I felt so tired today I should have gone to the gym but I wimped out I am really getting lazy, I think I need a project to get suck into. I started reading Bruce Eckels Thinking in C++ which so far seems a pretty excellent guide on how to mangage programming projects I havent got onto any coding yet though.

I wondered whether I should do a rewrite of wildflower take back the project and put it for sale on a shareware site, however I am not sure how the old man would feel about that given he tool over it when I went to Australia. Oh it seems so long ago I talk and think about it as if it were yesterday but its constantly fading into memory.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Why? Well this is probably my most played Beatles track, I know its not a Lennon McCartney, but then that’s part of the fun its different and it makes me happy, I always Imagine some redneck American when I hear the lyrics, when I hold you in my arms and I fell my finger on your trigger it speaks to me about the differences between the UK and the US, silly but reassuring.

I have tried to be more positive the past few days been really dark recently far too much pain for me to take its been hard trying o focus on things that make me happy, exercise I guess self improvement, going for a run always seem to help thought I find it hard to take the first step.

Today I helped Nina move out of her flat, wasn’t too hard really just helped Bruce move a couple of heavy things downstairs to the car then into Nina’s lockup. Personally I don't really understand the whole storage Ideal in my world you need something or your don't and if you don’t then you bin or sell it no pay 16 / week to store it. However I guess sentimental and practical takes over on some level so it’s stored for when it’s needed.

Fridays, was very naughty this evening and had a meal at Fridays, I didn’t do a Bruce he ordered the biggest burger on the menu but I did eat enough, looks like I will never lose weight unless I really learn some new displace.

Tonight I went to see Sandbox at the Academy 3 and they were excellent the best I have seen them for ages, confident and exuberant, their rendition of slades merry Xmas was an excellent finish to a year that has seen them grow and change. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors including the number of people their and the amount I drank I didn't really feel at home after show. I guess I will always be more of a flanboy than a mate o the musical set, I mean really what could I possibly bring to the show. Andy did manage to hit me in the face with his drumstick though that was slightly painful!

Dan, Phil and Bruce wanted to get off, I kind of would have like to stay around there seemed to be a few pretty chicks including one really nice blond girl I would have loved to have met but I guess it wasn’t to be, it never is.
Bruce was drunk I think one of the few times I have seen him drink and enjoy himself; he was really having a go at Danny which was quite funny. Danny was in a funny mood continuing his messy split from Lyn and beyond I find it very hard to connect with him anymore I have always put substance before style and he is very much the inverse, this seems to have been accelerating in recent times. I guess this is what happens friends growing apart lives changing tack.

My name is modesty

The title of today's weblog is a film this one sponsored by Quentin Tarentino. I went to blockbuster and yet again all the copies of crash were rented out so rented this instead. Not a bad film quit clever but clearly low budget Not sure how Tarentino got his name on there I guess he is sponsoring it somehow. It was a pretty decent budget film if a little short of on action.

Not really done much today went to Andy&s to pick up tickets, always a treat seeing those guys they are a lot different to most of my other friends and Emily reminds me a lot of being at university surrounded by clever people always only minutes away from an interesting conversation with someone with a view of things.

I am avoiding talking about my depression, god I have felt down the last couple of days, been really moaning to a couple of people thanks for your support you know who you are. I don’t know what it is but I really feel low, like everything i crashing down on me. Maybe not crashing down, more that I hold an idea of a good man, and he is but a shadow someone I will never be. So far today I have moaned onto Liz, Salma, Mel, Phil and Lulu. In fact I am talking to Lulu as I write this.

Why am I so sad, there lot of good in my life? Yet through it all I feel I am doing too little, too much playing games too little trying to improve. I should spend my time more productively instead I play games and mess about. Yet thought I struggle to change little happens what happened to the man so full of promise, once I felt I could do anything now I cant even solve simple problems at work without help.

