Working at home

Peoples perception of what you do when working at home is kinda strange..There's an underlying belief that you're not doing anything, because you are taking a break watching TV, or playing a bit of guitar or walking the dog or whatever...so you might as well catch up on some household chores.

Fact is though I am rather busy, though I can and do have many nice breaks, I am working on a couple of important presentations, learning more about networking for next block, going through the PS3 SDK, fixing some bugs in our school developed project, looking at some students submissions for retakes and generally keeping just about on top of the admin I need to do were I working at the office.

So, I'll get to hanging those curtains and using the leaf blower on the garden just as soon as I've done the day job stuff.


Whew....need a break now.


Ahthankyew

After a bit of a tidy

So now we get a better idea of the space we have in the upstairs room

Bina working in her corner.


Guitar corner



Media and clothes drying corner :D



Ahthankyew

The Play Room MkIII

So 1st up some Guitars on the walls ;) Its a bit crowded in there but thats just becuase I've shoved everything in the corner while I do the work.



Before the TV got moved, Lucille,PRS EG-3, Gibson SG and Fender Telecaster.




Fender Strat and a PRS EG-3 super strat. Surprisingly similar, but stunningly different to play.



Then we have the blank wall which is about to be transformed

The Hardest wall in the universe, the top left corner hit a steel support so I had to drill over to the Right a bit.




Frame up



And stick the 50" generation #2 LCD beast up....took some lifting.







Projector source, the projector itself is out in the hall and we have a hole in the wall to beam through. Once I've papered that new wall I'll put a glass frame up there to seal out the noise totally.



And the screen drops in front of the TV



Hooked up and ready?


Now at this point I hit a snag....I discovered that the brackets holding it up were obstructing the input sockets on the back...so I had to take it off again, move the brackets up and install the cables on the TV then reset it.




Piping TV to the Projector ITVHD looks pretty cool, cables tidied up and ready



Electrics are not 100% yer, I'm still using the wireless feed to send the images to the projector, but we have an HDMI switch box and cables on the way via ebay to finalse everything.

TV, Satbox and DVD all route sound through the Home Theatre's Dolby 5.1 and I can also add a PC to it if I choose...not sure I'll bother tbh, but maybe..we do need a central printer server in the house.

Monumental tidy up is halfway done now, just having a wee rest putting this up.



Ahthankyew

And the final few bits

Literally, I had to go buy a 10mm masonary bit..and while I was there, some heavy brackets, some hooks, nuts and S hooks to hang the Projector Screen which arrived yesterday.

The TV mount turned up this morning, so I decided to get to it and try to get it all done before Bina arrived back from her overnight UK shopping trip (where she bought me a sweet minature version of Stevie, (unknown to her I had also ordered one on ebay..but ah well her's is nicer))...I didn't quite manage it, since drilling holes in the wall of this house is only marginally harder than trying to cut diamonds.

It took ages to drill the holes to mount the TV frame, and on 1 of them I actually hit a steel girder so had to drill another hole, but eventually the mount went up...TV fitted and a few leveling adjustments later..We had a TV mounted on the wall.

Now the fun bit, the 10 ft long projector screen...again more drilling to get the brackets in place, each hole took nearly 15 mins to drill, and the drill bit came loose a few times from the pressure and was seriously hot. But eventually 4 new holes in place.

Brackets mounted, hooks in place, s-hooks on the screen mounts and hup she goes....
bit of fiddling to get the height right, bit more to get the drop to the right place, bit more to get the retraction right, a small interuption to the process to fix some food for a returned and hungry Bina and eventually we have it up...it looks awesome...I'll post some pics I took on my phone when I locate my little dongle thing for putting the pics on my PC.

After my mild panic about the TV not having an HDMI and discovering it did, I realised as I was checking things out, that the Home Cinema system did not have an HDMI out...doh!!!
So (hopefully) final purchase to the Home Cinema upgrade bill is a Scart to HDMI upscaler...which is quite cool since it means we can also use the Wii on the projector now, was not going to be possible before.

A long hard day...drilling, lifting, screwing, adjusting and tomorrow clearing up...but worth it.

Pics to follow soon.





Ahthankyew

Holy CRAP!!

Stevie arrived today, all nicely packed and safe in a nice sturdy box.

Opened it up, took her out of her Fender bag and there was a pristine Fender Stratocaster, only 2 tiny blemishes on her top edge under the arm which can polish out though they really can't be seen.

Tuned up with what looks like a new set of 10's on her, she has a lovley low action, perhaps a tad too low on the bottom E, as theres a tiny buzz if hit hard, but easy to resolve.

Feels like a near perfect set up Stratocaster.

Plugged into my amplitube amp on IPad, she sounds impressive...select a clean setting, turn up the tone and...

O.M.G.

Those Texas specials are utterly utterly amazing.


This is a stunning guitar, just stunning, depite being a fan made copy of a very pricey custom guitar this has had love and money spent on it and it shows.

The sounds this thing makes are.....oh wow. It blows my much more expensive Suhr equiped Fender Strat Deluxe out of the water in terms of crunchy hot blues tone.

Quite possibly the best, and I mean THE best 200 quid I have ever spent.


Ahthankyew

and..

And HDMI repeater/connector!!

I'm sure other odds and ends will crop up..
I had a mild panic this morning when I realised I had not checked if the Samsung had an HDMI connector, after all it is an older model we brought over from the UK and is about 5 years old now, but its ok it has a port so Plan B still seems plausable.

Out of curiosity I was looking to see how much projectors are now...They have certainly dropped in price, can't remember exactly how much mine was at the time 2nd hand but it was a few hundred, now you can pick up HDMI capable projectors for under 200, even 150. Must be quite a boom in home theatres to generate that much competition.
A lot of them are cheap rubbish though, and I don't plan to change mine for some time as its a cracker. But good to know when it does pack in I can replace it for what by then will be the price of a computer game rather than a guitar.

Carnival time here in Breda, lots of happy people in silly costumes wandering around..I like the spectacle of it all but not so much the participation, try to push through lines of nuns, popes, teddy bears and smurfs to get to the bar to be overcharged for drinks that now need to be paid with tokens gets a bit tedious...it'll be back to normal in a day or 2, just the smurfs to contend with...at least those who bought their paint from Halfords ;)



Ahthankyew

The cost of fun and games.

Spring Break is upon us, so I have a week off and aside from guitar (of course) I am finally catching up on the odd jobs that need doing.

The satellite systems are now firmly tucked away in their respective cubby holes and the TV unit in the lounge is now benefiting from invisible cables and dual sat inputs for full functons. So we have UK TV, Dutch TV and Dutch Cable TV...not that we watch much Dutch Cable TV...its pretty strange.

Next job is the Play Room. We enjoy movie nights and at the moment we're using our hi def widescreen projector to play movies on the wall, its ok but its not perfect.

I've currently set up the TV and DVD system using a wireless system but its not totally stable and we do get signal loss, as well as having to manually plug cables in or switch things off when not used, plus the wall is not really white or smooth enough to get the best pics. And we have a dirty great big Samsung TV up there not being used.

