Friday, November 29, 2002
Can anyone tell me wtf THIS is all about?Steve 9:14 PM [+] (0) comments
Interesting.
I just had a phone call from a potential employer inviting me to an interview. This is nothing unusual, but what impressed me was that she's sending me a map to find the place via email. Now I know email is no big thing, but it's highly unusual for a potential employer in the field I work in to take any notce at all of an email addy on a resume.
Anyways, we'll see how it goes.
Labels: interviews, work
Steve 3:33 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, November 28, 2002
The shape of things to come next time your pc crashes on you ;-)Steve 10:29 PM [+] (0) comments
I'm thankful.
Yes, I really am. I'm thankful that I live in the uk and don't have to put up with all this thanksgiving sillyness. Christmas is just around the corner, and that takes enough time effort and money without having to deal with another load of commercialised whatnot. Am I missing the point? I don't know, I've never understood what thanksgiving's about, but I don't care. I'm thankful :-)
Steve 9:59 PM [+] (0) comments
Well damnit.
No sooner does another weblog link to The Octopus Files than said blog is forced to shut down.
That sucks.
Steve 7:05 PM [+] (0) comments
I'm tired.
It's raining.
Need coffee.
I'd got up today with the intention of doing lots of stuff that's been sitting on the back-burner, but now I find myself staring blankly at the webcams of people staring blankly (at the webcams of people staring blankly at...?)
Lethargy rules....... er..... what..... was............................ I ............................................
....................oh.
Steve 1:21 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
It's a little known fact that I`m a huge Spider-Man fan... have been since I was a kid. Hidden away in various boxes here I have a collection of several hundred Spidey comics and assorted other titles. So, yesterday I went out and bought the Spidey movie on dvd, and just for the hell of it, picked up the playstation 2 game too.The movie's great, but then I knew that anyway, having watched it at the cinema when it came out. The game though, well... that's another story. To say I'm a little disapointed is something of an understatement. The graphics are great, and it has to be said, web-swinging through New York skyscrapers is rather enjoyable too, but then it comes down to the main parts of the game... UGH
I have 3 main gripes with it.
The camera... it keeps locked on spidey, no problem, but stays facing in the same direction, so you're forever having to adjust it to see where you're going. That's just dumb.
The linear nature of the game... it's mission based, which is fair enough, but the missions are so restrictive and tightly structured, it takes all the fun out of playing the game.
My biggest gripe though is the control system. There are several dozen different actions, all requiring different combinations of buttons, directions with buttons, button sequences, and god knows what else. Now I'm no newcomer to playing games, and don't have much problem getting my head round such stuff, but when I'm faced with a do or die situation and have only a tiny fraction of a second to respond, I don't wanna have to press down+left then o - x - x R1 etc in some dumbass button sequence from hell. I just wanna punch the guy and web him up. Actually... I wanna punch the dumbass who came up with the control system.
The official Playstation 2 magazine gave this game 7 out of 10. Hah! Listen, this game sucks. If you're a games fan who's been thinking about buying it, don't. If you're a serious die-hard spidey fan who's been considering buying it, don't. If you know nothing about games or spidey but think your kid would like it, don't. It sucks.
In the words of Stan Lee, "Nuff said."
Labels: games
Steve 11:25 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, November 25, 2002
Lies, I tell you. It's all lies. And as for the tank, the simple truth is, it was blushing after hearing Brigitte comment on the size of it's weapon.So, a 320 mile round trip, down to Portsmouth, Southsea, and some other little places I don't remember the names of. There was a lot of that actually, like "Where are we?"... "I don't know."... "Well you have the map".... "But it's not on the map."
It was rather foggy on the way down there, but the combined effect of baked beans for breakfast and a healthy sea breeze cleared things up by the time we got there, though oportunities for great photos were limited.
Here's a couple to be going along with though.
This is an old sea fort built by HenryVIII, because he knew we were coming. Didn't do any good though, as we just snuck up from behind.
