Sleepypete's Pillow

… Something old, something new, something discovered, something expensive (not that expensive), something the same.

Got a few things on my To Buy list at the moment. If you’ll forgive me, this will be kind of an aide-memoire for me so I don’t forget things I want to get !

Something old – already got this one, after hearing Nouvelle Vague on an advert, I just had to get their best of album. It’s similar with Daft Punk, I heard their new album running in a shop and ended up walking out with one of their other albums. I want more. It’s weird, they’ve been around for quite a while but I’ve only just discovered them.

Something new – this will be the Rachel Sermanni album. I’ve been after this for aaaaages, after hearing Waltz over the iTunes single of the week. Gorgeous. There’s also a new KT Tunstall album that I haven’t bought yet.

Something discovered – while listening to the Eve alliance tournament, two artists came over the airwaves – Waldeck and Parov Stelar. Both of them rather different to the norm, both highly interesting. Could quite happily chill out to these.

Something expensive (pardon me if I digress here !) – I’ll get a new laptop before the end of the month. My current one is suffering due to running out of puff early for video (it overheats) and the keyboard has been a victim of my skin problem with the keys now missing keystrokes. It’s done ok for a laptop, it’s a good few years old now. But … I’m looking for something newer and shinier. I have a few points for the new one which are being … frustrating :

I’d like it to be an Acer but have you tried searching their site for specific laptops ? It’s worse than the search system at work (which got disabled if you can believe that).
It could be a Dell – they have an interesting collection on there …
… But I don’t want to be at the mercy of unknown and unstated delivery lead times.
It may well come from PC World, as they have a £100 cashback offer going.
I’d kinda like to ditch Windows …
… But having iTunes on Linux seems problematic
Not many of the 15″ laptops have the display resolution I want.

I’m sure I could get iTunes working correctly, even if I sync devices on my desktop. But there’s a few things like Homeshare which I find essential for backing up my library. It seems crazy that Apple don’t produce a version of iTunes for Linux, as Linux is much closer to Mac OS X than it is to Windows. By forcing people to use Windows to run iTunes, they keep people locked into their main competitor’s product.

I’d have thought Apple would want to try and wean people off Windows by encouraging them to use the cheap alternative to OS X ? Wait … this is the same company that actively stops people from doing Hackintoshes, despite the typical Hackintosh running off a bought copy of OS X.

Apologies – I’m getting on an old crusade there. The next laptop will be : Intel powered with one of the 3000 chips. It will have over 4GB of memory. I’ll hopefully get an SSD speed booster with it. It will be 15″ or bigger and it may have a touchscreen.

Something the same ?

There’s a lot of music coming very soon from :

Goldfrapp – since hearing It’s Not Over Yet, I’ve been collecting. It’s an outstanding cover and the rest of their material equals or betters it. Hoping that Tales of Us is a classic.
Arctic Monkeys – mixed feelings but I enjoy their albums.
Mindy Gledhill – I get the new album on Monday !
Katie Melua – still wondering who’s Shy Boy I am. (there’s a B-Sides album I want too)
Franz Ferdinand – another of the “curious, not awesome but worth a listen”
Morcheeba have an album coming ? (I’m peekin’ at Amazon !)
(I’m sure there’s even more I’ve forgotten)

And I’ll leave it there – I hear the Dell and PC World websites calling …

Sometimes it's even things like you know what you want to say or talk about but you don't know how to say it. And someone else helps out with the words.

It's always helpful to share especially with people who understand , sometimes we don't even know we have to , sometimes we are frightened to open up or just cant and stay locked away and that's dangerous really we all need the compassion to be there to support others and also the wisdom to know when to let go and get the support we need too and not be so wrapped up in our own lives and problems that we can't take a little time out for ourselves and others I'm glad today was a better day and hopefully tomorrow will be too

I must watch those Star Wars films again, it’s been a while.