So...plan B... The Samsung is going on the wall, and a projector screen will give us better pics..but its a bit of a chore setting up HDMI cables when you want to use the projector and the TV...Lucky for me ebay is the providor of all things.

Wall mount for the Samsung
20m HDMI cable.
4x2 HDMI auto switch, lets me plug 4 things in, then choose where the images are sent to.
110" Glass bead remote electric screen.

When its all done, we should be able to plug in the Home theatre and Freesat system and choose to watch on TV or big screen. AND we can pick up an PS3 and Xbox for games too...maybe a PC...

Thing is, man these things are pricey, you need to factor in stuff like this when you want to do that kind of system...But it'll be worth it. I'll try to put some woodchip up on the new walls we had added just to finish it all off. I'll post some pics when done.


Ahthankyew

Wood!!

Just won this for 200 quid on Ebay, £200 for a genuine Fender!!!! Ok ok not a genuine SRV, its actually a modified Mexican Fender Deluxe,which is still a very nice guitar, the owner has addedgenuine SRV scratchplate and hot texas pups which are expensive on their own...the stickers are fake but he was of course quite open about that.
200quid!!!! I fucking love Ebay.
Of course it going to be called Stevie, and I'll fit her with heavy strings and keep her tuned down in SRV mode.

omg 200quid!!! I do hope the seller does not back out on it...I'd be very upset having to let it go at that price but it just didn't appeal to the die hard SRV fans who wanted a genuine SRV (£1.5K) or nothing. Me I just like the idea of another quality guitar that someone has spent some time and loving on....ermmm well figurativly speaking..I hope!!


:D Happiness is an ebay bargain, never mind those damn cigars!!

Ahthankyew

aches and pains

I've not really done a lot of heavy physical activity the last year so its no surprise to find that when I do some I pay the price.

Helping my friend Martin move his gear from his apartment to his new house involved a lot of lifting and today I ache....ahhhh yes...the memories of physical labour...now I remember why I became a game programmer.


Ahthankyew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm getting good at this.

I'm getting so I can spot potential fakes quite quickly now...this for example

Seems to be a '95 Corvette Les Paul with some damage...but its wrong!. Seller claims to know nothing about it yet makes quite an effort to sell it with hi res pics and all, but starts it at £1 with NR, then avoids hassle by claiming no technical knowledge.
Its a pretty beasty to be sure, even with a bit of damage, which in itself looks suss...but there's other things, the lack of chrome in places, the pickups should be inscribed and there should be a stamp on the headstock back, as well as a chrome truss road cover.

I'm not 100% sure its a fake, no two guitars are exactly the same even in the same model, and its not uncommon for things to be changed in production or after..but...meh I'm more than 50% sure which is enough to keep my hand off mouse.

If its real its one of 200 in the world, quite collectable and worth 5-8K maybe more depeding on the damage....and it probably will sell for around 1K.
Someone will either get a bargain or be very very pissed off.

edit....yup..its been withdrawn....probably other people noticed it too.


edit.edit yup was a copy, in fact another corvette LP with the same serial number is for sale on the US ebay for £4.2K with all its chrome and engravings in the right place, so that is probably the genuine article (or a better copy using the same serial)..So a good spot.

Anyway the point of this...is to be careful when you buy expensive items on ebay, impluse buys are often prone to mistakes...do the checks and research the item and you can avoid being ripped off 99% of ebay sales go without a hitch and are very successful but never forget there are crooks and cheats out there as well as people who just make mitakes and sell stuff in good faith which is not what they think it is.
Ahthankyew

Nice innit?

She's an Ovation VXT-s Hybrid, which means she's an "electric", acoustic with fancy pickups and internal electrics to dial in the Electics sounds when you want them.

Like this


Nice...I just picked it up from ebay, nice and cheap too, though they are being sold off, as Ovation is going through some managment changes and a lot of models have been discontinued like this has, making them more affordable than the £1500 they were asking for them a couple of years back.

Sadly though this does mean the end of my Roberts Skeleton, since she's basically a much more advanced version of that, and I can't really claim that keeping both is justified. Will put it on ebay when I get this one and check it all out, think I might dump one of the electric classicals as well to make space and help pay for this.

Ahthankyew

Too Good to be true?

You know when people say something is too good to be true, it must be a con.

This looks like one to me

If your reading this 3 months later, it will be gone and you have no idea what I am linking to, but basically someone on ebay is selling a very rare Duane Allman signature Les Paul, prototype no less, with no reserve starting at £1. with 2 hours or so to go, the price has reached a little over £1000

I dunno what it'll make in the end, probably £3-4K. But that is a bargain. These retail "new" at £7K when they were out in 2003, and change hands for anything up to 24K now...

But its all wrong, as much as I am DYING to bid on this for a purely investment chance (well maybe some playing) it don't feel right..The seller is apparently US based, but the item is in Spain and listed in the UK ebay for pounds not Dollars or Euros..They won't deliver to most of the European countries and to top it off they are totally unresponsive to questions.

And that price...who the hell puts a 24K+ guitar on an auction starting at £1 with no reserve.

Its all very very suss. So while my savings are screaming at me to buy it buy it, my head is correctly pointing out, something aint right......so I'm going to very very very reluctantly pass on this.

sigh

2 hours to go and its at £1,130....I predict 3K as the final price, but I'm going to keep an eye on feedback on this to see if it really is a con, if not I will be soooooooo upset.


edit, yup £3100, a fair bit of money, but of this thing is for real its an absolute steal and an easy double/triple your money by selling to a specialist store. I really can't see it being genuine though, just too many things not quite right about it, I'll be keeping an eye on the sellers feedback to see if it all goes tits up.

Ahthankyew

Guitars are cool

I'm really loving Larry, the Gordon Smith G60, though she does need a new pickup selector, or perhaps just a clean..she's really light and has an awesome neck, she and my SG are my 2 now favourite practice guitars. I most certainly am going to keep my eyes peeled for a GS flying V if its anything as good as this G60 it'll be amazing.

On Doctors orders, I've been practicing a lot recently, my fingers are positively sore to the bone, but the result is my picking/finger co-ordination is considerably better, I'm hitting complex licks with much more confidence and regularity, even a few solo's are starting to sound melodic..yeaaahhh only took 30 years to work that out.

I'm practicing hard for a public jam session with other IGAD players next week. Might have a crack at some more recording soon, that should make mumsy proud :D

Gibson sent me a new selector switch for my DF, so I'll be taking a trip up to the dealers near Amsterdam to get it booked in for its repairs. It won't be ready in time for the jam, but thats fine I don't want to take it anywhere where it might get picked up and dropped again, I'll probably take Nonemore and Frankie with me to the Jam. Nonemore's EMG's will make themselves heard above any amount of din and Frankie is awsome for chugging away in the background.



Ahthankyew

tick, tick tick tick, not yet, tick tick

Just been doing a bit of reading up on post cancer issues, and boom

This section here about depression and anxiety is very very familiar.

hey ho...

Ahthankyew

ANOTHER COLD!

Starting another cold...thats the 3rd since my birthday last month.

I had a reasonably cold free year last year and now I seem to be catching up on all the sniffles I missed out on.

3 in a row is crazy shit!



