Year: 2014

You’ll all have heard of that and you’re highly likely to have one of the following reactions about it :

Bored – yep. XP support going bang is highly geeky and the ins and outs of it are mired in corporate politics
Appalled – because it’s still a perfectly good piece of software and MS could make a massive amount of cash still from keeping it going.
Horrified – cos there’s a bunch of enterprise critical applications that will not work on Vista or 7.
Terrified – because the only option if you replace your computer with something retail is the abomination that is Windows 8.

Ok. That’s enough about XP. Almost. The media have it wrong actually, the XPocalypse is all about MS turning off support patches for XP. It was actually killed for me as a realistic gaming system many years ago when Directx 10 became Vista only. That was the beginning of the end, it meant that sooner or later I’d need to update upgrade change to something different or I wouldn’t be able to play newer games.

Right – you’ve believed the hype or otherwise have decided you need a new computer. First … about that hype … What it means that all those security patches that you used to have pop up and annoy you about rebooting, won’t come to XP machines any more. That means that when the Horrible People find out about a vulnerability (and there a lot of them still in Windows), your system won’t be updated to protect against it.

So when a tainted advert appears with a picture that knows about one of those vulnerabilities, your system could be taken over by an outside party. This is a serious and valid concern, especially as anti-virus applications are the first thing to get a “Kill Process – AV” command from the Nasties.

You could say – “this isn’t a problem, I don’t visit bad sites”. However, it’s not just the site you’re looking at, it’s also the extras that come with it. Like 3rd party advertising. Although in the case of the Daily Mail, it appears to have come from their own servers. That’s from over 5 years ago but it’s still a genuine, valid threat.

Choices ?

Go to a big store and get a Windows 8 machine. And then hate it forever because from all I’ve heard, Windows 8 is an abomination. (I’ve only had contact with it in the store but I can believe it due to what RibbonOffice is like)
Be a rebel and get a Mac. This is how I’ve dealt with the problem. I didn’t like the alternatives, plus Mac on the work discount is actually approaching laptop prices for the spec I wanted. The Mac price has stayed the same while the Windows laptop price is going up.
Be a nerd and get Linux. Depends what you want to do – but it excludes the possibility of compatibility with many applications (including iTunes) and you’ve probably already paid for a Windows licence.
Go old school and get a Windows 7 machine.

The Win 7 option is what I wanted to mention here … You can still get these, Novatech and PC Specialist offer the option and most places are still offering Windows 7 licences for home brew PCs. But what’s important ?

Look. And Feel. Everything else is secondary … With a desktop, the look and feel is with the mouse, keyboard and screen but with a laptop, it’s critical. There’s also the “Is this going to fall to bits on me ?” factor. When I build my desktops, I build them to last because of the hassle involved in digging them out from where I hide them. Similar with laptops, my Acer lasted a few years but the HP before started dying after 6 months (and PC World shafted me on its warranty).

So yeah – when you’re looking at a laptop, make sure it’s one you’ll be happy to use. Like – how heavy will it be on your lap, what’s the screen size, how responsive is the keyboard and trackpad, what’s the rebound like on the keys. With the Macbook Air, it felt like my fingers were dancing over the keys … and I’m a fast typer. The responsiveness goes for desktops too, I nearly put in a Beta Fault report for Star Wars Old Republic because I had incidents where the character wasn’t doing anything. It wasn’t the game, it was my wireless keyboard.

Yep. How it feels is the only real factor to consider. But there are a few geeky things to think about :

Feel includes smoothness. And Windows has been broken on smoothness for over a decade. The way to fix it is to use what’s called a SSD (Solid State Device) hard disc. It provides instant (nanoseconds) access to data instead of the milliseconds of a normal hard disc. That’s a few thousand times quicker. And considering that when you wait for Windows, it’s because it’s looking up that hard disc ? That’s where the SSD comes in. But … You need a big one for Windows because it gobbles up so much. I have to use “measures” to keep my system running and it runs off a 60GB SSD.

There is another way, it’s called a Hybrid drive. It costs a bit more than a normal disc but you get 500GB/1TB with a little SSD that makes it much quicker. And they fit in laptops too. I upgraded my Acer to one of these (thought old one was going bang!) and it was … genuinely quicker.