This one was what the trip was all about though. Before today, the last time I saw the sea was 20 years ago.
Labels: castles, holidays, photos
Steve 9:38 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 24, 2002
After a day spent fetching and fitting a washing machine that turned out not to work, we're having an early night in preparation for tomorrow. Just because we can't afford a week on the coast, doesn't mean we can't go for a day trip. So... up at 6am tomorrow, then down to southampton, and follow our noses. Look out for the photos on tuesday.Steve 8:03 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, November 22, 2002
Quite an adventure we had today, so here it is, presented for your viewing pleasure in photographic form.We started out at Central Milton Keynes shopping centre, where they have their christmas display up already. Part of is is this victorian style carousel which I just love. Further round are displays based on fairy tales, like this one which includes a gingerbread house in the background.
After we'd finished in town, we were umming and arring about what to do next, so I figured I'd show Brigitte some of my favoutite country lanes, and basicly lead her round the route I took photos of a couple of months back. Well... things didn't exctly go to plan, though in a good way, and we soon found ourselves miles off course. As we travelled along deserted country lanes, we could see a heavy rain storm building up in the distance, and just for the hell of it, decided to head towards it... about as close as you'll get to storm chasing in the uk, and pretty soon, it was utterly pissing it down. It was around this time, having not been paying any attention to where we were going, that we realised we were totally lost, so we decided to ask a passing local for directions, but the silly cow was no help at all... *chuckles*. (Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.)
Brigitte's tollerance for my need to poke my head out of the window and take photos of anything and everything is a wonder to me. She even humoured me by driving through deep puddles at the side of the road, so I could take pics of the water spraying everywhere, though I wasn't really able to get a decent shot of it, and fairly soaked the inside of the door, and myself. I suspect she may have regretted this a little, as water clearly got into the electrics, leaving us lost in the middle of no-where, in the pissing rain, with a car only running on three cylinders. Oops.
We finally found our way to a major town, and while trying to find a road that lead to somewhere we recognised, we saw this. What I wanna know is, how's Santa gonna be ready for christmas if he spends his time swinging around up a tree like Tarzan? Needless to say, we got lost again, and had to double back on ourselves, though I'm rather glad we did, as I was able to get this shot. It's nothing remarkable, but for some reason, I like that building. It seems to represent the town we were in quite well.
Anyways, we eventually found ourselves on a stretch of dual carriageway which lead back to familiar territory. When we finally got home, I checked the map and found we'd actually strayed from our planned route by nearly 40 miles.
Good fun... must do it again some time.
Labels: photos
Steve 6:38 PM [+] (0) comments
I'm up and it's not even 9 o'clock. I must be ill. What's stranger still is that I have the urge to go out and DO stuff, though I've no idea what.
Why is this all so strange? Well, anyone who knows me even a little knows that I'm a complete night owl, not normally out of bed till gone noon, and often as late as 5pm.
This has come about due to the level of online work I've been doinng over the past week. For some reason, I only do web design work in the hours of daylight... once it's dark, I stop. So.. I've been up in the daytime, and it's become a habbit. It's a strange feeling, but I rather like it, though it's something of a bummer as far as going to the chatroom's concerned, 'cause everyone's there quite late at night. Anyways... I'll make an effort to get some kind of balance back, now that most of the hard work's done, though it's not likely to be till the middle of next week before I get back into my normal routine. Brigitte's got a week off work, and even though we now can't afford to go on the holiday we'd been planning, we're still gonna go places and do stuff.
Labels: sleep
Steve 9:05 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, November 21, 2002
Some very generalised observations while compiling The Octopus Files, which may or may not be very accurate.There are very few blogs beginning with V, X, Y and Z.
There are a hell of a lot of blogs starting with A, B and S.
There are more british than american male bloggers in proportion to the number of female brit and american bloggers.
There appear to be significantly more female bloggers in general.
