Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Weird.In the middle of winter, the last thing you expect is to find a tortoiseshell butterfly fluttering about in your room.
But there it is... flapping away.
Steve 5:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Well.... ate lots, drank lots (though maybe not as much as I'd planned), watched lots of tv and movies... generally a pretty laid back day.Yeah... can't complain :-)
Must've slept in an odd position last night though, coz when I got up today, I had a seriously stiff neck and upper back... quite painful. Ah well... alcohol well render it ignorable.
Got quite a nice variety of alcohol here for a change too. Beer, sherry, red wine, white wine. Where to start, where to start?
*slurp*
*burp*
*hic*
:-)
Labels: Christmas
Steve 1:22 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, December 24, 2004
Christmas preparations seem to be pretty much in order at last.I tried getting into Tesco to pick up some last minute bits and pieces yesterday, and quite literally couldn't move. It was insane. Needless to say, I gave up and went home.
So this morning I made the trip back there at 5am, and would you believe it was still seriously busy.... but at least this time I was able to get what I needed.
Now all I need to do is go and deliver a couple of cards that I've left far too late, and tidy this place up.
Anyways.... if I don't blog again before tomorrow...
Merry Christmas everyone :-)
Labels: Christmas
Steve 8:51 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
HAH! and WOOHOO!!! Albeit via a very circuitous route.Having recieved no helpful response from yahoo/launch, I joined a launchcast usergroup and left a message asking if anyone else was having a similar problem, as quite a few seemed to be having issues resulting from the unannounced launch updates.
So the forum moderator didn't approve my message, but did email me back saying my station did exist, as he could see and listen to it... and suggested that maybe I was not logged in properly.
I thought "what a load of hogwash", as I'm always logged in... never log out, but went back for another look. Still logged in... still no channel... bollox.
However, just on the offchance, I logged out and logged back in again.... success!!! There it was.
It would seem that the yahoo and launch servers are not quite as tightly linked together as they might be. I must've been logged in on the yahoo servers, but not the launch ones. It shouldn't happen, but clearly it did.
Anyway... I'm now a happy chappy again.
It's quite hard to explain just how upsetting it was to think I'd lost my station. Thing is... my taste in music is quite unusual, and there is absolutely no other place I can go, tv or radio station I can tune into, and be able to hear the music I love, or new music that I've never heard before, but very likely will like.
Without my station, my music collecting, be it on CD or mp3 would simply stop, as I wouldn't know what was good and what wasn't.
For someone who's life pretty much revolves around music... that would be a disaster.
So anyway... that's me sorted and happy again. Better get myself into gear and go get the last of the stuff I need for christmas.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 11:13 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
ARGH!!!!Fucking assholes.
I got a reply from yahoo/launchcast after I emialed them querying what was happening to my station, and they gave a canned reply telling me to alter my browser settings. Needless to say, this had no effect whatsoever... and now I can't even access the station on yahoo messenger either.
Looks like the bloody halfwits have completely deleted it.
To say I'm furious is something of an understatement.
Labels: annoyed, launchcast, music
Steve 9:11 PM [+] (0) comments
Grrr.
There I was saying Lanchcast had sorted itself out, and now it says my station doesn't exist.
I can still access it from yahoo messenger, but when I go to the website, it gives me the 'create a new station' page... even though I'm logged in.
They better sort that out pronto, or I shall be sending a very stroppy email. After a couple of years fine tuning it, I'm not impressed.
They can't have lost all the settings, or I wouldn't be able to access it from messenger... but damnit. What a fuckup!
Labels: annoyed, launchcast, music
Steve 9:44 AM [+] (0) comments
That was a better day.
I started off seriously grouchy, but by the evening had gotten stuck into a new project which I'm finding highly amusing, and has the potential to raise a few luaghs.
Oh yeah... I was right about Launchcast. It's started accepting my new song ratings again, and has a whole load of new music that wasn't on there before, so I've had it playing pretty much non-stop while I've been awake.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 7:37 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, December 20, 2004
When I come to think about it... I suspect I'm trying to lose myself in music at the moment... using it as an escape route from the things that're happening around me.How to explain?
Well... you know the stuff that's happened with my mum already, but that's just one example. There are others... and I don't mean just *you* (you know who you are.)
So I'm finding myself tugged in several different directions, drawn into situations that though I can handle, I'm doing my damndest not to think about when I don't absolutely have to.
So much for being a recluse.
Looking on the positive side, one of those people/situations might prove to be very interesting, or even fun, just as easilly as it could prove to be a complication. Not at all sure yet.
That's life I guess.... stuff just happens, and you never know, till you know.
Steve 7:57 AM [+] (0) comments
Launchcast seems to be having an odd couple of days.
It's refusing to register or record the ratings that I apply to songs, the search facility is down, and about 1000 of my previous song ratings appear to have gone awol.
