So another week (and more) and no updates. I've actually had people complain about it this time! So here goes...

JFW came down on the Thursday and we went out for drinks and a curry. A top evening. We caught up with the last few years and it felt like we'd seen each other a couple of weeks ago. Comfortable chatting, no pregnant pauses or anything - just 2 mates chatting. It was great. See you again soon Jon?

I had the Friday off work (to recover), picked the kids up in the afternoon and had them until Sunday morning, when I dropped them off at their Nans for a couple of days. That morning, I had to take my cat Doodle to the vets, as she had blood in her wee and was going every few minutes - poor thing. The vet diagnosed Cystitis and prescribed some anti-biotics - which has now sorted out the problem. Getting a cat to take a pill is always difficult of course, so I resorted to my favourite trick of putting the pill in a teaspoon of water, holding the cat down and putting it in her mouth. Cats seem to have an instinct to swallow when water is on their lips - so waahey! the pill went too. Forget the "hiding the pill in the meat chunks" method - this works, but can leave you a little scratched :)

Rhiannon went to a swimming party on the Saturday, which left me with Chan for a few hours by himself - and he was the model child. Quite, playful, polite - everything you could ask for. Of course, when Rhiannon was around the next day - he was back to normal. Oh well!

Thursday last week, was mine and Shell's 18 month anniversary.

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[link]   Posted @ 15:38

Bad news - looks like some memory banks on my A4000T processor card are FUBAR
Good news - 2 of the 4 are still working which means my A4kT isnt completely dead.

Bad news - Liverpool were 3-0 down at half time in the Champions League final against AC Milan in Istanbul.
Good news - They came back and won the thing on penalties! Yay the Reds!

Needless to say, I was riveted to the screen last night while at Shell's parents. Just after the second half started, the others wanted to play a board game. My reply was "If they go 4-0 down, I'll play as there is no way to get back from that." A couple of minutes later, it was 3-1 and within 9 mins it was 3-3. Truly awesome game and the 2nd half was Liverpools through and through. Watching the penalties was gripping and even Shell and her mum got into it :)

My mate Andy let me know today (Hi Motorman) that my Amiga isn't completely dead. I need to drop an AT-style PSU up to him at the weekend, so that he can replace the one in there as it isnt in great condition (fan has died, etc).

Tonight I am out in Weston with Jon. Alcohol, curry and more alcohol. I have tomorrow off work to recover and next week off for the kids (until Weds) and then a couple of days doing some PC work and being with Shell. Should be good!

I'll update over the weekend.

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[link]   Posted @ 16:26

So Thuesday evening - my Amiga A4000T packed up. I powered it off in order to move some cables from behind it and when I powered it back on - it wouldn't boot! It powers up but doesnt initialise properly.

On Sunday I dropped it, another Amiga 4000 (with Cyberstorm PPC), memory, hdds, spare processor card, etc, etc round to my mate Andy in the hope he can build me a working machine and rescue my 6 years worth of email that is sat on the hdd!

My mate Martin was meant to have come round on Saturday for a meal and then out into town. Unfortunately, his parents were coming back from Spain and he had to pick them up - so nothing happened. We didnt have a nice meal, we didnt go out, we went to bed early. Sad isn't it :)

Sunday was spent at Shell's grannys, who was celebrating her birthday. Ace food and we all had a good laugh (apart from her Aunt being an arse for 5 minutes).

I'm in the process of building a new PC for Marcus and I've started getting some of the bits. One of the trades I did netted me an LTO-1 drive with some blank tapes! Either secure backup or eBay awaits it :)

Wednesday is Shell's mums birthday. Thursday, JFW is coming down and we shall be getting beered and curried up. What a week!

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[link]   Posted @ 11:54

I'm supposed to choose 5 and complete the sentence.
Then I have to tag 3 people!

If I could be a scientist . . .
If I could be a farmer . . .
If I could be a musician . . .
If I could be a doctor . . .
If I could be a painter . . .
If I could be a gardener . . .
If I could be a missionary . . .
If I could be a chef . . .
If I could be an architect . . .
If I could be a linguist . . .
If I could be a psychologist . . .
If I could be a librarian . . .
If I could be an athlete . . .
If I could be a lawyer . . .
If I could be an inn-keeper . . .
If I could be a professor . . .
If I could be a writer . . .
If I could be a llama-rider . . .
If I could be a bonnie pirate . . .
If I could be an astronaut . . .
If I could be a world famous blogger . . .
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world . . .
If I could be married to any current famous political figure . . .

So here I go:-

If I could be a musician... I would be a world famous rock/metal guitarist. A mix up between Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Marty Friedman, Carlos Santana and Jimmy Paige. I would be awesome :)

If I could be a chef... I would be a pastry chef. Making little cakes, Danish pastries, etc, etc. The idea of making (and testing, of course) little pastries with thick custard fillings. Yum!

