The Devil

Another Sunday, another hangover, more blurry memories. Last night I went round to Martin house for a Firework display and BBQ. It was a great evening well attended by many friends.
I had great fun listening to Becky's tails of bad dates, she also looked totally horrified to see Martins deconstructed front front. To be honest I had no idea how much he had taken it apart, it really is back to basics at the moment. Bruce and Nina, turned up she had some of her homemade fudge, it was excellent if dangerously fattening. Martin was his usual exuberant self, Endo seemed Jolly even Martins sister seamed to enjoy herself. Jo and Holly turned up I dropped off his new pc after making another trip to Aria to get a replacement motherboard, it finally seems to have solved the problems I have been having with it (touches wood).

I lost my usual BBQ master chief role to Simon who seemed to have great fun cooking away. It gave me a chance to go mingle so it wasn't so bad to be relegated. I hung around the super heated air radiating from the chimnenea, Martin really loves to get a good fire going!

Most of us brought some fireworks, though I don't feel like it was as much of a show as last year. It was still very funny though, I had a most enjoyable evening.

I only took one photo on my phone, left my camera at home like a fool :S

The Pretender

Did something pretty different this evening and went to a book reading. I had never been to one before, so I really didn't know what to expect. The girl from Japanese class invited me, her German network were all going.

The reading was by the author of Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt. He was a very interesting guy he told us a little about his life before giving a shore reading from his new children's book. He had a very powerful personality and waxed lyrical about how his miserable childhood gave him the material for his book.

I had a most enjoyable time listening to him, I would like to say he inspired me to work harder on my book. Unfortunately I feel quiet the opposite, he was so eloquent, so good at drawing characters I don't think I can ever get to that sort of level.

Remember Remeber

Foreign friends often find it strange that every year we British burn an effigy on top of a huge fire, then setting off a load of fireworks. They are even more amazed to find the celebration is based around the fact that a man named Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the houses of Parliament. There is something very British about the celebration of failure.

As usual I headed to the Woodford Community bonfire, its the only event of worth since the Woodford air show stopped. Joining me were Phil, Bruce and Nina. They parked at my house and we all walked down to the show together.

We found a nice place round the back. Not too close the the speakers which were blaring out music far far too loudly. Becky and some of her friends joined us. It was the first time I have seen her properly since she and Nick went there separate ways.

The display was pretty damn good, lots of big explosions lighting up the nights sky. There was a slight moment of Panic, when after a large volley of fireworks and despite the best efforts of the organisers the wind blew the fireworks over the crowd. This meant the hot ash fallout started to rain into the crowd, people went from "ooo" that's night to "OOO, run!" within moments. Fortunately the ash had cooled enough not to cause a mass panic and no one was trampled to death.

After the show we all headed to the rather less crowded British Legion round the corner. They had been rather enterprising and shown let people watch from there (their view probably just as good as the actual community centre). We had a couple of drinks and chewed the fat for a while.

I walked back with Becky and her friends then finished the final level on resident evil. I was still awake so I watched a film called "This is England", about 1980s Britain and the rise of the Skin head. After the loss of his father one little lad seeks solace with an increasingly violent group of skin heads. It highlighted how such radical groups could use people fears and basically offer a friendly environment, just so long as your face fits. Its a challenging film but definitely worth a watch.

Long Road To Ruin

What a weekend, havent't had so much fun for a long long time! Friday night I headed out to Bramhall with Phil. We had a chat and a few pints in the Orange Tree. Ian and Paul joined us after their Gypsy's playground band practise. Phil and I were already on our way to drunktown. We went for a drink in Belgua then into the Graze, to be honest by the end of the night I was so drunk I could hardly work out who I was. It was a funny evening though, I don't usually think of Bramhall as a going out place but I quiet enjoyed it. Some photos taken from my phone here

Saturday was a great day, at least after I recovered from last nights drinking binge. I spent the morning and early afternoon reading and dozing preparing myself for tonight's gig. Its nearly 18 months since I last saw the Foo Fighters at Lancashire Cricket club. That was an amazing gig so I have been eagerly awaiting this one.

Nick cunningly managed to get seated tickets for the gig, he timed the length of the phone call getting through the automated menus and called up exactly that amount of time before the phone lines opened enabling him to get the tickets. The standing ones sold out in minutes.

There were quiet a few of us going, Nick, Bruce, Bruces workmate Stephen, Nick, Mike and some of Nicks friends, I didn't quiet get the names of :( bad John. We met up in the Moon Under The Water beforehand for a drink then headed for food. Heading to a Mediterranean restaurant called Porto. We all chose the tapas special "Fiesta". it was excellent. £15 got load of tapas dishes to share and they were all very tasty. Calamaris, Chozio sausage, pizza olives, bread pizza, meat balls, salad, feta and steak tomatoes, I was very satisfied.

