picking up where we left off

Harvey is in the dog house...we've barely spoken to him all day, and he knows he's cocked up somehow...but not quite sure how.

We've changed all the house locks, and Bina was able to get the car ignition system re-programmed...it won't stop anyone getting into the car with the key but it will stop them driving off. The garage also very kindly put in a new stereo system to replace the nicked one (well they nicked the facia which was removed from the car and brought in) for almost nothing..

All told forked out about 320euro's to get things back to normal.

twats...and I lost my Ipod with all my lovley music and stuff, had to spend the morning changing all my passwords which were probably on the pod too, at least all the mail's were.

We're safe and secure now though, the whole thing happened becuase we were careless with locking up. That won't ever happen again.

As for Harvey...I'm giving serious thought to replacing him with an attack hamster, which will probably be more effective. Stupid dog barks at leaves flying past the windows, when friends come to the door, even if we come to the door...can't believe he didn't react this time. Annoyingly I heard the door open, but dismissed it as probably the neighbours since a certain mutt was not barking his head off.

oh well...lesson learned, move on.

I was going to blog about the great sunday dinner I cooked yesterday as a thank you to those who had helped us move in and settle, plus a few hangers on ;). The meal was awesome, I was really pleased everyone enjoyed it and as usual there were lots of suprised faces when such nice dishes were served up and tasted as good as they looked. I havn't felt like cooking in a long time so it was nice to do that, and not have any major cock ups...apart from the whipping cream splitting, when I was making dessert...so they had clotted cream raspbery shortbreads instead.
I had to improvise a bit though on a trip to the supermarket but never the less I made

Starter
Goats cheese brie and caramalised red onion with basil in a crisp smoked ham case with a puff pastry cheese parcel top, on a bed of creamed leeks and a side of butter tossed Chantrelle mushrooms

Main
Slow Roasted Leg(s) of overnight marinated lamb (lemon, thyme, rosemary,sage) , with roast herb potatoes, boiled potatoes, home made rich yorkshire puds and roasted pumpkin and carrots served with stock/dressing made gravy.

Dessert
Shortbread biscuit base with crunchy whipped cream (add crushed biscuits before serving), topped with fresh raspberrys and clotted cream, drizzeled with reduced Raspberry syrup (seeds in).

For 8 people and it all went smoothly, only thing I didnt make myself was the puff pastry, I always buy ready made squares and the biscuits for the crunchy cream.

I wasn't totally happy with the starter, the ham which was used to line individual cake holes in a 6 hole tin as if it was pastry, crisped up nicely in the tin ok but it stuck fast during cooking. So I had to prise it out with a spoon which made it lose its shape a bit, but I managed to disguise that on the creamed leek base...
Next time..grease the tin. Oh and the puff didn't rise as much as I wanted (maybe I should make my own), but everyone loved it...and while they were eating it I was able to get my yorshire puds on, which were fantastic and puffed right up.

The clotted, rather than whipped cream was actually a fantastic accident, I'll have to see if I can do that every time (basically I let the cream get warm before I whipped it)

Was a really great meal and a really great day with friends.


Ahthankyew

But he always barks!!!

Our little dog Harvey goes nuts when anyone comes to the door or window.

Every time!


Except last night when we had burglers, it seems he slept right through that...

Dammit, our little idyl has been tarnished a little by some local scrots. Our fault....well mine really, I didn't check the door/gate was locked before bed and they just came in and helped themselves to a few disposable items..Ipods, phones, car radio facia,old video camera, DS, maybe a couple of other thing's we'll discover as we go.

They also took a small tub we keep our keys in, so now we have to go and change the car and house locks as soon as possible. That will be more costly than the items pocketed.

Annoyingly I heard the door opening last night, after 3....thought that was odd...but ignored it becuase Harvey didn't bark.

baaaaahhhh.


Ahthankyew

Back to the UK....

Got an ok from the boss to have my 1st ever oversea's conference...shame its in the UK, I was hoping for Vegas, or Toyko, but instead I am going to be in Liverpool of all places :D in November :(

Its all part of a presentation and conference thats happening for 2 days with our Sony Education program, as we're one of the 1st members we get to go and show off anything we've done by then. After that, there's a bit of good old fashioned geek fest game confence, Develop Liverpool, where I am sure I'll bump into a lot of old friends and collegues, propping up the bar's I am sure.

I might also get a chance to pop to Lyon for a couple of days also in November for Game Connection...not quite so geeky but a good chance to shmooze and increase our visibility in the industry...oh if you think industry geeks can drink...you really should see how industry bosses handle a bar..its a sight to behold.

Quite like the idea of jetsetting around again even if its only Europe.

Ahthankyew

Pig in Shit

My little corner of the attic playroom


Ahthankyew

Personality tests...

I had to take a personality test today as part of a course I am doing....what a load of balls... here's part of it.


Note especially the anchor thing...I mean...seriously..I am a games coder, I do boring repetitive task as a matter of course and have so far worked on nearly 70 projects in my professional career to completion...Thats my job, something I take seriously and am well known for my ability to see things through.

Makes you wonder really, if it can get such a basic aspect of my personality so fundamentally and demonstrably wrong, how can you take any of the other assessments of my personality as accurate.. It also suggests I am not a risk taker because I have no entrepreneurial aspirations...It fails to take into account that I have had a successful business in the past and have already been there done than and frankly lost interest in it, also having cancer makes life a little more focused on the important things..


We all like to read nice things about ourselves, and its a fact most people will recognise faults in themselves if someone points it out, whether its true or not...but the idea that an on-line test could "accurately" provide some kind of insight into the kind of person you are is nonsense..

In this case, the test was part of an education course to provide some kind of self reflection, I don't know exactly how its going to be used to forward the course but I am going to point how just how demonstrably flawed it is when it is discussed.

But there are companies who make serious hiring decisions based on things like this....I honestly think you'd be better off examining the entrails of a goat than looking at rubbish like this.


Ahthankyew

Normality is cool

Had an awsome and busy week at work with the students, no tiredness or speech issues got in the way, and it was great to be back at it after 4 months. I know my bosses were a teeny bit worried I had come back too soon but those fears were soon dispelled.

As the summer finally draws to a close we need to try now to arrange for our housewarming party before autumn really kicks in, ideally including a BBQ, though looking out the window at the rain, that may be less possible than I'd like, but booze and party nibbles followed by some poker should be quite possible.

Been out a few times with our new collegues, some eating and drinking has been getting done to help them find their way around and all seem to be enjoying Breda's delights.

Home wise, Bina and I had a bit of a snit at the start of the week, which resulted in a couple of days sulking,...ah well. Sorted in the end....(she was wrong of course ;) )

Got to do a bit more tidying up upstairs, I now have an almost complete recording studio up there, kinda bizzare given the fact I can barely play and certainly can't sing or rap, but its all good fun, so long as I don't expose my efforts to any poor unsuspecting listners..I tend to mess about when everyone is out. I'm going to put my guitars up on the wall after the work is done to make a bit more space up there.

We have still not heard back from our builder about the boxing off of the door area in the attic which will make it a bit more sound proof. Seems he's busy on a current job for a collegue and dealing with a new baby. I will need to chase him.




Ahthankyew

Loving my Ipad, but hating Itunes

People go on and on about how much they hate Itunes...personally its never bothered me in the slightest. Fire it up, buy stuff or import a CD and there you go...runs on your ipod/iphone as expected.

Then I bought an Ipad...which I have to say is a fantastically geeky gadget that I am going to really enjoy doing some coding on when my PSP thing is finished.

Because I bought it in HollandI set it up with my address and credit card details for the app store and itunes...and was all ready to get started when it refused to let me install any apps complaining my card details and post code were invalid..??
Oh ok a bit of investigation later showed I still had the territory set to UK and was therefore expecting a UK postcode and card.

Ok so into the settings, chance the location to NL and voila...everything goes in fine...except of course now I only have access to the Dutch Itunes store in Dutch..

NOTE to APPLE.....living in a location does not automatically mean you speak the language!!!!!