Mind you, there’s a bunch of blurays that I’ve bought and not had chance to watch yet (cricket season dominates the telly) so it’ll have to wait.

Today saw an Old Friend (actually two, one not so old) come back to work after far too long away. She’s been struggling, which is highly understandable because a huge chunk of the foundation for her world has been kicked away.

Things happen to people. Really bad things. And quite often, we need a little help to recognise that it’s not the end of the world. As long as we have some of that spark, there’s a bit of help. And if we can’t see that spark, someone we know will have a metaphorical match to help start it off again although it may not be obvious who that someone might be. There’s always hope. Even if it’s difficult to see it.

The closest I’ve come to losing hope is actually quite a few years ago (we won’t talk about that) but it’s been coming close again with the skin thing. It’s tough that it’s going one step forward, one step back, with the backward steps usually being my fault for losing discipline.

Relationships hit hard too, in the breaking of them. When my last major relationship broke up, I couldn’t see it (and didn’t want to show it) but I was utterly numb. I threw myself into the online gaming world and into work. I pursued two utterly doomed attempts at relationships and got incredibly frustrated when they didn’t work out.

I was of course kidding myself that there was any chance – but the certain mindset at the time utterly ignored the impossibilities, both in the recognising that it was wasted effort and in the accepting of the inevitable failure. It just led me into a self destructive path which had me descend further into depression. Not entirely sure how I escaped from that – I can’t remember.

Ok – that’s it for my woes, for now at least.

I wanted to talk about a very special little lady who needs all the reminders she can get right now of how great she is.

I’m talking about the person who was the heart of my last team. She knew her little corner of the project perfectly, we could all trust that everything we sent their way would get done accurately and very timely. (And this is coming from a person who gives few chances and will bypass people when disappointed). It wasn’t just the professional aspects though, it was the empathy, understanding and intelligence that kept people (everyone !) coming back for advice.

Yep. If there’s one person who we could have happily kidnapped and brought with us when we shifted teams, it’s this little lady.

Of course those awesome cakes help too.

So there we have it – we persuaded her to come visit my team today (I bribed her with jars !). She seemed a fragile 3 foot tall when she stepped on to our a floorplate and left an apparent 6 foot tall legend again.

One of the bad things about depression cycles is that it can lock away the ability to recognise the good things about yourself. That’s when we need a little help from outside to recognise the value that we have. I hope we helped our little lady with that today, just like the cricket team helped me with it in the last game. I’ll be back next year because of the lift they give me.

It helped me out as well today – my muscles have been complaining and it helps me to have a bit of mental fortitude to deal with that. Being able to talk through my issues properly is something I can’t do with many people (what I put here is the tip of the iceberg). But being able to share the burden of issues that are actually quite similar help us both deal with them.

I’ll leave it there 🙂

Today was one of the better days.

PS I just checked – I have 8 more of those jars begging for some paint :-).

I keep getting posts brewing in my head, being all distracting like at all the wrong times. But when it comes to when I have chance to tap them in here, are they still there ? Nope. Empty head.

Let’s see if I can remember a few of them …

Saturday saw me venture out of the house (didn’t want too, felt gross) to head off to the Lexus garage. I’d been invited to a sales event … So I went along, mostly to gain a bit of intelligence. We didn’t actually talk numbers in the end. I like Lexus. Not just for their cars (which are special) but you’re buying into exceptional customer service when you pay into the club.

It feels very strange to be actively considering changing the best car I’ve owned, only 2 years into owning it. I’m a big fan of my Lexus CT (I’ll say again why in another post some time) but I always knew that it wasn’t quite quick enough to keep me totally happy. It’s quick up to 20-30mph but then the rather anaemic engine takes over the main duty. I always knew something better was coming “soon”. That’s going to be the new Lexus IS. Bigger engine, bigger motor, more toys.

Toy count matters.

But yeah – at no time at the Lexus garage was I pressured into considering going into another Lexus CT. I’ll be back there in 6 or 12 months and the story might be different. The IS300h costs somewhat more though, which puts a dampener on the enthusiasm.

