March 04, 2006
I Is Back!
Hello? Gosh, it does echo in here, doesn't it! And all this dust! I'll have to get a girl in to do something about it...
How have you all been? Yeah? Cool. Me? Ah, I've been getting bogged down at work, stressed out a couple of times, got ill, slept, got over having my ankle operated on - life's happened, y'know? I won't give you a full, detailed breakdown of the past few months (few? My last entry was in June!!!), but I can give you a quick overview, I guess...
My ankle - ah, when I left off it was finally copming back to normal - I was exercising and it was getting stronger - now it is nice and strong (though there is always bruising there), and I can walk normally on it without too much of a problem. I say that because it can now have spasms and lock off due to the muscle and tendon damage, as before, except that now it can do it more violently as there isn't a lump of bone in the way to stop it! Still, it is a hell of a lot better, so overall it's a success!
Just over a year ago I had a serious stress attack at work, and I've come quite close a few times more recently at work... Mostly I've just gone into the toilets and sat on the loo shivering and crying - not total stress-outs so far, which is surprising! I'm unfortunate to work in Social Services (there- I've said it!) and my job isn't too bad most of the time, but in the past year things have been changing. A lot. First, I go back to work after my op and then my colleague who had been covering has a problem that stops him driving. Then he goes off for six months after a suspected heart attack! Luckily it turns out that it wasn't a heart attack, but an infection in the heart, similar but worse, to what I had a few years ago. For six montsh I had to cover some of his work (luckily it wasn't too busy at first, and then other people in the team around the county took up the job as my patch suddenly got busy - to put it in persective, I've been off for 25% of the year with my ankle (and only managed to take a bit of leave, most of that just before I came back while I got my left leg up to full strength again). In the remaining 75% I've had as many cases as I had last year. And March isn't over yet. I couldn't keep up, so they had to help to cover for me too! Things got better, though, but then a pilot scheme that had been hanging over our heads descended and I ended up doing the pilot three days a week covering certain parts of Burnley with the other two days for my normal job (covering East Lancashire - a much bigger area!). The two days I was doing my normal job were not enough, as you can imagine - I spent most of them either replying to people amnd messages saying it they would be seen eventually, doing a little bit of the job itself (chipping away at the mountain, a bit). Except that for the new job I required training, as did the rest of the pilot team. Training that often took 3-4 days away from me. By Christmas I was going a little crazy, and then someone decided to do something about it - and suddenly I was only doing one day on the pilot. This sounds cool, right? Well, just what can I do on that one day? At least I've managed to get a lot of stuff done in my own job (though there are still delays as there is more stuff coming in every day), though at least I am feeling better now. During this time the plan was to learn BSL level 2 as part of my job, but as it has been a long while since I was trained (at my own expense) I was no good and spent much of the day miserable (despite the nice company :-) and went home a couple of weeks ago stressed, but willing to try again. Unfortunately in the week that followed I was able to think about it properly and realised I couldn't do Level 2 - not yet - and spent a shaky, flu-ey morning (in the pilot hours!) composing an email to my manager to get off it for this year, carefully trying to make it look like I wasn't joing a few members of the team who had refused. I'm willing to do it, but not while I'm on the pilot and not while I'm so stressed out. Now I should be on a level 1 course in April, but this should be better, and mean that I pick up what I lost - not so difficult. I hope...
Of course, I reckoned without my colleague managing to slip in the ice and snow and fracturing his ankle on Thursday night. Oh well.
Gaming news - this year I've been mostly playing GTA - San Andreas when at home and not working on the comic, but it's been Joint Operations every Sunday with the lads. This is fine, but while I was off with my ankle I played every night and got really good, and kinda bored with it! Still, Nick and Andrew love it, so we'll keep playing until something else comes along... and I do hope Armed Assault is as good as it looks... though Spore looks like it might be the greatest game ever!
James, once a regular visitor to the above gaming sessions (and once a regular blogger here!) has been working his arse off (apparently) to get money, so we don't see him, though do get the occasional email burst detailing the games he has, the cracks and how we'll never get to play them... Andrew has now got a rather lovely american girl staying (nothing going on - honest!) while she is at college over here, so we only see him every-so-often, and even then he comes late and goes early! Nick is his usual self, if a lot greyer! He tends to play Joint Ops a hell of a lot - I'm worried about him! He used to like going out to clubs to ogle the girls, but now he stops in - he's as bad as Andrew, though while the non-sexual Andrew has a nice girl at his place (even if she does shoot her own team in JO!) - Nick just ogles his Kylie calendar. When he's not yelling abuse at other players, of course. Not that they can hear him...
Me? I'm fine - stressed (see above) busy (see above and the comics!), and I simply can't be arsed to go out for nights out any more - even with my 36th Birthday lurking next Sunday, I find it hard to get any enthusiasm. Of course, the fact that I need money bad is another part of it - thankfully eBay has come to my rescue in the past few weeks and will continue to do spo this month and possibly forever more! Yep - I'm actually selling my stuff! So far my PS2 has gone (for a nice price, thought he woman who bought it instantly put bad feedback on for me, though the green colour on the screen is due to the DVD switch being turned on on the scart lead... hopefully she'll read the message I sent this afternoon, sort out the non-existent problem and retract it!). Unfortunately, this bad feedback seems to have cost me money - my Gamecube was on with 6 people watching, but it only went for the basic price. Thanks bitch. She's a noob (started in mid Feb) so I guess she doesn't realise that it might be a good idea to talk to the seller if there is a problem before jumping in with both feet. Especially when there isn't a problem - when the DVD switch is on it's meant to be green - at least she hasn't moaned that the Memory Card doesn't work (I put the instructions in with the CD and card!). The next big thing to sell (and I need it to do well!) is my telescope. I'm unhappy about it, but it has to go - and I want a new one anyway... a Big Dob, anyone?
Other little bits - A serious computer crash messed things up when I lost some art I'd just finished, but all is well now; I'm ending this year with at least 18 days leave untaken - even Andrew (who only gets Bank Holidays - takes more time off than me; I had to replace my iPaq after it for it's screen busted - still, somone bought it on ebay for spares, so I'm happy - and my new one is fast enough to run an Amiga emulator - I guess it'll do until the MS Origami systems start to ship; oh, and Doctor Who ruled!
Not much more to say now (your eyes are tired, I know!), but I'll say it anyway! While ...Whatever took a break until February, I.T. has gone from strength to strength - currently I have readers, visiting regularly, and I have even started a rebranding exercise! The RNP logo has changed, I.T. The Idiotic Terrestrial is now the much cooler I.T. : Rogue Noid (something I'd been wanting to do for a few years, especially at the beginning, but decided to wait until I was doing new stuff, which I am now, before doing the switch), and I'm currently in the middle of a big site revamp which will include advertising (and require me to advertise myself - hence the need for money!), starting a LJ feed and even taking part in Biggest Webcomic Loser, a charity comics event about losing weight (and I need to!) and raising money through pledges for UNICEF. I'm also about to try to get a strip in each issue of Zoinks, the webcomic newspaper... You can tell how serious I am - I draw the comic all the time and haven't missed an update in a long, long time... and spent money getting Adobe Creative Suite 2 - a reall one! With the box and everything!
Basically, in the coming year, I may get very stressed (expect some entertaining reading), but I'm geared up to promote the comic, get as much money as possible and finally do something with my life before it begins again at 40. Which is still some years, off, thankfully (well, apart from a couple of loans that make me wish it would come quicker!)
So - that's me and the last few months in a nutshell. I guarantee my next post will be here sooner than usual... have fun - I know I'll aim to misbehave!
Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2006
Just A Warning...
Since James doesn't seem to be doing anything here at the mo, it looks like I will be beginning my blogging again this weekend, as long as I don't get too bogged down with the comic and other stuff... No doubt the first entry will simply be one that gives you an idea of how my life has been these past few months, and maybe a look toward what it will be in the year to come... then I can get back to the usual moaning about how bad work is and stuff! I'll also see about reinstating the Diet Diary as I'm taking part in Biggest Webcomic Loser in aid of UNICEF! See you soon!
Posted by Badgers at 07:43 AM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2005
Another Month Goes By Like A Deadline Passing Douglas Adams...
As you can imagine, the blog hasn't really been my main priority recently, and I don't know if that will change any time soon - I may let James loose on this part of the RNP empire (as he is going to be losing something that he probably never realised existed anyway!) to keep him happy! It seems amazing to me now that James is actually using Badgers more than I am... though he does make smaller, quicker entries. Let's hope he doesn't make love like that...
So when I left off about a month ago I was still off after my operation, and enjoying the new series of Doctor Who a little bit. Okay, a lot! Well, I was finally signed off as sick at the end of May, but I had two weeks leave as I wasn't ready - my left leg had hardly any muscle as I hadn't been to walk on it properly for nearly four months! I finally got down to work on I.T. and back to Dark Tidings, but things went a little awry - I'll come back to that a little later... So there was much watching of daytime TV (the crap they show is amazing - really!) and got going again. I managed to get rounf MAnchester without my crutch at last, and noticed the difference immediately - no not the pain (though it did hurt!)... No, the difference was that this time the people who try to get you to have new credit cards, catalogues and sell you The Big Issue all started to try to sell me new credit cards, catalogues and sell you The Big Issue! When I had my crutches, I was immune - even the guys and gals who hand out flyers for the nightclubs didn't bother (for obvious reasons, in their case!), but now - back to normal! Oddly enough, I usually ignore them and they stay away as I wear a hearing aid if I think I might get hassled! I know, I know, but what the heck - barely anyone can get to this bit of the RNP empire (though the link is at the main site) so I can anything with no comeback. Well, apart from James, and I hardly ever does anything more than put the odd comment up between downloads...!
So, anyway, a couple of weeks ago I returned to work, and found that, as expected, the guy who had been covering for me had gone off on holiday. What I didn't expect was that he can't drive for a few months as he's had an epileptic fit! Add to that the fact that I've been virtually working part-time myself due to my ankle, and things are surprisingly not too bad! One reason for this is that I've now got a nice laptop to work on (after a painfiul trip to Preston - the traffic was hell!) and I've actually had the time to sit down and go thoguh mny caseload and get rid of a huge amoung of cases that I never had the time to close before - my workload looks almost manageable - though this will change now I'm back and available to go out to see the annoying people again...
Friend-wise, Jamius has been conspicuous by his absence (though a thousand emails saying what he is going to download (in the form of a vote, but he usually downloads it all anyway!) have made up for that!), Nick has been on one of his buying sprees, and is likely to be after building a monster PC now like I have (I <3 my Ayumi!) so things run even smoother. Andrew has turned up after a while away and is now seriously into Joint Operations , as is Nick - I must admit to being a little non-plussed these days though whether this is due to playing it almost every night and getting quite good, or due to the number of games I join only to find one side constantly gets overrunn and loses all bases within a few minutes (I mean, about five minutes to lose Klaatu Mines?!?!) - I'm not sure. I've played quite a lot of Battlefield 2 and while it is great to play, there are idiots on the servers who mess up the game (usually by team killing). Good fun though, but I have got GTA: San Andreas and let's face it, this game is the shizzle! There is still City Of Heroes (still fun) and the excellent Guild Wars too...
Of course, not everything goes well - apparently James will be back for a one-week-only appearance this weekend before disappearing into the forest to hunt woodlice or something. I wonder if he's been able to use his telescope recently? I know I have!
One big, nasty and sad thing that hasn't gone my way is, sadly, Dark Tidings. While I.T. is flowing nicely (the art is fun, the stories easy to write), Dark Tidings ran into another wall, though at least this time it wasn't anything like when the original series crashed and burned during Rites Of Spring... I was able to announce, just in time for the Summer Solstice, that I was going to have to amke a sacrifice of something, and for various reasons, that something was going to be Dark Tidings. Like most web cartoonists (even well established ones - you know who you are!) I knew I could do more - sadly I was wrong, though the main reason is that I was changing the way the story was scripted at the last moment (note to all writers - if your characters start talking to you, tell them to bugger off!). The good news (yes, you can stop crying now, James!) is that it will return, but different. It may be online, it may be just in book form, but it will return - and it will still feature Pucky the chicken - at least he knew his place and never gave me backchat! Now I have time for life again (I can read books, play games, make - yes - make blog entries!). A large lump of life has been returned to me, and fo that I'm glad. In sadder news, I.T. will keep going until I die, probably!
So, It's been a fairly eventful month or so (and I haven't told you about my mum being fined £1000 as the lid of the dustbin wasn't on properly (and her the head of the local Community Group! The shame!), though it seems it will be ignored as it seems it was actually the Community bin from the park that is brought over (as it never gets taken away as the park itself is locked until after the binmen have been...) And I didn't mention the discovery of the leaking pipe in the loft that dripped into the bathroom... Or the fact that my internet is now a wonderful 3Mps!
Ah well - just time to let you know that if you have been missing the reviews (apparently James has!) there may be a large, in depth (and totally happy) review of 13 episodes of a certain series that ended last week with the word 'Barcelona!' turning up soon - be warned - I may end up sticking a link to it on Outpost Gallifrey, so don't swear - you might be live on channel 44,000!
PS - since we won't be going near a theme park, least of all going to ride Rita - Queen Of Speed - you might want to check out I.T. (plug!) these next two weeks as they ride the biggest roller coaster on Sunseansand... I know it's little compensation, but waht the heck - after this it's up to four months of the South American Rain Forest... and you want to see the size of the woodlice there!
Posted by Badgers at 10:35 PM | Comments (1)
April 14, 2005
OP-ER-ATE!!!
So, here I am with my leg bandaged up like I have gout and a pair of crutches. It hurts, but I feel great. It looks like the operation was a success!
I woke up on Tuesday and after Mum and Dad had finally got the (old) car going he got me up to the hospital to get me booked in. I got them to leave or else they would have hung around and embarassed me more! I got through the admission process, though the look on the woman's face when I told her about the sprained ankle - I really thought it might be cancelled there and then... thankfully it wasn't, and I went up to the ward to get into the surgical gown as the operation was to be done about 9:30 or so.
Of course, there were complications - mainly due to the paperwork being filled out wrong by someone - so I had to give consent for the op again. That and the fact that the original consent was given before Chistmas when it was cancelled originally... The ward was cold, but at least as I shivered I got to meet the other people on the ward - all old guys with catheters and stuff... Eventually it was sorted out (after watching nurses strip the bed of one old guy twice as he wet his bed over and over, hearing a woman in a neighbouring ward going "oooohhhh!!!" a lot, and reading half of The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters!) despite the strong Indian accent of the woman who was to put me under in the theatre - I could barely understand her, and she hasd trouble with me, even when I used my 'work' voice that I use to talk to deaf old dears - and I was wheeled to the theatre (sadly no dead old women and Gelth, though!) and given the injection in my hand. I was given a painkiller that disolved under my tongue and then the next thing I knew I was waking up on the ward with the oxygen mask on!
I spent some time lying there and drifting in and out of sleep until I finally woke up properly - no doubt the doctor came to tell me what had happened, but I can't remember - but then again, neither could anyone on the ward! I finished my book and got down to taking a look at the bandages on my foot when I could finaly move. Tea came and went and I got some sleep, though between the staff laughing and dealing with the old woman going "ooooohhhh!" all night and the old guy across the way muttering in his sleep, I didn't get that much. I was still under painkillers at the time, so I didn't really feel much pain until I started to get up on the side of the bed to pee in a bottle! Even then it was not a lot of pain, so I was happy. Or was it the painkillers?
Morning came about 6:00am when the lights came on and the 'happy trolley' full of pills came round again! Breakfast, etc. followed quickly and soon the doctor turned up - he told me what had happened after being amazed the surgeon hadn't (as far as I know). I was to be told later it wasn't the whole story, though... Basically, the bone had been ground away so it wasn't there any more, and the cartlidge in the ankle wasn't as bad as it had appeared on the x-ray and scan. The had checked how my ankle moved and were happy with it. Next the physiotherapist (not Catherine, sadly!) came round to fit me with my padded sandle-thing so I could walk around with crutches. I was mobile! I could walk, albeit with a limp and a pair of crutches, but I could walk to the loo!
Of course, it took from 9:30 till nearly 3:00 to actually get my paperwork done so I could get the needle out of my hand and go home! I got a lift with the relative of one of the guys on the ward for ease - dad has just got a nice second-hand Vauxhall Omega and I don't trust him to drive it yet - I'll mention this a little later - so I arrived home. I got upstrairs. And that was pretty much it. Except that my parents had been told that there had been a blockage - a clot, in fact - that hat had caused a problem in the operation and they had to be sure that I was okay and it hadn't reached my heart, hence my late release.
So I might not have been here now. Wish they had told me that.
Still, I'm home, and today I'm catching up on the internet and watching a little TV, so the comic (DT) will definitely appear tomorrow afternoon/evening! I have been able to potter around a bit - I can walk short distances (say, from here to the loo!) with one stick, but two is needed any further than that!, and my ankle is aching, but not all out hurting. I can weight bare, but not much - it feels week and a little tight. It can move though - it hurts (I hope I didn't do anything bad!) but I can move my leg forward with my heel on the floor. I couldn't do that before. In a couple of weeks I go back and the bandages come off - hopefully I should be able to get back to some kind of normality when it comes to walking/running/doings things soon after! An ankle that actually moves like it should! Who'd have thunk it?
So that's me today, then. Dad, on the other hand... well the car looks great from what I got to see of it, but unfortualtely there is a problem with the alarm - it keeps going off... a bit like the woman going "oooohhh!!!!" in the hospital. Hopefully it can be sorted out by the garage, as it is a very nice car otherwise.
Ah well - I can't be bothered to do any more for now - got to nip over to Outpost Gallifrey - see ya!
Posted by Badgers at 03:18 PM | Comments (2)
April 11, 2005
Just Checking In (Before I Check Out)
It's been a while since my last entry (a whole month in fact) but I did mention I wouldn't be updating here that much for a while! Quite a lot has happened in the last few weeks, but I won't bore you with all of it - just some important stuff!
The big thing is, of course, my ankle operation - it happens tomorrow unless they change their mind at the last minute! Hopefully, after a week or two of pain (and painkillers) I'll be able to move my ankle properly and walk without a limp not too long after! Of course, three weeks ago I stubled an sprained my ankle. It hurt. Then I was going upstairs and the dogs ran into my knees tipping me downstrairs and knocking my tea (tuna sandwiches) all over the place, leaving me with another strained ankle and a sprained wrist. The wrist got better, but the ankle ached, though it was going away. Then, last Saturday, I stand up, my leg locks with an almighty crack and I can't walk. I can bately hobble! Thankfully my ankle unlocked (with another click!) and I could walk on it even though Iwas in immense pain... and thus is has been all this week, though I have had to drive and walk on it all the time so that I could get through all the work I could in my last week before my sick leave. None of this helped, so I just have to hope that tomorrow's op isn't cancelled because I have a sprained ankle...
You know, to tell the truth, I'll miss having a bad ankle. I've had it for over 12 years (probably longer) now, and the little cracks, it's ability to lock up or give way without notice, and the endless aches and pains have been a kind of comfort to me. Not that I want to have it remain like this (remember how the operation was due to happen at Christmas and I was happy for it to go ahead?) - I can't wait to be able to use an exercise bike and be able to walk afterwards, to be able to take long walks, to - OMFG! - to jog! It should be liberting once I get off the cruthces and away from physotherapy (though I am looking forward to Catherine, if she is still there!). One thing it will mean is that I will be able to get my weight off. To exercise. To drive, walk, run, climb, jump, and stuff. I can't wait!
Another big thing over the past month has been, of course, Doctor Who. It's back, and back with a vengence! Sure, it only seems to have drawn a million or so viewers from Ant & Dec, but it also drew millions back to tv, partly because it is just the thing to watch before going out for a night out! Over ten million viewers for episode 1, a drop to 7.5 million for episode 2 (on the first nice evening of the yyear) and then a rise again to 8.5 for the third episode. Even Chris Eccleston quitting hasn't stopped it! A second series, a Christmas special and a regeneration into (probably) David Tennant too - it's a good time to be a Doctor Who fan! Shame about Enterprise, though - I think it deserved the chance to end on a firth series - and not in the way it does in the final episode of this series. Unlike Andromeda (post season 2), you will be missed!
Nick of course, has had problems with his PC. Normally a BIOS update is a good thing, and goes smoothly. Not so for Nick. One dead mobo later, and he finally has a new case with new stuff inside it - a monster video card (scoring around 9000 in 3DMark '05!), an Athlon 64 processor, lights, the works! Overall, not a bad system - he's even decided to get rid of some of his old machines that only work in DOS, etc... He even had a fast internet connectionnow due to the NTL broadband upgrades... shame I won't go up to 3mb until later this year...
Andrew has buggered off to the US to be with friends for a few weeks after returning to the fold for a couple of weeks... hope he's been sending people to my websites! He should be back next week (though I probably won't be there).
James? He's around somewhere - he went to Bowlers on Saturday with Nick - he should be around somewhere (expect an entry soon after I make mine!)...
Comic-wise I relaunched I.T. and then it went into hiatus again due to my ankle and my own computer problems (a reformat after it went into a reboot loop:< !) and the pain from my ankle... That will get back on track while I'm off, thankfully. I also launched Dark Tidings properly, though today's strip is late due to having to colour and scan it again! Sigh - it's a good thing I'm off work for a while...
Ah, work. Thankfully I don't have to think about it for about a month - if not longer. My message for emails while i'm off is a nice way of saying 'Bog off! Go Away! I don't want to bloody know!'...
Ah well - that's me sorted then - if all goes well and I don't die under the knife I'll have another entry in the nearish future... see you then!
Posted by Badgers at 12:53 PM | Comments (43)
March 12, 2005
"Run For Your Life!"
A few more weeks go by and I return to my blog... still, I have a reason! I'm now 35. Thirty five. Thirty-bloody-five! I'm at the right age for my mid-life crisis, and I'm now officially on the shelf. If that isn't worth celebrating by pretty much ignoring it, nothing is!
So, what has been going on these past few weeks? Well, Keltica is now level 18 and Hathor has hit level 12! Andrew has returned from the wilds of wherever he has been for the past few months and is totally getting into JO - shame I'm getting out of it! James is getting some up to date and even vaguely interesting games at last, though he missed the biggest download of recent months (no doubt he'll say he 'wasn't interested' - this from the guy who says 'if I have the bandwidth I can't let it go to waste!').
Work-wise? let's not mention it. Driving-wise? Well, if parking on Towneley Holmes car park and nearly getting hit by idiots skidding for fun in the snow we had recently is fun, I had some. Comic-wise I didn't get as much done as I hoped, though I decided that DT will go back to being inked normally due to a couple of reformats and the fact that my tablet is not working quite as well as it should do in Photoshop (though I.T. is still in Illustrator). I started with a cool ...Whatever! today about being 35.
One big bit of news I got this week is that I have another pre-operative examination on my ankle, with a proposed date for the op itself on 12th April. Unless they cancel because I'm now back on betablockers... This means that I won't have to deal with all the ever-increasing workload at work - I got 24 new cases between Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning - I'm sure Andrew thinks thats a snap to deal with... shame theres a huge waiting lst for them to go on! Still, I intend to spend as many days as possible trying to get on top of it (seeing 10 people a day for 3 days a week with appointments as late as 7.00pm, and seeing a few less on the other two as I have paperwork to do so those 30+ people get their equipment!). That should stress me out wonderfully for the operation...
Hmm - finally, let's add a spoiler-free review of Rose, the first episode of Doctor Who. It's good. Not quite what I expected, but close. Funny (more quotable lines than half a season of Buffy, and this is just episode 1!) and still scary... James won't like it, though! Billie Piper is far better than I thought - though I had hopes - she looks good, sure, but she plays Rose so well you can almost forget those singles... I know I try to! Chris Eccleston is a good Doctor - he may take some time to grow on people, but he is cool - and a northern Doctor means I can speak like him! Fx are pretty good (bar one sequence, but that may be because it wasn't finished properly) and the music is fine (though it is a little intrusive unless you wear headphones on the download, and the episode on the net doesn't have the new theme which is really quite good (but James won't like it). The bottom line? Forget certain bad reviews (AICN doesn't know what it is talking about) - this is fun - well done RTD - I'll be there on the 26th, and so will many more people, I can promise you. But this isn't James' Doctor Who...!
Until I see you again... just remember to pop by the comic sites occasionally!
Posted by Badgers at 08:00 PM | Comments (3)
February 20, 2005
Yes, I Know It's Been Ages...
...but I haven't felt like doing much blog so far this year for one reason or another! Still, I've done more than James...!
The big reason that I've done nothing here is that for most of January I was off ill - the bug that hit me over Christmas hit gain, and totally knocked me off work for a week. I felt better at the weekend and went to work, where I promptly had a funny do and nearly fainted - shades of my collapse a few years back! Thankfully people convinced me to go home, so I booked the rest of that week off work, and ended up in bed for most of it (see previous entry)! I also had to have the following week off as I was in no shape to go to work. I had hoped to get round to working on the sites and comics, but I couldn't get my head round anything, so they had to wait. Due to this I've delayed the start of the new run of I.T. until the end of March and the start of Dark Tidings until April! Still, I survived the horrors of daytime TV and got back to work a couple of weeks ago, and managed to get through it all, though things were busy, especially when David takes the rule about not looking at electrics literally... two people he went to in my area while I was off were left with a portable doorbell instead of him taking a look at the bulbs (blown in one case) or the obviously cut wire to the doorbell outside. He's good on the paperwork side, and on moaning about how smoke alarms are not fitted the same across the county, but when it comes to his people and analytical skills...
Still, I survived, though feeling depressed meant that I had to spend money... I've finally got my own digital camera - convenient for taking my own photo reference images! - and bought City Of Heroes on day of release! Now, I may not be a power-player, but I'm happy to be the secret identy of both Keltica (a Level 11 Techo-brawler) and Hathor (a Level 10 Magical-blaster) running on the Union Server. This is the MMORPG for me at the moment (until Guild Wars - by the same company - is ready!) - no need to create shops, make stuff, etc, just go out and hit things and have fun! Unlike SWG, I actually like being on teams in this game (though occasionally we have bitten off a little more than we can chew!). Sadly, I'm the only one playing (James isn't into this sort of thing - he prefers JO, Andrew is an Everquest fan (or was all those months back when we last saw him!) though Nick is a little interested - he did help a little in creating Hathor last Sunday!). Speaking of that lot, Andrew may be turning up sometime in the near future (I got behind him this past week at the Manchester Road roundabout and he waved, and he told Nick that he might be around in 3 weeks or so about three weeks ago!), though James is grumpy because his PC is buggering about and turns up to moan and grump at us occasionally. Nick is his usual self, though alcohol depravation is starting to show - we missed the one big window I had this year while James was on holiday for a week due to me being so ill (not planned that way, I assure you) so he may start getting grumpy (though Joint Ops is successfully giving him another addiction to deal with - I really hope he doesn't join me on COH...
Site-wise, apart from the revised comic beginnings, things are happeneing - still some bits to do on the main sites, though Badgers may be changing... James has discovered a bit in MSN Messenger where you can do your own blog with phots and stuff, and asked whether we could do something, even if it's only just for his bit. I have a horrible feeling that I'll be building another (more complex) Mambo site here sometime in the not too distant future... still, he'll have to bloody well update it if I do!
Sigh. Other things this past month or so? Nearly getting hit by a learner driver one lunch on Towneley Hall car park, nearly getting hit by a driver (with german plates) on the wrong side of the road, pedestrians with death wishes... Good things include the (almost totally offical) news that Doctor Who will be here on 26th March at 7pm, and also staying up one night to look at Jupiter in my scope. Life may not be 'good' at the moment, but it's looking up...
Ah well - that's all I can do for now - Paragon City calls... oh, and some drawing, of course...!
Posted by Badgers at 12:56 PM | Comments (4)
January 21, 2005
Where The Hell Has January Gone?
I mean, it's nearly over! It's a good thing I didn't say that I'd do regular blog entries as a resolution...!
Still, I can honestly say that so far 2005 has had it's ups and it's downs. The ups include getting to try out my Konusmotor 500 telescope (albeit through the window) and finding that it works well, and that a bright star turns out to be two bright stars! Sadly I haven't been able to get down to using it for a few reasons (the weather and something I'll tell you about in a minute or two) but I have now got (thank to Ebay) a 2x Barlow (magnifier) and a 32mm wide angle lense that are both decent quality, so I'm happy!
Other good bits have included being able to catch up on 3 months or so of Stargates and Battlestar Galactica - definitely a good thing as it frees up so many video tapes - and finally got to see Firefly. The bad news is how I got to watch all this!
I don't want to bore you all with stories about work, so I won't, but I need to put it in some perspective. Work sucks. And currently, though I haven't actually been in work for long this year (literally!), it sucks even harder. Y'see I got through the first week back - no problems besides annoying people who were not in when they said they would be, were moaning that things I had been to see them about on Cristmas Eve hadn't been fitted yet - the usual crap - but the second week was not so good. Monday was fine, apart from a bit of a headache. Tuesday I got up feeling a bit off, but went to work - luckily it was a day of deliveries. Unluckily I didn't get many done as I ended up driving with my eyes almost shut due to the headache, dizziness and general feeling terrible-ness. I came home a bit early and had a bad night. The headache got worse, the dizziness got worse, but thankfully I wan't sick. Basically the bug that hit me over Christmas hit again, only worse. Fine - I had three days off sick. And to those who moan about this, please note that I was so ill I couldn't sit and do anything at the computer - a slight pain in the arse as I hoped I would be able to do some art on the comics! Every time I moved I felt ill, out of breath and the headache got worse - I was also a bit worried as my heart had started it's thing again.
By the weekend I was able to think a bit better as the headache eased off, though it didn't go away. I got the pencils done for Dark Tidings and felt better in myself. Sunday saw me going to Nick's and having a blast - James even deigned to turn up online to let us know he was staying at home to do some DIY. No problems there. I got home did some stuff, and went to bed. I slept, though I kept waking up as the headache came back and at one point I was sat up in bed just thinking about how the way my heart was pounding and my chest was shaking, my foot op looked even further away than ever, as if I went to the doctors, it goes on my records and so the guy who puts me to sleep will say no again. This probably didn't help, and was another brick in the wall that I was going to run headfirst into in the morning...
Morning came, I felt crappy, but went in to work anyway. The first person I met was David, my counterpart in the Ribble Valley, who said it was good to see me, but didn't think I looked right. Oh, if only I had followed his advice and 'gone home if I didn't feel well'... All morning I felt terrible - I kept having to go to the loo for one reason or another, my head quickly got worse, I was sweating and freezing at the same time, the other people in the office kept looking at me as though I had gone green. About 11.00 I went to the loo, and stayed there for a while due to the world spinning round, the shakes and an uncontrollable bout of crying. Al morning I had been unable to think striaght (again) and the simple tasks I had set myself just were not so simple. I finally went back in when the world had calmed down a bit and took a call from admin after I had stumbled to my chair. Even she felt I sounded ill - I promised to go out to see the woman it was about that afternoon. By this time someone had put a penny in the slot and the world was at it again. Once I put the phone down, I sat there, sweating, hoping I wouldn't fall off my chair. Barbara across the table came round and people were asking me if I was okay - I was crying and somehow got up and got a tissue - which didn't help. I said I was fine, but I clearly wasn't. Or at least I think I 'said' it - I may just have mumbled... Barbara convinced me to got to the sick room where I sat for half an hour while I tried to sort myself out. After a while I went back in, called my boss and left a message on his mobile to say that I was cancelling the leave I had planned at the end of next week and booking the rest of this week off as well. I then set off for home, though like a fool I went to see the woman in Padiham I said I would do. I know, it was silly (but considering I also had to fit a loop system for a lady last Thursday and did that while I was still very ill). Luckily it was simple, though I don't remember the drive home. That is scary.
At home, I got on my bed and did very little until Tuesday morning when mum dragged me to the Doctors! Basically, he thinks I obviously (went) back too early, and that all of this gave me an anxiety attack! Apparently my blood pressure is fine at the moment and my heart sounded rough but okay. I am back on the betablockers anyway, and I'm kinda glad, if a little pissed off. I also had to rest and try to avoid stress. That should be easy then! Most of this week has been spent off the PC again as I felt far worse than last time (currently it is Friday and the headache isn't going anywhere, I feel ill and dizzy when I move and yes, the headache gets much worse when I do), and only really got back yesterday when I did the Dark Tidings art.
So, basically, I still feel crappy (thinking is not a strong point at the moment, though that may be the daytime television I've been exposed to) and I can't be sure I will be at work next week! Looks like the rest of my holidays will be spent dealing with this! That should make Andrew happy...! I do know I won't be at Nick's this weekend - hopefully I'll be at work next week, but I have to avoid stress... oh joy!
The things I'll do to avoid getting out of going for a night out...
Still, good things include finally getting down to the art in the past day or so - I've uploaded the opening stuff for Dark Tidings ready for the end of the month and can hopefully get lots of I.T. done. Should be fun and non-stressful (especially if I am in work) next week...
Ah well - I'm quitting before my head explodes again (currently shaking, headache getting bad and cold sweats, should you want to know) - maybe another entry next week... or next month! See you whenever...!
Posted by Badgers at 10:04 PM | Comments (2)
December 31, 2004
2004 : My Life...
...could be a whole lot worse. I was going to do a long rambling journey though the past year, pointing out how my job and other stuff has caused me to spend a great chunk of the year depressed, and how the stress of these things have made me cry far more times than I feel a man should, but recent events have gone far beyond anything I could experience.
Currently south east Asia is still trying to deal with the incredible disaster caused by the tsunami. We are seeing pictures of the area devastated - placed under water - possibly as the land has sunk. Other islands in the area have moved, and are now higher in the water. The Earth wobbled, for God's sake. There are pictures and videos of people being swept away - no-one knows if the people in these pictures survived - one image shows a woman running toward the wave to be with her family. It is no wonder we have given over £45 million to the appeal, and the government have upped their donation to £50 million. And I've just heard that the US has increased it's donation from a pitiful $35 million to $350 Million! Nice of them to catch up with everyone else... This disaster puts everything else in the shade. Remember my 'World' entry earlier this week? It is even worse than that. 125,000+ dead. Fsck.
So, My life. It sucked, for the most part, but next year will be better. I, like James, have got a new telescope - hopefully I'll get to use it! Christmas has been quiet this year so no parties (I'm not going out tonight, even though Nick virtually begged last night on Messenger - shame he didn't get in touch earlier when I could get tickets...) so I'll be here all night - some gaming, some web designing (don't expect the sites to be ready till Monday night!) and some sleep - I may not be around at midnight, so Happy New Year!
So - last year was bad, but this coming year - I intend to make my 35th year mean something one way or another - either in a change of job (oh, please!), the success of one of my comics (ie a regular set of viewers and somemoney in my Paypal account!) or just doing stuff I want to do. Big changes, either way...
My Resolutions:
1: To be teetotal - This will cause problems for some, but I probably won't be going out this year, and if I am convinced to do so, I won't be drinking. Going out just isn't doing it for me at the moment...
1: To lose weight and keep it off - This year I will get back on my diet and do whatever it takes to get down to 13 stone or less. I am currently back at 15st 10lb so I have to get down to it again. This time I won't give up, no matter how depressed I get. And as a mark of how much I want to do it, I won't be getting my heair cut until I am 13st. Not even the straggly bits. I might look like a hippy, but I have to do this.
3: To finally save money - I currently have no credit cards and so I have to live out of my bank. Hopefully this year will see me not having to spend as much money for other people and keep some of it myself. So no going out (after all, it'll be with a fat hippy with no money who doesn't drink) and get my savings account back up and running!
4: To get I.T. out three times a week, and Dark Tidings twice a week while it runs - a personal goal, and one that should happen though I will have to get down to work to get as ahead as I need to be to keep the comics on schedule. This means that (sorry again guys - yes this also manages to affect Andrew, unlike the 'not going out thing'!) I may not be there every Sunday... though how much longer that will go on anyway, I have no idea. And finally...
5: I must not get too excited about Doctor Who coming back - after all, it might be a pile of pants, or a slight let down (which might be worse!). And I don't want to think about the return of Captain Scarlet...
So, that's was the year they called 2004. Let's hope the sequel is better. Happy New Year, and remember those lost. Look to the future guys, it's all we have.
Posted by Badgers at 08:17 PM | Comments (2)
December 25, 2004
I'm Looking At A White Christmas
Yes, it's snowing quite nicely here in Burnley, which is nice.
The good news is that I'm now off work for a few days so I can get down to stuff, like the web sites, the art, and putting up decorations.
Yeah, decorations! As of last night (after midnight!) we had finally got the lights dad wanted on the ceiling of the living room. This year is beating last year into the ground as Xmas 2003 saw us still doing stuff at 11 in the morning on Christmas Day, while this year we will still be doing it tomorrow! And that doesn't include sorting out the lights on the ceiling that are not working... It's enough to make me want to go back to work. Hang on, maybe not...
Work. Just go back to the previous entry. Nuff said!
The good stuff this week is that James' P-90 arrived from Germany yestrday and he rushed over to get it last night! Sadly for him, his shiny new video card is still lurking in Leyland. Even Royal Mail would have got it here by now!
Scary stuff this week includes nearly being sideswiped by a car that hit ice on the first day of real snow, and getting caught in a dip in the snow myself after slowing for a car coming down the hill... and every time I slid back the car kept going towards an open grate...!
So. Christmas. What does it hold? Well, present wise, I got a pair of slippers and a jumper. I guess the universe just caught up with my plans toi not go out at all next year, and have less fun! Still, I am 35 next March, and the shelf has been dusted for me to sit on. Apart from dealing with the inevitable arguements, I'll be drawing the comic stuff, working on the sites (including switching from phpNuke to Mambo) and hopefully getting round to watching the last series of Stargate, Atlantis, Battlestar... I think Return Of The King will have to wait till March!
As far as Badgers goes, I'll hopefully do a series of little rants about the year in my life, music, TV, film, etc. Should keep me out of trouble...!
Posted by Badgers at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2004
It's Nearly Over...
It's been a while since my last confession - um - entry, so what has happened? Let's get the work stuff out of the way first!
Anoyance, a decent Christmas meal, more annoyance and a moment of fun. This last bit came yesterday when I went in to work despite feeling terrible. I went out to fit a loop system for an old lady who had been seen by my opposite number when he was helping to keep my workload down. He thiks he is well into the job and is far quicker than I am. This lady explained a lot... Y'see, she felt that he had treated her like an idiot, and had not been very helpful. Oh dear. I, apparently, was a much better person, explaining and taking the time to talk and not just go in, assess and bugger off. This made me feel much better, that I hadn't lost the skills, even though I still hate the job! I didn't even have to use my mutant power of making people feel sympathy and guilt (with it's +6 modifier)! All this, and I got to see a Tesco delivery van rip a chunk of roof off as it drove way too fast under a gateway!
The previous week had been more like it though. I had accidentlaly doubl-booked and had to be in Padiham and Bacup at the same time. I finally made it to the Padiham client to find them amazed that I had arrived at all - they had called admin and been told that I had not been answering my phone and had gone home. My work mobile phone isn't working - admin know this, and are supposed to be replacing it sometime next year so that I cn stop using my personal phone. Also, I often find myself working till 6.00 and later. Some angry word were said, especially as I had actually tried to deliver before this and the family had not been there - and admin certainly hadn't passed on a message from the week before in answer to one of mine... A brief selection of the past fortnight's emails from admin: "Why haven't you seen to this lady's broken loop system? The diary sheet on the computer said it was urgent!" - well, perhaps if I was telepathic - the entry was made on Friday afternoon, My boss sent it through to me on Monday night, I was out all of Tuesday, and it's only Wednesday!!!; "[Client]'s daughter called - why have you not visited yet?" - probably because she only called yesterday, so my boss hadn't even sent it to me yet?; "[Unknown Client]'s Son-in-law has been in wondering when you will visit his mother in law - she isn't on the system, but he was given your name." - why not pass it to Customer Care who will take details and put it on the system as they are supposed to? I can't just give equipment to people we don't know! And it will be about a month before I see her anyway!; "Please go and see this lady - we are sick of her phone calls!" - me too - I've been four bloody times, and she keeps fiddling with the portable doorbell's frequency switches so it doesn't work! Short of breaking her fingers...
It hasn't helped that I've felt pretty low for a few weeks, and this past couple of weeks hasn't helped any. Sunday was called off so no Nick's, so I decided to hit Quatermiss (yeah, between Half Life 2 and Pirates, I've been wasting too much time!) but things kept getting in the way. On Saturday I was called away to take the dogs out, move two gas fires and surrounds from a neighbour's house to the local tip, paint, move cupboards and go in the loft. It was quite late when I finally got down to the pecilling, but it was going quite well - Hobbes Horne station looked right. Then a Messenger conversation from Marie, asking me to call James ASAP. This I do, to find that he is driving his bus - he will be home after 1.00am - this isn't a problem as I will still be drawing by then. I draw, and then James pops online. An hour and a half later he goes off, leaving me having bought him a new flashy video card (his love of crappy graphics has finally fallen due to the brilliance of Half Life 2), and him sending me many links to eBay items... During all this I do what I can to draw, and then settle down. Now, usually when I do I.T. I pencil very roughly in non-photo blue then ink with a pen and marker, virtually from scratch. As you can imagine, this is not a good thing to do at 3.00am in the morning. I finished at 4.00 and decided to go to bed - after all I had the whole of Sunday. Next morning I looked at the art. Some bits worked (the first page, the last page) but all the bits in between were crap! I couldn't draw Thankyou's right, and his hat was just plain wrong. I made a decision that I had toyed with earlier that morning, to cancel I.T.!
Oh, and next morning, James let me know that Marie had bumped the car a bit... I'll put the pics in an entry on his side of the site in a few minutes!
Of course, it isn't cancelled forever, just until the end of January! The strip will then continue with the new version of Quatermiss And The Pit, though it will probably look different! Y'see, I want to do Dark Tidings (which still launches in the New Year as planned!) almost entirely in Photoshop, and I have always toyed with the idea of using something like Illustrator to do the art on I.T. Yeah, I know. Something about smooth lines has interested me for a few years, but it is only now that I am able to do something about it. The rest of the year (not much left now!) is to be spent getting down to DT and practicing the new stuff for I.T. by doing 8 Christmas pictures over the Holidays. My first was done one way, the others in other ways until I decide what works best. See them at the site here from Monday.
At least the kitchen is now cleaner and painted with the cabinets on the walls (though we had to call in a neighbour as dad was making a complete hash of it), so the Christmas Decorations will start being dug up in the loft again this week. Oh joy. I guess I'll have to sort out my resolutions for next year... and this year I'll stick to them!
So last weekend was cancelled as far as gaming goes, and this weekend has also been cancelled - Nick is in Wales with family, James is off to Blackpool (he wants me to go too, but as I feel ill, it won't happen) and Andrew is supposed to be dealing with some Americans and so hasn't been seen for a few weeks, so I have a weekend to play with. Well,art wise, at least! Half Life 2 is finished and Pirates is getting harder (those dances are getting evil, though the French Governor's pretty daughter will be mine!). This week I have more work to get through and will try to deliver any presents (though James it seems, will have to wait for his P90 and his video card - which is still at a depot in Leyland according to the tracker) and a lot of art practice!
In case I don't see you all before, Have a happy bout of insane shopping followed by intense heart-burn and hangovers! Remember - Doctor Who is back this coming year!!! Woo-WHO!
Posted by Badgers at 03:04 PM | Comments (1)
December 01, 2004
Sorry, Gotta Talk About Work...
...but not too much! Let's just say that between being given the wrong address (the one I had sent me up a farm track), people breaking their doorbells for thew umpteenth time, relatives ringing up asking when I was going to fit the loop system for their father/mother/aunty/whatever when I hadn't even had it allocated to me by my boss until that morning and they hadn't been assessed, and people being sent straight from Audiology with my name and a request for equipment without being referred to me, I am sick of my job. You might have picked that up from previous entries... All this has led me to be in the office for about 5 hours a week (during which I must check emails, make calls, do paperwork, make entries on the computer, plan appointments, stock check, deal with whinging relatives, etc) and the rest spent out and about running here and there till seven o'clock at night or later. I really don't get paid enough for this. At least certain people who think my job is oh-so-easy gets overtime... I'm not even getting travel expenses at the moment. Since my last entry a week and a half ago I have had to go out to people past 6.00pm almost every day, two of them simply as the relatives were whinging. "We must not create an expectation that we will be there instantly" - in other words, I am not an emergency service!!! Want a loop system for your father? Wait in line! My waiting list is over a month (other areas are higher, but I work fairly quickly and a whole lot later than most of the others, and keep handing great chunks off to a colleague in a quiet area to do) so I'm sorry if you don't get it installed the day after you go into Colne Social Services - and don't panic when a big hairy guy arrives at 7pm to do the assessment due at 5.30 - at least it is getting done! Admittedly, I can't help feeling that we will be running out of money - on average people get over £100.00 of equipment, though some get more or less. Tonight I went to an old woman who has been back and forth for ages - didn't want a loop, then did; didn't want phone amp, then did, etc. Now she will be getting a £400.00 pager system for the doorbell and phone on top of all she has. This comes out of your taxes, people! And I also had to go to B&Q to buy a doorbell for the lady who keeps breaking the doorbell and fit it - I won't see that money again. That comes out of my wages. I won't dsay more, as it might get me in big trouble, though hopefully any problems will be after I quit (which may be very soon if nothing changes - finding myself crying in the toilets three times in a fortnight is just not on!)
(Takes a deep breath)
How are you? Better than me, I think! I'll be fine by the weekend, when I'm pulling a double all-nighter to do the comic stuff and work on the kitchen with mum and dad. My plans for Christmas shopping have been scuppered, though, as I was going a week on Stauday, but apparently I'm having my ankle operated on that day! Yes, finally the hospital got in touch and it seems I will be operated on at last, and so have a working ankle again, once the swelling goes down. I can't wait for the doctor to tell me to rest... they tried that with mum, and she didn't. so why should I? In fact, I'm likely to be at work on the Monday, despite various estimates being given to time off (from one to four weeks - yeah right!) Work has to be done, and I refuse to take sick leave (just imagine how happy I am that the op is on a Saturday!). Of course, it means I can't go out over Christmas, but I can live. The fact that my self-imposed ban on going out next year (and beyond, probably) means that is it - I am on the shelf in damaged condition (and out of warranty at 35 from March!). Sorry girls.
