Monday, January 29, 2007
Most wonderful weekend ever!As planned some time ago, we went to Scarborough, and stayed at The Grand Hotel... a Victorian hotel that when it was built, was the largest in Europe.
The place is very quirky and slightly odd, seeming to be trying to stay true to its history, while functioning on a tight budget in a modern era.
So while the architecture is very grandiose and impressive, the actual decor is either looking rather tired, or somewhat dubiously chosen. What is it with all that blue? Certainly not horrible... just peculiar.
The staff were *very* good though, being both friendly and helpful.
Our room was quite an odd mishmash too, combining a victorian feel, with some later art deco furnishings, and plenty of that ill advised blue. The floor boards added real comedy value too. Creaky? Yup. Much fun.
This probably makes it sound like it wasn't really much good, but that would be doing the room an injustice. While quirky, it was very comfortable, had a warm atmosphere, and the most awesome view.
Looking south, we could see down the beach, and had a great view of the Victorian bridge spanning the valley...
...while looking east, we could see out over the harbour.
At dinner that evening, it appeared we'd been upgraded, as while we'd got our room at a bargain price, we were dining in the hall reserved for premium guests. Yay!
The experience was actually a little confusing, as the soup starter, which was absolutely wonderful, was served to us at our table... while the main course was self service from the carvery, and turned out to be a little unspectacular.
For what we were paying though, it was excellent... just slightly bemusing.
On saturday morning, before breakfast, and while Andrea was still asleep, I went for a walk with my camera.
It was very cold, but the sun was just rising, and there were some very dedicated surfers already on the beach.
I walked along the beach towards the town and took a wander round the harbour.
Time was getting on and I needed to find a florist, so I headed into town (or so I thought), only to get completely lost, and end up at the very top of the hill by the castle.
Though I hadn't actually planned to be up there, and I'd already been out much longer than intended, I couldn't help but be impressed by the view, and how The Grand completely dominates the bay.
Anyways, I made my way back down into the town, and after asking for directions several times, I finally found a florist, from which I bought every last red rose they had.
On returning to the hotel, Andrea and I went down for breakfast, and I have to say, this turned out to be quite excellent.
Then to the serious business of shopping, and some very specific shopping it was too. We must've checked out every jeweler in Scarborough, but it was worth the walk.
Rather than walk directly back to the hotel, we went down the hill and took a walk along the sea front, which for January was surprisingly lively, and then along the beach.
So, as we walked along the almost deserted sand, under the lights of the seafront, and in view of the impressively lit Grand Hotel, I took Andrea's hand, dropped to one knee, and said "Andrea.... Would you do me the honour of being my wife?"
She said yes. :D
Having already bought rings together earlier, Andrea knew I was going to propose... and it was the whole point of the weekend in Scarborough, but the actual moment... it was very special.
We exchanged rings. Andrea's is gold with a diamond cluster. Mine is a white gold ridged band with 6 diamonds embedded around it.
We headed back to the hotel, where I presented Andrea with the roses I'd bought in the morning, (the hotel staff were fantastic and went to some trouble trying to find a vase for them, though after much searching, a water jug served the purpose finely), and we drank the best champagne I've ever tasted, in some very nice glasses... a lovely gift from friends and colleagues of Andrea's.
The next morning, before breakfast, I went for another walk with my camera. I'm still learning how to get the best from the thing, so while some shots that should have been excellent came out blurred, some are as breathtaking as the views themselves were.
Scarborough has sunrises that make getting up early compulsory.
After another great breakfast, it was back off up to our room to pack. Checking out was at 10am, and we were pushing it, but it's hard to hurry to leave such a great place.
Just before we left the room, we paused at the window to watch the surfers on the beach.
Yup.
Best weekend ever.
And best of all.... We're engaged!!!
Labels: holidays, hotels, photos
Steve 6:00 AM [+] (4) comments
Friday, January 26, 2007
There is a god and his name is Dark_Alex.Some of you will know that some time back I began messing around with running homebrew and emulators on my PSP, using a thing called the eloader by Fanjita and Ditlew.
Well... that was a hack that made use of exploits to get past security features in the PSP firmware. It worked fairly well too.
Now, this chap called Dark_Alex has gone a huge step further. He's entirely hacked the firmware, and created a custom version of the latest firmware, while incorporating the ability of much earlier firmware.
What this means is, as well as being able to run all the latest commercial games, run all the emulators and homebrew I had already been using, I can now use the PS1 emulator that's built into the latest firmware.
More than that... the PS1 emulator in the standard Sony release only allows you to play the PS1 games that they drip feed to users, and which you have to pay for... even though you probably already own the original. So... the new custom firmware totally bypasses all the Sony bullshit, and with a little messing around with conversion utilities, allows you to play whatever PS1 games you like.
So I now have Gran Turismo 2 up and running on my PSP. Yay!!! :D
Truth is, I've been getting more and more pissed off at Sony, as the months have gone by.