Moveable Type is vastly more popular among american bloggers than among brits, who tend to use blogger, and assorted other blogging tools.
Female blogs appear to be more personal in nature, and often more creative, while men tend to concentrate more on work, news and technology, often largely link based.
The quality of blogs linked from a good quality blog are vastly superior than those from a poor blog, while those from portal sites can range from absolute rubbish, to a few real gems... which kinda makes sense really.
As I said, these observations may be entirely inaccurate, and just reflect the kind of blogs linked to from the kind of blogs I enjoy reading... who knows. Suffice to say, if I had to express a liking for a particular type of blog, it'd be by a female 30ish american using Moveable Type, of a personal nature (no I don't mean pervy... just about her life), and with a sharp sense of humour.
It's quite probably that you can tell the kind of blogs or at least posts, that I like from the type of excerpts I chose while compling the octopus files.
Anyway... enough of that for now. I've got a thumping headache and am gonna go lie down for a bit before Brigitte gets here.
Labels: blogging
Steve 2:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
It's ahead of schedule, kind of.After almost 12 solid hours of staring at html, cutting, pasting, and generally fucking my eyes up, I can't do any more tonight, so here it is...
I give you The Octopus Files
About 197 blog links, alphabetised (more or less... my brain hurts), with excerpts. There's links to some blogging tools and sites too, should anyone be interested. Oh yeah.. there's banners, 'cause it's on angelfire, but hey, I'm poor (and lazy), and they're a lot less intrusive than the popups here.
I made lots of interesting(ish) observations while going through this lot, but honestly, I can't bare to look at this screen long enough to type them now, so maybe another time. Now Lemme outta here!!!
Steve 7:01 PM [+] (0) comments
Oh my, oh my.
Brigitte's been dabbling in arty photography. I can't imagine who that pic is of.
Steve 11:48 AM [+] (0) comments
Right then, I'm working full-steam-ahead for the whole day today, with the intention of putting the Octopus Files online at around midnight (GMT) tonight. This will be no-where near what I'd consider a completed project (I've got about 120 blogs listed and hoping to add another 100 today), not that this kinda thing is ever complete, and those with huge link lists won't see anything new, `cause I've trawled them from your sites. It's a start though, and will certainly be useful for newcomers to blogdom who want a rough of the feel of the blogs listed.
Steve 7:31 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
I seem to be paying off some serious sleep debt accumulated over the past week or so, as for the past three days (I think) I've been awake for about 6 hours out of every 24. This isn't good. Much as I love sleeping, when I wake up I feel lousy. Anyway... more later, when I've woken up a bit.Labels: sleep
Steve 9:37 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, November 18, 2002
Going through all these blogs is giving me something of an inferiority complex. Some of them are so good, it kinda makes me feel my own little offerning here is quite pathetic, dull and boring. Oh well. Back to work anyway.Labels: blogging
Steve 9:10 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 17, 2002
I'm a patient person, but not at all a tollerant one, and when I find myself being pulled down a road I've been before, one that I don't want to go down again, it spells nothing but trouble and heartache. Hopefully sense will prevail, though I'm not yet sure who's sense.So I'm burying myself in The Octopus Files. You know, it's a very difficult task I've set myself, and I don't just mean the quantity of work involved. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, and obviously, I can't list them all... but that's not what's so hard. It's selecting excerpts from posts that will do justice to the ones I list. With the amazing quality of much the material out there, how do you select just a few lines that will convey the feel of that blog? It'd be so easy to grab just a couple of sentences, maybe when that person's having a bad day, and give totally the wrong impression. I dunno. Maybe I'm worrying about nothing. Maybe no-one will ever see this site, completely uninterested, but I love blogging and bloggers, regarding these people with great respect. It's important to me that I not fuck it up and get it wrong.
Steve 12:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, November 16, 2002
Phew.That's a lot of work. I'm working my way through the first links trawl, and it's heavy going. Currently up to H. Enough for one night though, I'm shattered and off to bed. Probably won't get time to do more till monday.