Grab a new processor. Intel’s latest are the Haswell series, you can tell these by the 4000 in the code. They have double the battery life for the same and better performance (it’s done by making everything smaller).

But most of all – don’t spend too much. If I’d waited a bit, I could have got a Macbook Pro with a much better screen than my Macbook Air. But it would have cost me a lot more and the screen on my Macbook Air is perfectly good. Actually better than a Windows laptop because it has more pixels. There’s that “Look” thing coming in.

I hope I haven’t gone too far into my own head with all that ? Buying a PC can be hellishly confusing, especially because places like PC World don’t tell you all you need to know about what they’re selling you and builders like Acer have a hellishly confusing array of machines.

If you are in the market for a PC, I’d be happy to give a few pointers (email is in the profile). But :

Novatech and the other builders may let you avoid Windows 8
PC Specialist have amazing configuration options
Never discount something original … (Like a Macbook or LinuxLaptop)

Picture time ! Remember what I said about Malware and Horrible People ?

Or Horrible People who know about XP vulnerabilities and send nasty software around to exploit it.

PS Warning note – I’ve bought lots of components from Novatech and will continue to do so (cheap + good stuff) but I have issues with the bits they put in their own-brand PCs. I like the customisation options of PC Specialist but didn’t buy from them because I couldn’t get a first hand Finger Pokey at their machines.

The only reason I see for them is keeping up with what people are up to. But … they're good for that but only up to a point – too much and something gets lost along the way.

Twitter seems a self promotion mechanism more than anything else. Some of those idiots I've unfollowed have been more spammy than the trolls who do nasty things like break the uksnowmap site

Have zero interest in Facebook and even less with Twitter. I *really* can't see the point. But then again I'm rather old fashioned and set in my ways…. [lol]

There’s a video out there that’s going a bit viral at the moment …

I suspect you’ll know the one I mean or have actually seen it. It’s commenting on how there’s a correlation between the increase of social networking and the increase in individual loneliness.

I reckon you’ll know what I mean there. We’re sacrificing the immediacy of being around our mates for the apparent greater connectivity that sites like Facebook, Twitter and the various other online thingys offer. We exchange the joyous sound of a whole hearted belly laugh for the rather anticlimatic “lol”. (Alternatives are available, I’ve actually used “roflcopter” in a communicator conversation).

The point is, we don’t get out there as much any more. The online alternatives take over and pull us into the virtual world.

How’s gaming come into this ?

I’ve always been one for gaming. I started off in normal single player games but migrated into online gaming with World of Warcraft. I’d quite happily lose myself in the virtual world of that single player game. I have to admit, I was probably a different person back then. My gaming pattern was certainly different.

Ok – definitely addicted to the gaming but also with a bit of a social scene going on too. The Crazie Mob have always been checking out the latest stuff at the cinema (almost said “greatest” but with some of the films we’ve seen ? Haha) and I’ve been blessed with lots of people to natter with, grin at and occasionally get chuckles out of at work. Not much of an active social scene though, I’ve never really been one to get dragged off to the pub by semi-random people. (Not that I would complain if dragged off to the pub by a Pretty Lady)

That World of Warcraft comment ?

The big reason I checked out World of Warcraft was the enthusiasm of a mate who was called Souleater in game. He was one of the founding fathers of the guild and definitely drove us on. He was in my team at work too, so that enthusiasm was grabbing me outside of work too.

From there, we join in with the organisation called Guildlink which brought voice comms into play too. And from that, the multiplayer aspect goes up a whole new level with the chance to do Stuff with 39 other people, most of whom would be chatting away over Teamspeak/Vent/Mumble.

At this time, my last major relationship broke up too, so I needed something to divert attention away from a major hole in my private life. Enter all those lovely Guildlink people, an Overqueen to worship, a Krinza to natter to, a guild to make me feel valued and welcome. Yeah, there were rocky times along the way but also some huge YEY moments. And that’s not forgetting the Violence Reborn peeps with their delightful chilled out craziness who rehabilitated me back into the game after the mad times.

That’s an All Good Things case though. The WoW addiction broke for me because of the resets that happen with each expansion. Not just that, it’s a pale shadow of what it once was. It’s ridiculously easy plus I’ve lost the link to the social scene that gave it that compelling factor.

