Friday 28th July 2006
Song: Funeral For A Friend - History
Today, I leave Sun Microsystems. It has been a really cool year, lots of ups and downs, lots of real life experience (not all good, but all real), lots of cool people, lots of Sky News watched, and lots of pool played. I can now boast Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 training on my CV, which makes me feel special. I read somewhere that Sun training is recognised as third best, behind only Cisco and Microsoft. Not bad for free.
So I am now an unemployed bum. Someone give me a job. Preferrably one that involves understanding stuff like:
[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo "You live"
That is of course, Unix Russion roulette.
I don't really know what I want to do for the next 2 months, but hopefully I'll clean the inside of the car at some point. It's got absolutely filthy. Aside from that, I'll probably piss off the neighbours with my guitar, and spend too much time in front of the computer. I expect there'll also be lots of frisbee, and many trips to harrass the local cows that we recently found.
If anyone fancies days out places. Suggest them... I'm not really likely to be busy.
Sunday 23rd July 2006
Song: Green Day - Jesus Of Suburbia
So, a while back, I said I had videos of me singing in public. Well, it took some time, but I finally got them!
Wonderwall - Karaoke classic.
Sweet Dreams ...are made of this. This song goes on too long I think. It needs another verse.
Can't Take My Eyes Off You - Unquestionably, Marc stole the show with this one.
I do apologise if these aren't at all amusing for you. I fear you may have had to have been there.
Tuesday 18th July 2006
Song: David Ford - I Don't Care What You Call Me
So, at the back of my house is quite a big road. It's mostly 50mph, until the end bit where I live, where it goes down to 30. A few months ago after a short study, they realised people weren't really slowing down to 30, and were doing more like 40. So... Speed bumps (car wreckers, to some) came. They also put in a dot roundabout, traffic lights, and removed a right turn filter lane to really screw up the flow of traffic. But anyway, the bumps... They couldn't do normal sane speed bumps, or no. They had these evil pre-moulded rubbery things that only the devil could be proud of. They were too wide for lorries and emergency vehicles to fit over, and too high for anything to go over silently. The noise drove us mad. We complained to the council, as did pretty much everyone else in the area it seems. Pleasingly there has also been things in the local paper about it a few times. Local residents complaining about noise, and people in other small roads nearby complaining about extra traffic, with people avoiding the speed bumps. Eventually, we won, and they agreed to replace the speed bumps. The new ones were going to be lower overall, and with a less steep incline.
Last week, they removed the old rubbery tools of death, and left the road flat again. We still had the lights and roundabout to contend with, but pleasingly I was able to once again be up to 50mph before the 50 sign (from the 30 side, obviously). Before though, you used to be able to do 70 with ease, but still, this isn't bad. Then today... They came back, to put the new ones in. The new ones aren't premoulded catastrophes like the old ones. They're the normal tarmac, manmade jobbies. And, they are lower and flatter as promised. So naturally, I had to do a test. Remember, this is a 30mph bit of road. Before you could barely do 20, for fear of your car falling apart. Now though, with the new ones, I managed 40 with comfort. I had a crack at 50, but there was a a bit of a bump that gave a little discomfort. So, 40 it is going to be. 10 over the limit, it's the rule I generally go with anyway.
So, in conclusion... They've wasted a ton of money, pissed off a lot of local residence, undone their damage, and left the road at the 40mph that it was always destined to be. Except they've still got the dot roundabout, traffic lights, and lost the right filter lane (which is quite annoying as I used that to get home). All in all though, not a bad result. They've actually not yet finished putting the new ones in yet, but hopefully I'll still be able to be at 50mph before the 50mph sign.
Oh while having a bit of fun with this currently flat road, I managed to get up to 60mph in second gear. I reckon it might go to 65 but I'm a bit too scared to push it.
I hope no one from the council (or the law!) reads this.
My guitar is currently in bits. The nice, easy sounding pickup replacement hasn't quite gone to plan. I was hoping for an easy swap, old one out, new one in. Currently though, it looks a bit like this.
Two weeks left at Sun. Both sad and exciting to be honest. This week is awesome though. The games week that I did the week after I started last year has come around. We had a quiz today. I knew the name of Blondie's first UK number 1. How badass am I? We got 36/65, which is a pretty poor score really. But we weren't last, and that's what counts.
Tomorrow, I am going to be entering my first ever pool competition. I bet I lose drastically. I've opted out of the volleyball this year, as I was so bad last year. I've also opted out of the tug of war because I am weak and frail. There is a treasure hunt also, some day this week. That should be fun. The problem last year was that I didn't know the buildings very well at all, so it was really hard to do the questions. Should have a chance this year though!
