Month: September 2013

I had a plan for tonight …

It involved finishing up at work, getting home and ensconcing myself in front of the cricket. It was due to start at 2pm, so I wouldn’t have missed too much of the game. However … British weather intervenes …

Seriously – who would schedule international cricket in England in September ? It’s doomed ! Doomed I tell you ! Oh – this is the same people who scheduled back to back home and away series for England not once (India), not twice (New Zealand) but at least 3 times (Aussie). We want some variation in who we see England play.

At least that insanity breaks up after the Down Under leg of the Ashes tours. But this did tickle my grin :

(apologies if that appears multiple times – Google is throwing a wobbly)

So – no cricket. What was Plan B ?

Well – after a not so good day yesterday, today was a lot better. I managed to leave myself alone and felt a lot better through the day. I still ended up needing to walk with a semi limp to protect the skin around my left knee but … much better today.

Oh – I also had more than my fair share of very fair ladies smiling at me through the day. It’s not just the smiles though, it’s the interaction. We try to look out for the people who pay our wages and we do that by keeping a certain spirit of cooperation going within the team. It’s to make sure we’re in the strongest position to get the most out of our contractors. They do it too.

That’s probably a bit of an unfair statement though, as one aspect I especially concentrate on is to try and break down the barriers between everyone I work with on a project. I want everyone on the same page thinking towards Ultimate Shininess, whether they work for my organisation, my customer or whether they’re the ones delivering to us. We all want Ultimate Shininess but we have different pressures that can get in the way.

Ultimate Shininess is a good thing – but you have to know exactly what you want. It can be something that’s completely ordinary, it can be the best in the world at what it has to do. My Lexus CT is Shiny but there were other Lexus hybrids that were shinier in terms of performance. The GS450h has a 0 to 60 of about 7 seconds. That’s shiny. But the car is also way too expensive to buy and insure and is bigger than what I’m comfortable with. It’s Shiny … but it’s not exactly what I want.

And that sums up the main activity of this evening – looking at laptops (and not buying) again.

It was the last day of the PC World sale tonight, so off I pop for a wander over at the Mall. To be honest, there’s not much I’m looking to buy at the moment. I’ve got the newly released blurays I want, the new albums I want are more than I’d want to pay for them and the laptops don’t fit the requirement.

What am I looking for in a laptop ?

Cost – less than £500. We are getting gouged on prices … the only way to avoid that is to Not Buy.
Screen resolution – at least 900 lines. All the 15″ laptops are 768 lines, which isn’t good enough.
Touchscreen ? don’t care. Don’t think I’d use it enough to justify the price.
Size ? Doesn’t matter as long as the resolution is up to the job. Trouble is, to get 1080p in a 15″ means Apple or a custom build.
Reliability … this is a biggie, it’s why Dell aren’t being considered despite them having a 17″ laptop which is definitely perfect* spec

*(there’s just a small matter of a wifi card with questionable performance and considering that the number 1 job of my laptop is to stream music over wifi to my speakers …)

So – tempting offer but I’ll leave it.

There’s another factor there – so many times we’re convinced into parting with cash when we don’t actually need to. Sale on sir, get it while it’s cheap. Nope. I’ll stick with what I have, it fits what I want better than your sale item and it has more life left in it.

Still. If I see £1 per Wispa Bites packet type sales, you know what’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. And yes, I did empty a shelf of them on Monday. (There were only 4 packets left on the shelf – honest)

Looking forward to a few things now :

Holiday time ! 7 more days of work then it’s off to Devon for a week’s chilling out. Although I may do a work visit on one day because I’ll have a chance to see something that’s Pretty Cool. It’s work related so I can’t say what it is (although I’ll answer on the Facebook link post because that’s locked down).
Listening to the Goldfrapp album, from what I’ve heard so far it’s a good one.
Listening to the Rachel Sermanni album. Ditto. (I cracked cos of getting £2 worth of Amazon credit)
Watching the rest in the Iron Man movie series, Iron Man 3 hasn’t arrived just yet.
The PHO event in October.
Being healthy again – it’s improving, I just have to avoid “helping”.

To close – I ended up in the Apple store for some reason. I was checking out the Macbooks.

Yes. Very Shiny indeed. Also very expensive. I said above : “Cost less than £500”. Macbooks are seriously more expensive, although they do support the primary need that stops me looking to ditch Windows for Linux : iTunes.

Yep.

This one’s all about me again folks.

I’m in that curious place where I’m both feeling worse and better. On the one hand, my muscles are deciding they want to play games with me at every opportunity. Torture games. I’m incredibly prone to cramp right now. An unguarded turn of the shoulders to spot who’s said hello can go from “Hi – arrggg” very quickly.

