Year: 2008

Not much left of the old year now, time to look forwards to the next one.

I spent a fair bit of 2008 looking backwards and reacting to events, I went backwards a few steps (shoulder) but I’ve hopefully gone forwards a few too. I appear to have mostly broken the games addiction, although maybe that’s been replaced by an addiction that has me listening to music off iTunes ? 🙂

Not much cricket again for me, will have to see if I can do better next season. I think I’ll have to settle for batting only, as my shoulder won’t support me bowling any more. Badminton is definitely a bad idea – that’s how I aggravated the shoulder injury this summer. Or is that my conservative side thinking ?

The Crazie Boys (inc me) watched the film Twilight today. Best way to describe this one is a Chick Flick Teen Vampire movie. We enjoyed it and were pleasantly surprised. Different film to the no-brain action movies we usually go for, a good change. I’d recommend it 🙂 Not sure if I’ll be going for the dvd though. One impression I definitely got was that one of the characters was definitely a fan of Tom Cruise’s Lestat.

I’ll be up at the Mall again tomorrow and I get the feeling I’ll be spending a bit of cash up there 🙂 One of the casualties of the Xmas period has been the wifi capability on this laptop, which is likely to be the Final Straw that means this lappy needs replacing. It has various other faults and I’ve been very surprised on my couple of Kick-The-Power-Lead moments this week it hasn’t turned off … Almost no battery left in it. I’ll also be looking to acquire some more cd’s to feed iTunes with 🙂

Last thing to do is to wish everyone a Happy New Year and I’ve attached a Youtube link to one of the songs I look forward to appearing on the iTunes Party Shuffle.

PS I think I’m eerily starting to look forward to work. One of the things I do on an extended leave period is not shave … And my scabrous imitation of a beard started itching on Thursday last week. It’ll be removed before I get back 🙂

I’ve been back for an hour or so now, so my fingers have warmed up enough for me to be able to type.

Been at my mum’s, dad’s and sister’s places for a few days over Xmas. Tuesday was getting to mum’s & dad’s place, just in time for dinner too. Convenient 🙂 Wednesday saw us battling the Lincoln traffic, which typically for this time of year was pretty savage. Lincoln’s roads aren’t too well laid out, so getting anyway in Lincoln can be a nightmare. Thursday and Friday had us at my sister’s place. She keeps a horse, so needs to be able to get to the field it’s at to make sure its comfortable (stable, bringing in from field).

I think my sister liked what she got – a Satnav widget plus her internet has been upgraded to Wireless now. That was Thursday evening’s job and was scarily smooth too … I did the typical techy macho-geek thing of taking one look at the instruction book and going “humph” before chucking instructions over my shoulder and setting the thing up on my own. Kinda sounds like being a “know-it-all” there but it was part of a careful plan 🙂 There’s lots of wifi-widgets out there and I’ve got experience of two … One is my Philips thing and I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. Sister has a Linksys (aka Cisco) router now, the newer version of my dad’s. The first one we got has been almost faultless for over a year. It just sits there behind a chair and works. Which is all you can ask of electronics. So my sister got the newer version of the same device.

Bit different for my electronics – I’ve picked up an Apple Airport Express which should let me send the iTunes music to my decent speakers without having tripwires. Just one problem … my laptop took a tumble on Thursday evening and one thing that broke was the hole that the wifi card goes in. So I’m now tapping this out on a laptop that’s hooked up by a wire going over the back of the sofa and listening to iTunes with the rubbish lappy speakers because that Airport thing needs wireless. Sometime next week I’ll be hunting a new laptop from the PCWorld places, which will get me doing the wireless thing again.

I’ve got me another graphics card too now 🙂 So I’ll be crossing my fingers that my main PC can supply it with enough juice to work. Checking that out will be tomorrow’s job after wrapping a few things up and I’ll be hoping for prettier pictures from World of Warcraft, Mass Effect and Fallout 3.

Oh ! I also have a couple more dwagons for the clan 🙂 Here they are :

Time to sign off now. I had a couple of bright ideas before I disappeared up norf … One was to turn the heating off to appease the Green Lobby. The fridge magnet temperature currently has it as 15 degrees C, so a little more to go before things get cosy here. I have my main PC turning and burning on medical research, a bit of Seti, some Large Hadron Collider number crunching and climate research, so that’s helping things warm up too. (The other bright idea was to leave my Laptop->TV lead here, so Wallace & Gromit couldn’t get watched via iPlayer)

PS This may be my last blog entry. One of the presents that my Secret Santa victim is getting may get me killed. I’m sure the other people at the party will arrange something as a posthumous posting, although I think I’ll get protection from CQ and CK cos I’m giving them a lift home tomorrow.
PS2 (addon) Still here ! Not been strangled with a cardigan.