Ahthankyew

slightly less rich, cos I'm stupid

I paid for my dark fire with a paypal transfer..pretty standard way to do business on ebay of course, but I didn't realise that when doing certain types of transfers which result in lower costs...you can't use the credit card.

So...I accidently dented my bank account rather than my planned credit card/pay over a few months. I believe the correct term for this is...doh!!

So in some ways it was just as well I got that bonus this month or I'd have been paying for lunch with the credit card due to lack of cash.

The Dark Fire has arrived at mums though and even she was impressed when the chap opened it up to show her...this is a women who when shown my Gibosn Lucille, said it was very nice...very nice...the sexiest thing ever made with wood and strings by mans hands...very nice!!! So she is hard to please, but thought the DF was top class. Am sure Bina will think the same?

Still need to shift the Explorer though, I have a few people interested, just have to work out some kind of payment plan.

Its been a good week at work, I'm not quite properly organised yet, but I am almost on top of things. The paperwork before classes is a pain but nearly there now..just got to polish up my slides and read a bit of reference material and I'm good to go.

2 weeks in and classes start on Monday, I can't wait I am really excited to meet all the new 1st years, and be reunited with my new 3rd years as we start doing console coding in our new secure console room..going to be a busy but fun week.

Ahthankyew

I'm still rich

It wasn't a mistake, it was a bonus for having an outstanding evaluation this last year, which I am totally overwhelmed by. I knew my evaluation was good and that my managers were happy with my work, but I did not know it came with a cash bonus.

I love this place....I love this job, and it seems people are loving the way I do it....how awesomely cool is this? In all my years working in the Games Industry it was a never ending struggle for recognition and cash, and when I finally decide to backout of it, I get both...damn I wish I'd come here 10 years ago.

Better not tell Bina, she'll be wanting to spend it on a holiday or something....oops.

Ahthankyew

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo

Theres a crack in the heel of the neck in my Breedlove 12 string...oh dammit...Thats the 1st time i've had it out since we moved so I guess its possible something happened then.

It does not appear to be unstable and may only be a varnish/surface crack, but it is still a crack, I'll take it to a luthier and see if its a problem...dammit...

I think the household insurance will actually cover this, but I'm dam annoyed at the fact its possibly damaged

Ahthankyew

Kicked out, so make the most of it.

Bina had a girly dinner party, so I was tactfully requested to leave the building. Which is fine, as me and a few other colleagues from work had agreed to go out for a few drinks anyway..Sadly...for them, they cried off, and I ended up on my lonesome for a few hours before the 1 brave soul and his partner were able to meet up.

Time then to indulge in one of my favourite things....eating

I went to Ganache in town, its a really nice fine dining restaurant, but with no Michelin stars it's affordable. The food is always amazing, wonderfully presented and changes every week so you never quite know what your are going to be able to get. I love trying their surprise 5 course menu where its the chefs job to impress you.

Of course I don't normally do this on my own but I was hungry and had time to kill so off I went. this week was apparently restaurant week in Breda so the menu was 3 courses with a choice of meat/fish for starter and mains. All good stuff even if I have no idea what the whole restaurant week is and why it resulted in a reduced menu on this visit.

The waitress spoke perfect English, with a Dublin accent after 3 years there she told me, and offered me a selection of wines with each course, after my prosecco to get things started, I thought why not.

I ordered, Roast smoked duck starter, with a veal main course. The dessert was a ginger biscuit crusted amaretto ice cream and a raspberry sauce.

I had a really fantastic but slightly sad meal...mainly because my sense of taste and ability to move food around my mouth are still not quite 100%, excessive chewing is a little painful too.

The looks and smell was amazing, but its hard to really get the flavour when you can only put a tiny morsel into your mouth on one side....ah well its getting better so I can't complain.

The wines though...hmm I liked the starter wine, a Syrah with lots of nice earthy flavours and dryness to cut through the smokey duck, but the Medoc that came with the veal was too heavy, as was the 10 year old port sauce, but it was tasty...the dessert wine though, a Semmion/Sauvingon blanc blend, was wrong, with the bitter ginger biscuit crust and heavy amaretto flavour of the ice cream a sweeter wine might have been better...


oh hark at me the food/wine critic?

I topped it off with a fine expensive brandy and staggered out of the restaurant more than a little tipsy, which forced me to stick to coffee when I met up with my colleague and his partner for drinks later...by the time the Martell finally got into my system I was quite pissed.


Aside from a few steak restaurants, this was my first "fancy" meal since the op and its nice to get back to normal again, even if I can't shove it down my gob like I used to..I can at least take some inspiration from the meal to do some more cooking again, which I've not really done much of, again since the op....hmmm

Making Roast Lamb for dinner today....ahh theres a story there too...I went to Ken Markt in town, which is a turkish store, to buy a shoulder of lamb after seeing a great recipe on BBC Saturday kitchen. But when I got to the counter they had none on show but they did have a single Lamb Shank...Now slow braised lamb shanks is one of my favourite dishes, so I asked them in my terrible dutch if they had 2 more of those shanks....twee lams bout..after a bit of a translation issue I made it clear(???) I wanted 2 lams bouts...so off the butcher goes into the back and brings back a whole sheep...ermmm...and proceeds to chop off the back legs and holds them up for me quoting 60 euros....

At this point I realised I had actually asked for 2 Lambs Legs...whole legs...oops.. I was about to correct him when I though..bugger it, we love lamb, and it is hard to come by here, and this shop was selling a whole rear end of a sheep for 60euros...I can make a few roasts and also cut some up for curries and stews to last a month.

So I brought home a bunch of meat, and also some lemons and onions to slow roast at least some if it for Sunday dinner.

A bit of home Butchery later..I have my 2 lamb shanks for later slow braising, a few chunks of cubed lamb for curries, 4 roast joints and plenty of meat on the bones to make stock for some hearty broths...when I can find pearl barley that is.

Not bad for 60 euros..I spent more than that on my meal at Ganache.


Time to start getting my cooking mojo back...as well as my other mojos which ran away screaming when I was ill :)




Ahthankyew

I'm Rich!!!!!

But I suspect its only a mistake, I seem to have been overpaid by a fair margain and have had to 'fess up to the company to see how to resolve it...ahhh well...maybe they'll let me keep it ;) (positive thoughts Brian, positive thoughts, maybe its a bonus for ummm.....comic relief?)

Work is proving to be a great thing, yes I get a bit tired from it after the excitemet of the 1st day but it is really great to be back. I have been getting my head round setting up our new PS3 dev kits which of course is really strange. Fortunately I myself won't be teaching much on the PS3 this block so we have time to get it all set up and ready before the stdents are let loose.
We are setting up a dedicated secure room for all our consoles and networking them so that we can be sure the kits are not messed with or used for things we do not allow.

This of course is the Sony edu program, Nintendo and Microsoft don't have education programs and in Nintendo's case usually cite "security" issues as the reason they won't allow us to teach with their kits.

Its a problem I have raised several times and will probably continue to raise, but I think its important. We can't teach console coding to students without actual consoles.
Sony's initiative to allow universities to have dev kits is a sound and sensible decision which they should be thanked for. Nintendo, who I have always had a soft spot for with their easy to code machines, should join in...maybe one day.


Ahthankyew

Back to work :D

Back to work today, a good full day, it was awesome and I had a ball being back with the team again.

During the holidays we also had our new Sony PS2 and PS3 dev kits delivered so I got to open up a couple of boxes and tinker away, was waaaayyy cool.



Ahthankyew

Hello & Goodbye

Hello to this stunning little beauty





Yup a Gibson Dark Fire...one of only 4000 made worldwide, part of Gibsons experiment with new electronics and auto tuning which eventually culminated in the disgusting Dusk Tiger. But the Dark fire is something of a work of art I have to say. I wanted one for quite some time but they are pricey and don't come up for sale often at all in Europe. The do show up sometimes in the US ebay but the thought of buying another expensive guitar (like Lucille),waiting months then getting hit with a huge customs bill did not appeal.