It’s in my legs too and I was back to having extreme trouble writing things down again today. Yep. The cramp is so bad that I’m having trouble holding a pen. I may try a smaller pen.

So yeah, I’d have every right to be highly miserable right now.

But I’m not. In fact, my core mental state is probably the opposite of miserable. (Probably that manic side of the manic-depressive cycle). I’m enjoying it while it lasts but I do know that it started the upcycle when I started taking the vitamin tablets.

Note for Internet Doctors – taking vitamin tablets does not automatically make you happy. In fact, a good few years ago I was taking multivitamin + Iron tablets and I turned nasty. Personality change over a week of taking them, followed by snapping back to Angel Pete not long after stopping them. No – the happy vitamin time is most likely more due to my body having the materials it needs to repair itself again.

Yep – I should be taking those vitamins through a healthy balanced diet with fruit and veg but … I need that allergy test before I can attempt that, seeing as I’m pretty sure that lettuce (and quite possibly cabbage) caused the allergies to flare up before.

How is that body doing ?

It’s making good progress. The back of my knees are still quite sore but they’re improving too. I just hope that the improvement stays consistent over this week and then we’ll take it from there.

There’s an autoimmune (where the body attacks itself) skin condition out there called Psoriatic Arthritis (PA). I’ve got some friends who suffer from it and a few of the symptoms match. I don’t think I have it. (Phew ! It has very nasty under the surface effects). The symptoms match but the body attacking itself is not an autoimmune thing, it’s more an “honour” thing where I’m the one responsible for causing the damage. And yes, there’s a little voice inside saying “what the HELL are you doing ?” when I’m inflicting that damage.

But my discipline is improving and so is my skin.

If you know anyone with PA, support them. They’re acutely aware of how they look and they’ll be as embarassed as hell about that. And behind how it looks, be aware of how much pain they’re in. The same Nasties that are attacking the outsides are also attacking the insides of the joints. That’s pure pain. And not just any pain, it’s the constant low level pain that steals sleep and the acute sharp pain that comes with moving.

I don’t think I have it and one reason I’m glad about that is the treatment. Not only is it a nasty illness, the treatment is bad too. Our immune systems keep us healthy, some treatments involve wiping out that immune system. Whereas I’ve been able to keep going to work, if I’d had to go that far, I’d have been a virtual prisoner inside the house. And I crave interaction.

Back to happy !!!

Said the person who’s just sung along to River City People’s version of California Dreamin‘ (iTunes semi-random pick!)

Yeah. I’ve been much improved lately. The skin condition is fading back. Some areas are almost repaired again. Long may that trend continue. They’re not totally fixed yet and I won’t be comfortable until they are. But they are genuinely improving.

And my mental state is much improved too. I could do without the cramp. I think that’s me needing to be drinking lots of water to help the skin rebuild – the repairs are getting first pick, leaving the muscles to be thirsty. And my muscles have always hated that.

I’ve been more playful over the emails and over the communicator thingys. Some of the old sparkiness is coming back. It’s been hiding lately. It’s been hiding again but that’s because of sequences like this morning :

Miss G (inspiration lacking for codenames but – she’s one of the cute ones) walks down the floorplate, innocently going past my desk.
I’m on the aisle so Meerkat Tendency makes me look up and grin
Miss G catches the grin and smiles back
Smiles broaden
And it leads to a friendly “wot ?” and me saying “morning” before commencing to hide again behind the monitor

Yep. Katie’s Shy Boy still fits. But I still have that power to make people smile in an answer to my own silly grin.

It’s good to have that grin back. It’s like my own special super power. Everyone has their own special super power, it’s in there even if they don’t know, realise or recognise it. But it’s there.

You all have your own special brand of awesome. Remember that 🙂

(See ? happier frame of mind – I CAN’T HELP IT – sorry)

"Why are all those people bouncing to no particular time ?"

🙂

Last Night of the Proms is *very* British. If you want to understand us Brits I recommend watching it. It'll confuse the hell out of you! [rotflmao]

Couple of things on today :

Strictly Come Dancing is back ! And it’s the Last Night Of The Proms.

I didn’t watch Strictly regularly until last year, when it well and truly caught the attention. There was a good selection of celebrities taking part that year and you genuinely didn’t know who’d win and who’d knock you over (in a good way) on the night. Not so convinced this year, we shall see what we shall see.

They have some marvellous dancers too …

Quote from Yveta : “Music does something special to me, I just have to dance”. Music kinda does something special to me too, I’m always wanting to sing along (but keeping it in check due to ultimate shyness)

The music tends to be pretty good on Strictly. They have a house band for the dancing with guests coming in too. The quality varies somewhat (the house band is good but not great and can butcher some songs). But it definitely has me turning off the TV speakers and routing the audio through my proper hifi.