Ahthankyew

zombie no more

As part of my treatment for depression brought on from my cancer treatments, I've been taking oxazepam, the pills he gave me to sleep. They're pretty standard tranqs and calm you down when you have feelings of heightened anxiety or stress, which depression tends to magnify ( a lot!!!).

At the doctors suggestion I've been taking more of them the last few days as I was feeling said heighted feelings of anxiety and stress recently over the mail opening issues, which deeply affected me.
But no more. I've been a total zombie unable to do much more than shuffle around or sleep were I fall. I'll have to deal with anxiety and stress issues some other way.

In actual fact I'm not feeling quite so stresed about that now, could be residual oxazepam in my system, or just time calming me down. I HATE being doped up and this is exactly how the oxazepam makes you feel after 2 or 3 pills. Going to walk to the shop for some milk and then having several strong coffee's to clear my head.

I am really hating this whole depression thing, its a roller coaster ride with more downs than ups.


Ahthankyew

odd

Just noticed a text on my UK phone which I charged up to investigate the card fraud..Seems I missed a call today, and then recieved a text, saying I was £499 over my card limit and to reply back with my 3 digit code to pay...

hmmmmm bit suss, will call them tomorrow to see if its actually from them, or if the scrot who's using my card is trying to get my security number again. It does mean they have my phone number too...quite worrying.

Hope to fuck I'm not £499 over my limit, it means there's even more cash being stolen than I have information about. Shouldn't be a problem of course since its fraud but eek!!



edit.....wow....I discovered I can check my account on the internet now and sure enough, Enjaz information tech have been very busy £1,952.36 in total taken out over the last month or so plus the 350 or so in November.
Dozens and dozens of transactions some small some large...and the card comapany seem to only have let it happen till the credit limit was reached....shocking

impressive
Ahthankyew

Fraud reported

Ok so the fraud has been reported and the transactions should be refunded shortly, there's clear evidence of fraudulent use so they can't say it was me buying 50 online entry visa's to Saudi Arabia

They may even refund all or some of the missed auto renewed payments since there is supposed to be a notice of renewal and I never got one...though its possible it got stuck in a junk mail filter..They'll contact the company and should be able to agree the account was unused for over 3 years so they had no right to charge for it, but thats not as clear cut apparently since a lot of companies hide autorenew systems when you pay for things with cards and its up to the card holder to stop it...bloody scam merchants. Apparently its a well known issue but since everyone is making money out of it, they don't seem too keen to cut it out.
Nothing more dishonest than bankers!!

Either way, it won't be happening again, I'm being issued with a new card and pins to prevent further use and I'm going to be more careful about using cards on line.

Ahthankyew

Fuck me twice

To the tune of 350quid, some twat has used my card number to pay for Saudi Arabian visa's via a company called Enjaz Information Tech, they made a number of small transactions in November with my card details until a limit was hit and then they stopped, though may have tried again later.
Clearly a scam of some kind, I've no idea how they'd get the card number there are so few transactions on that card normally so the passcode on the back should be quite secure.

I'll call the card company tomorrow to get it resolved, visa should repay when there's fraud and there's not much doubt about this.

My 1st case of ID theft...not nice.
But still does not excuse in any way opening my private mail, I feel deeply hurt by that.




Ahthankyew

fuck me...

2 issues I am furious about.

1 is unnotified auto renew on credit cards you may use to pay for website subscriptions, it seems I've had one on an old dating site for some time when I was single, and every fucking year since its charged me even though the account was long since closed down. Took me ages to work out how to stop the autorenew hidden away in layers of account settings, and the cheeky bastards made me go through endless, are you sure confirmations. I'll be calling the card company on Monday to make extra sure that autorenews are stopped. I am down about 300 quid over 3 years and never noticed.

I'm livid about this of course, its a cheeky sneeky thing to do, and am trying hard to think about all the subscriptions I have signed up to over the years that will probably have done the same....but I don't think there are many others, mags and personal website renewals being the only ones I can think of, I'll need to investigate further.

It would have gone unnoticed, until I got my statements, since the card used is my old UK credit card which I only use for a paypal backup and situations when my dutch card does not work.

I have to send the statements to a UK address, which was fine till I recently renewed the card and had to give a different address in the UK. Previous years statements went to the house I was sharing with Austin when Bina and I were split, and I've not really been checking the couple of packages of mail he sent over as they were nearly all junk.

But how this was discovered is the 2nd point, the statements now go to Bina's mum, who from time to time sends our uk mail over to us. But for some reason, Bina asked her sister inlaw to open the mail to check for junk mail.

Open MY mail, my personal financial mail, being read by someone other than me...and now I've just had Bina on the facetime link on Ipod asking me about my financial spending while going through MY credit card statement, because the credit card company have been writing personal private letters to get in touch.

It seems there is some odd activity on the card, someone might be using it and they've sent a couple of letters asking me to get in touch, but it wasn't me who opened that personal and private letter....they've tried to call a few times, my UK phone has not been charged for some time, so I missed the calls, so they've written, and it wasn't me who opened that letter, someone else opened that letter.

Now despite the fact that these letters would be marked private, possibly urgent, other people are opening MY mail and going through MY finance statements, and reading that someone may be using MY cards fraudulently, and I'm then being asked what I am using my card for.

Jeezuz, that is utterly utterly wrong, I feel totally and completly exposed here...I totally trust Bina in all things but I have a very very strong sense of personal privacy and to me opening someones mail is just completely wrong, espcially financial things...I never ever ever open her mail, never, not in a million years, and she knows this, I've always handed her mail to her to open, and I would never ever expect anyone to open mine, bills, statmetns, letters, bank statements etc, are just so utterly personal that you just don't do that...

You just don't!

And I'm furious about this....but somehow I'm in the wrong for being upset that my personal and private mail is being opened.

I don't care if the autorenew scam got discovered, I dont' care that there is a worry that my card is being used by a scam artist, I will resolve that all when I open MY own personal private mail and am informed of the issue...I do not expect someone else to open my mail and hassle me about it.

FUCK THAT...JUST FUCK THAT, THAT IS SO FUCKING WRONG!!!

And I am 100% totally and completly right to be angry as fuck about this.

OPENING MY PERSONAL MAIL!!!!!!!!

No bloody way is that right, no bloody way.





Ahthankyew

Mojo is still missing

Lost at poker again..but played pretty well really, only the fact Dennis was on bloody fire and taking every big pot of the night, edging me on 3 big hands, stopped me from being in a money finish. So feeling quite good about it. A great game as always.


Ahthankyew

dark times

Man, the news is so gloomy, floods in Australia and Brazil killing hundreds of people, massacares in Tunisia, stampedes in India, bombs pretty much everywhere. Fires, disasters....

never seems to end does it.

Crazy old world.

Ahthankyew

The day after the night before

Had a good night out last night with several collegues and was drinking till 1ish. But have been suffering a bit today, not quite managed to shake off the hangover or upset tum.

Think I might stay of the booze for a bit after all ;) Though I need to have a bit tomorrow as I've going out to play poker.