I won't say what I paid for it, but it was a really good price as its in immaculate, played at home condition with only 1 owner from new. The seller has agreed to wait till I can shuffle some money around before delivering it to my mums house, since they live in the same town and I'll pick it up next time I am over.

Sadly though, I have to say goodbye to at least one of my other Gibsons to fund this, the Explorer and/or the Les Paul studio. I have interest in the Explorer though so will see if I can shift that 1st, nice as it is, its not really my style of guitar and it needs a better home.




Ahthankyew

Insomnia

I thought I was in Holland but I'm actually in somnia.

bahhh

bored...thankfully I still have filmon.com so I can catch up on the terrible X factor auditions.


But that wee zimbabwean girl with the scots accent fom her 5 years in sconny botland, was something else...wow.
There was also a strange moment with that odd G&S couple....the girl could clearly sing really well, but her friend was a total waste of time....how could he be so deluded, and more important how come she never once said to him you can't sing...do it like this, like this........people are wierd....especially on reality pop shows eh!


Ahthankyew

building up to the return

We go back to work next week, around 2 weeks before our students arrive to give us time to prep our courses and get all our paperwork and other academic stuff set up and ready.

Theres a few issues with my schedule at the moment, I seem to be teaching some extra classes I am not supposed to, and also I have no work at home day which is usually allocated for marking and prep, but I am sure this will be resolved before we start.

I am really excited about getting back to work. I've popped back a few times to the office before the summer break, but have not really done anything in anger since just before my operation in April.

It's been too long to be idle. I don't object to having days off, but being physically or mentally restricted from doing much really does get very boring very soon. The few bits of DIY and unpacking I've been doing have kept me busy but its not the same as dealing with a class of students.

A few people have urged me not to rush back to work, but I'm sorry I really must, it is important to me to get back to doing something I enjoy and regain the normality that cancer has taken away from me.

Every day I am getting a bit fitter, and the discomfort levels are reducing. I can't quite speak at classroom volumes for prolonged periods but that just means I need to make my presentation slides a bit more interesting and explanitory. I'm sure in 2-3 weeks I'll have my tongue and voice back to something usable.

I really am excited about the new academic year, a whole new group of eager students with some occasionally brilliant insights into their career paths and of course the total dreamers who are convinced they will have a Ferrari next year while being quite happy to let their software be sold for free.

hehe, I love my job, getting to prick the balloons of these dreamers and at the same time see talents blossom in very short periods of time. I suppose I should go do some coding ;)


Ahthankyew

10 years and 1 day

Yesterday, was the anniversary of the 1st time I met Bina, 10 year ago.

I wish I had been able to take her out for a romantic candle lit dinner to celebrate the event but sore mouth and tiredness from the treatment and meds made it all a bit impractical so we spent the day together, and attempted to spend a romantic evening watching for the persied meteors..which were obscured by clouds and have also resulted in Bina catching a chill...not the greatest 10 year anniversary ever..but I will make it up to her when my health and time allow.

Its been an incredible 10 years, a few low points of course as you have in most relationships, the worst caused us to split up for a year, which had the effect of making me face up to the fact I was a pretty hopeless human being without the stability that comes from being part of a true partnership.

Bina is my other half in so any ways, a calming steady voice when I want to rush in, and a force for change when things aren't right. hmmm this isn't sounding all that romantic is it? This is also where Bina is my opposite, able to express her feelings for me in ways that make it sound like she is describing someone totally different to the fat, grumpy, middle aged foul mouthed scotsman who's feeling a bit worn out and sorry for himself. She makes me feel like Brad Pitt....only smarter.

I don't know any other way to describe her except she is the 1 person in my life, who has made me feel good when I feel bad, made me feel confident when I've felt insecure, made me laugh when I was sad and for 10 years, 10 whole years...with probably much needed years break, has found me to be a funny wonderful person and made me feel truly loved.
In truth, she's the most wonderful beautiful warm person who has ever come into my life. whatever ups and downs our life has for us now I can't imagine ever being without her. I know how horrible that was. I don't deserve her, I really don't. I am nothing without her and I love her with all my heart and soul even if I have no adequate way to ever express that.

I'd like to sign up for 10 more years please with an option for 50 more.





Ahthankyew

Garden furniture and cosy cardies

I know I am getting older, but I somehow never realised how much older I was getting. Having once again joined the ranks of the owner occupiers of the world, I am starting to look at the world differently.

Like, hmm lets get some nice garden furniture to make best use of what's left of summer.

arrghhhh...me buying garden furniture?? I am getting old...All thats left now is for me to stock up on cardigans to wear while outside sat on the wicker chairs we we just bought at a local store......I did manage to haggle him down a bit though.

I must offset this tendency towards old age and retirement thinking, by buying the biggest most sophisticated BBQ I can find. I've seen a few of those gas ones with mega burners o them...oh yes...that'll do nicely.

Ahthankyew

Flatulence has returned

I am very proud to report, that after a short and noticable break, flatulence has once again become part of my life.

I'd like to thank all those responsible for giving me back this gift to humanity, and of course to you dear reader for bothering to read this far.

Actually this is a side effect of my reducing my morphine doses and my bowels starting to fire up again. But where there's a fart, there life, so lets rejoice in that rather pungent tang while we can.

Ahthankyew

Internet, oh how I've missed you

Strictly speaking we've not really been without, there was an unsecured signal available in the area, we think from the local car dealership at the end of our street. It was weak and we could only see a bar or so when sat up in the attic holding our laptops at just the right angle, but we certainly didn't go without.
Not quite as bad as the Southpark internet is gone episode.
But now we have our own back, as well as our landline phone, so we can get our PC's, macs, and ipods all synced up again anywhere in the house...life is good again, 20MB internet is an absolute joy when you have it.

I'll be downloading more aeroplane porn in no time.

The house is really starting to take shape now, more and more boxes have been cleared, the attic has had a couple of tidy ups and my guitars and recording gadgets now have their own special corner. I am missing several pedals and things which were in a drawer before we moved..but they've been transferred somehow and will be in a box somewhere.
My DIY efforts were not entirely successful, I simply could not drill the holes in the ceiling needed to fit the lights in the study, so we'll have to stick with lamps in there for now until I work out a solution. But the attic has light now, and soon the shed will too.

We have to get hold of some garden furniture soon, to make full use of our patio area while summer is still here, and also some shelving for the shed and attic. There's a cool outlet shop round the corner selling garden furniture and so on, but only open on weekends, so we'll pop round there this weekend.
A few more trips to Ikea are also on the cards, for a 2nd sofa for downstairs and cheap cheap cheap shelves to put my model collection in some kind of order in the shed.

I am planning to turn upstairs into a home cinema area with a large electric screen at one end of the room, but the only supplier I had lined up wants 150quid to ship to The Netherlands. Thats too much, so I'll try to locate someone in Holland or nearby, its a low priority task.

There's still some issues with our old apartment to deal with due to our collegue not taking it, the landlord has issued an ultimatum to clear it out by the 16th August or he'll fine us €1500. But we've had a word with them and they are extending the deadline till the 1st Sept, which hopefully will allow us to find another collegue who wants to take it on, or get the 1st collegue to go in and rip up the carpets and dispose of them.


Nothing very comedic happening here as you can tell, its all busy busy busy getting things unpacke and placed and seeing how things go as we settle in. We're starting to find lots of nice things we like, the afternoon sun on our balcony for example, and things we don't like, like the over abundance of mosquitoes. But overall we're really enjoying settling in.

Bina has agreed to let me have the study for the most part, and she will use some attic space for her work, unless myself or Jodie are up there disturbing her, so that seems a good compromise.

Went to the bank today to inform them of our change of address and sort out some credit cards and other essential things we need now we're officially settled in Holland.

