I’m so busy at the moment I just don’t have time to write anything for the blog. I am aware that this post is now a logical contradiction but I’ll keep writing.
Work is busy and having two kids means there’s no time for anything at home. Although I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the mean time have a look at a web page with some Wackos. Only a few, mind. Given the billions of humans on the Earth the wacko total is probably quite high.
Gallery of Wackos
Fragile
Makes you realise just how fragile this Earth is.
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
Plane Finder AR
Just installed Plane Finder AR onto the phone. Point your camera at a plane and it’ll tell you
absolutely brilliant. I love it. Just right for an aircraft geek.
Night time picture of screen! That’s what time it is here!
Toys of the son part 3
The next set of toys #1 took to nursery.
Toys of the son part 2
Next set of toys #1 took to nursery.
Toys of the son part 1
An occasional commentary of the toys the sons are playing with or breaking. This time a toy #1 took to nursery for the day.
Lego 3 Model 7235
Made this as a reward for son coping with Tesco shopping. Again, superglued it together to make sure he doesn’t feed the small pieces to his small brother.
Cruel Advert
Clicked on a google news link to Telegraph website article about diets from the BMJ. Advert is brilliant.
Mobile Phones
I have owned a number of mobile phones and most of them were rubbish. Going to give you a rundown of them from the earliest.
Phone number 1 – sometime in 1999 or so:
The Ericsson A1018
The order of the next few phones is not remembered easily. But here goes:
The next was:
then:
And then the nifty fold-out keyboard:
Then we get to the first smart phone:
Then the brilliant and pretty usable N95, it was the last Nokia I owned that worked well:
Then the big memory but pretty useless N97:
Finally, a phone that works. The iPhone 4. Until then the iPhone specification was pretty rubbish. It took a lot of soul searching to convince myself that selling out to the walled garden of Apple was worth it. However, I have to say that the iPhone is brilliant. It works!
Definitely Autumn
Took this picture during a dog walk (there’s a surprise). The colour of the leaves was gorgeous but probably not captured without decent filter or image editing software (which I don’t use).
The holiday will be a failure
I had mentioned to WW that I really wanted some time playing GT5 this holiday with the steering wheel. I may have said:
If I don’t get to play GT5 this holiday it will have been a failure!
This means no kids or anyone for about 2 hours. The time was set. Monday afternoon. Number one son would be in nursery and WW and son #2 would be seeing friends so I had about 4 hours when I could play uninterrupted!
I needed to complete around 10 online races to get the money and just because they are there to complete. The four hours would be pushing it but I reckoned that without lunch I could have done it.
So I set up the PS3 with steering wheel and pressed play.
GT server down for routine maintenance 12 to 4pm
Arrgggghhh. The only races I could do offline was a World Championship and I didn’t want to spend the time and effort and have to save mid-championship.
I shut down GT5 and played Rock Band. The original save file is copy protected and so I had to start from scratch. Definitely didn’t do the easy or medium – straight to hard.
So far the holiday has been a failure. Going to try tonight.
Sunset over Kent
It’s a nice one.
Morning fog in Kent
Fog and sunrise in Kent
Talk Talk Part 3
This will probably come as a bit of a surprise but I have been really impressed with Talk Talk. I know that they have most complaints out of the media providers bt I haven’t had any issues.
Download speeds in the evening used to be crippling. It just wasn’t worth trying to download any large files and almost not worth browsing the internet. However, since moving to Talk Talk our evening download speeds have really improved. What I do not know is whether that is down to Talk Talk or some other changes that have been made with the infrastructure in our area. The thing is I can’t be bothered to see which it is.
Now I’m looking forward to downloading iOS5 this evening and getting my iPhone up to date.
Death of the PS3
So it happened again. My re-conditioned 60Gb PS3 from Sony has died. We were watching Wall-E on blu-ray and we got about 2 minutes into the film when:
Pvvvvvvvvvvvvv
The Ps3 turned off and the red light just flashed. The unit is still under warranty and so will be replaced with another re-conditioned 60Gb model, which is good because that is a classic model.
WW agreed I can suggested that I buy a brand new PS3 as well. So Amazon had a great deal on a 320Gb version bundled with a game and blu-ray movie. So until it arrives I am in limbo.
I managed to get the GT5 game save file copied when I tried turning on the PS3 to check it was FUBAR.
Updates later.
