Chopper

Spent most of today cutting a tree down outside in the sunshine. The eucalyptus tree next to my house has grown incredibly quickly from a couple of meters high to more like 15-20 meters. It took an hour to cut it down and about another hour and a half to cut the fallen branches up.

After the tree cutting exploits I had a pretty quiet evening, the only realy thing of note was a conversation with Andy Gilmore. Apparently he and Emily are back in Manchester living somewhere in the city. I am hopefully going to catch them later this week and have a look round their new pad, should be good fun.

Shine on you crazy diamond

Martin came round this evening, he had to settle up his hosting bill. It was weird really I haven't seen him in months, he has been working a lot and of course spending time with Charlotte.

He gave me the lowdown on the gathering I missed thanks to my Turkey trip. Apparently the guy I most wanted to watch Reyn Ouwehand was actually staying in the same hotel as Bruce, Martin, Endo and Phil. Apparently his set was amazing he played an instrument sampled the loop played it back then went onto the next one building up the track.

Was good to see him have to go out for a drink soon.

Stupid HTML

Today I wanted to do a really simple thing. I had a terms and conditions list which was points subdivided into sub points. It seemed a pretty simple thing to do in html, unfortunatly nesting ordered lists meant the numbering restarted so instead of 1, 2, 2.1 2.2, 2.3, 3 I had 1, 2, 1,2,3, 3. I found this article however while it provided a solutions it wasn't one I could use as its not supported in internet explorer. I ended up having lots of unordered lists with no bullet style and typing in the numbers myself :s rubbish! How come word processors have been able to do bullet lists at different levels forever but nobody thought it might be useful in html?

I might be wrong

Having a really hard time at work so much going on so much pressure to get it all ready. I was an hour late leaving today after heading in early. I find each day I have to be more combative just to keep my head above water. Worringly I am more and more sidelined on the new projects religated to picking up the pieces that remain on the old systems.

I felt way too tired to go to the gym and yet I cant get to sleep. I really need to get back into a routine, but I am finding it really hard.

Nick has spend most of the evening here searching for holidays. He promised to take Becky away so they can relax and have some fun. Only problem is its summer holidays and the bad weather has driven people abroad. He was dismayed to see the prices of short breaks now are more than weeks away a couple of months later in the year.

Tainted love

I chickened out of the gym, my back still hurts and I felt tired after work. In truth I feel tired all the time, I have trouble sleeping I am troubled by many things these days.

This evening I went round to the Brooks to watch a film. They had rented a film about the Africans contribution to the French effort during the second world war called Days Of Glory. It was an interesting take on the contribution of some of the forgotten people of the war. I guess I always think in terms of the Russian or US fronts, and maybe the French resistance but here was the Algerians and Africans fighting for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. It was quiet a depressing film the French treating the brave mostly Arab solders like dirt. No wonder the Algerian separatists caused so many problems later on.

Walking back from so many thoughts were running through my mind I am having a bit of a crisis. I spoke to a friend earlier this evening and I realised what I mess of life I am making. I have wasted the last year aiming for impossible romances, crying over the improbable. I have let vised two countries in search of someone special let my hope build my mind build up too much only to be left alone and unhappy. I have allowed other important things in my life slide, and fallen into bad habits. Sometimes I don't know who I am or what I want anymore.

I think I need to step back, relax and try to forget. So tomorrow I need start, to try and change. Attempt to break out of this downwards spiral. There are good things in my life, I just need to identify the piece I like and the things I can improve. Maybe drink a little less and be a little less negative then perhaps I can be happier.

Sappy

Today was pretty boring I went swimming and spent most of the day mesing about with my pc. Ther are a heap of programs I am struggling to get working under Vista.