Everything is looking good....mind you, I'm still stoned on Morphine, so its probably all really shit and I just don't care ;)



Ahthankyew

DIY sucks

I just realised why my brothers house is always so well maintained. It's cos he's really good at DIY.
I however am not,never have been and thats why I have spent the last hour and all my enegry reserves trying to drill a 1/8" wide hole into the ceiling to mount the lights in the study. I have of course failed, since I need a hole at least 1 inch deep in which to place the rawl plugs...but I have managed to do about 1/4"....Not good, especially when you consider I have 3 more of these holes to drill.

I can't blame my tools, I bought a good cordless powerdrill with a hammer action and a full set of brand name bits, including masonery bits. But the bloody ceiling apears to be concrete re-enforced with diamond.. Man its hard work. Especially stood on step ladders holding a heavy drill up.

I am having to take a break and doing a quick google to see if I am missing a trick here...Perhaps I am. One DIY site suggests drilling pilot holes. So I will see if I can drill a smaller pilot hole any easier.

Some rooms I don't have to do any drilling, it all depends on the way the light fits. A few of them screw directly into the lighting wire casing with no trouble but some require extra support and those need drilling. If I can't get the 4 holes drilled in the study I shall have a go at the halls and attic before heading out to fit the light in the shed.

Once thats done though I think thats the hard stuff sorted. I have to dismantle, move and reassemble an Ikea shelving unit in the attic, then its up to the pro's to come in and fit a couple of walls to complete things.

Oh internet is still not on yet, I misread the text they sent, it should be on on Monday.

Anyway, better crack on, I hate DIY...wish my brother was here, he'd have it done in minutes.



Ahthankyew

1 week on.

Having one of my late nights due to sore mouth, so been watching TV and doing a bit of internetting on my still leeched signal. We should have our own internet back on line tomorrow so no need to pop upstairs to get a 1 bar signal.

Funny how dependent we all get on the internet these days. I've even been getting into Facebook...no, I don't know why either, I am hoping its a fad that will fade quite soon.

Well its been a week, and I am starting to settle into the new house...mind you I have been mildly stoned the whole week and its hard to dislike anything when you're stoned :D

A small problem did crop up with the transfer of our apartment to our new collegue, who despite saying he wanted the apartment and us arranging with the landlord for him to take it, he decided when he saw it, that he didn't want it and opted for an identical, but empty apartment upstairs!!!!!
I didn't think our wallpaper was that bad, but meh!!

Not normally an issue you might think. except for the strange way things are done here in Holland, our apartment needed to be empty when we left or we had to have an arrangment in place with the new tennant to buy our stuff which we had agreed to leave.
Since our new collegue changed his mind at the last minute we no longer have a guarantee that the next tennant in our place is going to want our carpets and stuff. Even more annoying is the fact that we had to turn another home hunting collegue down becuase I promised this collegue the apartment as he asked 1st.

Oh its all a pain and complex, and might end up costing us a lot of money, but we'll have to just wait and see. There's a lot of bad shit that could happen but equally it might all work out just fine. Waiting and seeing is something I am getting quite used to now, so there's no point getting stressed out over worst case...if I did that I'd be in a helluva state with the potential worst cases I am facing.

While I am not at all happy at being put in this situation, the new collegue is equally upset about the hassle he's caused and we'll just have to try to sort it out as best we can.....might mean no more guitars for a while I suppose...oh..see there's always a silver lining.

The new house is really nice, but we do seem to be located in the middle of mosquito central, we've been getting bitten to buggery since we moved in..well I have at least. I've bought some of those plug in repellent gadgets to see if that helps, and will try to locate some of those citronel candles.
Course it could also be fleas, the last owners had a big old dog, and it might be his old guests trying to find some food....Harvey has been scratching a lot too, so maybe we need to wait for his frontline infected blood to kill them all and see what happens.

Bina and I stayed up till 2am last night, hoping to catch a rare glimpse of the Northern lights which were possibly going to be seen this far south due to some increased solar activity this week..We stood out on our balcony and looked to the skys for quite some time....then I got bored and went to bed. No lights unfortunatly despite the intense solar flares the last few days. All the same, its nice to have a balcony. I'll try to be a bit more romantic when less stoned.

Today was also my last RT treatment, as detailed on my cancer blog. So that also means a new routine to my days, no more having to work around my daily appointments. I've been warned to expect continued pain and increased bouts of tiredness over the next few weeks as part of the treatment after effects, but I think the only thing I care about is getting the painless use of my tongue back...Tiredness can always be cured with sleep or coffee :D

The Ovation guitar arrived today from the US, very nice indeed, though I am a teeny bit ticked off that its a Korean made one and not a US one...Part of the main reason I bought it was to get hold of one of the final US made ones, now that the US factory is being either closed or reduced...In fairness the ebay listing never stated US or Korean so its my fault for not checking, but it is a really sweet guitar and it will bring a lot of pleasure. I've always wanted an Ovation ever since I remember seeing Joan Armatrading play one back in the 70's/80's.
An attempt to purchase a silent classical guitar really cheap seems to have stalled though, the ebay seller is not responding to my requests to send me an invoice that includes the cost of shipping the The Netherlands...no idea why, but if they don't do it I can't pay for it, and that deal looks like it will fold.

And finally, since I am starting to get tired. Our wonderful piece of art has attracted its 1st admirer. One of our neigbours popped round today and was checking it out. Bina was well pleased.
We have been speaking to the Artist about producing a personalised version of the updated 2010 image including a picture of us and our new house, he's happy to do that, so we are really pleased that we can get a 1 off piece of cool art that is totally personal to us. As soon as Jodie gets back from her holiday to her dads we're going to have a picture taken of the 4 of us (Harvey is part of the family) in front of our new home and then get that image included in a special Breda 2010 collage...how cool is that?

ok time for bed, this post is long enough.

Ahthankyew

wow....thats....ermmm hard??

I got my Ziggo box hooked up and yes its got a lot more english channels on it and the quality of the pic is much better than standard analogue..it'll be cool to watch Spongebob Squarepants again in English :D (one of my guilty pleasures)

What I was surprised by though was the number of apparently free porn channels that come with the basic system. I certainly didn't order them..honest.

And when I say porn channels, I mean PORN channels, real hardcore stuff...real, real hardcore....wow...There are things I did not know were possible, between men and women and men and men and men and...hang on is that a man or a woman???

Anyway.

I better see if I can work out how to do the parental lock on those, if not for Jodie then at least for the mothers-in-law when they come to visit..don't want them thinking we look at that stuff..often.

Ahthankyew

we moved

Move went well though took much longer than we expected, the new house is taking time to get into shape but 1 room at a time we are putting in the lights and furnishings to make it right.

No internet yet, but I am leeching some bandwidth from someones unsecured network for now to check mail and make a few posts.

Ours should be online by the 7th, maybe sooner.

I ordered a Ziggo cable TV box before we moved in, looks like I didn't need to as the basic channels already seem to be in place, but not to worry, it gives us a few more english channels while we try to sort out a satallite system.

Will update when I can, but 1st the study needs to be sorted.




Ahthankyew

Big Move

Big move happens on Friday, exciting times, Bina's been organising everything to death in her usual way and getting stressed out. I've been a chocolate fireguard most of the time, between being too tired to give a damn and too stoned to know what to do; I've not been pulling my weight. But it looks like the combined efforts of Bina, Jodie and me, in that order, have finally pulled it off.

Pretty much everything is in boxes and ready to go, van's booked and our friend oscar is going to do the driving and new house is empty and ready for us to move in.


Going to be sad to leave this place, it has been a good home, and of course our 1st "home" here in Holland.
But exciting times ahead, a new home, a new start and with a bit of luck an end to the cancer crap.

Internet may not be available for a few days after our move so not sure if I'll be updating for a while.

But where there's a will there's usually a group of greedy money grabbing relatives.....or summit.


Ahthankyew

heart still ruling head.

We found a 2009 version and indeed a 2010 version but we are not so keen on the 2010 becuase he superimposed the famous Valasquez painting over the image, see here it didn't work for me. We contacted the artist directly and he's happy to supply us with a 2009 version at much less than we paid the gallery.