At least my car passed it's MOT. Well, the second time... it failed on the headlights not being aligned. WTF?!? Don't look at me... I didn't pay for the second MOT as it was in for a service at the same time, though that did through up a few things, including the most expensive - something to do with a pulley on the camshaft or something. That wasn't the worst bit, though - the worst bit was spending the day in Blackburn! Cold, wet, boring, and nothing much to look at.
I may be in Manchester his weekend, or not - the remainder of my Christmas shopping looks like it may be internet only... Like James' P90 BB gun. Git.
The good news is that I got my second monitor sorted and I now have a new one, though the bad news is that it does have a dead pixel, though it doesn't bother me in Photoshop, as it is the second monitor not the first! Nick and I got Joint Operations: Escalation which is gun, and I have been slightly into Half Life 2. Life away from work has been peachy, really! Ah well. Maybe things will be brighter soon, but I doubt it. At last I'm not depressed enough not to draw the comic again. Just keep me away from sharp objects...
Posted by Badgers at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2004
Sprained Bits
Let's get the work bit out of the way first. It sucked this week. No real problems occurred, it just sucked. If I could go part-time (and could afford it) I'd be going part-time. I can't, so I won't. Let's move on!
Probably the best bit of this week was Thursday night - I was in a house in Trawden and it was raining. Then it was sleeting. Then it snowed. A lot. It was great to drive through it, knowing the tyres have grip to go faster than the car behind who is really trying to get into my boot! So I did and left him to slither in the snow. Which was nice. I also saw a spectacular crumpled car on Friday afternoon - a small van had obviously hit the wall in the snow and been pushed back on the road as the wall was knocked down and the front of the van was totalled. But from that angle I didn't spot the side of the van ripped off by the impact! What a mess!
Probably the worst bit of the week was that the next moring I had to scrape ice and stuff ogff the car. That bit wasn't so bad, but having to fight to get into the car as the doors were iced up, and then when I finally got round to scraping I slipped on some ice and fell onto the bonnet smacking my wrist in the process! Thus last night I took a brief break fonm drawing, and hoped to get down to shed loads today (six pages and an all-nighter!) but it looks unlikely... and not just because I have just picked up my copy of Half Life 2!
Hopefully I'll get the three pages needed done this weekend, and follow it up next week with the final 3 pages and the start of Quatermiss And The Pit... Then I should be up to date for the comic again! We'll see how things go! At least I have some proper blue non-repro pencils at last so I don't need to draw with a stub (so the art will be better!) - they came yesterday but got took back to the sorting office... though there was someone in!
Other stuff? Well, whjile I was drawing on Monday on my day off I discovered a neat little Quatermass-style sci-fi play from the '60s called Orbit One Zero - not deep, but it would have made a great Hammer movie, with the green pulsing pillars, etc! Great fun to draw to for a few hours...
Ah well - not much to add if I am to get the head crabs dealt with in Half - I mean get some drawing done! Later, guys!
Posted by Badgers at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2004
All Nighter
So, after the last entry I had tea and scanned the art into the computer. I then played Joint Operations. And went to bed.
Then I woke up at six and set to on doing the final lettering for the comics I drew earlier and a quick doodle for a tacky Kylie card I got Nick for his birthday. That I then redid on the computer (you will see it next Sunday at the I.T. comic site). Then, before Andrew turned up I had time to colour the Noids in the comics.
At Nicks Andrew revealed that he is not only going to be 'away' for a few weeks, he is also hooked on Everquest II. But he will come out with us. Just not for Nick's birthday in a week or so! James turned iu with computer, so we are finally able to play The Sims 2 (brilliant), Need For Speed Underground 2 (stunning at full detail on Ayumi!) and the new Medal Of Honour (the Pearl Harbour attack puts the movie to shame!). He may even be around more, which is nice.
On getting home at 7.30 I had tea and settled down to colouring after Top Gear. And I hadn't realised just how much would be needed - I really worked on those inks on Saturday! Midnight passed me by like a late deadline and fuelled by apple juice and MP3s I ended up completing the colouring and got the comics online at 4 AM. And then after adding messages on the sites to mention the fact that three new comics were online I fixed Dark Tidings Online.com (the easy way - by changing the background graphic!) and played Sims 2 for a little while. Then got back on the computer to do the rough lettering for the comics I hope to have inked and scanned today.
No sleep - I haven't done this in quite a while - even in the old days when I was doing I.T. and Charlie And The Demons I gave up about 2.30 AM! I have proved that I can do it, but after inking and possible scanning tonight I quit toill tomorrow night - I need sleep if I am to do my job tomorrow - but at least I know I can do this if i need to - and its one way to get the comic up on time...!
Now to get myself wakened up again to set to on the comics today!!!
Posted by Badgers at 12:19 PM | Comments (2)
November 13, 2004
No Diet Diary This Week (Again)
The Diet Diary is still a part of the site, though it won't be updated weekly... but you all guessed that, right? I haven't given up on losing the weight (what I've lost already has made a big difference) it's just that it isn't the most important thing in my life at the moment! And I'll bet you won't believe that work isn't important to me either. Or at least not my job, anyway!
Getting I.T. up to date is the most important thing in my life at the moment. More than money, love, or even playing Joint Operations! Guess what my week has been like?!?
Yeah, work is annoying me more than ever, but I need to keep going to work (though I have booked (via an email to a boss who is off with flu) Monday off to get some more stuff done on the comic (and hopefully to fiddle a little with the sites!) and maybe catch some sleep! Then it's a big push at work (which might, sadly, impinge on my drawing time!) to get a big job sorted by Christmas so that the New Year will see me up to date with the job. Unless I get killed in the fog - more on this a little lower!
Then I might just say sod it and pull a Jamie and quit.
Or at least I will when I get enough in savings to give me the breather.
So thats quitting in 2035 then.
So, getting away from my job (wish I could!), what have I done as work this week? Well I got the first batch of comics up last weekend, another batch online Thursday night, and today I pencilled and inked three pages - and while they looked crap in pencils, they look okay in inks. This has, surprisingly, little to do with the time taken to do them as I was watching last week's Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis while doing them, so I spent some time distracted. One frame took almost 45 minutes due to this, though it was a detailed one (that took about 10 minutes to ink!). When these go onlione (tomorrow night if I get them done quickly, or more likely Monday morning) I'll have all the strips online up to the Halloween strip - then it's just playing catch up over the next two weeks and then I will have to get ahead with Quatermiss And the Pit. Then I can get down to drawing Dark Tidings as well. And I know that DT will look different to I.T. - more grayscale with the occasional splurge of colour.
Ahem - can you tell what I'd rather be doing than my job?!? ^_^
So other stuff - I'm not sure if the Fellowship (odd to call them that when two of them haven't even seen LOTR!) is breaking up - James is being odd (I'm not ignoring him, I just don't start messages with him on Messenger all the time) though by his emails (and the fact that Marie wants him out of the house to have fun for a change) he mioght put in a brief appearance soon. Andrew is off after tomorrow to go to a beer festival then probably won't be around until Christmas or beyond as he is playing host to some Dubya voters again - the things he'll do to get out of going out for a night out with us! At least Nick is dependable (OMFG!!! Frodo and Sam overtones FFS!!!), especially when it comes to ringing me up at 10pm to see if I can see both of his monitors over Remote Assistance (I could), let me know he has bought another of the TFT monitors from Aria (mine has finally gone off to be swapped for a working one) then nagging for an hour or more. I worry about him. He's nearly 70 (well, 35 next week but it's half way there!), single (hey, I'm younger than him!!!) and still hung up on Kylie's bum. Someone must want him! If you are in Burnley sometime in the next couple of weeks or so and not choosy (he cetainaly isn't!), he is available and I will point him out to you at Lava...! Then you can get the late night phone calls!!! Andrew is available but not worth the hassle! I'm too busy to bugger about with romance so leave me soooo out of it!
Last bit - promise - as I mark the return of the crap driving bit! This past Thursday the area was under the thickest fog I have driven in ever. And I had all my headlights, foglights (front and back) on. So why was I nearly killed twice by idiots who obviously didn't see me?!? And this mnorning I take mum into town and nearly get killed on Yorkshire Street as a fool in a merc comes out of Plumb Street and keeps coming out (it wasn't foggy either, though his brain might have been!
Ah well - off to eat a little and get ready to scan and then play a little Joint Ops so I don't show myself up tomorrow! See ya!
Posted by Badgers at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2004
If You Know What Is Going On...
...send me an email and let me know, eh? This week has been at least as annoying as usual. I got through the meeting on Tuesday without going to sleep. but the rest of the week has been seen through a zombie's eyes. I seem to be getting more and more tired! I've been able to get the three comics done and online as planned, and the next three are in the works for later this week. I haven't had the chance to watch Stargate and Battlestar (as predicted in the last entry), and for various reasons I might not be at Nick's tomorrow - it depends on what gets done!
Annoying stuff at work this week: Spending Thursday installing 6 loop systems, then finding that one guy's hearing aid has stopped working, so he decided on Friday that I had to go back and rip it up. An hour to install and a minute or two of pulling it though the carpet. And another who had been having problems with her hearing aid - unsurprising as it had fallen apart! At least I was able to palm 12 cases onto the guy doing the other area as he has just a little slakc (I'm booked up till the end of November) so far, with another 20 cases arrivig this week. You should all know that I will code HTML and fiddle with PHPNuke for food!
On the roads, it has been chaos - the St Peters car park is coming down, so the main road into town is a didaster area, - but elsewhere I have nearly been killed three times (if not more) this week! A truck ignoring the car beside it and coming onto my lane, a car taking a very wide and fast corner on my side of the road, and today one nearly smashed into me on a roundabout off the motorway as he realised he was in the wrong lane.
Bikes seem to be popping up everywhere too. I think dad might have caught something on the Jeremny Vine Show this week about cycling. I come home to find one in the living room - it will only cost £20 and is in good condition from the shop over the road - and today I had to take him to Feniscowles to collect another! This one was more annoying as he had just come off nights and was tired, so I had to drive. And I had to get iun his Siearra estate and moved the mirror so I could see more than my own lap. And the mirror came off. I swear this was not just a ploy to get me to go in my own car! Note to self - need to book MOT this week!
Interesting stuff this week - there has to be some - include the increased bandwidth on my set-top box - finally I am on a 1.5MB connection! This means Nick is now on a 300kbs one!
And of course America has the same president, God help us... place bets now if you think we will still have a planet in four years time! Also, a new patch for JO - and it is getting things ready for the new expansion pack this month - some things have changed back to how they were in the beta. Odd, but it works. And I've found myself playing at 1280x1024 on the new monitor - wow! Goodbye 1024x768!
And goodbye to you!
PS - No Diet Diary this week - no time - I'm 14st 10lb, should you want to know!
Posted by Badgers at 04:35 PM | Comments (2)
November 01, 2004
Yet Another Of Those Weeks...
Sorry about the late update (and lack of Diet Diary - you'll live without it, I'm sure!) but the last week or so has been very annoying!
Due to his gleeful crashing of Joint Operations for both myself and Nick last weekend I took James off my Messenger list, which seems to have lead to him gloating and sulking at once. And moving on to 'PLINGPLINGPLING' Nick instead - more on that later...
Work are a bugger, but at least I got some stuff done I've been trying to do for a while, and my boss discussed my ever-increasing workload and didn't preach at me (unlike my previous boss!) and tell me to get it sorted - he realises that I am getting too much piled on me! I was able to start on gathering 70+ closures together, which will help as certain companies (Universal-bloody-Aids) have finally installed things ordered back in April...
In other things, I was (for a week) a two-TFT monitor person as last week at Nick's I gave in to get another of the Digimate moniotrs fropm Aria - well worth it except that my tablet didn't like working over two screens and then yesterday night I turned on the extended desktop and it all went pear shaped! The new monitor basically got all corrupted and won't go un-corrupted - kinda like theway an old monitor looks when you put the resolution up too far. I've contacted Aria and the returns system is hopefully going to get me a replacement really quickly!
One sad thing is that we had to have one of Dad's snakes put to sleep. Prince was a bit of a runt (after a few years this 14 year old snake had barely grown after being kept in a tiny tank by a previous owner) and had recently virtually stopped eating. Then this past week he suddenly decided to twist himself round another of the snakes and try to bit it's head off! A bit of a change from the usual placid snake we knew. At the vets they felt that it might have been a kidney failiure - the lack of appiteite, the sudden grumpness etc - so it was put to sleep. Farewell Prince.
I did get round to getting the sites online (though not fully) this past week - I still need to fiddle with the site themes before I add any real content, but as I am not publicising them just yet it isn;'t a major problem. The same for the backlog of comics! I want to get the rest of ITGTW online by the 20th November which is tight, but possible if I get the chance to get down to it! Hopefully in the spare time I have between drawing, scanning, lettering and colouring, not to mention the site fiddling, I will get a chance to go to work... though I could always quit(!)
So, Sunday rolled round, and we decamped to Nick's, as per usual. I think Andrew is happy as it means he doesn't have to move the living room round! Most of the day was spent playing Guild Wars (an online variant of the Dungeon Siege style games) - and having a lot of fun. James was supposed to come over too, but spent a while PLINGing Nick while we were in a big battle with the undead... and sending cracks for games we don't have yet - as I typoed to him - "Burn off, drop off, bugger off!". Andrew's answer is to disable Messenger (tempting) and/or just turn it off when playing (as James and his 400 messages a minute can crash JO in seconds - Its worse than a Denial of Service attack!). Of course, this is the guy who wants us to use a Teamspeak server on Jo, but can't be bothereds to do anything about it! Ah well. Anyway, James didn't turn up (fit of pique? Too knackered due to having the tickets he was expecting for Most Haunted Live on Pendle Hill? Or pissed that he didn't get them? Who cares?!?) so we lived without him. JO was fun though - we climbed to the top[ of the table by defending F - pretty important in an endless match on Laba Laba Archipeleglo where the whole JO force is desperate to wrest the island from rebel hands!
So I got home (early - I think Andrew is still working to BST) to play more Guild Wars (well, the free preview test only ran up till last night), then found my second monitor buggering about. Ans do to today. I had a plan to wake up and exercise then go to work, but there were other plans happening... mainly as I spent 3 hours coming and going from a dream where I was trying to get up to exercise while my mind was too busy playing a super-detailed version of Rome: Total War... I really didn't need that!
Apart from Guild Wars, and a great game of Joint Ops during the week (I love Tanah Highlands, though I can think of a few people who don't like me on the map!) the best thing was finding that I had actually got £30 of expenses on my salary, and that I had more in the bank than I expected. And my Manchester shopping trip on Saturday of course (Dan Dare volume 3! Woo!). Things have got to improve.
So this coming week (and probably for a bit longer) I have got to get down to the comics (or else James will jut have to live without Dark Tidings next year), the websites andlots of other stuff. Thre goes my channce to watch Stargate SG1/Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica then! I might even have to skip some Sundays too (though I can still harass everyone on Messenger)! At least I should be thinner by the end of this week! See you Saturday, if I make it!
Posted by Badgers at 07:00 PM | Comments (4)
October 22, 2004
One Day On And Things Just Keep Getting Better
Remember yesterday's entry? Sure you do. Today's is a descent into misery once again! First I dashed out to see a woman about her doorbell. I have fiddled upteen times, but it still refuses to work at certain times of day. I went early and ended up giving her three of the bloody things. At first none would work, then noe did, then another, then all three. Then I had to take her to Casualty as she had fallen off a bus the day before and now was limping very badly. Probably a just a sprain, but it was worth checking out.
Next I got in to work, dealt with a few emails (including one from the guy who was yelling about why I hadn't been to see him yet (though as it was only allocated to me on Friday...) which I dealt with by phoning and leaving a message saying that I would put him to the top of my waiting list (ahead of 60+ others) and se him tonight sometime after 5pm. I'm so glad I did. After being booted off the computer when a colleague returned (so that I got harld anything done) I set off to deal with 8 people - one of them a fax machine that was needed desperately urgently and was bought from Argos and delivered about 5.30. I eventually got to the guy at 6.15 and did the assessment for a little minitech with neck loop. that's it. £42 of equipment. Oddly enough, the house was big, and he was obviously in the money... so it isn't surprising that he wanted servivce now and wouldn't wait (10 messages including two calls to my boss at Preston... I ask you!!!)
So I'm not a happy bunny again (so what's new?!?) though I did have lots of fun driving home from Bacup in the rain, driving along roads that were virtually rivers. Ah well. See you tomorrow for the dreaded weigh-in!
Posted by Badgers at 07:56 PM | Comments (2)
October 21, 2004
Not In A Good Place Right Now
Well, the reinstallation of the computer took time so Saturday was spent installing stuff and checking that things were working. This was good. This kept me happy. So did JO with a couple of good games. Sunday saw all four of us (eventually) getting up to Nick's, including James with his now working PC. We played a little Rome: Total War, some JO (on a server full of muppets) ahd movedonto the new IL-72 expansion - superb, but certain people named Doof need to realise that it can take hours to complete missions, especially if we are going half-way across the Pacific to Midway... Nick also revealed that he had ordered the same monitor from Aria that I did. An email last night revealed that he was very happy with it...
So, Monday I had one more day off. Mum and Dad were out planting bulbs in the park across the road, so I set to on tiding the bedroom - the bits I did on Friday were just the beginning (and involved clearing out round the PC!). This time I had some furniture moving to do - now it is much tidier, has 3 bin sacks of crap less in it, and I can get into my wardrobe. This, sadly, is where things start to head towards the bad place.
I threw out some clothes as I wouldn't ever get into them (including a jumper I really liked, but as it had in fact been shrunk in the wash - really! - it wasn't to bad.). I found the trousers I want to get into again. They are 34" waists. I will have to work hard to get into them. I now have a new aim - to get a 34" waist again. And be 12 1/2 stone or less. By Christmas. I don't care if I end up not eating for a month or two. I will do it. Obviously this is a little depressing (though weighing myself on Tuesday night gave me a nice boost - let's just say that this weekend should see a nice happier me in the Diet Diary...)
Tuesday saw me going back to work. Annoying as usual. Wednesday was the kicker though. I havn't been feeling too well (sniffles, aching ankle after all the work over the weekend and a painful foot as I dropped a bookcade, cds, books, etc on it on Monday). I find I can't get on the computer to make all the entries I need to for the visits I had done, then when I did I find 50+ emails - most of them from admin upstairs giving a stage-by-stage report on the carpeting of the building, car parking, Children in Need, lift, etc), some people who were cancelling visits, and messages from 4 people asking why I hadn't visited them. None of these people I knew about until another system came back online so I could actually get the cases that had been allocated to me on Thursday and Friday. Obviously, the fact that I hadn't been in may have caused a few problems, but the real problem was that they hadn't been allocated to me until now and had been waiting for about 2 weeks. And of course, the emails from admin put it all on me. This got me in a bad mood. As did another in capitals as a woman with a portable doorbell (that is working fine) had called six times and I had to talk to her. And another case popped up - a guy who manages to break his personal listener all the time. And one who was screaming that his special alarm clock hadn't been replaced when he called in about it on Friday. Remember in an earlier blog when I mentioned 'not creating an expectation'? This, two telephone calls and Barbara, a colleague stressing me to go to a dance thing on Halloween (and to bring a friend!!!!!(!!!!)) didn't help. I felt crappy, I dashed to the toilet and cried. For 20 minutes. I may not be the most manly of men, but Zarquon' Holy Singing Fish, I don't cry much. And this was the time. But do you know what really broke the camels back? In my opinion it was a message from my boss saying he would come over Friday afternoon as he was worried that I was having too much piled on me. Y'think?!? I found thirty (!!!) cases waiting for me when I logged in - this on top of the ones I still had to deal with. No-one, not even the girl who does Fylde& Wyre has that sort of thing, and she just got a part timer to help! Luckily I had to see people so I got out quickly and dealt with five people (including most of those 'urgent' cases). A little driving and some Tenacious D helped stop at least some of my sniffles.
Luckily last night brightened me up, though the lack of decent sized servers on JO was a pain in the arse! I ended up playing Tiger Woods 2005 instead. Today wasn't too bad despite feeling crappy still. Now I feel better, and I've got a plan to get the comics on track. And to hand in my resignation, but that is hoepfully as near a last resort as I can make it!
Ah well - see you at the weekend for (hopefully) a successful Diet Diary (despite mum making a 'salad' invoving salad stuff and some hot sopicy chicken things from Morrisons... kinda like McDonalds - "That's no Salad...!"
Posted by Badgers at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2004
What Do You Mean "System Disk Error?!?!"
Just a quick entry this week from me...
It's not been a terrible week, all told, but it has been the sort of week that throws out plans for doing comics! Work-wise things havn't been too bad (two days actual working (including a bugger of a tidy out of my cupboards in the basement at work now I can get down to them without gagging on smoke) and one out visiting people. Wednesday saw me at Longridge on an 'Away Day' - otherwise known as a series of talks about the changes coming to our team and how we can meet them. Nothing too stressful there, then! I had Thursday and Friday off though, partly to do some comic stuff (which just hasn't been done for a good reason or two) and partly because my PC had started really acting up! The error in the title of this entry is just the beginning! Random crashes out of games, the inability to stay stable enough to do any colouring in Photoshop, the constant disc checking at boot-up... Something had to be done!
I already had a plan to replace the HDs with others in November, but the problems of the last week or so meant I brought it all foward, and I'm glad I did! Now Kyoko has a huge HD for storage (at last) and Ayumi has two large SATA drives. And a 17" TFT monitor from Aria - well worth the money in the special offers section this month! Of course, it took all of Thursday (and much of the night!) to copy the stuff I needed to save from Ayumi to Kyoko, so I was knackered early on Friday morning when I put the new drives in Ayumi and started installing Windows XP with SP2. So far there are no major problems (except maybe that I'm having a bugger of a time getting my iPAQ to be picked up by the computer - and it was so easy last time - ah well!). I'm now happy to say that everything is running fine, and I even managed a hour on Joint Ops last night! Unlike Nick, who has been on the game all week. Take a break, dude!
Oh, the idiots - yeah. Last Sunday was just the three of us (no James as he was working and getting his PC back together) and so it was Joint Ops (surprise)and an ogle at the stunning Rome: Total War - this series just gets better and better!
Oh, and I'm in the middle of a tidy-up which is annoying as it means making a hell of a mess during it (I can get to my bed now, at least!) - James might be happy to know that the 'clutter' is not as cluttery any more...
Oh, and sorry, no diary entry this week - lets just say I have eaten and am probably the same as last week...
Posted by Badgers at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2004
Another Week?
Yeah, another week has gone by, annoying me as it went! Last weekend was fine - I read some of the books I bought at Manchester last Saturday, Sunday went well at Nicks (though his 150kbs pipe was a little choked - he'll be fine when the new Set Top Boxes from NTL are enabled for the higher speeds! Of course, the big thing was that the bugger won two matches of Bomberman! And he said that if he won one we'd go out. Git.
The week at work was boring (though I did get one moment of brightness when an old blind lady found some equipment I gave her let her hear so much beter) and annoying (natch!), though I was able to get some scripting done for Quatermiss & The Pit... Sadly I have run into a snag as far as next week's comics go - they need colouring and lettering, and so may not be online from tomorrow - I'll do a double post on Wednesday! Of course, some good matches on Joint Operations didn't help this week (but only played after 9.00!)
So Saturday came round and my plans to get some comic stuff done were scuppered by first the night out (and Nick wanting me to join him on Joint Ops) and James wanting me to take him to Nelson to get a new motherboard as his is finally going totally kaput!
The night out was fun - I wasn't in the mood for dancing (to quote Tina Charles) but was in the mood for some people watching! Lots of people trying to find out how drunk they could get (some were really succeeding!) and some nice girls. Als, we met Stephen Farmer (the bouncer at the Orange House) and found that according to Friends Reunited, A schoolfriend who is working in web design for a bank has just got a second hand red Ferrari. Sigh - I mean, second hand!?!? In Lava we met his (the bouncer's) ex, the lady we have been trying to remember the name of for ages. Amanda (for this is the little vision's name)is still lovely and with a new guy - she is also South African and not from New Zealand as we had previously thought! She was there with some other South African friends, and they were having a whale of a time! And there was a worrying moment when I went up some steps and the rail nearly fell out! It had to have been loose before I got there - a bouncer helped be get it fitted back in the holder...
Still, the night came to an end and I headed home after 22 hours of being awake to sleep until 6 this morning... at which point I burned a CD and installed the demo for American Magee's Scrapland - a cross between Beyond Good and Evil (a top game) and GTA (the piece of crap that it is!!!) but with robots and spaceships - and it's pretty cool!
Ah well - better make a move, I suppose - catch you all later!
Posted by Badgers at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2004
Chinooks, Training and Annoying Stuff
Well, Nick wasn't on broadband last week, so we went up to Andrew's... earlier this week Nick rang me up, and it seemed that his PC wasn't communicating with the box, as the 'registration' problems with NTL seemed to be for cable modems only... I persuaded him to call NTL and then he called back at about 10pm and he popped up! He was online! Basically, the NTL idiots had enabled a box, but it wasn't his box they had enabled! I managed to persuade him to let me remotely operate his PC and so I set up his email, etc, and watched him set up himself... Now he seems to be online after 9.30 at night to play JO... go figure!
So, this week was, of course, the training course! Four days at Kirkham... but it was actually very good - though it was a little heavy on the sight-impairment side (leading some fellow SSOs to thingk it was part of an agenda) and we were told that we now had to put addressed on our travel claims - of course, this will mean 2-3 forms a month instead of the usal one, but hey, if they want it, they can have it... though Finance will have a barney with three amounts a month having to aded to my salary... mine especially as I have three months to do!!! Ah, the joy! We were also fully staffed, though two members of the team don't start for a month or so... and finally we have a babe on the team - one who has just returned from a round-the-world year with her insane-sounding boyfriend! The food, like last week, was in evidence, but I managed to be very good (though the dinner ladies were out to get me as they piled chips on my plate on Tuesday - more than even my mum would put on the plate!). Of course, you were not allowed in the dining room until they were ready, but that is par for the course with dinner ladies!
Still, yesterday I was told by my manager that he had had a call from a client's daughter asking why I hadn't visited yet (the reason is simply that I dind't know - I was on a four-day course!!!) - it turns out that her flashing doorbell wasn't working. Bear in mind that we were told not to to create an 'expectation' that we would go out to deal immediately as the one time you can't make it within the hour due to a holiday/illness/death you get a complaint... so I was told I had to go out today. To Barnoldswick. I rushed over this morning after making a call last night at 5.30 to let them know only to find out that they had taken a look themselves, and found the box was unplugged. Some people...
The rest of the day was mildly annoying, though it was lightened by one old lady with hardly any hearing... Her social worker asked me to go last Friday, but of course that couldn't happen (see previous blog!) so I turned up - no-on expected me to get in, but I did, and had a good chat to her (once she had woken up). Sadly the equipment wouldn't help her, but at least we tried. I managed to get home (though one visit I should have made last week didn't happen today as I (ulp) forgot who it was I was going to! If they call to moan, I left a message to take the name and I'd go on Monday!!!) and was shattered. Ah well.
One thing that helped was smashing up the kitchen this week! A neighbour was getting rid of his kitchen for a new one, and the units came here - anything is better than the crap we had - and the old units were totalled and the newer ones pushed in place - it isn't perfect (there is a lot more to come, including some cupboards from another neighbour!) but it is far better!
Ah well - all in all, not a bad week for a change... tomorrow I need to draw a lot (not a lot of I.T. done this week due to the course) to make shure that the comic is on time next week (I.T. Goes To War! At last!) and the big Manchester shopping trip... And of course, my car is now mine. Completely. All paid for. Now I just need to deal with the MOT later this month...
Funniest things this week? Well, in the two games of Joint Operations I just played, shooting lots of chinooks that kept hovering in the sights of my RPG was fun (can you say 'multikill? Sure you can!), but I think the two Joint Ops members shooting at each other right outside the bunker I was in has to take the biscuit. Or at least standing in the doorway watching them go at it and then opening up with a big gun on them was! Heh heh!
Letdown of the week? Star Wars Battlefront. Okay, it looks great, with nice environments, but has AI that grab all the vehicles (like in the Battlefield series) and do nothing much with them. And troopers on both sides that seem to run up and down, shoot very accurately and suddenly stop while running to see where they are, giving you a great chance to shoot them to death. What next, Lucasarts? Grand Theft Tattooine?
Ah well - better sign off - see you in the morning to see if I have got below 15 stone again!!!
PS - Well done to Lava Ignite - my favourite place to go for a night out has been voted UK Club Of The Year! I guess we'll have to celebrate it sometime, if we ever go for another night out again!
Posted by Badgers at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2004
Annoying
Not a great week, on the whole, though it has had a few 'ups' to show the 'downs' for how down they were!
The week began with a training course at Kirkham that I was put on the previous Friday. The course was not too bad, and the company was nice (thanks David for dragging me to the table then leaving to have a 'wander into town'!). For various reasons, I couldn't get out of eating lunch (but it was quite healthy, at least, though I couldn't much carrots like she did earlier) and that was only the beginning. As the week went on, I found myself eating meals. I couldn't help it - I can't spend too much money at the moment - so I fell into the depressive eating. Not much more than normal, but enough to add weight - not much, but enough to make sure next week I go anorexic!
Work filled the rest of the week, and was just plain annoying for the most part. A couple of urgent cases dealt with, then Friday brought a morning of hell, followed by an afternoon (and evening) of the directors cut of the sequel, Hell 2! On the phone all morning (mostly about stuff that I don't even deal with - someone is using my name in vain again), with 4 people to see with 3 urgent cases suddenly dumped on me too. I missed one (not important) as I could do it Monday night when I get back from Kirkham (!) and did all the others. Including fixing a loop, two doorbells, dropping off a textphone and pager system with a lady in Haslingden and then install stuff at another. Three deaf people in a row. It was 8:20PM when I finally got home, had a sandwich and then went up to my room. After a little grumping around I sat down to do anything other than the art I was supposed to be drawing - don't worry, the strip is on schedule! - and proceeded to play 2 extremely good games of Joint Operations... The Joints Ops team didn't know what hit them... sniper hunting, helicopters landing in front of me when I have an RPG in my hand... having Final Fantasy XII thrown in your face is not what they expected!
I also opened the latest emails from James and the new b3ta Newsletter, where I found this link which pretty much cleared the stress from my mind - I'll never look at the Rivendell sequence in Fellowship in the same way again...
Then, whatever was lurking was swept away by a combination of James' blog entry (I can't wait to see his hair (and his blisters) the next time he turns up) and the first episode of Hitchikers - Tertiary Phase. Well done guys - it sounds great (Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey don't sound any different!)
Now, I'm expecting a call from Nick to say he wants me to set up his broadband connection - nothing yet, but that sword of Damocles is hangin above getting the rest of the comics done this afternoon!
Posted by Badgers at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2004
What Is It With Old People...
...and having the fire on full blast when it is hot outside?!? I visited a couple today and I had to be in there for an hour... it wasn't exactly roasting outside, but it was nice and warm. Indoors it was a little more than warm. It was a bloody sauna. That should help me with my weight loss...
Yes, I have started a diet diary as part of the blog. I felt it was a useful way to make certain people feel inadequate as I show what can be done when you really want to lose the weight. And don't want to sepnd all night puking every last bit into the bog. Been there when I was ill for two months and couldnf't keep anything down - it might be a fast way to lose weight but it will kill you. Believe me. This time it's just cutting back (even if it is quite a cut back!) and exercising now my ankle isn't hurting! Expect an update every Saturday from here till Christmas (or until I hit my target of 12 1/2 stone!)
What have I been doing this week? Work has been annoying (the usual), and I found myself rushing through the I.T. strip for next week (Sun, Fun & Hired Guns) and I have got to admit - it isn't my best... the number of panels I've redrawn... luckily I was able to cheat a little, and it should all start coming together this evening as I start colouring... It didn't help that I keplt fiddling with the 'script'! One of the main reasons that I've rushed it and not really bothered too much is that I have been going through I.T. Goes To War, and plotting that - and that strip (which wil run for 8 weeks (!) is what is on my mind - it's a good'un! Promise! And it will hopefully mark a first as I will be inking digitally... This is partly as I want to get up to speed as I want to do the same for Dark Tidings in the New Year, and partly 'cos I think it should look better. We shall see...
Ah well - another thing that has taken my time is Joint Operations - After drawing I spent about an hour a night online - so much fun it hurts, but only if you have a good team. And the news that the expansion pack (more money!) will bring in tanks, new terrains, dirt bikes and apaches (!) and apparently add parachutes is good... if only the game didn't keep sysdumping out on my fast machine!
That's all I can be bothered to type for now - go some art to do! Later, everyone!
Posted by Badgers at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2004
Farewell Micra, It's Not That I Hated You, But...
...a 1.2 litre engine just ain't making it! Between the lack of power (I barely managed 60mph on the motorway), lack of feedback, the stereo which eventually managed to keep hold of Radio 2 but sounded muffled, the shape (I must admit, the shape has grown on me a little), its been a pain. Perhaps I'm just too used to power (the Colt was nippy and cool, the Saab 900 powerful as all heck, and my beloved 206 with it's 2.0 diesel Turbo... I just like to be able to pull out from a junction and not have to pray that I get movong quickly enough to not be hit by that oncoming car 300 yards down the road! Luckilly, I got a call as I got home today to say that I can go to collect my repaired car tomorrow! w00Tage!!!!!!!1111
Just in case you're wondering, work hasn't been too bad so far... but there's another day yet (though as that day will also include a 206 that can shift itself, it can't be too bad!!!)
Posted by Badgers at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2004
Getting There...
So Sunday was interesting... Nick's computer overheated, we played lots of Bomberman for a change, and Nick decided he needed to re-install as he is getting the dreaded 'NT Authority Shutdown' even when not online. And the fact that he is finally getting (300k) broadband and digital TV on 25th September! At last! Now Andrew can set up the clan he is longing for... he can build the damned site for it though!!!
At work so far it hasn't been too bad, except that today I got very angry with a woman who works at Clitheroe... she has been a pain for a while, but luckily I havn't had to deal with her as I haven't covered that area for ages. I pity poor David as he does have to deal with her. A lot. If you have read earlier entries you will know my hate of a company called Universal Aids. Well, they don't fit things in that area. And I wrote on the form 'installation' which she took to mean (despite the fact she should know by now that they don't install over there) that they would install it. And then the fact that the equipment requested had in fact been installed last year. And she didn't quite understand the concept of 'cancelling the order'. And they wonder why I've taken to writing orders in big captial letters...
Oh, and I notice James has found the new blog - he sounds excited! I've now put up an index page which works, and I've just dragged the old pages here for the moment. Atr the moment, pages like My Cars and Meanwhile... will just have to look crap until I get a chance to get back to make them look right at the weekend. Any missing pages will be the same, so no moaning!
Posted by Badgers at 08:39 PM | Comments (2)
September 04, 2004
To Quote From My Own Comic...
"B-but you're dead!"
"I guess I got better!"
I know I said that the Badgers site would close, but it looks like it was a little premature! Of course, it is now lurking here at badgers.roguenoid.co.uk. Of course, people not in the know won't realise this as I haven't put any links here apart from a note on the front page of .com, so the only people who read this will be me and James for the moment.
In fact, James is the main reason the blogs are still around! I decided to relent last night when he started crying on Messenger last night after sending me umpteen ebay links for motherboards and videocards... expect him to crow about that in his blog! I had to download the new Movable Type which wasn't too bad. except that you need to pay for it now, and the free version only allows one author and three blogs! Not too much aof a problem as I have grouped Rants, Baka and the Dream Diary into the same blog using catagories - it should work! I need to transfer some of the other pages to HTML but for the moment it isn't a problem - it can wait for a week or a few!
So, it's been a while, and what has happened? Well, I had my week off and mum was doing everything pretty much like she did before the operation with the phrase "if I don't do it, no-one else will" on her lips all the time. I helped, when she let me! both mum and dad both resigned from the community action group too after various things occurred, then the rest of the committee followed for one reason or another. Then they get back into it now that the chairperson had gone. Well, 'if they didn't do it...'
I did use the week to get ahead on the comic so I've been able to get some time to play Joint Operations on Kyoko (Ayumi still sysdumps out!) and do things generally. Nothing much worth reporting, but things.
Last Sunday was interesting - we went to Nick's and he revealed that he was going to call NTL to get broadband and digital cable fitted to replace his current dodgy analog cable connection - I think the lure of porn and JO has finally made him cross the line! Of course, James gets all excited and tells me later that he'll drag me down to make sure that his computer is antivirused and firewalled on Saturday (today)... and he sends Nick a 4mb zip file in the email. Now, considering that Nick is on a 56k dial up, and is currently too scared to get email as another friend sent him a 1mb file that took ages to download on Sunday afternoon, and that Nick's new NTL connection is probably not going to be fitted yet... you have to wonder what planet his bus stops on, sometimes...!
This week saw me going back to work, and actually enjoying it - well, twice - a little. Buit by the end of the week I was desperate to go home by the time I got in to work. I notice a few webcomic authors have been fired from their jobs recently, and aiming to earn a living from their comics... sometimes i really think that's my best route to financial security as well! Augmented by eBay sales, of course!
The best thing about this past week? Well, so far it was helping a loveley young lady and child to find a solicitors on Bank Parade - cute as a button (and I don't mean the kid!)
Ah well - thats as much as an entry as you're gonna get - I have to do some exercises (I've lost 3lbs this week! Woo!) and watch the video for Call on Me by Eric Prydz on The Box... ;-)
Posted by Badgers at 04:07 PM | Comments (1)
August 20, 2004
What Have I Done To Deserve This?
Well, they finally came to collect the battered car on Wednesday, but unfortunately my worst fears were realised... The car has gone to Greyhound Ford for repair, so what do you think I got as a courtesy car? A Ka? A Fiesta? A Transit? Nope.
A Micra.
I hate Micras, but I must admit, it isn't as bad as it seemed at first. All the wheels are still in the right place! Perhaps its just because I'm so used to Camille's power, and how she drives, but it feels like the steering wheel isn't attached to the wheels - yes it turns easily (too easily!), but it feels like a Playstation wheel with the feedback turned off. The good news is that as I am off next week, I only need to drive it a couple more times, before it is left outside to be collected when my car is ready...
In other news, Sunday came and went, with everyone up at my place. Mum spent the day before her operation sitting in the cab of a lorry going round the town centre as apart of a parade of floats - apparently it was the best one there as at least we had done something! We had problems though - Nick, Andrew and I shared the internet connection without too much of a hitch (barring setting up the connection as I have only done it twice before!), but James couldn't get online - after fiddling with some settings, he couldn't even get onto the network. Things got worse as he got home - his graphics card has gone poof so he' shad to borrow the one from his daughters PC... and he can only use it at night. Not that this causes him much of a problem... that's when he spends all his time online!
Some good news (well, good-ish) is that Nick is now an uncle! Well done Nick - and you didn't even have to do anything! He's likely to be down in Wales this weekend having an ogle, and then coming back to share the pictures with us all... I hope it doesn't make me all broody again!
Work hasn't been too bad, apart from feeling trapped without the car - unfortunately getting out wasn't as easy as Monday night I fell over taking upteen sacks of tissue paper flowers out to the back street twisting my ankle. The weather, though has been terrible - apart from the rain (I'm surprised we haven't had much of a problem locally, though most of the rain did hang off until the last couple of days - some terrible footage of the floods in Cornwall and landslides in Scotland) that is even now coming down in buckets.
The good news is that Mum has had her operation on her knee, the bad news is that she will have to have the other one done sometime in the future. She is up and down (literally) on her crutches, determined to do pretty much everything she shouldn't. She is also moaning that when I get mine done I'll have to stay downstairs (why? she doesn't!) and will be on crutches for weeks. Yeah, right! I'll not be on those things for long, if at all, after the last time I needed to use them! I'll be at work by the end of the week too!
Ah well - next week I'm off to try and look after her a bit, and also get some comics drawn... its that 'lazy week' I told you about, so I should get next week's done, and possibly even the rest of I.T. Must Die! so that I can get down to Sun, Fun... I must also finalise the script for I.T. Goes To War... If I have time I may block out the rest of the rough plot of Automata (a novel!) and hope to get down to some work on Dark Tidings... I can't play Joint Operations properly until the next patch comes out to solve my constant sysdump.txt errors, so I might a s well get some stuff done!!!
See you all later...
Posted by Badgers at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2004
The Fact That It Is Friday Says It All...
...that it is the 13th just puts a fancy hat on it at a jaunty angle.
Imagine - I take the afternoon off work waiting for Greyound Ford to contact me or come to collect the car. By four in the afternoon I get worried, and call up. Apparently, they have been trying all afternoon - at least a dozen times. There are no calls to my phone, or to my mobiles. The only calls on the phone downstairs are dad ringing. I don't know what they were ringing, unless it was work, and they wouldn't send me a message, not about anything important like this.
The upshot of all this is that now my car will be collected next Wednesday. I will have to cadge a lift to my meeting in Preston, too on Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully, if I stay by my work telephone all day I should get a phone call and then rush back home in time to actually hand the car to them. Almost as bad as bloody PC World!
Ah well, at least yesterday was fun. I had four visits to make that I couldn't easily get out of, so I walked into work, then caught the bus to Rawtenstall, hiked over the hill to Haslingden, did the visit then hiked back. Then I caught a bus to Nelson, hiked round to the three people I had to see (virtually from two near the bus station to one at the bottom of Reedyford Road) then walked home over the tops. I don't know the exact mileage yet, but it was a lot. And I felt great about it! My legs are the only part of me I'm proud of, even if one of them is a little dodgy...
Here's hoping the car is finally taken for repairs/scrapping next Wednesday!!!
Posted by Badgers at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2004
It Never Rains, But It Pours...
What?!? A mid-week entry? Never! But it is true, and here it is. There is a reason, but I'll come to that...
Sunday saw us up at Andrew's which was cool - we all managed to get there, and play Joint Operations (though I had a few hassles due to the dreaded sysdump.txt crashes! - I think this is down to servers though - Pork Rind 1 makes me crash everytime, while Typhoon 1 is usually fine... Fly Paper 1 is running with no crashes, so I might be lurking around there for a while...). We also got to play Doom 3 in deathmatch mode - it's old school, but fun. And the game is very good, if a little dark. Which is annoying as you need to keep using your flashlight or get a mod to tape one to your gun! Good fun had by all, especially as James has got another BB gun (from Blackpool this time) that came with red paintball pellets... he also brought lots of fizzy pop after spending ages going in Tescos, Asda, etc trying to find some coke. Ah well.
I'm getting to the reason for the early entry, but my way, okay?
It's been a wet couple of days - after the storms of last week, so far this week has been non-stop rain (though as I type it is just fining up for the first time in a while). The roads have been awash, and its generally been not nice. Lots of local flooding too. Unfortunately I have come a cropper due to this... on the way home tonight I took a run over the tops from Trawden as it was fining up and not raining any more. No problems at all. Then as I came to a narrow bit (suspiciously near to where I had a tyre get torn up by a rock last year) I saw a Discovery coming down towards me, so I thought that I'd pull into a farm gate to get by. Normally not a problem. Except that I had reckoned without the scree slope that had formed due to gravel being washed down! The car started to turn, then started to skid. Bump! The Discovery hit my back corner and I got off the road then! He has a scratch down the doors (nothing too major really) while I got a big dent in the back of the car. The brake lights, indicators, etc are still happily working though, which is a blessing. It may be repairable (the car was drivable, though it sounds like something is rubbing somewhere, but I can't spot anything too obvious) so it will be going to Greyhound Ford sometime pretty soon. I hope they can match the colour! If it isn't, it's goodbye Camille and hello to something else. Possibly a cheap, rusty Sierra for a short time, unless I can find another old Saab 900...
But what really irks me is that the bump happened as I am in the last couple of of payments for her. Just like my Colt. And looking at my dream notes (not yet put online) I had a dream about someone hitting me while driving last week (though the accident there was a close rerun of the one that totalled my Mitsubishi). Just when all my financial woes were finally going away (though I can fiddle it! - more Ebay sales are needed, and I will persecute any idiots who fail to complete checkout then whinge that they didn't recieve any of my many emails!!!!)
Here are pictures of the damage - more comment on the My Cars page!
Looks fine from here (well apart from the front skirt - an old injury easily glued back together (again)!)
A close up - the lights all work! This is the reason that bullbars should be banned!
A wider shot showing it in context. Sniff. Bumflaps indeed!
Posted by Badgers at 07:06 PM | Comments (3)
August 07, 2004
Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
Disaster! Cataclysm! Devastation! Buggeration!
I mean, real Towering Inferno-style problems here, only without all that hot flamey stuff.
Sunday started well - I was up and drawing and finishing a bit I'd forgotten on the colours for yesterday's I.T. strip. I had a bath, went down for my usual Sunday bacon & egg dinner then got Ayumi pulled apart to go up to Nicks to take him up to Andrews. So far so good. I collect Nick - he has to get some shopping - so we go to Sainsburys. He gets a bottle of Bacardi as a house-warming present then mentions the frozen peas. Idiot. I say we can get them later (after all, they would be kinda more liike cooked peas, by the time we go home!). So we arrive, and Andrew shows us round the house - not that there is much to see as the place is a little smaller than I expected! A big garden front and back, though it is a little Vietnam-like - I kept expecting mercenaries to pop up and say "Did you hear something? Whatever that was, I don't wanna know!". A fair few rooms (two bedrooms and a room for his computer room/den) though, which isn't too bad. One horrible thing is the kitchen - it has all the appliances, but it is in a rather nasty yolk-yellow that really doesn't work - kinda like if someone bought it on the impulse to brighten up the kitchen - boy did they get a shock! A dodgy step on the stair and the laminate flooring in the living room that isn't quite fitted properly and bumps up and down, completes it really.
Anyway, after he takes us round, we set up in the living room. Nick's computer was making a noise like a chainsaw. Luckily this was just a fan. But Ayumi wouldn't boot. In fact, it wouldn't turn on. Andrew suggested the power supply but I doubted it - he did tell me to go to an open shop and buy a new one. Of course, this is not a good idea. As the only one anywhere nearby was PC World. I declined, but after a few tries to pull cables and try getting it to live, I gave up. I headed home alone, so Andrew could take Nick to Sainsburys fort the peas!
