Last night was the work quiz night, I joined the IT team. Despite not knowing what the Ford Mustang logo was we managed to come in second place.
Afterwards we went for drinks in Wilmslow, I drank too much and felt horrible this morning. I think I might have made a bit of a fool of myself getting far too drunk and acting like a loon, hopefully not but hey ho.

Unusually for me I spent most of the day watching Sports. England played Australia in the quarter finals of the rugby world cup. I pretty much expected it to be a total drubbing by Australia but instead England stepped upto the plate and played a darn sight better rugby than I have seen from them for a long time. The forward pack were particularly strong. It was a shame to win on penalties alone but our backs just dont seem to have the presence and play makers to break through.

In the evening France managed a similar trick and overcame the all blacks in an sensational game at the Millennium stadium. It will certainly be an interesting game next week with England versus France.

To cap the day off Khan put on a dominating display in the boxing :)

No Tommorrow

Today was a hard day, I had a rather combative conference call regarding one project I am working on. I found it very difficult, sometimes being nice and bending over backwards goes nowhere.

This evening I went for a drink with Phil, Bruce, and Nina. Firstly Phil and I took a trip round to Bruce and Nina's abode. It has changed somewhat beyond recognition since I was last there. There is a floor and decoration, and technology lots of technology.

We went out for drinks at the local pub the March Hare, chatting about work and life we laid the world to rights. Mostly we talk about work these days all our lives are dominated by it in one way or another.

Free WiFi

Fon have announced a new partnership with BT which should exponentially increase the number of FON spots available to anyone willing to share their broadband.

I have had a FON spot for quiet a while now, in fact my Nintendo Wii connects to the internet through it.

An Honest Mistake

I was talking to one of my good online friends this evening, she sometimes reads my blog, and I have told her that I like to write. She thinks I should sign up to http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and attempt to write a novel in a month. I am not sure I have the skill, determination or ideas but I guess its only a bit of fun so I might give it a go I just need to think of some inspirational ideas.

A long time ago I started a screenplay with Paul, we never got far our concentrations drifted off in different directions. I had some good idea around it, but maybe I should try something different out. I shall ruminate see if inspiration strikes. The competition dosn't start until the 1st November so there are a few weeks to get ideas together.

We were also talking about films and both love Pulp Fiction. I hadn't realised how old it was, released in 1994. I remember so vividly watching it at and taking about it sat in C block, Bramhall High School with Alistair Roy, Andy and all the other people I thing about with in my schoolboy days. Its kind of strange how memories work, sometimes I don't remember where I just put down my pen, but somehow I can picture scenes from years ago so precisely its almost as if I were still sat there, the people the jokes.

Today's post is sponsored by Nintendo please use the link below an sign up for club Nintendo so I can afford to download Street Fighter 2 and relive my youth ;)

Speed of sound

I was far too tired after Japanese class to start writing up my Belgium adventures. Well either that or I am not ready to share them yet. I did manage to order a copy of the new Radiohead album which I am now very excited to receive.
I also managed to get a quick last orders drink with Bruce, he seemed in a very good mood and apparently his house is very nearly finished. We went for a quick drink at the Thieves. He was also telling me he has signed up to Virgin 20mb broadband and bought a Playstation 3. Honestly I can't imagine why you would want to spend so much money on a console with next to no games, so It plays blue ray disks does he really want to pay twice the price of DVD for each disk? He must be getting paid far too much (read more than me ;-) to be able afford all the work on his his and such expensive toys. Sour grapes I suppose, I can even imagine affording a house, then again I have never come into money from relatives, not am I likely to, I have to fend for myself.
Talking of fending for myself my mother is so convinced I cant take care of myself she has taken the rather ridicules step of taking a sabbatical rather than let me lend my car to my dad so had can drive to Derby while I use the bus / train. It seriously pisses me off that she has such a low opinion of me, and has made me more determined to get out of here.