We're debating whether to have it as a standard framed print or as an interesting idea he suggested of printed on metal and covered in liquid glass....we have no idea what that is,but he is going to send us an example to let us consider it.

eh by eck, this art lark is quite good fun i can feel the sophistimication levels rising daily :D

Ahthankyew

heart rules head

We bought it.

There was a twist, The internet pic was the 2009 edition of his work, it appears he updates it every year, and includes new landmarks and things he missed before.. Ours is a 2006 edition, which has some missing details, especially some of the modern art and the new Must See cinema.

That does not detract at all from the beauty of the work though, and now I am going to try to hunt out a 2010 version to buy and make it a comparison piece :D

Ahthankyew

Art that moves you

Bina and I are agonising over a decision to buy a piece of art thats on display at a local art shop..we're agonising because its stunningly beautiful and also quite expensive...not Picasso expensive but nearly a grand is a lot for us.

What do you think? Though looking at it on computer is just no substitute for viewing the real thing, it is stunning and large, over a metre wide, its a limited edition of 15, fancy digital collage of photographic images of the landmarks around Breda mixed brilliantly with period sketches and drawings. The more you look at it the more you recognise pieces of the town, from the imposing old Church to some of the wacky modern art.



there's a more detailed zoom in view available here

We're going to sleep on it and see if its still available tomorrow, Bina tried to haggle over the price but the lady in the shop would not budge as she has others interested..if thats true, we need to make a decision tomorrow.

hmmm hmmm hmmmm I suppose it makes more sense than buying a guitar ;) And it would really look fantastic in our new home, a fantastic representation of our new city.

We'll see if hearts overrule heads in the morning, or if fate will make the choice for is when we wander past the shop tomorrow.


Ahthankyew

Morphine... :)

As a result of the near crippling pain from the sores on my tongue I reluctantly accepted the doctors offer of some low grade morphine for the pain.

Nice warm fuzzy feelings as you would expect.....especially when mixed with JD and coke ;)

Nah in truth I'm only having a drink tonight because the pain has been quite extreme and the mix of morphine and jack has been quite effective, it has not made me all stoned as I expected, but it does have an impact, I am a little woozy which is quite pleasant and detached which is not quite so pleasant. Talking is still painful but due to the effects of the morphine I am able to speak now, which today was just agony.

Side effects of morphine are interesting, It kills libido and gives you constipation.........no changes there from normal then.

Never been quite sure why people enjoy drugs, the high it gives you is so artificial, and I actually dislike that sense of detachment and control that opiates have on you..grateful for the pain relief of course, but am really hoping I can drop this morphine in a few days once the source of the pain clears up.
It has also had me sleeping most of today and indeed its time to got to bed again....toodles




Ahthankyew

arrgghh silver surfers.........grrrr

Ok. I followed your instructions on your Blog but there is no anonymous box to tick. There is a profile list that goes like this: Google Account, Live Journal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM and OpenID. So still can't leave a comment and I think that's where Ann has difficulties. Never mind, I tried. Mum

Thats because you clicked on a specific blog entry...try just going to lifegamesandflatulence and scrolling to the blog post you want to commetn on then clicking on the 0 comments link....it does give you an anonymous option, and also asks for a word verification.





Ahthankyew

Not a lotta things happening

I am updating my cancer blog daily with all sorts of juicy bits and bobs of pain and depression, but this main blog is getting a bit neglected.

Mainly cos there's not much happening. Well thats not quite true, the move is currently our big focus. Bina, organised as always has a white board listing all the tasks that need doing and for quite some time those with Brian beside them have steadfastly refused to be cleared off.

Thats mainly due to the need to wait 2 weeks before moving before informing the utility companies, which resulted in me navigating through some incomrehensible flash heavy websites to register as a user and finally tell them we were moving..it took a while but its done.

We were going to use a professional house mover, but my god they are expensive, and also not so many of them in Breda, which is a pain since they charge you travelling time to Breda. Not on really.
So we have roped in a few students and one or 2 people who are not going on their hols to helps us..I dunno at this point what my physical condition is going to be since its right at the tail end of my treatment when side effects are expected to be severe, but we'll have to just muddle through as best we can. At the moment as long as I can drive the van I will have some useful purpose on the day.

The van is booked, we're packing things every day in preperation (though I'm not packing as much or as fast as Bina wants...there's still 12 days) and everything is set for the off. It should be a fairly painless process, since we don't have a lot of stuff here in the apartment, but something is bound to screw up.

Very exciting...oh and I bought another guitar...I'm adding this in here at the end so that I can honestly say I have mentioned it when Bina asks why theres another guitar arriving..it was a bargain..honest ;)

Steps away and turns quetly whistling to himself as he fades into the background.


Ahthankyew

End of the Academic year and now for holidays

We had our end of academic year BBQ when all the IGAD and IMEM staff get together and eat large amounts of meat and drink lots of beer and wine. I wasn't able to drink much but I had a few glasses of wine..which tasted terrible..not becuase it was (though it may have been) but becuase my sense of taste is extremly strange at the moment.

As indeed am I, I had to shave off my beard when half of it fell off from the RT, but I decided to go back to a teen look and have my moustache...ermmm I dunno..I look like a fat German or a fat american depending on who you ask..I might just get rid of it all until I can grow a beard again.
I am definitly having an image problem!! I may have to buy a stick on beard, and perhaps some sideburns ;)

It was nice to see everyone at the party, though I have to be honest I'm getting a bit tired of people asking me how am I? I know they mean well and thats why I've not been rude when replying but after a dozen times or so it starts to wear. I need to get a T-shirt.."Am fine, having RT, some bad days, might not speak, but doing well and looking forward to coming back to work"....hmm not a bad idea.

But of course the flip side is that they are all really concerned about me and that feeling that people care is probably worth all the minor irritations that come along, it really is nice to feel that I belong to such a tight group of collegues.

Emotionally I'm also much much better, the events of the sad today posting were a bit of a setback, but I am definitly feeling much more happy and secure in things now. I can't do much about the fact that 1 person seems to dislike my loud brash persona, but its only 1 person, out of 100's of others I've got to know in Holland, and that 1 person is simply wrong..so balls to it. Why should I change what I say and do to please one person!

See thats much more the Brian I am used to being. No more stupid crying at the drop of a hat. I'm back baby.

Ahthankyew

Bugger

We lost.

And it was a crap game...they really didn't deserve the win.

It was sad to see so many thousands of orange clad dutch fans shambling home through the streets of Breda from the town centre which was absolutly packed. Bina and I and several work collegues camped at a bar just outside the centre where some seating could be had.

One thing though..sad though they were, they took their loss well and didn't start any riots, it was nice to see that, sad, but nice.

Ahthankyew

Orange Football Fever

Tomorrow there is a soccerball match happening in South America or somewhere.
Apparently the Dutch have a team competing and are doing rather well, It seems they've got to the final..well done them.

I thought it might be a good idea to pop into town tomorrow to help support the poor unknown dutch team and see if we can perhaps persuade a bar in town to maybe put the game on one of the screens.
A few collegues from work have all agreed to come with me and to help us stand out from the crowd and help show our support we agreed to wear something orange.

This is my effort.




The big silly hat is unfortunatly required since I can't really expose the skin thats being exposed to the Radiotherapy to the sun...So I had to go out and buy a big stupid hat..

I am of course dreading the fashion critique I may get when they see me in said big hat, contrasting with my nice tasteful Dutch Lion Tee shirt with mouth roaring flap feature ....I'm nothing if not stylish :)





And here's a close up of me, now minus my precious face fur pet, which fell off yesterday...no really it did....well half did I had to shave the other half off to match it...all thats left is the tufty bit under my lip...very Jazzzzz ...hmmm Niiiiiice



Mind you considering the incredible thunderstorm and rainfall thats going on right at this moment a full set of orange plastic poncho's might be a wise investment for tomorrow night.


Hup Holland Hup

Ahthankyew

Closer to god?

