My lovely router (a D-Link) started to drop connections and act a little bit funny. I put this down to overheating as I had lost the little rubber feet upon which it was meant to stand. This may or may not have been the cause for its miss-behaviour but that was my diagnosis. So I needed another router and reluctantly I went to the back cupboard and got the free router I received from Talk Talk when I signed up with them. It looks pretty grotty and has a huge Talk Talk logo on the front panel.
So I un-plugged the old lovely router and held my breath. Would the new one work? I plugged it in and turned it on, an on-switch is a luxury. Lights flashed and there wasn’t a whirring sound, the connection light blinked and flashed and went green.
I plugged in, logged in to the router and had a look at the settings. It didn’t look like I could change the SSID! Arrghhh. I don’t want my wireless network to be called Talk-Talk8654. I left it.
Later I loaded the router admin page on the iPhone and suddenly there was a settings page for me to play with. I think there was a refresh issue with the PC browser that meant the settings didn’t show. I have now changed the SSID and am a happy bunny.
I know Talk Talk are slammed in public relations but I have to say I have had an excellent service from them! Please remember that anecdote isn’t evidence!
Birthday Gifts
It was my 40th birthday a few days ago and as Jase likes to tell me I am now in my 5th decade on this glorious Earth! So here’s a list of things I got, just because I can:
- Fingerprint jewellery – 2 dog tags with the fingerprints of #1 and #2 shaped on them
- 2TB NAS
- Star Wars complete collection on Blu-Ray
- Dr Who modern series 1-4 box set
- AC/DC Backtracks
- Akira Steelbook edition Blu-Ray
- Vodka (see picture)
Spitting on my Hand
When I first moved away from home and to university I ended up spitting on my hand and arm a lot. It took me quite a while (about a month) to figure out what was going on!
At my ancestral home the basin in the bathroom has two taps. Nothing unusual there but the problem was that the cold tap was on the left and the hot tap was on the right of the basin. Now, I’ll pause while you go and check your taps.
I’m left handed and so brush my teeth with my left hand. Not unusual again. My left-handedness is a bit tempremental as I eat whichever way around suits the food on the plate and I play most sports with my right hand. Anyway, I would brush my teeth and then spit while I was rinsing the toothbrush – left hand holding the toothbrush under the cold tap on the left of the basin leaving the sink bit clear into which to spit.
In 1991 I head off to college halls and move away from home for the first time. I stayed in Falmouth-Keogh Halls of Residence in the glorious Southside building. It is no more, they snuffed it! The taps on the basin in my room were, what I now understand, to be the correct way around. The cold tap in on the right and the hot tap is on the left. I do not know where this convention came from but I find it interesting.
When I brushed my teeth for my first month at college I ended up spitting on my hand. I would put the toothbrush to rinse in my left hand under the cold tap on the right of the basin and automatically spit into the basin at the same time as I had been conditioned to do so after living at the ancestral home for 11 years. This created a dilemma and I had to re-learn the timings of what to do and when whilst I was brushing my teeth. It took a while and in the 21 years since I headed to sunny South Kensington I have coped very well with taps the wrong way around, the correct (?) way around and also mixer taps!
GT5 Progress March 2012
Gran Tursimo 5 Cars
The recent seasonal events on Gran Turismo 5 have made me need a selection of good cars at different PP (performance points). Gran Turismo applies Performance Points to each car so that you can race cars of similar performance and know that you are evenly matched. I have selected, not very carefully, the following cars for the indicated PP. I have learned that it is best to have as much power as possible and to increase the ballast to counteract the power increase.
For the 400PP races my car of choice is a BMW Mini of all things! But it works well and thrashes the opponents.
A 500PP race gets me heading to my Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione ’91 for a non-race car. If I need a race car then I seek out my RE Amemiya AsparaDrink RX7 ’06.
A 600PP race and it’s the McClaren F1 ’94. Soemtimes I might use the Ford GT LM Race Car SPec II, you know, just for kicks!
For a 700PP race I turn to my beloved Mazda 787B. It’s a gorgeous car and was one of my favourites in a previous incarnation of Gran Turismo.
I finally figured out that I miss all my friend’s tweets because I follow too many people. So, quite brilliantly, I created another twitter account and use that one to follow the less important things in my life.
So my main (friends) account is @iparish
The account I use to follow lots of everyone is @iparish_gen
This is a list of people I consider important enough to be on my main account:
- Daryl Walshe
- My Wife
- Andy Pom
- Kate
- Dafydd Morse
- Ryan Palmer
- Richard O
- William Shatner
- George Takai
- Tim Minchin
Added as of 29 March 2012
- Leonard Nimoy
France 2
In the year 2010, summer, we went to France again. See the 2008 holiday here.
Friday 30 July – Travel from Kent to Tours. It was very hot.
Saturday 31 July – Travel from Tours to gite near Sainte-Foy-La-Grande. It was very hot and also as the first (ish) day of August it was chaos with all the Parisiens driving down to the south of France.
Now after this I don’t really have a breakdown of the things we did. We went to lots of places. The weather cooled to about 22-23 Celcius for the rest of the holiday. I didn’t have internet access. Son #1 was hot but very well behaved. He didn’t like the pizza we bought at restaurants and so didn’t eat a great deal.
View Larger Map
Places we visited
- Bergerac
- Duras
- Saint Emillion
- Marmande
And lots of other stuff. I don’t think I wrote it down somewhere! I ate plenty of cheese and baguette and drank plenty of local wine. I also spent quite a bit of time driving on the PSP playing GT Mobile. I was hoping to increase my garage ready for the release of GT5.