Monster Hospital

I have been away for the last few days in Belgium, I got back earlier today. I was a really good trip and I shall be writing about it soon, there are also going to be some pictures on the gallery, but not tonight. I feel very tired and I am back to the grindstone tomorrow.

Today is my fathers birthday, he is 60. For a milestone but he dos't seem to be much interested. After some consternation about where to go (I definitely inherited his indecisiveness) and headed for the Il Pomodoro in Poynton.

I haven't been to this Italian restaurant in several years, it has a changed a little except for a coat of paint and having an extension into what what the ice cream shop to provide more frontage. It wasn't much needed tonight thought the place was nearly empty. We ordered to mix plate starters, garlic bread and a salad to share. The Pomodoro platter had some Parma ham, fish, olives, sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella and Italian sausage. The garlic bread was about 50% the size I remember it from last time, but still tasty. My parents also enjoyed it, mum had the salad to herself and let us eat the contents of the platter. For my main course I had a pasta with spicy Italian sausage and tomatoes sauce, it was very tasty, mum found her Penn a little salty but my father enjoyed his Carbonara. It was a nice meal, I couldn't really fault the quality of the food and the service was good. The prices certainly arn't cheap especially drinks £3.95 for a pint.

Hopefully providing Japanese class dosn't kill me I will start putting up some photos and writing some stories from Antwerp tomorrow., for now night.

Ever Present Past

Today has not been a great day, but somehow I don't feel terrible. This morning I was locked out of an office, more or less told to fuck off by a colleague. Fortunately a quick rant later and most of the problems were sorted out; sometimes it pays to be proactive.
I spent the rest of the day answering phone calls emails and trying to understand a methodology Model-view-controller. I am not sure I totally get it yet but I am on my way.
After work I was a little pissed off so I went to the gym for a couple of hours to blow off some steam.
When I got home I ate some dinner and was meant to go see a film with a friend but that fell through so instead I went for a quiet drink with Nick. As I left the house I looked up and saw that the moon is out and the sky clear, it was very beautiful evening, it felt fresh and clean.
Nick was in the best of moods far too cheerful and I soon found out why. He has met someone new, apparently she makes him laugh and feel great. I am happy he has found someone that makes him feel such but FFS, does he really need to that happy! I am of course being jealous, its a long time since I had a relationship and infatuations like Olya aside, I have been alone for years, I want to be happy too :-(
Sour gapes is no excuse I am happy for Nick, he says he feel happy so good for him.
In other news I love the Paul McCartney album Paul gave me a quick play while I was in London so I bought it for my dads birthday (Monday), its so well produced and better than anything he has done for years. The new Foo Fighters album isn't half bad either.

ispCP secondary dns

I wrote this little guide on how I got secondary dns working on my isPCP box.

Cross Purposes

I realised it is somewhat excessive to have two laptops, a desktop and a spare pc. So in order to cut down the clutter and because it the oldest I have been trying to sell my Powerbook. Initially Ian wanted it but for one reason or another we never did the deal. One of Nick's Polish builders told Nick he wanted a laptop, and Nick asked me if it was still for sale. So I backed up my data deleted my profile and boxed it up. Unfortunately on arrival it turns out the whole point that it is an Apple Powerbook was lost in translation. Pre Intel Apple computers like this one use OSX and cannot run Windows natively. The lack of Windows was bad nut not fatal, what actually killed the sale was that Tomak's English is not spectacular so he wanted to turn the menus to Polish, either Apple have neglected to build a Polish language support or I could not work out how to change it.
So I returned home complete with the laptop still in its box. Nick was very nice though he bought me some Chinese food to cheer me up, which was very kind. He thinks I should try out some different careers, which is fine in principle without having the same motivations he does.

The Last Song

I have that Sunday feeling today, vague alcohol induced head ache, lethargy. I wanted to sit and play Zelda but unfortunately my dad decided it would be a good idea to light the fire so its about 100 degrees in the living room.