If I could be an architect... I would specialise in Escher style buildings. Very cubist, 3D-like and impossible to build. Stairs that go up but take you to the lower floor. The building would look great, but would be impossible to work/live in.

If I could be an inn-keeper... I would apply for 24hr opening licence and live my life in there. Computers dotted around the place (like an internet cafe), big screens, sport, LAN gaming, etc, etc. Plus I would have the largest selection of different Rums, just to keep my mates happy.

If I could be a writer... I'd be a male version of J.K.Rowling. Then I'd be horrendously rich and could do some of the things above! Or I'd be Philip K. Dick. That would be awesome!

And I shall tag...DigitalGod, Gekki and Fairmania. Go!

Last weekend, I went on my mates Stag Do. We drove up to Nottingham on Saturday afternoon and went karting for almost 2hrs. The stag-group were split into 3 teams and amazingly our team beat the other 2. Myself, Marcus and Wayne were victorious. Although, out of 11 teams, we came 6th...

We then headed for the hotel and got changed before heading to Hooters for food. We then hit the clubs and finished of around 3am when we staggered back to the hotel. The club we went to was called Oceana and you can find out more here. The 10ft high dancing robot was one of the highlights of the evening.

Upon returning home, I discovered I was in immense pain due to 4 large bruises on my back. This was damage caused by the seat in the Kart and flying round corners at 35mph, while being thrown violently sideways... Fortunately, I have a Shell to nurse my aching parts back to life :D

This Saturday is the Cup Final (Man U v Arsenal) and next Wednesday is the Champions League final (Liverpool v AC Milan). A good few days of football. Plus next week, I get to see my good friend JFW for the first time in years. We shall chat, drink, eat and drink for old times sakes... I'm really looking forward to it - I don't think we've been face to face for over 6 years!!

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[link]   Posted @ 13:26

Need a login for a certain site? Then check out Bug Me Not. I've mentioned it before, but I've found it handy again recently as a lot of online news sites require registration.

Getting fed up of Spam? Need to register to get something just the once but dont want the resulting nightmare that often comes with doing so? If so, you need a disposable address (free of course). Check out SpamBob and Mailinator.

Been working on trying to find some automated test software for work for an application issue we are working on. Need to time web pages loading, response, etc. If anyone knows of anything (preferably GUI based that can be scripted or do record/playback), please let me know.

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[link]   Posted @ 14:27

Today I am mostly posting links to stuff. I havent done anything like this for a while, so I have collected some of the entertaining, weird and curious stuff from around the net and here it is.

This is possibly one of the greatest "groupware" applications ever. You and lots of other people playing with magnetic fridge letters and people keep nicking the letters you were using. Check it out

Possibly the coolest keyboard on the planet. Pricey though...

You know the Citroen advert with the dancing robot car? Check this one out :)

A fantastic game to while away the hours. Guess the search from the images by playing Guess the Google

Ever need to insult any vegetarians you know? If so, you need Bacon Strip Plasters

Kevin Smith reviews Star Wars Episode III: Revenage of the Sith. WARNING: THERE ARE MAJOR SPOILERS

Tetris shelves anyone?. Beats Ikea...

And finally (I like to provide something for everybody), something for the arsonists and pyromaniacs amongst us - Starting a fire with a can of coke and chocolate

Catch you all later.

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[link]   Posted @ 11:32

So, since my last update, what has happened?

I found that my Dell A922 All-in-one has anti-counterfieting technology built in. As a scanner it wont scan notes and that also affects its printing abilty. However, a Dell A720 printer had no such problems and printed the novelty bank notes without a blink.

I also visited Cartridge World on the Saturday and had 3 cartridges filled - the A720 and the A922 colour cartridges. Cost me �30 - but they were filled up as high-capacity ones - so I should save some reasonable money from that. The A720 one works fine, but the A922 insists that the cartridge is now empty but still prints perfectly! Doh!

This morning I took advantage of the fact that Index are closing their stores and managed to get an HP Photosmart 7450 for �41. Super bargainous! And refills are cheaper. And it looks quite smart too..



Last Friday saw us at the re-opening night at the Cabot 6 Bars. They have made several changes and a couple of them are massive. For instance, the stairs from the ground floor have been moved, the dance floor doubled in size, 2 new bars, 2 new staircases and a whole new floor! It looks incredible, with pastel shades, mirrors, blue lighting and even leather sofas and cube seats. They've also thrown in a no smoking area for good measure. It was a good bash, with a couple of free drinks, free Chinese food and space/time for a good natter. I'm not totally convinced that the new setup will work, as the old Cabot crowd weren't exactly "up market" types...