Sunday 16th July 2006
Song: David Ford - Katie
So, I just popped in to town and then not wanting to rush home, I decided to go for a bit of a drive.
One of the places I decided to go visit was my old house. It was strange driving down those small roads round that area. Roads that I grew up going round on my bike. They are a lot narrower than I remember. But the house. Our old house was a much nicer size than this slightly cramped shoe that we now live in. Four bedrooms, double garage, seperate kitchen and utility room, a seperate living room and dining room, and an extra room on the back. But, it seems they've added a new room to it now. Either that or extended the living room out even more. It looked quite nice. I also recognised some of the cars from four years ago. The house of the crazy drunk with a hundred pets looked a bit empty. I wonder if he's since left. It was all quite nostalgic though... Memories of simpler times.
Friday 14th July 2006
Sophie Ellis Bextor has been found head butted to death in the appartment of a French footballer.
...Apparently, it was murder on Zidane's floor.
*ahem* Aaaand...
What's the first sign of Madness?
...Suggs walking up the drive
Alright, No more. I promise.
Tuesday 11th July 2006
Song: Fall Out Boy - Of All The Gin Joints In The World
Oh great... Just when you thought MySpace couldn't get anyworse, it's now being used to spread AdWare. Better still, it gets MySpace users to spread the AdWare.
Someone tell Tom!
Sunday 9th July 2006
Song: Green Day - St. Jimmy
Weyhey... I have a bit of a geek thing I wanna write about, but I do think it's pretty cool. So please read on...
Rob, I've done it.
To keep it brief, as it's geeky and late (2:40am)... I've now got this cube thing for a desktop. So basically, it gives me four desktops. And to switch between them, I just spin the cube round to the next side. It also lets me sit windows over the edge of two of them too. On top of this, I can make windows translucent, got a cool window swicther thing like Mac OS X has, and other stuff. Oh, and videos work really well with it. So, naturally I have prepared a screen shot. What this is, is firefox with Google open, and pushed over a corner of the cube. Then an MPEG video of Christina Aguilera (*rawk*) played over the top of Google, and made semitranslucent. I do apologies for the size of this image... I have two screens remember, which act as one (side of the cube) desktop so it's very wide, but please look all the same.
Click here to see the badass thing in all it's glory.
One other thing it does that I'm finding quite annoying, is when you move windows around the screen, or maximise them, or bring up a menu or something, they wobble into focus. It's quite a nice bit of eye candy, but they wobble for too long, and by too much. This can be configured, I just don't know how yet.
Tomorrow hopefully, I'll have some videos of me singing in public to share with you all.
Thursday 6th July 2006
Song: Stone Sour - Rules Of Evidence
Oh dear... Apparently Microsoft are going to be the sole supplier of ECUs for Formula 1 cars, starting in 2008.
Gentleman, please restart your engines!
Wednesday 5th July 2006
Song: Catatonia - Nothing Hurts
I forgot how absolutely amazing Catatonia are. Listened to two of their albums in a row tonight. I've not really cared much about them in a few years, but this has been a good reminder of why I got quite so obsessed with them. :D
Saturday 1st July 2006
I'm watching Wife Swap. I'm finding it quite entertaining. I'm sure that's not right.
I've also started to watch Big Brother now. There's few enough people now that I can remember some of their names. Though it seems there's going to be four new people now. Perhaps I need to stop watching it for a few more weeks. Really I only watch it because Imogen is quite pretty, and Welsh.
So, I actually watched all of the England game today. I don't really watch a lot of football, so I'm not really sure what to make of it. But I didn't think either side actually played particularly well. Granted England lost a bloke, but even before then, they didn't seem to be doing too amazing.
So, last night, I went off to Camberley with Mary to see Frank Turner again. Unfortunately, we had to sit through some of the most awful music I've ever heard. The first band on were unquestionably the worst band in the world... ever! Thankfully though, Frank eventually got on to the stage. He was as good as always. Clearly he had no setlist planned, as he at one point asked the crowd what to play. Much to my delight, he ended with "Dancing Queen". I had hoped he would. Before starting it, he said everyone to sing along once they realise what it is. Then while playing the intro, he asked if anyone knows what it is yet. Mary and I put our hands up straight away, and I don't think anyone else in the room did. I then very quickly wished I hadn't.
The other noteworthy performer from that night (there were seven acts in total) was the band on before Frank. They did covers of mainstream metal songs. Opening with "Between Angels and Insects", by Papa Roach. Then I believe they did Jimmy Eat World's, "The Middle". The other songs I didn't know, though one song sounded distinctly like Rage Against The Machine's style. Both the vocals and guitar were very Rage-like. But of the songs that I did know, I was very impressed by their covers. They were spot on, every time! Even the guitar solo in "The Middle" sounded perfect. Very good indeed.