Red's Place

Just back from the Prince of Wales in Fleet, my thanks to Pete for driving, hope you feel better soon.

Craig was also driving, Von, Ash + Vicki, Pete (B) were also in attendance. Very good evening, made better by (crap) music, and some free food (buffet) at 11pm, thanks to the govnors :-)

Here's to 2005, where my only resolution is to seriously look for someone to share it with!!

First day back at work today since finishing on the 23rd Dec. Ugghhhhhhhh it was hard getting up this morning! As I was commenting to a friend earlier the problem wasn't the going to bed at midnight, it was the waking up before five when I didn't have to be awake until six! WTF! My brain was completely scrambled.

Spent £3000 of customer money earlier, and took no time at all. Wasn't remotely fun, despite being the same as my credit limit. Sigh. (Yep, it all went to Micro$oft for their so-called OS).

Typical winter cold is approaching, I have the starts of mucas, but otherwise fine. Hmm, this better not affect this weekend's trip to Barcelona!

Remembered to call Barclaycard today to find out where the missing bill from Dec was. "God bless the internet" (spot the quote) I was able to pay the bill without having the paper. Phew. May need to cancel that card if the rumours are right.

Also, hello to a new reader, who commented on my NY post. Welcome to the inanity, and er, what was all that about ?? Site doesn't seem to work now.

Yes, its a quote from the dodgy IBM TV ad from the US diner. Guess what I've been installing today... Blades! I've got 3 up and running, and need 4 for Win2000, and then another 7 running Win Svr 2003. Should be a mammoth task.

Going away for the weekend, quick trip to Spain.... Barcelona! Barcelona! Viva Barcelona! (Think Freddy Mercury when you read that). Back Sunday night. Christmas gift, family trip. Hee :)

So Pete's blog is back and running again, so, like Phut, the link returns on the right. Checkout DeGaS, and I'll be back after Barcelona. (Which looks like its gonna be cold at night, but warm during the day, very British!).

(Think Freddy+Monserrate's duet).

Barcelona is a great city for a just under 48hr flying visit! Some good food and beer too, see the picture for a sample :)

(yes, that's a litre of Kronenbourg. It was good too!)

Back home now unfortunately, work in the morning.

Reading DeGaS's blog, he's given me a free PhD, so I'm not complaining! (rob might). :)

Mr DeGaS got a good price for the iRiver, its a nice unit, just not quite what I'm after in a portable music player. Apparently they're really good at recording, built in microphone and optical in and out, so much more funky than most.

however I'm an iTunes fan, so an iPod it'll be, and I'm tempted by the 40gb (no not the stupidly expensive 60gb) iPod photo. Although doubt I'd bother to sync some photos onto it.

Now I need to sort out which PC to use, if I can swap the CPUs around, I'll use the newer mobo with the 3.4ghz CPU, as it has firewire built in, and I can put the 2.8ghz back into the dell, and use it as a Win2k3 server. Maybe. More thought on that required.

Car has its first MoT tomorrow, and I get to wait in the garage for an hour. Yawn. Hope they've got a coffee machine, but I'm not expecting wifi. At least I've got bluetooth and GPRS, but no idea how long my laptop's battery can actually do.

Goodnight.

Bought two hard drives today. Took one back 20 mins later, as it was the wrong one in the box. Got a refund as they didn't have any more. Have ordered from the internet instead (same price), but got to wait. Rats. So next week the upgrades and swapping of PCs will happen, and I can have a 120gb*2 raid array on my dell, and a 160gb*2 raid array on my new machine. I intend to swap the CPUs and the new machine gets the 3.4ghz, and the dell the 2.8ghz again. Then I will use the dell as a fairly quiet server, with mirrored 120gb disk. The intel will be a striped 320gb home PC, should go like a rocket. :)

I've also ordered a larger disk for my work laptop, seriously out of space on that baby.

Pete sold the iRiver, nice one mate. When the cash finally gets through the banking system, I'll probably order an iPod of some sort as I need a jukebox :)

Hmm, not entirely sure what this is all about...

Grr, had to go into london today. Not normally an issue, the trains are just about ok around here, today they screwed up. South West Trains being crap as usual think they can get 8 coaches worth of people into 2, and then cancel the following train two stops down the line. arrggh !

My new iPod photo arrived, is very cool. USB2 hookup took about 5 minutes to iTunes sync my 10gb of music. Funky. When I get my CPUs sorted out I'll have to try the firewire port on the other machine, but that won't be for a while!

Got my new hard disks today, the desktop now has 320gb of online storage, currently building into a raid0 striped set. Yes, I know its "risky", but I want to see the best speed. I can then decide if I want be safe "mirror" or have two standalone drives. The other drive is my new laptop fast drive (7200rpm) 60gb. That should mean I get some speed and some space on my work thinkpad. The 40gb that came out goes into storage, so if I return the tpad to work, I keep the new drive.

Also Philly is going to become the worlds largest wireless internet "hot spot".... interesting!

Phut, maybe that Nokia Communicator 9500 is worth getting :)

Simon Cowell, he of popstars fame, and blamed with wrecking popular music (even more so than stock/aitkin/waterman in the 80s) has proven he is a moron again...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds18532.html

but I'd like his money.

Debbie from florida, sent me this link!!

(Phut, if you're reading, maybe Russell from FCOT would go for it!!).

Ribby's recent post has got me a thinking. Box junctions are not that common around here, unless you go into London, but the worst thing around here is.... the ROUNDABOUT.

The idiot who thought these up back in the 1940s or 1950s thought they were a good thing. Until of course you get to todays drivers and traffic levels.

So to combat traffic levels we have the insanity of traffic lights on roundabouts. Portsmouth city council had the only sense and ripped out the roundabout on a major 4-way crossroads, replacing with lights. They were ridiculed in the press, but everyone at work (which is next door) is convinced its drastically better. (Hmm, that might explain why they don't have 'em in the US, where car ownership has always been higher than the UK).

The other problem is, like Ribby's, education. Take the roundabout junction near my parents. Its a T shape junction, so a three exit roundabout. They are all at 90degrees to the other. If you approach from the south, towards the top of the T, you are on a dual carriageway. If you want to turn right, which lane should you be in? Yes, of course, the right. How come all the polish, german, and french lorries, along with the braindead car drivers turn right from the *left* lane! Some even get so confused they attempt to go all the way around from the left lane. What happens to those of us who are obeying the highway code, yes, we get run off the road!!

Luckily my car has quite a lot of "go" and I put my foot down, and missed being crushed by a Polish lorry, but !

Roundabouts don't work anymore, and should be removed on all main roads. Switch to the US system, it'd be safer!

(anyone got any chill pills?)

(Received this from a colleague today)

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?

Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds" when they know there is not enough?

Yes, its retro time, 10 or 12 years for me, phut, and mr grumpy!!

Tonight, yours truly and mr + mrs grump went to a pub in Guildford called "The Astolat", to attend a music Quiz, run by none other than DJ Pete.

It was like walking into Finnigans Wake (G'ford) in the mid 90s, there were the same faces, including the idiot, Colin, and thankfully a bunch of new teams.

We won the 80s! 20/20 !! (yes, its now 10 questions). We did ok on the 60s, but crap on the 70s and crap on the new 5th round, which was a guest round. Hmm, very odd.

Dunno when the next trip will be, depends on the grump's schedule, but should be a laugh :)