Upgrade

Yesterday was a long day, I had to do an upgrade at work which meant arriving early before the call centre open. So at 6.30am on Saturday morning I was sat in the office upgrading the computer systems.
The upgrade was actually other peoples work I was simply there to move it across. Unfortunately this meant when things went a little wrong (luckily not with the most important part) I didn't really know where to look. I managed to find a few work around for the short term, hopefully I will be able to get to the bottom of it Tomorrow.

House party

Andy and Emily invited Philip and my self over to there place for a house warming party. They have been living there for quiet a while now but haven't had a party yet. Phil had also been working so we arrived a little late. We also stopped off on route to pick up some beers and a house warming gift. Big Brain Training for the Wii. Shopping in Asda was bizarre none seemed to want to serve us and when I tried to use the self serve till all sorts of weird stuff happened. Phil played some Wii while chatted to Emily, K Andy, Will and others. K and Emily are about to start back at uni.
We had a long conversation about different sorts of fish we liked which was rather too adult for me.I worked my way through beer after beer, in fact judging by my head this morning I had way too many. To finish the night we had a game of poker, I only played one round I felt too drunk and tired to really try hard.
I really like their flat and its made me more sure I need to get out. I spent several hours on right move this afternoon, but It looks like I will really have to compromise or wait another year and save hard because I simply cannot afford more of what out there.

Aqueous Transmission

This evening Phil and I went to see Incubus at the MEN Arena. It was a really good gig they played a mixture of the old favorites, Drive, Mexico, and The Warmth. I enjoyed the old songs immensely.

They love to experiment many of the songs featured eclectic electronic openers and in the middle of the set they did a prog rock esq bit where all the band members played a solo section.

It was a strange gig really Bandon Boyd hardly said a thing, they were late on went straight into it played until 10 had a break then a 20 minute encore. They finished the set by playing Aqueous Transmission, it sounded amazing but the insect sound they played and left playing soon chased everyone out of the venue. Overall not the best gig I have been to but enjoyable and different.

I have been finding it hard to write recently it used to be a release I enjoyed and there are a few things mulling around my mind. Somehow though I cant really find a way to get things down onto my blog. Hopefully my mind will open up and Ill be able to write again soon.

Dexter

Phil hooked me onto a new TV series called Dexter, its a completely dark take on the police series genre. Dexter is a forensic scientist working for the Miami police department, so far so CSI. The twist is that he is also a serial killer, a serial killer who targets serial killers in no less.
Its incredibly dark from the gruesomeness of the murders and forensic detail to the morbid plot lines of the sociopathic tendencies of Dexter. If you like dark and clever series its really worth a watch.

I managed to finally get the last piece of the puzzle completed today at work, it put me in a really good mood. Afterwards I went to the gym exercised my legs and came home to watch some more Dexter.

I spent some time searching for houses on right move, over the last few days I noticed a terrace for sale on the way to work. I wondered how much it would cost to buy. I must say I was pretty surprised to see the price more than 100,000 more than I imagined. In truth there was nothing even close to my price range which I would want to live in. I guess I should aim low buy something to "get on the ladder".

The thing is I don't fancy living in some horrible poky "apartment" with a huge mortgage hanging over my head. It seems like the prices are only affordable for multiple income buyers, like couples. For a single guy like myself mortgage plus bills would leave me short.

No Surface All Feeling

Work was very hard today, the project manager was back and pushing me to the edge of sanity with meetings, reports emails and questions. Sometimes I think I would get more done if I was just left alone to get on with tasks instead of being constantly drawn into other things. I also discovered a whole portion of the system which is so badly done it should be rewritten really, if only I had the time!

My dad managed to get himself a contract, its 3 months in Derby. He has been tossing it up, annoyingly asking just about everyone in the world what he should do. Including my friends, I do wish he wouldn't talk to so many people and make his own mind up. I am however really glad he has found something, it will keep him occupied an while it might not be long term its good to keep his hand in.

