Thursday 24 February 2011

sigh

Though my paranioa was reduced by them sending pics and demonstrating it was in fact a genuine item, I decided to set a low limit on bidding which it eventually exceeded. Its not a bargain if you end up paying full price after all.

Besides we've just had a big rates bill in so better focus on household bills with the spare cash this month.

Was a lovley thing though.....there will be others!!




Ahthankyew

Tuesday 22 February 2011

hmmm hmmm hmmm

My Paranoia about the 0 feedback seller is much reduced, they have indeed sent me an image of the actual beastie and willing to send more, so it is genuine...might actually be something of a steal since their 0 feedback status will put people off....
Going to see how this plays out..might end up with a total bargain here.



Ahthankyew

Monday 21 February 2011

grrrr

Didn't get the LC Les Paul, came close though and am hoping I get a 2nd chance offer if the winner backs out, as they often do on ebay....otherwise its not going to happen this time round. I'm just not confident that other one is genuine. Not to worry, going to get the Mighty Dark Fire up and running again soon its probably able to do a pretty mean PG impression with the right set up.

Not much else to report really, am up late due to a couple of very long sleep ins disrupting my sleep pattern, an early morning tomorrow will kick that back into sync.

Feeling good though, about life in general, happy pills doing their job quite well, and things in general not being quite so stressed. Finished my mountain, and I do mean a mountain of marking, which means aside from 1 lecture I have to give this week I basically have 2 months to please myself, working on a new PS3 course I want to present next year.

I am even getting close to having a proper yawn for the 1st time since last April. Here's hoping I manage it before I celebrate the anniversary of the surgery that stopped me yawning.



Ahthankyew

Friday 18 February 2011

hmmmm and hmmm again

Another dodgy rare Gibbo here A converted LP Faded Standard by CV Guitars.

0 feedback seller, who is happy to answer questions about delivery but not so happy to respond to mails asking for pics...and the pics there are from the CV guitars site lifted direct...you'd think if you are going to sell something worth 1500-2K you would put some original pics up and respond to requests...All a bit suss.

There's another genuine one on ebay though which I am going to have a bid on, Peter Green is one of my idols and his tone is almost impossible to recreate without a modified Gibson '59 standard, which PG used then later gave/sold to Gary Moore who made full use of it, I'd love to have one...only they cost about $1M now...gulp

The CV mod versions though are incredibly close to the '59's and are collectors guitars in their own right which are growing in value. So I am on a mission to buy the 1st one I can afford, even if I have to flog a couple of my other Gibsons to do it.

Now where did I put my camera, I got some guitars to put on ebay, need to make space for some new arrivals.

Ahthankyew

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Small upgrade to the TV system

HiDef TV is cool, but our system was a little basic, so I invested in a nice Humax PVR system, better menu controls and most importantly the ability to record things...so never miss an episode of Corrie or Top Gear again ;)
The replaced box can now go upstairs in the projector room...awesome ;)


Ahthankyew

Tuesday 15 February 2011

yup

uhhh man, daytime Tv on ITV.....its a mind fuck!!

I normally keep away from it, but at least BBC's daytime stuff is mildly interesting and easy to walk away from, ITV has Jeremy Kyle and This Morning.....OMG

terrible terrible...excuse me, must go Phil and Hollie are interviewing some fashion thing

Ahthankyew

Sunday 13 February 2011

Is UK TV still shit?

We'll find out soon, I got the new quad LNB dish up on the roof, after drilling yet more new fixing mounts which cracked the bricks so I'll be buying a few more re-enforcment bricks, but its up, its connected the the tuner and we got a good signal and quality, so just wait 30-40 mins for the scan to finish and we should have UK tv again.

just in time for the next series of X factor or Britains got Talent or or..

Ohhh Corrie :)


ok we're up and running...yeahhhhhhhh :D Bring on the Rovers Return japes.
Ahthankyew

Thursday 10 February 2011

Dim Distant Memories


Though I had been a freelance and had my own small company for a while, my 1st real job as a programmer was at the (then) mighty Ocean Software, here's a group pic of the bunch of reprobates who made pretty much everything, over shadowed by the supreme overlords.


Quite a trip down memory lane,just over my right shoulder is Joffa Smith, who was a total hero of mine, he died last year and seeing this brought back many happy memories of the times we had showing off our code...well he showed off his code to me, I was never in his league but was always grateful for the tips.

Ahthankyew

So True

click on image for full picture

I've been here a few times



Ahthankyew

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Well duh!