I’ve got a new signature habit at work 🙂

No – it’s not avoiding writing a signature due to my hands wanting to cramp up on me (that’s a serious issue), it’s the hat. I’m still in the Ashes hat I bought from Lords. I’ll wear the hat when I’m outside. It was essential for bus runs because it keeps the rain off. But at least I acknowledge one sensibility, I don’t wear it when I’m indoors.

Unlike another person at work who walks through the floorplate with a cowboy hat on. I think it’s surgically attached …

Ashes ! Good day today in the cricket. This game’s been one of the better games. The pitch has kept things interesting by allowing help for the bowlers while also giving the batsmen a chance. We’ve seen a couple of centuries by the batsmen and a few 5 wicket hauls by the bowlers. I wouldn’t have bowled well there, it needed a faster, bouncier bowler – I was more of a kiss the pitch swing bowler.

Today summed it up well – we had the Tail End Fun Club come out to play for England. You’ll often see cases in cricket where the proper batsmen struggle to do anything while playing defensively. Then the bowlers (the tail end) will come out and smash the ball to all parts. They don’t last long … but they can get enough runs to make a difference.

That’s how it happened today, England’s Tail End Fun Club pushed a difficult target out into “haha you lose” territory. And then the Aussie batsmen come out and start making it look easy … Was getting pretty nervous at work. It was a different story when I got home with the shopping, wickets started falling and England won with a little bit to spare.

Yippee !

I have the highlights on at the moment. Nope. I’m not being sad. I just left the telly on the same sports channel and I’m listening to music while tapping this out.

Oh – that’s an indication of how gross I was feeling on Saturday. Plan A was to go shopping after Lexus and fill the car up with fuel (400 miles on 34 litres). Plan B was to hide and hope my skin would settle down. I have a critical need to avoid stress right now, as stress leads to me attacking the bad bits. But that said, I’ll not hesitate to help out a friend if they need it.

It’s what I do.

I’ve been collecting the music again … Adverts have a tendency of selling the wrong thing when it comes to me. I’ll ignore the subject of the advert and listen to the music. This time it’s Nouvelle Vague with Dancing With Myself. I dunno what the advert was for but a little Youtube surfing later … Hannah Peel was the same, she’s the one who sung Tainted Love on the Corsodryl advert.

And … the highlights just got to the good bit of the cricket, when England started turning over the Aussies. Post time !

That’s a hell of a dark title isn’t it ?

I’ve been rummaging inside PCs again … A mate from work and the gaming world is having issues with his main desktop. It’s keeping him out of Eve, which is a game he adores. So instead of it going to a PC repair man who’d rip him off, I’m taking a peek.

Symptoms :

Give it power, nothing happens (except for case LEDs coming on). This is after a period where it was rebooting and shutting down. If a PC reboots without warning, there’s 3 main reasons :

It’s a work machine and some offensive scumbag has instigated an update that forces a without-warning reboot, losing you the work you’ve been doing. Or
It’s overheating
The power supply can’t supply enough Smoke

Our gadgets don’t work on electricity. This is a myth propagated by the energy companies to make you buy what they’re selling. No. They run on Smoke. Because as everybody knows, if the Smoke escapes from electronics, it will never work again.

It’s tough to work on unresponsive PCs. You need clues to be able to fix the problem and no clue = no ideas. The biggest idea that I have on Luth’s PC is that a case fan is jammed almost solid, so it will be asking for more from the power supply than it should.

Techie note – when playing with the insides of PCs, remember :

Never, ever take an old telly or monitor apart. The new LCD ones, fine. But not a Cathode Ray Tube display. They work by using massive voltages and have energy storage to help out there. Those two together lead to potentially lethal voltages. Don’t mess with that. It can kill you.