We still had a little time to kill so we headed to the Slug and Lettuce for a drink because the drinks were so expensive in the MEN. Phil used all his skills to muscle his way to the front and I was right there behind him. We managed to get about 4 people from the front, it was amazing. Watching the band so closely. We were buffeted and bashed about but it was all worth it, during most of the show we were literally meters from the band :)

The band were on excellent form, they played some of there new album some classics. Then changed tack a bit moved to whole band to a stage setup more centrally in the arena playing a acoustic set. The sound was fantastic and it was a really nice chill out, they ended playing Everlong. They played it partially acoustically building to a full rock out crescendo.

One thing they did that was quiet strange was bring a kid on stage to play Baker Street with the band. I have no idea who he was but for an 11 year old he totally rocked!

15 Step

Today was an interesting day of work, as part of the new more inclusive team I was invited to a Buzz Session meeting. The aim was to impart the new business strategy of mission control. I think one of the IT lad encapsulated it best when he said "It's just all common sense really isn't it". Personally I didn't enjoy the thinly veiled psychological programming, presenting us with 5 options, 4 of which are negative but have components which you are meant to make you think yeah I don't want to be like that I want to be an effective follower. In fact all the messages were presented as stark choices basically your on board on message or your out. In my opinion and experience life, motivation, and reasoning is very rarely so clear cut.

I did learn a few things from the meeting though, it let me see that sometimes managers really have no clue about what is going on, they need the feedback and push back from staff in order to be more effective.

Nanowrimo started today so I started to write my first novella / novel. I am not sure how much I will manage to get though this month but it should be fun trying to pen off a few chapters. I think it might mean a slight slow down in the number of blog post though please bear with me and hopefully there will be something other than my rants to read ;)

Let Me Know

Life is hectic at the moment, thanks to working on the weekend I started the week feeling frazzled, my shoulder still hurts and I felt terrible this morning. Work is very very stressful the workload is simply gigantic and everyones feeling a little pressured. I think its worse for me because I am not a real employee.

After work I headed to Japanese class with Phil. We had a weeks break because of the half term holiday. Adding to my hassles over the last week has been Jo's PC. I built him a PC last week and due to its modernity and some of his requirements. Its taken myself and Phil both a not inconsiderable amount of time to get it running. At the start of class both myself and Phil got some phone calls. Class was very difficult for me I was tired and out of my depth, I think I did learn a few phrases though.

After class we both went to go fix up Jo pc we left it all working hopefully he is going to be happy, it is an excellent pc but the whole process has been a nightmare. I spent hours getting the bits, building the pc fault finding installing software. Phil has also spent time on it. Considering I did this as a favor and its proved to be such a nightmare its made me decide never to build a pc for anyone other than myself again.

Apart from Jo someone else called me while I was in Japanese class, Lisa. She sounded a little fraught, I hope everything is OK with her. I might try and give her a ring back tomorrow. Olya sent me some photos today, she is looking beautiful but I have no real idea why she wants to keep in contact, just to tease me perhaps. I had just about started to forget her.

Fortunately I have a few things to look forward to, chief among them is the Foo Fighters concert on Saturday. Unfortunately Ian' has had to drop out due to work commitments it would have been good to catch up with him. Its going to e interesting to meet Brie Nick's new interest though.

Suicide pact : you first

My Sunday was nice and relaxed. After a hectic week including yesterdays action it was nice to chill out a little. I rested read a few chapters of my book, listened to the Archers, and cleaned out the fish. Usually I would have headed to the gym but my shoulder is still painful so I stayed in and tried to start moving a few customers cross to the new server. I only managed to move two sites in the end but it was a start. I also managed to sort out at least some of the weird email problems I have been having, well that my customers were having. Andy Gilmore can now relay mail, and www.woodlandsgarage.com is now on the new server complete with redirect.

I also made and effort to try and catch hold of a few friends for a catch up chat, I caught up with Paul, and Jo. Jo was happy to hear his PC is ready for collection. Paul was in a good mood he recounted Paul McCartney, Pippa managed to arrange him a last minute ticket. I was really jealous! Was nice to catch up with them I really must be more proactive at keeping in contact with people.

I watched a weird little indie film with Phil this evening. It was called theThe Chumscrubber. Basically focussing on the interconnected lives of a group of people from the suburbs. Everyone pretends their lives are great whilst chugging down wine or pills in a vain attempt to stay sane. There is a bizarre (and frankly disconnected) parallel video game intermingled with the action.