I got home then fiddled and determined that it was the motherboard. In a fit of madness I went to PC World. They had a few Pentium (spit-ding) mobos, but the only Athlon boards were for the new 64bit processors. And the staff were as useful as a chocolate radiatior. "The ones on the shelf are all we want - you won't get one now - it's a Sunday" (well durrrrr!). They did give me a leaflet. Thank you PC World - you'll be mentioned on Grumbletext!
So, I was without a PC for a little while (a slight lie, as I was able to browse on my parents machine, Rei, but it wasn't quite the same) and of course this had to happen at just the right time to bugger up the launch of the new-format I.T. didn't it!?! Yep - all the art I had to upload was on Ayumi, who was, until Tuesday when the bits came from Aria, so I couldn't do anything. Tankfully, On Tuesday I was able to get everything working again by slotting in a new Mobo - the same as before - and amidst a rather funky storm, Ayumi lived again!!! Live my creation..LIIIIVE!!!!
I had also got the bits needed to build my storage machine, but found that the Asrock Mobo had things sticking up that meant that my old Aero 7 cooler wouldn't fit. Bugger. So it was a new order to Aria to get another fan (an Akasa) and a DVD Writer for it - This time it worked and it came to life easily (in the middle of another storm)! Now I have a storage machine with all my Jpop music stuff on it, and so if this happens again (Goddess forbid) I can keep working and posting the strips! Result!
So I was able to launch the strip on Tuesday, and am now on schedule again, except that setting up two computers cost me a lot of art time so I am going to be busy today colouring and drawing next Friday's strip... Luckily there are what I like to call 'lazy' strips coming up that need so little art it hurts so I can get ahead again... you'll see...
Work? Do I have to? Well, it wasn't too bad, With a meeting on Monday in Preston to meet a top manager, various annoying people to see about equipment most days, supervision (thankfully a far less painful thing than previously!) and barely being in the office all week. For the last few weeks the staff at the loan store at the hospital have been off on holiday, sick, etc, so note of my equipment had been picked - I've been cobbling bits together, basically! But the boss returned this week, and on Thursday I came to work to find 3 1/2 sacks of stuff waiting for me... oh joy...
Of course, this week I went back to Rossendale Hospital to see the consultant about the ankle... I'm sure James and Marie will be interested! From the scan taken a few weeks ago, they now feel that the big lump that is sticking outo the ankle is a bone and have now put me on the waiting list for the operation. And of course, though most people would be in and outoi a day, I will have to be kept in due to my heart to make sure I am okay with the anesthetic. Oh goody. And the scan also showed that one of the ankle bones (the talus, I think!) shows signs of a bad injury - probably from the fall back in London years ago that first roally buggered the ankle, as it is old - so they will stick the camera in and look at that while they are there, just in case. Brilliant.
So, tomorrow we may be at Andrew's again, and this time it will be all four of us! This will be a test for his broadband connection! Joint Operations should be great... I also note that James has made a new blog entry, and beaten me to the Dream Diary! Git!
Ah well. before I go I'll just say a big "HI!" to the idiot who very nearly took the front of my car off in Waterfoot by ding 50mph down Burnley Road East in Waterfoot...
Posted by Badgers at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2004
Not The Busiest Of Weeks
I spent the last few days feeling really ill anyway - headache, nausea, bad throat, the runs - all the usual symptoms. Except that I also felt very cold. Odd that, considering the tempratures we've had in the past few days! You wouldn't believe you could have a cold sweat in this weather, but you can! In fact, one lady I went to visit on Wednesday was all for calling the doctor for me! Thankfully it has pretty much passed (except the runs and the ever-present headache) so I feel okay at the moment.
Just for info (to certain people who never ever ill but manage to pull a sicky when a trip to Alton Towers happens or whenever he says he will definitely without question be coming out with us on a night out...) I didn't have any time off (unless you count going home at 4.30 on Wednesday) though I may use it as an excuse to bug out of the many meetings I'm stuck with next week... And I have actually got next week's I.T. comics drawn and coloured and started on the following week's strips! They begin properly on Monday, but I will be posting a 'cover' tomorrow to kick things off! Also today I revealed my plans for Dark Tidings (a separate website, opening in late October and the strip itself beginning in January with lots of hype! I must mention something to James too - he might be interested...), so today has been busy.
Not least because I went to Manchester and went kinda book crazy. Forbidden Planet didn't help either, as I was sorely tempted to get the complete Bone in one volume (I settled for the collected Bone volume 9 and Strangers In Paradise - David's Story). The centre was, of course, blocked off for the Lord Mayor's Parade... I got off the bus (after sitting next to an old woman who was going to Wales via the train station, and who had lived in a house that had been demolished for the motorway - we actually go through her old house, apparently) and wondered what all the police were for... To get home meant a trek through the centre to the other side - why wasn't I told?!? Where was my memo?!? Two scary things in Manchester (apart from some of the more odd-looking members of the Cow Parade) were a guy walking up and down with a Linux Developer's Convention 2001 T-shirt on (it was held in Manchester, apparently) and on the way home a distinctly chavvy woman with baby loudly talking to a friend about how she had just visited her man in Strangeways and how it would teach him to mend his ways and also how a man she had met knew some of her family after seeing them in Turkey on Holiday, though she didn't know which family member it was and stuff like that! And I meant to have no real punctuation there as that was how she talked. But in more capitals.
I won't talk about work (due to feeling crappy I barely remember it anyway), and to go through the complete twunts I met on the roads would be too much hassle. Lets just say there were lots, and leave it at that, eh? I was going to do a rant about the call to ban EVIL GAMES by the Daily Mail, but couldn't be bothered - I mean, if the Daily Mail is out to ban them, good luck to it - just remember that if games like the fairly crap Manhunt can make people kill (normal people, not mentally disturbed people) then I'm a raving lunatic with an AK. But the sorry case of Stefan Pakeerah, the boy stabbed to death by Warren Leblanc brings up questions of supervision, rather than a call to ban Doom III, Half Life, Manhunt and Frogger to me. The parents knew he was 'obsessed' by the game, but as he was 17 and obviously not mature enough to be playing it in the first place, what were they doing? Cheering him on? I mean, if I had kids (and I never will) I wouldn't let them watch Robocop unsupervised, despite the fact that I did watch it without parents getting in the way, and the fact that I believe it to be one of the greatest movies ever. Read the label - certificate 18 means something - work it out! I'm sure that the Mail would have called out to ban pornography if the lad had gone out and raped someone after watching a certificate 18 movie like Debbie Does Dallas...
I'll be so glad to leave this world when my time is up, leaving no descendants tolive on into the future we are creating. Just remember, the kids who you can't smack, send to bed without dinner, shout at or generally chastise in any way even when they feed their little sister into a tree-chipper are growing up in a molly-coddled world (hence the Government's 'Prepare for Emergencies' leaflet campaign) are going to be running the world very soon. All of them stupider than George W Bush and all likely to go off and kill people after watching something vaguely violent like Barney The Dinosaur. Wearing burbury-checked clothes. Do as I do, and choose to depopulate this bloody world voluntarily!
There - little mini-rant. I'll get round to entering the dream stuff soon - I have a feeling the serial dream hasn't quite ended yet!
Ah well - tomorrow we go up to Andrew's new house (rented, and currently pristine) to trash it! The good thing is that he won't be whinging that he has to be home for 6 as he will already be home... though he will probably be shoving us out of the door instead... Ah well! See you later!
Posted by Badgers at 10:40 PM | Comments (3)
July 25, 2004
A Quiet Night Out
Surprisingly, it was quite quiet - for a change I wasn't dragged onto the dance floor (walking with a pronounced limp seemed to help!) and there was not too much of note, really!
Nick and I headed into town (after he realised that getting his email once a day isn't enough - he got an earlier email saying it might not happen as Jamius hadn't contacted me, but I later sent another when I read his comment to my blog where he said he would be there) to start at Yates... we played pool but the table was horrible and had tiny balls - WTF? James called and said he couldn't get out till 9.45 and that he would pop into Lava to see if we were there before going on to Calamity Janes... of course Lava doesn't open till 10.30 so it would have been a little useless... From here we went to the Swan which was now open - it seems it was simply closed for a new paint job and some plastering - its a lot lighter in there, but not much different... then on to Calamity Janes where James turned up about 10.00. There was to a a live act downstairs, but we didn't stay, and missed the dancing on the bar too - it was going to happen, but later about 10.30 - a ploy to keep people there? Probably! We then headed to Lava and basically James and I sat on the same stools all night chatting and singing, while Nick ogled everything. It was a quiet night really - I hardly had any alcohol and James stuck to J20s all night. He enjoyed it though, which was good.
A few observations (no, not those!) come to mind (along with a great idea for an I.T. tale for later on - perhaps in late 2005/early 2006!)... The first is that the variation of quality of DJs really is incredible! Yates, for example seems to have a terrible DJ - you couldn't hear what he said, and his cross fading and mixing sucked. Calamity Janes and The Swan both have good pub DJs - full of double entendres and chatting to the patrons (and heckling them!). Lava's DJ is ecxellent - all the good points above, and quite mad! He was also having trouble with one of the CD players that was behaving like the ones they use on Radio 2... And of course, he plays pretty good music too!
The second thing was that some women/girls/whatever obviously felt that they were meant to be the main attraction, and the faces on some of them as we and others ignored them was great fun to watch! Sucking a lemon had little on it!
A few fun moments occurred though - on the beer garden at The Swan two girls were dancing together and giggling and laughing and generally showing that they had started drinking very early... In Lava one lady was obviously very drunk indeed and was having lots of trpouble trying to stay upright, but was still trying to interest the guys there... she failed miserably (see sucking lemons above!) Also, on the way home we all stopped at the trafficv lights on Manchester Road and watched to mad fools lying in the road trying to be run over... had they been reading my blog from Friday and decided to join the roadkill? Insane.
One annoying thing is that James asked why Andrew had been at my place as he had spotted him there... I had to say that Andrew had come up for my old Radeon 9600 Pro, which was partially true... In fact Andrew had decided to upgrade a little and had a new case, motherboard and processor and wanted me to help him fit it all together... It all went quite well (the case is a plastic rip on the Thermaltake Xaser cases) except that it was stingy with the IDE cables and had very few power cables (though a quick journey to S2S computers solved that for a fiver!). And he couldn't get his old Nvidia card to fit in again (hence needing the 9600). It certainly runs well as it did really well on Joint Operations today! James, of course, couldn't leave well alone and rang me to ask for Andrew's number so he could buy the card for anther PC he is getting ready to sell... I couldn't warn Andy as Jamius had rung him straight away... a shame that, as Andrew wanted it to be a little surprise! Nick go a little shock, though (James had asked if Andy had got a new PC last night, so it wasn't very big a shock!).
The big thing is that next week we all go up to Andrew's new rented house to mess things up and annoy the neighbours! Ah well. At least Andy has got a new copy of Joint Operations so he can join us online... even though he is now interested in us forming a clan... noobies, eh?
Posted by Badgers at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2004
Dead Things, Crazy Cars and
Another week done and dusted, thankfully! Work has been annoying (mad even more annoying by not being able to find the address the new guy was going to so I could be there to help him assess a couple who are deaf, but finding that he did well alone - the house was on a new estate I didn't know about and which wasn't on the maps!). Still, I have seen a number of interesting things while out and about this week in the (mostly) glorious sun...
There seems to have been a problem with cars as I have ended up behind three cars all conked out at junctions and roundabouts... must be the heat! And twice I've been waiting for up to 15 minutes while A big truck sits parked between the temporary traffic lights set up for roadworks. The one this afternoon in Barnoldswick had finished it's delivery and sat there for 5 minutes while the driver nagged with workmen. Thank you Yorkshire Water!
Lots of fresh roadkill too - this afternoon I wondered why people were suddenly slowing down before spotting the poor magpie that hadn't quite got out of the way while picking at previous roadkill - too target fixated, I guess. The bird was put out of its misery by the car following as it steered to run over its head - it might seem cruel, but the magpie was already half squashed and couldn''t have lived anyway. The saddest was in Harle Syke yesterday. I was coming down the main road when a police car came screaming past, stopping for nothing... after it had passed a car was parked on the opposite side of the road and a guy leapt out of it into the road, tears in his eyes, and scooped up a black cat that had not been so lucky - it was limp and staring - the car then set off quickly, probably to a vets. Poor bugger.
One thing that nearly could have been roadkill was a peacock in Cliviger! I was going up there on Tuesday and came to a corner that is usually tight - I slowed down and suddenly this peacock came wandering across the road in frontof me. It wandered to the pavement and stood there looking at me before ruffling it's feathers, and setting off to wander back across the road as I set off again. Absolutely beautiful bird though... A couple of sheep also leapt out in front of me while I was going over Crown Point to have lunch - mad creatures! Another near miss came when I was coming down from Hapton to Padiham and two cute girls were walking down the pavement and then the other bumped her and she very nearly got hit by the car in front as she stumbled into the road...
The coolest thing this week has to have been this afternoon - I was on the A59 coming out of Clitheroe and I saw a yellow car coming towards me - I thought - cute - it looks like Bessie (the yellow roadster driven by the Third Doctor). It came closer and it was very like Bessie - in fact it was a smaller, one-person mini-Bessie! A replica of the car, not a Mini painted like Bessie! Neat. If anyone has any pictures of the mini-car, let me know! The second coolest was listening to Steve Wright on Radio 2 and he had Tony Christie on as a guest. That was cool enough, but the cool thing is that when he played Amarillo a car honked its horn in the chorus - remember the classic bit in Phoenix Nights...? Obviously he was listening to it as well!
So, in other news, there may be a night out in the offing tomorrow (if the lady in denim from last time is interested in going out!) depending on whether James can get out of working or not. I want to go out as a threesome (which as ways to die, isn't too bad!) not just Nick and me - that way it will be a little less gay... Not that we are - it's just that Nick tends towards the hairier members of the opposite (older!) sex... And of course, talking while out gives us hours of time to natter about all sorts of rubbish - its better to do it then rather than outside Nicks for an hour while James should have been home a hour earlier... or when Andrew returns with his cry of "stop talking and start shooting!"... We shall see...
Jamius actually came online to play Joint Operations early this week so we went on a server playing coop! I did really well on the White Noise map (top of the board for almost the entire game apart from a brief bit in the middle when the buggers were camping our spawnpoints)... I had lots of fun assaulting their mineshaft as they kept coming to the door and I kept shooting them - fish in a barrel - but then the lag hit and it went a bit dodgy., Coop can be as much fun as Assault, especially when the rebels are helped by the members of the clan the server belongs to...
Ah well - the last thing is to say that I now have my new NTL box and I'm ready for the 1.5mb broadband when it is turned on... and I've splurged on an ergonomic wireless keyboard which I find easier to touchtype on - I've certainly made less spooling mistakes in this entry so far! Later guys!
Posted by Badgers at 06:29 PM | Comments (2)
July 17, 2004
Short Notice
A fairly quiet week for a change! The big news at work is that the guy who will be doing my job in Hyndburn and Ribble Valley started on Tuesday. We were told on Monday. No big induction session, just out with me on some annoying visits, during which he learnt a lot. I now him, though, and I'm sure he'll be great - better than me!
On the friends front, some interesting stuff has been happening! On Sunday after the night out I picked up Nick and he went to buy Joint Operations so he could play it online that afternoon - and he loved it - so much he is now thinking harder about broadband... And I got an email form James and he has also been out and bought the game! Of course, this being James he asks for us to be online at 8.00pm and then turns up at 11.00 to whinge about why we are not online at that time... he may be online tonight after 8.00, so I'll probably have to stay up until midnight before he turns up... so much for getting the comics done! Andrew also surfaced from his exile and mentioned he had the demo for Painkiller (played, deleted it ages ago!) and asking if we were playing JO on cracked servers... now he is going to get it! This game seems popular!
Comic-wise I havn't done any art this week, but I am about to start up again on the new strips beginning with I.T. Must Die! to run from August. I have been scripting and found that the 'full page' webcomic style works better for the story and me... I don't need to do as much work (which will be a blessing from the middle of next month!) which means I can get down to life... and planning the next night out/night in/day out/whatever!
Ah well - see you tonight on UK Typhoon 1!
Posted by Badgers at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2004
Yeee-HA!
Well, I won't go into the past week so much except to say that I've enjoyed taking a break from the comic, and as usual, I wish I could take a break from the job too! Back to the comics big time now though! I managed to get the tyres sorted, and I'm financially viable for the moment, which is nice! Just don't be anyone who owes me money... And Mum was due to go in for an operation on her knee, but it was called off due to her health. Typical.
So things moved onto last night. And another nice night out it was! It had been raining all afternoon, but it fined up and was not bad, if a little chilly. For a change we went in Yates for a quick one before heading off to The Swan only to find it shut and being worked on - hopefully they won't wreck the place as it is an old pub - a real old pub! From there it was on to Paradise Island and then to Calamity Jane's Saloon round the corner - this is the 'western' bar I spoke of in earlier posts. Overall, it is far better than Pharaohs! Okay, the paintings on the walls are tacky and seem to have been done by someone who paints the wacky cartoon characters on fairground ride (Yosemite Sam and Wiley Coyote?!?) but overall it isn't a bad place - bars in the ground floor and in the basement, a large fake cactus, proper swing doors and at 9.50 the bargirls (dressed as cowgirls, an indian and a, um, good time girl) got up on the bar (with encouragement) to dance to Lady Marmalade. Which was nice. To put it mildly! It was a shame James couldn't join us, so I did a text saying what he's missed, but then found that I don't have his mobile number.... so I sent it to Andrew instead! Nick managed to recognise one of the girls as being from Paradise Island, but as it is owned by the same people, its not surprising!
After watching the lovely ladies we went towards Lava but it wasn't open yet (it's getting later and later! And this after sitting on a wall over the river to make sure we didn't go in early!) and so stood talking to the bouncers outside Orange House. One of them is schoolmate Stephen Farmer who we havn't seen for a while. He used to have a gorgeous and very bubbly New Zealand wife that we never learned the name of but liked a lot - especially Nick. Well, he used to - now he has a new love of his life - and she was the lady bouncer standing beside him. When he said it me and Nick looked at each other. Who knows what the story of that breakup was. Lets just say that for all his faults (like letting Miss New Zealand go) he certainly has taste! I did say to Nick to ask him was we left, but it might not have been a good idea with his new partner beside him... We went in for a drink then headed to Lava. While outside two geordies came up and asked if there was a beach round here - though may have been asking about bitches - we couldn't be sure... way-aye!
The first thing we did was get on a pool table - I wasn't playing my best, but we ended up with a crowd (I could take my pool playing to Vegas as a lounge show!) and soon were playing with two other guys in a doubles match - we then gave way while two others joined to play them , then a girl came on and boy was she a pool shark! Nick had one more game then the guy bought the cues from him, and we went upstairs to the Terrace. As we went through the door I saw one of the most gorgeous brunettes ever - sadly she wasn't alone and came onto the terrace to her friends before they went back in - nice view though!
After a hour or so of ogling from the terrace (and commenting on the driving skills of the cars taxis and Police vans going by) we returned to Lava to watch the dance floor - and get watched back! Lots of nice sights (one extremely nice blonde girl was doing an interesting dance by the pool table) and one in particular on the dance floor who kept looking at me, even when dancing with other guys! Sadly for her it was not a dancing night (it never is with me!). Very nice though! If you were the pretty lady in the denim jacket with the blonded hair/streaks who kept looking at a kinda largish guy in a dark red shirt and glasses with floppy hair and a beardy thing on his chin tapping his good foot and singing to the music at the end of the night and barely keeping his eyes off you, leave a message in the comments! It might be worth it!
So 2.00 came round and we headed out - Nick commented that it was quite quiet, but as I said, this isn't surprising - when you have about 30 clubs all going for the same punters, things will thin down a little. Even in a place as alcohol soaked as Burnley, there is a limit. Of course, gimmicks (like dancing cowgirls!) work! One thing that all night Nick was yawning - and he blamed it on me! I started yawning after midnight but I'd been up since 5.00am... his excuse was that he hadn't got up until after 12.00... what a lazy bugger!
See you later!
Posted by Badgers at 07:03 AM | Comments (2)
July 05, 2004
I'll Never Be Cruel To A 5 1/4" Disc Again!
Now I know whata disc feels like in a Commodore 1541 Disc Drive! Today i went to the hospital for the MRI scan of my ankle. Things went well, I arrived on time, got undressed in the changing room and got into a hospital gown (I'd not make a good drag artist!) and waited for 10 minutes while the person before me was finished. I could hear the radio blasting out and a few bangs. I had heard that it was noisy, but nothing prepared me for the truth!
I went in and lay on the bed which was raised up to the level of the mini-stargate, my foot was put in a plastic cage then padded so it wouldn't move, and they put headphones on me. This I assumed, was so that I coulsd listen to the radio. Nope. This was so that the noise of the MRI scanner didn't deafen me! The radio was then turned on at as high a volume as possible so I could hear it and so it could get over the sound of the machine.
To begin with it wasn't too bad - I listened to Radio 1 (which actually played music I like for a change) while the machine made noises like an Amiga disc drive getting a 'banana in disc drive' error. Then it started to get louder as things got going, raising to the same sound as an old C64 disc drive, and then like a pneumatic drill. Luckily as it was only my ankle I only had to endure it for 45 minutes or so, but it was enough! Now I just need to wait for the consultant to get in touch to see when the operation on the lump or whatever it is on the ankle is.
Yesterday was a nice Sunday apart from the weather! It rained rivers and then fined up to become a beautiful day that has continued till today! Nick and I played Joint Ops, found a mission we hadn't done in Rainbow Six Athena Sword, and then played a little Bomberman. Now, Nick wants to go out, and he was playing badly - I got two really god kills on him with bombs but then he said "If I win this match, we're going out next Saturday." I said, okay, and we played. I didn't go easy on him as I haven't got any spare money (until tomorrow I hope) but I'm sure you can guess what happened. The bugger beat me, though it wan't easy win. So we are probably going out next Saturday, though the good news is that James may join us in his non-alcoholic way, which will be fun!
One reason I have little money is that I have sorted out the tyres on the car (and thanks to getting one tyre sorted free (!, I will be getting a new spare - farewell stupid space-saver tyre!) so tomorrow has to go well. If it does (and I'm sure it will) I'm going to be a much happier person. We shall see...
One big thing yesterday is that I've decided to totally change how the online comics run at .com - more detail on the site itself, but basically I.T. is no longer running every day from August - it will be a three-times a week webcomic. In colour. It wil be better for the stories (rescripting was too hard on certain strips - this gives me a break and enough time to get more done (especially remember inthat something that isn't Sir Notalot is returning soon... For now there are daily classics until then. Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 07:16 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2004
I'm Trying Not To Cry, Really I Am...
How was your week? Mine wasn't too bad, if you exclude all the work bits. And the slight lack of sleep bits. And the computer problems bits. And the not enough time to draw I.T. for next week bits.
Let's start with some good stuff - Sunday was great! No Andrew, so I turn up at Nicks, and James follows up soon after. Usually (as I have mentioned) the afternoon is full of us shooting, and Andrew moaning that he wants to shoot us. The one thing we don't get time for is talking. Me and Nick (and James when he is sober and not doing his Albert Steptoe impression) spent much of the nights out talking (usually in the gaps between ogling, but hey - "I'm not dead yet!" to quote Homer!). Much of Sunday was spent talking and watching videos - Nick copied some of the pop vids I had downloaded last month and they loved the Harry potter SNL sketch... yuo know the one! Joint Operations was fun in coop, too. Around 7.00 we called it a day, packed up and headed out to the cars, where we stood nagging about allsorts from Alton Towers to nights out (and in), classic lines from the Airplane and Hotshots movies, and watching terrible parking. It was nearly 9.00 when we headed home!
This was fun. What came next wasn't fun. After a chat to James the night before, my computer had suddenly decided to lose the system files that make it go. I'd got it working for Sunday afternoon, but then it needed doing again on Sunday night. Something to do with no internet connection and a slight need to get the comics for the coming week scanned and sorted out! I didn't feel like sleeping, so I got it done and got into bed arouns 2.00am, but didn't sleep much. Finished a book, though. And got almost to the end of another.
Work came the next day and I was of course, knackered. I still rushed around doing stuff (mostly boring stuff) and got through the day. Finally I got through the week with a working computer, a headache and a need to unscrew peoples heads. My last appointment on Friday didn't help - she liked the equipment, felt it worked brilliantly, but wants me to bring it back next week when she is used to it. I'm not sure how that works, if she desn't have the equipment, though. A meeting I was hoping to sleep through next week has been cancelled, so I've booked leave - I need to sort out a few things that may mean I have a future and get the tyre sorted finally (if I have the money).
Today wasn't too bad - I decided to put I.T. on hold for a week while I get caught up and get ahead - currently I've switched the running order back to what it was originally, and now had to write a week to link in, rewrite part of I.T. Must Die and Sun Fun And Hired Guns, and fretted about just how difficult I.T. Goes To War is going to be this time round. Luckily as I am basically remaking the stories I did badly once before it isn't too scary, and the fact that the strip is drawn as quickly as it used to be at the moment (meaning that the art is meant to look dodgy!!!) it isn't too terrifying, but as I want to get another property of mine up and running later this year (and it has to look good!) things are about to get tighter than I'd like - still, I survived in the early 90's drawing until 3.00am...
Today also saw me off to Manchester to spent a little money - a few books and a selection of comics later I was on my way home. I was hoping to get more (and for free!) as it is Free Comicbook Day, but unlike last year, it looks like it is a US only thing. Darn. On the bus back one guy decided to get on and spent ages grumbling that the driver had set off before he was sat down, and that he was going to sure the company. And that was before he felt the whiplash-inducing shudder everytime the bus slowed down as the gears were not altogether well...
Another bummer is that after getting the money into my bank that had been missing, I now find that I have just been given neutral feedback by someone on eBay. Basically, he didn't get all the invoices and payment reminders I sent via eBay - odd that. He got all the ones I sent today, though. It wasn't for much, so its not so bad, but its annoying. I won't say it was a blatant lie, but I noticed he didn't try to contact me via eBay, or try to complete the checkout... He'll get a shock when he recieves a non-payment thing (a formality only, so that I can get my money refunded by eBay) tomorrow!
Ah well. One good thing is that I've now got on my diet kick and I've lost 4 pounds without trying so far this week. I start exercises tomorrow (once I get some sleep!) which can only help. It's nothing compared to the weight loss I suffered a few years ago, but a damn good start considering that losing a stone in less than a couple of weeks (and 6 stone in 4 months) is a fast but dangerous way to do it! This time, though, I'm not ill (yet) and I am eating, though my mum's salads are not helping - she is one of those who think that A big plate full of salad (comprising 3-4 big lettuce leaves, pickled onions, big pork pie, mound of tuna/whatever, a boiled egg, a big lump of edam cheese - basically the lot fills the plate and more!) is good, after all, salad is healthy... ever tried the ones from McDonalds?
I also got a photo taken last Friday as a friend was using up her camera and had a few pictures left - not too scary, but at least I'm not the fat bloater I was! Note, I didn't want it taken, but there you go...
See you next week, if I make it through alive...
Oh, and Go Greece!
Posted by Badgers at 05:07 PM | Comments (2)
June 26, 2004
I Really Need A New Job...
...and preferably much better paid! Currently my job is doing its best to wear me down... On Monday morning I get an email about 11.00 to say that something I ordered had arrived. I had to go out at 12.00 so couldn't exactly go over to Clitheroe to collect it, could I? I'm then out till Wednesday morning when I get two snotty emails - one about why this thing hadn't been delivered (a slip-on telephone amplifier - usually it would have been posted direct to them, but noooo, not from Clitheroe...). The second (also from Clitheroe) is that something (for the same people) had not been ordered. They had ordered it (a flashing doorbell) and something else from one company, then cancelled the order wheh they realised the second thing (a loop system) was actually in a cupboard and could be delivered to the engineer straight away for fitting. Then comes the message that the doorbell should have been ordered, and they first blame me (it's on the paperwork, dear!!!) and then mention that the engineer is unhappy as he has to go back to fit the doorbell. Where is it written that this was my problem, or my bad? I put the details of where to order stuff on the form, and they order the wrong thing, then cancel the order all by themselves. And the engineer can't bloody moan as he can claim two installation charges. Basically a big heap of Not My Problem.
Also, Universal Aids (I have moaned about them before) are really annoying me, as I have people from March asking why nothing has been fitted yet - something to do with them sacking a lot of people, it seems - again, not my problem, though I have decided to 'own' it and sent everyone a letter apoligising on the behalf of the County Council, and that they still have to wait till the end of July at least...
I also had to go to a Deafblind meeting in Preston at short notice, meaning that I had to cancel an afternoon of appointments, and move them to Friday. On Friday one of the old dears I talked to on the phone can't see me then as she has some people coming to value some antiques. Could have told me this when I spoke to her on the phone, but noooo...
Then, on Friday I found I was well over my overdraft limit despite not spending much, and all the eBay sales I did. Somehow it looks like a cheque didn't go into my account, which leaves me with at least £50 of charges to pay. And I may now be over next month too. It's like paying taxes on taxes... This means that going ut may be a little difficult for a while (as may petrol, and getting a new tyre on the car (another bloody flat!).
Luckily I just said "Sod it!" and bought Joint Ops anyway...
I may have it (ahem) but playing 4 players is not as much fun as a 150 player server... at the moment the UK Island Hopper Servers (I usually haunted Server 2) are still running the demo, but a few of the players have migrated across to the UK servers now running, and if you have a fast connection and a decent PC (who, me? ;-)) it runs well with no lag - and some of the maps are enormous! I played one for a while last night, and it takes place on a long coastline - with at least 7 bases to capture to win! This, just as a mini-review, is one superb game - you can play single player either in the training missions or by running a LAN server on your PC with only you playing it (though the enemy will kill you a lot!), but online it is superb. I enjoyed playing Unreal Tourney 2K4 in assault mode, and Far Cry was good (though it had lag problems - still has as far as I know) but JO is stunning - it is up there with the original Battlefield 1942 (BF Vietnam just didn't do it for me - probably the fact that four trees don't make a jungle!). I haven't heard about Soldner, though it was fun on a LAN... Get it if you can, do the 'fun' registration process with Novaworld and get playing - watch the UK servers for Rogue Noid UK - I'm usually on anti-sniper patrol... But be warned - soon my connection goes up to 1.5mbs, which is technically close to a T1 connection... heheheh!
Other stuff - not much to say besides the fact I like the new Thunderbirds designs, and the fact that there is an attempt to make The Hood a credible threat (!), and I fully understand the reasoning behind Lady Penelope's car being a slightly rejigged Thunderbird (Rolls Royce apparently didn't want the car to be a Roller - it should have been a Bentley anyway!) But Alan as a school kid enlisting his friends to help save his father and brothers - did the production team only ever see Saban's Turbo-Charged Thunderbirds?!?!? remind me to get my draft script/plot online sometime soon... easily doable with the same TB craft!!! I havn't heard the Thunderbirds Are Go! track by Busted, yet, but it does worry me... why not use SOS from Terrahawks? Luckily, the new CGI Captain Scarlet looks far more impressive - and wait till you see the new Cloudbase designs... comes from actually involving Gerry Anderson, I suppose...
Ah well - I'm off - see you in a week's time!
Posted by Badgers at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2004
It's Not My Job I Hate...
...no, I tell a lie, it is my job.
I go back to find a pile of problems that I had managed to solve and deal with before I went back to work on Monday. One of these has gone wrong again as the equipment isn't working properly. Bloody typical.
Apart from a few annoying people to see (one person who didn't want any equipment at all, a couple in out of the way places) it has been a week of meetings! One at Preston, one in Burnley, and on Friday another in Preston, this time at a place in the Docklands area - shame I was given the wrong directions! I managed to avoid being too narcoleptic in them, though the Friday meeting saw me feeling under the weather with a 4-day headache (so far) that refused to go away - I feel better now, but its still lingering and annoying me. Of course there was Joint Ops, and this managed to mess up my drawing of comics. Another thing that messed things up was finding that my plan for next week's strips was tits up as I had slightly underestimated the work needed to draw the 4 1/2 foot long strip (!!!) that was to run. I'm currently finishing the strip for the week after so I can run that a week early, and run the other in it's place. The fun of running an internet webcomic! And it will only get worse...
A few good things though - we went to Nick's (apart from James who didn't make it, but will this week or so he said when he popped up with his wife last night) and played Bomberman (hooked on that) and little else. I did get a scarily up close view of Andrew's face, and he has varicose eyelids - great ugly blue veins on them! Eeek! He did good though, as he brought a picture of Nick. An old picture of Nick. In black and white. And even bearing in mind the grey that is starting to run rampant through his head, he still hasn't changed. At all. I think he has a painting in the attic or something... It was such a shame James wasn't there - but I'll endeavour to pop the picture online for you all to see...
More interesting stuff came from Andrew during the week (a shocking experience) including an email saying that a friend he worked with from Macdonalds was renting her house out.. and it meant we would have another place to go other than Nicks on Sundays, and it would have broadband... Slightly cryptic, but sadly I don't think it means he is moving in with the person (would anyone fall for those eyelids? Yeecchhh!!), but it does sound like he may be moving into a home of his own-ish (lucky bugger - the nearest I'll get is when my mum and dad are pushing up the daisies and joining the choir invisibule!) and it opens up many, many possibilities...
James has finally caught onto the fact that we want to go to Alton Towers (as does he), but says we have to do it quickly as the prices are going up and it will be packed. This is, therefore unlikely - Doof will be away for a while (probably hiking and looking after the Americans that came over last time - one of the ladies of the party sent a picture to him on his new cameraphone - I'm worried Andrew is about to come out of his shell - run to the hills!) so all four of us is so not going to happen. Heck, a simple night out/night in/getting together for the Sunday blasting session is hard enough to organise... Heaven help me when I need to get them together to do the voices for the animations!
If you read the front page, you'll know that I may not be updating much for a litle while - I have a few things to do (see above!) and need to get down to converting the site to PHPNuke. It's not Goodbye, but it is a Be Seeing You!
Posted by Badgers at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2004
Seven Days Of Very Little
Not a whole lot has happened this past week - I spent a lot of time cutting boards to draw the next few weeks of comics on, making plans for Halloween, trying to plan out how to make a Haku-clone style I.T., avoiding Big Brother (A bedsit?!?!) and preparing to avoid Euro 2004 like the plague (but good luck England, anyway!)
Good things from this week have included reading Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (brilliant, and then some), starting The Accusers by Lindsey Davies (the best roman detective in the business), and watching Shrek 2 (Best. Shrek. Sequel. Ever.) There was of course some art, and some clearing up to be done over at .com and then there was Joint Operations. The beta was great, and ran well, but this week the new official demo arrived, and on my PC and connection it runs really well with all the detail on - no lagging (something that a lot of people have complained about - not too surprising considering 100+ players) and a framerate of between 24 (lowest) and 44 (woo!) with all detail turned on (which means all reflections, glows, heat shimmers, everything!) which is nice. James finds it jerky. Andrew's machine might as well be drawing on the screen with a pencil (though he has managed to play fairly lag free with a 30-player server). Time to upgrade, I think - not for me, obviously as mine will last a lot longer! - but for others. I'm happy though as I am good with the big machine guns and tend to get lots of kills by going sniper hunting in the hills - there is no better feeling than creaping up behind a sniper and shooting them at point blank range with an M60 'cos they were too target fixated to hear a guy rattling like Marley's ghost coming up behind them... unless its the feeling of strafing the jeeps coming along the road one by one from a chopper... or sitting on a rock calmly shooting people in boats that think they are so clever to go out to sea and snipe!
Oh - one last thing (what a short entry - am I rushing to play more JO? Maybe!) is to say a big thanks to the people who, via my eBay sales, have raised over £100 for my bank account - the money was badly needed, and will save me from poverty! And thanks to Paypal who don't seem to charge now to take the money out (though they do take some out when it goes in which makes better sense!) Heck - another night out might even be possible this year, or even Alton Towers! Unless James is Mr Grumpy again. I haven't had any blog entries from him to gauge his mood...
Posted by Badgers at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2004
A World Without Work
Well, almost - The past week has seen me not have to moan about my job and not one car has tried to force me off the road. I have actually enjoyed this first half of my fortnight off for the most part!
Sunday of course saw the usual gaming session at Nicks, and James even turned up! We played Nitro Family (seriously not impressed) and lots of Joint Operations. No Bomberman, though. The rest of the week has seen me sitting down and drawing a bit (not as much as I wanted, but I'm now two weeks ahead on the art, though the strips need to be lettered this week) and I've been playing the Joint Operations demo online. With 120 other loonies on the server.
Wow.
It may take all day to capture all the bases, but this game is something good, though there are a lot of cheaters about (a number of moans about aimbots and also people who fly around without a chopper, though these gits I am pretty good at blowing away as the go by!). This is definitely a game to watch! Soldner is also out now, but I haven't managed to get round to getting it yet - JO is just too much fun!. I also managed to finish Far Cry - the build up to get to the last bit is evil and involves the use of chairs, but the final battle was anti-climatctic - I just fired a rocket into the room and got the end sequence, which is a little subdued and not the all out five minute video-fest I was hoping for after such a good game. Still, I'm hitting Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow now!
So, the week has been quiet otherwise, though I must admit to watchng a little of this year's Big Brother, though the simple fact that the morning feed (until babout 10.00!) seems to consist of a single picture. For hours. need I say that the housmates (even the now ejected Kitten) are a bunch or idiots? I kinda hope that Ahmed, the asylum seeker, wins in his jumper!
Saturday night, on the other hand, was a blast - Me and Nick went out for the night and had fun. First, the Swan has now got a Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines table, which is not bad, and is, for all intents and purposes, the classic T2 table except for an added captive ball and the gun being put on the backdrop to be an evil RPG skill shot. Lots of nice ladies out and about, and we ended up being dragged onto the dance floor at Lava... We were drinking, I was singing and then a girl (who had been told to do it by her friend), dragged me (literally!) onto the dance floor for a while. Now, I can't dance - I admit that - I'm a singer(!). But at least I wasn't doing the zombie dance. After a while, we escaped! We played pool (on the tables which are now downstairs, and I did well, managing to sink a few balls and annoy Nick! The tables are now downstairs as the terrace is now open - and very nice it is too! We spend half the night up there watching the world (ie the girls) go by from a nie elevated position. James would love it. Andrew would too, but only for the sniping possibilities.
One thing worthy of mention is that when we were going in (and we were the only people in apart from the bar staff and a couple of girls who had come in via Ignite) was that one of the bouncers asked Nick if he was over 25. Now, granted it was getting dark, but this hasn't happened for a while as he has so much grey hair! He even had to show his ID! Madness!
So, that was the night - I could go on about the amount of bare flesh, but this isn't that sort of site. It was fun, as always, and I managed to drink 4 bottles of Schmirnoff/VK/whatever and stuck to J2Os for the rest of the night, meaning that I left totally sober. Apart from a slight headache from the speakers and the music! Even my voice isn't too bad. Hmm - am I sure it was a good night?
Posted by Badgers at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2004
At Least This Week Is Over!
It hasn't been a very good week, generally... When the main high point is getting to a bugger of a bit in Far Cry which really started to annoy me (after a couple of days of being really unhappy and deciding to play the game to unwind), you can imagine that things are not going well.
I know, many others are having a worse time but this is my blog!
Sunday saw us playing Rainbow Six for a change, and some games of Atomic Bomberman. Nick sucks at Bomberman. As an incentive I said if he could get through a game without committing suicide, we'd go out tonight. Despite my being here, he did manage it (though one did go to a judges decision as it was technically his bomb that killed him, though it had been set off by another...). I would have been going out except that the weather has been crappy most of today (its fine and dry now!), and the fact that I don't feel like it (but I could have forced myself!). Why didn't I feel like it? Well, apart from ending this month £250 over my overdraft due to paying bills for other people and not getting the money back until next month (if I'm lucky), work has pretty much pissed me off. I'm so glad I'm not going in for a few weeks!
Work was, as usual, very annoying. Monday wasn't too bad, Tuesday saw me in Bury for a meeting, Wednesday annoyed me, Thursday was bad (one very annoying client who kept repeating that her hearing aid wasn't working and her husband who was very unhappy that he hadn't got the letter as we had the wrong address), while Firday saw me getting stuff done for my next two weeks off, getting messages that the Profoundly Deaf community hated me (it's pretty mutual, I am sorry to say) and other people I work with, two semi-urgent cases that I can't do much about, a fax machine that had to installed immediately, one person I hadn't been able to contact on Thursday living in Langho that necessitated a 6.30pm visit (I applied my usual 'get them on my side' tactic and it worked, but I was still annoyed), I didn't get to empty out the car of equipment (as I only got back to Burnley at 7.30!), and ended the week fuming.
This means that the comics going online this coming week have been drawn while not entirely happy - expect the quality to increase! As I said, I'm now off for two weeks, and I have to get down to 3+ weeks of comics to get sufficiently ahead to soet out this site for the end of June and finish off .com... Wish me luck!
I also need some luck on the roads (I think James' touch of death is reaching for me, but my natural luck is reflecting it) as I have nearly been killed a number of times this week. This is not a joke.
Monday saw me nearly getting hit by a fool on a roundabout coming out without looking and someone coming right out of a side road without looking and nearly making my 206 look like my Colt. Tuesday wasn't too bad as I headed to Bury for the meeting with a colleague from Preston - I was going onto to Motorway, and a big dumper truck win the middle lane decided to pull into the lane I was just pulling into) without looking and I had to slap the brakes on and nearly ended up on the hard shoulder... later another truck nearly did the same thing to another car coming off at a sliproad... definitely a theme here! On Wednesday I think I survived unscathed (though I nearly got beaned good by rubble coming off the top of a roof while walking to work). Thursday was not too bad for near death experiences, though work nearly drove me to cut my wrists in the correct way... Friday saw more fools at roundabouts (one pulled out and suddenly slammed on his brakes as I narrowly avoided him smacking into my left side!) and a number of pillocks who felt it was clever to drive at 60mph on a newly pebble-dashed road...
As you can see, not the best of weeks. And no night out. Probably for a while. I managed to get myself almost back to normal by watching the extended Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring and all the extras today while mum was out, so it wasn't a total loss. We'll just have to see if the coming week is better - I have a trip to Manchester to come (though with a very low budget), and lots of fun art to do, and coding, and Flash, and possibly some sleep, though I feel I may soon be back to how I was in the good old days of working on art until 3.00 in the morning... especially if I do what I would like to for the 31st October this year... These plans are all that keep me going!
Posted by Badgers at 09:50 PM | Comments (2)
May 22, 2004
Signs Don't Work!
Considering it's been a week since my last confession - um - entry, I'm not going to go on for long tonight - I'm in the middle of a Spaced marathon and going to have a bath soon, not that you need (or want) to know that!
The week has been it's usual annoying list of annoying things that annoy me, but a few things have stood out for me... the first was a postman (an incredibly old postman) going postal outside someone's door when he got his hand trapped in the letterbox! He threw the sack down, the letter in his hand flew into the air, and the air was bluer than a blue thing turning blue at a Chubby Brown concert! It gave me a giggle, anyway... its not surprising they had such severe problems with the post locally!
The other thing is unfortunately, work-related. Y'see, last week I was given an extra cupboard to store my equipment in - so far, so good. The only problem is that all my storage is now in the smoke room. I don't smoke, and have trouble breathing in there at the best of times. The walls (recently repainted) are as greasy and yellow as before. Now, I have just been dumping stuff in my corner for the last few months as I haven't had the time to go down and tidy up. This week I did, so I was told to put a sign on the door telling people not to use it that day. This I did - I made the lettering easy to read and big, and I even laminated it. It was put down on the door the day before. I went down that afternoon expecting it to smell (even though I can't smell, you know what I mean) better as no-one had smoked in there all day. Yeah, right. While I was down there, most of the smokers in the building came and went (some three times in the space of an hour!), including managers. I got things tidied into the cupboards, but not how I wanted, but after an hour down there I thought "feck this!" - as long as stuff was out of the way, I was happy. I wasn't happy about finding it hard to breathe, but I decided that it was fine for me to go home early. So I did. Why can't people read? And three times in an hour?!?! I'm sure the 'smoker's break' doesn't last that long! And of course, it goes without saying that I can't take breaks (officially) being a non-smoker. Still, as I shouldn't die of cancer, I have some things to feel good about!
The only other big thing has been the fact that I have had the daily comic running daily for three weeks, and tomorrow sees the start of Call Of The Cthuloids (those who are going to do voices for the Flash series should read!), which feels good!
Oh - and I've noted some visitors and comments - not sure about the sex toys (!) but I think someone may have been searching for 'burnley' and clubs'! Nice to know that the search engines still list me, even though I don't pay them to!!!
Posted by Badgers at 05:30 PM | Comments (1)
May 16, 2004
16th Place!
Well done to the Ukraine entry, Rulsana for putting on a great show and winning some competition or other! My hopes for a Maltese holiday next year were always in doubt!
The same to Serbia & Montenegro - Terry Wogan couldn't understand why they did so well (except for the political block voting of the Eastern Europeans - more on this below!)... the song was good (and I think the nose-flute was the clincher - everyone voted for it one way or another! Greece and Turkey took the next two places - Greece I expected to win or be second,, as the song isn't horrible, and the show was very... strippy... in a Bucks Fizz kinda way! Turkey (another one Terry couldn't get his head around!) were cool - a cross between Busted and Madness, this ska band were great on the night! in fifth place (hurrah!) even if technically tied with the Swedish Entry (who wasn't bad - especially with what she was doing to the microphone stand!) was young Lisa Andreas from Kent singing for Cyprus! Yay!
The UK came 16th. Far from our best result, but James Fox gave it to them good, but was a victim to the political votes (nothing to do with the war this time, those who believed it got in the way last year! - see below)
and another factor that didn't help. Well done - you didn't discrace yourself, or us!
Some acts that should have been much higher were a surprise - Ireland 23rd?!? The song was very Westlife-y, but I won't hold that against it! An unsurprisingly Norway narrowly missed nil point...
So what happened? Well, there can be no doubt that there was some political voting. Last year, the UK wanted to blame the war for the nil pints fiasco, but the truth is that while there was political voting going on last year, it wasn't about the war. The reason is that the song was crap and the performance in the wrong key (Chubb or Yale, I think!). This year, the political votes were in force...