I was planning to have a poker night in tonight since Bina is in the UK and I have the place to myself for the weekend, but everyone else had plans for tonight.
But I got an invite to come play tomorrow with my Dutch friends at their new housse, so I'll take them up on that. Lets hope I don't continue my losing streak, havn't won a damn game since my surgery, quite sure my mojo got removed.

Gibson have been in touch, they have sent out the replacement parts for the Dark Fire and I've found a service centre in the North to take it to have them fitted and the other issues fixed, will cost a couple of hundred euros but insurance should cover it ok. Quite pleased that Gibson have been so helpful in sending the parts for free or it would have been quite a bit more cost and inurance might be a bit fussy.

Larry is proving to be a cool guitar, though she does have a slightly dodgy pickup selector switch that might need cleaning..will look into that soon.

No more recording for a bit, I need to finish up some marking stuff so that I am free and clear next block to work on a new PS3 course, and not have people chasing me for old grades.

We're having some problems with our electrics, not quite sure what the problem is though, either lights or the central heating are surging from time to time and tripping the fuse. Its proving very hard to isolate the cause, though I know its the fuse that handles power in Bed 1,2 and attic and the Central Heating, but not sure which specific thing is causing it. All the lights are off and everything has been unplugged but it only seems to trip if multiple things are on.

But I'll switch one thing on overnight to see if it causes a trip in the morning, and call out an electrician or a plumber depending on the culprit. Its a bit of a pain if out CH is out, lucky its not cold at the moment though.

It caused a bit of a panic for the girls last night when it dawned on them the CH being off would affect the hot water for showers...but it stays on long enough for that, and if it trips you just need to make sure someone switches it back on before the water cools down. Its annoying for sure, but hopefully just a dodgy light fitting or something that can be isolate and fixed.









Ahthankyew

Another addition to the family

It was a long labour and took some time to locate but there is a new addition to the Beuken family.

Meet Larry.



She's called Larry becuase of the large Larry Flynt for President sticker on the back...which strangely has a connection with genuine Guns 'n Roses band members....

She's a 1991ish Gordon Smith G60 with custom Van Zandt bridge pup. A very cool hand made British guitar costing a fraction of the price of a Gibson or PRS. I had heard good things about these guitars but not found one that I liked the look of till this one came up. She's a stunner, lovely simple finish, very light, lighter than my SG, but a neck to die for and the lowest action I have seen so far.

She will be loved.



Ahthankyew

playing with recording toys

Amplitube on the Ipod is really cool, but the recording system is a bit flawed, I can't seem to work out how to do fade outs...so this effort just ends up going silent while the backing still plays then brings in some crap I doodled when I was setting levels.

It must be possible to set the fades, but not really a problem its just shits and giggles.

Now playing: BrianBeukenBadGuitar

Ahthankyew

too cold and too wet but plenty of practice time

Got a stinking cold, and today its been raining constantly with very low temps, so no good chance to stand up on the roof for an hour or 2(an optimistic guess at time) to align the dishes....better luck tomorrow.

In the mean time I've been twanging my guitars and am loving my new Fender G-Dec3 practice amp, which lets me play backing tracks and record some stuff, as well as play stuff on the PC and play along with it through the amp. Quite brilliant for youtube tutorials.

Been using a lot of cool gadgets recently, amplitude for Iphone/pad is brilliant too and means you can play and record anywhere, just remember to switch it off when your done or it eats the battery. (speaking of which I finally have a new battery for my laptop...yeaaahh)

No sign of any parts for the DF yet, will probably give the Gibson guys a nudge tomorrow, but am starting to think it might be wiser to use the insurance to send it off for a full and proper repair..will cost a fortune but if the insurance covers it, it might be worth it..after all its not as if I'll be without a guitar while its gone.

Also no sign of Danni's pressie from the UK which she sent over for my Birthday...must be lost :( shame....hope its not a puppy???



Ahthankyew

tick that off the list

The list of house jobs has been reduced by one. I had some trouble getting internet into the attic, it seems our floors are very very dense and even an 802.11n router could not penetrate from the ground to the 3rd floor. Surprising considering the increased range these have over standard .11g systems.

Thanks to my old mate Lee, who posted on FaceBook I was reminded of the Powerline mains networking tech, which seems to have become much more speedy and reliable. I had totally forgotton about this tech, and thought it had faded away but no its still going and has got much bettter.

A quick hunt on ebay for a Dutch supplier yielded a pair of Sweex 200MPS adapters and they duly arrived this morning.

Couldn't be simpler to install, plugged one into the mains and connected it with supplied cable to the Tele2 wireless router to get the internet, plugged the other one in upstairs and fed it, via cable again. to the 802.11n router and voila, we have coverage through the house via 2 seperate wireless systems. Job done, I might do some movie streaming upstairs on the projector system now ;)

I also built a new wall on the roof yesterday, more bricks and a lot more mortar this time should prevent it falling down. I was going to hook up the dishes today, but the lack of a partner to call out signal strengths means that might have to wait till tomorrow.

Once that's done, the only major job left before summer, is to paper the new wall in the attic, need to locate some cheap woodchip, its not that easy to find here.


Only a few more days of vacation left...so I guess I better get on with shelve building and any other minor jobs that need doing. I'm hoping we can sort out some wardrobes from Ikea soon.
Ahthankyew

Happy 2011

A slightly belated Happy new year to both my readers :D

2011 started off well with a great New Years Eve curry spectacular, we toasted the New Year in twice, during Dutch time and English time and a really good time and much drink was had by all. Though I tried to avoid getting totally blotto, I still had a bit of a hangover the next day.

So now we have a week of R&R before heading back to work so I have a chance to get things on an even keel again for the start of the year.

I'm not one for resolutions really, when all said and done, new year is just the day after yesterday so not that much actually changes but I want to take the pause we have now and try to re-focus a bit on what to do in the new year.

Certainly get my marking ALL done, try to sort out my bad brick laying and resolve the Satallite dish issues, paper the new walls in the attic room, which we're now using for film nights and generally try to get a bit better organised...like I say not so much a resolution, more a case of get a grip on things that I've let slide.

Oh and practice my guitar playing more...I am improving quite a bit with the recent extra playing but still frustratingly at a (bad) beginner level...after 30 years....shit!!! Lucky I am a persistant twat or I'd have thrown them out.
Perhaps some more lessons?
I also noticed a bit more damage to my Dark Fire the other day when I was showing it off to Martin, (who is a damn fine player and puts me to shame), the high E tuning peg is bent..working but bent, and the teflon nut is scratched. I guess I won't be selling it as an investment any time soon.

New IPod is very cool, though a bit of a battery eater, I've not worked out how to stop apps that are mult-threading so as a result it sometimes leaves apps running overnight and kills the battery...hmmm must be something I've missed in the setups.

Anyway....Festivities over, normality is returning to Breda, I'm looking forward to a good 2011.





Ahthankyew

So Long 2010

Well, its new years eve, I'm about to get started on a marathon cooking effort for tonights grand New Years Eve Curry party and Hogmanay night so this may the last chance I have to update in 2010.

