Friday, January 30, 2004
I love the snow.Something about it, not just how it looks, but how it makes people behave.
It snowed quite heavilly a couple of days back, and then after turning slightly to slush or being compressed by cars and pedestrians, it froze rock solid. So yesterday when I walked into Wolverton, about half a mile from my home, the roads and paths were lethal. One false move and you were on your arse... or your car in a ditch.
So why was this great?
The people.
Everywhere, people were smiling and laughing about it. Everyone was in the same boat, struggling to get to where they had to go... hell... struggling to even stand up... and rather than get upset or angry about it, they toughed it out, stuck together, helped each other.
Now if that isn't enough to make a person love snow, I don't know what is.
Steve 4:17 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
I dunno where this originally came from, but I heard it via Arry from some chap in the EFnet #mensa channel.Geek poetry at it's very finest.
Roses are #FF0000,
Violets are #0000FF,
All of my base,
Are belong to you.
Now you have to be a REAL geek to know what that's all about, but it had me in stitches for ages.
Steve 10:49 PM [+] (0) comments
It's commonly known among my friends that I hate sms text messages. No-one in their right mind would send me one, coz I wouldn't even see it till 6 months after it was sent, and I'd never reply coz trying to write on a phone keypad is just silly.
However......
sms.ac is a really cool site.
It lets you send up to 8 free text messages per day... and though the signup procedure may be a little convoluted, I can confirm that it does work.
It appears to have an inbox too, so people can reply to messages sent by people using it... though I haven't checked that out yet.
So... I still hate texts... but at least now I can type them on a sensible keyboard if I have to.
Steve 2:26 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Another quick link.I've been checking this site out for a couple of days, coz it was having technical probs, but now it's working properly, I love it.
Solent.tv is the community tv station broadcast to the residents of the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.
As well as being a conventional broadcast station, it also has a live webcast... so whatever the islanders are watching, you can watch at the same time on mediaplayer.
Better yet, unlike a lot of 'so called' internet tv stations... this one's actually worth watching.
Steve 9:39 AM [+] (0) comments
Ok, there've been no posts for several days, and for once, it's not my fault. It's not, I tell you!
Blogger was being a bitch!
So now I'm back, what can I tell you?
I wrote a large post on how my hair is falling out at a pace I'm not entirely comfortable with, but in all my messing about trying to make blogger work, that post got deleted.... so forget I even mentioned it.
So... the launchcast video thingie... I still cant find a way to include a link, but I cured it playing all that (c)rap at me by individually blocking every single (c)rap and R and B tune in there... something like 1100 videos.
Before that I spent a night editing my launchast radio station, getting it up to 'Master' status, which is the top status on the site, requiring over 10,000 tunes, albums and artists to have been rated.
I have some links for you too, as I did an ammount of surfing over the past few days and found some cool stuff.
South Park Pinball kicks arse. Just wait for the advert to close and then read the simple instructions.
Streaming Roobarb Cartoons. When I tried it, the first one didn't play, but the others certainly did. You need Real Player, I think. Anyone who remembers the classic bbc kids cartoon will love this.
3BTV. A funky streaming tv station... very arty.
Sputnik7. A very cool site with streaming videos, radio stations and mp3 downloads. Anyone into alternative culture will love this.
Steve 1:44 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
I've never much rated Yahoo to be honest, even though they have some awesome goodies like webcam and audio chat built into messenger and their chat site, launchcast personalised radio stations, and run geocities which hosts this very blog.Never used their portal site though. Couldn't stand it.
Funny what boredom and a healthy sense of curiosity will make a person do. I tinkered with the "My Yahoo" feature and set myself up a home page that ties all the stuff I use together into one page.
I know, I know... there's nothing new in that... it's just the first time I've ever played with it and come out with a result that seemed worth the effort. I guess that's the broadband factor as I was on dialup last time I played with it.
So anyway... you've checked out Benway Radio over in the links on the left? I'm working on something very similar at the mo, only this features music videos instead of audio tracks. Should be fun. Expect a link in due course.
Update
Ok, that's a pain in the arse.
I just spent several hours editing my video station only to find it wont let me share the thing... I'm the only one who can watch it. Worse than that... it keeps playing a load of rap shit, and I hate rap.
I know they throw in selections that they think users might like, but damnit, I didn't pick one single bloody rap tune... why do that have to force this crap on me?
I guess I wont be using it much if it's gonna be like this.
Steve 10:19 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, January 18, 2004
After playing almost every waking hour since I got it, I've finally completed The Getaway (pics here) and unlocked the 'Free Roaming' mode. This is where you get to drive whatever you can find wherever you like, untimed and "mostly" unaccosted by police and bad guys.What's the objective? There is no set objective... so really, it's whatever the hell you want it to be.
How fast can you drive across London? How many cars can you wipe out before your own gives up the ghost? How may innocent bystanders can you walk up to, grab around the throat and break their necks right in front of a police officer before you get caught? How many cop cars can you cut up, shoot up the occupants and then steal?
The sky's the limit, with very few restrictions.