So that’s :

Social – which I kinda skipped
Gaming – which I definitely didn’t skip on
Social gaming – which I was in for a while with the WoW

But … what I enjoyed way more than the computer stuff was the pen and paper gaming I used to do. Not done that for ages but it was pretty much an excuse to :

Nip round a mates house with a few friends
Chill out with pizza/nosh and munchies
Have a laugh with a game
Enjoy the company of others

And that’s actual company, not the shallow experience that Facebook and Twitter offer. Text is a very watered down form of interaction and it’s the way much of our interaction is going these days :

Facebook – it’s very easy to hit that “like” button and not interact any further
Twitter – is still a cesspit of idiots and that 140 character limit is …claustrophobic
A “lol” doesn’t have the impact of the smile that comes with the laugh
It’s easy to fake it over text and present a false picture of how you’re actually feeling
Similarly, you can’t see the pain that people need a little help to cope with
And it’s hard to lose yourself in a texty hug the way you can in an all enveloping real life proper hug

We’ve lost a lot with the descent into the electronic world.

It’s not just the text environment that’s far less expressive and expansive compared to the real world. We’ve gone away from looking for excuses to be out and around other people. It’s like that online environment is satisfying that social urge just enough.

That said though, my circle of friends is much wider now than before social media and online gaming came in. To mention a few :

Snow Queen ! A smile over communicator doesn’t have anywhere near the impact of one of your dazzling smiles when it’s delivered in person. (Cakes plz!)
Pixie – a wonderful friend who pulled me in to the PA support community
The old D&D group – I really miss this
The VR crowd – it’s a shame I lost interest in the game or I’d still be looking to be involved
The Eve mob – and a certain person who’s enthusiasm for this game isn’t quite infectious enough to draw me back in (but it’s close!)
The cricket mob – I spoke to the skipper today, they still want me to play – body willing
And the Crazie Mob, who connected through work social media while it still existed.

To close out – my Social -> Gaming -> Social Gaming circle has turned again. I’m no longer addicted to playing the games myself. I find something else to be way more fun. It started with a certain Totalbiscuit but now I watch a lot of the Yogscast.

Who are they ? TB is a Brit commentator on games, the Yogscast are a collection of people who have that genius ability to play the games to a high standard and at the same time, have a massive laugh over the commentary. Instead of it being a pen and paper session around a house with your mates, it’s listening to them having a laugh and feeling included with that.

I don’t watch all that they do, Hannah and Kim plus Duncan are my favourites with Rythian and Zoey coming in close behind.

But I’ll keep watching for a while. Cos when they laugh (or scream), it’s like they’re inviting you to laugh (or scream) along with them. It breaks through that wall that raw text puts up. It’s open, it’s natural. And it’s like being down the pub with your mates.

I gotta be honest, I’ve not been liking these posts. I do love my music posts but these ones ? They tend to be over long (massively) and rather too compressed at the same time.

That said though … I’m through the E’s ! Actual stats : 12500 tracks in the library, 4647 still to listen to. That’s since moving over to the Macbook in mid October. How about the E’s ?

First up – good one and bad one. David Bowie has done some amazing stuff but not everything he does is up to that standard. When he digs, it’s really awful. You can tell I’m not a fan of Earthling can’t you ? Haha.

The good one is the Edge Of Darkness soundtrack by Eric Clapton. That would be the proper Edge of Darkness made by BBC in 1985. The soundtrack is amazing and perfectly complements a moody, dark and compelling thriller about people doing naughty things with nuclear reprocessing.

We have an Edie Brickell album in here, “Edie Brickell – Ultimate Collection”. This was bought for me by a very good friend. It’s a bit more than the average Greatest Hits (she’s made I think 5 albums since and is still going), it has the best of her first 3 albums plus a bunch of fantastic bonus tracks too.

A little bit of Mansun comes in, courtesy of the sister’s cd singles. Hurrah for a group that does proper B-sides !

The White Stripes burst on to the scene a few years ago. You might recognise Seven Nation Army from Elephant. Best I have of their’s so far. I like ’em. Raw vocals fronting great work by the band.

A bit of classical from Elgar – I’ll always try and catch the Last Night Of The Proms and the Elgar variations are the highlight.