Been quite a year all told...Its easy to focus on the negative side of things, the cancer being a major downer which dominated so much of it, but its also been an exciting year for change and new things happening.
We have a new home, our jobs are secure and still fun. Holland continues to surprise us with its warmth and friendliness, lots of new friends, new guitars, a new car, new toys and new experiences. We've had ups and downs like every other year.

But on balance its been a year of development for us all, something to build on for the future. I'm looking forward to 2011, I want to put aside the downers of 2010 and get on with things now.

Happy New Year

Lang may yer lum reek!


Ahthankyew

New Ipod 4

Since our Ipods got stolen we've been a bit lost.. I do like my Ipad for working on and doing cool things with but I missed my Ipod for music and other stuff.

So while in town to top up our video collection (now we have our projector working properly upstairs) we went to the apples store and got shiny new Ipds 32GB.

Some cool new features there, though the camera is pretty pants, it does have a nice hi res screen and the video chat feature looks promising.



Ahthankyew

On Drums, with my collegues doing other bits ;)

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Ahthankyew

hmmm I'm not a brickie

The little wall I built to hold the satellite dishes.....fell down...though I must say I would do quite well as a satellite dish fixer to wall person, as the dishes are still very much attached.


Probably just not enough mortar, or summit, but I'll have to wait for better weather before I try to build a "better" wall.



Ahthankyew

Last day at work

Today is the last day at work..students are all busy doing their final 2 hours of working class so I am updating now since I may not have time later.

Really looking forward to the holidays, though have not yet done my Xmas shopping, I will pop ino town today.
I do have some marking to catch up on, but a give me a few days of R&R and I'll get that out of the way.

Trip to the docs earlier today was...well I got a bit annoyed with Bina, who came along, seeming to take a pop at me in front of the doc, but managed to keep things together..being aware that my emotional responses are not normal gives me a degree of control over them, but still it narked me, as did being referred to in the 3rd person when I was sat right there. It turned out to be quite stressful but, I didn't lose it, and no one was injured. ;)

Repeat script and a reccomendation to use the tranqs if I feel agitated or under stress...hmm hate being medicated but we'll see. More guitar playing and walking also given as doctors orders..Harvey might enjoy the 2nd of those.

I think the upcoming rest will do me more good than the meds, I have an incredibly light work load when we come back so that will give me time to get into some PS3 coding which I have been really looking forward to but not had enough free time to get right into. As a result our PS3 console course at the moment is quite basic, being the 1st time we've done it. I want to explore more on what the machine can do and see how it goes.

Must also make another attempt to fix the satellite dish up tomorrow...so we can get some decent Xmas TV.


Ahthankyew

Satellite Dishes and Rod Hull

Been up on the roof most of today fitting the dishes we need to use our Freeview boxes...quite frustrating. I built a small and very rough wall, 3 courses on a base of flagstones onto which I fixed the 2 support arms. Drilled through the windows at a suitable place, fed cable in with no issues, and hooked them up.

1 LNB on the dish does not seem to work..hmmm need to investigate, one seemd to provide awesome power 75-80%, but 0%quality, regardless of where it was pointing. I can't find my good quality compass, and the supplied tin disk does not really cut it. Dishpointer.com sorted me out with direction but angle up/down is harder. For some time I was mistaken in thinking that the angle had to be 27deg on the dish..infact its about 2degs...oh.

Anway, by the time I figured it out and got things close to where they should be, we had a major snowfall and the quality is 0 regardless..so its going to have to wait for another clear day.

Damn frustrating job this dish installing, but we did get a glimpse of what to look forward to when we hit 45% quality at one point and up popped a load of channels...soon to be lost...but tomorrow we may get lucky.

At least I managed to avoid doing a header of the slippy roof, like our old Emu loving friend.

Ahthankyew

its my birthday and I'll cry if I want to...

After all I have got a bad case of depression.

no alcohol allowed

time to start smoking hash I think?

Ahthankyew

Please Mr Gibson sir....can I have some switches?

Finding replacement parts for my damaged Dark Fire is proving tricky, the volume knob is no problem, but the pickup/piezo blend switch is a specialist item specific to the DF..and Gibson don't sell them to retail.

shit!!

But...they are looking to see if it is possible to let me have them as a courtesy...I really hope so, otherwise I will have to get Leroy's(henceforth to be known as Leroy the destroyer) insurance to buy me a new DF, all becuase of 1 small replaceble part!!



Ahthankyew

happy pills

Doctor agrees, I am in the middle of a depression and he wants to crack out the medication. Prozac no less, straight onto the happy pills for me!! Councilling comes later, seems they want the meds to work 1st which is ok.

Gotta go back weekly till the pills kick in in a month or so, and see how things are.

Sigh all feels a bit meh...anticlimatic....but ok it needs doing, I said that way back at the start, as soon as you recognise it get it dealt with, part of the problem with depression is it stops you from dealing with it...and everything else.

step 1 taken.

Oh....and he recommends I do things that I enjoy as much as possible...like play my guitars...no really..Doctors orders...play my guitar ;)..but keep off the computer for non work reasons...hmmm yea makes sense I suppose.

Deleting Supreme Commander 2 now (tbh its a bad game but I was using it to escape)

Better get on with some marking now.





Ahthankyew

where me buy this?

Ahthankyew

bahhh heeeeere's Johnny

Saturdays incident has started of a chain of events where everyone is sulking at each other and not talking or even being able to stay in the same room together. The spare room is seeing some action!

Its all crazy shit, I just don't know how to handle it..I try to make small efforts and get rebuffed, and then do the same myself.
Its all pretty childish with us defending our positions to the death, yet the consequenses are very serious, she's already talking of moving out to give us a break...I tried to say I didn't want that but she's not listening...to me, or I don't think she is, or.

I give up.

In amongst all this I am now 100% certain that the depression I suffered from waaaay back when I started this blog is well and truly back....well duh!

No doubt triggered by the cancer and building the last 6 months, but whatever the reason while I have some control of it, it needs dealing with. It won't be long before I can't deal with the other issues that are piling up on me if its not stopped.

I hover between anger and despair, with occasional fuckit, lets charge ahead, and staring into space wondering how to snap back, pondering the ever present face pain, pondering growing old age and death as a possibility of the cancer, pondering the point of it all and so on...it gets a bit deep and frankly silly when written down (which is of course why I write it down to help me see that)
...it'll get worse if I don't deal with it now...I don't want to end up curled up on the floor again.
And yes it probably is part of the reason Bina and I are fighting, I just can't see the wood for the trees right now, actually the trees are a bit blurry at the moment too.
I'm functioning ok at work, more or less, but marking seems like such a chore its taking me forever to do...and it ndeeds doing or I'm going to have problems since it never goes away, it just accumulates.

Appointment made to see my doctor tomorrow, actually to meet my doctor, since despite all the recent medical stuff I never bothered to go see my GP, poor buggers probably been getting letters and updates from the hospital filling up a filing cabinit in his office and he's never even seen me. Now I'm going to go dump a load of "I think I'm going slightly mad" shit on his lap....going to be interesting.


Bina passed her 1st MBA exam with a highest possible grade, A with Distinction. I never doubted it! It would have been nice to celebrate it..but wasn't to be.