Tues 3 Oct
New 320Gb PS3 arrived with Resistance 3 and a blu-ray film. Plugged in and now vertical next to AV amp. Looks very nice. I have noticed though that the disc grabbing motor is much noisier than the old version, the disc reader motor makes a bit of noise and the buttons are real buttons rather than touch sensitive. However, the fan noise is much quieter and so much preferable.
Firmware update completed and GT5 save file copied after a bit of hassle. I’d been saving game files on a SD card because the 60Gb has lots of lovely memory card slots. Had to transfer the files to a USB memory stick using my PC before I could get them onto the new PS3.
Weds 4 Oct
Installed lots of the extra GT5 files onto the PS3 to reduce load times. That took about 40 minutes. Planing to install every game I’ve bought from the store over next few weeks as I now have the space for them. Also looking forward to DLC for GT5 by end of October.
PS3 stand arrived so I don’t have to worry about it falling over. It’s much thinner than the old version and so less stable. Now have a few more USB ports and some snazzy blue LED lights if I want to impress WW.
Old reconditioned 60Gb now taken and on its way to console heaven. Just waiting for the return of the next one.
Fri 7 Oct
New old PS3 delivered. Sony have kindly replaced my recondition PS3 with another (although it was within warranty). I have not yet checked it works as I need to be free of children to do it. New PS3 is wired in so this 60Gb will have to wait until half term.
Tues 11 Oct
GT5 version 2 download released and so very excited. Just waiting for DLC.
Cars
We tried searching for films suitable for a sensitive 2 year old and all the interwebs came up with were:
So we bought Cars from eBay.
It’s brilliant. The sons love it and have watched it about 10 times in the last week.
As expected from Pixar this film is really well written and directed. The artwork is fantastic and the detail is awesome.
I said to wonderful wife that I thought the cars suspension moves the wrong way when they go around corners. She replied
that’s your issue with a film with talking cars?
Fair enough. Although I guess they could have cool active suspension so the side of the car on the inside of the corner is lower rather than higher than expected. Essentially a car rolls to the outside of the corner not the inside, hey you could have cool lever linkage also!
Anyway, great film and sons obsessed with racing cars! Brilliant.
Tesco are rubbish
I had to take a toy back to Tesco as I had found it 20% cheaper at Argos and Tesco say you can just change your mind and return an item. So I checked the T&Cs at the back of the catalogue and took the required items back to Tesco Grove Green.
- The product with original packaging
- The order confirmation email
My wife had ordered the toy and paid using her card but she was out that day but the catalogue and email said the card wasn’t necessary.
I go to Tesco and hand back the toy and show the email.
Do you have the card used to pay for the toy?
No, was my reply. The instructions in the catalogue say you don’t have to bring it back with you.
It will say somewhere in the email that you need to bring the card. You always need the payment card when you return items.
After looking through the email, I suggest that the person serving me have a look as it says exactly the same as the catalogue: just bring the product and the email confirmation. Could I possibly have the returned money as a giftcard?
yes, but only this once and as a goodwill gesture.
My problem with this is that if the return instructions had said I needed the payment card then I would have taken it. Why was I made to feel like an idiot when I was following instructions from Tesco.
The person serving me refused after that point to look at me. I was trying to point out that perhaps she could talk to someone senior about the fact that the emails and catalogue are wrong. I tried to say this in as helpful manner as possible but obviously failed.
Tesco: you have messed up.
Foggy Morning
Eccles Recreation Park, about 0700 29 September 2011
According the the weather people it is going to be a warm day. The fog was low lying and moving around.
The origin of wine
A foible of mine:
I only buy and drink wine from regions I have visited
Fortunately I have been to Bordeaux and other great wine producing areas but I just decided about a year ago that I might as well impose a restriction just for the hell of it. Should someone offer me wine then I will drink it from anywhere. For me, this rule just makes choosing wine a little more interesting.
Places I can’t drink:
- South America
- North America (apart from Florida)
- Asia (apart from Hong Kong and Singapore)
- Africa
Individual areas that I can drink:
- Most of France
- Bits of Spain
- Cyprus
- South East Australia
- Southern Portugal
That’s about it. Hey, as the Great Sheldon said “if your going to have foibles you might as well make them bizarre”.
Extras
I’ve given up treats such as chocolate, crisps and donuts bought in by other department members.
Essentially I’m not bothered by crisps but I do like chocolate. I have decided to give up all “treats” for around six months or so. I won’t eat them at home or buy them. If they are offered as food at a friend’s house then that is fine.
Really this is about losing (or not gaining) weight and proving I have some willpower. Now I just need to promise that I’ll play the PS3 a bit more.