Neighbours voted for neighbours, so Portugal voted high for Spain, Cyprus went for Greece and Turkey, Monaco went French... Oddly enough, France didn't vote high for the UK, though Ireland gave us an eight. The Eastern Europeans were well into it - we got votes from them, but the big points went to their fellow Baltic states, totally foxing poor Wogan! But this alone won't answer for the points awarded to Ruslana (280) and Zeljko Joksimovic (263). Pretty much everyone voted them some points - and being in the top ten countries in the phone votes takes some doing with this many entries!
So what won it for them across the world? Simple - the show they put on. The stomping (and the Xena costumes) really sold it for Ukraine - it was excelent! Again, the show for Serbia was good - nowhere as flashy as the winners, but the build up - the guy with the flute comes on, then the others - the song is good and has a real feel for its roots, too, which is good. Greece at number three? The bit where they rip off their tops is a Buck Fizz moment that again gets the interest! Turkey hadn't a huge show, but their energy pulled them in lot of votes. In contrast, James Fox was basically out there, giving it his all, with a guitar. That was it. No dancers (though the song, while good, wouldn't work with any!) or showy stuff at all. The lovely Julie (with Ludwig) for Malta suffered something similar, though she sold it big (those eyes!), and they were popular in the hall.
The top two songs drew on their country's musical history and truly represented their country itself - this stood out against the background of everyone else singing in english... there was no way that you couls say that they were bland and made to please...
There are those who buck this trend though - Lisa Andreas was alone, but she managed 5th place, While Poland tried hard on the show part (right down to the poor girl wearing little under a see-through body stocking and getting touchy-feely) but the intense horribleness of the song totally counteracted that! And I thought the Swiss entry in the semi-finals was the worst song... then I heard that Polish entry!
The block voting from the east certainly didn't help, but what scuppered it for many entries (even at the Semis) was simply that for most viewers and voters, the first (and possibly only) time they hear or see the performer is on the night... If the voters had voted on the video performances, the votes wopuld have been different (see them at the BBC Eurovision site), though even then, Ruslana would have been up there! Those who put on a show were given the rewards, as were those coutries who simply had a good, catchy or otherwise memorable song. Ruslana was memorable, as was Serbia. Cyprus was a great, strong ballad, and sadly,as it followed James Fox, probably overshadowed him. Lisa's strong voice would have made it more memorable. Being the last act, Sweden had a good chance of staying in the mind, even without the microphone stand antics...
If we are to stand a real chance net year, we need to get the votes (well duh!). to do this we must be memorable - we must have a good song, and put on a good show. Even the eastern countries happily voted for the west (it's just that their high points went to their neighbours!), or at least those who put on a show... The trick is not to have a load of dancers and stuff with a song like this years UK entry - the song won't support it, in the same way that the Cypriot entry wouldn't (but didn't need to). The French song had a bald woman on stilts - why? I couldn't hear any reason in the song. It just didn't support it (though her stilts supported her). Malta would not doubt have done far better if it hadn't just been Julie and Ludwig on stage - though too much would have distracted me from her eyes. Ahem. It's a matter of balancing it. Can we pull it off?
Those Final Scores In Full! (here at the Eurovision site)
Overall though, it was a good show - well done Turkey (though the presenters were not as good as they had been at the semis... is that the words I was looking for?!?) - and well done to the lovely lady in the links who cast the petals/hearts - she must have been tired by the end of the night!
Remember people - we need a strong song that will support a good performance... we must be more than good, we must be memorable - we might not get 12's from the Baltic states, but we might just pick up the 8's and 9's!! I'd be more than willing to let them use 'Romantic Night' - heck, it won the Galactivision Song Contest in the old I.T. series, even with I.T. singing it! - all they have to do is call...
Posted by Badgers at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2004
You! In The Shirt!
Here is the picture I promised yesterday!
It's taken from the back page of The Bugle, the newsletter we get at work. Yes, that is me on the left in the shirt! I'm actually in with the managers here (though I am far from being one, being a lowly Sensory Support Officer!). The other people are the other members of the team across the county, though some are missing - I think they were hiding on the turn of the stairs! The picture was taken at Alston Hall, a rather nice residential college just outside Longridge. Don't ask me to name everyone - I still don't know who half of these people are!
In other news, James is back with us (see his blog for more harrowing details - feel free to send money to him via my Paypal account over at .com! Feel free to send me money too!) which is good news, though he hasn't had much himself, it seems.
Ah well - heres to either the UK, Cyprus or Malta (those eyes!) winning tonight!
Posted by Badgers at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2004
"Just Like A Butterfly, My Wings Can Take Me High..."
Sorry - due to the fact that I have a daily comic to do (next week's strips are fun, but it wasn't easy drawing the right hats in two of them... especially from the scrappy references I found!) I won't be doing the big Eurovision update thing this weekend. I know, you are all so unhappy, I can feel your pain. Well, I certainly felt pain listening to the two Turkish presenters reading lines from the teleprompter with all the panache of Sam Fox and Mick Fleetwood at The Brits... At least she had a dress cut down to there (like 'there', but further!). Of course, we are as bad - if James Fox wins we'll give them Davina McCall and Patrick Kielty. I think I prefer the Turkish lady with the low-cut dress...
Hmm - I can't manage to get the Maltese entry out of my head though - it was bloody catchy! And she was a catch too - lovely eyes (I like nice eyes - one of the reasons I like Ayumi Hamasaki is her eyes!!!) and other things. If I manage to get everyone to vote for Julie & Ludwig I might just decide to have a holiday in Malta next year... I still feel sorry for Estonia - dressed like Leela from Doctor Who, their song was tribal, and to be honest, sounded Klingon. I guess the sight of The Ukrainian Xenas overshadowed them a little. That and the fact one or two of the women were butch. And their drummer is a nutter who uses his hands and is bald apart from a goatee and two 'horns'... And the Germans and Austrian entries haven't a liederhosen in sight! I' think Switzerland were just having a laugh though... it sounds as bad on the album as it did at the semi finals on Wednesday! Ah well - roll on tomorrow night...
Once again, I won't go into work stuff (annoying, with an extra helping of annoying!), except to say that when the Bugle newsletter came in today, the picture from the Away Day a month ago was on the back - I'll add it to this entry over the weekend when I dig it out of my bag! Amazingly, I don't look as fat on it as I though I would... Also, I have now got my two weeks off signed and so I am free to battle through the next two weeks... This means that I should be able to save money in June (finally!) so that July might see me with enough money to do something, be it going out or just simply have a bank account without an overdraft again... we'll see what the parents say about that though! No doubt they have some good causes that would love my money... and I know the petrol companies certainly do! The next few weeks could be tight in the old 'full tank' front - I hear that prices are already above 90p a litre in some areas... of course, Burnley has had a garage that has had the fuel that high for years, and still managed to get punters in - of course, it's just become a car wash... I mean, you'd have to pay £1.50 a litre there if prices start going up... and no-one would do that!
At least, I hope we won't have to!
On interesting thing to note for whenever we get to go out as a group again is that the theme bar is alive and well in Burnley - we have a Walkabout (vaguely Australian), the egyptian-themed (slightly - there are transfers of hierglyphics on the walls!) Pharaohs, and soon, in the remains of the Bed Centre, we will be getting a western-themed bar. As in a Western saloon bar. The Carpet City shop, hit by a car not so long ago (the manager came in one morning to find it parked in the middle of the shop!), is now closed and is being demolished, and word has it that this too will become a bar. Does Burnley need more bars? Discuss.
So - thats pretty much my week - boring, but this is a blog, after all! James hasn't updated in a while, but as he is currently having to share his PC with his daughter, it isn't surprising - he is still around, though, as he is online at the moment (I can see him on Messenger) so no doubt he is downloading like mad as usual... I wonder if he has read today's comic? Have you?!? It is the first I'm really happy with as I have now introduced the main cast (apart from a couple who come in a few weeks...) so next week I get down to the madness of doing it regularly and then the week after I hit you with the new version of The Call Of The Cthuloids... you have been warned!
I have also got the plans drawn up for what is happening to this site - not only will it be my personal site, but I hope to make it a site a little like a low-rent version of Something Awful, or a less sweary b3ta... lots of little articles by various friends and idiots, as is my whim. We shall see...
Posted by Badgers at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2004
It's That Time Again... Only More So!
Just a quickie, I'm afraid...
This Saturday sees the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, but this year tonight is the first semi final - there are just too many entries!!! To see them (and so far, some of them haven't been too bad - at least they are mostly in tune!!!!) take a look here - they have the videos too! Saturday may well see me doing a written commentary as I sit there watching it... if I do, keep refreshing every 5 minutes or so...!!!
Ah well - enough fun - what has the week given me so far? Apart from a painful foot? Well, I've nearly been killed by a bus, a scooter and a loony in an Escort who thought he could keep up with me, but found corners were so difficult he had to take them very wide - almost as wide as James takes them in a bus. And a crunch to an Astra in Barrowford.
Oddly though, Andrew's parking on Sunday was really good. Usually he bumps the kerb (whiplash injury compensation!) but even though there was only one tiny space - he reverse parked as well as me (and James can vouch that I can reverse park!) and didn't hit anything! It waas the last Burnley match of the season, you see, and with their manager being sacked, it was kinda packed... Sunday was fun though - Atomic Bomberman (working in XP) is brilliant, and we played it for hours until we turned to Soldner - and proceeded to try dropping tanks on each other from Chinook helicopters... I like this game a lot more now!
You'll be happy to know that I am ahead on the I.T. comic - you needn't worry that it will suddenly stop... though you may pray that it will!!! I have today booked two weeks holiday too, partly to get some time of work and partly to play some games. I'll also be drawing like a fool those two weeks... I want to get at least two weeks ahead and also get some flash done - I have 3 animations (and not even I.T. ones!) that I want to get down to!!! I've also decided to spend that time sorting out the site! The new Badgers will be open in mid June...
See you on Saturday!
Posted by Badgers at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2004
A Long Four-Day Week
I'm not going to go on about work except to say that the first big moves are underway (my old boss totally vacated her office one day then the next the members of my team from upstairs were in there), I saw a few annoying people this week, but not as many as usual, I survived a meeting that I was half an hour late for (too bloody busy!) and actually had a few things to say (which makes a change, but as I'm technically a 'senior' having done the job for 3 years, I can say pretty much what I like!)
Sunday of course, was shooting free - I spent it drawing this past week's strips and then every day I've put them online in the morning! Next week's are done, and the week after will be finished by Monday, allowing me to move onto Call Of The Cthuloids which should get me well ahead - it's having to have a few changes made to fit the dailies though. James turned up late on Sunday to say hello and get me to burn a few discs for him as his is buggering about. He brought Manhunt and some other game, but I didn't try them (more interested in getting Beyond Good And Evil back on!).
The week has progressed, and weatherwise it's been a mixed bag - rain, warm sun, very warm sun followed by bucketfuls of rain coming down... a funny old week.
One biggie though, is money. For one reason or another, money has been going though my fingers like the glittery stuff through the fingers of The Jacksons in the video for 'Can You Feel It'! And surprisingly little has actually come to me! Most has gone for keeping my parents from debtors gaol and towards paying for that car tax thing. Ani more is likely to go as I will probably have to pay for one of the dogs to be looked at - Brandy has a problem with his eye - it might be an infection, it may have been a stroke - all I know is that he has one eye that isn't opening most of the time.
All this of course, rules out a night out in the near future unless some nice people donate to roguenoid.com via Paypal! This isn't too much of a problem as I (surprisingly) don't feel like going out, but Nick is going to be very antsy tomorrow - he'll be, to coin a phrase, gagging for it. The worrying thing is that he and Andrew can't go out as Andrew doesn't go out, and James and Nick won't 'cos its no fun without me. He could still go out himself, though, but I'd hate to think what he might wake up to in the morning...
Ah well - tomorrow is another day - and next week could be fun - I have a supervision with my new boss and total chaos to sort out after the moves. At least I can come home and draw some more strips...
Posted by Badgers at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2004
Busy Busy Busy
Sorry about the weekly updates, but the work on .com has really taken up all my available time! I still have a few bits to finish, but to all intents and purposes, it is up and running! The comic will launch tomorrow as I have spent the week drawing and writing the new strips (and having a real problem with the 4th part of the Story So Far - it works, but it is a little clumsy! I'll get to all that later, though - let's start on Sunday!
We went to Nick's and had fun - The new case went down well! The new Soldner beta is much better - but it still killed my PC to run it and the server - you need a dedicated server for that game! James arrived to ay hi, and show off his latest aquisition - a replica SA-80 rifle! He bought it in Portregal - you know - that place I can never spell! The reason he has been so quiet lately is that he has had some bad news. He's back, but we probably won't see him much for a while longer - hope things go well, dude.
Monday saw the return of work and what an annoying week is has been. Getting home to slave over php code has been a blessing! Tuesday saw me taking a break and going to the hospital in Rawtenstall so a specialist could look at my foot. This was the first time I have had a look at the X-ray from last year - and boy, is there something sticking out of the ankle joint! He wrenched it around and declared that it was going to need an MRI and then surgery. Oh goody. Luckily I had some php to fiddle with at home to cheer me up...
Of course, there was some nice stuff this week - on Thursday I was in Barnoldswick trying to find an address. I called at the wrong one and ended up meeting two rather nice blonde ladies who pointed me in the right direction. One one of them had just gone 21 - Happy birthday!
Today I had a break and went shopping in Manchester. On the bus station (which is getting resurfaced after barley 2 years use) I was waiting for the X43 when 5 LRPgers went by. I could tell by the leather, the beards (the group was 80% bearded). The weapons sticking out of their bags helped point them out too! At least two broadswords, a crossbow and a battle axe.
Manchester itself wasn't as busy as usual though - it got more so later as I was leaving. There was an impromtu rock concert going on - a great guitarist in the spce outside HMV, but the re was a loony dancing in front of him. You might remember those dolls that danced on sticks or on boards that street mucicians used to have - he danced like that - spinning, arms going everywhere. He was kind of like the lead singer in REM when he dances in videos only more so. More guitar picking was going on around the corner. While I was waiting for a bus home I watched a guy walk all the way down Deansgate to the light shop with a fluerescent tube, then walk all the wau back up with two more. When the bus turned up it was an X44 and the old women behind started wondering if it was worth waiting for the next bus (the X43) as it didn't make a detour through Edenfield. Considering it would have mant another 20 minutes or so, I know what I would have chosen. They eventually did, too.
Luckily I got home and sat down and did more stuff on the site. It is now as ready as it ever will be, so I'm leaving it for the night - I have stuff to add to this site! Tomorrow I'll be in a serious comic attack (and Bank Holiday Monday too). I need to get the 4th part of the Story So Far drawn tomorrow now I've got it into an acceptable shape. The next three weeks have written themselves, and should be good, but I have to get this last bit right - its the hook for all the more dramatic, longer tales to hang on. I've sorted out the gimmicks and characters - it's amazing how a character based on a person has to change so much after all these years... I'm damn near sick of Solitaire, though! Ah well...
I'm not sure when I'll be back here...! See you whenever!
Posted by Badgers at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2004
It's a Dry Heat
Well, despite some rain earlier in the week, this week has become a little taste of the summer that the weathermen have said we probably won't get. Admitedly, it is making my PC run a degree or so hotter than last week in the rain (!), but this is the weather I like. Not for tanning, or driving around with my windows open and blasting music out (though I have been doing this up to a pont - James Taylor* and Debbie Gibson, would you believe?), but for the girls. I noticed it when it briefly nice last week, but this week has really brought out those midriffs - a touch of sun and out come the summer clothing! It makes you wonder how little they wear on a night out... Heck, I've even stopped wearing jumpers at work! Yes, it's at this time of year when I seriously consider throwing off my vow of chastity (really!) , and it's not surprising when I tell you about a couple of encounters on Thursday... which was a nice, hot day, of course...
The first was unexpected - I called at the house, and was asked to come in - I did (once I worked out hjow to open the little baby-gate they had set up) and came face to face with a teenager wth just a bathrobe on drying her long blonde hair and smiling... it didn't help that she stayed there, right by the phone, while I was trying to fit an amplifier. Really, it didn't. And she wasn't ugly, either, if you get my drift, and I'm sure you do. Things were as bad in Clitheroe when I went to see an old man and his wife and their granddaughter was their, home from school. And she sits right on the chair arm, hugging her gran while we talked. With long legs. Very long legs. In just the wrong position so I had to see them all the time - thankfully I could look in the other direction occasionally. Ulp. James would be happy. Very, if he'd been around!
The other big things this week have been the Away Day in Longridge on Monday(which I nearly missed as dad was very lost on his way to York - it took him 3 1/2 hours to get there from Burnley, which is kinda not good - it took him 2 1/2 to get back, but at least that was partly due to a diversion caused by the flower show!) which wasn't bad - nice food, a good group of people - as a team we should be fine.
Of course, it started wet on Tuesday, and then brightened up considerably - I think Monday afternoon got everyone's hopes up - Tuesday continued with glorious weather as I hiked across Manchester to go to the Aria shop by Manchester Academy to buy the cold cathodes for Ayumi (blue and red, and they look mint - I'll post pics when I get hold of the camera again!). I'd forgotten just how big UMIST is, and the Academy is on the other side. Of course, I had to pass lots of rather nice college girls, and they were not exactly dolled up in jumpers and stuff...
Wednesday of course, decided to spoil it all! Thursday was nice, and yesterday was pretty good weather-wise too! Today is just hot - it's getting a little cloudy, but it is not cooling down much - I hope it continues a little longer before turning to rain again.
I was going to spend this weekend battling through the stuff for ,com, at a nice, liesurly pace, but I got a call from Nick this afternoon - he is now not going anyway until next week - this means that tomorrow is the usual blasting session. Combine this with the fact that I need Zend Optimizer on my server and at the moment it isn't running, things might be a little tight! I may end up hosting the comics over here (which would probably help with bandwidth when I start posting the animations, etc over there) to get everything running in time for the new launch on May 1st. Anyway, the long and short is that tomorrow it will be at least three of us idiots over at Nick's, though James may or may not be there - it's hard to tell - he has disappeared from the net and life again - I know he hasn't seen the moneyshot.avi posted below or else he'd have put up som sarcastic comments. I fear his beloved (if battered) PC is in it's second home again - he tends to mope and stay away when he hasn't got his baby...
Ah well - it's a nice hot day, I'm going to watch more VH1 Classic while I fiddle with stuff on the site (how annoying are those bloody ringtone ads? I don't want Usher, and the guy who is trying to be excited about the monophonic tones is soooo not getting a voice gig on I.T. or Dark Tidings!) so I'll be off now - next update should be Case Mod Stage 2 with pics!
*PS - Do you know it is impossible to play James Taylor too loud? Even at full blast it still sounds incredibly soothing!
Posted by Badgers at 05:41 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2004
Case Modification - Stage One
You know how it is - you want a flashy PC but know that it is not easy to build a super-modded case on your first try. I used to just want a machine that worked. Then cases with windows and lights came along. w00t! I think Jamius was the first to get one and fit it with lights (he has since modded it even further with a hammer or something...) I followed with my Thermaltake Xaser, which was nice, glowed red inside and worked well (despite the initial problems with the processor which finally crashed and burned a little while ago), though recently a few problems possibly caused by heat made me want to do something else.
You'd think that the Xaser would be a cool case with all those fans, but it seems that it wasn't. I wanted a cooler processor and case temprature, and the problem with the Xaser seems to have been that all those fans needed wires, and wires cause serious problems with airflow. Cable management was a nightmare! As I mentioned in my previous blog, I bought a new case and stuff, and set to work. The results are shown below - I turned the Aero Jet 7 blower on the heatsink round this morning and I've managed to lower the temperature a few more degrees. It needs a little more work (a blowhole in the top and another fan fitted on the right side of the case perhaps?) including swapping the red laser LEDs to a cathode tube of some description, as they are sadly lost at he moment with the glare from the fans.
Since there was only me and Nick this afternoon there was little shooting (apart from some Ghost Recon) and a lot of benchmarking... thabks to the new memory and its 2-3-3-6 setup I have now got a 16613 score in 3D Mark 2001 which is quite nice, and a gain on the same machine with different memory, and a nice 5606 in 3DMark 03 - another large gain!
On with the show, I think!
Here is Ayumi in a picture taken at Nicks - sorry that it is so bright that you can't see all the lights clearly! I'll add a darker picture later when I get a chance to get the camera back from my parents (for now watch the video below!) Notice that there is indeed some cable management going on and lots of space for airflow! Still needs more work though - some cable covering stuff and more wires clamped at the bottom, but it is a start!
Here is the rig I go mobile with. Thankfully the monitor stays at Nick's (its the one I got with my first PC, a Gateway DX2 way back in the day) Nothing special, but it works - as do the fans, etc - check that temp!
A close up on the Akasa fan on the side - the multicoloured LEDs make a big difference. Most modders have a theme - mine is colourful chaos! Just wait till I paint the inside a mad colour!
Here is Nick's usual PC, Zoidberg. For many reasons the side is off all the time, so he is a step nearer a windowed PC! As you can see, neatness and cable management are not his strong points! Famously unstable, this machine now works well with the Radeon 9800 Pro he recently fitted, and it hasn't fell over yet. This is a good thing considering how tall the case is... To the left you can see two older PCs he has - one is the one he liked to call his mobile PC until it tried to run Far Cry and began to cry itself...
A closer look at the innards of Zoidberg - can anything be done to save this machine? The magic 8-ball says "OMGWTF??11ROFLAO!"
Here is a link to a DivX .avi of Ayumi doing her stuff... (8.82mb) Sorry, I couldn't resist! I am holding the camera and Nick guest stars as the hand (my thumb appears as an uncredited extra as I nearly fell over the idiot!). Yes, I am going to look into blacking up the drives so it looks nicer... so many plans...
Should I add a case picture in the Mates section? Maybe you can tell the way a person is by how his case looks... I think mine says it all!
Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2004
Easter Eggs, New Cases And Stuff
Since my last entry Easter has come and gone, which was nice. But one or two's things were not nice.
Friday saw me feeling a little ill so I wasn't able to go and see the Madness Tribute band at Lava. A shame, but I'll survive. Nick then calls up on Saturday afternoon and asks when the Madness thing is on... I told him "Last night" and he went - "Oops!"
I went to Nick's as usual on the Sunday to shoot him and Andrew on the computer. This was fun, though thepain in the arse of getting Soldner to work was not fun. We did finally get three of us in the game on the LAN but as Andrew decided to camp outside the town we spawned in and blow it up with his (not so little) tank, things may not have been as much fun as I'd have liked. The game itself, by the way, looks like it could be good (but a Flashpoint-beater? I doubt it) but it needs work. And the net code still blows big ones. Far more impressive was Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising which is having it's Delta Force history downplayed - a shame as the engine in DF:Black Hawk Down was good, it was the multiplayer that sucked. The good news is that the new game has cooperative play and a sort of conquest mode like UT2K4 (w00t!) and this could be a Flashpoint beater - 100+players at once with vehicles and everything. One to watch, for sure!
Anyway, the thing that was most not-good was that some idiots (not naming Nick and Andrew) bought me eggs. Chocolate Eggs. And a tin of Celebrations. This for someone who cannot eat chocolate as it makes him puke enough to have an excorcist called in. And Nick ate one of his big Dairy Milk ones right next to me, making me feel very ill. Bleurgh!
James wasn't there on Sunday so I went over to see him on Monday after he called me to say he had some new games and stuff. I dumped the eggs on him! After an hour of nagging I came away with some nice games, but I haven't been able to get down to trying anything (though I have been playing some Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow) until I decided that my PC overheating problem needed fixing. To that end I made a plan, and ordered the bits from Aria, my favourite computer supplier!
On Wednesday I recieved all the new bits but realised that I had ordered the wrong case - this was not actually a problem. Why? Because I want to have a file server like I used to have and the window-less case would be nice, and it would match the windowed case that came the next day. Thursday saw me getting home and stripping the bits out of Ayumi in the Thermaltake case and fitting them in the new Skyhawk Matrix. I made careful note of where the pins on the motherboard went, but nothing happened. The power was gong to the right places, but there was nothing doing when I pressed the power button. Not good. Not wanting to spend all night battling, I went to bed and slept. Notice how I havn't mentioned work yet? well this week this is the only mention as it got in the way of finishing the build!
Friday night came, on went VH1 Classic as a background (since I couldn't get to my Jpop and I was in an 80's mood anyway) ad I stripped the bits out again, setting the mobo up outdide the case rather precariously. I looked at the manual for the mobo (NF7-S Rev 2.0) and the little booklet with the case. I did this last night, but it wasn't having any then. This time, though, I got it right first time (except that the power LED cable was the wrong way round - an easy fix) and up it came. For those who know the case, it has a lovely motorised door on it. I am in love with it. It's just too cool for words!
I got everything into the case and then had the horrors of cable management to deal with. This went surprisingly well - the case is not much bigger than normal (if at all) and the cables could be shoved all over the place. I'm not a big case-modder, but I like what little I did. Now Ayumi has three Akasa LED fans (one in the side replacing the clear fan and two superglued to the back as they wouldn't fit in the big plastic fan cover. I had to turn the Coolermaster Aero Jet 7 CPU fan round as it wouldn't fit with the power supply in place (a common problem - they are big, but worth it - it is working far better than the old Aero 7+ did, and is quieter) and some Corsair XMS3200Pro memory. Yes, the stuff with the lights. The case is cool as it is (though I think I'll replace the LEDs with a cathode tube as they are a little lost due to those lovely fans... in fact, those fans and the Jet are keeping the case and CPU cooler too. Surprisingly this little lot didn't set me back that much (apart from the memory but I really need to get the whole system running at 400Mhz after all this time at 266mhz!) If things go well, I may get the file server in the second case next month as I have pretty much all the bits (bar a CPU as the 300mhz was kinda fried!). No lights there, though. Maybe. No window to see them through, though... I guess I'll have to post pictures, so I'll get some taken, probably tomorrow at Nick's as it is a bit tidier!
Now, I think I'll cut a blowhole in the top, and buy some cool fan grills... sigh. At least it looks better than some of the recent efforts over at Show Your Rig at hardCOREware some of the recent efforts (especially one or two) have been pretty bad. And not in a good way.
I have some dreams to enter now (stored up on Ayu, my PocketPC - hey - I wonder if I could mod that...?) so I'll be off then...
OMG! I just realised - Nick will want one like mine now... eek!
Posted by Badgers at 04:41 PM | Comments (3)
April 09, 2004
Weeks Don't Get Much Better Than This...
...I wish they would though! I won't be moaning about work as it has been quite good this week as far as that goes...
I will moan about grinning idiots who rush out in front of my car, though. I've lost count of the number of times this week some smiling fool dashes out and nearly goes under my wheels. Old mad women, young kids - all of them smiling inanely at me as they cross oblivious to the fact that a 206 can hurt. Have they been at the little blue pills, or are the loony bins letting them all out for Easter?!?
I've also been plagued by people stopping their cars in front of me - either in the middle of the road for no reason or by pulling over to the side to let me go past. Perhaps they thought their Ford Focus wasn't powerful enough to get up the hill at 30mph, while my super-charged Peugeot 206 could. I Always pass by and then they set off, usually about 20mph. This has happened on country roads (where me approaching at 5mph more than they are doing might seem a little terrifying) and even on main roads in town - something is going on here, between the grinning idiots and the stopping drivers. I don't know what it is (and I don't want to know), but it is going on. I won't mention people who take corners on my side of the road, as I've done that to death (and nearly been killed twice this week due to them!).
The new-look RNP is coming together slowly - I've decided to spend the Easter weekend adding content, sorting out the theme, etc, so the site is closed at the moment. I'm finding a lot of interesting modules, and If I knew PHP I'd be able to program my own - PHPNuke is quite simple to work with, but it can be hard going trying to find that one last thing that is stopping a graphic from appearing! Hopefully Badgers should be easier to set up...
Games wise, Far Cry and UT2K4 have my attention at the moment, though I'll try to get back into Galaxies if I get the chance this weekend. I've also struggled to get the Soldner demo working - I managed to get a few others to join, but some had problems (including Andrew - we were on the phone for an hour trying to get it to let him in). The game looks good, but the netcode suXX0rs big time. Hopefully it will be sorted in time for release...
By the way - if anyone makes it to the new Doctor Who Exhibition in Blackpool, let me know what it's like! Oh - and I reccommend Shaun Of The Dead as your Easter movie... Very funny, but a bit sick (less blood that Passion, though!) - lovely!
Posted by Badgers at 04:42 PM | Comments (2)
April 03, 2004
A Case of Mistaken Identity
Manchester was interesting today! It seemed really quiet, and there was virtually nothing on the bus over there. Of course, later in the morning I realised why - everyone was sat behind Marks and Spencers watching the big game on the giant TV screen!
Another thing of interest was the guy who had obviously just seen The Passion Of The Christ as he was yellign big time about how the only thing that would save us was the blood of Christ. And we all know how much blood there is in that film - somehow I doubt if it will be shown widely in Germany for a couple of reasons I won't go into here... Lets just say blood and percieved anti-semetism...!
The most interesting thing was in HMV though. I was looking at the clearance DVDs (from £5.99! w00t!) when I felt a tugging at my coat sleeve. For a second I thought it was a pickpocket, but what pickpocket draws attention to themselves by tugging your sleeve? I got an inkling of the truth when the hand started to reach round and hook my arm in an embrace and drawing me over to another set of DVDs... I turned and it was a very nice chinese girl - I said "I think you've got the wrong person..." - she squeaked and her boyfriend, who had been watching, was doubled up with laughter! He had been wearing a black coat like mine, and she'd not realised. Sigh. Lucky bugger! The boyfriend was too...
Oh, and I must contrast that moment of fun and beauty with horror. Specifically bunnies. This time of year, with Easter coming round, gives me the willies. Why? Well, this year is a prime example of why, like Anya from Buffy, I hate bunnies. Eggs are one thing, but bunnies seem to be the big thing this year - and I'm not joking! Marks & Spencers are going bunnie crazy - everything from little chocolate bunnies to cute bunnies in chocolate hats to great honking two-foot tall chocolate bunnies! All that chocolate is scary enough for me nowadays (puuuke!) but what really gives me the heeby-jeebies this year is that they look just like the bunnies in Robert Rankin's classic The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse! There was one bunnie that didn't scare me, despite the fact she was pink. Outside the Arndale a rather cute lady was posing with the kids (in the rain, bless her) as the Easter Bunny.
So, how has the rest of the week been? Not too bad - my travel expenses arrived - two months worth! The job itself wasn't too bad, and I didn't get too many new cases (ten in two days isn't bad - if only I was paid by the case!!!) My old boss is hardly around as she changes jobs, my new boss in Preston - things are almost rosy!
Nick called though to say he has got a bog standard Radeon 9800 (like mine) and wanted to install it, but needed the new drivers (lets face it - if you have a Radeon, you need the Cat 4.3s!!!) and wanted to come over today to collect them. I got back from Manchester and he called to get them - and nearly didn't leave as I was watching the Porridge marathon on UK Gold and it had looped back to the first episode (with these feet?!?) and he stuck around... He had now gone off to install it and hopefully be ready for going out tonight...
Ah, yes, tonight - it should be a good night out (it's just me and Nick - No Andy (surprise) and no James (probably grounded anyway!) so that will give me something to write about - there may even be more pictures! You have been warned!
One last word - I'm prepping to convert the site over to PHPNuke, but first I want to get Rogue Noid Productions up and running first - I'm working it out quite quickly now, and by using the Anjara theme as a basis means that the site will look a little nicer than the usual basic layout... converting Badgers should be quite easy in comparison. it will be interesting, as I hope to expand Badgers to more than just a blog site... how about Classifie ads? And possibly even Matchmaking services - I hope to find out Nick's perfect woman tonight, so that I know what not to allow on the site...
Posted by Badgers at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2004
Eating Placentas Washing them Down With A Cool Cup Of Urine
I'm currently doing this entry at work, and the above is the subject currently being discussed by the women here. Isn't life grand...
Sunday was fun - no James to bring us all down, and Nick found the wonders of broadband very tempting as he spent an hour hunting for bits for the monster computer... we also managed to connect to a Vietcong server online. All in all, a nice use of the day - Nick even managed to use the new Detonator drivers to get transparent water in Far Cry! Of course, the fool brought his old Windows ME PC at first and had to go back home to get his proper PC as the few games he tried ran like solid treacle. Far Cry at .5 FPS is painful (and that was with everything off!)
Monday and Tuesday flew by at work, and I spent the evenings fiddling with PHPNuke trying to understand it. I think I do, and will be spending the night tonight fiddling and trying to get something decent online at roguenoid.com. I will be moving Badgers to that system too, but this will no doubt cause problems for James as he is fairly used to Moveable Type now...
The interesting stuff for the weeks so far is that Spring has arrived - after the early April showers we had last week, the weather is glorious today - we may yet have the fine Easter the weather people have promised... Also, I have nearly run over a number of grinning loonies crossing the roads lately - they seem to be everywhere - kids, old women, the lot of them - all grinning insanely as they traipse across the roads ahead of me. Wierd.
Oh, and tonight will be the last time I am a Technical Support Officer. No, I haven't finally managed to quit, I just get a new job title tomorrow as part of the reorganisation of the department. I am a Sensory Support Officer from tomorrow onwards. Plus ca change! At least my boss will be in Preston so I won't have them over my shoulder all the time, which will be fun!
Oh God, now they've started on The Passion Of Christ... and Scooby Doo 2...
Posted by Badgers at 02:43 PM | Comments (2)
March 28, 2004
The Destruction Of Burnley
I know, that sounds like a good idea, but it seems to be happening lately in this town - unused mills are being torn down, and nthis week has seen the plans laid out by Burnley Council to begin demolishing large area of the town that have old, empty housing (I live in such an area) and that are run down. Its a big, ambitous plan, and a good one, not just because it will give the house a better view (which it will, though it is likely to be a better view of a building site), but it might just rid the area of the junkies, the dealers and the prostitutes. Expect me to mention more on that as things go on.
Houses are not the only things being rebuilt and modernised - recetly the petrol garage near the hospital has been torn down and will be getting a Tesco Express on the site, and the hospital itself has revealed it's plans to totally modernise itself, but unlike Queens Park Hospital in Blackburn, it isn't moving to a new site... Could be fun when a surgeon asks for a drill during an operation...
More destruction and rebuilding at Greggs recently - they said they were closing the shop for a makeover (needed) that would reflect the heritage of the company... It's kinda strange that it is now bare, stark and not very heritage-y. Unless you feel that the heritage is just that they are a fast food outlet. The pasties are much more puffed up, but still not a patch on the ones sold by Hampsons in Clitheroe!
So, how has the past week been? Mine hasn't been anywhere near as bad as usual, but still very annoying - interesting, though! Between all the rain and hail (sounds like a James Taylor song) I fitted special smoke alarms, and rediscovered how annoying deaf people can be. When we fit alarms, we don't do it for beauty, but one couple really didn't want it surface wired. 'It showed'. So, it had to go through the loft. I don't do lofts. luckily, the husband arrived, and drilled the holes, but not before demolishing half a fitted wardrobe and mking a not-so neat hole in the ceiling in the process. Amazingly, my bit worked. Another person I saw had a stash of porn in his bedroom on full view. Not just a mag or two shoved under the bed - more like a pile of scary DVDs and videos two feet high next to the TV. And a week's worth of Daily Sport newspapers. I'm lucky I could pull my feet off his carpet!
Otherwise work wasn't too bad - my boss gave me my last supervision and said she was happy with my progress and stuff, and my sickness review was the same mixed messages as before. She has no problems saying that my health and attendance are both of top importance (see earlier blogs!) but I have no problems in saying 'stuff the job, I'm ill' on those days that I can't move as I am really ill (unlike Andrew who just had a few days off to play Galaxies)!
Last Sunday saw me having fun on Far Cry and Unreal Tournement 2004 - two games so good I actually went out and bought them! Of course, I really want to play them online (Far Cry is superb, but seems a little laggy online, though as all the servers were giving pings of 100+ it isn't too surprising, but UT 2K4 is fantastic - Onslaught mode is brilliant with 66+ players, and virtually no lag - I may do reviews again soon!)
Sunday also saw Nick bemoaning his lot and wanting to sort out his computer by buying a new one. A monster, more powerful than mine. With an Athlon 64bit processor, 2 gig of memory, and at least a Radeon 9800xt... no doubt he'll be one of the first people to go PCI Express, and have lots of problems with a first generation card... James has had to send the hire car back and is now in another Sierra - this time a decent looking Sapphire model with less rust.
On the parent front, after some Community stuff is being stopped by a neighbouring area being grumpy and egos beginning to start chipping in, Mum & Dad are set to leave the local Community Action Group and once her committments are soerted, will not be involved again, even as a volunteer. She has been at the forefront of organising lots of the events, but has given up as in-fighting begins to take over the group, it seems. Their loss. She has also got a cut over her eye as Folly, the whippet/doberman cross, jumped up and caught her with a nail - looks nasty, but is getting better. I also have to take my dad to York for a week's training course, and of course, the date (which I was finally told on Friday) is the same as the Team Away Day in Longridge where we plan the future of or service and how to make it better. Luckily, I get him to York early, and rush back on the motorway, but that day will be so much no-fun. And I am in Northwich the day after - what am I, a bloody rep?!?
Thursday saw me going through Padiham at lunch and seeing the aftermath of what looked to be a spectacular crash - no details as it was too late for the local paper, but a car at the side with a smashed front, a bike on it's side on the other side of the road and oddly, a back of chips and crisps scattered everywhere - whether theree was a pedestrian involved I don't know (an ambulance had just arrived, but no blood on the road, thankfully.
I mentioned Clitheroe earlier, and I now know what I want for Christmas (Last year) and my birthday (for the last two years!) As no-one picked up on my hints for presents (a PS2 memory card, helping to pay towards my Eagle Transporter) or indeed paid me for buying the Macross/Robotech lighters I bought for them to gve James at Christmas. After I spent actual money on them at Christmas. A shop in Clitheroe was selling a cute carved Tin Tin figure, but no Snowy. Now they have mor including Tin Tin in space suit, hiking gear, etc - all very wantable!
In other stuff, I found out that the server move has not happened (the reason for the big update session this morning) and finally got round to getting PHP Nuke installed on .com... And yesterday was a fairly big spring cleaning day as the idiots are due up here this afternoon (apart from Mr Grumpy who is working), which coul be interesting as we share the internet connection... We shall see!
Posted by Badgers at 09:02 AM | Comments (2)
March 20, 2004
And The Winner Is....
Christopher Eccleston! One of my favourite actors, and a nice surprise to wake up to find that he had been cast as the Ninth Doctor... I wonder though if all those fools that moaned about Richard E Grant's Doctor in the Shalka webcasts will be happy - after all, I doubt that this new Doctor will be a happy smiley guy with jelly babies... of course, I could be wrong!
Well done, BBC - it looks like you are doing something right! This looks like a great new start/continuation of Doctor Who... just don't bugger it all up in 2005!!!I'm sure James will be unhappy though (he usually is!) Now if only you would also splash out the money to make the fifth season of Angel, another great show - and this time one that was geting great ratings! - cancelled! And still Mutant X and Andromeda continue (though I'll let Andromeda off as I like all the characters except Dylan Hunt - go figure!)
Ah well... Life in the past few hours isn't much changed from yesterday, really, though the server move doesn't seem t be affecting the site yet, though I could be wrong, and this entry will fade into the ether!
Posted by Badgers at 01:17 PM | Comments (2)
March 19, 2004
NTL Help!
I woke up this morning to find and email from James to say that someone had mailed him to ask about my entry on installing NTL - specifically the dreaded vtruck error! Why email Mr Grumpy I don't know... Still, as a service (and since a search for vtruckdbg brings up Badgers!) I felt it was worth putting up the link to the site that helped me set up when the CD karked it!
Cable Modem Troubleshooting Tips is a pretty comprehensive site that covers pretty much everything as far as I can see. If you have the set top box you don't really need the install CD anyway, but the cable modem does need the drivers from the disc - the main pages that explain all this are the Installer Issues and the Registration Issues (the latter explains how to register your box and computer with NTL without going through the CD. Hopefully this will help point some people in the right direction!
In other stuff, I spent yesterday doing little apart from grabbing the demo for Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and playing it to death (can't seem to do the spit jump yet!) and wondering if I should go to Manchester today... Now I don't feel too bad, I want out of the house for reasons other than work!
...And just laughing at The Golden Arrow on TCM - or to be specific, the battle scene with Tad Hunter firing the titular magic arrow (not to hit anyone, but to stop the horses, slice the string on bows, etc, and three genies whizzing round on carpets dropping pots onto the heads of baddies - silly, but fun!
Posted by Badgers at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2004
NTL: Hell!
I'm doing this blog entry in little bursts, saving as I go, as I'm not entirely sure if my NTL broadband connection will keep up, or whether IE will suddenly freeze the computer!!! This week has been one of those weeks, so far - what else did I expect?
Sunday afternoon saw me go from sniffly to sounding like an aqualung in just a few short hours (I think I was running on adrenaline on Saturday), but at was fun - different levels to play in Raven Shield and some fiddling as usual. James turned up, a little late, but he turned up. He is currently hiring a new car (a first for him) as his wife managed to run into someone with the blue Sierra. Even though it has been written off, James feels it is actually fine - it's just the colour-matched bumper that is the problem. Hmm - perhaps a little more work needed to pass the MOT if they wrote it off, methinks... still, he seems happy with the newer car...
Monday was a bugger as I worked a day of my holiday to fit some equipment, Tuesday was spent on my bed barely able to get up as I was so dizzy and out of it due to whatever this thing is that I have caught, And today was fine apart from a boring meeting that went nowhere (surprise!) and the fact that this morning my NTL STB decided to lose it's connection to broadband! I've now got it to have the light on the front that says that the connection is there, but it seems that now the PC is losing the connection.... between that and IE suddenly freezing the computer as well, I'm not too happy! It seems okay at the moment, though... At first I wondered if they had stopped my service due to my downloading going over the 1 gig limit, but this is doubtful as I haven't downloaded that much each day (hardly that much since Saturday to be honest) and they have to tell you first. And considering the amount James downloads till four in the morning...
Hopefully things will work out better tomorrow, but I doubt it. Life sucks. After all, I managed to be given my job in the new structure at work, which is annoying! Ah well. At least I managed to do a blog entry with a Jethro Tull reference in it - that was fun.
Later, I hope!
Posted by Badgers at 08:31 PM | Comments (2)
March 13, 2004
Cable Guys
Thursday was survivable, though my boss did call while my mobile was off - it turns out that the man who was supposed to come in to collect a fax machine did, but they couldn't find it. When it is on my desk. Sigh.
Friday was just busy - I got most of what I wanted done, though one job hd to be cancelled until I return from holiday, and the closures I had wanted to get closed didn't happen. Thankfully, the meeting wasn't too bad - in fact it was no problem ar all. The last visit in Clitheroe was a pain though - the equipment, that I had waited ages for, didn't work for him. Sigh.
Then I get home last night happy to havwe missed the usual birthday stuff(Friday was my 34th birthday, you see) to find that NTL had been to check if the cable would be okay and said that they would be here this morning to connect it. And they were. At 9.00am. On the dot. Two hours of wiring and fiddling and the cable box was set up and working, and they left. The fun thing about the installation? One if the guys was a little hungover from being out last night, but the one who was actually wiring up the room was kinda amazed at Ayumi... the computer, that is! I don't think he's ever seen anything like it. Few people have, especially when lit up, humming and generaly doing its thing. So to speak. All I had to do then was set up the set top box so my computer wourld access the internet through it. And of course, there was a problem. The installer kept giving me a 'VTruckDBG' error. Some hunting on the net via mum and dad's Tiscali broadband connection and I was able to sort out how to connect manually without any of that CD stuff, and bingo - I was online again! Of course, while I get a monster fast connection to the NTL newsserver, the ones I usually use were slower than BT, and sadly they have the pop video group on (but NTL doesn't!). It's not a problem as one of them needs renewing and I can let that one go and keep one going, so I don't have to tape too much VH1 Classic... Insane, I know... Sigh.
So, now I'm ready to get down to being able to watch The Handler again and other stuff I usually miss, often because it is on BBC Three! And this in the week that The Alan Clark Diaries gets shown on BBC2... Sigh.
Slight Update: I have watched lots of VH1, and an old episode of Knight Rider on Bravo where he goes to help a logger with a quick temper... and I noticed something interesting. KITT is open top at the beginning. That's fine. Then as he leaves Michael Knight pops up the roof, which is a soft top (and even has the handle to lock it in place (Hasselhoff even reaches to lock it down). No sign of the console above his head, and the next shot shows KITT to be his usual self, without the soft top. Of course, this is nothing compared to the glaring problems caused by super pursuit mode later in the series, but lets not get into that... It's also the episode where KITT keeps changing his voice when he goes over a bump. I actualy used to watch this show avidly. Sigh.
Posted by Badgers at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2004
I Despair. Really.
The good news is that so far this week has been better than last week, though waking up this morning to a flat tyre was a bit of a downer!
Saturday was of course not too bad, and Sunday saw James turn up at Nick's (with battered PC - mine would have stood up to that pointless assault!) and also the plague-ridden Andrew was there too. He explained that unlike me, when he is ill he isn't ill like when I fake it... lets try him having a heart problem, no balance, low blood pressure, migraines, a memory like one of those things with holes in that isn't a rhinoceros. At least I can pick up a phone, and do emails when ill (even if my voice is almost gone), rather than pull a sickie to play Galaxies... Still, he was in fine spirits, whinging away. James is worried someone spiked his drink as he obviously had a bad night a (and week!) - he's going to be on non-alcoholic drinks next time. Oh, and yes, Andrew will definitely be at the next one. Yeah, and Flight 223 will finally land in Washington!
Work-wise the week has been good so far - I had a meeting in Preston that was half-way interesting, yesterday wasn't too annoying out on visits, bt today was annoying - in the office most of the day, and some stuff I ordered a couple of months ago urgently have finally arrived. I kept my boss happy with a load of closures and the news that tfrom 1st April I should be no longer her concern!