Cardigans ! With Emmerdale. This is a funny album, half of it is on their Life album as well. It’s a great start to their works and is in happier mode too. A lot of their later stuff is pretty dark.

A couple from Kasabian and Kaiser Chiefs. Empire and Employment have their moments but I’m not that big a fan of them. Good for an occasional listen but I’ll never line them up for a deliberate listen in the car.

I have some Lionel Richie … His Encore album has hits greatest hits mostly sung live. There’s some amazing stuff here, the reason I got it was to cheaply pick up a copy of Hello and All Night Long. Guaranteed smiley songs. Yes it’s cheesy. But that don’t matter if it makes you feel good.

My second Don Henley album is The End Of The Innocence. Again, not a favourite album but there’s the occasional highlight.

Soundtracks – can’t get away from them 😉
Endless Space was a very tedious game but the music was outstanding.
Eve ended up being tedious for different reasons but the atmospheric music was also amazing.
Escape From New York is John Carpenter’s best so far
And Jan Hammer’s Escape From TV has the highlights from Miami Vice

Duffy didn’t last long enough. She has a characteristic, distinctive voice that doesn’t really work with songs written for other people. But when something like My Boy comes along ? There’s me singing along too with the infectious rhythm. Just like Mercy 🙂

Gabrielle Aplin’s English Rain shows a lot of promise. Still a little work to do though and hopefully she’ll stay unique instead of polished into oblivion.

Jean Michel Jarre has always made amazing instrumental music, Equinoxe is no exception. See Track 5 for the highlight. There’s an “Essentials” aka Greatest Hits here too.

I have a couple of Bob Dylan albums, the other will come up really late (U for Ultimate). His Essential album slots in here. He’s good but doesn’t quite ring my bell in the same way as a Nina Persson or Natasha Khan.

Or even a Blondie ! Another “Essential” collection with some of their best.

I like heavier stuff too, with Evanescence’s third album slotting in here. Not as good as their first, see that “polished to oblivion” comment …

Last few ! The Bangles were amazing in their early days. Eternal Flame was a massive hit from their Everything album. There’s amazing song after amazing song here, Glitter Years is one of my highlights.

KT Tunstall also exploded on to the scene with Eye To The Telescope. Check out the wholly acoustic one woman band version of Black Horse and the Cherry Tree. Love it. Something special emerged on the stage on that day.

Last one for today. Possibly their best, it’s Eyes Open by Snow Patrol. (Can’t decided between this and Final Straw). It has the immortal Set The Fire To The Third Bar and a bunch of other great songs.

There’s another 450 tracks before I’m through F, that’ll take a while !

Be curious to see how good a race car I'd build, although my reactions aren't up to race driving these days. I've lost half a second or so.

Always good to have a dream. I want a house big enough for a proper library in it. [grin]

Another away trip this weekend.

We met up at the sister’s place, objective : Stoneleigh. The National Kit Car Show is hosted there, definitely the mecca for kit cars in the UK, possibly the mecca for kit cars in the world. Most of the attraction is seeing the cars built by tonnes of owners as they come together at the show. It’s a chance for them to hear the adoring words of the public.

First car we saw – a Lamborghini Countach replica, all in white. And not just the bodyshell, the pristine whiteness was continued within to white leather seats and white backing for the instruments. Absolutely beautiful. Not a car I’d be interested in having but gorgeous nonetheless.

There’s a few different classes of kit car, which accommodate what your taste is in body shell type, the intended role of the car and how ambitious you want to be with the mechanicals. Here’s a few of them :

Firstly, the ubiquitous Cobra replica. The AC Cobra was a car born in 1962 and was built until 1967. It had a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) V8 and later, a 427 cubic inch (7 litre) engine. Truely a muscle car but wrapped up in lovely curves. The replicas repeat that wonderful bodyshell but hide within engines like the old Rover V8 (3.5 litre), Jaguar V12’s and big V8’s from America.

There will also be Cobras with more modern 4 cylinders like you’d see in road cars, just rather heavily developed to get performance out of them. The 4 cylinder Ford Zetec engine will be in a lot of kit cars. It would start out with maybe 130bhp in a 2 litre Focus or Mondeo and can be tuned up to maybe 200bhp ish. And that’s on a modern design with all that extra reliability. The Cobra shell has the advantage of lots of room to add things like superchargers and/or turbochargers for extra likelihood of Brown Trouser moments.