Steve 4:01 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, November 15, 2002
I'd hoped to be a little further down the line than I am now, but having sat up most of the night comleting the basic Octopus Files structure, doing a page of links to blogging tools and sites and then uploading it, I slept in all day and didn't get any more work done. Anyways, I'm awake now, so I'm gonna go trawl through everyone's links lists... hehehe. Who's sites will I get links from? Well... if you have a huge links list on your blog, you can be pretty sure I'll be paying a visit... then off to various other portal sites. I'm gonna try and keep it so I only link to live blogs, 'cause god knows, there's enough out there already without linking to ones that've been abandoned.I guess I could post the url already, but since there's no useful content yet, it can wait... probably a week or so is a realistic time frame.
Steve 10:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, November 14, 2002
The Octopus Files project is coming along very nicely. The basic template is now complete, and though it's low on fancy graphics to keep bandwidth usage down, it looks rather funky. Oh.. and yes, it IS purple. More details as and when.Steve 4:41 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Another funky little button in the sidebar for you to play with, though do try not to go overboard with it. If you run yahoo messanger, you can just click that button to send me a message. There's no point in anyone adding me to their buddy list though, as I always stay invisible, 'cause the moment I set it as available, I get bombarded with messages.Steve 10:19 PM [+] (0) comments
Ahhhhhh... that's better, and quite a first. I went to bed quite early by my standards (11:30pm) and actually managed to sleep right through the night.
Today's gonna be quite a busy day. Before going to visit my mum this afternoon, I have quite a few web page updates to do on both of my main sites, mainly concerned with links to the webcam. Up untill a couple of days ago, I've been using the software and hosting provided by Camarades.com, but have been increasingly annoyed with their changing policies and commercialisation. They no longer offer a totally free option, and as for the popups... one is tollerable, but to add another, full page sized popup... it's going too far. SO... I've switched over to MyOwnCam.org. They're very much like camarades were in the beginning, ie providing software and a web page to host it, completely free. The software may not be quite as slick, and the page design is far more basic, but it still allows you to customise your own page. Also, they provide that funky little status button, so people can see if your cam is online before even clicking the link. See it over on the left? The popup cam feature is a bit odd. It opens the cam into a popup window, which is great, but then does a strange thing and reloads the whole of this blog page too. Still... with no huge advertising pages to annoy viewers (though the tripod ones still appear as it reloads this page) it's quite an improvement. After saying all of that, does anyone out there ever look at my cam anyway?
I'll be starting a new online project fairly soon, though nothing too clever... just something I've felt like doing for a while. Entitled "The Octopus Files", it's basicly gonna be a weblog portal site. Thing is, so far I've seen two different types of blog portal, those that actually review the blogs, and more often than not completely miss the point and offend the writers themselves, and those that are just a huge collection of links, with no clue as to what the content is like. The Octopus Files will be different, though the idea is very simple... let the blogs speak for themselves. With each link will be a small (and hopefully representative) excerpt from that blog, so that people can get some idea of what it's like. Stay tuned for more info as and when it's available.
Labels: webcams
Steve 7:46 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Sleep pattern's all messed up again. I went from 10am on sunday through to noonish on monday before I managed to sleep. Okay, so I managed to get some updates done on my websites, but yeash, it's a pain in the arse, 'cause I'm not awake when I really need to be.Labels: sleep
Steve 2:12 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 10, 2002
What can I write about this weekend that Brigitte hasn't said already?Before we all ventured into the garden to behave like a bunch of kids with sparklers...
....
Brigitte and her sister in law treated us to a wonderful display of car ballet on Gran Turismo 3. Have you ever seen a mini do a mid-air 720 degree spin, land back on all four wheels, and promptly shunt another mini up the arse? Such skillful driving has to be seen to be believed.