Goodbye Mr A

Apologies for the verbose nature of this post but it has been a long day! This morning [Saturday] I arrived at work at 6am in order to do an upgrade before the call centre opened at 8.30. Fortunately things went verywell, meaning I was able to get away for about 10. The was especially fortunate as I had promised to help install his new server in the data centre.

He was in a rush, wanting to finish the server set-up in order to get to an Akido event, unfortunately things took rather longer than we planned. I protect the servers with a Cisco Pix firewall, it was an pretty expensive piece of kit but unfortunately Cisco don't do updates unless you pay for a very expensive support contract. Fortunately between us we managed to backdate Java and get on to munge the configuration. Before we left we had a running web cast demo, which puts us well ahead of schedule.

After the data centre Phil and I headed back to his place to fix up Berger's PC. He missed his session, so we used our time productively. After much searching and fiddling we found two problems, firstly the memory liked to be run at a higher voltage. For some reasons the default 1.8v isn't enough to drive it that explains the random not turning on. The double boot problem was solved by a beta bios. It now not only works but is incredibly fast.

Phil's parents treated us to a curry at the Sangam III. The food was excellent, and I very much enjoyed myself. After the curry I headed to Poynton to meet up with Martin, Endo, Adam and Simon for a drink while Phil disappeared off to a leaving do for one of his Akido pals.

I managed to cadge a lift both ways, my dad took me to Poynton and Simon gave me a lift home, what nice chaps. It was a very funny evening nice to catch up with everyone again. Everyone was on form and happy it was a really fun evening. We mostly chatted caught up, Martin and Simon had a very funny exchange about clothes, Martin was laughing at Simon's G-Star jeans and Simon was laughing at Martin's lack of taste.

Sandbox @ In the city

I had a pretty frustrating day today. Despite having a day off work, thanks to being owed some time in lieu, things didnt really go to plan.

I bought the bits to build a new PC for Jo, unfortunately I am having problems. I think the motherboard might be faulty, sometimes it works sometimes not. Its really annoying when brand new gear dosnt work correctly especially as I bought it on my credit card :S
I spent the afternoon trying in vain to make the computer work so failed to go to the gym again :( I did manage to go jogging yesterday but its not enough really.

Tonight was fortunately a lot more fun than today though. Phil and I went to see Sandbox playing at the in the city gig. They were excellent, I especially like the new funky version of Light Blue, and 1 million Marlboro Lights. Ian also tagged along it was good to see him, its been a while. He enjoyed the gig and was in a pretty good mood, apparently he has a job n Barcelona, lucky guy! Talking of Barcelona, there is much talk of a boys trip there next year. I have never been on a "lads" holiday before but I expect much beer leeriness. Barcelona is an excellent city though, really vibrant and exciting should be great.
None of the other bands really set the world on fire but it was nice having a chat and hanging out, took my mind of Bergers non working PC for a while. Emily told me about her second life project, and about teaching. Kay battered my head about elder people. I left about 11 my ears could not take any more, and eveyrone was tired or hungry. Sandbox plus Emily and Kay went for Chinese Phil and I headed home.

I am also having issues with an ispcp configuration problem I need to get one domain to forward to another but unfortunately ispcp lacks the level of documentation to explain to a user like me how to do it. I posted on the message board but got the usual frustrating just do X are you an idiot reply. The thing is I am not an idiot just inexperienced in using this product, but I don't have the time of inclination to go rooting through the code just to do something trivial which could / should be documented.

Fish Care

Since one of my fish died I have been taking measure to try and improve things for the remaining two.
I cleaned the water but it didn't seem to help much. So I got out my chemistry kit and did some analysis. I found that the nitrate level was too high over 80ppm. I changed the water 4 changes worth for two days and expected it to have a noticeable impact on the levels. My dad came up with a method of working out the number of water changes needed to reduce the levels, it turned out to be a LOT more than I thought. I have made a little a on-line calculator.

You can only change 10% of the water in a fish tank in a day, and you have to ensure the water going in has the chlorine removed, either by using an additive or leaving it to stand for a few hours.

Continuing the web design theme this evening I worked on something trying to get media streaming work for an upcoming job. It was pretty tedious but we eventually got to the bottom of it. Only one more piece of the puzzle and a bit of site design to go. I think its should be a pretty slick operation once we are done.

Faust Arp

Spent today tidying my room, I managed to get rid of some rubbish, and a lot of dirt. I wish I could do so more often, my parents are terrible hoarders. To a certain extent I have inherited that triat. I didn't really have much to do everything was about the build up to the big rugby match.