Had a very uncomfortable evening tonight, I think it part of the "joy" of buying a house makes you miserable. I met up with Bruce and Nina at the Hesketh Tavern, they were both looking tired. Nina was upset with Bruce's mother who seems to be doing a lot of work on the house, maybe taking too much responsibility. This is always a delicate balancing act this is an expensive and emotional purchase, Nina wants to feel its hers not Bruce's mothers, whilst his mum is helping Bruce out in his new home. I often get pisses off with my parents doing too much for my never mind someone else's. On the other hand she is pretty handy with a paintbrush and things probably wouldn't have moved on as far without her. Bruce just looked tired from working on the house, I dont think he appreciated being set upon. Unfortunately it was my turn next, I was planning to have two pints of normal strength beer, which I have always regarded as being under the limit. Bruce and Nina started giving me this whole lecture about units of alcohol and such, they were both adamant the limit if one pint, so I couldn't drink my second pint after that. Fortunately it was kicking out time so I dropped them off.

mmm Simpson's

Bruce and I headed to Parrs Wood last night to take in the new Simpsons movie. I love the Simpsons TV satirical full of in Jokes and references. The film continues this tradition, Lisa delivers an environmentalist lecture entitled "an irritating truth" and at one point Bart wears a black bra on his head and says in a rather mousey voice, "I am the mascot for an evil corporation".

The main plot centers around environmentalism and religion. After a dark warning from grandpa Simpson, Homer does everything wrong and inadvertently causes the doom of Springfield after polluting the lake. He goes on to nearly lose his family (Bart even starts to idolise Flanders!) after moving to Alaska Homer faces some stark choices, will he be able to save his family and Springfield?

The only real criticism was the underuse and sometimes irrelevant use of all the other Simpsons characters. Monty burns, and principle Skinner had rather unfunny parts almost just to get them in. I suppose with such a wealth of material they just wanted to put as much in as possible.

I really enjoyed the film, I think they did try and take on an awful lot transferring it to the big screen. Especially whilst still working on the tv series. Some if it worked the main, there were some hilarious moments, both visual gags and dialogue driven. I especially loved the pig parodies, Harry Plopper and Spider Pig. Overall it should make you chuckle and feel good well worth a watch.

Lady

I woke up this morning and wondered why, why? My head was splitting my mouth felt like Id been drinking the waste water out of my fish tank. I knew exactly what did it to me,

Last night I went out with the some of the customers people. It is quiet rare they invite me to join them so I thought why not. I didn't have any other plans. Starting drinking straight after work is always little dangerous, no dinner (I am not counting the burger I floated on top of the alcohol later that evening.

Some time in the night I can of lost track of things I have some embarrassing memories though it was quiet enjoyable. I should have been more careful I wasn't out with my friend but with people I have to work with.

I basically spent the morning feeling sorry for myself and relaxing. I also seem to have pulled a muscle in my neck, I am not sure how but its really painful. It was quiet amusing though I think my company is sadly lacking the camaraderie that the customers site has. I suppose the age difference and geographical spread make it hard.

In the sun

I went to the pub this evening and we were chatting that sort of drunken chat that idles away the time in between slurps of beer. It was nice to relax after a hard few days / weeks at work.
I tried out the weird argument someone made to me at work. Basically if you wave power you are creating resistance on the oceans. The ocean currents are mainly created by the movement of the moon, so as every reaction has an opposite dost adding wave resistance affect the moon? I think logically it should but in a really insignicicant way, just like dense mountains slightly bend time slightly (as described in Einstiens theory of speical relativity) but not so as you can notice despite their immense size.
I left work late and chickened out of the gym only been twice this week and both for cardio no weights yet, I am finding it hard to get back into a routine.
I have been thinking really hard to find some new exciting things to try, its really hard to find much wiht the weather being so bad though. This has got to be the worst summer I can remember.

Why Go

I have been thinking a lot recently about moving, not just out of my parents house, but away. England is going to the dogs, taxed to hell to fund a bloated government intent on eroding the freedoms we spent centuries achieving. The only problem is I am not sure where I could go.
Australia was amazing one of the best times of my life. I am just afraid of being more alone there than I am here. Plus unfortunately IT skills arn't exactly in demand, and I am not sure what else I am good at. Probably lots of things if only I could find the time and inclination to try.
I often think despite my perceived problems my biggest issue is the fact I have it so easy that I don't try hard enough. I need to find some ways to push myself harder.