Merry Xmas BobKat 🙂

Just popped by to wish you a very Merry Christmas. Give CQ a hug from me when you see her 🙂

BTE – the word verification was atingles? Sounds like a new word to describe that Christmas Eve excitement, LoL!

Aye – should be an interesting new year 🙂

PS You won’t be seeing any Beefcake Pete pics like the Beefcake Obama pics that have been coming out lately. Unless I fake ’em 🙂

Happy Merry Everything Sexy 😉

Here’s to a new year full of all sorts of wonder

3 things to post today,

The first is inspired by what I watched last night before heading off to bed. It was a special report on the BBC’s News channel showing an interview with Alan Johnston of the BBC and Ingrid Betancourt. Alan Johnston was held hostage in Gaza for four months, Ingrid Betancourt survived 6 years of captivity and torture in the Columbian jungle in the hands of FARC guerillas. Here’s the Wiki page on Ingrid Betancourt.

What a woman !

I’d turned over from Sky news because they were showing USA stories, which fell into the “Don’t need to know right now” category (sorry USA people!). Over to BBC News, who were showing this half hour piece. By the end, we had a visibly shaken Alan Johnston being emotionally picked up by Ms Betancourt. I was absolutely captivated by Ms Betancourt’s quiet strength and compassion. Her message is not one of anger, it is one of forgiveness. Her ability to forgive her kidnappers and everyone involved in that phase of her life gives her the strength to put that phase of her life behind her.

A truly inspirational lady.

Second thing for today is the Xmas, sorry Midwinter Festival :-), news. I’m not a particularly religious person but try to respect other people’s beliefs. And December 25th is a great excuse for parties and presents.

I’ve almost got all the presents for this year, although a few of them still need wrapping. The ones that are left are for the Crazie Christmas gathering on the 28th, so a little more time still for those ones. Looks like the shopping people have come out in force, Bristol city centre was pretty well packed yesterday afternoon and the reports on the radio were encouraging me to chicken out on a trip to the Cribbs Causeway Mall. Good option too, as I think it would have taken a huge amount of time to get in and out, judging by the mile or so of queue on the Motorway before the junction to Cribbs at about 6.15 last night.

Third (and last 🙂 thing for today is cricket. England’s tour of India just finished, they’ll be getting the flights home pretty soon to get them back to their families for Xmas. It finished 1-0 to India, with the result coming in the last game where India, courtesy of the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar (cricinfo link), came from behind to snatch a well earned win. Although the result wasn’t in favour of the touring team, the quality and spirit of the play coupled with the eagerness of the crowds to come out vindicates the decision to head out there in the face of events in Mumbai in November.

That’s it for me for a few days – I’ll see everyone in a little while after the holiday season enters the New Year stage 🙂

Yey 🙂

Looks like they’ve got him off the yacht ok. And on the way back they’ll be able to drop off some fuel to help out Mike Golding who got dismasted earlier this week.

Loved the Chrsitmas list 😀

I have my fingers crossed for Yann. A broken femur can be very dangerous as it can interfere with the femeral artery and also it is possible to die from internal bleeding as the femur contains a rich blood supply for the bone marrow.

I’ve been following the Vendee Globe single handed ocean race, not quite as much as I did in its early stages but I’m still keeping up with it.

I’m pretty shocked at the news to burst out today : A broken femur for French skipper Yann Elies. (official Vendee Globe link)

Blimey ! I’ve had a few broken bones over the years so I know how much minor fractures can hurt. I’ve never suffered anything on the scale of what Yann Elies has suffered today though and never while alone on a yacht more than a thousand miles from civilisation.

The full story can be found on the Vendee Globe site (link above) but a short summary is that Yann Elies has managed to crawl back inside his boat to get into a bunk and has the boat set up such that it is heading in the right direction without any intervention needed. Two Vendee Globe skippers have diverted to offer morale and psychological support. They’re Britain’s Sam Davies of Roxy and France’s Marc Guillemot. The Australian Anzac frigate HMAS Arunta has been diverted to rescue and evacuate but will take a day or so to get there.

Fingers crossed that the Aussies get Yann out ok. I’ll be keeping a closer eye on this one over the next few days. Looks like Yann’s able to keep the doctors ashore up to date with what’s happening, which is a good sign. It does remind you that we haven’t tamed this Earth of ours yet and it can still catch out even the most prepared and skilled people using the best equipment.

Hopefully in a few years time, Yann will be back for the next Vendee Globe and I’ll be adding him to the group of skippers I’ll be egging on.

(addon)

On a much brighter note, here’s a link to the Vendee Globe newswire with Sam Davies’ letter to Santa from before she diverted due to the incident above. G’wan, have a peek, it’s guaranteed to make you crack a smile.