On the plus side, they appear to have some new material. It just played a song by Siouxsie And The Banshees. I rated them around 2 years ago, but they never got played... as if Launch had the rights, but didn't have the material.
I can only guess that Launch are updating their system, adding new songs, and deleting old stuff. That might account for my missing ratings, if those are tunes that have been removed.
If that's what's happening, it can only be a good thing, as I'm always looking for new tunes to add to my collection, and it's been quite a while since I heard anything where I though "Wow... I gotta get that!"
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 7:45 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, December 18, 2004
This may be the hardest entry I've ever written, so bear with me.When I was around 15, my mum left my dad, and went to live with her 'boyfriend'.
This in itself was difficult to deal with. My dad was/is an absolute bastard, treated us all very badly, with both mental, and physical bullying... bad enough to give my mum a nervous breakdown, and push her right over the edge into insanity.
After years in and out of a lunatic asylum (yes, seriously), by the time my mum left to shack up with this guy, she was so full of pills to stop her from raving, that if you shook her, she'd rattle.
So, the 'boyfriend' was this guy she'd met at a drop-in centre for people with mental problems. He was an alcoholic, drug misusing, smelly, disgusting, compulsive gambler. All in all, a very unsavoury creature.
Over the years, his behaviour, addictions, and mistreatment of my mum got worse, to the point where he made my dad look like a saint... and after my grandfather died, my sister and I managed to convince her to leave him and go to live with my gran.
Excellent, we thought, as my gran couldn't stand the guy either, and wouldn't allow him in her house.
Then my gran died.
Now, there is a clause in my gran's will that states that my mum may live in her house for as long as she likes, and that if/when she decides to move elsewhere, it is to be sold and the proceeds split between my mum and aunt. *However*, if my mum should allow any man (and this is written specifically to stop this drunken disgusting waster from moving in) to move in with her... the house is to be sold, regardless of whether my mum wishes it or not. I don't know who would have enforced this clause, but it's in writing, and legally binding.
So.. from the moment my gran died, the 'boyfriend' began worming his way back into my mum's life, dropping round for visits, totally uninvited, drunk as a skunk, and often at completely unreasonable hours... and then refusing to leave. Don't ask me why my mum allowed him in... it's completely beyond me.
It was obvious to everyone but my mum that this guy was on a serious downward spiral, and seemed absolutely determined to take my mum down with him.
So now we get to the bit that's really troubling me.
Last night I was woken by my cellphone. I keep it in my bedroom for emergencies, as when I'm in bed, I can't hear the landline.
It was my sister, phoning to tell me that the 'boyfriend' was dead. He'd had a heart attack while he was with my mum, and died before the ambulance arrived.
Now you'd expect this to be a traumatic experience for my mum, but I know from past experience that my mum simply can't be traumatised anymore. All of the pills she has to take completely insulate her from reality. When my gran died, my mum's reaction was.. well... she was numb. I asked her how she felt, and she didn't feel a thing. It's not that she didn't care... she just couldn't feel anything.... and that appears to be her reaction now too.
So... is this what's troubling me? No.
What troubles me is my own reaction.
I'm entirely horrified by the first two things that crossed my mind when my sister told me what had happened.
1: "Thank god for that."
Relief that this fucking arsehole can't fuck my mum's life up any more.... but still.... it disgusts me that I could actually be glad that another human being has died.
2: "Okay... that's gonna fuck up my christmas, coz now she's gonna have to come and spend the day with me."
Yeah... really... I actually thought that, and I feel nothing but shame.
The *only* good thing I could ever say about that drunken fucker was that he'd spend christmas day with my mum, saving me from the obligation. I doubt many people will understand that... but it's like I'm the parent and she's the child... a complete role reversal... not just with christmas, but life in general.. and over the years, this has really begun to bug me. So being spared from being the 'christmas host' was quite a relief.
None of this can make me feel good about thinking such a thing though. The depths of my own selfishness make me feel sick.
Labels: annoyed, bereavement
Steve 5:20 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, December 16, 2004
I'm totally loving ripping my old LP collection... found some awesome tunes that I'd completely forgotten about.But y'know... there's a big downside to ripping vinyl. It takes bloody ages. Apart from the time it takes to play through the albums to find the tracks you want, you then have to play the entire tracks, in realtime, while you rip them... unlike CDs, where you just select the track and hey presto, 30 seconds later you have an mp3.
I've been at it literally all night, and only accumulated 40 tunes so far.
Still... it's well worth the effort. Some of these tunes are very rare... never been re-released on CD, and you wouldn't have a hope in hell of finding them on Limewire or whatever.
Labels: music
Steve 9:10 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
The audio hardware routing on this pc is an absolute bitch, it has to be said.Shared input and output channels just aren't very clever, if you ask me.