Always have the kit earthed. For me, this means disobeying one common rule by having the kit plugged in. (But switched off). 3 pin plugs come with an Earth and using that lead is the most efficient way of earthing equipment. This lets that stored energy drain away safely.

Don’t open power supplies unless you really know what you’re doing … They also have high capacity energy storage to make the output cleaner. This is why I can’t use the power supply in my 2nd newest machine, as I’ve modified that unit … (fan broke)

It’s ok to try and turn fans but don’t get carried away and spin them hard. The same physics that mean magnets in energised coils become motors also means that turning magnets in coils will generate energy in those coils. Without power, there’s nothing keeping the generated charge in check and things can get damaged.

Ok – enough things to remember (am running out of fingers)

I’ve got something for Luth. Instead of trying to isolate the exact problem (it’s going to need a case transplant and a spare power supply to check it out properly), I’ve put his hard disc in my last PC. It’s close to the same power : slightly less cpu, slightly more graphics. And after the usual issues, it seemed happy when I closed it down last night.

Fingers crossed.

Hey ! Where’s this blood sacrifice thing come from ?

It seems like every time I play with the inside of PCs, blood is spilled. The insides tend to have unfriendly sharp edges which get sharper over time. It’s usually a slice to a finger.

This time ? I’m picking up the box to put in the car this morning and OUCH ! Cut the middle finger on my left hand at the tip. You know – the place that goes on a keyboard. It’s ok, the bleeding stopped by the time I got to work. It pretty much stopped before I started driving. It doesn’t arf sting though.

However – it did satisfy one of the tenets of PC maintenance. It can truly be a Black Art.

PS The Skylon spaceplane is touching the news again … Must try one of those in Kerbal Space Programme. Hopefully it will go better than the XK-Wing / ZK-95 Headhunter prototype … that was truly too horrible to post here.

[lol] No thanks. I have far too much to do in WoW!

Think Battlefield with massive guns and no annoying bunnyhoppers bouncing around.

You get idiots and trollers but exploiters seem to be more under control.

Want that newcomer code ? 🙂

Sounds like far too much fun!

I’ve discovered a new game …

I should really finish off one of these games sometime shouldn’t I ? Maybe. Some games I play to death, some games I’ll get to a certain point and stop playing because I hit some kind of wall. Sometimes that wall is a step in the story, a natural break point where you stop and take a breath but don’t go back.

I should finish off the Shadowrun game some time, it was well worth picking up and I enjoyed it up to the point where that natural break happened.

The new one is World of Tanks and it’s one of those dangerous grind-reward games … You know, the type where if you just have One More Turn, you’ll get closer to unlocking the next shiny. World of Tanks is one of those.

It’s an online tank simulator. Think first person shooter like Call of Duty or the other famous name games (which I avoid) but instead of being in an unrealistic body with unrealistic ability to run, jump, twist and otherwise perform spine defying movements, you’re in a tank with a very definite rule set for what it can do :

The gun turret can only turn at a certain rate
It takes a while to focus in the aim
There’s only so much power in the engine so you may not be able to go up the hill you just came down
You only have limited view

And all sorts of other rules like that. It’s 15 a side, with battles lasting a maximum of 15 minutes. Many of the maps offer lots of cover to lurk in and you’ll need to hide there to survive to shoot. It’s compelling gameplay and I’ve been enjoying it a lot, even though it can turn into a bit of a grind to get the First Victory Of the Day for all your tanks.

In fact, I’ve enjoyed it enough to pay a bit of cash on it … It’s a free to play game but you can give real cash for gold which can give you in game advantages or a bigger garage that holds more tanks.

But don’t just take my word for it, here’s the video that sold me on the game. It’s by Duncan of the Yogscast. He’s not the best game commentator but it showed how much he enjoyed this one and I wanted to check it out.

If you want to check it out too, I have a newcomers invite code I’m willing to pass on … (if you’re reading this in a month, that code will have surely gone!)

Now … I need to grind a bit more to get closer to the Panzer IV and legendary T-34.