On the last night at the gite, Friday 13th August, son #1 slipped and hit his head on the table in the lounge. He cut a big gash in his eye and so we went to the hospital. WW looked after him as I wasn’t allowed in to the room. He had three stitches and looked very sorry for himself!
We left on Saturday the 14th August and headed back to the same hotel in Tours. I like Tours. It’s a lovely town. On the Sunday we headed back to the UK, it rained.
80s Rock
I have been buying up CDs of all my records or tapes over the last year or so. Everytime I think I have finished I get a snippet of another song in my head and off I go and search Amazon and EBay. A list of bands that I could consider slightly embarassing to admit liking are below. I haven’t bought Hysteria by Def Leppard yet as I can’t find it cheap enough!
If it gets you emotionally then that’s what you like! The best piece of music will send a shiver down your spine.
Here’s the list of bands in my 80s playlist:
- Adrian Smith And Project
- Britny Fox
- Dio
- Dokken
- Don Dokken
- Extreme
- Great White
- Lynch Mob
- Mr. Big
- Poison
- Ratt
- Salty Dog
- Tesla
- Whitesnake
For a complete list of music on my iPhone look at this page.
Bands
Bands in which I have played. Date order.
DBBTPC
Death By British Telecom Phone Card
Me – bass, Andy Smith – vocals, Nick Smith – drums, Kevin Horswill – guitar
Recorded an EP on music cassette. We were rubbish. 1989 or so.
Snakebite
Me – bass, Mark Hodges – guitar, Ian Barber – guitar and vocals, James (can’t remember his last name!) – drums
Recorded an EP on music cassette. We were pretty good. Played the sixth form leavers party, 1990
Tinymind . . .
Me – bass and vocals, Russell Denial – guitar, drums and vocals, Mark Dawes – keyboards and vocals
Recorded an EP on CD. We were pretty good. 1996 ish.
Cashback
Me – bass and vocals, Andy Pomery – guitar and vocals, Ian Pickard – guitar and vocals, Phil Horstrup – vocals, Ian Wesson – drums and vocals
Recorded a live video and some mp3 clips. We were pretty good. A full history of Cashback is here. We played a number of gigs in school. 2003 – 2006
There Are Four Things
There are four things I say to my son as I put him to bed. It’s just a routine that has developed over the last year or so. WW puts #2 to bed and I do the eldest. It’ll change when they are both in the same room but for now:
Have a nice sleep.
I’ll see you in the morning.
Love you loads.
Night night.
Quality Parking
Watched this guy park, get out, check his parking and then walk away. What a knob! He might as well have parked right in the middle of the two spaces.
Toys of the Son Part 12
Today’s toy of choice.
Motorbikes I Have Owned
Honda CB100, 100cc, single cylinder, 11 bhp, gold coloured, named JEN
I used this bike from about Jan 1995 to May 1995. I learnt to ride on it, passed my test on it and then bought a bigger bike and left it to rot. I still feel bad about that. I did about 1000 miles over 6 months.
Honda NTV, 650cc, V-twin, 53bhp , atlantic blue colour (which was really a grotty green), named LIBBY
This is the bike I dumped JEN for. I bought it from somewhere in Acton and loved it. It wasn’t really fast but it was reliable. I went to the South of France on it and toured around a bit of Europe. I really liked her but had to move on. For information about some crashes look at the bottom of this page. I did about 70000 miles over six years.
Honda CBR1100XX Super BlackBird, 1137cc, in-line 4, 164 bhp, red, named STEPH
I had lusted over the Blackbird since Honda released it in 1997 and I got one in 2004. I went everywhere, Cornwall, Wales, Belgium, France even to Nottingham (twice!). It cost a fortune to run but was worth every penny. I have since traded it in, August 2008, for some laminate flooring. Now all I have left is a brake disc and a broken fairing in the loft. Lots of good memories though. I think I did about 60000 miles on her. More information here.
My bikes have all been named after Nieghbours characters! You’ve got to have some reason for naming them!
Cars I Have Owned
Nissan Micra, red, 1000cc (ish), 16v. I had it for about 4 months.
Toys of the Son part 11
This morning my eldest son took these toys to nursery.
A Bit Cold
This is an epic fail. I know Manchester is shitty but I think this is a bit wrong!
Perhaps it’s getting back for the BBC move to Salford or most likely the number was an accident. Humans are fallible and so any counting or typing procedure can’t be 100% accurate!
Toys of the Son part 10
Here’s today’s toy that number 1 son took to nursery. He likes cooking!
Toys of the Sun part 9
Today’s toys that number 1 took to nursery.
Just a Sunday afternoon
What a lovely afternoon! Spent time in Whitstable, Kent. Lunch, play, skipping stones and an ice cream. It doesn’t get much better than that. My children were a delight! And I skimmed an 8er.
The Union flag through the orangery roof:
Castle turrets:
More of the castle and a lovely sky:
No real sea movement. Reminds me of Flatford Mill or it would if it was raining!
And here’s the beach 3D style! From Photosynth:
End of the Walnut Tree
The end of one of the pubs in the Kent village of Eccles. It’s a bit of a shame really. They are going to build some houses on the ground because at least they’ll make money for the land-owners. We do have one pub left in the village and I guess I can’t complain as I went into the Walnut Tree just once in the 6 years it was open and I lived in the village.