It's all very well if you wanna watch dvd movies with surround sound, but when you wanna plug in a stereo sound source other than a mic, it becomes a total nightmare, with all kinds of feedback problems, or software simply refusing to take a feed from the auxilliary inputs.
I discovered what a pain in the arse it is today, coz I picked up a cheap little record deck, with the intention of ripping all the best tracks from my old vinyl collection onto mp3.
For a while it looked like I wasn't gonna be able to do it, and this would've been a disaster, as I bought this pc specifically with the intention of using it to record my own music.
Eventually I managed to get Cubase to accept an input from the stereo line-in at the back, so all is not lost, but it makes something of a mockery of all the other fancy inputs scattered around the thing.
Labels: annoyed, computers, music
Steve 1:11 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
I watched the extended dvd of Return Of The King last night.Some people might wonder why I collected the extended versions when I already have all of the standard ones, and it's kind of tricky to explain it. Like, collect all of the extended ones, or all of the standard ones... but why both?
Probably the best example of why it's worth it is this one scene in the extended ROTK.
I won't spoil it by giving specific details, but there's this scene that appears in the extended cut... You already know what happens from the standard cut, and then it throws this 'event' at you... totally out of the blue and unexpected. It creates an emotional response that you just wouldn't get if you hadn't seen the standard version already.
I was just like.... "Oh fuck!"
Absolutely brilliant.
Even if the films themselves weren't extended at all, it'd be worth getting these special editions, just for the doccumentary disks. They put the standard doccumentaries to shame... utterly.
Labels: movies
Steve 9:51 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, December 12, 2004
So...er...
Finished Half Life 2. Some bits I didn't like, some bits I absolutely loved. Overall... good game, and worth every penny.
This phone continues to impress. It's still only on it's second charge. 7 days on standbye and two short calls, and its still 3/4 charged. How cool is that?
Anything else to report?
er...
umm...
I guess that's a no.
Stay tuned for our next exciting episode, blah blah blah....
Steve 6:08 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, December 09, 2004
I know it's a cliche, but the graphics on Half Life 2 really are so good, and it really does draw you in so much that I actually caught myself walking home from the shop yesterday thinking "Hmm, these graphics are good."Time to go get my head tested, or just get a life.
Oh dear. *Shakes head at self*
Labels: games
Steve 4:18 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Woohoo!!!So I was out doing a spot of christmas shopping when I happened to walk past the retro gaming shop, and they only had the holy grail of retro gamers for sale in the window.
Needless to say I rushed to the bank, rushed back and bought the thing.
What is it?
It's a Vectrex.
This thing was out at around the same time as the Atari 2600 VCS and Mattel Intellivision, back in the very early 80s, and was only available in the uk for around a year... two years tops. To say examples in full working order in the uk are rare as hens teeth is something of an understatement. I've been looking for one at a sensible price for years.
It's got 9 games with it, including Mine Storm which comes built into the console, so though it wasn't cheap, it was a pretty fair deal (no I'm not telling you what I paid for it).
Steve 5:43 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, December 05, 2004
I have to say, I'm seriously impressed with the battery life of this new mobile phone.They quote a maximum life of 400 hours, which I take with a pinch of salt, and also say that it has to be charged and run flat several times before it it gives its maximum life.
So... it's still holding a quarter of it's first charge after almost 5 days on standbye, including one hour of talktime. Now that's no-where near the theoretical 16 days maximum, but hell... I'll take it.
In other news... if you can call it that... I've been playing Half Life 2. As one of the 'big three' first person shootemups released this year, and considering I was so impressed with Farcry, I figured I'd give it a look.
Tricky one this. I dont think the graphics are quite as pleasing as Farcry... not quite sure why... maybe it's the lack of jungle. I find some of the settings to be a bit restrictive. Gameplay-wise, tricky again. There's more puzzle solving involved which doesn't really float my boat, but there's also a more thought provoking use of weaponry.... more specifically, the gravity gun really makes you consider new possibilities in methods of killing zombies.
There's certainly a lot of variety in terms of settings and situations, and the characterisation of the people you encounter is very impressive... especially 'Dog'. This bloody great big attack robot that behaves like a labrador puppy.... cute.
Is it a good game? Absolutetly. Should you buy it? If you have a meaty enough computer and like first person shooters... most definitely. Is it as good as Farcry? Tricky.... from my perspective, I'm not enjoying it as much, but from a design point of view, it has more depth. I guess the definitive answer would be 'maybe'.
Steve 2:22 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Grr.My VCR's broken.
I guess I shouldn't complain, as I've had it for nearly 10 years, but damnit, did it have to take my copy of 5th Element with it?
More shopping here we come. Its kinda niggly having to buy something that's basically obsolete technology, especially when I much prefer to watch movies on DVD, but my VHS collection is so big, it'd take years to replace them all with DVDs
Ah well.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 9:09 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Steve 9:48 PM [+] (0) comments
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