Mind Your Manners Pt I

  September 15, 2008 - 4:32 pm | ,
Leave a comment

Last Friday was an excellent night out. My cousin CJ and I went out to Rio’s night club for the first time since he finished working there. The new tech manager who took over from CJ is a good friend so we were still able to get in for free 😀 . The event on that night just happened to be Bad Manners, a celebration gig on Buster Bloodvessel’s 50th birthday. For those who do not know, Bad Manners are a ska revival band, part of the scene in the mid 70s/80s which also saw such acts as Madness, The Specials and The Selecter. The exploits of their front man, Buster earned them considerable notoriety. They still tour and host … Continue reading →

I ♥ Python

  September 9, 2008 - 12:52 am |
Leave a comment

Oh what a wonderful language it is! Whenever I start up my Windows desktop, it is programmed to wake up my Linux server where I keep all my music and movies. I often make the mistake of just opening up Winamp and expecting it to play whatever I choose from the media library. The reason this does not work, fundamentally, is because Windows is shite (on several counts in this case); The only way to automate tasks at startup is through the autoexec.bat batch file which means that if it tries to reconnect to a mapped drive at that time, it obviously fails as the server takes just over 40 seconds to boot. So I do not do this, instead … Continue reading →

Happy Birthday CJ

  September 3, 2008 - 8:12 pm | ,
Leave a comment

On Monday, it was time to celebrate my cousin’s birthday, which wasn’t actually until the next day but it was also his leaving do from Rio’s Night Club as well as a day that most people could make it. We started out at Rio’s, where the proprietor, known as Ziggy to the staff, treated us all to free drinks to start the night off. From here we moved on to the Verve bar which was just across the road for posh beer, or in my case gin cocktails 😛 After this we headed on down to the Fab cafe where we lasted out most of the remainder of the evening. Whilst fun, the night so far was quite uneventful; except … Continue reading →

I can has change plz?

  September 3, 2008 - 7:24 pm | ,
Leave a comment

Yesterday I was feeling decidedly under par. I did not feel like cooking, in fact I didn’t even feel like entering the kitchen given its post-party state. So I ordered myself some takeaway from my preferred establishment. As usual the guy on the phone was polite, as usual the delivery was lightening quick, but that’s where usual stopped. Despite the fact that the takeaway is based just up the road, the delivery driver had to phone me to check he was on the right street and asked me to come outside. This reminded me more of how dodgy drug dealers (as opposed to reputable drug dealers) operate. When he finally located my house and parked up, he handed me my … Continue reading →

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

  September 1, 2008 - 4:33 am | ,
1 Comment

The itsy bitsy spider, Climbed up the water spout. Down came the rain, And washed the spider out. His giant second cousin, Climbed up my bedroom curtains…. Well that was stupid wasn’t it? Death for him was certain 😛 Out came the hardback, Which hit him on the brain, The not-so-itsy spider, Never climbed again A little poem about stupid, eight-legged things that do not know their place in this crazy world.

Music the transporter

  August 30, 2008 - 12:29 am | ,
2 Comments

As usual, I had queued up my entire music collection and set Winamp to random play. Though there was an unusual sequence of tracks, none of which were related, none of which were particularly amazing except for one thing; each and every one triggered an old memory from where I first heard, or most associated the music. I shut my eyes and just listened as I was transported to parents front room, where my dad was proudly showing me his record collection (Deep Purple, Black night); to Cyprus with my mum, driving around the Troodos mountains (Roxy Music, Slave to love); to the school trip to Thorpe Park (Oasis, Hey Now!); to the bus stop outside my flat in Walthamstow … Continue reading →

BOINC – volunteer grid computing

  August 29, 2008 - 8:55 pm | ,
2 Comments

After discovering that running my computers (modestly used as they are) cost over half of what I pay for electricity every year, I started thinking about how my computers could be put to better use. I remembered a little known yet well established concept; volunteer computing, which I used to partake in years ago (I can’t think why I actually stopped being involved before). Which basically involves installing a program on your PC which uses your space cpu cycles to work on scientific projects. A central server for a project hands out small chunks to each volunteered computer over the internet and collates the results. It would appear that this technology has come along in leaps and bounds since I … Continue reading →

For *beep* sake!

  August 27, 2008 - 6:41 pm |
1 Comment

I often wonder how and why this sort of thing happens to me. I’m sure it must happen to other people but sometimes it just does feel like the world is out to get me in the most subtle yet soul destroying ways. A few days ago when I woke up I could hear a smoke alarm going off next door. Nothing unusual there, smoke alarms do go off and it was breakfast time. Probably just someone burning their toast. True to form the alarm kept stopping and then going off again a moment later (like all good smoke alarms do when toast is burning near by) however, I started to doubt this after it was still doing this 2 … Continue reading →

Make some noise for BT

  August 25, 2008 - 11:32 am |
2 Comments

Now I could go off onto a rant about how terrible BT are, and I’m sure there are many who would concur with their negative experiences. I would certainly be fair to say that things did not go smoothly when we first signed up, but it certainly was better then some. We have had our line less than two months now and I have already had to call BT regarding a fault. I noticed it last Friday, though it probably happened at least a week earlier. Like many people I don’t actually use my landline, I just have it for my internet connection. It was only when I tried to call an 0800 number that I realised there was a … Continue reading →