Downer

I have just got back from the Unicorn where Phil and I were setting the world to rights. We talked about life a bit and I guess it tapped into a lot of things I am thinking about. It was enjoyable an enjoyable conversation. At the same time it made me think. For a long time I have been trying hard to fight the fact that in fact I am a quiet boring person. I work, I visit the gym, I go to the pub. Always the same, the same drinks the same places with the same people. How did I become so staid, am I so incapable of finding things to amuse myself. Perhaps am not quiet as clever as I believe.
Or maybe I am just pissed off that I underachieve, that I am a coward who take the easy route hiding away on the net because the real world is so difficult. How can I be so wonderful to people on line then such a disappointment when they meet me in the flesh.
There are 6 billion people in the world I guess that means most of us are middle table mediocrity, is it so bad? Why do I feel guilty about it, has the media really convinced me I should be more successful, happy and well rounded?
Perhaps I am jealous that so many people I know are getting on with it whilst I sit and brood unable to deicide how to move on. I wish I had Nicks get up and go, or Ian's people skills or Paul's star quality, but I don't. I am just an ordinary guy, no real flaws but no real strengths, its just life rich tapestry I suppose.
Perhaps I should just go to bed and stop rambling.

Harry Potter vs Transformers

Saturday was consumed with PC building so I only managed to read about a third of the new Potter book. My mum got a copy from John Lewis for £5.

I made a proper start didn't get to start my copy of Potter properly until Sunday.
I read a good deal Sunday Morning, but I had to take a break in the afternoon to go visit the data centre, then help Bruce move some bits around his house. Its really coming along, the kitchens pretty much done the floors don't have holes in the floor anymore and the decorating is in progress.

In the evening we headed out to see the new Transformers film. I can still remember playing with them when I was a kid. Watching this film was an attempted at reliving childhood memories. The effects were spectacular, the transformers fought, lived with the actors. There were some annoyances, the plot was about as understandable as the Chinglish manual that came with my PC bits. I have no idea what the point of the security analyst / geek programmer were other than to have a beautiful girl ons creen. I would personally have confined it to the cutting room floor. Its worth a watch for the action, but its too long, too short on plot, and not really for kids there is a lot of adult humour and references.

I got home and hit potter hard, the story twisting and turning throwing the odd curveball. It starts out dark, and pretty much stays along at that level. Everything which Potter has endured thus far is firmly eclipsed (short of his parents untimely end) as the rise of the dark lord casts a dark shadow over the Potter universe. The usual trio, are nearly torn apart by the stresses and strains. A good section of the book read like something out of Lord of the Rings, they are cut off from the world facing incredible odd the situation worsening all the time.

Overall I enjoyed reading it though I do feel she hasn't quiet reached the levels of imagination she hit when writing Goblet of Fire. Too many loose ends were ticket off in a sort of screenplay fashion, I wonder it was aimed for the screen. A shame if so. I guess my biggest gripe with Deathly Hallows is how it ended. After everything Harry is forced to go through suddenly its over, very neat, there is even an epilogue. I am glad that its a series where Rowling has taken risks characters can and do die, the narrative can be gritty and real, examining issue like racism exclusion jealousy and love within stories about a teenage boy. Its certainly worth a read, especially considering how readable a writer she is. Somehow even complex narrative is always not just understandable but enjoyable. Would that I had even a modicumo fher talent I would be a happy man.

NeverAlways Be Lonely

Its been a bit of a mad weekend, for expected and unexpected reasons. Friday was a long day, I was meant to be catching Sandbox after work, but by the time I left work I wouldn't have had time to change, I felt tired and didn't want to turn up to a gig in my suit.
So my Friday night consisted of drinking a couple of beers and watching a dvd. It was a very very good dvd though, Pans Labyrinth. Its a film that crosses the dreams of a girls fertile imagination against a brutal backdrop of the end of the Spanish civil war. Well written well acted a good story this is the sort of film I really enjoy.
On Saturday my dads pc failed, this meant stress for me, as de facto pc guy I had to sort it out. I decided rather cunningly to give him my 18 month old old and to buy myself the bits to get a new one. I found aria were selling 4GB of ram for just over £ 100 and scan had a reasonable price on processors. I decided to go the whole hog and shelled out for Windows Vista just to give it a try. I would say Vista is a worthwhile upgrade if you have a powerful computer and like eye candy. Its got slightly less patronising pop ups then XP other than the box which pops up every time you want to install anything. I know its for security but does it really have to be that irritating. The graphics tweaks make Vista look good but switch between Windows has nothing on Apples expose. I was a bit worried when on installing Visual Studio it warned me about the incompatibility problems. I only had to download a 490mb patch to fix it.
I basically spent the rest of the day backing up, screwing together, installing and configuring this new machine, which was good really as I was feeling dreadful. Sometimes I find the loneliness consumes. I spend hours looking at photos of whats been happy times trying to cling to something good. I also find doing installs is a good way to avoid thinking about it, her.
To be honest I am angry with myself, my friend said it best. I make too deep connections too quickly so I end up hurt then shut myself away to avoid getting hurt again. Overcompensating in both directions like an emotional sea-saw. I supose things are not made easier by the fact the I received an sms telling my how much she was enjoying herself with her niece by the sea. Whereas I am sat alone, in the rain. I suppose it could be much worse I shouldn't complain my house isn't sat in the middle of a new lake right new. Bah the only problem is I feel guilty for feeling sorry for myself, but at the same time whilst other people have worse problems it dosnt actually change the way I feel, stupid emotions.