Edit, Interesting point...Quite a lot of people I know read this now...when I started it it was intended to be a cathartic process, and a way to keep family and friends uptodate...But it was largely unread and anonymous, as long as the readers were largely distant, unnamed and not sat accross from me at any time it was easy to document things, even painful personal things...

Now though its that wee bit harder, I know some of you, quite a lot of you in fact, I'm writing personal shit, detailing painful stuff and people I work, drink, play with are getting insights into my psyche I don't know that I want them to have.....
But.....somehow it needs to be done, it needs to be documented, to continue the catharsis and to give me a means of self reflection and perspective on what's going on. I hope it does not colour anyone's view of me in daily life though...




Ahthankyew

Fed up

I'm fed up, no really, just totally pissed off, fed up, fucked off and not in the bloody mood for anything at all, everything is getting on top of me, I feel ill, tired and cranky, and I'm just not dealing with shit I should be dealing with.

Sounds familiar..

I'm also furious that when it comes to conflict, the 1 person I am supposed to be able to trust and have my back, does'nt. That sucks, and makes everything else seem 1000 times worse.

Jodie was asked to take the dog out while I was getting ready to go out with her to see her mums latest am-dram thing in Dordrecht..We had a train to catch, though we had plenty of time, but to save some while I was dressing the last job of the evening was to take the dog out for 2 mins so he would not be bursting all night. So I asked her to do it.

She didn't, she made a big fuss about it which eventually resulted in me shouting at her to just do what I'd asked. She didn't...she decided instead to take umbrage at my getting annoyed at her and walked out...without the dog of course...so she managed to avoid the thing I asked her to do, something she does a lot, which pisses me of so much.

I then took the dog out, which had to be done, and seeing Jodie at the end of the block, heading to the station shouted that she was on her own and I would not be paying for her fare or the meal we had planned. There was no way I was going to let that behavour go lightly, and I was going to let her deal with the consquences of her actions on her own.

I walked the dog, and then walked to the station myself, caught the train to Dordrecht fully expecting to have Jodie there waiting to see what to do next, which as far as I was concerend was to head home and think about what she had done, cos I was not interested in spending time with her.

But no, I get a text from Bina, she's going to pick Jodie up, and take her there!! So knowing full well her mum was busy prepping for a performace, the selfish little madam calls mummy to come get her and there's no consequences to her actions at all.

Dis fucking gusting.

I am appalled, and furious about this, so I decided I wasn't going to spend the night fuming in a social setting and went home, straight to bed as it happens, as I had been feeling poorly all day anyway and this just added to it.

This morning of course, its all my fault....Bina, decides that there's 2 sides to this story and she's going to believe Jodie.

Incredible. There's so much wrong with this that I can't even put it into words, so of course we end up shouting which makes it my fault even more becuase I'm bad tempered and irrational and unwilling to see any view but my own.

I really fucking hate this, there is no other view, Jodie was disrespectful, lazy and selfish, and I tried to deal with that simply using exclusion as a consequece of her actions...yet mummy rides in to the rescue, without even checking with me, totally undermines me, and sees it as all my fault.

No...its not that I am unwilling to see any view but my own, its not that I'm always right, and its not that I get angry when things piss me off, its simple.

At least it is to me....but I can't make that point because the 1 person who is supposed to see my side of things, take a stand with me, and work with me to raise OUR child, isn't capable of seeing that there are indeed 2 sides to the story, but its not something parents are supposed to have any problem choosing.

Why am I posting this here...why not...she's gone off Shopping with Jodie....yeaaah Jodie gets to have a fun day out with mum, while Brian sits in the dog house.

Really fucking disgusting, and there will be some changes, becuase this is not bloody on.






Ahthankyew

The difference is...

After a couple of years teaching, I have now finally worked out the easiest way to tell if someone is destined to be a programmer or not.

Its not that they get frustrated if they don't understand..thats actually a good sign.
Its not that they ask really dumb obvious questions, thats also actually a good sign.
Its not that they over complicate code...also a good sign.
Its not that they don't know the correct syntax but try to write it in terms they understand...like all the above, a good sign of a working mind trying to understand something.

Its when they don't even try to work out whats gone wrong and expect you to tell them.

That sucks, they are not programmers.

I joke with my students about a universal law of programming...

Brian's 1st law of self fuckery. Which states ;-

"If your code is doing something other than you expected it to do..you fucked up."

There are actually currently 3 Brian's Laws of Self Fuckery
the 2nd is

Brian's 2nd law of Self Fuckery.....

"Is the same as the 1st."

This is to emphasise the importance and factual truth of the 1st law.
The 3d law is ;-

"If you are using someone elses working code in your program and it does not do what it did on someone elses computer...you fucked up."

Yes they are funny, and I may be sailing close to the wind by stating the f word in a class setting, but there's truth in this, I am trying to make people realise that they control what they write, its in their hands, if it does not do what it should do, they made a mistake, its not the computer, its not the language its not even the teacher..its them....if they fuck up..they have to try to find it...programmers, or those destitned to be programers do try to find out!

These 3 laws are self evident and quite provable (though Flash, (ahaaaah..saviour o the universe), does bend the laws a little due to it being totally crap) So its amazing that no matter how many times I explain these laws, students still say...it should work but it doesn't. Others however say, its "still" not doing what it should

I actually don't mind those kind of students..they are trying at least. But the ones who stop dead in their tracks at the 1st sign of an error, then wait till 10 mins before the end of a class to admit, they don't know what to do, worry me.

They won't make it. I should be sad about that, but I'm not..they're not trying, they have 2 hours to put their hand up and say, Brian, what does this mean...but they don't, they sit there for 2 hours with a syntax error, and rather than try to find it they stress out or check out facebook but never actually try to understand the problem.


Teaching is fun, 95% of the time, but that 5% when people are not paying any attention to what you tell them, then doing nothing, and asking you to do it for them when they clearly are not trying....is not fun.


I'm lucky that there are not too many students like this, almost all mine are trying and I never ever critisise those who make an attempt...but those who are just waiting till I put something on screen they can copy....sorry guys...you really are wasting your time...and mine!!


ahhh....feels good to rant sometimes.



Ahthankyew

THE most sickening sound in the world

Is a much cherished Gibson Dark Fire, hitting the ground face down.

Went for a jam with some students last night, I took a turn on drums and let one of them, an experienced guitarist have a play with my DF....yup..he dropped it...quite accidently of course, the strap slipped, ironic as the DF has strap locks, though they don't actually work on mine. ( Bad QC at Gibson there)

His face when it fell was almost worth the cost of the repairs. A new pickup selector switch and a volume knob..

Almost!

My own face must have also been quite a sight, as I sat there for several seconds trying hard to do a Sapphire and Steel style time reversal.

Ah well...no major damage done, the broken parts should be easy enough to replace, if I can find a source.

Was a horrible moment though, for all concerned.



Ahthankyew

Turned out nice again

The cold snap has relented with rain washing away the snow and temps rising to a quite respectable 2 or 3 degrees.

I gave my presentation on the trip to Liverpool on Friday, it went down really well, with funnies and information wrapped up into an hours de-brief. All hail the Dave Gorman school of presentations.