Today I talked to lulu about the Korean war, after she was telling me about the North Korean TV she likes. I explained how it how it changed the world leading the the Truman doctrine of opposition to Communism everywhere in the world. Also General MacArthur's Idea that nuclear weapons should be used against China I also found on Wikipedia that more napalm was dropped on North Korea despite the fact the war was shorter. Atrocities on both sides the Americans blindly killing anyone who moved and the Chinese torturing people. I am glad (Iraq war aside) I don't live in an age of war I am not sure how I could face such a situation.

RIP Mel Horton

Living so close to work and with my dad working from home I often nip home at lunch, today as I arrived home there was an ambulance outside my house, I parked up and found my dad sat in Stuarts car he told me my neighbour Mel had died. To be honest driving up I half thought it was my dad that had been taken ill so I was in a selfiish way relieved it was her not him.

The Horton family has lived in woodford for a long long time, they have been my dads neighbours virtually his whole life, but over the last few years the Mels dad Fred his Wife and Sister have all died. Its been sad losing familiar people, good neighbours I think Stuart Mels brother was very upset. She wasnt old 52 I think but she had drunk and smoked away a lot of her life so I suppose it wasnt totally unexpected.

Its going to mean new neighbours next door, its the last remaining council owned house on the road so the end of an era in more ways than one.

This evening I wanted to forget all about it so I went to the unicorn with Phil and guess what my "favorite" serving girl was on, yes you guessed it Clair. I feel like I cant let her know so hurt me but at the same time I guess I still find her attractive but she makes me so angry. As I was talking to her at the bar I reliased it been over a 18 months since that night you would have thought I would be over it by now? Everytime I see her though that same confusing mix of emotions.

Rather than deal with ti I got drunk with Phil and walked back to my house, played Civ for a bit then went to be alone.

Weird evening

After yet another difficult day of digging through code with little success, I was feeling pretty tired, buit I still managed a run after work.

My mums christmas present (a fancy Siemens coffee maker) arrived and was opened and set by the time I made it home, she seemed pretty pleased I guess, and it does at leat make great coffee apart form just looking good.

I went for a drink with Nick at the thieves, he was driving having the task of pickup up Becky from a works do. We were having a pint chatting about property trends I think I was deliverying some profound piece information I read in one of the papers, when suddenly a guy was ejected from the pub by one of the regulars. I think its the most excitment I have ever seen in the thieves. Looked like he was drunk acting like an idiot, seemed like the last straw he spilled beer on a guy coat and swore at him that was it Rubin Fielding grabbed the guy by the scruff of the neck an lobbed him out the door. For good measure another of the regulars gave him a clout round the head, good fun the farmers.

Afterward went back to the brook house, Ian and Faye were there Ian was complaining he had food posioning but personally I think he just ate too much. Having had food poisoning twice, it was pretty much the worse pain I have ever experienced i dont really think thats what Ians problem was.

The Comfort of Sadness

The title of today's blog is in honour of Paul, after watching his gig tonight at Jabez Clegg in Manchester I was thoroughly impressed. Sometimes whilst listening to music at a gig I feel the connection like the lyrics and passion of the artists become more than the sum of their parts. I guess maybe I am just a sentimentalist I sometimes feel the music is for me and me alone, though rationally I know it's not just for a few moments... This was one of those nights, I was only sad there weren't more people there to appreciate it, and that I don't really have the words to describe it in detail. I really need to start carrying round something to write on there have been a few times recently when I have been in the moment thinking of some great things to write the description in my head excellent but later when I sit down to type the words fade away, that feeling of being in the moment no longer there to draw inspiration from.

Watching the gig though I couldn't help getting a nagging feeling in the back of my head that I really need to find a creative vent, I mean I fool myself that programming is an art even sometimes call myself a digital poet but really I spend the majority of my time doing very thankless support tweaks nothing laudable, I just wish I could find something that would make me as passionate as Paul is about music, something in which I am a creator not a follower. Writing this blog has reminded me that I actually do like writing and reading though I don always find the time to do it.