Someone asked me, quite recently in fact..."has cancer brought you closer to god, or humility."
This was a comment on a post I put here, I decided not to publish it, as the rest of it was a bit of a mad rant.

Bit of a strange question but then again the person asking it is a bit strange.

No.

Now you have your answer, I think it might be wise to keep your god questions to yourself becuase I have no interest.




Ahthankyew

PC or Mac?

I bought one of thse gadgets on ebay (my favourite shopping place) for less than a tenner.


To let me have a try at hooking my guitars up to the PC and experiment with various audio/recording packages.
It arrived pretty quick, and is a simple enough toy. I used it on my Mac 1st because it comes with Garage Band already installed..a bit of fiddling later I had Frankie hooked up and wailing away through the headphones...wow...it really was impressive and I'm quite sold on GB.

This morning I installed the drivers and other stuff on the PC...downloaded some packages and.....man those suck...the PC has some kind of issue with latency resulting in a very long (though adjustable at the expence of quality) delay between plucking a note and hearing it.

Why? I mean really...Garage Band has no noticable latency, even though I am sure some signal processing is taking place, but still, you pluck, you hear.. On PC..you pluck........you go make tea.....you hear.

Rubbish. My 1st real tangable example of a Mac (lower CPU power than my PC) clearly outperforming a PC.

I shall be using the Mac to experiment with computer sound recording from now on, not even going to bother with the PC.


Ahthankyew

Ik ben trots om een Nederlander te zijn

wow, how cool to be in Holland when they get into the final of the world cup...I didn't go into town for the game cos I thought it would be busy and rowdy Yes I am sure it is.....But I am going on Sunday for sure. It will be an amazing party if they win.



Ahthankyew

Via the medium of mime

Although I don't want to dwell too much on the cancer thing in this blog, I thought I'd put down a little note on whats going on at the moment, but in true not concentrating style I posted this in the cancer blog by mistake....so here it is again.

I can't talk at the moment. The Radio Therapy I am having has started to kick in with its side effects, at the 2 week mark as promised pretty much on schedule.

As side effects go, its not too bad, and tbh I can cope with just not talking for 4-6 weeks..I'm sure it will meet with everyone else's approval :D as they get a word in edgewise...plus theres the bonus that anything I say won't be misconstrued and turned into something nasty.

But it is a bit strange, funny and frustrating. I "can" talk if I have to, it just hurts like hell when I form certain sounds which are a bit random and too painful to experiment with. Today is a little easier than yesterday but fact is I have another RT treatment later today which will kick it back in tonight and subsequent treatments will make it progressively worse. So silence is the other of the day now.

I'm kinda dreading this weeks sessions though since the dreaded sore throat from hell is due to make its appearance any day now.

Of course the worst thing is, while its perfectly possible to indicate you can't speak with a few hand gestures..I think its pretty much impossible to say, I can't speak, can you speak to me in English!!!!

I am thinking of getting a few t-shirts printed up, but can't think of anything funny enough to put on them, I'll probably just have to carry a card round with me, "Sorry can't speak at the moment due to medical treatment, please speak to me in English..thanks"...need to be a big card, might just hang it round my neck.

and maybe take up mime classes ;)

Ahthankyew

Getting back into it.

Ok finally, my PC is up and running again, sadly no quad core, but I did buy a decent E6550 on ebay and its increased the performance index in windows 7 by quite a bit.

I've also installed and set up all the gadgets and those I don't want/need/or don't work, will go on ebay.

Time now to make a start on some coding work I've had on hold for some time, as well as giving myself a refresher course in coding to plan my courses for next block.

I've got my PSP and DS dev systems in place as well, the PSP one was giving me a lot of grief, until I realised its IP address was conflicting with the wireless network.

Its not as silent as my old beast..but its certainly a nice PC..Windows 7 is very impressive and I really like the new Office 2010 suite which I will buy when the trial runs out.

Aside from some issues with IE8 not accessing work webmail I've had no problems at all with Win7. A huge huge improvment over Vista. But I do wish I could figure out how to get the cool Aero desktop to work on it..It worked with my spare keyboard which had a specific key..but not with my new split keyboard which does not have such a key.

My ex Sister-in-law thinks my blog is hilarious....not sure you'll find this entry very funny though ;)



Ahthankyew

simple things mean a lot.

One thing that strikes me most about Holland, at least this part of it in the south. Is the near constant friendliness of the people, and also their honest trusting nature.

I mentioned before about beign caught without cash in the pub and finding they didn't take my pin card, they just point you to the nearest cash machine

Today also, in Tilburg, I saw more evidence of this basic capacity for honesty and trust. The buses in Holland have been switching over to a type of prepay card called an OV chipcard..as a result less and less people buy tickets. But today there must have been a rush on them, as the driver of my bus to the Verbeeten Instituut had run out of Dag Kartes, a day ticket most people buy that lets them get around.

As usual I asked for en dag Kartje alstublieft, and got a reply in Dutch that said something like, no tickets, blah blah blah..Oh thinks I, in my usual UK brought up way..I'm stuffed and have to get off...

As I am turning round he repeats the last part again and I then had to own up to not understanding..Quick as a flash, in perfect English, he explains, he's run out of day tickets, but I'm welcome to ride on the bus and buy a day ticket on the way back.

Wow...just such a simple little show of trust and faith from a bus driver...can you Imagine that in the UK?? I know I can't.

I thanked him and took my seat, on my return journey I did indeed bay a dag kartje, even though I could have got away with a single at half the price....But trust should always be maintained and repayed. Thats why Holland isn't full of miserable cynical tossers who hate their lives.

Life here is just amazing.

Ahthankyew

The replacement for the guitar that never was.

The PRS clone that I bought which never arrived seems to actually still be in some kind of postage hell..The seller has emailed me again to ask if I have recieved it yet, of course nothing has arrived and I've kept them up to date. But since getting my refund I've been hunting for a new guitar to replace it..

The seller sent me a tracking number again though and this time it has been updated, it appears to be floating around in The Netherlands somewhere, and has apparently been the subject of attempts to be delivered to somewhere in Amsterdam...perhaps customs? I dunno, but either way it has not arrived, and though there does indeed seem to be progress I have gone ahead and sourced a new guitar...and what a beauty I have found.

She's a bit of a frankenstien, built by a guitar enthusast from genuine fender neck (1999) and body(2008 contoured deluxe), and choice parts. I like this, since it means some love and care went into its construction and its going to be quite unique.

It is basically a telecaster custom deluxe...woooo..sweet...can't wait to get my hands on it.. It was right at the very top end of my kitty for a replacement guitar but I think she'll be worth it..I now have a good telecaster with extra tone options to play with.






Ahthankyew

Oops...Eng-er-land are out

Now we don't have to listen to any more boring, this is our year, 1966, our best chance, best team, it's coming home, every one else looks crap, we're the greatest..BOLLOX for a few more years.


Seriously though, what is it with England football fans....surely you realise you have a good, but not great side and thats evident by the fact that you've not really won a dam thing since 1966 and that was with home advantage and a bloody lucky goal.

As a Scot I have no such delusions about my team...if we win we are grateful for our good fortune, if we lose..we at least try to go down fighting, but not much chance of us ever wining the world cup...unless its held in Edinburgh.

Ahthankyew

Joffa Smifff RIP

When I was a young man, I left Sconny Botland to the unknown pastures of Manchester, which at that time was pretty much the centre of the game programming universe..Ocean Software was the cause of this..

Ocean employed two giants of programming Dave Collier, who was the undisputed master of the C64 and the very young prodigy Jonathan "Joffa" Smith. As a very new Z80 coder, Joffa was my hero, despite being a few years younger than me, he was bursting with talent and able to make a ZX spectrum do pretty much anything he wanted.
Parallaxing, smooth scrolling, multi voice sound, masses of sprites, animation, everything..he did it, and what was even more amazing was he liked to show you.

I can honestly say without fear that Joffa taught me more as a Z80 coder than anyone I ever met before, or since. He was genuinly a hero of mine.