In other stuff, my glasses still aren't ready, the parents are now on Tiscali broadband, I am ready to go NTL (I got a letter from BT saying they were sorry that i was leaving - as I hardly use the phone, £9.50 line rental is better than £30 a month, in my book... and I get TV and fast internet too), and James is witering that some things are not working on the site. I wonder what he'll say if I stop his user for a while... Considering what is coming the Friday, I hope the week stays okay (though I have got to work two days of my leave - yeah - try THAT Andy!) though Friday does have an annoying meeting coming up - don't these people realise that just having me for this half of Lancashire is going to cause some delays?!?! Ah well - I'll report on that lot sometime later this week. We'll see if I can stop myself from jacking in the job afterwards...
Posted by Badgers at 08:47 PM | Comments (5)
March 06, 2004
One of Those Weeks...
Ever had one? When everything goes pear-shaped? And not in a good, Rogue Noid Productions way? I even got dumped by Catherine! This is a snapshot of mine...
After waking up early and spending the morning reading and playing Knight Online and watching Poirot on Plus I headed to Nick's to shoot him - no Andrew though. I called him and got an answer - apparently he was ill. And had been when I spoke to him on Galaxies. And of course, he was totally unable to get out of bed, reach across his broom cupboard (he lives a little like a 33 year-old, ginger-haired, Harry Potter) to call or email us. Either that, or he was too busy buggering about with the stuff I plonked by his house on Tattooine... ah well. I guess we can't expect anything else, really! He even had the gall to call me about my recent illnesses! Git. Not that he sounded very ill, though - just like normal, actually. At least I sound ill when I'm off (but then I usually only go sick when I am ordered home, or just can't actually move or walk due to it!) James didn't turn up either (a big surprise there), so we played a little Vietcong and then I got him to play some Far Cry... Most of the afternoon was us talking, which made a pleasant change!
I got home, and went online - I got my emails and suddenly my computer shut down with a thump. And that dreaded siren sound that means the processor is not a happy bunny. I checked it, and found it had kinda gone bang. So I had a night without a computer. Luckily, I have a Dreamcast and a copy of Ikaruga... I turned my LCD monitor on it's side, fired it up and played the game vertically, full screen. That game rocks, and the console still does too. I even started playing Shenmue II as well - it's been nearly 18 months since I last played it, by the save game, and I know why - I was in the building of endless QTEs!!! I managed to get on though, and by Monday night I was in China after finally meeting Shenhua! I only have a little more to go to unlock the Saturn version of Shenmue, so tht's probably going to take up more of my time than finishing the new 'Research' demo of Far Cry. Maybe...
So, I ordered the new bits, and NTL cable, on my parents PC and set off to work on Monday. After my week off, I had no real problems. Tuesday came and went with still no hassles and physio (ow!). Tuesday night saw me fitting the new 3200+ Athlon processor, and firing up the computer again. Wednesday was busy, Thursday a pain but not as bad as I thought - I had my physio review and Catherine felt it was time for me to leave (at last!!!) and continue at home. In a month's time I'll get a call and they'll discuss getting me vouchers, etc to go to gyms, Thompson centre, etc, to exercise on my own. Hurray! I think...
Friday was a bugger. it was busy, I had lots of letters to do, an afternoon of visits, and an unhappy deaf man who wants a meeting. This may be my ticket out of this damned job! I also had two people who needed my help urgently who I couldn't get in touch with (one in Longridge, and I was sooo not driving over there blind) and generally felt as grumpy as James does normally.
This morning I finally decided to move RNP onto this server, playe the new Far Cry demo, watched some old Avengers episodes and chilled. All I have to get though is another week then I'm off again. Ish. Y'see, I have a meeting one day, and have to go and see two deaf people urgently on the Monday as well. I get 3 days max of my week off. Not that I care at the moment - the rest of the days will be spent with the NTL cable installation, shopping, etc... then I'll escape Hell to return to work. Which will be more Hell.
Life. I need one, but can't afford it. I'd love a better job, though! Please!
Posted by Badgers at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)
February 29, 2004
One of Those Days...
... Even before I went out last night, I was having problems remembering stuff - my mind was all muddled yesterday, which lead to 3.15 this morning, but more of that later... Still, Manchester was fun - getting there was almost as good, if not better, due to a nice lady who sat next to me and then followed me to M&S... after walking down Deansgate, then doubling back when I went through Bartons Arcade... odd. Sadly I managed to lose her in Marks & Spencers. :-( I did get Lord Of Misrule, Christopher Lee's Autobiography (with a signature signed by him stuck in by the nice girl behind the desk who said she had forgotten they had them - seems I was lucky!), and a few other bits and bobs. I returned home to find that I had won a Talking Tom Baker on Ebay, which was nice) and set about watching Finding Nemo on DVD!
James was having problems logging into Knight Onlne for the first time - he found out it was Zone Alarm that was the problem - after it was turned off he could get on. Though being a n00b he wandered off to look at a Bulcan and it took one look and killed him. Laugh? I sure did! He seems to agree with me that it is fun. Of course, so was later on... the Night Out With Andrew...
I arrived at Nick's and we headed off into town and hung around in the almost empty Swan. Things did start getting a little more busy towards 9.00 when James landed, though, just was we had decided to say stuff it and play on the pub's Start Trek:TNG pinball table. As you can see in the picture below, he was in fine spirits at that time of the evening... I decided to keep ringing Andrew's phone number until he answered (in between taking photos) but it just rang and rang... I think he had unplugged it. I got the feeling by 11.00 he wasn't going to turn up... Not that we cared - the town was quiet unfortunately as you can see of the picture of Paradise Island (maybe everyone was watching the Eurovision programme (please let whoever was chosen be able to sing near the right tune this year!!!)? It certainly heated up as the night got going though - we were almost the first people into Ignite, after a slight detour into Pharaoh's. This hasn't had the highest of reviews of all the new bars, and it certainly wasn't packed - it was almost as dead as the mummy up at Towneley Hall! Ignite got going though, especially after 11 - lots of pictures of that part of the night out! James met a friend (but not that one) and remained pretty happy for a while. Nick, of course was deleriously happy all night (lots of old women in tight skirts!) but was a little (!) agrieved that the DJ couldn't play Life Is A Lemon (And I Want My Money Back) by Meatloaf... He did get Run DMC/Aerosmith and Walk This Way, so that shut him up! As it is a leap year, and today is the 29th, when midnight rolled around quite a few girls proposed to their blokes, which was nice. Sad, but nice! Especially when the DJ announced to everyone that it had been done and that he was on the way to misery. Or was that James later in the night?
James was anxious for us to have a wander, so Nick and I did - he immediately dashed upstairs to the pool room. Now, he isn't great at pool but, as has been mentioned previously in the Blog, I suck lemons at it! Nick almost stuck to the rules, I just whacked the ball. Amazingly, I potted a ball almost every time - shame it was the cue ball that went down! Thanks to the wonders of the mobile phone, almost every shot got caught on camera, though it was telling that most of my shots were of the table and most of Nick's were of the girls. Go figure! Eventually the table was cleared, and we headed back downstairs. James was happy enough at this point (about 1.00am) but this was to change. He has been known to get a little unhappy and grumpy, and this began to happen as half-past arrived. he got Nick to go on a wander (up to the pool room again) but I hung around. It would be interesting to see what happened. What happened was slightly unexpected. He tried to get me to wander, and started muttering that I'll never know what he has lost, and that I should go out there and find someone. Having seen what marriage and even relationships do to people, I feel lucky to have had the little fun I've had, and now I'm quite happy just to sit here on the shelf and watch things happen around me. He was determined to make me see that my life was easy and that this was a bad thing - I needed complicated. Personally, I feel my life is as complex as I want it to be for the moment. And there's time enough for romance and slushy stuff when I get into my room at the old folks home... except I'll be even more past it than I am now, which will work out well for me... Oddly , I wasn't sure that relationship advice from James was necessarily a good idea, but then I fear he had an ulterior motive... and somehow I feel it was my duty to jam my foot in the door, for his sake. Eventually (after a brief period of happiness when Summer Of '69 came on) he decided to give up on me and set off home at a quarter to two. I hung around (trying to get some last photos!) before going in search of Nick (who I found, in all places, in the pool room! Not playing, just ogling again.
Outside he went for his usual horse-meat hot dog and we found two cuties wrestling in one of the planters... see pics! They didn't care - one was drunk, the other could barely stand! We headed home eventually (I had to force Nick to go as I really had to go home and go to the loo!!!) We said see you tomorrow/in the morning/later/whatever-it-is you-say-at 2.40-in-the-morning and I headed home. As I got near I reached into my pocket for my keys, and then realised the thing I had been looking for before I set off. My keys. Yeah, D'OH! is right! I rang mum to try and wake her gently, but got no response (she had it unplugged), and eventually gave up and had to ring the bell. She came quickly - apparently she hadn't been asleep long as she had not been able to - her ear had swollen up and so she'd watched a film. Not sure if I believe her, but there was no problem. I then spent a half-hour or so copying the pictures from the phone to Ayu, so I could check them out (lots of blurred ones, even before I started drinking!) and easily copy them to Ayumi this morning. Then I put my head down and had about 3 hours sleep (that should do me for now!). I woke up about 8 and set to on this blog - the longest with all these pictures, and certainly the one that has taken the longest to do!!!
Now I'm gonna caption these pics and then go down to have a big fry-up breakfast... I always seem to make sure I cool off with fruit juice after drinking like that - it's a hangover cure that works as it is proactive, though I do need to go to the loo a fair bit - better than throwing it up like one person I know does... no wonder she's so thin!!! Ah well - I'd better finish this off or else I won't be at Nicks to yell and scream at Andrew for not turning up... it looks like Pig Flights 223 to Washington has been cancelled again!
The Pictures Of SHAME! A few pictures of us and the people we saw and interacted with, sort of thing...
I don't know what Nick is so surprised at - I turned up on time!
James just after he arrived - he was happy at this point, as he was happy to show everyone...
Paradise Island? More like a deserted island! A few people downstairs, but the top room was so dead the bar staff were surprised when we turned up, and I'm sure the DJ only started playing his CDs when we walked in!
The most exciting thing I saw at Pharaohs - the tiny sinks! What is it with clubs and these things? You need to use both sinks just to wash your hands! Even Lava/Ignite has them! At least the loos were clean!
Ah, down at Ignite - here we see Nick (lit by the cool light sabres installed in the bar) getting the first round in. Not sure if it was my money that paid or not, but I drank the stuff he brought over!
Every night out has to have this sort of shot - Here James and I have fun - but why was I ready to shoot myself?
AAAAHHHH!!!! Vampire in the house!!! Don't worry, Nick stakes me later on... He must have been watching Buffy or something recently...
James telling Nick dead baby jokes. Guess what site he's been to lately? By the look of the lighting, he's already in Hell (no doubt he'd agree!)
Ah, totty! One of mine this (I also have some pics of them on the dance floor and at the other end of the bar - purely by accident, of course!)
Finally, things start to get busy as people turn up after midnight to propose to each other!
Nick plays with his balls!
I get my cue out and try to get the white ball to stay on the table - I fail!
AAARRGGGGHHH!!! Just before I go up in flames as Nick stakes me for being so bad at pool!
Nick lines up a shot...
Nick takes the phone while I sink the cue ball again and lines up another shot... he moaned that it didn't zoom properly (it's a digital zoom, so its more of a crop than a real zoom, so he has to make do with this!!)
He really didn't like taking pictures of the girls much, did he?
Bases loaded! Batter up! How do you play this damn game anyway?
James getting some '69 in the middle of his rant about me being a sad lonely bugger!
James has buggered off, and the night is drawing to a close...
Nick eating his horse... um... well, dogs don't have them that big...
Like WWE but cute - the two slightly tipsy cuties having some down and dirty girl-on-girl fun by the hot 'dog' stand...
Luckily (?) they decided to join Nick in eating a horse schlong... before the brunette cutie decides to sit on the pavement giving us a rather interesting view that I can't reproduce here unless you pay me something on your credit cards...
Finally, as I came past the Sparrowhawk Hotel I spotted something I had to take a picture of - the workmen obviously needed a hint on how to dig a hole or something... or maybe it was a subliminal message to tell me what I must do to Andrew today...
So there we are - that should keep people happy! I will try to put more pictures in the photo bit of the gallery, but it's still buggering about... We'll see what happens! Later, wossnames!
Posted by Badgers at 08:58 AM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2004
Pigs Awaiting Clearance To Take Off On Runway 5...
So how are things with you? I know this week hasn't been as productive as I wanted... I've spent it either playing Black Hawk Down or doing things for mum & dad. I have been able to do a little art, but not any animation since the anniversary intro. I have played with my Product Enterprise Eagle Transporter, got a cheap LCD TV/Monitor via eBay (I can have an extended desktop - that will help in so many ways!) and thanks to James, gotten into the open beta of Knight Online, a Korean (but in English!) MMORPG - see below. I have also played a little Galaxies to set up some more things for Andrew, and finally started to get stuff for that server's incarnation of Helise Truefoot - a landspeeder and a... costume.... for being an entertainer. Let's just say that on the Kettemore Galaxies server, the medic Helise can let her hair down. Andrew doesn't know what is gonna hit him tomorrow, but if he spots Helise, he will have a fair idea...!
I will also be leaving BT for NTL in the very near future (not that this will affect anything!), and the parents will be moving on too as they are sick of BT Openworld - first they get no emails for over 3 months, then they keep getting booted off after a few minutes (not a good thing when they are doing some online banking), and they are getting cheesed off with the slow speed. Admittedly, they are only going for 3x Broadband with Tiscali, but its fast enough for them, and its less than they are paying now...
Hmm - Knight Online then - any good? Well, it isn't as complex as Galaxies, but it is fun - lots of hacking and slashing, and quests and stuff. Some good models (the basic female is virtually my usual Helise character without any fidding, and there are some big ugly orcs!) and nice presentation - I like the way you select your characters when you log in... It has lag problems, but this is an open beta and it is designed to test the servers - something that is definitely happening as the place is full of people - not quite as scary lag-wise as Bestine on Galaxies (or any big city - the Imperial Crackdown has seriously put some strain on the servers), but you are likely to find yourself booted off when the server gives up (it has happened a few times today). Gameplay is similar to a simplified Dungeon Siege but with hundreds of other players. Apparently it is made so that a big ongoing war can happen between the two races - we shall see - there is a real spirit of cooperation at the moment!
All this and tomorrow is Manchester shopping day (I need to get a long USB cable and find some film called Nemo or something). And tomorrow night sees the debut appearance on the Burnley pub and night club scene of Andrew Duffy, who is single, straight (we think, but can't be sure as there is no evidence either way) and a sniping git. He has been out with us before, but that was well over 10 years ago - so long ago in fact that we used to sit at the edge of the dancefloor in Smackwater Jacks and talk about old computer games and TV shows. I don't think he relaises that what we do nowadays is more akin to what he does in cantinas on Galaxies - ogle the dancing girls! Of course, this doesn't build up our Mind points (in Nick's case I think it drains his mind pool like the plug being pulled out!)
Finally. I've discovered that the 3rd season of Black Books begins on Channel Four on 11th March, just in time for my birthday! Should keep me happy!
Posted by Badgers at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2004
Vietnam Flashback
Saturday was dull dull dull, and Sunday wasn't much better. No, that was a lie. Saturday wasn't the most exciting of days, true, but Sunday was as exciting as any have been for a while. The day was spent playing Vietcong with the new Fist Alpha addon, which was fun (and full of swearing!), and towards the end of the day we headed home, but not before a night out was organised for this coming Saturday! Not that this was a shock in itself, as Nick is very interested in going out, I'm desperate for one last night out before I hit the big 34 (!) and James is even more so for reasons you might be able to pick up by reading his blog! No the excitement, the shock, the unmitigated horror came when Andrew agreed to come. True, he has muttered this before (and we still expect him to forget or nor find the pub we are in or, as has happened previously, get stuck somewhere about a hundred miles away after a LAN party. But he seemed so adamant, we have to trust that he will be there. It means the night will be much more muted than usual (!) but what the heck... at least he'll (probably) be there for the first time in well over ten years!
So, Monday came and went yesterday, and saw me having fun setting up a test install of PHP Nuke over at .com... it worked, and worked well (i got excited about it actually) but now I have decided it isn't quite what I need, though I may end up using it here at Badgers in the future, as it would mean less individual pages and blogs needing to be set up than MT. Hmm.
This morning saw me going in to Physio only to find that it wasn't on today, so I went to get the mud washed off the car and became the car that a trainee was taught to wash. Poor bugger - was there no jobs going at McDonalds or KFC?!? Ah well. My car is clean(er) which is all that matters. This afternoon I have a little journey into town to get my eyes tested which will be a nice change. Life is good. Possibly. Thankfully I hit Manchester on Saturday (or Friday, since I'll be out Saturday night!) for some retail therapy!
Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 02:39 PM | Comments (2)
February 20, 2004
Through A Hedge Sideways
It's coming to something when the highpoint of the day is a crash.
I knew today would be busy - I had to get all sorts of stuff done as I'm off this coming week - in the end, not everything did get done, but I still only just finished work at 7.30 tonight... I managed to get the paperwork sorted out for the past week of visits, sent a lot of closures through to my boss to keep her occupied next week, did the appointment letters for the next few weeks and picked up some stuff from the hospital. I had to deliver a pager to a deaf girl (who wasn't in, so I eventually got it to a family member), a minicom to another deaf lady, I was hoping to get to show a woman how to use her new fax (but I couldn't get a reply on the number I had), had a dull meeting in which only one thing applied to me and then only vaguely, then deliver some stuff to a man in Longridge (after going back to work at 5.30 after the meeting to write up the report on a visit I had made before the meeting, finish some computer work and then empty out the car of work stuff (finally).
I managed to get to Longridge and deliver the stuff safely, but then headed home via Clitheroe and Sabden (as it would be quicker). No problems until I moved over to avoid an oncoming car and kinda went 'off road'. Oops. James would have been proud. Well, not really, as I didn't go screaming into the field, just drove off the road into a muddy ditch that ran alongside it in the darkness - I got out of it easily enough, and the only damage was that the mud had pushed a foglight in, so it needs to be clipped back in place (in the morning - too dark and cold to do it now, and the mud is everywhere!!!)
Its days like this that make me feel that I need a big drink, but I know I'd probably go a bit far and go all Jamius about everything (not that he gets that melancholy... not since the last night out!). Ah well. Life goes on!
Posted by Badgers at 08:53 PM | Comments (2)
February 19, 2004
Blink 118 192
Michael Howard picked a nice day to come to Burnley and stir up controversy (and try to stir up some votes) today... See the BBC news articles here! I won't go into the arguments that are once again bringing Burnley and the BNP and the riots back into the news again. I don't want to make this page political (lets just say my major reason for not liking the BNP is that they manage to nick my parking space every time they come to the local Polling Office to try and strong arm some votes, my main reason for not liking the Conservative party is that they go back on their word faster than New Labour and as for New Labour... I'd rather vote for the Demonic Robot Party!). He spent his day in the Kierby Hotel and visiting a few of the more deprived (of riots, for the past couple of years, thankfully) areas of the town before buggering off again, while the BNP protested and handed out leaflets.
Still, as I say, the weather was very nice - I spent my day after physio (ow!) out and about in Burnley and Rossendale. Not a bad day today, except for the last guy who was a really hard sell - and I don't sell anything!!!! An hour and a half to get him to try a HPI Minitech personal listener that obviously helped him to hear the TV better... some people! The rest of the week hasn't been bad, though I haven't got half the things done I was planning to - I tidied my desk (I can now see it!), got some paperwork done, and saw lots of people (including my boss for a change!).
I may have even seen a certain teen grunge-rock band driving in Oswaldtwistle - I let them go across the road from the side street mainly because I couldn't go any farther due to a large truck blocking the road. They looked grungy with spiky hair, bad pock-marked complexions, etc, and as they went by, one of them gave me a grunge-rock style 'thank you very much dude!' thumbs up. Wierd. One person I haven't seen this week is the lovely Catherine at Physio - still, its not a good idea to get a crush on your physiotherapist - especially when, like today, he is a strapping lad from Dublin. I don't know though...! I have hardly heard from James either (I think he's been in hibernation!) apart from a few emails gloating about how much he's downloaded... just wait till I get my 1 Mbit NTL connection... that'll teach him!
Annoying news I have received today is that Jake 2.0 (just started on Sky One) has, despite being given a full 22 episode commitment by the network, been cancelled after 13. Bugger - it looked like it would be a fun series too. How can this (and the cancellations of stuff like Farscape and Odyssey 5) happen when Mutant X continues to suck more and more, and Andromeda, after starting out rubbish, got really good, then started getting far worse than you could ever believe (Dylan gets to snog the girl and save the entire universe by being Hercules with a phallic shaped gun-thing again?!?!? Wasn't that last week?) with every member of the (great) ensemble cast that leaves? Ulp - this is becoming a rant...!
I'd better head out - I have plans to make, a good book to read, and I've got to wash my hair... Bye!
Posted by Badgers at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2004
Flashbang Out!
Friday wasn't a good day. I have a feeling this coming week will be a bugger, too. Luckily I have decided on a way to make sure that the week after next I actually get to take the week off! It needs lots of work this week and in the weeks after (especially as two weeks later I take another week off to get my holidays down as low as I can so I don't lose too much, just to keep the boss happy - oh for April, when my new boss will in fact be based in Preston and not have any idea what I'm doing!). This means that I should have two weeks of being able to sit down, work on this site and Roguenoid.com ready for the relaunch. No to mention some Flash and the new I.T. strip series! Sadly, the hoped for night out can't happen this coming Saturday (I would have had the week to get over it!), and the week after is unlikely to be convenient to me - perhaps later! Ah well. I guess we'll put it aside, along with the plans to go to EuroDisney, etc this year!
Saturday saw me taking mum shopping (she had forgotten that my car is kinda full to the brim with stuff already!), and I couldn't help noticing all the Easter Eggs - Iceland and Kwiksave were full of them! I did like the marketing idea of the Harry Potter eggs, though... the chocolate might be horrible (it used to be with the licenced eggs as it was never Cadburys who did them), but kids will want all of them as each is a building from Diagon Alley - Gringotts, Flourish & Botts, etc. Neat. Nestle are pushing their new Double Cream Eggs too... though the tagline 'chocolate matters' is worrying... it doesn't matter a fig to me - but then I'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't get a migrane from eating the stuff, I just projectile vonit. Oddly enough it has been years since I have eaten any. Ick. Except when I have one of those vomiting dreams... Double Ick! Ick Ick Ick-ick-ick!
Saturday afternoon was spent doing the RNP and Badgers wallpaper for my new phone, and deciding what to have as my ringtone (I settled on You by Ayumi Hamasaki, but have Evolution, Surreal, Poker Face and Connected as well, depending on my mood, and the Bubble Bobble theme, of course!) I will be able to make up new wallpapers for those phones that can handle them - I'll start setting up a page via the Shop at RNP to send them out (yeah, you will have to pay a little I'm afraid!)
Finally, today rolled around, and James revealed he couldn't make it so it was just the three of us - and it was non-stop FPS (surprisingly) with Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (not as bad as I thought it was originally, butwhere is the Co-op that made the earlier DF games so much fun?), Vietcong (still fun, with Coop!) and Raven Shield (where we finally got Doof to play at Hard mode!!). Strangely he didn't seem to understand my codes for what I was going to do - I yell "Flashbang OUT!!!" and he wanders into it and gets bloinded along with the enemy... and as for when I said "I'll take the guys out round the corner!" he leans round the corner and shoots me in the back! He really needs to read those Marine manuals I got him for Christmas! How will he cope with FarCry and Söldner?
Now I'm sitting upstairs, doing a blog entry, and prepping for the horrors that await me tomorrow and for the rest of the week - the only bright spots are the two physio sessions (though I'll be wearing my trainers if we do blocks again, to make sure I don't need Catherine's help - must... be... strong!!!)
Oh - And I noticed that now the Imperial Crackdown has begun on Galaxies, the servers seem to be running like a crippled slug - not too surprising considering the sudden increase in combat between Rebel players and Imperial Stormtroopers! Hopefully this is something that will be sorted as things have gone from silky smooth to the sort of gameplay you'd expect on a 14.4 modem! Sigh. Doof has mentioned that doing the theme parks (not Jabba's Palace though, as they won't talk to me...!) gives much better rewards - no broken communicators any more then!!!
Ah well - off to walk a dog before food is prepared and I settle down to a night of doing as little as possible! Catchya later in the week, if you know where your towel is!
Posted by Badgers at 07:39 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2004
Friday The Thirteenth Part EEK!
I usually have really good Friday the 13ths. No masked killers rampaging round Rowley Lake trying to hack the faces off the fishermen or anything. Today totally buggered that up.
The day was going to be busy, as I had a few people to go see and lots of computer work to get down to. Then I get a message that something that should have been delivered to the lady in Dunsop Bridge over six months ago (as noted in a previous blog entry) hadn't been, so I had to trail over there. And to Longridge. And Barnoldswick. And Colne. Add to this the fact that a pager I had ordered for a profoundly deaf lady hadn't arrived (a month after I had ordered it) and things just went tits up so quickly they nearly had my eye out!
So I headed off and got everything sorted, eventually. Of course, on the way back from Barlick I was nearly killed... I was coming to the turn to head over to Barrowford, and was indicating and turning when a fool in a green pickup came screaming up the road and straight up the one I was turning into - no indicators, no nothing - I'm glad my brakes work! And the swine had the balls to give me a nasty look - yeah, like the pickup would have sustained damage if I had have hit it! And doing 50 at that point in the road probably wasn't wise for him to do anyway... Jjust because he just had to keep going striaght to get onto the road, while I had to slow right down, look to my left to make sure it was clear, and actually indicate. The Mercedes behind seemed to be on my side, the driver looking at the pickup as it sped away into the distance and shaking his head, before waving me on my way. Not that the pickup driver was the only idiot on the road today - it seems to have been a day of loonies!
Not that Marie, James' wife, is an loony, of course, but I did notice that as she tried to run me over this morning she was driving a blue Sierra, not the rust-coloured one I'm used to leaping out of the way of. Of course, James called it white, but that's only between the rust!
So, I finally arrived home, cheesed off, grumpy and not a happy bunny. One day is all it has taken to totally bugger up all my good work - it looks like my week off in a week or so's time will now be cancelled as I have too many people to see - oh how my boss will like that! Maybe I just won't tell her! And my happy, sunny disposition (largely thanks to Catherine yesterday!) is blown right out the window. All this, and just when I need a drink, it looks like the very same window for going out this side of ever may have just closed once again... typical.
Still, I am not the only one with problems - Dad is still working security, but the company has changed, and they have a different rota (less money), don't have supervisor posts (less money), may have to work the month before being paid (no money at all for a month) and don't take into account service - so that's 15 years service down the drain. Security, I have decided, is a crappy job, even at the best of times. It actually makes my job seem bareable (though dad would probably hit many of the people I manage to be civil to - James would probably park a bus on them!)
Still, some good things have come out of all the recent strife - I have lost weight (yay!), I'm finally feeling well enough to excercise once more (though my ankle is a bugger - after the blocks it didn't feel too bad yesterday, but today - ooohhh!!!!), I have started on the new I.T. strips (in the Liberty Meadows/PvP four panel layout) for the relaunch of Rogue Noid Productions site on April 1st, and may even get round to giving the car a good clean out this week if I can get all the work crap out of it!
So here's to another card-free (and thankfully, flower-less - a great saving there!) Valentines Day tomorrow - even if I got a card and flowers, it would have been better than today!
Posted by Badgers at 10:36 PM | Comments (1)
February 12, 2004
If You Were To Have Sex In A Car...
...where would you choose to do it? Somehow, I doubt the first place would be up on Crown Point in the rain and wind in the back of a Nissan Prairie. Someone obviously thought it was a good idea as I pulled in there on the way to Bacup to check some paperwork, and couldn't help noticing the humped form (in a big blanket) jogging horizontally. Well, as much as he could. I zipped off to Bacup pretty quick, I can tell you! Of course, Crown Point used to be a major sex-in cars place - in the olde days when dad was on CB (the horror!) we'd be up there (me, Mum & Dad) with dad talking gibberish to someone on Pendle Hill, Mum not doing much really, and me reading a book in the back by torchlight (or wandering over the rocks that were nearby if it wasn't too dark). Not all the other steamed-up cars used to have big 3 metre aerials stuck on their rooves with magnets though.
There - that sets the tone! I'm back after a little while away fiddling, reading books and trying to get GPRS working on my new phone...
Last Sunday saw a day with all four of us together, with attempts to get JF Duke Nukem 3D (a new build of Duke Nukem that runs in XP and actually allows multiplayer) Sadly it only allows 2 two players (or seemed to) though it ran very well. I'm currently hunting down some of the old maps we used to play... Check it out here - it's worth it (though bear in mind you need the Duke Nukem .GRP files).
The week hasn't been bad - only one big all-day meeting after last week, which wasn't too bad - some of my letters (with the odd change) are to be used across county, and my checklist that social workers fill in may well go on the computer system to form the basis of referrals to the service. Which was nice. As was the Bacon and Mushroom bagette form the White Cross tuck-shop in Lancaster.
Of course, the week has had its near death experiences, unsurprising considering I have hardly been in the office this week! Driving along a nice, clear road I was nearly totalled by a Ford transit van that obviously couldn't be bothered to wait for me to pass - how he could miss me coming up the road (he nearly didn't) or the car coming the opposite way (who had a nice squeal of brakes) I have no idea. I also nearly rear-ended a car that suddenly slowed down to take a corner (I was a little way back, but didn't expect him to slam on and turn without indicating) and was thankful that the ambulance that nearly hit me in the back could slow down quickly too and so didn't get any customers. I have a driving rant coming on!
Thankfully, with the last big meeting for a while out of the way, I got to physio this morning, and one of the few people there (after Tuesday it seems some were not well - it had apparently been a bugger, and due to penalties, been 20 minutes longer than normal!) was saying how she had been glad that it hadn't been blocks on Tuesday as well. Guess what Catherine, the lovely physiotherapist got out. For those not in the know, blocks are large wooden box-wedges, angled at about 40 degrees. The exercises usually consist of standing with your bad leg on the wedge and using them to stretch by stepping forward, backward, etc. Not too bad in theory, but the strain is enormous. I wasn't too bad, except that for some reason I just couldn't get a grip on the blocks in bare feet - I kept sliding off! You'd think a guy with size 12 flat feet would have more traction! I can't help remembering Fletcher's medical examination from Porridge... "What, with these feet?" One exercise I definitely got the benefit of was the one where you stand with your bad foot on the block and balance on it. As I couldn't get my feet to stay on, Catherine came and stood close while pressing her foot against mine to keep it on the block. I could just about balance, though she did help a bit. Amazingly, all my thoughts at that point (well most of them) were focused on my foot. Oh, and cold showers, cricket, any woman Nick dances with on a night out... anything unsexy, really, for some reason (I can hear James gasping from here!)
In other news I have finally got a new mobile phone - a nice shiny Motorola V525. I've just had GPRS enabled and it works - I just need to work out how to push ringtones onto the thing (via bluetooth or the web, I suppose) and pictures. Talking of pictures, the camera is a good one - I've switched to 640x480 and quality is good, especially in dark conditions. And I can easily bluetooth the pics to Ayumi or Ayu. Looks like fun to be had on our next night out! I just need to make sure I have everyone's numbers right - I had James' number, but lost it when I had to reformat. Far better than the Nokia I use at work, and the battered Siemens C35i I used to have before it went tits up! I just have to decide what ringtone to put on it (currently I am using Sweet which is a rather nice Japanese-sounding tune) and need to put either an RNP or Ayumi image on the background...
Ah well - off to do other stuff now - We shall see what the weekend brings... I mean, you have all bought your Valentines cards, right? Especially those you are sending to yourselves to try and make it look like you are not really a sad johnny-no-mates? Heheheh!
Posted by Badgers at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)
February 08, 2004
Fjords!
So there I was, not unlike Slartibartfast with his glaciers poised to sweep over Africa, with a few rants that had been building over the past week. The great coastline designer was told his new Earth wasn't needed, I found last night that my computer suddenly lost all ability to make sounds other than a post 'beep', and told me it didn't have any sound devices - even when I plugged in my USB headphones. Then funny stuff started to happen with the graphics card after a reboot. There was, of course, but one answer - reformat and reinstall!
In the space of 4 hours I had Windows XP up and running, and almost all the software (James had my DVD with some other bits on), with the Radeon Catalyst 4.1 drivers - so far, no problems! This should be a good example for Nick installing the 9600Pro - he doesn't have anywhere near the amount of stuff to put back on! I even have all my shortcuts to games and emulators sorted! He could get it all done in no time - in fact, I fear James might just make him do it today!!!
I'll get the rants I had planned online in the next few days (Haunted Mansion?!?), along with some other planned bits (mostly sitting on my iPAQ at the moment) that I have planned. At least the problem with .com was simple - I just had to pay the $8.88!
The rest of the week was interesting. After the meeting on Monday where a colleague started to go slightly potty about the reorganisation (it might effect him seriously) he emailed the chair of the Technical Officers Meeting and stressed out to her about it all. To be honest, the changes don't affect me as much as the others (I've done some stuff with partially sighted and blind people, as it is in my job description), though I'll want more training, and I agree that if we are taking on all those other jobs too, we want paying. Currently I don't do too badly (one colleague in Yorkshire is getting paid about £12K before tax - others get much more than me), but if we have to do all that reviewing and stuff on top of this already busy job (which may get slightly less busy if the loan store stuff actually happens) its gonna be difficult. I'd like to see certain shelf-makers and bus drivers do it. And as for those who can't install a Radeon 9600 Pro within three months of getting it...
The rest of the week at work was mildly annoying, but nothing I couldn't handle.
Manchester was fun, thankfully - lots of books (and vouchers used!), a few cheap DVDs, a flyer for various Valentine's Day potions from Penhaligon's (He Love Eau de Toilette - £30 for 50ml!!! Bargain!!!) Not sure if the coloured bottles and gimmicks that will rule Burnley's nightclubs and bars next weekend would be any cheaper, though... red for those not interested, amber for those interested, and green for those gagging for it! Talking of the 14th, has it come late this year? The various shops seem to have only put up displays in the last week or so (though the cards have been on sale since Christmas!). Easter is already on us though - eggs are in shops, and the displays are already up in some places...
Ah well - Sunday is here, and Ayumi is finally running well again... James will be at Nick's, so I expect to decimate his armies in Total War (!) We may get round to planning a night out in the near future (we all need a drink, apart from Doof and his total inability to escape Galaxies (I'm currently going cold turkey - for 4 days! - after getting The Kettemoor server Helise on the road to her Master Medic future... I'll be back online on Bria tonight though!)
Maybe later, nerfherders!
Posted by Badgers at 09:43 AM | Comments (2)
February 04, 2004
Madness, I Know Your Name...
...and it is Samba de Amigo Version 2000 on the Dreamcast! With maracas. When I got home to find that the disc had arrived (from Japan) I set everything up and had a mad half-hour... "Volare! O-Oh!!!" etc... now to get a VMU with the extra songs...
So, How's life been treating you? I didn't get to Manchester (way too ill - I'm only just coming out of it) and this week has been a bugger so far - the highlights (!) including going to Preston (including driving up the hill to the town centre using the clutch all the way - imagine my poor ankle!) for a meeting where we didn't actually get near what we were there to talk about (how the reoganisation will affect us, and how come we have all this crap on our job descriptions now?), going out to install a new (well, second hand but working) flashing doorbell in an old man's house as he was harrassing the War Pensions Office about it and going to write to his MP as the engineers from the comapny that will remain nameless (Universal Aids Ltd, based in Stockport!) hadn't fixed the system yet, and cutting my right index finger open while doing the installation! Still, at least this calmed him down and got him on my side!
Thankfully, Galaxies has given me much more fun - I'm rapidly heading the way of the Master Marksman and Master Scout thanks to a canny purchase of a snub-nosed carbine... yeah, yeah, I know... but it's so much more fun than real life!
Oh, and after Sunday's little Total War Battle (Nick versus Me and Andrew in TW:Medieval - I just had one purpose (even though my general was eventually captured) and that was to decimate his castle. Let's just say that his keep never stood a chance!) I hope James has been learning how to make his armies follow his commands... I like that game! Roll on TW:Rome later this year!!! That is, of course if he turns up!
He's back online again as he's left comments on the last entry that indicate he wants to go out (for Julie-related reasons, probably!) and is also gagging to go to EuroDisney (Andrew humphs every time it is mentioned, oddly). We shall see what happens this year... Maybe we should take a week off and dstart at Alton Towers, head to London and hit Chessington and Thorpe Park, then head into the wilds of France to hit Euro-mouseland. And then head into Belgium to check out Asterix World too. He's also sent me links to lots of eBay stuff - like Space:1999 Eagles (drool) and one guy who has lots of mini (like 3") models of ships from movies and shows... there goes my money again...
Posted by Badgers at 06:31 PM | Comments (4)
January 30, 2004
Mixed Messages
Not really been a good week so far for the rogue one... between the runs, puking and the headache from hell I'm pretty down. Even getting down to XIII and finally being able to play Prince Of Persia between bouts of pain haven't raised my spirits. oddly enough, though I have never suffered a real hangover (the nearest I got was when the lovely Helen, a friend from a while ago who (grr) ended up with someone from Blackburn (spit) despite really wanting a Burnley boy (!) decided to go through the vodka drinks alphabetically, and dragged me into it too... I wonder if they are still together?), this feels like one big hangover... maybe I'm getting too uber-sober again!
So, I have one day off work on Wednesday - just one as I couldn't walk due to being so dizzy (laugh all you want, Jamius!) - and I went back to work yesterday (Thursday, for certain min-RC vehicle fans who probably have trouble following the logic!). I get called into the manager's office for my return to work interview. There I am told to take vitamins (I rattle I take so many - in fact I spent Thursday feeling like throughing vitamins up all day!), and to take care of myself - my health is the most important thing (and should I really be at work anyway?). Oh, and by the way, you are now back above the trigger level of absences, just to really piss you off. Despite this, I spent the day out driving very carefully round Accrington and Oswaldtwistle visiting clients, and throwing up in the loos in Accrington town centre. I even had to call off my physiotherapy with the lovely Catherine this week too!
I also get the boss unhappy as I went in this morning (and immediately booked this afternoon off before she sent me home anyway). I can't win at the moment - either I get nagged for being in work when I really shouldn't be (I was nearly missing doorways again, and when that usually happens I'm pretty ill), or nagged for being off either at work or by Doof (who only works part of the week in his shelf-making factory anyway, which is convenient as he spends about 1000% longer on Galaxies than I do!). Hmm - I think I'm going to make a concerted effort, for the rest of 2004, not to be off sick at all. That should keep them happy. I'll still get sick, of course, but as I usually work until I start falling down because of it anyway, I'm sure I can keep going unless they call for the ambulance. The good thing is that I get a new boss one way or another from April onwards, so I just need to work out how to skip having leave at all - Linda, my current boss knows my little ways, and forces me to take time off... shame she also nags me to get my backlog of clients down at the same time...
Still, that's work, I suppose... unless I can get a regular gig writing books or something for shedloads of dosh, or finally win the lottery (though sadly you have to be in it to win it, apparently), or if by some chance the new RNP site (and this one of course!) get so popular that people start sending me money via Paypal...
The rest of the week hasn't been a barrel of laughs though, but at least I had a laugh at how eager James was to collect his latest Mini RC toy - a rather cute Mach 5 from Speed Racer! I think the next time a publisher is looking to push out a new magazine part-work to tear the money from our unsuspecting pockets, they should choose Mini RC vehicles - James would be totally bankrupt!!!
If I feel up to it I'll be in Manchester tomorrow, but it depends how I feel - I may just go for the hell of it!
Posted by Badgers at 06:38 PM | Comments (3)
January 24, 2004
A New Paradigm
And physio on Thursday was a bugger too!!! I hate all that stretching stuff - it means I can't walk for a week afterwards. Worth it for seeing Catherine, the lovely physiotherapist (who I would happily do anything she says, even my home exercises!), twice a week, though!
There - that should get James' attention, especially with that name involved!!! So, Thursday was annoying - It began late due to physio, amd got later due to having to see people in Knuzden, Mellor (over an hour for nothing - I'm glad I don't sell this stuff!), Rishton and Clitheroe. I got back time in the afternoon, though, as one person wasn't in. I also managed to hit the local Staples store and pick up a new DVD writer (now I can actually burn DVD rom discs at last - I can save room on the computer again!), and the A5 pen tablet I need for flash... The day wasn't a total washout, then!
Friday saw me battling to get a load of work done on the computer at work before Barbara came in and took it over for the rest of the day, and that horrible spectre of terror that hangs over us all, the supervision sedssion. I may have mentioned before that this is like an appraisal (we get those these year as well) but not half as interesting. I found that my caseload had risen despite clearing off over 50 cases, and she expects me to send case closures on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings - the very times when I find it very difficult to get on a bloody computer!!! Sometimes I check to see if she has grown pointy hair like the boss in the Dilbert strips! She's even made me (really!) take two weeks off - I'm having a week in about a months time, and then the week after my birthday (I may need it to recover). She even moaned that I havn't been taking long enough lunch breaks... in the same breath as telling me to work like a bugger to clear everything. Apparently, clearing the caseload is uber-important, but my health (!) and well being is of even higher iportance. Between that and the sickness interview on Wednesday (take more vitamins, try not to be ill as often)... When the dreaded lurgi atacks me (as it did last year far too many times) I spend at least a week at work while feeling terrible until she forces me to be off sick... and this on the week a study shows that most people go into work when they really should be off ill! Mixed messages for sure...
Still, yesterday was full of incident! Early in the morning we heard a mass of sirens coming our way - a huge convoy (complete with armed police) turned up at the police station and unloaded a prisoner... quite exciting, and we watched them take him away later in the afternoon. Apparently this was a drug trafficker that had been brought back from the Netherlands and then brought here This wasn't all - at one point just before lunch we had a sudden surge of police into our car park. It turned out that a shop lifter had run from the police station and had been seen in our car park. The police dog could smell him, and wanted to go down into the river channel below - the policeman picked the dog up, lifted him over the railing and it went down... and bit the bugger as he hid under the building!
Ah well - the weekend is here... whoop de doo!
Posted by Badgers at 07:26 AM | Comments (6)
January 21, 2004
Something Wrong With The Stopwatch...
So there I was on Tuesday in physio, my leg aching. This was the day that we had a kind of obstacle course - we started with two minutes on each of six exercises. These ranged from keeping a wobble board level (impossible!), stepping up onto a mini-trampoline, walking round a hoop etc. We started and the physio said "half-way there"... odd as about 30 seconds had passed. I was watching a clock on the wall at one end, and another th the side, and while the second clock was 3 minutes fast, I was able to tell that the second minute was in fact, longer. and from then on the two minutes differed by up to 30 seconds... To finish we moved onto another set of exercises on the same equipment, but just for a minute. Guess what? The minutes lasted less as we got to the end of the session. Odd, that...
Ah well. Sunday saw James not turning up, due to working (see his earlier comments, though he did take his Robotech lighters), but apart from a fantastic battle in Shogun: Total War (which I did rather well in - in fact, I won!!! Big time!!!) we discovered 'The Hunt' mode in XIII multiplayer... running round trying to shoot a singing (!) hooded Death was so much fun! Damn good game, too!
James did pop up here on Monday though to pick up his micro-submarine... his latest fixation (besides that one ;-)) is little remote cotrol vehicles - he started last year with mini cars, but is now going into subs, tanks, fire engines... He was really excited too. Disturbing...
A busy week at work, especially today. I was training (well talking with) the Occupational Therapy people at Clitheroe Hospital on what my job is, but was a little late due to being caught behind a tractor pulling another tractor on the road from Gisburn to Clitheroe. Then this afternoon was the dreaded First Stage Absence Interview... This terrible-sounding event was due to me triggering the absence level monitors (due to sickness and finally this bloody ankle!) - 10 days!!! that's almost all the time I have had off this year (including leave!!!) My boss explained how it was a formality etc, and I spent as much time as possible not listening (!). Y'see, the upshot is that to stop the virus hitting me (and so getting on my chest and making me throw-up all the time) I need to take lots of vitamins (I do!!! Any more and I'll rattle!!!) and also try to take more time off... she is worried that I still have three weeks to take off and I can't take it for nearly a month, and won't be able to have any at the end of March due to the reorganisation of Social Services... I have decided to have a week off in the middle of February and then another two weeks later to fit it in and keep her happy...
At least things in Galaxies are going well! If you see a Helise Truefoot (my usual RPG chara name) in either the Bria galaxy (on Tattooine at the moment battling damn froggy Sevorts!), or in the Scylla galaxy (on Naboo trying to get in on the entertainer business!). I just spent a few moments chatting with a marksman who was healing me while I healed him in the medical centre in Mos Entha... loads of XP gained, and purely platonic!
Link Spot:
People who know me know that I like fan-films (I gave the idiots a 9-disc set of Star Wars fan films for Xmas 2002 (mostly from The Force.net) in the Fan films section), and can also recommend Hidden Frontier (but be warned, there are some gay characters and b-stories!). For the classic series fans there is the superb Starship Exeter, but it has a new rival in the form of Star Trek: New Voyages! This series (raising money for the Space Shuttle Children's Trust Fund) continues the original series with a new cast, making a 4th season with Kirk (recast!) and the crew of the USS Enterprise. It seems to have been hit since the relaease at the weekend (1,000,000+ downloads so far!) and isn't bad at all. This episode is the pilot, with another episode due in July... Of course, if you like your Star Trek spoofed, full of swearing, and in Finnish(!) wait for the release of Star Wrek VI - In The Pirkinning which takes the Star Wreck series to a hole new level... and looks like the ultimate battle between Star Trek and Babylon 5 you always wanted! Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2004
AAARRRGGHHH!!! (And That Was *Before* the Physio!)
This week hasn't been too bad, but Thursday saw me getting the runs again (damned pills!) and also starting physiotherapy on my ankle! Standing on a wobbly rubber cushion thingy I was made to stand on my bad leg, pass balls around, toss bean bags into the air... if it wasn't for the nice young physiotherapist who saw me on Tuesday running the class, I'd say that things hadn't changed much in the 12 years or so since my last sessions! My ankle stood up to it well - I can put weight on it but balancing is still a problem - so I got through the exercises without too much hassle, but it hurt for the rest of the day - not surprising as I went straight from physio to see three people before dashing back to Burnley to go to a demo of some software the Social Services and Health staff should be using later this year... And after that my future boss (post-April) nattered to me and my colleagues for ages about stuff too. I really have to get home!