It was a great night all round really Woller was out, and Danny been I while since I last saw him, Chirs too. Sandbox came but had to leave before watching Paul, whilst I realise they have to practise for their gig next week I thought it was slightly off of them I know Paul has been to see many of their gigs and they should know better than anyone how nice it is to have core support.

Today I felt so tired I had insomnia last night barley got any sleep, it seems to be happening more frequently recently, only a couple more days of work left I can't wait the last few days have seen me wading through other people spaghetti code trying to make small changes as part of the workflow project. Its quiet difficult and tedious work, and as M is away we really miss his knowledge of the system. Had a great launch with Bruce though he had the day off and met me in Wilmslow, it was really nice to get out of the office for a change.

It's been days since I last spoke to Lulu, we had an argument the other day on MSN, she was complaining as always that I don't use messenger (I use gaim and Adium because they rationalise all my chat clients and they are open source). I was tired and work was getting my down a bit and being told by her what I should do as if I know nothing about computers. I just lost it for a few minutes. Since then we haven't spoken to be honest I am not sure there is much to say, it seems like she has been growing up recently and starting to wise up perhaps its time for us both to move on.

I just can't get no sleep

I can't sleep have insomnia bad, I am also really reticent about bloggin today, Liz fell out with me after reading the last post. I didnt mean to upset her quiet the opposite I was trashing myself not her, however she read more into it then was there and got upset with me.

We did manage to sort things out eventually I calmed her down, its weird on one level she is very rational and stable but on another she is easily upset and emotional. I guess I am much the same myself calm and collected one minute losing my mind the next, though i suppose I am very open about what I realy think.

Anyway have now removed the link to liz blog and removed the ambiguity form my previous post so hopefully we can get back to being friends / yahoo chat buddies or whatever we are.

Another strnage one out of the blue Nikkie started messaging me, I said hello didn't want to be rude but at the same time I can't work out what she wants she had no respect for me and I made it clear that wasn't good enough, so I wonder what her motives were just to check up on me? I guess only time will tell.

I should go to bed but sleep won't come I am getting frustrated and it makes the situation much worse, so many thoughts in my head perhaps the argument with liz and lulu have had more of an affect than I admit. Perhaps work is stressing me or maybe igivng blood has fucked up my body certainly my arm still hurts.

I am going to grab another whiskey see if it helps

night night

Civ IV

Civ IV has basically been a total addiction for me since Phil and Bruce got me a copy for my birthday. Having finally beaten the game after paying something like a 60 hours (check out the xfire mini profile in the last couple of weeks. Tonight I finally managed to achieve the ultimate cultural victory hurrah. Hopefully now I can get my life back rather than playing "just one more turn"!

I did manage to get a gym session in today my arm was too sore for weights so I bashed out 45 minutes on the cross trainer, its actually quiet good give me a chance to listen to music uninterupted.

Caught up with Phil on-line after judo he still hasn't asked that girl out I am getting quiet worried about it, starting to turn into the Nicky situation all over again. He say he loves training but since he has been doing he far from becoming more tolerant he seem more aggressive especially after a few drinks practising move in bars I have a feeling it going to end in tears either he will get hurt or he'll end up hurting someone. I just hope that my fears prove unfounded but I liken excessive martial arts training to be as narcissistic as excessive gym training its just too introspective for my liking. I think Tyler summed it up best in fight club "Self improvement is masturbation, self destruction that something else"

Positive Outlook?

Like most bloggers/diarests deep down I like the idea that people are paying attention to what I have written although it can at time prove unofortunate, witness the Liz / Nikkie Saga. I guess though I have always prefered the truth from fiction so on the most part its great. Over the last few days two people have told me they read my blog, small numbers I know but hey better than none.