Noticed that ? I’ve never heard a TV that sounds passable, let alone anywhere near good. But then again, I’ve been spoiled by having proper hifi for many, many years.

This year’s Strictly has Sophie Ellis-Bextor on, who I developed a dislike of when she was more current in the singing business. Not really sure why, as she was very, very good. Great tone and kept the timing. And her “Read My Lips” album is on Amazon for £3.65 with free MP3 download. Don’t mind if I do.

Also means I have an excuse to preorder Goldfrapp’s new album and Iron Man 3.

Still watching Strictly but coming later is an annual event : Last Night of the Proms.

For the uninitiated, this is an unabashed celebration of Britishness. It’s a concert with some of the best of British classical music. It has Jerusalem, it has the Sea Shanties. It has the Pomp and Circumstance marches. And … most important … it has the audience participation.

It’s worth watching and joining in with. It’s silly … and it’s uplifting.

And I’m thoroughly looking forward to it.

How’s me ? I seem to be improving – finally ! There’s still a lot of damage but it seems to be finally repairing (that’ll be the vitamin tablets) I’ve added another thing to my Suspicious Of Allergy list too – bacon flavour crisps. Shame that. I liked those.

I’ve not been back to the doctor for a while. But I’m hoping that when I do (soonish), I can ask for an allergy test with enough of me in factory spec for it to give worthwhile results. Why go back though if my skin is repairing ? I’m having other physical issues which are slowing me down :

Back – is not healthy at the moment.
Shoulder – is more restricted than it was.
Hip – this is the big one, something’s not right in there and can make it painful to walk around.

But as with the rest of it, I’ll see how it goes there and manage it best I can. I’m looking forward to putting the skin condition behind me, although I think I’ll have a lasting legacy of needing to look after it more. It’s being very easy to cause it damage which then takes way too long to heal. I’m still not convinced that some bits actually want to heal. We shall see. If they’re still bad next week, I’ll get them checked out.

Think on that note, check this out : If this ain’t love …

LOL 🙂

I suspended my sense of being offended at the thought of intentionally taking starships into the atmosphere of planets. Things like that are an abomination 😉

Pete said: The new Trek movies have violently divided opinion. Some people think they're a worse abomination than Office 10 or Windows 8.

It was an abomination…. [lol]

Ok – I was looking for Serenity the other day. Still not there yet but getting closer.

I could do with more uninterrupted sleep, aided by me worrying the bad bits of me a bit less. (Itch leads to scratch leads to more itch leads to no sleep) I am improving, I just have to avoid making it worse because I can make it worse much quicker than it gets better.

But I was feeling good enough yesterday evening to go hunting up at the Mall. (For more than laptops). First stop – PC World and a peek at their laptops. Not much joy here, they were ripping up their laptop area, presumably in preparation for the next ones coming in. Keeping an eye on it as there’s another week of a £100 cashback offer.

Besides – they’re not selling what I want at the moment. I’ve pretty much eliminated being interested in anyone’s laptop except Acer. We’ve had good times with Acer kit, they’ve done well for us. This one is coming up to 4 years old and is still going strong. Ok, it’s not good with the HD video but it still copes with everything else I throw at it. It could do with the keyboard being attacked with cleany stuff though.

What’s on offer ? 14 or 15″ laptops (or a Shiny 13″ ultrabook) with or without touchscreens. That’s ok – but I want more lines on my screen than these laptops have. I don’t really care about a touchscreen. Down that road leads grubby screens from fingerprints. I do care about having a proper HD screen and that’s because of apps like iTunes which don’t let you change the text size. I may have a fight with iTunes anyway because I fully intend to put an old version on because they took a leaf out of Microsoft’s book and make v11 an abomination.

So – they’re not selling what I want at the moment but there’s two more reasons why I’m not buying right now :

The old laptop is still going strong (just about)
The new laptop cost more than I want to spend.

This laptop cost £450, the touchscreen 15″ Acer costs £600 with a £100 discount. That’s a lot of cash. Perhaps it’s inflation over the 4 years I’ve owned the laptop but you know what ? Computer prices don’t really change. The specs change but the prices don’t. With the desktop bits lists I build, the “acceptable” spec changes according to the time but they always end up around the same price. Unless I play with a very silly spec, in which case I can put the price in the thousands. Yet they’re asking us to pay a lot more for laptops now than I think we should be.

Yep. I have fun sometimes with those bits lists, although they’re not as exotic as they used to be. Multiple SSD drives just isn’t the same as pricing up a second tower to contain a 7 drive SCSI array.