Some of us went for an end of week drink and dinner to cap it off. I was very pleased to hear that so many people enjoyed it and found it informative.

Its not common practice at our place to do a de-brief after a trip to a conference or event, which I found odd and not very helpful. Hopefully the success of this presentation will encourage others to let us know what they get up to when they go off on their jollies. The Glorious and Beloved Leader that is Frank, seemed to think it should be standard practice now.

Facebook is now full of pics of me in various drunken states dressed as a monk while at Ken's 50th Birthday party, which had a Priests and Prossies theme...unable to find a suitable prossie costume, I opted for a monk complete with tonsured wig and my Ipad in its leather binder, acting as a Bible playing Gregorian chants as I made a big entrance to..3 people. :D Bina was in her usual Friday night home with the Beukens outfit :) More people turned up later and a good night was had.

The Late night resulted in a serious case of oversleeping today though, did not wake up till after 4pm...even by my weekend sleep standards that's pretty over the top. Not sure I'll get to bed very early as a result. I must pick up the script for the sleeping tablets the doctor gave me at my last checkup.

We have 2 weeks now till the Christmas break, I am looking forward to it a lot I must admit, our 1st Christmas and New Year in our new home. It'll be fun.


Ahthankyew

Snow/Sleep/Lack of.

1st Snows hit Breda on Monday, not much thankfully but a nice light dusting that has frozen hard.

Early winters mean chances of a hard winter are high..might be a chance to try out my skating skills then!!

Can't sleep again...its 4.26 and I've been reading/marking and other stuff to avoid boredom but the insomnia is pretty bad..never mind, look on the plus side, only 3 more sleeps till Christmas (via several facebook friends)

Going to head off to bed now and see how long it takes to get to sleep, fortunately I have not got an early start tomorrow but I do have a full day of classes, must try not to yawn..or at least what passes for a yawn these days.

Ahthankyew

Avoid the Adelphi

Just got back from the UK, my collegue Jeremiah and I were over for a meeting with Sony and also to attend the Develop Liverpool conference.

I'll be filling in my work collegues on the good stuff that happened over there and indeed some of the bad stuff but it was an interesting trip.

It started off on Tuesday morning with me falling down the stairs, not something I reccomend when you get past a certain age and are carrying a few extra kilos, I banged my backside on every step after slipping on the top one. Fortunately I didn't really hurt myself beyond a bit of carpet burn, but it was a taste of what was to come.

Got to the train station and the machine would not take any of my damn cards, 4 of the buggers, so Jeremiah had to do the honours there.

Finally get on the train, only to be told as it left Breda that it was only able to go 2 stops ahead due to some "incident" on the line which they hoped would be clear by 9pm..not much use when we had to catch a connecting train at 6-40.
"Incident" btw probably means a jumper..The Dutch train system is the preferred method of suicide here in Holland, given there are no cliffs to jump from..its rather common sadly.
So after the train stops in Lage Zwaluwe, a middle of nowhere station, which is not even a town/villiage as such, we discovered there was no connecting bus...Lucky for us, there was 1 taxi which we rushed to..despite noting as we walked/trotted down the crossing bridge, the rather congested motorway we knew we had to travel on.

No one seemed to have thought of using the taxi, everyone else being quite content to wait till 9 in the middle of nowhere for the trains to get fixed, but we had a flight to catch and so we started a stop start motorway trip to Dordrecht where the line was running again.

Though since neither of us had any cash on us, in preperation for our use of UK pounds, the trip to Dordrecht ended with me hunting down a cash machine, a mile away from the station it seemed.

Up and down several stairs later, we squeezed ourselves into the next train heading to Rotterdam, and I do mean squeezed, we were now well and truly into commuter rush hour, and despite having 1st class tickets, it was every passenger for themselves when it came to occupying a precious 6 inches square of standing room. Didn't help either that it was a stoptrein, ie one that stops...every bloody stop and has more people squeezing on.

But we made it to Rotterdam, missing our intended hi speed train, by now we were about an hour late. But we did manage to get on another hi speed and worked out that if we were very lucky, we would get there with 30 mins to spare.

We got there with about 25 mins to spare.
Checked in, machine told us bording had already started and to go to the desk, which we confirmed with the lady standing around helping people....Unfortunatly the desk was hidden behind a queue of people checking in for some holiday bound flight, so we had to try to cut in...which we did, with a few grumbles..But still we could not get to the desk so someone could help us. Eventually..bearing in mind the standing around lady was fully aware of our rush..the standing around lady, told us to go to the service desk at the end of the check in desk...grrr..who in turn told us to go to the service desk further down the lobby, grrrr...where 3 nice KLM ladies were helping a group of 4 Irishmen with their presumably also imminent flights to Dublin...I say 3 ladies who were helping, I should of course say 1 lady helping and the other 2 chatting to themselves while looking at their comptuer screens...they were'nt actually doing much helping at all...despite us turning up and looking stressed and rushed with less than 15 mins till departure.

Finaly the Dublin mob sorted, the 1 helpful lady, asked what we wanted..and we explained we'd been sent to check in urgently on the flight to Liverpool..At which point the 2 unhelpful ladies suddenly aquired a state of awareness and chipped in that it was impossible due to their being a bus to the plane which was now loading.
grrr grrr

and another grrr for good measure.

We tried at least...but walked away dejected...We were told to go to the KLM desk to try and re-book our flight so off we went.

Needless to say on a day of repeated dissapointment, our flight was not re-bookable, since the travel agent had rejected the 7 euro fee which would allow booking. We'd have to buy another ticket, at 275euro's.....each.

Since the flight was not leaving till 1 we decided to see what Easyjet had to offer.

A trip to terminal 2 and a hunt around found the Easyjet desk where we were indeed able to order flights for a plane leaving in 40 mins for 120odd euros.
yipeee...we booked, got on, no hassles.

Finally some progress.. we jetted of to Liverpool on a totally unremarkable flight.

Taxi from the airport to the Adelphi hotel...which I just remembered is the subject of this long rambling post...but I think the headline says enough..its a dive, old, cold and well past its prime. It is in the centre of town which is handy, but its a really poor hotel and not worth its high costs...I won't be going there again anytime soon.

It was however the scene of our next dissapointment, as I get a phone call waking me early on Wednesday morning from the travel agents, noting that we did not get on the flight to Liverpool. I explained the train/missed/easyjet story, and was told, oh..ok, but you do know your flight back is now cancelled!!

No I bloody well did not know as I started to fume at the poor chap on the line, who's company had saved 7 euro's by not taking the re-bookable flight option. It seems it is standard procedure on 2 way trips that if you dont' get the outbound flight they cancel the inbound...this despite us being at the KLM desk and telling them we'd try to use another flight.
We'd need to book return flights home..and did we want them to do that......grrrrrr

So while the meeting and conference themselves were worthwhile and useful, though most of the presentations at the conference were pretty dull, the actual travel sheannigans were not fun, the hotel was not fun, and I can't say I enjoyed my trip to the Adelphi...it even had 2 guitar shops accross the street, that I never had time to look in...hmmmm maybe I will stay there again next time, so long as I can make sure I can get some time to shop ;)




Ahthankyew

not totally dead

A whole week and nothing posted...not much to report really, some interesting things at work, which is mega busy at the moment, I have revamped one of my courses due to the fact that last year the students hated it, (artists hate having to do coding they much prefer to do art!!) and as a result I have way more work to do, as indeed do they, so they now have to keep focused.