This evening I went round to see Bruce. He was taking a night off from working on the house, so instead we worked on getting the DNS for ispcp fixed. I wrote some scripts for our servers, which I will tidy up and be posting soon here and on their forum.

Fake Plastic Trees

I took my mum to the garden centre this afternoon. Partly prompted by my conversation with Holly yesterday coupled with thE fact the the carnivorous plant Martin gave me a couple of years ago has come back to life. It is a bog plant, so unlike me it has greatly enjoyed the wet summer. I had thought it was at deaths door, its been stunted and never grown any fly catching cups until the last month were it has perked up immensely, spawning a cup and another on the way. Hopefully next year it will catch some of the fly's.

I also had to go to the pet section and get some more filters for the fish tank. Whilst I was there I they talked me into buying what is basically a chemistry set in order to perform all manner of tests on the water. I think I might leave it to my dad his eyes lit up when he saw all the bottles of testing fluid. I bought my mum some plant pots and an Aloe Vera plant, its not the prettiest but she seemed to like it, she is into natural cures at the moment.

This evening one of the people from Japanese class invited me round to practise and borrow a graphic novel, in return for a copy of some software. She is living on the road next to Bruce, it was really weird hearing her give me directions.

I was truly appalling at Japanese, I felt so embarrassed to be that bad. I really need to practise an awful lot more. I think it must have been greatly annoyed to her as she is a lot better practised. We chatted for a while afterwards, its interesting to hear the point of view of someone who has very different life experience, and she is certainly well travelled.

We have a conversation about some of the different nationalities behaviour, she is German. She made an interesting comment which might amuse Nekena, when I get a chance to relate it to her. Martina says she think Spanish women always look amazing, but that she dosn't ever think British people and Spanish people could work out. Her reasoning went something along the lines of "You British people drink warm tea with milk Spanish people drink warm wine, it just isn't going to work".

The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret

Went for a BBQ at Jo Bergers today, I think its the first possibly the only one I will go to this year. Usually summer is bbq madness but this year the weather has been so poor this summer. Apparently Joe had a freezer full of food thanks to lack of BBQ action so he decided that as the weather should be good today it was time to use it.

Phil and I went down and dragged the Wii along, stopping on the way to pick up some beer and baps from the supermarket on route.

We arrived about an hour and a half after the first guests. Some music friend of Jo's, we had a chat with them and ate some bbq food, unfortunately they had to make tracks as they had a gig.

After they left I ate far too much meat, and had a chat with Jo and Holly. She seemed in an especially good mood, we talked about her new found love of gardening and work and life. I really enjoyed chatting to her, which was nice as Jo was busy cooking and entertaining.

I probably wont surprise you when I mention after the bbq we moved inside to play on, you've guessed it the Wii. Carlos a neighbor of Jo and Holly's brought round brain training and Tiger Woods golf. I found Tiger woods very difficult for a mess about game, more of a one player practice and improve than the Wii sports hit and hope games.

One of os friends came over and wow he must play a lot of games because he was so well practiced it was frightening. Apparently he is some sort of lawyer and they have games to chill out on in the office, wonderful I want them too!

Brain training was hilarious though, though I was feeling a little bit drunk at this point which I am sure adversely affected my play, unless I really am that stupid :S

My names John and I am a Wii addict

I am addicted, I just love the Wii. After playing in London I have had three nights of Wii this week.
Tuesday Phil and I played after Japanese class, then last night I went round to Andy and Emilie's mainly to chat and play some Wii. I arrived in the middle of the England game, Andy and Emily were in personalised England shirts. Never having been a footbal fan I found it quiet surreal.
We played a few games, I actually made up some points on golf and bowling. Phil arrived later after Akido and basically thrashed everyone at tennis. Andy got a bit stressed out by it all I think he was annoyed he didn't play very well and well he dosn't like losing either ;-)

I have even being playing Wii fitness when I venture home for lunch I find I have just enough time to get it donw before I jet back to work. I know I am probably a bit excessive at the moment bt I am sure I will calm down a little once the novelty wears off. I havent had a console this sociable since I bought my Nintendo 64 and Mario Kart our player!