I went round to Jo's house to watch the match. It wasn't the most inspiring game I have ever seen. After being built up all week this was a war of attrition far from the 36-0 romp England played well in a very physical game. Unfortunately they were unable to push their territorial advantage and gave away a lot of stupid penalties a couple right in front of the posts. I supposes its ironic that England lost to a side who kicked the ball from the spot, so often England's fortes.

I feel really cut up the team played well, and I don't even want to talk about the denied try. I ate too much tonight, its why I will never be thin if there is food in front of my I just cannot help but eat it. Jo made some really tasty nachos with salsa and cheese, so nice but so fattening, sigh :(

Second life

I opened the Telegraph this morning and on the front of the property section had a most revealing article about the world of the second life. For those not in the know second life is a virtual world, not really a game more a in which you can live, own property. I always thought it was about sex people living out their lives vicariously or attacking journalist with flying penis.. However increasingly it seems that people are living out there lives even making a living from Second Life.

The article in the telegraph was talking about Prim Perfect a magazine showcasing some of the more imaginative the houses in Second Life. I knew Second Life was big when I started to read about companies and country opening up shop there. Such as Reuters opening a office in second life. Though part of what I found funny in that was the Reuters reporter imitating Jennifer Government and taking the name of his company in the virtual world.

I suppose virtual worlds give creative people a canvas to create, whether it be objects, or art and others who want to surround themselves with nice things. Perhaps things they can buy only in a virtual world. I think I might be somewhat behind the curb I was going to create a character for the screening of Four Eyed Monsters in Second Life, then for the technology expo. Maybe Ill open up a shop, I just need to think of an angle ;)

TV Envy

After a long and tedious day spent trying to understand how qcb blocks work, I felt worn down. Not too worn down that I didn't want to kill some zombies though. After dinner I jumped onto Resident Evil 4 Wii and blow the heads off a few more zombies. I managed to get my pc running again as well looks like a lose cable (I took the side of and disconnected and reconnected everything and fortunately it came back to life).

After a zombie massacre I spoke to Phil and ended up at his house. He has just bought a new TV; A 46 inch beast, capable of a stunning 1080p . It is a pretty huge screen, a whole 6 inches bigger than Bruce's (which I already thought of as massive).
We hooked up Bruce's Playstation 3 and tried out "Resistance: Fall of Man". It looked beautiful in high definition glory on this screen. The game play is a very similar to Quake 4 or Halo (from which many aspects are borrowed).

I totally want one but something that size wouldn't even fit into my house. I wonder if we can watch the world cup there tomorrow...

Paris

I spoke to Paul yesterday the planned outing to catch McCartney to in Paris is off. Instead of putting the tickets on sale he has decided to sell them only on the day in Paris. So it would mean traveling there on the hope of getting them, and its a smallish venue so not good odds. I could have done with some time off to be honest this week seem to be going on forever, having a really problematic upgrade. I have been in meetings and conference calls and yet we still seem to be hitting brick walls.

I am actually in a foul mood at the moment, my pc has developed a fault hanging on the bios screen, it only a few months old and wasnt in any way cheap, I was also in the middle of doing a web page about fish care when it froze. I rebooted and nothing, very frustrating. Fortunately my laptop is still going.

Prior to my computer expiring I had been in the middle of writing up a piece about dealing with the fish. Including a little calculator to wrk out how much water to change. My remaining fish is just about hanging on, today my dad bought went to the aquarium centre and bought some treatment for common fish problems, and some different food to try. He didn' seem very interested though. I am really worried the water quality has improved nitrate is down from over 80ppm to around 20ppm so I had hoped to see an improvement, nothing tangible yet though.

I have had a pretty rubbish evening, no-one was about and I felt to tired for the gym, so I came home and killed some zombies on Resident Evil 4. At least until a big one got the better of me. I tried to cheer up the fish but he wasnt any better, then my pc died and I got very angry, apoplectic really.

At least is nearly the weekend, not that i have anything special planned in fact with it being the week before payday I am pretty skint, Paris was definitely going to be a credit card job so in some ways its good I am not going. I kind of promised o I would build him a replacement PC it looks like I might have two to do now, I think I should leave my credit card at home when I go.

Desiderata

My friend Kasia sent me the following poem Desiderata. It's about attaining happiness in life I thought it is quiet nice.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann, Indiana

Our Velocity

Yesterday in between the 4 times daily changing of the fish tank water, I attempted to get into the data centre and do a backup. Unfortunately some one locked the rack and I still dont have a key. Instead I met up with Phl and had a look at doing his video streaming service. I think its fairly straight forward not too many wrinkles.