Fast cars and summer nights

Today has been a long day I made it into work for just after 6.30. My part of the upgrade went well but another failed causing all sorts of recriminations. I just thougt oh well bad stuff happens sometimes despite everyones best efforts, though I was annoyed that our software was blaimed when the problem was with something else which stop our system from working.

It was a good day though really, we grouped together and fixesd a whole bunch of problems it was a much less antagonistic and more productive than normal. I left early and headed to the gym, I have deinfatly been more lazy I found it hard to cope with what should have been a normal session. I think I will have to up my game a little.

Ian Bruce and myself went for a drink at the Kindfisher this evening. I was nice sat outside in the first dry evening for ages. Poynton seemed to have way more than its fair share of suped up cars, all coming and going hile we were sat outside.
We chatted about life, but mosty about houses. It seems to be the topic of the day these days thinking about when how and if we will move out. Bruce is ahead of the game in progress renovating his first home.

Ian seemed in fine form, its been a while since I last saw him. I think business has been good given the amount of thime he has been working, good news.

I spoke to of my skype friends today. We have been talking for a few months, meeitng whileshe was trying to improve her English. We talked about life and webdesign. She has taken a job in Cambridge to help learn English, a pretty radical step. She seemed to be enjoying herself, though. Skype was playing up making it hard to hear some of the conversation. She said Cambridge was like Harry Potter which I thought was an amuSing if not entirly inaccurate statement. Not that I have ever seen the place except for on TV. Se is very brave I am not sure I would have been able to go live in a non English speaking country on my first trip, I mean thats one of the reasons I chose Australia, one less thing worry about! She seems to be fitting in well hough the people are friendly and she has a Spanish friend from the same region, it wasnt planned so it just shows what a small world we live in.

Drive

I have spent the evening moving some more of my old Australian photos into my gallery. So many good memories, it was a great trip, I often think about going off and doing another. Phil was remarking to me we wouldn't even had seen mission beach if his car hadn't broken down there, yet I had some amazing times there.

Tomorrow I am in work for 6.30 the thought is keeping me awake. I should be tucked up in bed, but recently things have been so stressful. Seems like everything is a new critical project, its always a rush job, always fighting fires. It would be nice just onces to be able to enjoy a project and carry it though properly.

I am also thinking a lot about my life, and some changes I want to make. I think I have to start making some more of the opportunities I have rather than waste my life worrying about the past, I need to move on find some new things, new people.

Leaving Me Alone

Just had the weirdest interruption to blog writing, I sat down to write and felt something weird on my leg, I lifted up my trousers and found a snail on my leg! Very strange I must have picked it up on my shoe on the way back from the pub. It was a weird feeling, you know when you feel weird creeping sensations on your skin but usually is just your mind playing tricks, well this time it wasn't! The really weird thing was it was already dying, I think the salt from my glands did for it.

It was the second weird blog related thing this evening, I stumbled across an alternative cookies world! Personally (though this is Narcissism) I think my blog is the definitive, I have certainly been going for longer :-P

This evening I went for a quiet drink with Nick. I needed a drink to be honest today I had a company meeting. Whilst I think it was both constructive and overdue it was still hard going, I felt pretty worn out by the end.