Anyway.. out in the garden, we opened fire on the neighbours with all manner of rockets, mortars, and other such stuff, some of which were probably a bit big to be fired from a small back garden, but what the heck.
This is one of a series of 36 mortars that was launched and exploded directly above the house. The funny thing was, as soon as we'd finished, the locals started firing back.
Steve 6:39 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, November 08, 2002
Important NoticeDue to the growing unease on the international political stage, I have decided to resolve the situation by anexing the world. From this point on, every country will now fall under the banner of 'The State Of Benway'.
The constitution of The State Of Benway is as follows:
1: Benway is God.
2: When in doubt, see section 1.
3: You have the right to worship Benway.
4: You have the right to not worship Benway.
5: Not worshipping Benway will be seen as acceptance of the law as written in section 4, and thus as worshipping Benway.
6: You have the right to break whatever law you see fit.
7: Breaking the law will be seen as acceptance of the law as written in section 6, and thus construed as worshipping Benway.
8: All other circumstances are covered in section 1.
Thank you for your time, and enjoy your stay in The State Of Benway.
Steve 3:48 AM [+] (0) comments
I've found the reason for the difficulty people including myself have been having getting into the chatroom. Seems dalnet (the chat network we use) is being hammered with denial of service attacks. Details Here.
Bummer!
I know I'm not there as much as I used to be, but it rather sucks to not be able to get in there at all.
Steve 2:20 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, November 07, 2002
Okay, time for a little random linkage.Regular readers may remember some time back, I mentioned sufferening what appeared to be a male equivalent of pms, well...
seems I wasn't just deluding myself
Oddly, last night I found myself having a dream about Bubonic Plague. Oddly, because I just found this report of two cases in NYC.
Steve 9:24 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Ah Jodene, you know me so well. How could I resist playing with thisHere's the result...
Steve 5:10 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
For anyone trying to get into the chatroom, the chat network`s completely screwed up, and apparently, has been for days. So, if you're sat there getting pissed off because you can't get in, you're not missing anything, 'cause no-one else can get in either... not even me.Uh... okay... I just got in.
The tiscali server appears to be working slightly, though there's no knowing how long for, or if it's badly lagged. We'll see.
Steve 11:28 PM [+] (0) comments
Busy busy busy.
Haven't had a day of my own since... oh... last tuesday. What I mean by that is a day when I don't have to do anything for anyone else, whatever I do is purely of my own choosing. It's not been all bad by any means, in fact, most of it's been very good, but it's starting to wear me down a little now, especially as I know I'm not gonna get a day of my own till at least friday.
Steve 11:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, November 04, 2002
The fireworks were, not to put too fine a point on it, the best I've ever seen. The funfair was expensive, but fun, and I won a cuddly Garfield on a shooting gallery. No big surprise there, as I've always been rather good on them.We're off to Brigitte's this evening and I'll be back home tomorrow, which is a break from routine but that's never a bad thing.
Steve 3:44 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, November 03, 2002
The wedding went well and everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable time... the weather just about holding out till we all got back to their place for very informal munchies and drinks. I was very relieved that giving away the bride involved nothing more than walking her into the ceremony room on my arm, and then taking a seat with everyone else. I'm SO not good at public speaking. It was very sweet, and I could see a tear in the eye of more than one person... you could see Paul and Tess' emotions overflowing while they exchanged their vows.Brigitte and I are going over there in half an hour, and then we're off to the funfair in town followed by a firework display, so hopefully the rain will hold off for a few hours.
Oh yes... reports of my loud snoring last night are grossly exaggerated :-P
Steve 5:26 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, November 01, 2002
It's pissing it down outside and I have to go do grocery shopping. Damnit!A good friend of mine is getting married tomorrow and apart from being the photographer, I'm to give away the bride. That'll be fun. So..er.. if I'm the father of the bride (effectively, if not literally) how come she's older than me? *Chuckles* To quote Beevis and Butthead, "How'd THAT happen?"
Steve 3:48 PM [+] (0) comments
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