Last night I went round to Bruce and Nina's place to watch England versus France in the Rugby world cup semi final. Joe, Holly and Phil were also present.
Nina and Bruce put on a really good spread cooking lasagne potatoes and lots of garlic bread. I actually severely regretted the garlic bread today at the gym, after my workout I was sweating garlic. That aside the food was great and the company most enjoyable.

We sat and watched the rugby, England played pretty well and after a tense and exciting 80 minutes just about came out on top. I was pretty impressed and elated to beat the French in the Stade De France in the World cup semi finals is incredible. Roll on South Africa next week!

After last nights fun today was a little flat, a visit to the gym then the afternoon spent trying to sort out a problem on the server. I learned a lot about Iscpc but I would rather it not have been so pressured.

Chemistry is fun

I haven't done much this evening. After I got back from the gym no one was really about so I stayed home chatting to people on-line and relaxing.

Since my fish died I have learned a lot about water chemistry. I learned that fish, food and plants decay into ammonia, nitrite and nitrates. High levels of Ammonia or nitrite kill fish pretty quickly. Nitrate level on the other hand don't kill immediately they just put stress on the fish. My fish tank nitrate level has been high for some time (I know this because my research has informed my large amount of algae are a sign of high nitrate levels).
Unfortunately for me nitrates are one of the most difficult pollutants to remove, all I can do is change 10% (36 litres) of the water in the tank per day and hope that they are diluted. So over the last few days I have done 4 water changes a day very tedious and time consuming. So far the level dropped from over 60ppm (parts per million) to 40ppm, I need to bring it below 20ppm for the biological agents to be effective. Look like I have plenty more water changes to go.

Tomorrow is the England France game which should be excellent and I think is going to be very close.

Photos from Belgium

I finally got the photos from Belgium uploaded. I still haven't written the stories up maybe I never will now, who knows.

This evening I went to see a film with my friend Martina from Japanese class. We watch 3:10 to Yuma. Starring Christian Bale and Russell Crowe its a pretty standard cowboy film, encompassing all the traditional American values; redemption, good men turning bad, bad men doing good. Russell Crowe is the typical child from a troubled family turned to a life of crime, blah blah heard it all before.
I was actually pretty disappointed I expected a little more than a slight twist on the buddy film, but oh well.

Bruce has invited me to his house on Saturday, apparently he will be screening the rugby on his big screen. It sounds fun but means I have to miss what could turn out to be a fun party in Didsbury. I really do not want to miss the England game after last Saturdays performance though. I think the game against France is going to be pretty tough close and exciting so I am looking forward to it.

In Rainbows

This week isn't a good one for my pets. on Monday one of my fishes expired and today I just received the following from my dad.
"Just to let you know that Sootie has been put to sleep humanely on the advice of the vet.

She said that death was imminent, and as she put it, "The cat was ready to die".

A sorry day, but at least its misery is over."
Its really sad for me, my fish John was the first pet totally my charge, I have been looking after him for about 7 years now, its so sad watching Ozzie swimming around on his own.

My cat was 20 years old a very ripe old age for a cat, he has outlived all predictions thanks to a lot of TLC from my parents regular vet visits and a special low protein diet. We were told that once he started having regular steroid injections that he wouldn't live more than 2 years, at was over 4 years ago. HE had a long life, I remember when I was at primary school watching him chase table tennis balls around the house. He sent so many hours sat on the sofa or by the fire, or sunbathing in the garden he had a pretty good life for a cat.

The house won't be the same without him around, crying for food or attention. I am listening to the latest Radiohead album sat working on some documentation in an empty office, and feeling very sad.

Zodiac

Had a pretty quiet day today finished closing time I found it a really good book but not a patch on Catch-22 and a heck of a lot harder to read. Basically the characters young and vibrant but dealing with lives cut short now deal with lives close to the end, and the absurdities of modern life. Heller is so witty and intelligent almost too clever by half at times writing some incredibly complicated prose.

Phil and I spent some time practising our Japanese we are both pretty shabby but a few more hours a week sure would help.

Paul phoned me he has a plan about going to see Paul McCartney live in Paris later this month. To be honest it sounds like a lot of fun hopefully we can get tickets and I can get the time of work because I reckon it will be great.

Tonight Phil and I watched Zodiac, a film by David Fincher he of Fight Club and Panic Room fame about the infamous serial killer Zodiac. It was kind of ironic I never realised Dirty Harry (which I watched only last night) was based partly on the story. The real life killer was never caught despite the best efforts of the police and an ex cartoonist who penned a novel about him. The film was good if a little long and drawn out, the cinematography was excellent I especially like the grand theft autoesq top down view of the police car.