My arm hurts today I asked Liz about it last night (she is a Doctor after all) but all she would say is my arms probably going to drop off, thanks! I guess I haven't real engraciated myself with her given I basically have ignored her requests for me to come over. Its just I know my weakness's and I think she desrvers better than being with me.

I opened Pauls myspace today it seems his love affair with it continues unabated, I am tempted to redo his site with the same CSS see if he notices. Hopefully later this week I will get to see his gig in Manchester. Talking of gigs sandbox's xmas gig is coming up Andy will no doubt be selling tickets soon. I am constantly impressed by there advnaced busiess sense and I am sure if the band dosnt work out they would have a bright future in promotion or marketing.

Work was interesting today managed to hack Tonys program enough to shoehorn another quesiton in, thouhg nobody from freedom can actually be bothered to test it so like a 100 other changes it will probably sit on the test server forever. In the absense of anything else I spent the afternoon trying to get my laptop to have the correct resolution (stupid Linux decided it dosnt like 1280X800).

Dark Water

This evening Phil rented a film, must have been doing this a lot recently as we couldn't seem to find a film we wanted to watch. Eventually we settled on Crash only to find it was all out. Instead we rented Dark Water, it looked good from the same writer as the ring.
Eccentually the film is about a mother who having split up from her adulterous husband moves to a dingy apartment complex with her daughter. It opens well with the obligitory sepia toned flashback to the womens own abusive mother.
Unfortunatly the pace isnt so much slow as glacial. I also guessed pretty much correctly what was going to happenwithin about three scenes. The tension was built up in a kind of is she mentle or is this really happening kind of way but I felt it was clumsily handled.
There was some great acting especially from John C. Reilly as the machievellian estate agent and Tim Roth as the cheap lawyer working out of his car.
After a few more turns on civ I finally hit the hey.

Sunday Hangover

Another month another comedy night, another hangover possibly made worse by the terrible nature of the acts last night. However dodgy acts aside it was a good evenign Jono, Nick, Becs, Martin, Charlotte Endo and his missus were all out with myself Phil and Bruce.
Bruce Phil and I went for a curry at the La Quila which was very tasty before hand, it was also the first time I met Charlotte Martins new squeeze. I was suprised she wsa a lot quieter than I epected and they were very very touchy feely not quiet what I would have expected. He seemed happy though which is great.
This morning I am chilling out I should go for a jog in fact I might do shortly, either than or play civ...

Drained, Literally!

I gave blood again today was a very stressful experience, firstly they have a new form which I filled out wrong as I hurried through it :-S Then as I laid down to give blood the women announced she was a trainee which to be honest scared the crap out of me then after applying the pressure to get a view she walked off and I heard her talking to another nurse she was having trouble locating the view and the other one was warning her not to hit an artery!! Finally she stuck the needle in not the worst but fairly painful I was going a little bit under then she told me my flow rate was great, it wasn't what I wanted to hear. Oh well it was a good thing to do and I got through it in the end. I certainly recommend to anyone reading its a worthwhile thing to do and you get free tea and biscuits afterwards.

After the trauma I spoke to Ian, seems he managed to get injured moving his bar, hurt hi leg hope he feel better soon. Bruce popped over and we played a bit of counter strike I am afraid I'm still pretty bad at it. Then we went for a couple of beers I had Guinness to try and up my iron levels but after two pints I was wasted. Amazing how much we take blood for granted.

Back to the daily grind

Wow in a flash two days have past, I dont seem to have done very much butI sure feel tired already!
Tongith I spent the evening with Bruce tarting up the Ejected Brass website details of the ast and xt lans are up inluding the compition results.
I also caught lost season two ep9 its was mega.
Today was interesting I finally took the plunge and bought my first shares, prviously all my investments have been in funds bt I felt like owning a piece of a company for myself. Is a very small piece though after stamp duty and dealing fees £500 bought 91 shares, there are 7million share in issue for this company so I own 0.0013% Nice!. I also got caughtout by the bid to buy spread, due to the low trading volume here is a higher price on t shares than they are trading at. However assuming this company meets it forcast and it has done for few years the divideds alone willcover the initial losses and fees then the capital growth should move the sre price on (fingers crossed). Il tell you how its going in the future, though I am holding this as a long term investent so it might be a while ;-)

Hoildays End

Well its been a great two weeks got in a lot of relaxing a lot of Civ 4 and well a few other more important things like getting my car serviced and catching up with some people.