I also have a shed load of marking to complete which is always a slow process for me, and finally update some grades from last year that never got posted for various, I can't be arsed I think I'm dying sort of reasons...or just bad bad work managment.

I've got most of next week "off" though, since I'm heading over to Liverpool for a Sony event to launch the PS3 edu program which we are part of as initiates to the scheme, as well as Develop Liverpool converence which will be my 1st chance to meet up with old industry collegues and mates since leaving the UK. Its not going to be totally fun, I have to try to raise the IGAD profile while I am there and see if I can persuade some people to pay us a visit and check us out, but it will be good to be back in geek country.

If anyone here reads this and is going, drop me a line we'll try to have a beer somewhere and ponder how to fix the industry and other things that get discussed at game conference bars.

Guitar practice has been a little sparce this week, I've not added to my amazing Muse riff skills, but I will soon. We'll be doing one of our famous, "thats just noise", jams again soon and I want to get the whole song in my fingers by then.

I am proud of myself too, I managed to keep my GAS (guitar aquisition syndrome) in check on 2 occasions this month. A beautiful Breedlove C25 pro going for about 60% of list price. And, something I wanted for a couple of years a Moondog, only the Spirit model not the much lusted after Grand Auditorium, but still....pretty.

The Breedlove will come again one day, its a big company and they make a lot of them.

The Moondog though is a rarity, though in this case not really as its not an original...I must explain.
All Moondogs were made by a Chinese co-operative and sold by a guy called Tim, he was based in Wales and owned the Moondog brand, he imported them in bulk, chucked out the rubbish ones! He would carefully set them up, added electronics and ensure good quality control. But the trouble with Chinese guitars is they are very random on quality, so he could not keep up a steady line of guitars that met the standard and eventually he went under.
If you can find an original "Welsh" Moondog they are amazing and stunning value for money. But the ones now being sold are the same Chinese companies trying to keep sales going using the name and patterns with a few upgrades...some are great, others are ...meh...This one was a "new" Chinese one, but the seller said it was top quality...All the same...lovely as it is, I passed. I want to try to find an original Tim's Moondog Grand Auditorium. Martin/Gibson quality, for under 500quid (2nd hand 300-400)...they do pop up from time to time but people tend to keep them, for good reason.




Ahthankyew

I can play....

The bass riff to Muse's Hysteria....very very happy


Took 3 days of very very intense practice to get it up to speed and force my fingers into it, but it's there.....its actually quite an easy riff for a guitarist, but I never claimed to be any good ;)

Why am I doing a bass riff?

ermm....becuase Its a great riff and as it plays pretty much all the way through the song its a greate candidate to use on a loop pedal to play along to. I am going to have a mess about with my Zoom GX2.u to see if I can work out the pitch drop system to make it sound really bassy on the DF, then loop it, then drop back to normal pitch to play the guitar parts.

Ermm I still have to learn the solo though, that's going to be at least another 3 days....4, ok 5 days or a bit more...




Ahthankyew

Coding is fun again

I'm busy working on a bunch of things at the moment, fixing students coding assignments, planning next blocks courses and most fun, coding on OokiBlocks which will be my next commecial game (publishers willing).

Its proving to be a lot of fun getting my coding head back on after 7-8 months or so not having much interest.

I've been doing school work coding but nothing that stretched me so its nice to be back into a project. I put it on the back burner when the cancer thing kicked in and have been building myself up to get back into it again.

I find that I don't really have the obsession I used to have for coding and very much tend to work in bursts, but this is a fun project which has involved several of my students in some level and game design so its important to get it done and out there for their sake and let them see that good ideas do get coded sometimes.

Fixing the 1st years work is quite challenging though, its amazing how much students deviate from the lessons I give them, some in clever and imaginative ways, others.....wtf..were they even in class?? But its good to give them a bit of a boost in the right direction.
I find the balance of showing them and doing it for them to be great fun and a source of great mischief for me, though its not always appreciated by "some" students. But those who get it, realise they have to do the work to move forward..those who don't...well....we'll have to wait and see if they really want to be game programmers or producers who claim credit for everyone elses work ;)



One thing I am not so comfortable with is my new Flash coding course for artists, it didn't go down too well last year, so I am re-working it to be more focused this year...I find flash very dull and boring though so its hard to set the level right to enthuse them...most really don't want to do it, but its part of the course so I have to make it good, hard, fun and informative..who knows perhaps I can persuade one or 2 of them to cross over from the dark side and switch to "proper" coding. ;)



Ahthankyew

We're no 1 ;)

IGAD, the dept of NHTV where I work, has just had its official accreditation process.
Lots of interviews, intense examination of our processes, and scrutity of the work we do. Quite a rollercoaster few months which saw managers chainsmoking (well he always does that) and people stressing about dotted t's and crossed i's or something.

We came through it with flying colours, not just that but, we achieved a very rare "excellent" standard in several catagories, including quality of staff.

That puts us way up the top of the list as far as Dutch HBO (technical/vocational) courses are concerned and way out in fron of the other Game related courses in the Netherlands.

I always knew this was a great place to work, I am very proud of the staff, students and managers who contributed to making IGAD the best game development course in Holland, if not Europe...we need to get that message out there.

yeeaaaahhh for us!

Ahthankyew

Dark Fire is....

What can I say, yes it is amazing and awesome and all those other superlatives and I a have not even scratched the surface, but...yes there is a but. What the hell is going on at Gibson QC? There are so many minor details that are wrong here, the switches are sticky and noisy, the tuner CPU cover is loose and comes off with a tug, the tail piece is waaaaaay too high as is the bridge, though thats partly to avoid a string contact on metal which shorts out the electrics. I hear also that the electronics may not be up to par, but I'm not that far down the learning curve to tell yet.

She's a mighty beast all right but can't help but wonder how much better she would be if she were made 10 years ago rather than 10 months. Gibson seem to have lost the plot a bit, selling high end guitars with sloppy control does not bode well for them. Fortunatly none of the issues I have found so far are unresolvable, but if those electronics do go south it's going to be a pain to repair.....

Oh that sounds like I am being very negative about something I spent so much on, no not really, there are just silly little issues there I do not expect to find when you spend so much on a guitar. Gibson always had a reputation for quality and it seems to have gone in the last few years as they have hit various well documented issues. I'm also realisic, the DF is an electronic, techy experiment, and as with everythng high tech it will become old hat soon, (indeed the new FirebirdX has just been anounced with even more toys onboard..but its uglyand absurdly expensive). I hope that I can find the real guitar inside all the tech that makes it worth keeping as a playing instrument rather than a technical curiosity for years to come.

That said though...I love it, not quite as much as Lucille, but certainly a close and exciting 2nd place. She looks great, sounds amazing and feels fantastic. I am sure I will be spending a lot of time getting to know what she can do.

Ahthankyew