I got home to be given a little bad news which might just affect my financial stability (not to mention mean I can never afford to leave this bloody house!), though hopefully it will not come to that. Sigh. I finally got to see Angel though - stunning! And that was just Fred!!! Ah well.
Today has been a fun day - lots more visits (6 people in one afternoon, starting in Nelson, going through Burnley to Bacup then on to Accrington!) , and a morning of typing up 24 appointment letters, closing 30 cases (oh my current boss will have been so happy this afternoon!) and generally going gently insane.
Now I get home tonight to find that even more money is needed to stave off financial ruin for the parents... plus ca change!
Now James is here to bug me for real, instead of on Messenger!!!
Posted by Badgers at 07:24 PM | Comments (2)
January 13, 2004
Watchya Gonna Do...
...when old men go all Hulkamania on you? Today was interesting. Especially when the last client I saw today was religious and had been in the army and kept saying 'brother' a lot. You know what its like, brother? Wierd... All I could think of was Hulk Hogan (though this chap was quite a long way from being a pro-wrestler, though being in his 90s, not a lot older than Hulk...)
So, what has happened since the last entry? Well, the week at work didn't improve, thats for sure! The weekend was better, as I played Galaxies (I'm getting hooked!) and helped get Christmas stuff back into the loft again. Sunday brought Shogun: Total War at £5 each (though it took two trips - the first time we got one, but then had to return to get more... darn Gamecopy World! the majority of the afternoon was then spent battling with Mongols and Samurai and stuff - it originally came out when we had gone off real-time strategy, but it still stands up today... James should be getting us the sequel, Medieval: Total War this Sunday, if he turns up...
Sunday also saw me waking up early and redesigning the archives pages and making sure that it all worked on the update page... this will hopefully be what I spend most of tomorrow night doing to all the other MT-based pages. Soon I will set to on the pages at RNP, though the rejig over there will be far more extensive! I hope!
Monday saw me going to work, and spending most of it planning appointments for the next month or so around various meetings, demonstrations of new computer systems, etc. By mid-February I will only have 25 of my current workload to deal with. But then there is the next six weeks of new referrals to add on top... I really want out - but something tells me that when the job is disestablished, I won't have to be interviewed for the job, I will probably just get it. Bugger!
Yesterday also saw me nearly knocking a lot of fools over - note to pedestrians - when you see a car coming along the road at the speed limit, and you want to cross the road, wait for it to go by if it is within 10 feet of the kerb where you have suddenly decided to attempt suicide! I can guarentee, no matter how good my brakes are, I won't stop. I might even reverse over you to teach you a lesson! Off course, I also saw a nicely trashed car yesterday afternoon heading up towards Harle Syke - not sure what happened, but it had smahsed into a lampost and the front of the little black car was bent round it! I arrived as the recovery truck was maneuvering to pick it up. Guess his brakes didn't work!
Today (after the dreams - yes - I finally updated the Dream Diary!) was visits again (including the man mentioned above, brother), but the big thing was the physiotherapy assessment. I arrived ahead of time, and watched other people get taken in by the physio therapists, then one nice girl came in, and I thought 'she won't be the one to check out my foot' - but I was wrong! Catherine, a nice brunette (not the one from the dream!) checked out my foot making sure to make it hurt, etc, and then gave me some exercises to do during the day to try and strengthen it (the same ones basically that I have been doing anyway under the desk at work, which explains the faces I sometimes pull!), and booked me in for the ankle class. Twice a week. Oh, my boss will just love that - 9.45-10.20 every Tuesday and Thursday!
Ah well, I got through today, and got home. The I was quickly given tea while Mum prepared to dash over to the meeting at 6.00... rush rush rush! I play a little Galaxies (I can quit whenever I want! I'm not an addict - I can always move onto Knights Of The Old Republic but a session of cold turkey!) then finally, I sit and happily watch Stargate SG-1, and folow it up with the first 20 minutes of Angel's 5th season opener when the parents return from the community meeting across the road and proceed to yell and talk VERY LOUDLY about it, totally buggering up my enjoyment. Now I have to watch it at the weekend in blurry-vision due to everything always being taped in bloody long-play. And with crappy sound (though at least I'll be able to hear what is said...!)
Sigh - I also seem to be being harassed by a certain white Sierra, driven by James' wife - every time I drive round Manchester Road it turns up! Talking of wives, do you think James should have mentioned certain things in his blog? Sadly it ruins the blackmail angle (bah!) but still has wonderful possibilities, though I think he's done it on purpose... full of ulterior motives, that lad! Still, I have recieved something from Bangkok that will keep him happy... a cigarette case with lighter, with a Macross picture on it for which I should get money from Nick/Andrew for...
Thankfully I'm at work tomorrow with the fun of telling my boss about the physiotherapy...! I'm heading off to sleep now - nite-nite!
Posted by Badgers at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2004
Four Days of Work...
..and I wanna go to bed! Between chaos (I get back to find a number of urgent jobs (mostly involving swapping a light bulb or, in one case, turning the damned thing on!) and my ankle, its been fun. Not. :angry
Today wasn't too bad - my ankle aches from the driving, but I was over in my old stomping grounds - Longridge/Clitheroe - and found it to be full of less annoying people than in Burnley. Quelle surprise. :biggrin Rained like a bugger, though, which put a dampner (sorry!) on things! The rest of the week was just plain annoying - if anyone else remarks "you're still limping then?' or 'foot still hurting?' I'll go up to :angry4:angry on them! Well, apart from one person, but my foot doesn't seem to be the thing she's interested in!
I also found out a little bit more about what will happen in my job after April - basically it will be disestablished and I will hopefully not have to be interviewed for the job coming to replace it (as I'll probably blow it intentionally). Troubling times are a coming... no wait - they are already here. Good thing I'm a Grand Master in t'Ecky-Thump! :rofl:rofl
I have also ordered more things on Ebay than should be legal for James - basically if it is remote control and two inches long :biggrin (and worth more in it's packaging) :biggrin I've ordered it and paid from my dwindling Paypal account (the money was going into my bank account to help pay credit cards, etc). Expect him to be writing an entry on little RC tanks, cars, bikes, tanks and submarines... I also bought him 2 Christmas/birthday presents from Nick and Andrew. They will pay me the money (along with the dosh James now owes me!) and I hope to be back in pocket... we shall see!
I also spent some time today planning the future of I.T., Rogue Noid Productions, and other stuff. Basically I will be drawing I.T. as a daily strip retelling the old stories with new ones, while updating them and using them as storyboards for the new animations... and the big RNP revamp will happen in March, as long as nothing terrible happens (in which case it will be sooner!!!) Somehow, this last bit has made me very happy (in fact, as happy as only one other thing briefly mentioned above has).
Ah well - I must be off - I fear James is about to come back online and bug me on Messenger!!! Later, freex!
PS - visit Poets Of The Fall and tell them that they NEED to get a single of Late Goodbye in the shops! Sure, its the track that plays over the credits at the end of Max Payne 2, but it simply rocks! Especially since the Max Payne 2 site doesn't look like it will be hosting the download...:sad
Posted by Badgers at 07:12 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2004
There Goes One Resolution...
Well, Manchester was fun, though again, not enough 2000ADs... I really am going to have to subscrbe this year! I picked up the whole of Farscape Season 3 (and the last set of Season 5) which kept me happy :smile, along with The Goodies ...At Last DVD (which includes Kung Fu Capers, the episode that killed someone (but not by using t'Lancashire martial art of Ecky Thump!)... A few books too, including the half-price Doctor Who - The Legend.
Saturday morning brought an email from James saying he wanted to go out... by 7.00 he rang up after not hearing from Nick by email (Nick had collected some email last year - he doesn't go online often!). Eventually he rang and we were set to go out at 9.00 - a little later for a change! I told him that if I didn't go out now, I probably wouldn't be going out at all this year (see resolutions below) which is, sadly, true - I don't really consider last night a breaking of my resolution though, as it was really the last gasp, and was meant to replace the night out that didn't happen on New Year's Eve!:drunk
So, what what is like? Well, we started at The Swan (where James did quite well on Junkyard), moved to Paradise Island and then (predictably) went to check out Lava. We met a friend who works as a bouncer (sans his lovely wife, sadly!) on the way in who said it was a little 'rough'. Can't say we found it too bad, though some of the women, as usual, were a bit rough (not that such things worry Nick!) but this is Burnley, after all. James enjoyed himself all night (he pulled a few faces at rounds not being bought by him) and we managed to wander round both Lava and Ignite. Ignite upstairs looks good, is loud etc, as you would expect a club for the young ones to be - the music was crap too! Nice lasers though.
Lava downstairs was good though - there is less floor space than when it was The Rock, but the music was the same (old stuff and decent new stuff!), there was still a high ratio of good looking ladies (often half hanging out of whatever they had chosen to almost put on last night) and a good night was had basically. During one me and Nick's wanders, James had a nice lady called Julie (8 months pregnant, though he didn't notice!) who sat down and chatted with him, and us when we returned. A nice girl, who proceeded to tell us about her mad friends - one of which was (I have to say this) just Nick's usual type (man - I wonder - when he goes off to the pub in Colne on Sundays to see his mates from work (including the apparently very nice ladies I wouldn't mind seeing sometime!) can I trust his description of the girls... ah well!) - lets just say she wasn't quite as nice as Julie IMHO... Still, Nick didn't care as he got to dance for ages on the much larger dance floor... Julie couldn't help but be worried for Nick though - she wondered if he was 'slow' due to the constant rictus grin on his face... we explained he was always smiling, but when in the company of the opposite sex the grin became fixed. Terror, I think it is... James expained how he was married (notice he got that in) and explained how Nick was okay with people he knows (he grins like a loon at other times... well, all the time really) and that I was coming out (hey!) of myself... We chatted, had fun, and stuff. Not that kind of stuff, though. :smile
Sadly, the night seemed to pass really quickly (Julie and her friend had to go before 2.00, sadly, in Julie's case (!) as they were meeting someone else, though they are regulars and may be there again (but not, obviously in a month or so's time!)). We took James upstairs and showed him upstairs, by which time there were more young'uns upstairs despite the influx of us oldies from downstairs, than before, and the music had taken a turn for the worse...
So, we headed home (after finding to go out you had to go up to the balcony first in Ignite when Lava had shut) and headed home. Headed home vitually sober - we hadn't drunk much (I had maybe 5 Smirnoff Ices and a J2O which is nothing - this morning I'm tired from not sleeping long, but fine otherwise - even my ankle behaved itself, though I didn't dance (or whatever it is I do) on it. In fact, last night was a good night out - James was interested in making it regular (ie every 6-10 months!), and even I might consider going out a little more often than I planned (maybe in July), especially as the drinks were no badly priced in there (James didn't even whinge once!). I managed to get away with a total spend of £12.50 (including cloak room charge and popping a quid into Junkyard) which worked out well for me. Ah well - if that was my only night out (still possible) it was fun enough. Lots of blackmail opportunities, too... we shall see! :biggrin
One thing I noticed last night was the zombie dance - or that is what I call it. To do it, to have your hands in front of your chest, either near or far, and sort of shuffle/swing from side to side. A little like Ozzy Osbourne when he's trying to get the TV off whatever channel he's got it stuck on today. Popular amongst the girls, and the boys (makes a difference from the male 'sway from side-to-side dance I suppose). Calling out "Braaaiiiiiinnss!!!" is optional.
Right - I'd better be off - things to do and I have to prepare for what should be the final bout of Dungeon Siege this afternoon...
Posted by Badgers at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2004
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! WOO-HOO! Etc.
Well, its been 2004 for 17 hours or so now, and apart from my leg feeling like I went out and danced on it last night (I didn't) things are not going too badly... I've sat down and done the flash menu (and it works!), managed to watch the final episodes of The Office last night before I went to bed early, and generally got on with life!
I know from his email today that James didn't go out (awww!) but I wasn't expecting him to - I couldn't as my leg decided to be a bugger last night (I was in bed by 10.15 and didn't wake up till 6.00 this morning - what a way to start a teetotal year!) I didn't even spend time on Tatooine!
I did however have to spend some of yesterday travelling to my Aunt's house so her husband could get Hornby Virtual Railway 2 working (apparently there is a problem that stops it working on most computers without a patch)... and while he has had the (Time) machine for over a year, he isn't online yet (thankfully) and has trouble finding how to look at the content of CDs with Windows Explorer...
Sigh. All I can say is that so far I haven't broken a single resolution, which has to be good going. Boring going, but good going! Thankfully it is Manchester shopping day tomorrow, and I have lots of vouchers for Waterstones and HMV... I just hope Forbidden Planet has my 2000ADs!!!
Posted by Badgers at 05:08 PM | Comments (7)
December 31, 2003
It's Already 2004 In Some Countries!
While here, the same old bad 2003 is slowly winding its way to it's own demise. And good riddance! Perhaps this year will bring the good stuff... I hope so!
So this year then? Well, personally, it has seen the death of my favourite pet dog (Sadie), and the introduction of another (Sukie, the black pain-in-the-arse whippet) a few months ago. It's seen my job go from too busy to overload, and the solutions (first, stop taking referrals for half the area, second get someone in for a day and a half a week to cover it, then have her finally go off long term sick after a few very short weeks leaving it all in my lap again) just fall apart. Moneywise this year has been tight (I'm sure we all feel the same), with some serious spending necessary for various reasons, though thankfully as the year comes to an end I have plans that mean that next year will be tight still, but end on a much happier financial note. My car got serious repairs to the dents at last (the cause of most of the spending!), and is still going strong (a miracle for me!) and started first time when I went out to clear all the ice off it. Considering how depressed I got this year (not as bad as in previous years - if it had have been, this last blog entry of 2003 would have been simply "Goodbye") things are looking up.
How have your resolutions gone this year? Mine went out the window! I've actually put on weight (14 1/2 stone at the moment - thats the response to the depression, or at least its the response when I didn't have any money!), my plan to go on an actual holiday went out the window (my plans for one this year are going in the same direction, but only as I have plans, and sadly the holiday isn't one of them). My plans for serious world domination via the medium of Flash hasn't happened yet, though thats due to illness (a bad year for me there) and lack of sleep - this will change!
So, as things stand, how are things? For me, I still have a resignation letter typed on the computer at work, waiting for the date to be added as I fear I may well quit the job before the end of '04. I can see an end to my financial worries (credit cards paid and clear by November, the loans well on their way to being paid early). To do this, though, any plans for holidays will be shelved, as will my nights out - it looks like the latter has already started! I fear I may be spending my New Year on Tatooine. And that's as un-christmas as you can get, really... Romance is so out of here too, for obvious reasons!!!
So, this year's resolutions are a little different to last year - I think I can achieve most of them (unlike James, who's yearly" I will quit smoking" resolution is forgotten before he's even made it!). The ones I'm willing to share are:
1 - Pay off as much of my credit as possible by any means possible (even by having a PayPal button on the site!) - currently this looks possible, but no more nights out for a year, except in very exceptional circumstances (but that won't happen!)
2 - Be teetotal all year - not difficult if I'm not going out, and as long as I steer away from tea as it makes me puke! I may have to cut back on the fruit juices too...
3 - ...As my third is to get this weight off and keep it off! Assuming my leg ever gets right (and they find the bone/whatever that is causing me so many problems) I will be able to get back to regular exercises (something I haven't been able to do for one reason or another in nearly a year). My goal is 12 1/2 stone, though due to a sudden previous weight loss I know I can manage 11 1/2 without feeling too ill all the time... We shall see...
4 - Get down to the Flash, site stuff, etc... I know I can do this - I can even try to get work on an even keel too... I'll need to if I'm quitting!
5 - Win the Lottery :rofl
There are a couple of others, but they are a secret! One of thenm kinda buggers up a couple iof the others above, but it is more than likely the one that will be broken first... sigh.
So - thats pretty much me wrapped up for the year - I'll see you next year for more of the same, only better, I hope!
:biggrinHappy New Year!:biggrin
Posted by Badgers at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
December 29, 2003
It's Nearly Next Year!
Just a couple of days to go, and things are not going too badly... I've posted off the 5600 card to the lucky buyer, and James is pestering me about presents - he has found some lighters that the other idiots can get him - Robotech or some such - so I've put a bid in and the others can give me the money once they arrive - that should help!
Not a lot has happened in the past few days since the last update, apart from more Dungeon Siegeing on Sunday. Let me tell you, Andrew worries me - he gets really excited about guns, and almost as bad when he picks up a Great Sword Of Badger (+10 to Health, +20% to Hit, +100 to Geek) in this game... sigh! Still, I have been playing Star Wars Galaxies, and I'm finding it a far better game than the Beta was - it's playable! And interesting! And full of life (and in one corner, some netsexing, but what do you expect in a glorified chatroom?!? :kiss:kiss)
Hmm - tomorrow I think I may take myself to Manchester a few days earlier to spend before my New Year's deadline approaches! Talking of New Year, I have my resolutions ready, and all are achievable (though two of them will no doubt make me an unhappy person for the next 12 months, if not the rest of my life, and one will piss James and Nick off no end, but it has to be done - it may even have already started, considering my current plans for the 31st... sigh) so we shall see - I may even put them online where you can all see them this year!
Oh - I decided not to bother with the roundup of the year - I have too much to go through, though I will go through my most significant things this year (bye bye Sadie, old girl :sad) in the main entry on the 31st.
Linkzone!
Babylon 5 fans rejoice! :biggrin Thanks to James I have good news for those who got grumpy that Babylon 5: Into The Fire was canned by Sierra... though the project may end with the Prologue, sadly. I've Found Her is a space combat sim set in the B5 universe, and looks great - I have played it, and found it to be interesting (though I had to stop when James Messengered me which buggers stuff up and I lost my hyperspace beacon... d'oh!). Well presented and free (!!!) you can download the game (220mb) and the covers for cases too! Nip over to ifh.firstones.com to pick it up!
Posted by Badgers at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2003
No More Arguments, Which Was Nice...
Dad settled down once I'd set up the printer/scanner on his computer, so no more arguments. And amazingly, the 'Boney Fondler' (see previous entries!) wasn't mine! It was for him. Thankfully.
The afternoon was spent with him slobbing in his chair (he has to work tonight) and watching The Man Who Sued God, then beating some buggers in Beyond Good And Evil on the PC, and finally getting to watch X-Men 2...
So far, then, not too bad - better than usual in fact. Lets hope yours went half as well!
Posted by Badgers at 10:39 PM | Comments (1)
Christmas Argument Count = 3 (And Counting)...
And its barely even midday yet... The Christmas trees have finally been decorated, I came down at 3am to put the presents down. This morning began with an argument over extension cords (this after the argument last night about the bloody outdoor rope light things he wanted round the fireplace), continued with another one I just heard as I was dragging boxes upstairs once the decorations had been taken out, and the final one when they finally got round to opening the presents... I don't know if the 'Skeletal Fondler of Olde London Towne' is mine as it hasn't been given to me - I came upstairs to watch Sophie Ellis Bextors' video for Won't Change You (:biggrin) when he started getting angry about the Lexmark scanner/printer. - but he just came up to say sorry. I should think so too! He deserves something, then gets pissy about it when he gets it...
Perhaps next year Santa can get me adopted?:rofl More to come on this, I fear! Ah well, Merry Christmas to everyone else, anyway!
Posted by Badgers at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2003
'Twas The Night Before Christmas...
Well, that was fun!!! More shopping, aching ankles and all! Only a few more days until next year...
After being forced into having Friday off I hoped that the weekend would be restful, and it was for a change - I hardly had to go in the loft more than twice, and carrying the computer to Nick's wasn't as painful as I'd thought it would be...:lol James convinced me to try and go out for New Year's Eve ('or he'll carry me himself'), but ran into some difficulties himself - we expected him to arrive on Sunday for a pop-in, but he stayed ages as we were playing the new Dungeon Siege till 8.00... ulp! Andrew loved his present ("Is it a sniper rifle?" he asked, his eyes lighting up with real joy when, yes, he got a toy sniper rifle!!! He has a sniper manual coming next Sunday as it just arrived too!) , and Nick of course loves the Love Kylie lingerie poster (and he will love the Kylie presentation thing I got him too, but it only arrived this morning, and I decided to pop it in a nicer frame). Nick, showing his usual level of ability bought Andrew Star Wars Galaxies (he's had the US version for months!) and me Max Payne 2 (also played and finished ages ago) so we swapped - I hope to try the newly bug-fixed (!) Galaxies in the New Year (for at least a month!!!). James didnt get anything except a set of Crow tattoos and an airbrushed Crow t-shirt that he is in love with (not surprising - it's superb!). As usual, they can't think what to get me (last christmas (I gave you my heart) I asked Andrew to get me Spaced Season 1/2 at 9.99 each from a shop in town where the DVDs were on offer... I'm still waiting!) or James (the man who has everything, but never takes it out of the box as it will be worth more)... :rofl
So, Monday I went to work and I found my boss not talking or looking at me, except for a brief glance when I came in (she is pissed I think, that I didn't have the past two days off) I waited for her to go downstairs to have a smoke, then prinyted off as diary sheet of the people I was going out to see (5 people each day, returning to spend an hour or more on the paperwork and send letters to people I want to go out to see in the fortnight after Christmas!) with my leg (which was a bugger on Monday). She finally spoke to me at 4.00 on Tueday, to say happy Christmas (and give me a box of Quality street chocolates - gah!) and hope I was going to rest my leg - she also advocates going out on New Years... I really hope my leg feels better by then... but then there may be a problem anyway...
Y'see, James was going to pop up after he'd sorted out whatever problem his cousin had in his PC this time, and pick up a couple of Gamecube games for his daughter to try... excpet his car didn't want to start - if it is expensive (or even costs any money at all) it means that he won't be going out on New Years, and I won't (heck, can't) go out without someone I trust to hold me up when either the alcohol hits or my leg gives out! Ah well - we shall see!
Talking about New Year, I will hopefully go through the main areas of the site (Blog, etc) doing a look back over the year, ahead of the revamp (which is coming!), looking at what happened, what was planned but didn't, what I hope will happen, etc... I may even put in a few things I haven't mentioned previously, like the significant look :kiss I got as I limped home yesterday (not from my boss!)... (that should set James going, and get him going out even if he's broke and the car is too!)
Back to the blog! Today I went into town with mum for her to do that last minute shopping (I got the frame, as mentioned above) and then came back to go to Kwiksave. She popped into the shop round the corner where she gets all her Myth & Magic stuff (and where dad has started to get lots of skulls, skeletons, etc - he's becoming a closet Goth!:biggrin). She pointed out a little statue of a girl being, um :blush, fondled, by a skeleton... I went outside as she was trying to get me something - guess what - she came out with a box under her arm. I wonder why they never have any money! I think she believes that I don't know she got it (her whispering as I went out was a little too loud!), probably in the same way I believe she hasn't tried to get a sneak peek at the Printer/scanner and DVDs I have gotten them... here was a nice demon with the wings holding a mirror, but I think that will now be coming for my birthday in March! :biggrin
One good thing is that I have managed to sell the Manchester United signed shirt for Barbara (she will be pleased) and also the Geforce 5600 card I put up on Monday night! The Radeon 9600 Pro I was going to sell is now going to Nick (for $$$, but not as much as I could have got on eBay), so I have some money coming my way!
Sigh. So, Christmas is finally happening - Mum is downstairs popping up a few lst bits in the hallway, we will finally get the trees up tonight (!) and hpoefully dad will get his bloody lights around the window. Can you believe they put them up, then went to check if the set worked (it didn't)?
Oh - link time! For New Year, if you are stuck at home, go here to watch the time tick by... www.humanclock.com - madness, but fun! And for general madness (and a scary look at what I'd love this site to become(!), visit, wander over to Something Awful ,but beware - naughty words and slight anti-hosexual attitudes ahoy (James should fit right in!). And if you think your Christmas decorations are a little over the top, try here and links to a site where you can turn on and off the lights at a guy's house...
PS - Well done to Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for totally buggering up the Christmas Number One spot! We all expected the usual mushy, crappy Christmas song, but the masterpiece that is Mad World gets it! There IS a God (possibly, though I still don't believe, to tell the truth!)
Posted by Badgers at 06:12 PM | Comments (3)
December 19, 2003
'Tis The Season To Go Shopping Tra-lalalala La-la-la-la
Its been one of those weeks, generally, and today hasn't been a bundle of laughs either...
As you know, I had a heavily swollen ankle last week - it hasn't gotten much better. On returning to work my boss made me cancel as many appointments as possible so I had to stay in the office. Not too bad an idea, but it does mean I have now got 50+ people to see, not including the new referrals and the 40 or so I have now inherited from Hyndburn and Ribble Valley! Y'see, the lady who was doing it for a day and a half a week has been off sick, and now won't be back - but if we just stick the people she had made appointments for back in the pile, we'd have complaints, so... I also had to miss what was going to be my Christmas meal as I couldn't get to the meeting at Lancaster (the boss again), and had to sit waiting for her to be ready for my supervision (a bi-monthly event where she maons at me about the stuff I have done wrong or not got round to due to being so bloody busy!). That wouldn't have been so bad, except between my ankle (more on this in a moment) and the fact I was by 4pm going green about the gills, the supervision didn't happen - and she moaned at me on Thursday about it! And I overheard her talking about me to someone on the phone, telling them that 'I really shouldn't be at work, and she was worried about me'! All this because I still have a swollen ankle, limp a lot and according to the x-ray I had done last week, it loks like I have arthritis in the ankle (to be expected due to the fall years ago) AND a rogue object, either bone or gristle (they were not sure which, or even if there is something definitely there) wandering around in my foot, which is probably the cause of all this. I now have to got to physiotherapy AND have at least an exploratory operation on the damned foot. Oh happy day.
And yesterday I was virtually ordered to take today off as leave, along with the next two weeks. To spite them, I had today off (oh how I wish I hadn't) and will be working next week up to Christmas Eve (lots of people getting visits to make up for having to cancel so many appointments this last few weeks!)
At home things were not much better - I had loads of problems with the computer, so I decided to reformat a little earlier than planned, then had lots of problems with my Radeon 9600 Pro... All is now sorted due to a little purchase (a 9800 Pro which may be the best I have made in ages!) and the latest (surprisingly) stable Catalyst Drivers... I also had to buy something expensive for Mum & Dad for Xmas due to some serious problems they are having on their machine (the scanner will scan, but when you print, the scanner can't use the parallel port... grrrr!). They will kill me (especially as it is on top of all the other gifts I have got them) but who cares?
Presents - luckily I only have a few people to buy for (sniff!) so I decided to spend just £20 on each of them - this went well, though I am still waiting for some of the stuff to arrive... looks like everyone else will get half their present now, and the other for New Year!
Oh yeah, new Year... My plan was to be going out to have a storming good New Year but due to my ankle this is not going to be possible - I know James wants to go out just to get out of the house, but sadly he will be without me and Nick will be with his mates from work in Colne. And Andrew will celebrate New Year by playing Galaxies. As usual. I'm just glad he didn't get into Everquest... though with the sequel coming out this year, we may never see him again!
Now, shopping... I had to go with them as I had to pay for the shopping today - maybe its my leg, but I really hated it! first the usual half-hour performance of getting everything ready and going in and out the house... then the drive there with dad driving in first gear untill the engine screams then doing the same in second... then I got mum amazed how people panic buy 'cos Christmas is just around the corner and the shops will be closed for a day (or less in some cases)... she then proceeds to buy lots of stuff! And so as to save on doubling back on herself and to save my foot, she'll go this way down this aisle then up that one... but still managed to double back on herself all the time, dragging me limping and pushing the trolley after her...
All this, and the Christmas decorations are not up yet... in fact they are still up in the loft! I have a feeling that this weekend will seee a sudden mad rush to get everything up (not that I'd bother personally!), which means I'll be lucky if I can walk!
Hmm. So, no New Years stuff for me, which is annoying as I won't be going out next year (just putting up notice ahead of time so certain people don't whinge) due to financial plans, so I'll see about getting back to doing the I.T. stuff, and redesigning both Badgers and Rogue Noid Productions... as its something to do! And yes, that's despite my 9.2 (!) score in the Hot or Not Experiment I conducted this week... ah well - I now need to come up with some doable (and some challenging) resolutions... wish me luck!
Happy Shopping, guys!
Posted by Badgers at 06:16 PM | Comments (3)
December 10, 2003
Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow OW OOOWWW!!!
Not a great week so far, the highpoint being finishing Call Of Duty...
Saturday, of course, meant Christmas shopping in Manchester and I managed to get the DVDs and stuff for mum & dad to enjoy themselves with (though they'l kill me) along with the extended Two Towers, Babylon 5 S3 and a half-price Monty Python Autobiography for myself. I was unhappy as in the past month I couldn't find copies of 2000AD progs 1365/6 anywhere and there were none at Forbidden Planet either - did these make it to the North West? Sigh. I completed my collection of Strangers In Paradise collections though, which made up for it!
Sunday of course didn't happen (ie the idiots didn't get together as usual due to Nick being in Wales), and I enjoyed getting the room tidied over the weekend - James brought up a few games and I was very unimpressed by the way Deus Ex 2 ran... especially considering the basic engine it used. Disturbing considering how well Max Payne 2, Halo, KOTOR, and pretty much eveything else does. Ah well - life is full of disappointments!
In fact, disappointments all round this week - I have had one day at work on Monday, which wasn't too bad - I got some stuff done, bought a nice leather jackety-thing for going out this weekend, and found that when I got home, my ankle hurt. Not too much, but this was to change - by the time I went to bed it hurt a lot. And I was woken up by it at nearly 1am when I found I couldn't bear to have the bedclothes on it - probably because it had swollen up like a football! A sleepless night followed, and I had to cry off going into work as I just couldn't walk - I managed to get up to the doctors and it looks like my old friend the tendon has managed to do something again - the doctor feels it is a chronic tendon strain aggravated by the fact that I tore it 10 years ago - and sent me for an x-ray, just in case I did break something two months ago when I fell over the ladders on the stairs. Luckily, the pain has subsided and the swelling has gone down enough to limp painfully around, but I'm taking this week off as there is no way I can do my job properly - it even hurts to sit here typing this! I may have to go in for a meeting tomorrow afternoon, though... oh happy day... What gets my goat and stuffs it in the back of the car is that I didn't do anything to make it do this!!! :angry
Also, this past week saw one of Mum & Dad's tree frogs having problems - they thought it had broken a leg, but I looked and saw it was swollen with fluid - I checked online to find it was dropsy - a build up of fluid in the tissues - it could sometimes be dealt with like a blister, but in the end it wasn't needed as the poor thing's knee burst and the fluid drained out itself, although it left it with a nasty wound that the vet superglued together. Unfortunately, with dropsy the frogs don't tend to live long, though some do make a recovery. This frog was not to be one of the lucky ones as despite moving and being much more lively yesterday, it finally died overnight.
In other news I think James may be blanking me for a couple of reasons - firstly the obvious - our half-planned going out this weekend would have to be without me as I can't walk properly due to the ankle (though after a night out, this wouldn't be unsurprising, though due to a different cause! :drunk:drunk:drunk) and he had set his heart on it. I know he and Nick could go out together (so to speak) but I know full well they won't. And he'll blame me. As it is, he blames me for ordering a book he asked me to get while on Messenger a few nights ago! He asks me to get it, I go to Amazon and do it - let him know its done. He then asks me how much it is - then complains that I shouldn't have done it while his wife was standing behind him. Someone is a muppet, and it isn't me... still, I think she clouted him round the head a few times, so thats okay, really! I mean, he doesn't tell me she's there, he asks me the price while she is there, and he has the gall to moan at me! All for £3.75 - I ask you... I doubt I'll be seeing him over Christmas then...! Remember the Alton Towers debacle? I can't wait to see his review of the new clubs in town!:biggrin
Ah well - lets end with a smooth link - a quicky review of the Battlestar Galactica remake! It looks good (great FX, but the ribbed Galactica is a little... phallic, though I suppose it goes well with the sex that goes on in the show!) The best thing to say is that it *isn't* Battlestar Galactica, though the Vipers and the robo-Cylons are definitely cool. I'll reserve judgement till I see the second episode - it may get a series commitment or not depending on how Sci Fi Channel US feel (I'm still hoping for official confirmation of the semi-official Farscape miniseries announcement), though viewing figures on the first episode are said to be very high indeed... we shall see! Its certainly a darker and more adult BSG...
And for more SF stuff, go to 5yearmission.com and USS Intrepid for new Star Trek fan films - one is a British ST fanfilm, a the other is the start of an interesting new series following on from season 3 of TOS... And of course don't forget Starhip Exeter and Hidden Frontier! Tell them I sent you!
And so, I'll catch you later - I hope to do a few updates while I'm off this week - gotta read them all!
Posted by Badgers at 01:33 PM | Comments (3)
December 05, 2003
Happy Christmas!
Not really, of course, but unlike all the shops and lots of houses locally, I at least waited until December to type it!
So, what has happened this week then? No biggies, though I got a little close to being killed earlier in the week when a car decided it wanted to be in my lane to go on the motorway, then decided against it and swerved back out of the lane just as it became the motorway... Muppet!
Work-wise things have been okay despite the woman who does the other half of the area (1 day a week) being off ill and me getting it in the ear from two people I spoke to earlier in the week (to say she was off ill) grumping that she hadn't been. This job would be sooo much better without people! Or Universal Aids Ltd:angry. After asking the old lady to move furniture etc herself now I find they didn't fit something in one place, fitted something else instead of what I asked to fitted in another (a doorbell instead of a loop system - not a lot of difference I suppose!) and fitted a large number of items without setting the sensitivity knob so the doorbell lights flash when the TV is on. Or someone speaks. Or any sound at all. I think they want out of the contract... still, they have to send an engineer out to two of the people with flashing lights that keep flashing... all the way from Stockport just to twiddle a knob in Burnley... heheheh!
James is also a bit miffed that I can get eagles (1 under par) in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004... I've been playing it since I reformatted the PC and its really good - you get a great sense of acheivement out of winning things - something James wouldn't understand as he just gives it a good whack in the general direction of the hole! (I which I had a smiley with a sticking out tongue!). Course, I might be crap against them, but who cares!
Other news is that I have 'reviews' of Lava-Ignite from people who have been there - very posh and flashy, apparently, and it should be a good night out. Of course, I'll wait for more people to have gone first, and then go myself - and as for it being flashy and posh, we'll see how it survives having copious amounts of blood splattered around (this is Burnley, after all!)
Oh - one thing to note is that this coming week I'm selling a Manchester United shirt on eBay, signed by the team 2002-3, including someone called Beckham, so if anyone wants to bid for it, do so... its not mine, I'm selling as an agent. So I want enough to get a nice commission so I can afford to go out!!!
Posted by Badgers at 06:09 PM | Comments (3)
November 28, 2003
I Hate Drivers!
I tried to update the drivers for my Radeon 9600 as I wondered if it might cure the non-shiny Sith in Knights Of The Old Republic, but it sent the PC :angrydoolally:angry, and the only way to get back was to reformat the main drive... and guess what? The drivers still won't install on an empty PC... Ah well - all is fine now, but not up to date - works though!
This week has been busy at work, and busy at nigt since Wednesday working on getting Ayumi back up and running, and I had to redo a Powerpoint presentation I was giving at Burnley Football Club today... yes, I say the hallowed ground, so to speak... very nice. The presentation (to Burnley & Padiham Housing) went well, and may well lead to something...
Not a week full of interesting stuff, though, sadly - I've had a number of long and serial dreams, but they escaped as I woke up and while I know they were good, and long, I have no idea what they were about, which is a shame. I do remember a dream which had me going to work and finding Barbara (the social worker who sits opposite) off and my boss away in the morning and went in to find that that was just what had happened... but thats hardly evidence of psychic ability!
Oh - I had more training with the woman doing the other side of the area, and she had 5 people to see at the Hyndburn Centre, one every 45 minutes. Not impossible, though she has a tendancy to natter. She didn't, surprisingly, nag much, though she was very tempted to rush off to lunch when the 12.30 appointment hadn't arrived by 12.25... and she was almost out of the door (literally) when the last lady arrived 2.20 for her 2.00 (she had got lost in the one-way system) and nearly shoved the poor woman out of the door at 3.00! And she committed the ultimate sin as she got some toast and a cup of coffee delivered from the kitchen...:biggrin
Other work stuff included a couple of problems - one a social worker getting uppity at my boss about something that I had done ages ago ( called to see what had been 'left in the middle of the floor' but found the poor man had no idea... The second thing was not of my dong - an engineer from a company that fits lop systems turned up late and expected the 84 year-old woman to move the furniture and carpet. Expect a BIG complaint going in to them from me...
Oh - just watching the new-look Top Of The Pops - it seems better - new stuff, stuff that isn't in the charts (yet), and a lot of performing live (I hope Nick didn't miss Kylie singing After Dark...:wink Of course, a new look and a further hour on BBC won't help the quality of the music in the charts! At least there hasn't been any Atomic Kitten yet... (note the word 'yet'!) But there is Westlife - singing live this time - and again, only one seems to have any passion when he sings Mandy... I think one is too busy watching the loveley lady hanging from the studio ceiling doing a routine on those hanging drape things...
By the way, I feel a rant coming on about cover versions...
Ah well - good luck to James who, like me, has had to reformat... there may be an entry from him later as he asked about the login for the server...
Posted by Badgers at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2003
Happy Birthday Doctor/Nick!!!
Well, what else can I call this entry? Last night, due to various pressures, Nick and I went out for a change. Those pressures included an annoying week at work, feeling ill for half the week, Nick's birthday and a certain Anniversary!:biggrin
I won't go into the week, but lets just say that it was annoying (two things I thought finished with ages ago came back to stress me out), and I had to be off on Wednesday as for some reason I didn't get much sleep on Tuesday night and woke up after a couple of hours (if I was lucky) shaking and dizzy - I haven't felt so shaky in years).:sad
The best thing (apart from getting in the car to come home on Friday night!) was getting my bluetooth adaptor (for wi-fi connection to my iPaq) and a firewire case for a HDD I had to take out of Kyoko, my second computer. Why? Because mum and Dad's PC was buggering about, they wanted me to put memory and stuff in from another old PC they have that doesn't work, but it wouldn't work properly, so I decided to sacrifice Kyoko and let them have her (giving them the fast modern PC they want but without paying anything).:sad
So after that kind of week, I wanted to go out, and luckily Nick did (it being his birthday), James wanted to go out (see his blog page) and apparently according to Nick later in the evening, Andrew said he would come (we were watching for pigs going by the window). In the end, it was just me and Nick though as the world wasn't about to end (and that wouldn't pull Andy away from Star Wars Galaxies anyway), in an email I just heard that James couldn't come because his broadband connection went down for a couple of hours... are those two wedded to their PCs or what?
It was a good, if slightly quiet night, probably due to the fact that England didn't lose in the Rubgy yesterday in Oz...! Whoo-hoo!!! Lots of nice girls out (naturally, and some not so natural, if you catch my drift!) I dropped of Nick's card and Kylie calendar and we headed for The Swan, which had lost the Simpsons table and picked up a Junkyard pintable! My second or third (well in the top five) table! Somehow I didn't do as well as normal on the table, though during one game a cover from a light fell off and blocked the drain. leading to balls getting stuck on our last credit... I didn't do anything, I swear!:wink
We then moved onto Walkabout which was fun (espicially two rather incredible ladies (girls really!) dancing (and the rest) on the small dancefloor - it made an old man VERY happy! Me too... Be warned though - the bacardi and coke was in face a bacardi and pepsi. not a bad thing, I suppose - later at Paradise Island it was pepsi too, but at least it didn't taste just of pepsi with no bacardi in there! Sigh. Paradise Island was it's usual busy place - some very nice totty in there and lost of nice views down from the balcony! No live band, but the DJs were having fun so it was another good night (though it buggered my ankle - I danced very briefly with a nice girl (who looked great with her belly button showing, slit pant legs, etc, but somehow looked even sexier with a jumper over it at one point - okay, I'm a pervert as I prefer to see girls with clothes on (as I like to guess what was underneath - of course I knew with this girl!!!):biggrin
Anyway - flyers were being given out for Lava-Ignite which is set for a 5.12.03 opening. Some work was going on there during the night, but not as much as at the church being converted into XS - it's a shell, and it's still due to open in November... looks like a race is going on! Still, reading the flyer, it looks like the music isn't changing - still 60's- present downstairs, which is good as it was one of the big draws to the club. It'll be good to have it back, as long as it isn't too expensive for James to afford a round (:winksponging git!:wink)
Oh - one thing - it was a cold night (the frost was well set in on the way home) and Nick of course went out in a shirt. I went out in a shirt and fleece (and pants - I don't want to be picked up for indecency!). I have one question - how do fleeces know when to keep you warm and when to keep you cool? I didn't take it off all night!
So, Happy Birthday Nick (he couldn't decide if it was his 21st or his 25... lets face it, it was his 34th!!!)
And Happy 40th Anniversary Doctor - here's to another 40 years!
Posted by Badgers at 09:06 AM | Comments (5)
November 17, 2003
CRASH! BANG! WOLLOP!
Well, Saturday flew by, as did much of Sunday! I watched Finding Nemo (excellent movie, Pixar!), and Sunday morning I forced myself to watch Peter Kay Live At The Bolton Albert Halls, which was a mistake considering I had to watch the whole thing again (apart from the start of the video recorder jokes) at Nicks! Yes - an hour and a half of Andrew and Nick not shooting! Pigs did fly past the window, actually!
Of course, things were not all hunky dory... I got my huge case out of the back of Andrew's Polo and sat it on the front seat while I got my bag of stuff out... and it decided to fall out onto the floor, making a loud clang! noise...:sad I picked it up and something was moving... at Nick's I found my Coolermaster Aero7 had come off! I got it back on after nearly breaking a finger and the PC started making a siren-like noise (no doubt James could tell me what it was, but as he is in a mood again (see his blog!) I won't ask... I put the fan back on, checked the cables, etc... wait - actually, I didn't put the fan on, Nick did. First try. Well, nearly! He kept missing putting one end of the clip on the processor mount, but once he did he popped it on like a good 'un. Of course, Me and Andrew sat well back, just in case... I turned it on though, and all was well again! The ease of which he popped the heatsink etc in place is probably down to the fact that his PC has a huge Zalman Flower cooler and it is a complete bugger to put on - practice makes perfect, y'see! I think Jamius has just lost his alpha-male position to Nick, at least as far as computers go!
James, of course, didn't make it due to computer problems (other people's natch), but may pop up tonight, we shall see. I'll just messenger him to leave him the message now...
In other news, I recommend PPC owners to get Pocket C64, which is a wonderful little emulator for my favourite computer ever... I even managed to get a version of the classic Kennedy Approach to run on it, which makes me happy - a great game to play when sitting in the car in the rain at lunchtimes!:biggrin
Today though was'nt too bad for a work day - my boss returned from a few days off, I got to do some work (for a change) on a presentation I'm giving in a few weeks, and even got to buy some new shirts and stuff from Matalan... hey, I can't afford decent stuff yet! Ah well - things can only get worse from now on... as I told James! :biggrin
Oh, and as I now have an ankle that isn't too bad, I can start my exercise and diet regime... no, it's not the Watkins diet, and I won't be blabbing about it in this blog every time... unless I hit my targets, of course...
Finally, Nick's birthday is coming up, and I think a night out is in order... and of course, this Sunday is the 40th Anniversary of a certain Time Lord. I wonder Who...?
Posted by Badgers at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2003
Another Week Done And Dusted!
Well, nearly - I'm at work at the moment but I have a meeting in half an hour, so I may be asleep pretty soon...:yawn
Lets see... Sunday was fun as usual - Call of Duty in multiplayer (especially the Behind Enemy Lines tag mode) seems to be taking up all our time (no Tiger Woods for a while then!), and James may be getting a little indignant that he gets all these games for no recognition... sorry James, no snog - you ain't my type - you'll have to make do with the usual 'thanks'!
The rest of this week has not, in fact, seen me on the computer at home, largely as I've spent almost all day everyday this week on one at work! Looks like everyone, even Nick, will finish COD before me! I've spent most evenings asleep... and after dealing with showing the new woman that will be covering the other half of the area the computer system (she got it in the end, I think, about 4.30 yesterday, but will have forgotten it for next week, especially after the excitement of her doing two visits with me in the background) I've been too knackered and cheesed off.
The week has had some nice stuff in it, though... or funny at least! There has been a van going round with a huge Tescos is Open! sign on the side, and the local Asda has responded, so there has been little war going on with the Tesco one driving past Asda, and the Asda one parked in front of Tesco. Also, I came to the top of Harle Syke and had to giggle as the Tesco van was waiting to go right down the hill, while the double decker bus was waiting to turn right onto that road. Not a problem, you think? Well, since that crossroads is very narrow being made of the old country roads up there, the bus couldn't go round, and was getting unhappy. The Tesco van wouldn't go back, and then when he capitulated (big word) he had lots of cars behind him, so he couldn't go back easily... They did move back a little, though one idiot got out of the passenger side of the car just as the driver reversed like a complete idiot! Chaos! Fun! :rofl Oh - just heard that the new 24hrs Tesco across the way has lost some letters from the large standing signs on the roof... obviously they didn't realise that it is windy in Burnley... and as the signs are just above the height of the canal towpath behind... which is a great place to put large 20ft signs up! Or maybe it was Asda sabotage?!?:biggrin
Other news is that On Saturday while coming back from Manchester (leg aching, and then made worse by having to go into the loft and then deal with the dogs all night while the parents looked after the community fireworks party across the road) I spotted a banner on the side of a couple of the pubs in the town centre announcing that XS would be opening soon. I assumed that this was what was going into the Rock/Works complex, but it seems I was wrong. That site suddenly put up a big banner saying that December would see the opening of Lava and Ignite which looking at the (no doubt not quite like the final club!) renders here, could be quite nice. James thinks XS (hopefully not he same as Club XS, which is just what we need in Burnley, another gay bar!) may be opening in the old church across from Lava/Ignite (possible, but a lot of work will be needed) or in what was (may still be) Afterlife (Heaven & Hell as was, amongst other names!), by the bus station. This club, in all it's various names, of course, is famous for having the horned statue of Moses in front of it... I recently discovered that while it sounds daft to have a statue like that, it is based on a statue by Michelangelo which also has horns... as apparently some reports of Moses state that he had horns on his head... but this is apparently due to a mistranslation from Hebrew - and you thought this site wasn't educational! There are of course some people who have a condition whch does mean you grow some sort of horny protruberence... strange, but true!