Saturday we didnt do a car boot sale, as it was pissing down in rain. So we did nothing instead. We did however to the Cheddar car boot on Sunday and did pretty well. We both sold stuff and went home with a tidy profit. We'll see how it goes the next weekend.

Tuesday night saw us at the Fleece in Bristol. Shell came up to Bristol on the train and met me at the office. She managed to get sneaked in by Martin and met the people I work with. She really enjoyed that. We then had a meal at Bella Italia (used to be "Bella Pasta") and made our way to the Fleece. Well - we would have, but it was pissing down in rain and there was a massive queue, so we popped in the pub next door and waited for 7.30pm to come round. We eventually got in around 8pm and the support act started at 8.30ish. He was from Coventry, I have no idea who he was, but he sang some great songs.

Of course, when he buggered off, the crowd went nuts waiting for James Marsters (Spike from Buffy) to come on. It wasn't helped that Anthony Stewart-Head (Giles from Buffy) was in the crowd as well. He came on to rapturous applause, rude shouting and women screaming their tits off.

He played quite a long acoustic set, followed by several songs "electrified". I will say several things good things about him:

• He can play the guitar and even managed some chords that most guitarists would shy away from.
• He has a pretty decent voice.
• There is a lot of him in his character Spike
• He knows how to work a crowd
• His meloncholic lyrics work best in his songs

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[link]   Posted @ 14:34

For those of you that didnt yet know - Google have finally brought their map technology to the UK. Google Maps is in in Beta stage and quite frankly is incredible!

My road and the other roads around me that only just exist are on the map and its incredibly quick too. Click on the link and go and try it.

I'm having a little bit of grief at the moment. I have some novelty bank notes that I want to print off, but my PC refuses to do so. I don't know whether its the printer, the printer driver or XP thats doing it. If anyone knows, let me in on the secret. I'm running XP SP2, printing from a freeware paint program and printing on a Dell A922 All-in-one printer/scanner/doodad machine. In the meantime, I might put my old Epson C42UX back to see if that will work.

Speaking of which, I am going to run out of colour ink this evening, so tomorrow I am quite likely to go and visit the new Cartridge World in the town centre to get it refilled. I will let you know the outcome and what quality/paper run I get from the refills. I've never had cartridges refilled before, anyone else?

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[link]   Posted @ 12:37

I have been eBaying a lot recently. Purchasing stuff to sell, selling stuff for a profit and generally getting my rating up. I currently stand at 97 and should have over 100 by the weekend. I added a load of stuff last night (knitting machines and accessories id you'd believe it), check them out here.

Work has been suffering quite a bit over the last few months and I something need to change about my working week. One of the major factors was having every Wednesday afternoon off to be with the kids for 2 hours. In order to get back home for 4pm, I would have to leave work around 2.30pm, meaning I had to catch my hours up in the rest of the week and this was becoming tricky. So I took the hard decision to drop Wednesday's with the kids. I know I fought hard to get access to them, but its pointless getting myself into a bad situation at work that would then impact my ability to care for them properly. That's all I can say about the matter really (regular readers will understand).

This Friday sees our favourite club/pub re-open after some fairly drastic refurbishment. The Cabot 5 Bars on Weston sea front reopens on Friday 22nd April and Shell and I have VIP invitations to the opening night (its not open to the public), thanks to our friend Neil (part of the security team). Before the refurb, it only had 4 bars (I know!) that could be used due to the licence, but when it reopens, it will be the Cabot 6 Bars!!! How they have managed to fit it all in is beyond me, but I will ensure that I check them all out and sample their wares :)

This weekend will hopefully see us doing 2 car boot/markets on Saturday and Sunday. Plus I am working on Sunday afternoon and then next Tuesday, Shell, Su and I are off to see James Marsters (Spike from Buffy/Angel) in concert at the Fleece & Firkin...

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[link]   Posted @ 13:10

Today was the first day in my new office. I had a nice new chair, new screen and spangly new laptop. Result!

Everything is working pretty seamlessly (apart from name resolution on the remote client sites) and the atmosphere is really nice.

It's deadly quiet though. There was always loads of noise, friendly banter and other such at the old office. But here - silence. I will slowly get used to it I suppose :)

I spent the first few minutes of the day unpacking my crate, putting up my pictures of Shell and the kids, arranging my Bionicles and arranging stationery - the important things. Next things on my list were - where are the toilets?, where can I smoke? and where can I get a cup of tea?

The answer to the third question led me to locate the nearest coffee lounge. There are 2 tea/coffee vending machines. "Poor show" I thought and then looked around me.

A hot water dispenser. And tea bags. Breakfast tea, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Herbal, etc and various selections of dried coffee along with white sugar, brown sugar, various fake sugars, etc. The only thing missing was a selection of biscuits. Fan-bloody-tastic!

Tomorrow I am back to the old office - as a visitor!

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[link]   Posted @ 16:12