Up to now I've really liked working with Windows 7, its fast,easy and has not given me any issues at all. But becuase I have a fairly small SSD drive on my C: boot, I have to be careful not to put to much stuff on there...
Last night I ran out of room..ho hum, time to move thngs around, then I noticed an option to compress the drive..Given its an SSD this would not cause any signigicant delays, indeed it could even speed things up, so I checked it....off it went...and promptly complained that it couldn't continue because some files were in use..grrr

ok fine, back to cleanup and so on...After which my Itunes got a bit stressed out becuase I moved its directory which I then replaced and had to do a reset...

ok.....then I get... BOOTMGR is compressed. press ALT-CTR-Delete to reset

arrghhhhhhhh stupid...why compress a file you can't uncompress to boot up.
Its now dead in the water unable to progress beyond that screen.

I need to dig out my windows DVD from somewhere to do a repair on it..its fixable but its a pain in the bloody backside....


Stoopid Microsoft, bloody Stoopid!!!!!

Ahthankyew

Monday 7 February 2011

32 Mature People Truths




or read it easier here

Ahthankyew

Sad

RIP Gary Moore

58, no age at all, and a fantastic axe slinger



Ahthankyew

Saturday 5 February 2011

meh

My 1st public performance, was...ok...the girl singer backed out and we had a different drummer who didn't know the song, and the 2 leads had their kit plugged into a pa that didn't have the power to make them heard, and I messed up a few notes....but it was kinda recognisable, just no where near as good as the rehearshals.

Shame really but ah well....it was still fun.


Ahthankyew

Thursday 3 February 2011

Musicality

Is that even a real word? I keep hearing it on Jodies MTV reality shows....

Anyway, at last nights jam/rehearsal we actually sounded quite musical, myself playing rhythm guitar, along with 2 far superiour heavy metal guitarists out-twiddling each other on lead, and a jazzy singer, as well as a nice steady drummer. Sadly we had no bass player, but we did manage to exhibit a certin degree of musicality which surprised us all. We did an awesome version of Back in Black which was quite different to the original, and a passible version of Tribute (Tenacious D), Whole Lotta Rosie was a bit hit and miss though. Lets hope we can repeat the good bits in front of out friends and collegues (gulp..)

The Ovation arrived today, (they had left off part of the postcode which is why it took an extra day) and it is lovely, simple, plain and straightforward. I had a bit of a twiddle before heading to the office, going to have a proper fiddle about with it after work and continue my practice for tomorrow's public jam. I'll have to have a play around to see how to get the best acoustic and electric sounds out of it.

Feels very much like a combination guitar, light with a thick neck but low action and fast like an electric...neither one thing nor the other but nice to play.

Fed straight into my Marshall it was kinda hard to hear much difference between acoustic and leccy, apart fron some damping on the sustain, In fairness though the Marshall is overdriven so will kill any acoustic tone anyway, so will try the stereo amp settings to feed it through a clean acoustic setting and see if there's more of a difference.

Edit..yes, the best results come from having her plugged into 2 amps, one set as a clean acoustic and the other standard electric..Pushing the mixed acoustic signal in a mono setup, provides many very interesting tone variations but nothing that sounds all that acoustic. Once you have the twin amps up though you can switch between clean clear acoustic and heavy Electric with ease...Nice. My DF does something similar but is a bit more complex to set up in its acoustic mode, this is simple plug and go and I like that a lot.

Ahthankyew

Working from home

Though hopefully going into the office this afternoon, as soon as my package arrives. (excited!!)

Been trawling through a small mountain of programming assignments I have to mark, its pretty tedious work, since a lot of students tend to leave it to the last minute and as such there's not a lot of care and attention to detail, and its all pretty much the same basic ideas repeated cos they worked.
Many students, even the capable ones, feel its ok to do just enough to get the grade...yes maybe, but its not going to do them any favours when they get real jobs.

But I'm also happy to say that every now and again I fire up a CD and am happy to see a bit of extra effort has gone into some detail or feature that makes the assignment that much more interesting and then you know you got through to at least that student during the lectures where you bang on about quality of work.

Teaching can be a bit of a chore, but I do think the reward when you see that little spark of care is worth the effort.



Ahthankyew

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Grrr is it really that hard

To get an address right?

I've been working from home today so I could be in when a package (the new Ovation) arrived, but on checking the tracking info it seems they have incorrect address information...I mean its not a complex address, and I double checked ebay and paypal invoice details and its all correct.

May have to work at home again tomorrow...not that thats a big issue but I am trying to complete my grading and it is better to do that at the office with access to the CD's and other hand in materials...oh well.


Ahthankyew