I bought the PSP with the intention of playing Gran Turismo on it, but they've delayed it, and delayed it, and delayed it some more.
Then they release the PS1 emulator, but you can only play what they want you to play in it... and worse, you have to have a PS3 to do that.
Dumbasses.
So, no more waiting and no more being screwed. I can do all the things the PSP was actually designed to be able to do, but that Sony are too all controlling to let us do.
Labels: consoles, emulators, games, gran turismo
Steve 10:35 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Unexpectedly losing your broadband connection for 12 hours can be an extremely distressing situation when you're quite as hooked as I am.All the questions that go through your head... "has the firmware on the router been corrupted by a fluffed update?"... "has the bill been overlooked and the account cancelled?"... "has someone hacked the wep key on the wireless and changed the login details?"... it goes on and on.
Turns out it was the telco, BT, doing some work at the local exchange, so the PPP server was down.
Would've been nice of them to warn us, maybe.
After a break over christmas and new year, Battlestar Galactica season 3 is back. Yay!!! :D
I love that show. Best sci-fi since Babylon 5.
Steve 5:31 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, January 20, 2007
More website related waffle.I've put up a chatroom, though it's not yet for my own room. Anyone familiar with #England on Undernet will not find anything new there.
I just figured since I've had the chatroom page sitting there for some time with nothing on it, and as I don't yet have time to set up my own room, this would be the easiest way to let people join me in a room.
Also new is the forum. This is a place for people to discuss any of the topics covered by my website, such as vintage computers and consoles, photography, webcams, blogging... whatever.
It's not the most impressive forum system by any means, but since it's provided by my webhost in an easy to use form, and I have no knowledge of php or mysql, it'll do.
Steve 11:36 PM [+] (0) comments
Amen!
Labels: blogging
Steve 2:42 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, January 19, 2007
What a wind.Something like 21 dead across europe yesterday, killed in gales reaching over 100mph.
No injuries in this household, thankfully, but the wind brought down half of the big tree in the back garden, and ripped down the washing frame thingie, scattering sheets and towels across the 'lawn'.
Mmmm.... muddy.
So anyway, last night, I was clicking through random sites using stumbleupon, when I came upon Dedroidification... a site filled with links to streaming doccumentaries on the subject of mind expansion.
I was quite thrilled to find a full length doccumentary on the life of William Burrough's, writer of Naked Lunch, and creator of Dr Benway, from who'm I took my nickname.
Now if this thing works right, I should be able to embed that doccumentary here.
Burrough's is worth listening to, regardless of what he's actually saying, just for the way he says it. Very entertaining.
Steve 3:31 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Two new articles in my Computers and Consoles section.This time, it's the Atari 7800, and the Atari Jaguar.
Labels: consoles
Steve 9:27 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, January 15, 2007
I've been busy beavering away at my computer and consoles collection webpages.All the links from the photos on the index page now point to pages with bigger photos, and I've completed the details on the Atari 2600 VCS page.
I have to admit... I'm rather pleased with it.
Labels: consoles
Steve 11:33 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, January 12, 2007
I finally got all the photos taken, and have uploaded the index page for my computer and console collection webpage.I never realised quite how many machines I had, till I photographed this little lot.
Steve 2:38 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
So today I was intending to start taking photographs of my retro computer and console collection to put on my website.Unfortunately, I had a little 'help' from two small furry animals.
Cat started helping by climbing up my legs and onto my shoulders... claws all the way. I figured this would be easilly sorted by shutting him in the shower room with some food for a while.
And so it was.
Trouble is, Milo, who doesn't have that climbing up people tendency, decided he was going to help too. His method was considerably less painful, but no less effective.
Kittens continually swiping at the legs of a camera tripod are quite wonderful if you have a liking for blurred photos, but not so good if you want crystal clear shots to put on a website.
I'll try again tomorrow, but this time, I'll do the shots downstairs in the living room.
It'll mean a lot more toing and froing with assorted consoles and computers, but provided I keep Max out of there, I should suffer from a lot less animal interference.
Labels: animals, cats, computers, consoles, photos
Steve 5:07 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Kittens eh?Cute huh?
A little tip... don't mix kittens with canvas wardrobes.
One of the little furballs climbed up on top of the thing and took a dump.
Way to make my clothes stink.
*walks off grumbling*
Labels: animals, annoyed, cats
Steve 3:26 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, January 07, 2007
I'm really liking these new blogger features. Google definitely know what they're doing.In creating a separate page for each entry, as well as adding each new post to the main page, they maximise the number of pages containing content on which to display adsense advertising.
Better yet, in adding the labels, they create pages that are more effective both in terms of targetted advertising, and provide better search results.
The final result being that readers benefit by being able to read all the posts on a given subject, on one page... advertisers benefit by having their ads displayed on pages that are more relevant... blog writers benefit by getting more revenue from better targetted ads, on pages that show up higher in searches.... and obviously, google benefit all round.
Very impressive.
Labels: blogging
Steve 12:44 AM [+] (0) comments
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