Here’s another :

Hmm – another couple !

The two above are both Seven Style cars, which are about as simple as you can get. They’re the lower end of the market, although that term “lower” is misleading. They’re cheap and simple to build and use lower spec engines. Something like that 2 litre Zetec might be a bit large for these, although the Rhocar Robin Hood Engineering car up top has had a 6 litre Jaguar V12 squeezed into it (I’ve seen it, there was barely room for a shoehorn in there!).

The Seven is simplicity itself, it’s just an engine in that tubular bay up front, there’s a couple of seats behind and four wheels bolted on at the corners. Depending on the kit, there’s not much provision for creature comforts. Some don’t even have a windscreen. This is where the intentions come in :

The Locost and Robin Hood were both aimed at getting something fun on the road within a very tight budget. The Robin Hood did that through being mass produced, the Locost did it by depending on the skills of the builder. That frame of metal on the bottom left ? Welded from plans by a craftsman.

There’s also the higher end 7’s from Caterham and Westfield. You can get turn key kits from these that have everything in, it just needs you to put them together. No sourcing of bits and pieces from scrapyards.

And there’s the track cars from people like Sylva and Tiger. They’re built to go round race tracks fast.

Another pic ?

These are based around old vintage cars. They look great don’t they ? It would be awesome turning up at a Grand Prix or Le Mans in one of these. Again, not much with the creature comforts but that’s what funny hats with lots of ear muff padding are for :-). The car above is the type that my dad might enjoy putting together.

Hmm. I think this weekend may have given him ideas. Uhoh !

Oh – one advantage of the kit cars over vintage cars is the chassis. We owned a Triumph Spitfire, which I refused to have much to do with. One of the reasons was its chassis … It was dangerous. Kit cars tend to be more race bred with suspension that will keep the wheels parallel to the ground (where intended), instead of tucking under like with that Spitfire. But yeah, instead of renovating something that’s partially rotten (and how do you know how much is rotten ?), you’re working with good steel with modern anti corrosion techniques.

But what would I actually build ? I like :

Curves
Simplicity
Lightness

Here we go :

They’re Minari Road Sports. It has an engine at the front from an Alfa Romeo, mated to a unique chassis. Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! It’s still available … I thought this design died ! Here’s a link. It might be hard to find a donor car to rob bits from though.

What would I actually look for ?

Yellow one. In the middle. Me Want.

Actually – why would you go kit car ?

For me, it’s uniqueness. Yeah, you could go and get a Mazda MX-5* and have a lot of fun with it. But. Tonnes of other people have them and they don’t have that magic “I made this” factor where you know every nut and bolt. If I was to build one of these, I’d want to pick a theme to build the look of the car around. To make it uniquely mine. There’d be wood, there’d be electronics fitting in, there’d be shinies.

*(I picked MX-5 cos they are the best example of a mass produced car that shares most with a kit car)

Will I build one ? I hope so. But there’s a few things that need to be in place :

New house with facilities to build one. A garage is essential and I don’t have one.
Money ! Most of my cash is tied up with my Lexus 😉

And that Lexus got lots of admiring drooling at it this weekend too. But kit cars are way more charming. I’ve not mentioned cars like the Sebring which is based on the Austin Healey 3000. It smiles. As does the Sprite, of which there was one smiling away at the show today. There’s fast car replicas too, like the ones turning fast road cars into Lamborghini’s and Ferrari’s. But those fail that uniqueness test.

Gimme the Fury 🙂

I’m rewatching the Iron Man movies at the moment.

Nah – not right now but I just finished watching Iron Man 2 again. Comics and superheroes give us a chance to escape the ordinary. For me, my first comic book addiction was Transformers. Machines that could change from the ordinary into Big Giant Robots. Incidentally, that’s why the recent movies were such a letdown for me, because I was taken in by a back story built up in the comics that was far superior to the rubbish in the movies.

And there’s lots more superheroes to choose from too. Supervillains too. Curiously though, there was a Massive Multiplayer Online game called City of Heroes which spawned a sideways expansion City Of Villains. I actually have several copies because I bought it and got free copies from magazines. CoH and CoV are dead and gone now (hence people giving it away) but they were built on good ideas.