Last night was good went out with Paul first went to tgi to see ian and have a few beers then to Jo's for more beer and chat. I ended up spending a lot of time with Holly whilst Berger and Paul were chatting. It was quiet interesting I havent really spoken to her that mch before she very intelligent I can really see why they make a good couple.
Afterwards met ian and Faye for a curry I was pretty drunk by then unfortunatly, oh well.

Today I did really do much played civ and then went for a run, amusingly Paul and Woller came round to drop off the stuff I left in Pauls car last night to see me very sweaty about to get in the shower. This evening went to the unicorn with Nick and Becs. Julies was on the bar its been along while since I had seen her shes lost quiet a lot of weight, we had a chat about our holidays mine to Budapest hers to Tunisia. Weird really I get the feeling shes still interested perhaps he holds a cnadle for me as I do for Claire dispite the fact she fucked me about.

I am not looking forward to going back to work I should already be in bed but I am aprehensive oh well Im going to smash that fucking mug to a million pieces if anyone dares to give it me again, perhaps over someones head, no no its not worth 5 years in jail just to get back at knob head co workers.

BandSox

Well my holiday has whizzed by its already Friday early morning and tomorrow I'm servicing my car and doing a few other tasks. I have hardly achieved anything I wanted too this week though it has ben really nice to have time just to chill out.
It would have ben nice to catch up with some people like Ali H and Ali B but I dont think that will happen now.
Its pouring down outside and I have just seen another sandbox gig which was actually pretty mega they played around with the make up of a few of the songs. Also good but ear splitting were 52 teenagers, and the headliners were ok.

Actually spoke to rigini and emily tonight usually miss the band as they are busy with other things, emily was interesting as alwaystalkng about achtechture, i find it fashinating to meet peopel with interests as I cant usually spend more than a few hours on something before becoming bored unless its a game like CIV of course ;-)

Today was notable for my 10 year bond finaly paying up what a waste of time I could have made more with the money sat in my ING account oh well I added the fund to my UK all share tracker and all I can say is GO UK equities!

Seriously I wonder if I will ever find a way to make enough cash to be self sufficent, tongith Phil and I called into tesco to see if we could pik up a pre release xbox 360 as they are so limited they are selling on ebay for upto 500 pounds. Unfortunatly tescos did some sort of raffle thign for the 9 units they had. Oh well better look next time I guess at least we were looking out for ways to generate cash.

I am aching like a bitch now my online trainer gave me a silly program today spent about 2 hours at the gym and at a few points had to take 5 minutes out as what i was dong was so hard I lied to be pushed but I am not sure this isnt too much oh well the results will out and this time next year I will ither be thinner of fatter or more well built we shall see.

Anyway I am up early to take my car for a service so goodnight all.

Van Hunting

Somehow last night I was talked into going van hunting with Nick, not that I am some expert in vans or anything, however by dint of owning diesel I know more than him. Ironically Nicks modeo actually decided to Die this morning so I spent the whole day ferrying him around from one sales court to the next. Fortunatly the sat nav was working so we managed to find them all ok.
There were ome real dogs out there but eventually we found a dealer of HGV who took us to GE captials rental disposal yard faced with hundred of vans of all sizes we were a little spolit for choice. Eventually we found a fairly decent Astra Diesel 1.7tdi its a 53 reg with 40k on th clock runs really well and recetnly serviced.
Carrying on the subject wiith Nick finally sorted out the ebay moneys so I am no longer in debt to him hurrah.