We lost touch when I left Ocean, a few emails or forum posts every few years confirmed we were both still around..But I always regard my time in his company as a bit special, a masterclass in coding and one of the great developing times in my life.

He lost his way a little in later life, and he drifted a bit further away from those he knew in the early days.

He died today aged 43 after a long illness.

The Games Industry has lost someone very very special, I have lost someone who influenced everything I've ever done as a coder.

RIP Joffa.

You will be missed far more than you can ever realise.


Ahthankyew

things to cheer you up.

Couple of pics of our great day out at the Airshow

yup..thats me..it had started raining, not heavy but enough to flush the rest of the VIP's in into the marquee....Me, the hardy scot that I am was quite used to a bit of drizzle, besides I was watching the Spitfire :D you should have seen the grin on my face.




And here is me ignoring everyone else....talking to the pilot of that same Spitfire..



See the grin? It never left my face the whole day.

Ahthankyew

sad today

Its been a strange day that I was looking forward to, as I was expecting to hear some good things at work over recent developments I've been ermmm developing!

But instead, today, I'm desperately sad and upset over something that I never saw coming, someone has shaken my very real and currently very raw feelings by making it clear that they regarded me in a very negative way I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined.

In any public forum there's going to be things you can't discuss, even though this is intended to be a public mind dump for me...but as other people are involved, I can't really say much, the person in question does not as far as I know even know about this blog, but I know others do. It has been dealt with privately and no one need speculate over ID's.

Right now, for all sorts of reasons I'm emotionally very fragile, I literally cry at adverts on TV, sad songs, people saying nice things, people saying sad things people just waving...and people saying things that make me sound like someone I don't recognise. Its all side effects from the surgery and dealing with having a major illness, I can logically deal with that and make excuses when I’m crying at a sad song lyric, but still…I cry a lot, I feel every emotion welling up and am totally unable to stop it…I’m bad tempered, impatient and very very emotional.

Perhaps I'd be better able to deal with this a few months ago, or in a few months’ time, but today it just screams out and I can't shake it, all the good vibes I have been getting from people and now something negative stands out. Something I can't even get my head fully around. I don't expect everyone in my life to like me, but equally I don't want or expect anyone to feel the way this person does about me and has kept under wraps for months it seems.

Since when did I give a damn about one person’s opinion? Dunno...I really don’t! Normally I would not be in the slightest bit bothered if I was accused of being a mass murdering nun raping baby eater because I’m very happy and comfortable with who I am, and believe me I’ve done a huge amount of soul searching the last few months to review what kind of person I am and how I will be remembered…yes that’s maudlin I know, but ask anyone with cancer…you think about this…a lot, it goes with the % badge.

It’s not as if I'm emotionally close to this person though I have always liked and respected them and got on well till this revelation of feelings. Now I have to try to see past this and rebuild what I thought was a friendship but perhaps was more of a toleration. Maybe it can't be rebuilt and thats also sad.

Still it hurts to hear people say things that I don't feel are true but clearly they do...Where did the seed that generated those feelings come from? Me, somewhere perhaps...a throwaway comment or a misunderstood remark? But I'm sorry I don't accept that I'm the person they see, indeed some examples of my behaviour were things I remember clearly and I saw them in a very very different way, though I now realise why they acted how they did at the time which I remember thinking was a bit “off”.

I need to try not to react badly over this even though right now I feel like I’ve been kicked in the nuts while just recovering from being on the floor after being kicked in the nuts!

Anyway.....I don't intend to discuss details, I just want to record this here so that hopefully when things are better and I'm back to being my old water off a ducks back self and this person stops taking my every word as an insult, I can look back at this and wonder where this girlie feelings emotional crap is coming from, must be too many female hormones in the apartment just now.

Oh gawd noooo...perhaps my radiation superpower is girlie feelings....arrrrghhh, I mean whaaaaa!!


Ahthankyew

and the point was???

Just back from my 1.25 appointment with the dentist, an appointment I had to rearrange my entire day around..an appointment which was supposed to be so important they re-arranged their day around it when it was booked, an appointment where I had to cycle accross town to get there on time

And what happened during this appointment?

They just gave me my dental moulds and told me to give them to the Dental Hygenist when I saw her next....on Thursday.

WTF!!! That was a total waste of my time and interfered a lot with my day.
I hope they don't try that when I'm in a grumpy mood or they may experience a bit more of my dulcet scottish tones than they are used to hearing.



Ahthankyew

Harvey's new friends

We needed a dog sitter when we went away for Bina's Birthday weekend, fortunately some students helped out and entertained Harvey




I dunno why the world is sideways here



Harvey clearly had a good time :D



Ahthankyew

Ahhh but he was Fantastic

Unless you spent some time in Manchester in the 90's this probably means nothing......

But a true comedy genius has passed on. (aarrghhh cancer again!!!)



Ahthankyew

Fantastic Day.

Yesterday Bina and I were given a huge and unexpected treat. A student at NHTV, Jan Pijpers, who I don't actually teach but chatted and joked with, was part of a group of students who organised a welcome back gift for me. Which of course was my lovely mad black kilt (which needs taking in still). Jan however also managed to discover that I have a love of aircraft...and his dad is an officer in the Dutch Air Force, responsible for organising events...such as the Airforce's annual air display in nearby Glize Rijen :D

In an INCREDIBLY kind gesture, Lt Col Pijpers arranged for us to have VIP tickets to the event, and we therefore got to see the show from the exclusive comfort of the VIP marquee, where we were introduced to the Lt General in charge of the airforce, the Air Commodore in charge of the base and were treated to food and drink all through the event.
Loads of fantastic displays including the Red Arrows all watched in comfort and style with just about every senior officer of the Dutch Air Force present. I took over 150 pics, so it'll be a little while before I can sort them through for posting, but I will do soon.

Fantastic, just fantastic. A particular highlight for me was the Hunter and Spitfire displays, I am much more into Vintage aircraft than Bina who loves big noisy jets, so the Spitfire display was fantastic. Imagine my near schoolgirl glee reaction then when Lt Col Pijpers, taps me on the shoulder and introduces me to Air Commodore Chris Lorraine, who was the pilot flying the Spitfire display.

He joined us for a drink at our table as I quizzed him about this Spitfire and his experience of it. He had just started flying it and was equally excited about it, it was an absolute pleasure to talk to him and hear a little of his background. He'd only had 10 flying hours in the 1942 Spitfire, so he gets a big thrill every time he flies it.

I've never been to an air show as a VIP before and I have to say I never want to go any other way again, just an amazing experience, Lt Col Pijpers was an exceptional host with his son acting as a perfect guide all day, we were treated like royalty and the smile took hours to leave my face. I tried to express my delight as I was leaving and thanked him again for the 50th time, but I think it just came out as "wibble wobble flubble" I must write a letter of thanks and appreciation for making such a memorable day possible.

I dont' have enough superlatives to express how much I personally enjoyed it, Bina was also totally overwhelmed by the event as all the big thundering jets whizzed by her smile got even bigger. A perfect start to her Birthday weekend, this was just as much a treat for her as me. I kept turning to her saying "how cool is this?" in an ever higher pitched voice.


Later, to top things off..Bina went for a pre-birthday girlie night out, with drinks before hand, still in our VIP formal wear as we had little time to change (I looked AWESOME in a suit with tasteful Simpson tie). When the girls headed off to do whatever it is that girls do when alone in the presence of large amounts of food and drink...we boys went for a curry.

VIP Airshow and curry.

How, I mean really, how can you have a better day?






Ahthankyew

OOOHHH

I'm giving up guitar, its just obvious I am never going to be able to play like the guy I saw tonight at the Mezz

Newton Faulkner, at this point some pics may help ID the chappie if you dunno who he is but my phone went into 20 secs to take a picture mode so I didn't get any.

Wow...just amazing skill, great voice, and bloody funny chap who put on an extremely impressive one man show that is hard to beat. Bina couldn't make it so went with my collegue and fellow guitar nut Oliver, who was impressed.