Everyone wants to feel that they’re special. And you know what ? You all are in your own particular way. You’re all amazing people.

But there is that thought of being even better. Going by Marvel’s catalogue :
HULK SMASH – or a modern take on Jekyll and Hyde.
Thor – the unstoppable god
Black Widow – with the power to own mens hearts and then kick their asses
Captain America – ok. Bit of a meathead this one 😉
The XMen – although they were better served on animation than on the big screen. (Unmissable films but somehow missing something next to the various animated series)

And DC has Superman and a Batman who can stand toe to toe with anyone thanks to being a bad ass with lots of toys.

But the one I’d want to be most is Iron Man. Perhaps that’s because that’s the one I feel closest to. Ok, there’s a few things missing but at the core, we share common themes :

Money – ok, I have enough but I’m not a billionaire. Or even close. Take a lots of zeroes off 😉
Mega engineer – I’m trained in electronic and computer engineering but have a decent grasp of the other engineering disciplines as well. I’ll look at something and go glassy eyed as I’m dismantling it in a 3d picture in my head. I’ll be figuring out how it works and how it’s put together. I can look at source code for computer languages I’ve never seen and have a reasonable idea of what it’s trying to do.

Enthusiastic amateur – this definitely suits Iron Man. He’s not trained in any military sense but he wins because his tech is that good.
Oily fingers – when you see him in the movies, he’s not in the normal bit of the house, he’s in the shop tinkering with the machines. And that’s where I’d like to be too. Just got no machine shop here to play in.

Playboy womanizer ? Nah. This we don’t share. I fixate on one and ignore all others. To some degree at least. That Grin will always be ready to try and coax a smile out of random strangers and I’ll be flirty with anyone if I think it will make them smile and get them feeling just that little bit more special than they did before.

Tendency to rush into danger ? Hell yeah. If the Zombie Apocalypse happened tomorrow, I wouldn’t last long because I’d be sacrificing myself to save someone else.

So yeah – which superhero would I be ? Definitely :

Or one of Shepard’s sidekicks. Who’s Shepard ?

She’s the one on the right. It’s a character from the Mass Effect universe, which is a first person shooter crossed with role play game set about 170 years from now where the galaxy is facing an impending invasion from sentient machines that intend to destroy all organic life. It has everything, sci fi, space ships, aliens, mystery, danger. I wouldn’t be Shepard, that character has to be female. (Why ? Cos Jennifer Hale voices the character and that voice is incredible).

I’m in the early days of another play through of the third Mass Effect game and I’m also replaying Deus Ex Human Revolution (should really play the original). I wouldn’t want to be the lead guy in DXHR, he gets chopped up at the start and replaced with mostly artificial parts. Woah ! Spoiler. Not really – ha. Good game but I blanch at being chopped up like that.

Yep – current times – let me be Iron Man.
Future times – one of the Shepard support characters. Either Joker the ace pilot with the brittle bones (voiced by Seth Green) or Mordin Solus, brilliant Salarian scientist.

Actually, anything with a little scifi will suit me but keep me away from AI’s driven mad by conflicting directives :

What would your superhero alterego be ?

It’s been a pretty quiet holiday so far, which was of course completely the plan.

The time between the Xmas and Easter breaks always tends to catch up with me and that was before this skin thing took hold. The plan for this week was :

Chill out until frozen
Catch up with recorded stuff
Heal up some more
Try not to eat too many Easter Eggs
Beat a few games (and avoid getting more)
Listen to as much music as possible

I’ve done well with that last one, according to iTunes I’ve listened to over 1000 (erm 1004) unique tracks since starting my leave on Thursday 17th. That’s 22 albums (so far) and coming up next after a little Doctor Who watching is Gabrielle Aplin’s English Rain and then Avril Lavigne’s self titled latest album.

While I am a creature of habit, I also have a quirk of memory which means I crave variation. So of the nearly 500 albums in the library, it may be over six months between one listen and the next. Unless I queue them up for listening to in the car. I’ll do that with the best albums although lately I’ve been just letting random tracks play.