My fave moments so far have been screaming down Oxford Street on a go-kart (on the wrong side of the road) till its engine blew up and the whole thing caught fire... then stealing another car to get back to where I stole the go-kart, and stealing the Lotus Exige that's kept there (along with a TVR and Nissan Skyline GTR). I then took the Lotus to Bukingham Palace, drove it up onto that monument thing out front, down the steps on the other side at full speed, through the gates into St James's Park (?) flat out through the avenue between the trees, took off on the slope up to the gates and flew through the air right across the road smashing into the window of Coffee Republic on the other side.
So... think I'd make a good London cabbie?
Umm.... I just found something new.
There's a TANK!!!
Oh the carnage ;-)
Labels: games
Steve 8:29 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Quite an entertaining afternoon.I stole a red double-decker bus, trashed every car in site causing a huge pile up in Central London, ran down a load of police officers trying to stop me, stole their car, ran down a few dozen predestrians near Charring Cross, drove up to another police car when my own was pretty much knackered, and was just about to steal it when I discovered it was still occupied.
*Thump*
"You're nicked matey"
Oops.
The Getaway is a fantastic game... even when you ignore the actual goal of the game and just go mental.
Thank heaven for shops that'll trade your old games when you're finished with them.
Labels: games
Steve 6:26 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
There's not much that annoys me more than to have someone I've never heard of email me and tell me they've decided they like my music so much, they're going to use it to make their new tune.Like... excuse me! Heard of copyright?
They go on to tell me how this will be great for both of us. Really? How exactly? I already made the tune. It's MY tune.
Needless to say, a suitably abbrupt and abbrasive reply was sent.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 8:42 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Ahhh... I'd forgotten how much fun it is to be abbrasive and obnoxious. It's especially amusing when people don't notice your tongue lodged firmly in your cheak as you come out with more and more outragous politically incorrect ravings.Some people even got quite upset when I advocated blowing up Canada. I mean... a little genocide never hurt anyone did it?
Steve 7:47 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Woah!18 hours of solid sleep works wonders for my mood. Now I just need to work out what day it is, coz losing one is kinda disorienting.
Being in the chatroom after quitting my ops is rather amusing. The combination of having ops privately try to persuade me to take my ops back... and the freedom of once again being able to say to assholes in the channel "Screw you, idiot!"... I'm enjoying it.
Labels: sleep
Steve 12:44 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, January 10, 2004
I find I'm in a truly filthy mood tonight.Being pretty much sidelined in certain areas of my life is depressing, but there's not much I can do about that... and it's entirely my own fault anyway. The politics in the chatroom though... well.
Having thought about it for a couple of days, I find the idea of being given a completely unjustified warning about something by a channel owner who didn't even bother to ask questions or check fact first, totally disgusting. So, rather than just sit and take it, I've resigned my ops.
I'm absolutely damned if I'm gonna be treated with such a lack of regard by someone who has no clue what's going on in the channel, and cares even less.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 5:28 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, January 09, 2004
Weird.I know people say their cats understand them... but I've always tended to take it with a pinch of salt, even as a cat owner myself. Like... they get to learn your body language and tone of voice in specific situations... but the words themselves... I never throught they really mattered.
So I was sat here just now tapping away on the laptop, and looked round at my cat. He was pretty uninterested, as is his way... he doesn't care much about anything when he's crashed on the bed. So I looked him in the eye, without moving, and in a totally flat tone, like a passing comment I wasn't really interested in, I said "Would you like some food?"
Whoosh! He was up off the bed and half way down the hallway to his food bowl before I knew it.
I guess they really do learn the words, as there was absolutely nothing about my tone, body language or the situation that suggested I was about to feed him. Indeed... if he hadn't reacted the way he did, I doubt I would have fed him for another hour or so... unless he'd asked me to.
Steve 2:20 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
What a day/night.Politics in the chatroom I hang out in are getting stupid. I was given a warning just for being associated with someone who's out of favour, though on the upside... a total arse who's pissed me off for ages has been removed from a position of authority.
Back in the real world (whatever that is) I spoke to the recruitment agency today. Mixed news again... coz while my references came through and are fine, they have no work for me, and aren't likely to untill around march.
Bollox.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 11:46 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
It's been rather an odd couple of days.I guess I'm having that male pmt/pms thing that I've mentioned before, coz I'm hyper sensetive to stuff again... though oddly, it doesn't just leave me in a bad mood. It seems tiny insignificant things can leave me in a good mood too, which is a pleasing first.
Steve 1:02 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Y'know the funny thing about being a sad nerd who spends all of new year's eve online in a chatroom?You get told "Happy New Year" about a billion times more than you would if you were living a normal life in the real world.
It starts with the kiwis and aussies almost a day before, and carries right on through to the pacific islands the next morning.
Seriously... I've lost track of how often I was wished a happy new year. I dunno if that's a good thing or not, but it's certainly a thing.
Actually, I can't bear to say it anymore.
So, happy... er... that thing... year... the new one, y'know?
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 10:49 AM [+] (0) comments
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