Ah well - nights out may get interesting with all this choice (but do we need more clubs here? Discuss.)
I also watched this week's Property Ladder on Channel 4, and laughed my arse off as the guy doing it (who it has to be said, bore a striking resemblance to Nick) had a great idea to turn a house into a flat. For bachelors. Rich bachelors. Poor old Sarah Beeny agreed that opening up the main flat by removing the walls was a good idea, doing stuff in the loft space was okay, and other ideas were fine. His idea of adding the huge plasma screen TV and hi-fi were not (the rich bachelor would buy those themselves, after all). He of course, was a prat! He took the walls down, started putting up girders for the loft conversion, etc, but completely forgot about such things as neighbours and the all-important party wall agreements... delays, mucho overspending (including bribes to the neighbours, £10,000 for the kitchen :blush, and more) and a flood that totally wrecked the flat below meant it was a real Laurel and Hardy job... he hd to sell his sports car (awwww!) and even rent his house out (and take out mortgages, loans, etc) to afford it all. Bought for £195K (!), he hoped to sell for the very highest estimate of £320K. I think he would be lucky to get £250K (considering the area in Battersea) and was likely to make less profit that a team on Bargain Hunt... needless to say, it hadn't sold by the time the show was broadcast... The whole show was worth it for two things - the guy saying he had learned, and though he would still go on to develop another property (OMFG!) he wouldn't fo it like this... and the look on Sarah Beeny's face when he said he would have it ready to show the estate agents by Wednesday (5 days off, and with the walls needing doing, the carpets, the stairs... the everything really!). Well, three things - the estate agent that looked at the windows (the one area the guy wanted to save money in) and said "Ah, UPVC..." was funny too!
Here's some simple advice - if you are a foolish person developing property for the first time after quitting your day job, remember that if you budget £3,000 for the (totally unnecessary!) TV/Stereo system etc, don't spend double that (prat), and £10,000 on that kitchen?!? And when told that the UPVC windows are crap and that the house is in a conservation area so proper sash windows would raise the selling price, don't pick that area to save on by doing nothing. :rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl A message to Nick - DO NOT GO INTO PROPERTY DEVELOPING! I think that idiot only went into it to meet Sarah Beeny... and for Nick that would be cause enough too! :wink
Finally - if you have a Pocket PC and liked Wing Commander, check out Anthelion from PDAMill - a stunning 3D space combat game - no trading (get the PPC version of Elite for that!) so it isn't quite Freelancer, but still excellent.
There, James - that should make up for the lack of updates!
Posted by Badgers at 10:53 AM | Comments (1)
November 05, 2003
Bonfire Night Is Here...
...and of course, this is just the middle of the biggest firework festival this side of Chinese New Year... This weekend sees the local Community Action Group holding their firework party in the park across the road... That'll be fun - I'll have at least two terrified dogs, one that barks a lot at fireworks, another that is too damn lazy to do anything, and one that doesn't know to be scared.
Ah well. Back to the blog, enough advertising! This week hasn't been too bad, excpet for metings every day, and today I went to one visit that would have took 1/2 hour tops, except I had to look at their alarm system (don't ask - I think I have to get the alarm company to come to fit a flashing light inside so the people know it is going off (as they are deaf)). I did get my car back tonight, thankfully - they finally called from the garage yesterday to tell me about the MOT (after I called them 4 times on Friday...). Still, she is finished, and it cost a little (like a little!) less than I had feared... luckily some of the work was done under warranty. She now accelerates, has a few less bumps, and even a nice new rear wiper blade. And is street-legal again, with MOT and Tax...
I've spent some time playing Call Of Duty (Medal Of Honour to the max, basically) and finally tonight I've gotten to see a week's worth of decent flash over at Newgrounds... Lots of good stuff turned up, including a new Doctor Shroud adventure, More You ARe A F*cking Moron (Dubya at last!!!), Megaman Titanium Rhapsody (classic!) lots of halloween stuff, a new animation from INA studios and the Arfenhouse-style :/theintriguingmovietitle... Hmm - I have to get back into Flash (yes, James, I will try the MX you got me this weekend!) to get ...Ish and Butterfly online for the end of the year (no rush!), and then hit I.T. like a mad bugger... Maybe I need some more of those little pills that make you get all de-stressed and happy... or valium. need to get chilled before I can do anything... notice how I didn't mention my job today? Or my ankle?!?
Ah well - I know there is a night out in the offing sometime in the not too distant future (before 2008?), and the night-in (which will no doubt be spoiled by Doof having to go to a LAN party that night)...
By the way - Tesco opened their new open 24 Hours/On stilts (really!) store in Burnley this week, but I'm confused (this will go into the OOPS pages when I get round to them again!) - the sign says open 24 hours, but it has opening times beneath... WTF?
Posted by Badgers at 10:27 PM | Comments (9)
November 01, 2003
Life 101
The golden rule of life (and I think that there is only one, at the moment) is simply that it sucks, so you gotta get used to it.
Guess what kind of week this has been?
If you answered that it was a nice cuddly week with cute snuggly bits, you've got to get back on the medication. Immediately. The real answer is a sucky one. Saturday wasn't too bad as I finished Max Payne 2 (just like the last, only darker, and pumped to the Max!), and Sunday was fun (we discovered Konami's Apocalyptica... considering how evil the single player is, I think its that rare example of a game that was designed to be multiplayer and then the single player was added as an afterthought... not bad for a Quake 3 powered game though!) From there, though, things started to slip...
At work, much of Monday (and Wednesday) was hogged by being dragged into my boss's office and nagged about something that, three days later, was left as it is now. Heaven save us from management... I'm starting to live in a Dilbert strip! This is especially annoying as somehow I don't think I am playing the part of Wally... I keep having to control the... fist.. of... death!!! :wink
On Tuesday I got over to Blackburn to book the car in for the work on the engine (which has steadily become more annoying, even when waiting for it to lose revs)... Still, it is now in the shop, so to speak, and I am driving a brand new (literally!) 206 SW, which is basically a Peugeot 206 with an estate bit at the back. And found out that apparently there are no silver-coloured 206 in existence - they are in fact metallic grey. Thats an interesting little tidbit to mull over... Of course, the car hasn't been so simple - they tried to get hold of me on Friday, but when I called they said they would call back, and they haven't yet... still as long as Camille is up and running right on Tuesday, I don't care!
Thursday the woman who was/wasn't was starting started, and I missed two appointments as she was in the boss' office till 10.30 when I was having to go out... and when I finally got out, she turned out to be a nagger - admitedly I expected her to nag a little to find out what had changed in the seven years since she last did the job (for more than a day a week)... the problem came that three of the four afternoon appointments were naggers too...
I survived this, and booked Friday off to take the car into Blackburn and collect the 206 SW, and to rest my foot, which has ached all week, and looks like doing it next week as well. I really wish I'd broken it all those years ago... it'd be much less hassle than tearing the tendon!
Of course, there were some good things from this week - I bought (I can hear Jamius swooning as I type) Jak II for the PS2 and a cheap pre-owned copy of Metroid Prime for my Gamecube (if you haven't played it, do so - its far better than all those scrappy Turok pieces of pap!). And I now have all the Patrick O'Brien Captain Aubrey novels as eBooks, which is nice to have on my iPAQ!
Still, today hasn't been too restful - the plan was to sit/lie down and play Jak II/read books/do nothing much, but as mum is doing a computer word processing course, and has problems putting tabs between words in sentences because the tutor told her to (actually, she is mixing up putting tons of spaces on the page instead of a tab, but thats another story) which means that after all weeek not getting on the computer at work except to show Barbara (the social worker opposite me) how to do the same sort of thing, I get home to do it all over again... Getting up and down all the time on a leg that is supposed to be resting and is still swollen and painful to walk on (and dragging two heavy bags from the car into people's homes to demonstrate equipment) is not going to make it better quickly...
I just know that next week has got to be better.
It has to be, right?
Posted by Badgers at 04:28 PM | Comments (2)
October 24, 2003
The Hundredth Blog Entry!
That's a nice little milestone... or is that millstone?
This week, there have been no other entries, but not because I wanted to make this a special one. It's just been that I have been so hacked off I wasn't sure what I'd type. I still am, in fact, but I feel more lucid.
There have been a few good things, and one or two humorous things this week such as a drunk staggering around first thing - all over the road and the pavement, obviously much further gone that I was a couple of weeks back... I need another night out, and there might be some little devils out next Friday, but I digress!) And one guy I watched as he tried to decide which way to go - he walked one way, stopped, looked around, then walked a different way.... totally lost, and sadly I couldn't help him. I was too busy hiding my giggles...
A good week for redheads, too!
One good thing was taking the car to be dealt with... the door no longer makes that horible noise when it opens, the engine management light went off, and the recall things that were outstanding were dealt with too. The indicator is on order, but should be due next week, which is convenient as I now have to take it back as the car occasionally loses power whehn setting off in 1st gear or when changing to seconmd gear. And the bloody light is back on. The best thing is that the work done so far hasn't cost anywhere near as much as I expected, so I can afford to get the front wings replaced! Hopefully it will all be sorted for my MOT... By the way, the new 206 (I had a new blue one as a courtesy car) drives like a video game - way too light and obviously not as much power (except for the odd time - see above!)
Work-wise things were not too bad, apart from a couple of annoying niggles - one woman didn't want anything (though she really needed stuff), one man had gotten some IR headphones and was happy with them, one man also needed stuff for his sons (I needed to do new referrals to myself to order the equipment), and I got a message that a man's textphone wasn't working. Of course, I get this message today (Friday) and he came in while I was on holiday and was told that I would see him Monday or Tuesday this past week. I visit tofay and find that he doesn't have a textphone, and in fact doesn't have a telephone line installed and could we fit one please? I wouldn't mind, but the original message was taken by a lady I rather like... but thats okay as I have my revenge - she is having to rule the columns in a book I use to keep track of my ever-increasing workload... a mind-numbing job if ever there was one! Supervision with my boss was quick, and the woman who was starting/wasn't starting is now starting one day a week next Thursday. And the new structure for Social Services in Lancashire came through, and I still don't know where I fit into it. Oh joy.
That last straw was a visit to an annoying young woman who had a tone caller from BT but insisted that we installed it and it was our responsibility. You see, it was ringing constantly (none of the other phones did, just that) and so make her flashing lights stay on constantly. The joys of being deaf. So, as it isn't our responsibility (she was fairly militant that it was) I ordered a tone caller myself, paying £25 for it and the delivery. And finally, after getting back to work, I was able to fit it today. And it rang and rang and rang. It had to be the phone socket ie BT's problem. Of course, she wants us to pay for any call out charges... She calls and I step in to help get the point across. BT would do nothing until we'd tried the tone caller in another socket (like I was taking it off the wall and removing all the wiring) and tried a phone in the socket. We did so, and after a second 20 minute wait, we got through and they were saying okay, but its a £50 call out charge...I mean, what do they think they are? Plumbers? I got on the phone, and explained very carefully (and loudly!) what the problem was, and that it was up to them. Suddenly theengineer could come on Monday at 8.00am. I didn't have to get that militant about it either. Of course, once in the car and driving home, I screamed out my frustration.
Oh wonderful - while typing this I just went downstairs to have tea when I fell over some stepladders resting on the stairs and twisted my ankle - not sure how badly yet, but it hurts and I can only just walk on it (not done the tendon though - just the ankle - I hope!) - this may mean that Sunday is called off, after all, it's no fun if I'm not there... And i doubt if I can carry Ayumi! Sorry guys!
I need another night out, but I don't know if I can walk properly yet... (cry!)
Posted by Badgers at 07:28 PM | Comments (5)
October 18, 2003
Dredd Is Finished!
Sigh. Just to let you know that as the parents were off doing a community trip to Blackpool for the lights (two full coaches worth all going for free! That should give the area some bloody community spirit!!!) I decided to spend the day (from 3.00 at least) going through Judge Dredd - Dredd vs Death... I finished it a little earlier - expect a review as it isn't bad - I want to see how multiplayer goes, especially the co-op side of the game - me and James will no doubt hit that this week!
James didn't get it yesterday due to various things, but he has it now...:biggrin
Later!
Posted by Badgers at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2003
That Was A Week Off...
Hmm - well, at least I wasn't at work!
One of the things I was going to do this week hasn't really happened, due to James not bringing Macromedia MX last Sunday (Jamius' solution of downloading it again wasn't really practical...), but I did get to draw more art for it, which is a bonus I guess... my Doctor Who tribute is looking unlikely to make it by the 23rd of November though... :angry
So what have I managed to do? Well, I managed to get some sleep and get over last Saturday night (!), and finished Halo, got a lot further into Jedi Academy than anyone else (damned hard!), watched a little more TV than usual (Bill Oddie doing a history/Treasure Hunt style program that isn't all that good, even by morning TV standards! And the lunchhtime Bargain Hunt is now 45 minutes long...)... scary! I've also been doing some practice on Tiger Woods 2004... I'm still not very good, but at least I can hit the ball somewhere in the right direction! :lol
The best thing is that some recent competition entering has come up trumps - thanks to a supllier we used to use in my old job, I am now the proud owner of a HP1940 iPAQ.:biggrin Of course, this has meant I've had to spend some money to get a 256mb SD card and some screen protectors (and a cheap case), but it finally means I can get away from the filofax... and I can also play Day Of The Tentacle in ScummVM while having lunch! James has lots of ebooks but nothing to read them on yet, (I suspect he's hitting Ebay unless he's still banned!) so who knows... I am also the proud owner of a neighbour's Dragon 64... and a huge pile of Dragon User magazines, etc... I can't get a game to load yet, but looking at the tapes, it looks like the tape player is the problem - I'll try converting to CD like I have with my Oric stuff!!!
So, that's been my week - I havn't even been on the PC as much as I expected this week (no new design for RNP yet!), but I may sort out some reviews etc this weekend if I get the chance - I can't wait to go back to work next week... I just have to remember that my car is going in for repairs and the MOT this week...
Oh - one thing - the Judge Dredd game isn't bad from what I've played - I wanna try co-op with James if he picked it up today - it will be fun!!! Probable review on this soon!
Posted by Badgers at 07:34 PM | Comments (2)
October 12, 2003
Golf And Nights Out (Not Necessarily In That Order)
Not a bad weekend so far... My plan to get revenge on James for Alton Towers (I've been buttering him up for weeks) by telling him me and Nick were not going out didn't work as the fool didn't go for the bait - typical! Still, it was a good night out. Me and Nick went alone as James wanted to go but 'couldn't'... one of the drawbacks of marriage, I'm afraid! I had to go out last night, but the next one will no doubt be a while off. Ah well.
The night started with The Swan and included some nice highlights, such as two rather attractive girls who kept looking at us and talking (God knows why), even getting closer (I kept looking at them and they looked back) but due to the number of people walking beween us I decided to move to a slightly more open space in the pub, but they didn't follow. Darn. Things were not a complete loss as while thepub has lost the Nintendo classic coin-op they had, they have gained a working (!) Simpsons Pinball Party table, which Nick and I monopolised all night! Somehow, he got the higher scores (how? he's terrible at Visual Pinball!!!), though I have a theory... excessive alcohol consumption - see later!
About 10-ish we decamped to the Paradise Island club, and while it was packed as usual, we found that you could go upstairs (I was following a rather nice (and then some!) redhead at the time) to a bit where a band were playing live (ish). They were basically singing over songs by Bon Jovi, The Corrs, etc, but playing keyboards and guitar, and while it shouldn't work, it really did! Nick bought them a drink as they really worked their socks off. I was surprised that this was up here - there is even a rooftop beer garden... looking at the people there, I think we can guess where the people who usually go to the Rock are going while the refurbishment is under way. Good music and lots of fun. And girls. Lots. And lots. Oh my!
Lots of drinks too... usually I have maybe a couple of VK/Smirnoff Ice/etc and then a J20 or fruit juice to cool down, but that didn't happen last night...
Nope - last night Nick stuck to simple (and little) Bacardi and Cokes, while I just had Smirnoff Ice. Lots of them. And more. It was like the night out with Helen over again (the one pre-blog when she decided it was her mission to get me drunk, and proceeded to do just that until her boyfriend (wonder if Marcus is still around! I wish she was!) arrived to pick her up, by the means of going through the vodka drinks alphabetically... Basically then, I was the most :drunkdrunk:drunk I've been in a long time - barely able to walk straight and very tired (I'd been up since 5am). Still, it was a very good night (I don't want to rub it into the faces of the married one and the sad Galaxies-playing one, but it just was... lots of lovely midriff to ogle (I like midriff!:kiss), and other bits too!). Of course, getting home was a different matter... I made it, had to throw up (that doesn't happen often, collapsed into bed, woke up at 5am again to cough up some bile (this I had to do on and off until I finally felt able to get up properly at 11am!), had my usual bacon/eggs/sausage Sunday lunch and then went to Nicks. More on this later...
On the way to the night out, I had three funny experiences - the first was walking across Bank Hall pit on the usual route to Nicks when I had to stop - omething wasn't right - you see somone had taken down the wooden bridge across the river! Thankfully it wasn't too dark so I saw it... and of course I didn't take that route home!!! Next was by the fire station - an engine came out and raced down Ormerod Road, a little red car turned down, only to have to skid to the side when the second engine set off and came up behind it... the third thing was some idiot on a mobile phone talking loudly into it about a pick up... drugs probably...
Ah well - I'm fairly okay now, mainly due to a game of golf this afternoon, courtesy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004... This is a golf game I can heartily recommend! We played through the whole of St Andrews and it was lots of fun - in face we will be doing it again... It may form the centre of a plan to have a 'night in' - it's the nearest thing we will have to getting all four of the idiots together at once!
Ah well, I have a plan for the next night out, but it might only work if James isn't there... might be quite easy to arrange then!!! (ahem!)
Oh well - I'm off to battle through some golf... I may have to review this!!!
:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk:drunk!!!
PS - I've also picked up a heap of Dragon 32 games from a neighbour, and I will have the Dragon 32 and 64 he used to use once he finds where it was put! Another old computer to add to my ever growing collection!!!
Posted by Badgers at 07:43 PM | Comments (3)
October 10, 2003
Thank Goddess That's All Over
Well, I think we know what the 'third thing' has turned out to be - see the previous entry for details. I felt she needed an entry to herself.
The rest of the week has been pretty bad too, what with the PC thing and the tyre. And now, thanks to the wind nearly taking the door off the car yesterday, the driver's door knocks against the front wing when you open it - that's another thing to get sorted out next week.
At least I don't have to think about work for the next week,and after today I am so glad about that. No problem taking most of the morning off to deal with Sadie, but everything I had to do today had to be slotted into less time and still have more stuff added. All in all, I need that night out tomorrow, and I don't care if it takes all of next week to get over it.
I hope things are going better for you lot... later perhaps...
Posted by Badgers at 09:07 PM | Comments (0)
Farewell, Sadie Newton, You Will be Missed.
Last night, Sadie, the cute but old ginger dog that I consider to be mine started having a number of grand mal seizures, recovering enough to walk round the room banging into everything as she went. She had been having a number of similar fits in the past few months, but nothing on this scale, and certainly not followed by another and then another.
This morning I took her to the vets and mum and I stayed with her until she went to sleep. I cried. A lot. She was around 20 years old, and ornery as could be when she wanted to be - the other dogs knew who was in charge! And I was the only person she didn't bite. For the past four years por so she had been living on borrowed time thanks to some pills that kept her going long after she should have been. Covered in lumps, thin as a rake towards the end, virtually deaf and blind, she kept going, even when she couldn't go for a proper walk with the other dogs anymore. But she was happy until recently - when she recovered from the fits she had before, she was fine, but not this time.
Farewell old girl, you'll be missed, not the least by me.
Posted by Badgers at 07:11 PM | Comments (1)
October 08, 2003
These Things Things Come In Threes...
...at least I hope its only in threes... :angry I discovered that the Nvidia FX series graphics cards are DirectX 9 compatible, but not compliant. This explains why Kyoko (1800XP Processor, 512mb of memory, Geforce 3 Ti4200) runs Halo better than Ayumi (3000XP, 1 gig memory, Nvidia FX 5600 Ultra)! I got a Radeon 9600 Pro and after much hassle (like having to reformat c: to get rid of every last trace of FX driver!) I finally got a working, stable, and fast game of Halo. With specular stuff and bump mapping and everything. Whoa. And I also tried Midnight Club II (a fun game that I couldn't play due to the frame rate making it too hard to finish the race I was in) and got a shock - it ran as smooth as GTA Vice City had on the other card, despite lighting effects and reflections on the cars etc... It runs most stuff the same speed or even a little faster, but the DX9 stuff was stunning... 3DMark also gave me a decent score (especially in 2003!) so at least I'm happy about that little disaster... I just have to get everything back on the computer again (I'm typing this at work!)
The next big thing was the loss of another tyre... one of the ones I had replaced! I was returning from an appintment in Foulridge and the car ahead hit a stone in the road - it bounced and I heard a terrible thump and a bang - I stopped and pulled over to find the blasted thing had taken a lump out of the passenger side front tyre. I'm sure James will laugh but so what? Not my fault, and at least I didn't have to execute an A-Team-style jump into a field after hitting it...
The third thing (as far as I can tell) is that the person who was to start tomorrow doing my job in Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley won't be as some bright spark decided it was enough for her to do 1 day a week... she wouldn't even be able to keep up with her messages on the computer doing so little! So, it's been cancelled and no-one is covering that side, except for people who need me to see them urgently... and there are few of them...
Oh - one last thing - what kind of muppet stops on Church Street at the bottom of Ormerod Road in Burnley at 8.50 in the morning to let every car come off the road, blocking traffic for ages...? Sadly, it was some fool in a Cinqcento (or whatever they are called), and nota white Siearra, so i couldn't blame Jamius for that one!!! :rofl
A FYI, there might be a night out in the offing this wet autumn weekend, but I can't be sure... it kinda depends on availablity of James, me and money. Nick would go out anyway, he's that kind of fool! Barney Gumble would be proud! :drunk
Posted by Badgers at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2003
Russell Crowe? At Least He Won't Be Playing The Doctor...
Well, I survived Manchester... it was as busy as I've ever seen it today... maybe people are doing their Christmas shopping! :lol I got a shock though, when I went to get some more Patrick O'Brien books... they had the movie tie-in books for Master and Commander and Far Side Of The World! Russell Crowe will be playing Captain Aubrey... He looks quite good, but I don't know... having read the books, I don't want them buggered up on screen! I'm sure the battles will be impressive (they should be pretty damn brutal too!), but the casting... I don't know. I'm definitely willing to give it the benefit of the doubt though, just to see it on the screen. The trailer certainly looks impressive and it looks like some of the bits you thought they might cut (checking the water in the well, for example) are in there... but that accent isn't Jack Aubrey... James might think Dredd doesn't sound Dredd-y in the Judge Dredd game and the audios, but this is the return of his Gladiator Accent... but then he still won an Oscar for that! Keep an eye on Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World this November...
I also picked up Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, and started reading it on the bus home as I had finished the third of the Von Igelfeld books on the way into Manchester (expect a review this weekend and a cover ijmage when I find my scanner!!!:lol). Also, shockingly, Bone has returned with the long awaited #52, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has finally wrapped up the Martian invasion fairly shockingly... Book Three will be interesting... whenever it arrives! To celebrate I bought the collected Volume One as I don't feel like hunting and digging in the attic like Quatermain looking for King Solomon's Mines!
Oh - and this morning work begun in earnest on ...Ish, the first of my proper Flashes to go online... I'll hopefully pop a bit of my concept art (well, pencilled doodles!) online in the Gallery... expect the Flash very soon!!!
Ah well, to work!!!
Posted by Badgers at 03:43 PM | Comments (3)
October 03, 2003
Country Roads Take Me Home
Between cows and tree branches... such is life...
While out on visits these past two days I have run into a load of runaway cows that had gotten out of their field, and also managed to get a scratch on the passenger side of the car thanks to a bloody big branch sticking out on the way to Rimington. Apart from that, the week has been a success - no big disasters, in fact no disasters at all, just a pain in the chest from tidying up my cabinet with equipment in (mainly because it is in our smoke room - if James did take my job on, he'd soon stop smoking in there!) and with my chest it hurts to be in a smoky environment for that long (at least without alcohol!), and a happy boss. I even got informatiojn that the person taking over in the Hyndburn/Ribble Valley area starts next Thursday, two days before I go on a weeks leave. Oh joy - one day of training and into the job for her, as Thursday is already booked down as visiting in Bacup and Whitworth! Still, thats more than I got...
Thankfully, I'm in Manchester tomorrow...
Posted by Badgers at 05:49 PM | Comments (3)
October 01, 2003
Near Misses
Over the last couple of days I've been almost killed over and over again. Cars coming off roundabouts without looking, a truck today that decided to turn a corner I was coming out of but of course he forgot to signal... People stepping out in front of the car and everything. Heck, I was almost taken out by a loveley blonde woman pushing a pram when she suddenly decided to turn right to go up to the Market Hall, executing a fantastic 90 degree turn as she did so.
Right into me.
Still, for a change this week hasn't been bad so far, though yesterday afternoon it looked like it was going wrong when I had to see 10 (10!!!) people in the afternoon for repairs to equipment, etc. And being old dears they all wanted me to talk to them for ages... Its even worse than James and his Messenger things when I'm trying to play a game or do some work...
Still, just a few days to go until I nip to Manchester... and possibly a night out... hurrah!
Posted by Badgers at 06:45 PM | Comments (5)
September 30, 2003
He's Coming Back... And It's About Time... (again)
First, I'm a little late with the news (I heard it on Saturday morning, but wanted to check it first), but Doctor Who will be returning to the BBC! On Saturday evenings! The only thing is, it won't start until late in 2005! Lorraine Heggessey, the BBC1 controller, has expressed an interest in it since she startted, and now that all the rights have come back to the Beeb after the Universal deal that buggered everything up (well, excluding some of the rights to monsters like the Daleks, of course) the course is clear! Obviously, they want to get it right, and the series is currently going to be written by Russell T Davies (Queer As Folk and various Doctor Who stuff) there is a hope that it could be good. Of course, giving the series to such a big fan might be a mistake... ah well - we shall get more info as it comes! I can't wait for this month's Doctor Who Magazine!
Onto personal stuff. The weekend was fun, though I didn't get much done... Sunday was good, but marred by me and James (the alpha males of the group) sparring for the top spot in the pack. Of course, he can have it... Andrew will still shoot us with his gun in Halo, whatever happens! Oh yes, Halo - not bad (as we saw from the demo) and multiplayer is fun. But it needs the return of Co-op!
James gave Nick an early birthday present in the shape of 'Do You Like Horny Bunnies?', a japanese hentai game. Should keep him from using all his new printer's ink on glossy pictures of Alison Hannigan and Charisma Carpenter...
Sunday night, after getting home, and realising that unless I get a few hours to draw the art, Butterfly isn't coming until the end of November if I'm lucky(!) I came up with a short flash that has lots of little animations (nothing spectacular) including some older stuff from I.T. comics... Watch for ...Ish 01 coming very soon!
Work, for a change wasn't bad, though the shock of having 14 new cases come in on one day is a bugger. I should keep my boss off my back though as I've sent lots through for closing! :biggrin
Just 4 more days to go... the weekend calls!
Posted by Badgers at 07:44 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2003
An Okay Day...
No major disasters at work (though the death of Robert Palmer was a shock), and it seems that I have been mentioned in an offical report thingy... apparently the comments received in the exercise include many that said that the Technical Officer was very helpful, etc (I'll get the exact quote later) and as most of the replies were from the area I cover... gulp!
Of course, at home things are prone to go wrong... I mean, Jamius caught me online last night and nagged me on Messenger for half an hour... :talker. He is not sure about the voice for Dredd, but hey - Apart from the perfect casting of Sean Connery as Quatermain and the addition of Dorian Gray, LXG just sooo isn't The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen! I mean, Tom Sawyer? The car? The bloody car? Do NOT get me started!
Suki, the new dog, on the other hand is lovely - a black lurcher, she has a bad back leg (a visit to the vets today means that it will be x-rayed once she is spayed due to the possibility of damage froma car accident she was in a month or so back - a neighbour heard it crying in pain afterwards, before a passing driver took her to the vets - everyone thought she would be dead after that). She is thin and has a few skin problems, but nothing that can't be fixed. She is a nice dog, and she is staying. James ragged me on that, after I said I didn't want another dog in the house (not that it was my choice!), but look at him - the dogs still haven't been sold to the butchers and he still hasn't sold Marie into slavery - he has no room to talk!
Sigh. At least the weekend is here, and my financial reconfiguration will be complete by tonight. Which means life can begin again. And I might just respond to thse glances I keep getting since I got rid of the beard I grew as an experiment... an experiment that has been a resounding success and given me much empirical data!
Later, no doubt!
Posted by Badgers at 06:11 PM | Comments (1)
September 25, 2003
Hello Autumn!
And so the lovely weather we had (before the torrential rains!:biggrin) has gone, and while the skies are clear, it is cold. Very cold. Autumn is knocking on the door ready for it's usual October visit.
The two days off didn't go according to plan, but that isn't a surprise. I got roped into a trip to Blackpool to pick up a filing cabinet for the Community Action Group, went shopping (remembered to pick up 2000AD, thank you)and sat down to beat the JD demo and get the same scores as Andrew.
Oh, and we gained a dog. Only for a night, we were looking after a rescued collie/spaniel cross - a beautiful dog and like the last dog we looked after, it will be a great pet for someone - friendly but scared of our pack (unsurprisingly). But don't be deceived into thinking that is the end of it - tonight we are getting another dog, but this one stays! A Lurcher/whippet whatever will be coming to stay with us, making the menagerie a total of 6 dogs, 3 snakes, 2 tree frogs and a tarantula. Of course, just one dog (old, deaf and blind but still able to bite anyone who isn't me) and Akumi (must get a pic online, especially the most recent one which shows how big she is getting) the spider are 'mine'.
Ah well, thankfully work hasn't been too bad what with two meetings and no major problems (for a change)... but there is still another day to go yet...! :lol
Oh and thanks to those people who are selling me Agatha Christie novels on Ebay...
Oh, and old misery guts is back online too! He seems happy enough in the current job... no doubt an entry will be forthcoming!
One last thing - I think I know how to get Andrew out on the town for a night. If we tell him he only has to buy one round... though we forget to say how big that round actually is! Hmmm! :drunk:drunk:rofl:drunk:drunk
Posted by Badgers at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2003
Note To Self - Remember to pick Up Last Week's 2000AD Since The Newsagent Didn't Deliver It...
Sigh. I did get the 2000AD Extreme Edition (published to promote some game or other...) instead. Well, the good news is that Judge Dredd - Dredd vs Death isn't too bad at all going by the demo. Andrew has been playing it like mad and is a 'Senior Judge' in one bit and gets a 'Judge Dredd' rating in another. I've played it through and I think the game will be fun, especially in co-op mode (sadly only 2 players but it will still be fun, especially for me and James in the evenings!).
Saturday was spent waiting in the que to get the game, and in the loft trying to clear some stuff out of the parent's bits and tidy it up a little. We didn't get far, but it still took hours.
James isn't back online yet, and as expected, didn't turn up at Nick's for the Operation Flashpointfest that was going on. He also missed Nick totally failing to get to grips with JD, shooting everyone and not making any arrests... and installing a new Lexmark printer/scanner/copier he bought from QVC without too many hitches (though the cyan ink in the cartridge was a little streaky).
Still, as James is starting his new job (finally!) today, we can forgive him - he was probably very nervous! After all, it's been a while, and the oportunities to drive into fields in a bus (on it's side) are slim in his new vocation! (Y'know, I have to take the time to put smileys into the MT script!). Good look, dude, and don't let the bastards grind you down this time!!!
Well, today and tomorrow I am having a couple of days off as I have way to much holiday time to come and need the rest. Not that I will get it as I am going to Blackpool this afternoon to pick up a filing cabinet for the local community action group thingy. Oh joy.
Finally, remember how I got the Alexander McCall Smith novels, and was looking forward to reading them? Well, The Full Cupboard of Life is as magical as the other books in the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series (I know paying £8.99 for the original paperback editions is a bit much for you all, but they have just started re-issuing them as normal paperback size for £6.99 - and they are HIGHLY recommended!). I have just started on Portuguese Irregular Verbs (the first 'Professor Dr von Igelfeld Entertainment' and I can tell you that his humourous prose (subtly used in No.1...) is wonderful - the first chapter alone make me laugh out loud - the description of the three Professors playing tennis. Without knowing the rules (but they have perused an old rulebook and are sure that it is simplicity itself!) is so funny! Marvelous.
Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2003
Things Are Finally Looking Up...!
My financial status is about to get better... or worse, depending on your view, and Andrew has gotten the Dredd vs Death demo... I'm just in a que waiting to get it... if its not good, I will one very unhappy Squaxx dek Thargo!
Posted by Badgers at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2003
Some Weeks Just Get Better
Of course, some don't. After Monday, Tuesday was a breath of fresh air - no problems, everything running fine. Until Mum started recording the Andromeda season finale but recorded Sky One not Sky One Mix... sigh. Bye, Tyr, shame I couldn't see you off!
The rest of the week has been full of downs too, but today was nearly full of more than that - three people decided they wanted to be in my space while driving - one on a roundabout, one on a perfectly straight bit of road and the other in a car park. Muppets. The lot of them.
Yesterday I had the joy (!) of a meeting that was dull until it suddenly came to pass that there was something that only the fieldwork people could do... so now I have another meeting next week at Queens Park Hospital. Sigh.
Oh, and this week I found that the Chicago Rock is now shut like the Works above it, for refurbishment. Is this 'new clubbing experience' going to be long-mooted joining of the clubs? And if so, will they keep the kiddies upstairs while us adults get down to the good music in the basement? No doubt this will put a slight crimp in going out plans as there is not a lot of other places as good as the rock (to put it mildly!), and it might be rubbish once it is finished... we shall see...
Later, people - Peace Out.
Posted by Badgers at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2003
Only a few more years to go...
Oh, to be a bus driver, flitting from firm to firm, job to job with not a care in the world. But no, I'm a local authority Technical Support Officer (Sensory Impairment) and I need the job to continue my current phase of debt realignment. And I get calls from stupid old women who shout angrily down the phone that they don't want any equipment, nothing on the TV or door or anything and moan that the phone call costs them money and that we used a first class stamp to send the letter about the appointment (which she had already cancelled a month ago, but not with me, and anyway the appointment wasn't made until last week) and that she had been told we could do bugger all for her anyway and had been taken off the books and complained that she couldn't hear me (a bad throat at this end I am soooo sorry!) so did we get the bloody message this time - I said thanks, yes we did, and we would now stop trying to give her free equipment that would let her hear hear her TV better, her doorbell when it rang and of course, the telephone that she obviously couldn't hear. I then went for a half hour walk in town to get de-stressed. I very nearly wrote a letter to her stating that her case had now been closed, that I would not contact her again, even if she asked for help from my service, and here is a couple of quid to pay for the bloody phone call. Oh, and that the stamp on the letter was bought by me, and the cost of it and the £2 came from petrol money given to me by my mother for taking her shopping at the weekend, and had in no way come from her precious bloody taxes. At least I managed to stop myself from going round and unscrewing her head. Some people just rub me the wrong way. And you have never seen anyone so easy going as me.
And Andrew thinks I have such a cushy job. This from someone who goes off to put up shelves as a job, has Friday afternoons off and snipes you in the back of the head on the Halo beta while you are telling Nick how to get to the end of the first level. Oddly enough, James has already stated that he doesn't want my job, even if I gave it to him. I'm starting to think that if Andrew thinks it is so nice and fluffy, he can bloody do it! I'll put up all those stressful shelves in hair dressing salons!
Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. But it shows just what I can go through - and that was just this morning when I went in to work... before 9.30... don't get me started on the rest of it!
Breath deep, thats it... in... out...in... out...
Of course, Sunday wasn't the day I had planned either - Jamius is back from Cornwall, and no doubt he will have one hell of a blog/review to do for his holiday from Hell. Andrew has won a reprieve for a couple of weeks from looking after his Americans and decided to shoot us in the back us as usual.
I also made a decision. I am going to pay off my credit cards (or nearly pay them off) with a cheap loan, and finally find some money staying in my bank, even after paying bills, shopping and Ebay fees... I might finally get a life (if I don't go too wild) and definitely discover what savings are. It's not the best way, but I don't want to waste money on the Lottery every week, and a beter job is not in the future, and it will work.
On a brighter note, remember the Badgers flash by TheWeebl at Newgrounds? Well, it seems he did the music with friends - his site has kinda run out of bandwidth and he's selling a CD with that and other tracks (like the soundtrack to his latest, scampi)... Oh, I need to be doing Dark Tidings next year... that has a CD single with the opening and ending themes just waiting...
Oh, and check out the latest Retarded Animal Babies while you are there... it may be the best yet (even after the last one!), but be warned, swear words and mildly offensive stuff within! Magic Missile!
Ah well, off to bed now, and to try and get a Dream Diary entry for tomorrow! And to listen to my Smile.DK CD for a while. And to invent a device to unscrew annoying old ladies' heads with less hassle...
Posted by Badgers at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2003
Covenant Forces Detected!
I'm glad that's over! To be honest the last two days have not been that bad, apart from one person not being in (again) and a problem with something that we don't deal with, but which means I'm personally having to spend money again to get something repaired. Don't ask - and you wonder why I have money problems...
The best thing about this week has been having a Smile.DK compilation i the car - and at home! This Scandinavian group only seem to release in Japan/Korea/Hong Kong, but are still very popular as they have contributed so much music to the Dance Dance Revolution/Beatmania/Dancing Stage series of games... You will also be treated to a classic track when (if!) I get round to finishing Butterfly... Catchy as heck! And rather cute! The songs too! I sure hope nowhere local has a Smile.DK karaoke on... (Heaven help you if I become a club DJ!)
Close on this was the trip to Derbyshire for the Technical Officer's Meeting - nice weather, a slightly large amount of Smile.DK on the car stereo (!) and an hour or so at Denby Potteries (sadly with no money!).
Also, the parents found a copy of The Doctors on DVD at the local Poundland cheapo store - its the US release so it's NTSC, but for a quid...
And the worst thing? Hmm. all those bits between 9-6 I think!
BTW - Halo PC looks pretty good... and it plays good too! Dredd vs Death is going to have to be special now...
PS - Remember the UFO sighting I didn't get excited about last week? It seems that the description (a disc with a yellow dot in the middle) was accurate... but it wasn't an alien invasion - it was a rather novel model glider flown by Dale Bolton, a member of the Ribble Valley Model Soaring Association (link to news here with picture of Dale and the 'saucer'). Looks cool!
Posted by Badgers at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2003
That's It, I Quit!
No, not really, but if I have any more problems with smoke alarms... I put one in for a man who can be very annoying, that's was nothing compared to the walls of his bloody house! under the plaser is a lot of seriously solid brick. One screw went in fine, the other - first it hit brick, then the plaster started crumbling... I had to drill a deep hole into the brick and then use a monster screw to hold the main light/power unit up. And then came drilling through the wall above the door... after the one on Thursday/Monday, I thought this would be a pain, but I had no idea... sigh. This and an annoying fie officer who is asking about a fire alarm for someone who had a fire in the last couple of days (an I only saw on Thursday to order it...) Bigger sigh.
Luckily, yesterday went far better in Derbyshire, despite getting caught behind the sort of driver that leaves three car spaces ahead of him on the motorway - a commendable thing when we are not caught in a traffic snarl-up and not moving! And as for his top speed of 50 in the middle lane when traffic started to move... and his habit of putting on the brakes hard when a car passed him on either side... Even getting stuck behind a broken down truck on the slip road going from the services to the motorway for 20 minutes didn't cause a problem. Not having much money so I couldn't come back from Denby Potteries with some goodies irked a bit, though. The meeting was good though, and I could even put in my tuppence! I learned a few bits of information too, which put me in my boss's good books...
Ah well - now I'm knackered and I'm gonna have a sleep before I come back to work on the new Flash menu for the left side of the page (hopefully this will keep Jamius happy when he gets back!), and perhaps even some work on Butterfly...
I might send a help ticket to Digihosters first though to get DB_File back at .com so I can get that side of things going...
Posted by Badgers at 06:37 AM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2003
A Quiet Weekend, Apart From All The Shooting
Not actual shooting - just me and Nick using AI backup in Raven Shield. It makes a big difference! So does not having mr Grumpy and Mr Whingey - it was quiet and fun - and we didn't get sniped once (well, some of the terrorists in RS did give my team a grenade to catch in a smalll room).
Manchester wasn't bad, but I just said sod it and overspent. I needed three Strangers In Paradise graphic novels! And when I saw the Lenore books... I also picked up four Alexander McCall Smith novels - the 5th book in the No1 Ladies Detective Agency series, and the Irregular Portreguese Verbs trilogy.
Of course, today I was at work and it was, as ever, a bugger. So much so I'm booking a week off in October. And don't get me started on the wire for the smoke alarm I finished installing...
Oh, and last week it seems a cigar-shaped UFO was seen over Burnley... hmmm...
Posted by Badgers at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2003
Another Week Over...
...and deeper in debt. I'm beginning to wish I was a bus driver. At least I could just chuck in my job if I got cheesed off with it. Still, not being James, and not being as low a form of life as somone who drives buses into fields (on their sides) and then dreams of doing the same to trains, I can't do that. Nor can I go on holiday for a week to Cornwall. Still, James has, and good luck to him - we won't be hearing from him again! Well, for a few weeks, at any rate!
Still, he asked me to go round to look after some stuff after work, and manages not to be there... then gloats that he ahs already got some stuff downloaded that I haven't. Sometimes I wonder why I keep him as a friend. He's more use than Nick, true, but far more annoying. But I haven't tipped a bus into a field!
Today's high point has been a cute squirrel that ran madly through traffic near Burnley General Hospital and gambolled around on the pavement before going through the gates. The highlight of the week (if I don;'t include some of the nice female eye-candy that has been around recently - the sort that James, as a bus driver, used to ogle, but now misses as he sits on his arse on the internet all day!), had been sorting out the next Flash I'm doing, and making a start with the script planned, and the art ready to go. It may take a week or two, though, as I want to try and make it special. And no, it's not I.T. related!
Towmorrow I dash off to Manchester to spend what is left of my money after having to shell out £70 for the dogs to have pills, etc. I'm sure ctas are cheaper! Jamius managed to wangle £20 from us too for painting the house... sadly he didn't realise that if he could do it as a job (he's 'shit-scared of ladders' to use his own words!) he could make a bomb as locally painters charge up to £250 just to do the front or back of the house. His loss! And he didn't want to help me start up my book shop, either...
Catch you later!
Posted by Badgers at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2003
When Someone Pinches Your Chair...
...You know it's time to go home! Except if you are me, you go off to see an old woman with a telephone problem.
I got home and found James still here painting (I got revenge for yesterday by telling him he had missed a bit... the front!)
I am sooo happy to be home... just 2 more days to go! Shame I don't have any money now I gave Mum £70 to pay for the dogs going to the vets...
Posted by Badgers at 06:39 PM | Comments (3)
Just What I Needed...
...James turning up at eight in the morning to start painting the bit of my mum and dad's house that the other painter hadn't been able to do for various reasons... and I really didn't need him harrassing me about the time I came downstairs (I'd been up since 6.00 but doing stuff that had to be done!). Still, I had got home knackered yesterday and slept all night like a log. He on the other habd had been online downloading till eek past cripes o'clock in the morning! I wish I hadn't introduced him to the newsgroups now...
But I think this is his revenge for posting the link to the cool Badgers flash animation on Newgrounds... wish I could have done that! Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Mushroom Mushroom... etc!
Still, yesterday wasn't too bad despite breaking my drill while installing a smoke alarm and two people having the decency not to be in... I still finished after 6pm though!
Ah well. I have also been asked what the diet I am on is - well, it isn't the dreaded Atkins Diet... its closer to the new Blaine Diet... drink water, eat little. And exercise. At 6 in the morning (not this morning as my neck hurts!). Then go back to sleep until 8am. And forget whatever dreams I'd had overnight.... I'm so depressed that James is suddenly getting so involved in that page - and having dreams about Catherine Whittaker! Eep! I must try to remember a dream and not fall asleep! I must zzzzzzzzzzzz....
(Entry made at work instead of having my lunch break... just so you know!!!)
Posted by Badgers at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2003
Gah! Now It's September Tomorrow!!!
Sigh. How many more of these will start with that word? Many, I expect!
The weekend is nearly over, and another working week looms. This weekend hasn't been too bad - I spent much of Friday night (till nearly midnight) explaining to Jamius via Messenger how to use Grabit on the newsgroups... he seems to have got the hang of it finally, considering the downloading he's been doing! Saturday was spent fiddling with the web pages and shopping, and reading. Today has been a late bath followed by Nicks (where we got back to playing Operation Flashpoint again - we tried last week, but for some reason it just gave me the blue screen of death on Ayumi - Kyoko runs it fine, and as that's my portable machine as well as the fileserver, I'm happy! We also found out that while Jamius is going on his hols, he might not be around for up to a month for various reasons, though the good news is that there are some serious job prospects coming up for him - good luck, dude! Andrew will also not be showing his face - unless you meet him in Star Wars Galaxies that is - as he will be babysitting some American relatives. That leaves Nick and me each week - a problem as he is gagging for a night out, and while I am pretty desperate for the same I don't have the credit cards he has, and will likely be spending the month of September not spending much at all! And probably selling stuff on Ebay! And I am back on the diet now (with exercises from tomorrow). All this kinda precludes going out. But he can be very persuasive (he mentions 'alcohol') and after a week or two more of work I may have gone beyond the desperate stage myself. I may have to sell some naughty stuff online! See what I can make before I get banned like someone I know did...
Ah well - life goes on, and I'm sure that next month will see at least the expenses I should have received this month appearing n my account... this months will probably turn up the month after with September's (which includes a decent journey to Lancaster - shame I can't add the trip to Derbyshire in a week's time!)