That’s something – I still need to figure out how to release the 4.5GB of Stuff that’s clogging up the phone. It’s an iPhone 5 with 16GB, which means it only has 14.5GB for what I want to do with it and that’s divided up between apps, music and other things. However … there’s 4.5GB of bad data in there that refuses to shift. I have a couple of options :

See if iOS7 will do the trick – not an option because it would force me to use iTunes 11, which would lose me a feature (iTunes DJ) which is how I arrange what I listen to at home. Not an option.
Factory restore – awkward because the phone got confused between the change from Acer laptop to Macbook Air. The apps don’t sync properly via the Macbook. And it didn’t work on the old laptop.
Restoring via the phone – I should be able to do this, however there’s awkwardness with the apps. I’d need to manually put them back on. Bit of a chore, may have to resort to it.

Too much geekiness ?

I thought so.

More chill out ! But I would like that memory back on the phone.

Recorded stuff ? I’ve caught up a lot there now. Enough that I’ve started rewatching things like Space Above And Beyond from about 20 years ago. I first caught that on late night BBC2, it’s about a group of future US Marine Corps pilot/commandos who are at the front of a war between humans and a newly discovered enigmatic but vicious alien race. It was compelling viewing 20 years ago. I’ve also been watching the Die Hard movies too, in advance of watching A Good Day To Die Hard which is recorded on the box.

At the moment, it’s Doctor Who. I’ve managed to get to halfway in the first Matt Smith series. He’s definitely the better Doctor of the recent ones. There’s a madcap combination of insanity, youth, deadly seriousness and comedy with Matt Smith’s doctor.

I’ve healed up a bit over the week, although sometimes it feels like :

Although substitute phone for damaged bits of me and you’ll get the idea. Instead of leaving them be like I should, it’s really difficult for me to resist attacking the bad bits and that sets the healing back. I’ve been doing better with that lately. Some days, it’s good enough that I could put the knee pads on which is the end test for whether I’ll play cricket. But then it may worsen again.

Actually, the thing that may keep me out of cricket this year (and force an overdue retirement) is probably my hips. I broke the cabin fever today for a wander around Bristol and those hips had me limping at points. It’s one of my long standing half healed injuries. When my back got better and I thought I could stretch a bit more pace out of my bowling, I ran in quicker. However … the extra stress when sending the ball down led to tearing muscles in my groin, which never really healed truely. It’s an annoying injury. I can still run at Warp Speed in a straight line with it, however turning is badly affected as is walking. Different muscles and all that.

I actually bought stuff too in town (worth a mention cos my shopping trips tend to just end up looking in windows). Not as much as I could have – I have it in my head to buy a headset. I.e. headphones plus microphone for gaming. Would I use it ? Not in my current gaming profile but I would if I did multiplayer again. But I want a pair anyway. I think I’d have got some too, except … shops don’t seem to want to let you try them on. And considering that a major deal breaker with headphones, keyboards, mice etc is how they interact with touch …

I ain’t buying it if there’s a chance it could turn into another Mad Catz Fly 5. All that adjustment looks great but can lead to an uncomfortable handle and what really cripples that stick is a massive deadzone where the self centre springs don’t consistently take it back to the middle.

Other stuff ? (The wall of text alarm is pinging …)

I’ve learned The Gimp – it’s an image manipulation application. I used to use Photoshop Elements but the copy I have is so old …. I thought I’d better try something new. The Gimp takes some getting used to but it let me turn a Judge Dredd badge into something custom. I’d like to show it here but the one I did has a name and the two I was intending to do are on hold, I’ll only do those on request and I never got any feedback from the first. I actually kinda think I’ve been blocked as a groupie stalker, which is a pretty hair trigger response to be honest.

Hey ho. It was an idea to do something nice at the time but if that’s not what people want, then it’s a sign to redirect the energies towards people who will appreciate the effort.

That kinda sounds nasty doesn’t it ? That’s not the intention. The original pic was in response to a “Why don’t they do cool t-shirts in womens sizes ?” Well, they do. But you might have to put the effort in to make your own coolness pics and to find someone who can put it on a t-shirt for you. (Found one of those in the Galleries Mall today).

So – while I’m not intending to do the 2 Judge badges, I’ll happily make you pics if you give me an idea. I’ll usually do it for the Warm Fuzzy Feeling of helping someone out combined with the “Hey ! Fun challenge”. I enjoy those.

I better close there. Easter Egg count ? Only 2. Tesco was particularly light on inspiration for decent eggs …