And here is another google recommendation

How to go to your floor quickly, I wish I had known this one in Shanghai.

http://view.break.com/327059 - Watch more free videos

Google aka Big Brother

Check out http://www.google.com/history/. If like myself you have Google account it could list every search you made, how many per day and even more if you enable the advanced options! Its either a useful wealth of information or a scary scary big brother system, I haven't decided yet, I sure hope Google still are committed to "do no evil".

Also amusing is the trends and things you might be interested in depending on your searched here was one of my top ten recommendations

PHP webservices

I spend the last couple of days experimenting using php as a webservice client so here are a few tips!

Installation on Debian 4.0

To get up and running you need, a webserver and working php5. It important to have php5 as the webservices pretty much don't work under 4.

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install php5 php-soap php5-xmlrpc apache2 libapache2-mod-php5

edit /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini uncomment

[soap]
; Enables or disables WSDL caching feature.
soap.wsdl_cache_enabled=0
; Sets the directory name where SOAP extension will put cache files.
soap.wsdl_cache_dir="/tmp"
; (time to live) Sets the number of second while cached file will be used
; instead of original one.
soap.wsdl_cache_ttl=86400

Restart apache with "apache2ctl restart" and you should no be calling up php5. You might want to create a php.info apges to test by creating a test.php with the following.

// Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL
phpinfo();
// Show just the module information.
// phpinfo(8) yields identical results.
phpinfo(INFO_MODULES);
?>

It should show your running php version 5.something and furhter down the page you should be able to see a soap section.

Simple Webservice Test

I use the .Net environment for creating web services and this foray into php was something of a test. It took me a while to get anything done as there are several php implementations of webservices none of which are very well documented. Eventually I saw the post by Orion I and it was enough to access my service. Because of the way the ms service works you need to use the SoapVar command.

In my webservice expects two doubles ratio and tolerance so I did the following

$pRatio = $_POST['xratio'];
$pTolerance = $_POST['xtolerance'];
include("SOAP/Client.php");
$namespace = "http://mars.glenfernassociates.co.uk/enmesh";
$wsdl = "http://10.0.0.254:8080/GearService.asmx?wsdl";
$sc = new SoapClient($wsdl);
$ratio = new SoapVar($pRatio, XSD_DOUBLE, "double", $namespace);
$tolerance = new SoapVar($pTolerance, XSD_DOUBLE, "double", $namespace);
$wrapper->ratio = $ratio;
$wrapper->tolerance = $tolerance;
$params = new SoapParam($wrapper, "GetPair");
$ret = $sc->GetPair($params);
?>

Magic mystery and junction boxes

My head hurt this morning, unfortunately thanks to my routine I find it virtually impossible to sleep in these days so I was awake before 9 feeling sorry for myself.

I spent most of the morning chatting to someone online, she told me I should have proposed to Olya. I was a little horrified at such an idea but she sees the whole a lot differently than me. We always have interesting conversations for it though.

I was also trying to use PHP to access the webservice I wrote for my dad. To be honest I understand why people pay for products that just work, I am using complex types for my webservice and php just can't seem to deal with them :( Failing with that I foolishly turned my hand to some diy.

The light on our landing for well over a year so I decided it was high time it was fixed. Hours later I was covered in crap from the loft and desperately searching for fuse wire after blowing the fuses. Basically its got two switches one downstairs and one up which can turn the light on and off. Unfortunately the electrician just used chocolate boxes and the light was removed months ago so it was trial and error wiring. It was also all in the loft which has no light and it very dirty. My dad and I both get pretty stressed out, it took hours and hours but eventually I succeeded in getting it all hooked up.

This evening we went to see the new Harry Potter (Order of the Phoenix). It is the longest and in my opinion one of the best of the books, a lot darker than the preceding stories. Obviously there was far too much in the book to squeeze into the film, indeed I think this one is the biggest departure from the book. It mostly got things right balancing between being faithful to the main story whilst cutting out some of the sub-plots. Some of the editing was a little clumsy, a few words glossing over some huge part of the book but overall it was an enjoyable film well worth a watch.

This was a big film release and so we didn't have to sit with the mob (and children) we splurged out on gallery seats. The gallery seats are on a raised area above the main seating. There are large plush leather seats, there is also a separate sound sound system and the best bit is free soft drinks, sweats and popcorn. Its a bit expensive at £16 a ticket its a bit pricey but if your the sort who goes to the cinema, and buys drinks and popcorn its probably not bad value.