Humbug

Had a lan party on Saturday, only the second one this year the last one was held in January. I expected it to be busy, however I wasn't expected a pose of new players to arrive 45 minutes before the start time! We ended up having 22 players, which was pretty manic in Quake III. It was great as it enabled a several different games to be run with enough players. It was pretty hectic for us though, the pizza order was huge, 17 pizzas, 3 1/4 pounder burgers and 8 chips.

Phil got to show off his new 3D setup, and one of the new guys won CS 30 0.

Nick turned up later in the evening to collect some money off Martin, I think he was quite surprised how busy it was. Ian came in too and he was surprised to find me behind the bar, so surprised he took a photo!

These are my twisted words

Free new Radiohead song available here

The Guild - Do You Wanna Date My Avatar

ID Cards fail

I have never been a fan of the ID card scheme. I think its an expensive and ineffective solution, that despite assurances wont solve the age of problems of fraud criminality and bureaucratic mistakes, indeed someones already managed to clone the cards in 12 minutes. The Register seems to agree so do the Banks, even retailers think twice.

Obviously if the cards themselves are prone to fraud, and ineffective methods of proving our identities the government and the IPS really has other ideas Really its not the card they are interested in but in producing mega databases of everone which can be used in all mannor of ways. I really think that this will mostly impact normal people criminals will simply used cloned cards and never have a real identity.

I certainly will not be registering or queuing up to get one once the scheme goes live in Manchester (which is one of the Trial areas).

He's A Pirate

One of my friends works for a security company, I think he should be driving one of these!

Options include, flag holders and gun case with compartments for 2 machine guns, awesome stuff.

iPhony

Saw this in Wired magazine, as ever US centric but most of the reasons have meritc nonethless

Robots

People who work on production lines have for a number of years had their jobs replaced by robots. Now even if you work in a resurant watch out!

The Register has a story about a Japanese resturant where the Miso Raimen is prepared by two industrial robots.

1983

I have just watched the third and final part of Channel 4 Red Riding trilogy. Its been a dark ride through corruption with artistic licence intermingling facts into the stories. It has been a weird series I have had to read up on the Wikipedia site to try and piece what was real and separate the truth from fiction.

I spent the day practising my carpentry skills fitting a new lock. It was required for my house insurance the all the locks complied to a standard. The garage door was an old two lever lock whereas everything should 5 a 5 lever mortice. The never lock was slightly bigger so I had to chisel out bits of door and door frame, in order to horseshoe in the lock and striking plate. I also did a few other bits wood varnishing my step and

It was a really nice day, I took storm for a really long walk to the Woodford Recreation ground, leisurely walking across and playing catch. I passed by both Ian and his Brother Jono as I was walking. Jono seemed a bit worked up, apparently he had some sort of argument with his neighbour. Ian looked tired he was busy unloading his van.

Next doors young son Mackenzie came round to see my mum and Storm. Storm worried me a bit he is normally very calm with him but tonight I got the feeling he was getting angry. I wish I knew more about how to control him.

One year on

I just realised today is the 8th of August. One year since the start of the Beijing Olympics and coincidentally one year since I got the keys to my house. Given I still don&39;t live there this is somewhat of a sore point.
Today I went and burned some more paint off the bathroom door and surround. I also managed to finish painting the garage walls white. It looks pretty good and reflects the light a lot better now, so the garage is brighter and a nicer space.

I have found the balance between the perfectionism my dad suffers from and doing things half arsed.

Every Day Is Exactly the Same

"I belive I can see the future, Cause I repeat the same routine". Trent Reznor's lyrics pretty much entirly summing up my life at the moment. Work and decorating are pretty much my routine at the moment. Broken only by walking the dog and drinking a few bottles of peroni.

Fortunately there is some light on the horizon. My friend Kath is coming to visit me next weekend. I am taking a long weekend off no work just time for some R&R. I would like to go visit the Banksy exhibit at Bristol museam, but I am not sure if I can be bothered to drive down there yet.

Harry Patch (In Memory Of)

I wanted to write something about the death of Harry Patch. The Today program had an excellent obituary including his interview in 2005 where he basically recounted the real horror of war. Its really worth a listen. My grandfather fought in the first world war so hearing someone describe the conditions he would have experience is quite shocking. So shocking in fact that Patch himself never spoke about the experience until after his 100th birthday. I never met met Granddad but from what my dad has told me he never said much about the war, my great Aunt told me it changed him as a person, I am glad I don't have to fight.

Thom York was so moved by the interview that he wrote a song in memory. Its available on waste for only £1 with all profits going to the British Legion. The song itself is a haunting tune, the lyrics all taken from Patches own words arranged with some incredible string work. On its own it would be an interesting song, its just all the more poignant now.

Tyre swing

Friday night I had to do so work until late setting up email for a client.

After another weekend of working on the house, I managed to strip the door to the garage, and paint 3/4 of the garage walls. It looks a lot cleaner and brighter now, and the smell that used to permeate has now dissipated. All it took was getting rid of the old carpets, cleaning and stripping back all the paint.

Hurricane drunk

I have found it hard to blog recently, I feel incredibly angry and empty. Some days I feel numb, like I am just going through the motions. Work has been difficult awful, some days I just want to scream, or walk through the office pumping round after round into colleagues and coworkers

I feel like recently my life has been categorised by a series of mistakes. Each somehow worse or compounding the last. Somehow aged 29 I have ended up at a stagnant. I feel trapped, going nowhere but every move I make to try and change things rebounds and drags me further into the void.

