Congratulations to Jase on becoming a trainee firefighter. Even better is his diary and blogosphere contribution [edit – no longer active].
Welcome, another member of the Fulham Five to the world of websites and blogging.
What the son sees
This is what happens when you give a camera to a three year old. Eldest son took these while we were visiting family. I’m not going to give a commentary this is just what he finds interesting.
Hawaii 5-O Part 2
I still really like watching Hawaii 5-O, see my previous post. The scenery is great, the colour filters used show Hawaii off to the best and the camaraderie between the characters is good. The tech is over the top, but I can actually live with that. There’s a problem now though.
I think they jumped the shark!
The latest episode that I watched had 5-O invade North Korea to rescue their leader. He’d been lured there by a double agent of Wo Fat who is the series’ lead baddy.
Seriously?
A group of rogue coppers and hang-ins fly a Huey (wrong war for that helo) into North Korea across the DMZ (the most heavily armed 100 miles in the world) and not only get there alive but successfully capture their top man and make it back!
For some reason I can cope with them hacking into any database or CCTV stream in the world but invading North Korea really launched them over the cartilaginous hunter with supreme success.
Going to keep watching for the next little while to see if they improve. If not then I have some episodes of Alcatraz recorded and ready to watch. Perhaps that will be better?
NAS Drive
For my birthday I bought a 2TB NAS unit. I spent ages looking at different types and was going to get a LG NAS until I saw an Iomega unit in PC World in BlueWater Shopping centre with quite a good price reduction. I did some internet searching that evening and went back the next day to buy the Iomega unit.
I got the Iomega StorCentre ix200 Cloud Edition there are some good things about it and some things that to be honest I don’t understand and can’t be bothered to invest the time to understand.
I use the NAS to store movies, iTunes libraries and eventually I will categorise all our photos on it. I can stream content to the PS3 and iPhones and laptop which is useful. I can also access it via the web should I feel like it! Here’s a list of functions I won’t be using:
- Flickr upload folder – automatically uploads to Flickr
- Bit Torrent download automatically
- Time Machine
- Print Server
- Cloud backup
- Facebook folder (see this about Facebook)
- You Tube upload
I have the two 1TB drives configured as RAID0 at the moment which, as far as I understand it, means they copy each other for data redundancy. If I ever need the extra space I’ll turn that off as I also back up photos and video files to DVD. Can you have too much redundancy?
Talk Talk Part 4
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)
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.
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.
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.
Range Rover Drivers
It has taken a long time but I think it is now the time to relegate BMW drivers from the much coveted top spot of the Charts of Arrogance. They have been surpassed by a more irritating and rude bunch of gits. I speak, of course, of Range Rover drivers.
This collection of people who drive the huge, gas guzzling, aero-dynamically inefficient, four wheel drive vehicles are quickly turning out to be a bunch of BMWankers.
It used to be that BMW drivers failed to realise that their car had indicators or that to drive too close to another car was dangerous. Everyone knew that if there was a car doing dangerous stuff (and it wasn’t a Citroen Saxo driven by a baseball cap wearing, pierced youth) then it was going to be a BMW. Their reputation was awful. If you were being cut up on a motorway, or cut up at a junction or a car just braked infront of you and turned without warning then it was a BMW. It was just their right to do that.
Now, I find (spot the confirmation bias) that it is Range Rover drivers who do all the nasty stuff on the roads and endanger my life. They don’t indicate. They pull infront of you. They drive too close to you. They are the NEW and CROWNED arrogant arses of the tarmac. Whether it is the height that these drivers have to sit or just the money they must have to own one of these behemoths they really don’t seem to care about any other drivers. Roadcraft to them is just doing what you want, selfishly ignoring the safety of the rest of us.
What would the roads be like if everyone drove Range Rovers? Perhaps, because BMWs are rather ubiquitous and affordable it means that they have regressed back to the norm? Or it could be an economic thing. The type of person who thought that BMWs were cool and nice 15 years ago has now morphed into the type of middle aged man who thinks that owning a Range Rover means that they “own” the road and the right to endanger my safety. If they really used these cars for off-road and risked their own safety then good for them. But, they don’t.
I would like to appeal to these drivers’ sense of community and social responsibility in an attempt to make them see the error of their ways but it is clear they have none. So I won’t.
Who To Support?
With two weeks to go before the NFL Super Bowl I have to decide who to support. My teams didn’t get there, New Orleans Saints and the Miami Dolphins. I cheered on the 49ers in the AFC championship as they beat the Saints and so were suitable of my support.
Now the choice is either the New York Giants or the New England Patriots. Too many support the Patriots, they are ridiculously popular in the UK. The Giants have Eli Manning as a quarterback and any Manning is irritating.
So I’ve decided to make my relationships more fun. My sister and her husband like the Patriots and Ades (one of the Fulham Five) likes the Patriots. That settles it. My cheers will go to the New York Giants.
Altogether now: D-Fense!
France 1
Our first holiday together in France. We had spent the day across the channel before this but we joined some close friends for a holiday in Normandy. It is a holiday to remember because we discovered that son #1 was on the way.
19 July 2008 to 26 July 2008
We stayed in a gite not far from Carrouges in Normandy.
Places we visited:
Le Mans Circuit, including driving (twice) around the road section of the 24 Hours course.
Mont St. Michel
Omaha Beach and cemetery
Bayeaux and the Bayeaux Tapestry
Chateau d’Carrouges
Viewpoint in Parc Naturel régional de Normandie-Maine