Angels and Demons

Last week I received a rather cryptic email from my boss informing me that there was a management consultant coming in to assess the business. All sort of troubling thoughts were going through my head as this could easily be a byword for I am selling or downsizing. I spent part of the weekend getting rather stressed about it all.

It turns out I wasn't entirely correct in my assessment, the business might be sold but in a few years time, before which they want to grow the size to improve the return. The meeting I had was a bit strange but mostly positive so I hold out some hope for the future.

Weekend In London 3

If I felt hungover yesterday today I felt destroyed. Fortunately Paul saved us by cooking a nice big breakfast. Even though the sausages were a few days out of date they smelled OK and tasted great. With some food inside I felt much better.

I was too tired and my train was due at 15:50 so there wasn't much to do except chill out at the flat and play some more Wii. Paul was getting a bit frustrated at golf, they can be pretty competitive.

I tried to make Pippa's wireless connection more secure, by putting WPA encryption on. It seemed to work ok thought she had a little problem after I left. I felt very grateful she let me stay all weekend it was good of them both.

At 3 Paul gave me a lift to the station and within a few hours I was home again. In truth I was pretty sad to be home, it had been great to catch up with Paul and Pippa. Hopefully our paths will cross more often in the future, and maybe next time Ill get out and see something of London.

Weekend In London 2

After the late night drinking we all woke up a little late and somewhat groggy. Pippa had someone coming round to view her spare room and as we were in no mood to set off early we waited around and tried to drown our hangovers with tea and coffee.

The girl viewing the flat arrived so Pippa showed her around while Paul and I waited. She seemed a nice girl, Pippa was keen to get her back for a second "interview".

We set off to Angel in search of sustenance and excitement. Food was pretty easy to come by, we all bought these tasty Ciabatta filled with mozzarella and salami from a local delicatessens in Angel. After eating we were feeling a lot more refreshed so went for a wonder around the shops.

In truth I had rather hoped to see a bit of London but even after eating I felt a little tired. Also Paul had kind of helped talk me into buying a Nintendo Wii. I have been really enjoying playing on Andy's, and Phil's Wii and seeing one pre-owned in Game I though, "Why not?".

After a quick search around I managed to source a second controller from Woolworth's, the last one available at any shop in Angel. After a quick Frappuccino in was back to Pippa's for a few games.
We spent most of the afternoon playing Wii, joined later on by Pippa's friend Monica. She was great at the games putting us to shame but she didn't seem to enjoy it all that much. She did I think enjoy the Pizza we ordered though :)

After eating we headed out on the bus into Hoxton. A night of drinking and carousing ensued as you can see from the photos here.

Weekend In London 1

I decided that it was high time I went to visit Paul. With that in mind I got myself return tickets on a Virgin Pendolino train to London, I left pretty much straight after work just enough time to nip and grab some things. Friday was dress down day so I didn't have to change just grab a bag and jump on the train. The new high speed trains are great, it took only two and a half hours to London, the train was clean and nice and ran exactly on time. I couldn't have asked for more really. I arrived in London and after a short tube ride met Paul in Angel Islington. From there we went to Pippa flat in Dalston. Stopping along the way for a few drinks and a catch up chat in Paul's local pub. It was a nice evening to sit out and catch up, its been quiet a while since I last saw him. After much chat and a couple of drinks we headed to buy some takeaway goodness from the local Chinese. Pippa seem pleased to see us (especially loaded with food). I was impressed with her flat it is a pretty specious 2 bedroom affair in a low rise development. The area is multicultural, but pretty clan and safe from all accounts. We all ate and chatted then played Gamecube for a while before retiring to bed. Fortunately for me Pippa's lodger had recently moved out so I was able to have the spare room.