Ok ok – too geeky ? Maybe 🙂

But. I wasn’t seriously looking for a laptop last night, there’s just that tantalising offer there.

I was however … looking for blurays. There just happened to be a major movie release yesterday (Star Trek Into Darkness) and I’m now watching the first movie in prep for the second (not tonight, maybe tomorrow). The new Trek movies have violently divided opinion. Some people think they’re a worse abomination than Office 10 or Windows 8. Some people think they’re a fresh reimagination.

I liked what they did with the second in particular. I’m looking forward to watching it again.

I also picked up Oblivion, which was a cracker. And HMV happened to have a 4 for £10 offer on multiple formats going, so I now have copies of the music from the Olympics closing ceremony, Tori Amos’ Gold Dust, Predators and Unstoppable. They’re not the greatest of media but they were still pretty good.

And it got me out of the house for a while – never a bad thing 🙂 I’ll be back there next week for another peek at laptops but also to pick up a few things :

Iron Man 3 – yes !
Goldfrapp – Tales of Us (looking forward to more awesome)
Arctic Monkeys – AM (maybe – good but not full price good)
Doctor Who series 7 soundtrack

And there I go singing along to the Star Trek music again. It’ll be Michelle Shocked not too long after it finishes.

PS I may go to PC Specialist and get one of these (link). Shiny ! And with a superduper HD screen too. The spec I’d want is £573 though, still pricey.

There seems a dearth of stuff on telly at the moment …

(With the serenity thing, I’ll talk a little about me later)

As a scifi fan, it used to be that we’d be blessed with lots of competition for our attention when it came to new stuff on the telly. At one point, we had 3 concurrent series of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Earth Final Conflict and a bunch of other notables. Now, the only current scifi I’m watching is Falling Skies (the others are on a break).

Don’t get me wrong, Falling Skies is very high quality scifi. It keeps you guessing as to what’s going on. It has outstanding pacing for each episode. It’s consistent with itself and the rules it sets. But there used to be a lot more on. (There is – I’m ignoring Continuum now and gave Under the Dome a miss).

What we do have is an awful lot of good scifi in the cinema this year. Oblivion was a major highlight. Pacific Rim was great fun (if very silly). I’ll be getting Star Trek Into Darkness quite soon after the blu-ray comes out. I missed out on Man Of Steel. Iron Man 3 was a fitting finish to that trilogy. And the latest was Elysium, which had a lot of good things to tell about it. (I may do a mini review / major tech analysis of Elysium sometime)

What else ? Looking forward to Riddick. I’m not convinced by the plotline but Vin Diesel’s Riddick is a very watchable character. Mortal Instruments … should be a good bit of fantasy. Rush will be awesome if it’s as good as the Senna movie. The second Hunger Games movie will hopefully live up to the first. Thor should be amusing.

But at home, I’m in the strange position of running out of stuff to record. My series link list is currently :

Formula 1 Grand Prix – on BBC of course
Stargate Atlantis repeats – until end of this week
Body of Proof – this is still quite amusing
Falling Skies – catch this from the start if you can, it’s worth it
Strictly Come Dancing – I may even watch the dailies this time round too
And Castle just disappeared off it because it’s run ended.

I’ll keep myself amused by finally catching up with the various series I have on dvd that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet. This includes (don’t laugh!) things like TinTin, Ulysses 31, Dresden Files, Space Above and Beyond, Dungeons and Dragons and a good few others besides.

For now though, it’s finishing off a legend. I started watching the Firefly series just as the cricket season was starting … So I had a big break in the middle. I’ve gone back to it tonight. It only ran for 14 episodes plus 1 film but it’s quite possibly the best scifi that’s been on telly.

And that’s quite a high bar to compete with. Yep. I think this is better than Star Trek (which isn’t actually that high quality), Babylon 5, Farscape …

It’s centred around a ship. A Firefly class transport (think small junk trading ship) called Serenity, which is crewed by a truly motley bunch. It’s embedded with humour. It lives by scifi rules which always stay consistent. It makes it about the story, not the technology (which is where ST always fell down).

It’s entertainment. And I’d thoroughly recommend watching it, even if you’re not a scifi fan.

How about my own serenity ?

I think it’s getting there. I’m much more comfortable with me as myself. My head’s in a decent place. I think I’m getting more sleep … My skin’s not too impressed with me still but it’s improved since I started taking the vitamin tablets again. I can have Jaffa Cakes again !

What I need to do is let the healing happen (not as easy as it sounds). It is happening now, I just keep interfering with it. Work actually helps, as it lets me concentrate on stuff which doesn’t involve worrying my arms or legs. I have my fingers crossed that the improvement will continue this week.

We shall see !