So far in the last few months I have managed to alienate people, get back into the same debt problems I worked so hard to get away from. I thought I would feel better to buy a house and move out. Unfortunately it seems to be an epic fail, nearly a year on and I still have so much to do to it just to make the place livable. On the bright side I have nearly finished decorating the bedroom leaving *only* the hall stairs and landing and bathroom to decorate; so maybe not too much longer. It does all look good too, while my dad drives me nearly to the point of insanity with his rigid attention to detail, it does provide good (if a little slow) results.

Wii Sport Resort

Having got up early to do an upgrade (I really love a 7am golive :S) I left work at slightly earlier at 5. Unfortunately there were more than a few spanners to my plan. On my way home from Macclesfield I try and avoid the traffic by taking a number of country a/b roads this evening as I go close to Mottram hall I had to take a 15 minute pause while a herd of cattle was corralled across the road.

Whilst in the queue I missed two phone calls, one from my boss to basically berate the lack of progress, which I felt was totally unfair given I had got up so early in order to get the project moving and it wasn't me who was holding things up.

I arrived home to find a parcel from Amazon. It was the copy of Wii Sports Resort (Wii) with Wii MotionPlus Accessory which I had ordered some time ago, about 6 months I think!

I took it round to Andy and Emilie's apartment to try out the new games. Some were great; I enjoyed Archery, Ping Pong and swordplay, even though Emily kicked my ass. Some of the games were a little weird, like the advertising feature that is Frisbee dog. The attention to detail in the games and the range and diversity of games is much greater than in Wii Sports. I like the island setting and the way you can fly round the island and see all the game locations. I didn't like some of the games but there are more than enough there to keep interest for a while. I also had a problem that I needed to recalibrate my Wii Motion Plus quite frequently.

Cookie Sutra

My friend Kath found this

The loneliness of a tower crane driver

Saw two weird and wonderful stories while on lunch break which I thought I would share.

Reuters has a story about a German man who Man tries to fix airbed,and end up blowing up his apartment.

The Register has a tail of why it is not a good idea to sniff petrol then goad police.

Paparazzi

I took some action regarding my lack over a computer and sent a letter to Aria threatening commencement of legal action. I had underestimated how letters have more power to get things moving than phonecalls and finally I have a new motherboard and can put my PC back together, hurrah!

Jo Berger held a barbecue today to celebrate his birthday early this week. I picked up Phil and we headed to Levenshulme. Despite the sun shining earlier in the day while I painted my garage, when I picked up Phil it was pouring down, really tropical monsoon weather. I actually parked as close to Phil's front door as I could to avoid it. So it was with some trepidation we set off to Jo's.

Fortunately for once nature was on our side, driving 20 minutes driving towards Manchester and we were in a totally different micro climate. No rain, not exactly azure blue sky, but certainly nicer weather.

I had some home-made beef burgers which I sprinkled a bit of chilli into, they proved to be a hit with Phil and Jo. Phil spent most of the day talking to an Australian friend of Jo's. They appeared to enjoy each others company.

I had chosen to drive so I watched everyone enjoy a few drinks while I chatted and ate lots of sausages (beef no pork at this house). Later on we were treated to a tour of the new allotment. Its much better than the old plot with lots of mature trees on it. I even ate some berrys off the tree, yummy.

21 Guns

So far I have spent my week off working on the house, threatening legal action against Aria and worrying about money. My motherboard died and Aria are refusing to replace it, despite it being inside the warranty. I have written them increasingly strongly worded letters, so far to no avail. I would certainly recommend against using this company, their customer service is terrible.

I feel disconnected from people at the moment, I'm also sick and tired of peoples advice. There are two camps, people who tell me I should get as much done beofre moving in because hte mess / hassell is increased when Im living there, and thos that tell me I wont get it done until I move in. Seeing the amount of mess made each time I start a job, I have thus far sided with the former group.

Today I spent some time burning off paint, interspersed with doing some with some gardening to bring the plants under control.  After a while stripping the paint the fumes tend to get pretty strong, not to mention the heat. I am sporting two burns already, that will teach me for being careless. I also sealed part of the garage floor. Around where I intend to site the washing machine. I  found a can of floor paint in the garage, I am unsure where it came from, answers on a postcard.

I was feeling down a long time before Steve died, but now I feel empty, and pretty frustrated. Work has been negatively impacted by the financial crisis as well as losing Steve. That together with the stress of doing up the house means I am very hard to get on with.

eet

Today was the first day of my holidays. I got to look and smile at y work email full of dilemmas which would normally stress me out in the full knowledge that just for the moment its not MY problem :D

I spent the day working on my house, no surprises, found a really cheap place to buy bits of plastic, called scot plas in Stockport. I bought a 5 meter length (I only needed 2 meters but 5 was all they sold) to cover part of the window near my kitchen sink, it only cost £3!

I also bought a doorbell which proved a complete arse to fit, I spent most of the afternoon fitting it but eventually my dad and I got it done. We got home around 7 just time for me to walk the dog before dinner.

Phil had a van for a job tomorrow, so he called and offered to drop off a spare bit of carpet his parents didn't want. I also convinced him to help me move the bbq that has been sat outside the front of my parents house since next door but two moved away. After verything was transported we headed to the unicorn for a couple of pints. During which we tossed around the idea of holding another lan party next month.