Later!
Posted by Badgers at 09:12 PM | Comments (54)
August 29, 2003
It's September Next Week...
...and can't you tell? the weather has already taken a turn to the wetter, colder stuff. The heatwave is a thing of the past! Get the macks - its raining!!!
Still, the last week of August hasn't been too bad, what with London doing a New York/Ontario and having a power cut (we are safe up here in Lancashire as we still use steam-power!), and people ducking as Mars whizzes past!
Personally it has been ups and downs, as usual, though! The big interesting thing was that we briefly had an extra dog as the dog wardens had picked up a beautiful puppy and we had it overnight. Of course, it was male, intact (ie unsnipped!) and the other dogs really didn't like it! A mastiff cross,. it was lovely, and enjoyed being with me (though it apparently doesn't like men and runs away - say nothing, J, or else I won't put smilies into MT for you!!!). Hopefully it will get a good home (better than it had, for certain). While it was here there was some chaos though, as it loved cuddly toys (and my room has its fair share) and managed to break a Myth & Magic figurine while it grabbed one. Still, a little super glue, and it will be fine!
One thing that has really annoyed me this week has been the traffic on the roads - for some reason, I have been caught in traffic jams every day this week (and nearly taken out going up to Sabden when an idiot in a red 'souped up' Corsa didn't quite take the tight corner after the pub. And nealy hit a cat as it leapt over the wall of Gawthorpe Hall and ran straight through traffic. i did have the chace to watch an idiot squirrel who kept jumping onto my car from an oak tree on a car park at Towneley Hall, which was nice.
The one thing that really got me this week was a rather nice blonde lady. But not for that reason! I was heading into M&S for some sandwiches and stuff when behind me a girl called - "Hiya!. The blonde in front turned and let out a real "OOOOHHHHHHH!!!" sigh, as if she hadn't seen the girl who called in years and the girl had brought her cute triplets with her... though as you can imagine, no toddlers were involved. Odd. Though having seen one poor woman (!) struggling to get out of the packed old Greggs shop in town with a baby slung on her front and a double (ie one-front-one-back) pram with what looked like monster truck tyres on it... there was a time when I wanted kids... let's just say that time has passed!
Sigh. Well, maybe it has... I'm sure I'll get broody again soon... I know, I'll avoid it by hoping that the doomsayer on various boards who has ben calling the Dredd vs Death game rubbish is wrong (I just want the multiplayer experience to work - as James says, some games get panned for single player and shunned, but the MP rocks - Dredd should be one game wher MP shines). Of course, if it is rubbish, there's always Halo PC (surely that's impossible to bugger up!), and I can always spend the month playing Golden Sun 2...
Posted by Badgers at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2003
Carpets, Lino and Flash
Well, I had totally forgotten yesterday was a Bank Holiday... After Friday, though I believed that I needed the extra day tagged onto the weekend! Not that Friday was too bad - I could always have an extra day in the weekend! oh to be James, sitting at home on his arse playing Battle Engine Aquila!
Saturday and the weekend pretty much flashed by for some reason, though - Saturday was largely spent in the loft, or reading books, while Sunday was a matter of getting up, going to Nicks to be neagged, moaned and yelled at (as normal!). One thing hit me though - they didn't know about me being chatted up in the toilets. The funny thing is that it should have been in the blog - oddly it wasn't... don't ask - I'm sure James can give you his version (hence his 'Pretty Boy' Mates entry for me... I'm still working on my revenge...! Possibly involving him and a toilet encounter... he will rue all those days of telling me about his past...)
So Sunday shot by (I gave Andrew a card for his recent (secret 33rd) birthday, and I drew a sniper rifle pointing out of the bushes in it...), and spent Sunday night prepping for Monday... which started with hearing the usual arguments from downstairs from the parents, moved onto mum and me tearing up the manky bathroom carpet and laying some slightly less manky lino in it's place. Then I had an afternoon to myself. And I started work on the flash animations that will get me back into the program and onto Newgrounds as a god. Or as King of the Portal, which is better! (^_^) Both are music videos, though one is actually going to be the start of a little occasional series called Akumi Girl Ninja. I won't tell you much about it now, as you'll see it unfold in the next few months... I just need to find more Smile DK songs... Episode 01 is coming! Really!!!
Posted by Badgers at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2003
A Happy Day
Relatively, at least. I had a nice day, and even managed some time out (though I did manage to fall down a grate while making a delivery of equipment and got one mildly sprained ankle!).
Not so lucky for some I fear - in Burnley, at the roundabout at the bottom of Active Way there was a nasty looking 3 (+) car smash - one person going off to hospital on a stretcher, and three crunched cars. Maybe more, as I didn't get long to rubberneck.
Still, for a change things didn't go too bad for me (except the ankle), and so for a change I'm not too unhappy a bunny at the moment. Though the odd messages I got today on the works mobile asking for 'tabs' is worrying... see my Baka for details!
Posted by Badgers at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2003
Must... Control... Fist... Of... Death...
Sigh. And today was going so well. My supervision with my boss went well, and the only 'complaint' that had come up wasn't my problem at all. I got on the computer and got lots done (for a change).
Then a call from an old woman who should have had a flashing doorbell fixed. Ages ago. I sent the order off, and everything. I hate this job!
Still, other things have gone well this past few days, well, apart from Sunday just being me and James up here as Andrew didn't come (probably off LAN partying in Bridlington!). I bet he's pissed that we forgot his birthday... oddly enough, we know it is this month, but he doesn't tell us when it is... strange as its not like he's as old as at least two of the other idiots! Would we rag him about the stairlift he's having fitted next week? Well, yeah, but then he deserves it, the camping, sniping git!
Hmm - now to get down to the flash intro... by the weekend expect to meet Horace, the first Badger of the Month! Well, two months. Probably.
Posted by Badgers at 06:55 PM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2003
Upgrade in Progress... Or Something!
The blogs have been migrated to .co.uk, and all the data is there. I still have to go through the site and sort out the various hyperlinks, and the images on the Moveable Type templates, but things seem to have gone well. Of course, noone will read this until its all done, but what the heck! We're all consenting badgers here, right?
I forgot to mention that tomorrow there is another community event (the Thursby Gardens Launch Day or some such) so there will be lots of noise and even a bungie run... oh happy joy...
Posted by Badgers at 06:34 PM | Comments (0)
Thank God It's Fri - uh - Saturday!
Actually, this week hasn't been too bad - boring, dull, plodding, annoying, but not bad. The weather has cooled a little so its not baking hot all the time, which is nice.
Online its been interesting, though. Over at Newgrounds yesterday was Clock Day, which means that every member of the Clock Crew have made animations and posted. So it's been busy. The Clock Crew of course are ruled by Strawberry Clock (who was the worst animator on the net, until the Lock Crew surfaced recently in an attempt to take the crown of the King of the Portal - don't worry, it's a long complicated story!) and some hate them, but personally, I think that the Crew contains some of the best animators out there (though many add a 'clock' to their names and try to join...) as well as the worst. I even have a brief tribute to SBC's first flash in Butterfly when it is finished... pop to Newgrounds and check the Portal today, or the Clock Crew side of the site... Glory be to B and SBC is our King!
If you have the bandwidth, check out Colonial Marines: Elite Force here. It's a home-made cgi project set in the Aliens vs Predator universe. The trailers look stunning (not quite up to the level of the The Hunt or upcoming Code: Guardian from CeeGee, but still stunning - looks very like Starship Troopers, which can't be bad!), and the story should be told in 3 parts - I'm downloading the hi-res version of Part One now, so I may report later.
The big thing for me is transferring all the Badgers Moveable Type stuff from .com to .co.uk this afternoon. I have to correct all the links to files at Demon so they point to the right place and then make sure it all works properly. Then I have to put up the redirect at Demon (though most people who come here (and there are some) will hopefully have grasped the change of location! This means I can then get down to the proper site - as mentioned above, since getting the mp3 of Butterfly (China Power Mix) again I have felt ready to start again, and after Clock Day yesterday, I know I can get back into the Flash community... and I have much to show you...
Posted by Badgers at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2003
Crash. Bang. Wallop.
A nice couple of days for crashes and things. Tuesday morning saw a very nice car pull out from in front of the Town Hall without looking so that a taxi bumped the front wing (all smiles though, on both sides, which was odd), while driving to Lancaster through the rain of bugs the traffic slowed to a crawl for a mile or so as we all filed past a VW camper van that had set on fire, on the way home (sooo glad to be home!) I passed an MG that had smacked into the back of the Fiesta in front at the temporary traffic lights by the constuction site that wil be our now Tesco superstore (on stilts), and a car parked across the road from home has been bashed in the side too...
The meeting as dull (we spent most of it going over the minutes of the last one, trying to remember what we actually said three months ago), and I still feel the need to unscrew someone's head.
Oh, and James has had a virus (msblast.exe, apparently) so he is soo firewalled on Sunday (!)
Such a fun couple of days... I'm gonna spend tonight watching Andromeda, West Wing and doing some Flash, for a change...
Posted by Badgers at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2003
Wow - a fairly nice weekend...
...and a pretty cool storm too!
I felt so much better after doing that big entry and getting it all off my chest. Getting Moveable Type up and running at .co.uk was pretty sweet too - first time too - whoo-hoo!
Friday saw me going to Manchester in the glorious sunshine (not a common ocurance in Manchester), at least when the bus finally got going - a chinese couple were having trouble understanding the idea of the 'bus fare' - they paid the money, were given the tickets, but somethow there was a breakdown in communication as they stood arguing (he in cantonese, she in cantonese/half-english for nearly five minutes) for no apparent reason (was it too much? was it too little, were they trying to haggle? Who knows! Once there I decided to splurge on a new joypad (wireless from Saitek - thanks to a voucher!), some Strangers In Paradise collections (if you haven't read the comic, do so) and books at Waterstones - Fortune of War (the Patrick O'Brian I've been hunting for!), Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (at last!) and Robert Rankin's Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse (I was soooo tempted by his new hardback, Witches of Chiswick... it sounds hilarous - must be a tradition, an old charter or something!). On the way back I was sat reading Maurice when something sat next to me - I really have never seen anything so big that could get out of the house! She was enormous - when she sat down I actually got squeezed to the side! And what got me (apart from rolling waves of fat) is that she started to eat an oven bottom sandwich... then another. Then another and THEN a big bag of crisps! Thankfully the bus didn't have to labour all the way into Burnley with the extra weight, but it did have to strain through Edenfield with her aboard.
Jamius popped over on Saturday to pay for some books I ordered for his beloved wife (still waiting for Castles though!) and we chatted. And he played around with Supercar in Flight Simulator 2004... Saturday evening came and went. I spent much of it asleep to be honest. Nice two-part Dinotopia though (well, 3-part I suppose as it looks to continue into the finale next week - I might review this series, as it has been interesting...)
Sunday started with a thunderstorm. Which was quite decent - serious strikes and everything - the power even went off for a few seconds!!! The fun thing though was flying from Manchester to Burnley in real weather conditions in FS 2004... lots of thunder as I got near home! At Nicks the saga of Nick's PC continued with extra fans being fitted (and my idea of using those little screwy-nutty things that come with motherboards let them fit the fan to the back) but it worked well enough... though as it wasn't very hot (just clammy due to the storm) it may not have been a good test.
One thing was interesting - Andrew showed us some Flash sites he had been sent - he mentioned 'this is what you should be doing with I.T.'... if only he knew of my plans for the sites... redesigns, working out how to make a cool template for these MT pages... lots of anims (see previous entry!)...
Finally I come to today. Back at work, and under stress immediately. One woman, who I had only just seen the day before I went off, moaning that the loop system hadn't been fitted, and is there anything (other than a hearing aid) to go behind her ears to let her hear... I think she wants a cochlear implant, but we don't supply them... Other people also got on my bad side today by pestering me about how to do things on the computer system (to paraphrase Jamius (who is harrassing me just now on Messenger!), "Why is it that everytime something goes wrong on the County Council computer network, they come to me?")
Sigh. Still, tomorrow I get to go to a meeting that might not be too boring in Lancaster. Oh happy happy joy joy. At least I have two months of travelling expenses to come... and June 2003's is huge due to driving to Telford and back!!!
Posted by Badgers at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2003
RNP Presents Jet Morgan in... Journey Into Space!!!
Hmm. I've been thinking this morning about my plans in Flash and I've decided to jot down a few notes, so as to have a record and to see if people are interested....
Firstly, whether people want it or not (!) I'll be adapting the I.T. strips into Flash anims starting in the New Year (really really this time!), along with the Quatermiss Chronicles. This is a given!
I also want to get round to Dark Tidings as an animation... yeah, I know, but this won't just be me working on my own - DT needs to be a slightly bigger production with decent voice acting, etc...
Other stuff include some little animations to get started, a couple of music videos and one big project or two... or three... y'see I realised (after looking at a good website at www.journeyintospace.co.uk) that my favorite radio science fiction drama was 50 years old this year, and still brilliant And I've been listening to it all this week wondering if I could ever do a Flash version. Would someone sit through all 5+ hours of Operation Luna? Hmm. I want to find out!!! I have been wondering if I should start with the second story, The Red Planet(71/2+ hours!), as it is more accessible, and following it with World In Peril (8 hours+!!!)... Sure, the BBC might not be happy, but if they can bugger up the 40th Anniversary of Doctor Who, the 50th Anniversary of Journey Into Space is sure to go unnoticed.... though the possibility of the entire series on their new MP3 format discs is sooo enticing, especially if all the episodes are unedited!!! We shall see... I might just get a chance to make a start this afternoon after coming back from Manchester...
After all, "orders must be obeyed without question at all times..."
Posted by Badgers at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2003
Deep Breathing Exercises
Sigh. Finally, after fiddling and messing and a little screaming, Thursday has come and gone. Well, nearly gone. Overall this has been the usual week off, but as I have a little longer to fill you in on (the last entry was at the end of July and I left you hanging with mum in Hospital due to building the computer and certain issues with the server at Digihosters...)
Well, to start with the most important stuff, Mum came out of hospital the following Monday (she cheated a little though to escape). I went to visit her on the Saturday, after stressing out over the fact that the PC wasn't working (more on this later) and one thing that struck me (apart from her being quieter due to the asthma and other problems) was the large number of Filipino nurses - after she got home she told me that they are all about 30 and looking for men to go out with for some fun (totally platonic). One of them had even noticed me (I hate it when they do that!) and mum had failed to introduce me. D'oh!! Still, she got home and to be fair, she did take it easy for a few hours, before she got down to the Community Action Group meetings, taking out leaflets, etc!!! Yesterday she even went to Beamish on a coach trip (lots of walking in the heat of the hottest day of the year - yeah, that'll help her!) Ah well, she's not quite rushing round like she was, but she's not been resting like she should either. But as we'll have to nail her into her coffin with big nails...
The bug/whatever has lurked around though - I'm still coughing, but after last week (very busy and totally insane) I'm not surprised - Still, despite everything I got home on Friday (with some paperwork that I still haven't finished but I'll try to do tomorrow after coming back from Manchester).
Now, the computer. Its cost a little bit of money (!) but thanks to special deals at Aria and on Ebay, I now have a Thermaltake case with a ABIT NF7-S motherboard, complete with 3000XP+ Athlon, GeForce 5600 128mb Ultra card and 1 gig of memory. Of course, there is a saga...
I put it together, but it wouldn't boot. Heck, I couldn't get power. I ended up calling James round, and after lots of trying wires in different places, he was close to giving up. Earlier he had said that the heatsink looked like it wasn't on right. It wasn't. Because the CPU wasn't in it's slot properly (see - I own up to it! My bad!!!). Once done, it worked. Windows set itself up, and all seemed well. But it started to crash out whenever it felt like it. After updating the drivers for the nForce 2 hardware, changing some settings in the bios and fiddling it now works. Though taking it to Nicks' the day after building it was a mistake. Taking it the week after wasn't, though. It ran things very well - MS Flight Simulator 2004, IL-2: Forgotten Battles, Midnight Club II... all ran without a problem, and fast! Nick on the other hand, had now got a slot DVD drive that was far faster than his old drives (ie it worked), but it was very hot last Sunday... and his PC kept dropping out of games (starting with IL2) which was a problem. Andy was desperate to leave, but we had to try and fix Nick's PC... he has a Zalman cooler and it seemed that the system was still overheating reaching 73 degrees C!!! A little too hot (mine was up to 60, but it was hot, and my heatsink/processor is probably slightly fragged after the problems of building...). This weekend it looks as if the first hour will be takijng Nick's PC apart to sort out the problem, not that it will overheat as much as it won't be as warm...
So, onto this past week! I spent a while this week working my arse off redoing the bedroom, tidying up, moving bookcases and tarantula tanks round to my satisfaction. In the heat. But I survived - the room looks better, and I really enjoyed listening to Journey Into Space: Operation Luna and The Red Planet. Surprisingly, I'd almost forgotten just how good the 50's radio serial was - between that and the Quatermass serials on TV, I think I'd have been failry happy in the 50's... though I'd probably miss Ayumi Hamasaki... 50's Jpop is just sooo... ummm... yeah.
At the weekend I emailed Perry's in Clitheroe to book my service on the car - got a call on Monday to confirm it. The person on the other end of the phone seemed a little bewildered, and when James & I headed over to get it done today it seems it hadn't been booked in. Still, the service was done, though it diod through up a couple of extra problems - apart from the indicator needing to be fixed at Blackburn (a new indicator stalk unit... sigh) - as the front brakes are a little worn (expected - due to be sorted in October when I have more money and time) and the drop link (whatever that is) needing doing. As I say, It will be going to Blackburn to get sorted out befor the MOT anyway, so no problem. Camille certainly goes better now!
While we were waiting, we walked round town, sitting on benches, watching ladies the world go by, looked in an book shop and ended up sitting by the river at Edisford Bridge watching ducks, with Jamius telling me how they used to go there (often involving taking the dinghy right down there...!) I also got the story about his Hillman Hunter... and the cursed Honda Civic! All tis and a nice day!. I even treated myself to fish'n'chips from the usual chippy. As we were eating it James told me about one of the girls who walked past... Because he drove buses over there for a while, he knows so many people, both drivers and passengers... and lots of things about them. He should write a book (or website!) about it... Confessions of a Bus Driver, anyone?
Ah - the website... I now have www.roguenoid.co.uk set up, but it is just a copy of Badgers at the moment - links don't work, no MT installed, etc. I've confused James to death by giving him a sub-domain of his own over there (www.jamius.roguenoid.co.uk) to use as he likes (though I will delete non-super-powered japanese schoolgirls!)... I'll be moving various parts of the site (Badgers side only) there, and use it for more storage and extra bandwidth for RNP, when I start doing the Flash properly... but that won't happen till the end of the month - I'll then close the Demon account, and save £11.75 per month! And all the hassle of going through 300+ emails a week offering me viagra, etc... Of course, I'll have all the fun installing Moveable Type again... and after the fiddling I was doing this afternoon to get it running here again, I should be an expert!!!
And so ends this long big-ass log entry. If I've missed anything important, Jamius can remind me, though it's too late now! Manchester awaits tomorrow! and the last day of my week off too... can I fit in Journey Into Space: World In Peril? Its only 8 hours long...!
Posted by Badgers at 08:52 PM | Comments (3)
July 26, 2003
This Week
Well, in most ways, this week hasn't been as bad as previous weeks, but in others...
The main news is that the virus that mum and dad caught last week latched onto me, but while dad is pretty much just grumbling and making it worse than it is, I have just come out of having breathing problems and dizzy spells (I feel better today, but it will strike again next week - it always comes back), and mum was admitted to hosital earlier this week and is still there because of it. She has problems breathing at the best of times, but apparently wasn't taking in anywhere near enough oxygen. I hope to be going up to see her this afternoon after the shopping, etc.
Ah yes, household duties.
Now, I don't mind cooking, cleaning, etc, but dad is so unhappy about mum not being here that he is basically 'slobbing-out'. I have to admit, I haven't exactly been perfect (I wash up in the morning, but considering what little I'm eating as I'm taking the chance to diet!!!), but to leave crumbs,smears of butter and jam and stuff on the worktop is just icky. And I know I've just had to clear my bedroom so I could see the floor (it's untidy again now, cos I'm doing something), but having to do the same each day to see the sink and worktop? It's like the last days of the Big Brother house (am I the only person not to have watched a single bit of this?). Ah well, hopefully she will be out on Monday, and no doubt will run herself stupid tidying up after us... even if we try to stop her (and I will, believe me).
As far as work goes, I've been co-opted onto a big policy sub-group (they only asked me to go to a loan store meeting in Accrington!), and on Friday my ex-boss managed to nag me for 10 minutes when I took hima copy of a paper from the meeting. Plus ca change. Otherwise the usual run of annoying/boring/irritation people, and even some clients. A few things have conspired to make me a little happy, though, like a plan I'm working through to pull me from the doldrums (but is currently depressing me as somethng isn't here yet from Germany that really should be!). Still, it could be worse.
Oh - and James & I battled through a lot of Will Rock last night (until 1.30+!) so I'm knackered. I agree with him that the game seems to work hard to piss you off -the number of enemies is scary, and the design of some of the levels...
And now I have to do the shopping, the washing, the ironing...
Posted by Badgers at 08:22 AM | Comments (5)
July 22, 2003
And The Hits Just Keep Coming...
Yeah, I hit something today.
But don't worry - the only victim is a shredded rear tyre! I was heading to my 3pm apointment on the M65 when I saw something in the road - it was too late to do anything - the next thing I know is a noise and suddenely the car seems a litle less responsive all of a sudden... I pulled off at the junction I was approaching an parked in a car park in Barrowford to assess the damage. I managed to get the tyre off and put the spare on - yet another annoying little expense, but what do you expect when the service is fast approaching!
And it seems something else has gone terribly wrong at work for me... I wonder why I twitch so much when the phone rings/someone approaches me/anything at all happens? Still, it isn't quite as bad as last week was... well, not yet anyway, though I do have a bad throat, terrible chest, I've been sick once today and now there's blood in the phlegm I'm coughing up. Still, just a week and a half to go until my week off... and the car's service... and a week of not knowing what the heck has gone wrong now at work...
As I say, the hits just keep on coming... expect me on pills by the end of the week!
Posted by Badgers at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2003
My Head Hurts...
This week looked like going well, if it hadn't been for vegetating on the XP training course. And then getting back to work on Wednesday to find something that wasn't my fault going horribly wrong. And Mum and Dad starting to really come down with the sniffles. And an annoying client who had stormed off after the appointment before his overran, sending a rather nasty letter of complaint (which was 'lost' by managers, then another, and finally letting us know in no uncertain terms that I was a dumbo and had messed him around. All this, when we hadn't met, and all subsequent attempts to make an appointment with him were blown off by him!) And don't get me started on other stuff...
All in all, I come out of this week more depressed than usual. James' wife Marie papped her horn at me and told James at home that it looked like I'd had a bad day. If only she knew! Sigh. It's so good to have a website to share this crap on!
I have a Plan though, and while it isn't a great one, it will give me a new focus and hopefully raise me from these doldrums. I won't say what it is, but sadly it doesn't involve proposing to anyone. Like that would make me feel better!!! You can tell how bad this week has been when you see my latest Dream Diary - if I fought to stay in a world as screwed up as that one seemed to be, what does it say about this world?
Ah well - the weekend is here, and I intend to spend much of it on stage one of the big tidy-up - well, stage two as I started it ages ago, but never got round to finishing! Its a bit symbolic to tell you the truth - and I have to find stuff to sell on Ebay, so it's practical too. I hope to see the floor by Wednesday!!!
See! I can be happy and light-hearted... just not at the moment...!
Oh - and on getting home I find that a local nutter has been arrested for two murders nearby... Burnley is definitely the Place To Be...
Posted by Badgers at 10:31 PM | Comments (2)
July 15, 2003
Look! Gran Can Suck Eggs!
Well, I'm just on the second day of my training course at the moment - at least after this I'll be able to use a decent system at work at last. Well, half-decent, considering that it is Micro$oft!
I have actually learned a few bits, but not much to really set the world to rights, or that I'll be using too much... but hey, if you want sparkly text, you can have it!
Jamius nagged me for a while last night when I showed him the mobo I'm hoping to get... and he kept showing me others he'd found on Ebay... not many of them running at 333mhz on the FSB, never mind 400! I think I'll wait for the dosh to get an ABIT NF7-S... it'll run at 333 with decent paired (remember that Nick!) memory, has Serial ATA and is ready for 3000XP+ Barton chips, or the hugely expensive 3200XP+ chips... should be futureproof for a couple of weeks!!!
Time for that Lottery win, methinks!!!
Posted by Badgers at 11:35 AM | Comments (1)
July 13, 2003
Yawn...
Well, I'm knackered, but there are no after effects of last night besides that - heck, even my last entry makes some sense! I still have a voice too! Still, it wan't much of a drinking night, was it? Though how James managed to screw the ball off the table and into the fireplace still has me in stitches when I think about it... talk about pride coming before the fall... We also wondered what would have happened if anyone, say, a girl, was there and it landed in her cleavage... would you have to play through, like in golf? And would you need a niblick... or just get a slap for your troubles? Oh, and Nick and his eyesight... I've realised why he goes for the older woman so ften, even when he gets up close enough to see them! He needs the tactile feedback - he uses braille!!! (Mee-ow!!)
Something that was fun was watching an inebriated fly land upside down (well, crash land) on the table in the beer garden at the Swan... Jamius being considerate flicked it off the table to it's doom.
Another thing - have you noticed how when you go into a pub or club, the chairs and tables are arranged in a certain way... but they soon move about and before you know it the people sat in front of you have moved ten feet to the right... or they return from the bar to find the table gone to the other end of the dance floor. It's almost unnoticable! You never see anyone pick up a chair (excepting those times when the guy asks if he can borrow the seat), and yet, they move. It's almost organic! And then there are the times when the chair just jumps out from under you as you sit down, though I fear that may have other causes...!
Anyway - just forgot to add another link in yesterday evening's 'blog (it was quicky rushed together before rushing out, but I didn't get a stitch in my side like James did when he ran down to met us at The Swan!). Y'see, I'm gathering sites like Badgers to link to for a specific Badgers Links page, rather than the one at RNP... Last night I gave you Dicks Without Chicks, here is another silly site... Minced Chicken! Funny news items, lists of odd things to do... Oddly enough, Badgers has been slowly becoming a meld not unlike those two sites over the past months, and I only just found them yesterday afternoon!!! There must be other people like me out there... and that worries me...
Posted by Badgers at 06:47 AM | Comments (3)
So,The Night Out, Then...
...was not quite as good as usual, for various reasons. The main one being that the Chicago Rock didn't open until at least 10.00, by which time you have to pay (usually its free before 10pm), probably due to the work being done to the Iron Works upstairs... Instead, the majority of the time was spent in the Garden Bar, which is every bit as gay as it used to be... - heck, I was even propositioned in the loos! Someone was asking me about my shoe size (ie clod-hopping)... That's not to say that there were no nice women out there, but nothing comared to the usual haul you can get in the Rock...
For a change, we tried the Cross Keys, and to be fair, its a different place to what it used to be last time we were in there, but it was dead - even after midnight there were hardly any people there. Maybe it's the summer holidays, or something, but the joint just wasn't jumping like it usually would be.
The best thing all night happened there, though, as Nick put 30p in the pool table and me and him played a game. Of course, he is pretty crap, and I don't just suck at the game, I blow! Anyway, James was watching and was laughing at my ineptitude, so he took over, and promptly struck the cue ball and knocked it into the fireplace... Laugh? I nearly wet myself!!!
Sadly, though, Nick had been on a fun day at work, and so was pretty knackered - in fact he didn't finish his drinks so I ended up drinking twice as much as the other two... and I'm not as far gone as usual. If I was, I might have got up and danced at the Garden Bar, but due to the clientele, I decided better of it. Sigh.
I also spotted something that will go on the list of photos to take for the OOPs pages... a locksmith that has closed for business... but has the 'open' sign on the door (that page will be updated once I move Badgers to roguenoid.co.uk next month).
SO, we set off home a little (!) earlier than normal - James, Nick and I nattered for a while by the town hall about the next night out (in August, it seems), and a brief bit of planning for Alton Towers (also in August).
So, I finally got Nick to go home to his PC (he has the memory and has left the video card at the shop, AK Computers, to be tested) and came home. Now my bed awaits! See you tomorrow, perhaps...!
Okay - Here's an update with a few extra (and more racy!) bits... Two girls spring to mind from last night, but neither for that reason!
The first was a blonde in a lot of demin - well, apart from the skirt. She was dancing like, well, a nutter! Thin as a rake, tall, and totally out of her tree! Still it gave us something to watch in the Garden Bar.!
The second was kinda the opposite. Smaller, fatter, and not quite as much denim - just in the skirt (what there was of it). And she certainly wasn't dancing. And not something to watch. Though she tried to make us. Especially sitting legs apart while modestly (!) adhusting her skirt to show less (and failing miserably!). Luckily, a large (read 'fat') bloke started to... well, not dance, exactly, but move. Look at it go! Whee!!!
Posted by Badgers at 02:18 AM | Comments (1)
July 12, 2003
Goddess Help Me...
...'cos I'm about to go out to meet a couple of the other idiots for a night out... There may be an entry when I get home, if I'm sober enough (which I usually am) or if I don't immediately strip off and fall into bed (to wake up at 6 o'clock tomorrow!!!). We shall see!
Also, we will get the latest on the Nick-versus-computer-bits-supplier debacle... the FX card works, but isn't too much faster than the built-in MX on the mobo... and the new memory stick (if it was new) is not working... and he was charged more than the list price for the video card anyway (the seller who will only remain nameless until I remember what it is) said it was £75, but due to the hassle, would let him have it for £60...
Ah well - oh - visit this site - it's called Dicks Without Chicks - these people could be me and the idiots except for a few things - we look far more hansdome (well, maybe not Andrew in the picture on the Mates page!!!), and there are women around us... just not standing so close!!! Check it out!
Finally - just finished the second Memoirs of A Bow Street Runner novel by TF Banks (The Emperor's Assassin) - rather good! And remember that we are just a couple of short days from the finale of Broken Saints!
See you when I'm sozzled!
Posted by Badgers at 08:00 PM | Comments (3)
July 11, 2003
That was a close shave...
That is one of the most anoying weeks in my entire life over. Well, nearly...
I survived work for the past couple of days because the boss wasn't always in, and I got involved in other things (a meeting later this month at Accrington Victoria Hospital about something or other, various annoying phone calls, etc) to stay out of the way after flooding the boss' intray!!! Still, today hasn't been to bad - yesterday I got a cheap pair of shoes which are nice if a little tight from TJ Hughes, but spent lunch hunting round Winfields in Haslingden for shoes that would fit me and not look like barges... having size 11 1/2 plus feet isn't easy to live with, you know - stylishness is sooo out the window! The nicest I found look a little like giant moccasins, but they are Lee, so not too shabby. And very comfortable - I'll be wearing them tomorrow night if Jamius' plan for going out goes to plan.
I just got home to find that we have two BT Email phones (for the Community Alliance stuff) that I'll no doubt have to set up, and remember back in march when I mentioned the kimono that was damaged from QVC (or Ideal World, whichever shopping network they bought it from)? Well, the replcement is here, and it is lovely.. though not very turquois (maybe it's a dark blue colour there!)
So, onto tonight - I'll be zipping off to collect James to take him to Nick's (convoluted this) to try and sort out his computer problems. Maybe getting the high powered video card he picked up this week for EEK! number of pounds will help... And of course, James is pushing for a night out... if he's that desperate, it must be bad!!! Still, the night out will be fun for me - this week has ben so bad that I've booked a week off in August!
Finally, for the Ayu fans out there, her new EP/double single/whatever & is out, and its not bad - Ourselves is her usual song, ie good, and Grateful Days is so fun it has to be a summer hit! The PVs are pretty good )as usual) too... She seems to had had fun in the latter!
oh - and I finished Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix! Expect my Review this weekend!
Posted by Badgers at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2003
Momma Said There'd be Days Like These...
To clear a backlog, I've been pretty much confined to barracks this week at work - so yesterday I decided to get bloody minded. My boss wants me to sit at the computer giving her case closures, so I did. Until the computer went down for maintainance at 5.40pm. Then I had to go out to Rimington to deliver a spare textphone to somone. I returned home at 7.15. Add to this advising people on how to use XP (we've just started to switch from an antiquated system called OfficePower to MS Office), and coming home to mum & dad having questions about emails too... It's no wonder I haven't finished Order of The Phoenix yet!!!
Today was a little easier, for some reason - the boss said I didn't need to do any closures for a few days (I'd pretty much flooded her in-tray!!!), and I spent most of the day in the heat buiding a database of suppliers and planning my next PC...
Next PC? Yep - thanks to Nick's attempt (see Jamius' Blog for details - I felt that his style of writing would convey the chaos better than mine!) I decided to set about my own project, just to prove how easy it is. The only problem is that the next incarnation of Ayumi will be at the back end of the year due to finances... but it will be a heavily modded monster!
Sigh. Still, only two more days to go till the weekend, then a two-day course where I learn how to use XP... I think I might take Jamius up on the night out theis Saturday!!! Two of us getting melancholy (me over everything in general, and Jamius over not getting the GeForce4 Ti card off Nick!)...
Posted by Badgers at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2003
Manchester Journeys...
Wel, today was interesting - lots of little things to see and try not to get involved in... much of it without having to get off the bus! I'd forgotten my bag and the book I was going to read, so I had to look out the window all the way. Normally, this would be boring, but somehow today seemed to want to entertain me...
First, the bus was a little late, but then when the drivers switched at Burnley bus station, a big one got off, and a little one got on. He spent some time getting the steering wheel in the right position, and we set off. Only to stop again as the mirrors were not right. Three times. Then we picked up the ticket inspector who looked at our tickets and noticed that one lady and her sons had only paid for 1 1/2 to Manchester. Not their fault, as she had said 1 and 2 halves, but obviously the driver misheard her... that managed to slow the bus down more. And of course, this was the X44 that goes through Edenfield (though it wasn't a wasted journey as one person did get on - at the edge of Bury!)
Things ran a little smoother (if later) from then on, but as it was so late we were treated to the sight of the Jewish community of Prestwich all heading to/from the synagogue. A question - why is it Jewish people get so dressed up? I mean, forget how Christians (spit) get dolled up for church - these guys, gals, be they man, woman or child, get dressed so smartly, usually all in black with long black coats and those black fedora hats that are soooo black? And do they have to look so incredibly serious about it all? Even the people who had big furry hats on (the fedora's in the wash, perhaps?) I don't mean to seem ignorant of the faith (being a Techno-Pagan-Buddhist-Shinto-Atheist kinda guy), but it all seems so... so... much!
Oddly enough, it was a rather religious day in Manchester - there must be a conference there - as lots of people were out and about with 'Give God Glory' name badges, and there was an old man with a banner proclaiming something about light and truth, and darkness and not truth or something. Sadly not as much fun as a couple of years back when I ws sitting reading in Manchester by the Library and two... lets just say Christians... came over and asked me if I had ever thought about Christianity. I got a book out of my bag on Wiccan practices, and said, "Well, actually, I'm a Pagan..." They actually did a double-take and ran. One of them had eyebrows that would have met in the middle when I said it, except that they already did. Oh, and apparently those people in suits that knock at your door at inconvenient times say that my views are pretty much in accordance with the teachings of the Bible. Yeah, I try not to laugh, but HAHAHAHAHA!
In Manchester there were also two people who obviously didn't want people to realise they were lesbians. Despite the short, spiked hair, the dungarees and the hand holding. And an idiot who stopped the bus on the way in, the driver waited till he'd finished the fag he was smoking (not the brightest of bulbs, our driver, I feel), asked if we went somewhere (we didn't), sauntered off to light another cigarette as we set off again. And also an old woman who waited in the bus stop, the bus stopped to let someone off, but she got up and walked away. I had Waiting in Green Velvet by Joshua Kadison playing in my mind... obviously not the bus she was waiting for then...
Still, apart from coming out of Forbidden Planet with only 3 Battle Of The Planets comics an Astro City and a Strangers In Paradise, and Waterstones not having Patrick O'Brians's Fortunes Of War in , it wasn't too bad. And I did get 2 seasons of B5 on DVD! Note - You can get Season 1 at HMV for £24.99 in the sale bit, and its £37.99 for Season 2 at MVC. Just for those who care...
There - that bus talk should get James interested!!!
Posted by Badgers at 06:33 PM | Comments (1)
July 04, 2003
Thank Goddess That's Over!
Another week, another 7 days nearer checking out time...
Between people dithering (should I cross the crossing while the man is green... ooh - cars... um, should I? Yeah - no.. ummm), No traffic in the mornings followed by loads at the most annoying points in the day (like when I'm already 45 minutes late for an appointment 'cos a colleague wants me to help her get her XP settings done.. and show her how to send emails...
Still, yesterday I had the pleasure of taking an outreach worker with me in the afternoon to show her what I do when I assess, met the new Director of Social Services this morning (nice guy, though I felt he was going to sell me something) and generally hoped that the week would end so I could get home!
Tomorrow isn't too bad though - I hit Manchester and will be coming back with the 3 Patrick O'Brian novels I need and possibly the first season of Babylon 5 on DVD if all goes well (Ah - a credit card with credit again!!! Hmm - maybe I'll wait a tad longer!). We shall see - something tells me I might not spend much there tomorrow... not with servicing on Camille coming up soon...
Later, possibly!
Posted by Badgers at 08:42 PM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2003
How Many Meetings Can One Man Take?
Sigh. Not a busy week so far, except yesterday (3 hours behind on visits and I couldn't find one place at all!). Today, though, was the cracker. First, ths morning was a half-day 'away day' at The Higher Trapp Hotel. This is not a meeting in name, but involved talking about the future of Social Services and should we go for the Investors In People award. Not entirely dull, I'll admit, but by the end of the morning my bum was numb! And my brain was following along quite nicely! Then I had to dash out to see the lady I couldn't find yesterday. I returned to work just in time to start the Team Meeting - fa far more dull meeting during which I have been known to go to sleep... sadly the only seat left was next to my boss, so that was out of the question...
Ah well, at least that is out of the way - and I got some info on my job - apparently in a week or so I won't be covering half of my area, and at the moment they don't know what will happen over there... I sense this will get messy...
Oh - does anyone know how to stop yourself from having to reformat your PC all the time (apart from getting a Mac, of course)? Jamius is having more problems... though at least he sent his "HEEELPP!!!" email to the right address to get an answer within a month...
Posted by Badgers at 05:49 PM | Comments (2)
June 26, 2003
We're The Sweeney, Son (an' we 'aven't 'ad any dinna!)
Well, apparently today has been a busy day back at home, with drugs raids and stuff (not an uncommon occurance here, but what do you expect in Burnley, home of the third Hellmouth?)
Me? I was driving out to the centre of Britain - ie Dunsop Bridge in the Ribble Valley. Very nice indeed, what with the lovely weather and scenery, but the large amount of roadkill kinda put a slight downer on it all. I didn't see the llama though - perhaps next time! As we all know, the llama is a quadruped. It has four legs and two beady eyes. If you see one, you should shout "Cuidado! Llamas!")
On the way back home tonight I thought we'd had another death crash (yes another - I was driving last week and the police had blocked off Padiham Bypass (Barrowford Road) past the Barden Lane turnoff - I didn't post as I didn't know about it until later), but no, it was just a truck that had broken down in the middle of the Rossendale Road/Manchester Road junction, and so blocking traffic for ages...
Still, it's been a much better day than most recently, and I appear to be losing weight... and I'm not even on the diet yet!!! Must be something I ate...
Posted by Badgers at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2003
One of Those Days/Weeks/Months (Delete As Applicable)
Sigh. Its only Tuesday. And its in weeks like I'm having now that you realise just how much I must love my job. Because despite everything, I'm still doing it!
I won't go into detail, but I have had my first complaint filed aganst me, though sdue to a certain management cockup (involving a bin) it may be even worse... And today wasn't as good as it started out being, either, but I think someone was smiling on me from on high as on the way home I saw something wonderful.
I mean, is there anything more sexy than a woman wearing a skirt with the sun behind her? Excpet maybe Cameron Diaz. In a skirt with the sun behind her. I think it must all go back to a certain episode of The Good Life... Heck, Felicity Kendall almost trumps Cameron! And have you seen the second wave of posters for Charlie's Angels? Gulp!
Wait a minute - Felicity does trump Cameron!!
Posted by Badgers at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2003
That Old Chestnut Again
Hi, back again with another update on the madness of drivers... seems to be a regular occurance nowadays, huh?
So this Friday I was driving down to Telford for an exhibition. And I saw many examples of bad driving. How many times did I see someone who really needed to be in the slow lane due to their junction coming up fast... despite being in the fast lane? And people driving in the boot of the car in front? And the wreckage of a nasty looking truck/car bump (no injuries though, just a buggered car). But the most interesting thing for me was just in Blackburn when I was going to pick up a passenger for the trip - a white van (isn't it always!) that set off from the traffic lights with black smoke pouring from the exhaust... the cloud blocked the road for a minute or so, it was so bad...
The exhibition (National Deaf Childrens Society Exhibition) was not too bad (I got to see & meet people and things I wanted to), but it was a little bit of a letdown after previous years - far fewer companies - in fact, they were nearly outnumbered by the schools that had stands. Two really nice dogs there, though - one a beautiful Saluki hearing dog that was friendly to everyone, and the other a huge German Shepherd called Shadow who would probably have terrified anyone if it hadn't been so happy and slobbery!
On the way back though, I got a call on my newly given works mobile - apparently something I gave out last month has stopped working and the lady needs it as she comes out of the maternity ward today... I was at Sandbach services at the time, so couldn't do anything much... no doubt I'll go in on Monday and have an hours' nagging from my boss, during which I will have to mention that it worked when I gave it out, and it's not my fault if it stops now. And I was in contact on the phone, but I refuse to answer it at 80mph on the M6 (though we didn't often get up to that speed due to congestion due to roadworks and that little shunt I mentioned). I don't think they realise that I've given myself six months to get the job sorted out before I hand in my notice... unless it improves big time... Sigh.
The rest of the week has been pretty dull, apart from sorting out a internet coop game of Will Rock (similar to Serious Sam, but has not quite got the lunacy... though I love the skeletons!) - James likes it - see his Blog! and meetings and other boring stuff. I think we need some serious excitment. The nearest I got is getting the last payments for my Ebay sales, and sending everything off on Monday - I'm still waiting for 2-3 feedbacks I think, but one person might only be getting the stuff now in the US, and the others might just have forgotten (I haven't heard anything to say they haven't got their stuff). Oh, and since Amazon didn't take the money for the two Harry Potter books out back in February, they moaned that my credit card had refused payment... after all, they expire and new ones are issued! Idiots. This means that James will now be sitting down with his copy (he probably waited outside WHSmiths until midnight to buy it) and reading it cover to cover today to piss me off. Ah well - I'm finishing The Poet by Yi Mun Yol first anyway....
Oh - afore I go, the None-Discosure Agreement has ended, so I can tell you that Star Wars Galaxies is the game I was playing a few weeks ago - it looks Star Wars, it sounds Star Wars, but is it Star Wars? Unsurprisingly it is very Everquest-y, but looks to be fun - lots of enjoyment to be had wandering round and talking to people, but currently there is not enough variety - two basic missions (destroy things or deliver things) don't feel enough (remember I had the same feeling about Freelancer, but I'm sure that this will change). Obviously that isn't the heart of the game - like EQ it is more involved in letting you live a life in George Lucas' universe, and this it seems to do well, though I'm not sure if that's enough for me to pay the fee each month... Perhaps things will change once the upgrades come out (adding vehicles and the ability to fly things in space!). I do know that the current release at the end of June is going to be either put back, or rushed. I'm sure Doof would be able to tell you more, as he has gotten himself hooked, and a few dollars a month are sure to be going into the pockets of Sony Online Entertainment... See we shall, young padwan, see we shall...
To one and all - Have a Happy Solstice!
Posted by Badgers at 09:38 AM | Comments (2)
June 15, 2003
Lofts Are Hot
Sadly, not that kind of loft... I'm talking about the kind that your parents stuff all kinds of crap into (wood that might just have a use one day, old TVs, Xmas decorations, etc) so that you can't get to the little bit where you keep all your old computers and games...
I spent much of yesterday battling through the jungle up there to sort out my bit so I can get in there... and put more stuff up there. This, you see, is all due to the beginning of the big (late) Spring Clean! I need more room for my books in the bedroom, so some things have to go upstairs, but only if I can get to them when I need to (like, when I really need to play the Spectrum conversion of R-Type, for example). Hot, and knackered I was towards the end... then James rings and asks if I'll take him on to Keighley for one of his little runs... I agree despite being tired, and I'm rewarded by fun conversation and Tim McGraw in the CD player. Not a bad swap, really!
So, now my bedroom is a little clearer, though I have got all my computers and consoles down to sort them out before I pop them back up next week in the start of the big bedroom tidy-up... and once things are tidy down here, I have to go through my CDs and books to get them back in order too...
Oh - here's something I found thanks to the Vintage Gaming Network - a portable Dreamcast in Hong Kong... well, 'Treamcast'! Check it out here! Possibly not a true competitor for the portable Playstation coming from Sony (and unavailable except in Hong Kong) but neat, huh?
Posted by Badgers at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2003
Driving In My Car
This could so easily become a journal of bad driving, not all of it my own. Jamius can put his on his own page!
Y'see, apart from the little rant I put up a day or two ago, today has seen a complete prick in a silver Mondeo racing up the road in Crawshawbooth by dodging out then back into the flow of traffic. And we were all going at 40mph... he just wanted to go at 70mph. I kept wishing he would crash, so I could get out my camera so I could send pictures of his mangled body to Ogrish.com or Rotten.com... sadly he didn't. Oh, and as for the guy on the put-put scooter behind me at the traffic lights who thought it was cool to rev it up and get ready to race (!)... well, it probably would have been cool if the scooter hadn't sounded like a long, drawn-out, high-pitched fart.
One cool thing - by Kitchens garage in Burnley there is a cute sign on a lampost that tells you your speed and smiles if you are at or below the limit, or frowns if not. I got a smile
Oh - just got back from a walk with the dogs and spotted more smoke rising into the air from what I assume to be another burning car... that's burnley for you!
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