I was a bit pissed though at the time it took for him to come on stage.. The Mezz is standing room only and after an enjoyayble few songs by the support act who's name I can't quite remember, there was an over 30 min wait for the ginger guy to come on. Standing around waiting for over an hour on a very very sticky floor != fun!

Worth the wait for sure but by the end of his set I was really desperate to get a seat, and a drink.

Oh and what the fuck is wrong with people who pay a fairly hefty price to come to a music gig and then talk loudly OVER the music the whole time...I asked them twice to stop talking and twice they very politely appologised and stopped for 4 or 5 minutes.

crazy..

anyway....enjoy a vid, I will try to find pics from someone who whent there. He played this..amazing (edit..managed to find a vid someone posted from the night..and if you are really clever you can work out which of the silloetted heads is mine...hint not the tall guy (to his left))




Also given the way things are in my life just now..this really got to me when it was was performed. (edit..someone posted the actual performance from the Mezz..enjoy)




the Lyrics say ..

And if I had one chance to freeze time
And stand still and soak in everything,
I'd choose right now.

yeah....though by right now, lets say the last couple of years....:D Soaking them all in, they have been amazing. MORE please.

edit

here's a short clip from the actual concert where he was telling a story about how he was in a meeting with some radio people who wanted him to do a cover song and he was trying to break the clear tension of the meeting..it was very funny and of course lead to the amazing cover of Teardrop






Ahthankyew

My g/f...superstar!!

Bina has been working for months on an am dram play with an english speaking theatre company in Dordrecht. She has steadfastly refused to let me hear her rehearse or see her in costume/character

Saturday we finally got to see the grand diva in action. And of course she was brilliant.


As I knew she would be ;)







Ahthankyew

Board, CPU, CPU, Board

Had another attempt at installing my Q6600 quad core CPU, into the new PC, but it won't work. Even though it POST's and goes to set up where it stays happily doing its thing, it simply refuses to boot any kind of OS, hanging within 5 seconds or so of starting to load.

Of course this could be some issue with my board not happy with a Q6600 or it could be the Q6600 that is damaged from the powersurge. I need to try and find someone with a sapre working Q6600 and see if it boots up ok...I'll put some feelers out.

Not too worried about this as a i7 monster PC is in the planning stages so there's no need to spend a fortune here to get this puppy working but if the Q6600 is actually ok, I can sell it to contribute to the i7 monster.

Anyway I tidied up a few issues, its working fine, even with an old and comparativly slow Pentium960D in place it acually nips along quite well with Windows 7. I'll see if I can pick up a modest core duo on ebay to give it a bit of a boost while I am planning/saving

Ahthankyew

The joys and perils of Coffee

I posted this in the cancer blog as it is obviously cancer related but it did make me smile so here is the funny edited for extra 20% funniness.

So today was my consult with the new Radiotherapist/Oncologist at the Dr Verbeeten Institute in Tilburg . I suppose by British terminology you would call it a private clinic, it seems to specialise in cancer and cancer treatment, nice and posh.

I had no idea how long it would take to get there, so I decided to get a taxi from the station and off we went, 12 mins later I arrived 35 minutes early..oh well..I'll know next time.

Nothing much to report aside from a ridiculous Charlie Chaplin moment on my part.

On checking in they give you a token for the coffee machine, ok it was early and I needed a caffiene boost even though I usually don't before seeing the doctor, to avoid coffee breath as he's sticking his head in my mouth. So off I went to get my coffee. Token in...press for coffee/melk/suiker and voila...

Brown and white streams start gushing out of the spouts. Arrghh...no plastic cup dropped down, I rushed to grab a cup from the collection of cups stacked on the sideboard next to the machine, but too late, the precious fluid had stopped flowing..

I walked back to the fancy glass reception desk to ask for a new token, gesticulating fairly mildly I thought and pointing back to the machine. Not realising that the cup I still held in my hand was in fact a used cup, still containing a small amount of coffee from its previous use...

This small amount, now became propelled through the air, watched by me with sinking heart as time slowed down alowing me to track the brown coloured badness headed straight for the young blonde receptionist behind the desk, the blonde, very clean receptionist and her extremely white blouse........

Fortunately for her at least, the momentum of the coffee was more of a slow arc than a straight bullet projection, I was only pointing to the cofee machine absentmindedly after all, not thrashing my arms around in a range.

So the velocity was above "cup escape" velocity but below "in your face(or blouse), bitch" velocity, so the arc slowed and it didn't manage to clear the desk, but it did splash just before the top surface and trickled all the way down before leaving a nice splash on the carpet.

I apologised profusely as she handed me a new token and explained my actions, which she had missed as she was picking up a new token and probably wasn't expecting to be showered with brown liquid, while at work.

New token in place I took more careful note of the instructions in Dutch which I now realised said "first put your cup under the spout", I should read more, especially things in red at the top of coffee machines...I found clean cups and this time managed to provide myself with a full cup of coffee and began my wait....watched by a dozen or so slightly bemused cancer victims waiting for their turn with the still white bloused receptionist.

So I sat and waited for my name to be called, and while I waited, I watched mildly, amused and embarassed as 1st the receptionist cleaned the mess, then a cleaner came to clean the desk and floor.
The cleaner however seemed to be a little stumped. So she called for help. After a very short while, armed with a wealth of exerience in these matters, the cleaners supervisor comes to inspect the coffee spill which had managed to seep between the glass and its holding bolts.

After a few back and forth attempts at cleaning this side then the other, and the word coffee being said often enough to convince me they were talking about coffee,- the rest of the conversation was in Dutch but may have included the phrase some clumsy English man (I'll forgive them)- the supervisor made a call. Answered soon (they are bloody fast these people) by the arrival of the supervisors supervisor. Who, after a few moments of managerial hands on hips having the situation explained to him (the word coffee was used a lot again.),had a go with the cloth as well.
They then tried to remove the stain of coffee that could be seen had slipped in between the glass plates and the mounting bolts.....

Then my name was called and I had to leave the show...which could well have ended up with a whole slew of managers and perhaps even a CEO, saying the word coffee a lot..and something about clumsy Englishmen (no really its ok, they don't know the difference)

I must admit, even though I was the cause (and it was a total accident) I took some pride in knowing I was keeping these 3 fine people in work.



Ahthankyew

All assholes are the same?

Nope...not at all, I know quite a few assholes, by anyones definition they are assholes, but they are nice people generally and I get on with them. Perhaps my own asshole past lets me tolorate them more.

But there is one type of asshole I can't deal with, the racist, arrogant, total no hoper who blames everyone for his problems and has a huge chip on his shoulder that lets him think he's better than everyone with absolutly nothing to back that up.

These kind of assholes, deserve a totally different label, tossers. I can't really abide tossers, so I'm delighted that one I had to work with recently has now left to pastures new, while insulting all the little people he left behind and trying to make himself seem terribly important.

Enjoy the new job tosser...it won't be long before they also realise you are a tosser, perhaps one day you'll realise that its not really cool to be a tosser.....hmmm nah that would require some capacity for intelligent thought not something I've seen much of.




Ahthankyew

What a great town

The sun is shining and of course when the sun is shining the Dutch get out and about.
There's lots going on today, the famous smakvol tasting event where all the local restraunts provide samples of their menus, not quite all you can eat, but loads to try. Unfortunately my mouth can't open wide enough to satisfy my stomaches desires, so I'll pass this year.

Also there's some kind of yoof hippity hoppoity thing going on in town, with music, dancing and skateboarding skillz on display..reespekt.

And as always the town is full of people sat around laughing, chatting and drinking coffee, tea or the odd beer.

I love this place.











Ahthankyew

oooh half so far

I have repaired one of my drives, the main storage data drive...yippee. I did a PCB transplant from an identical donor drive.
I now have all my source code...probably the most valuable asset I have..I did have some of the more recent projects on the back up system but its good to have the historic code back

Now I have to find a donor drive for my Samsung HD300LJ, which was the boot drive and contains some un-backedup paperwork and documents...These drives are a bit thinner on the ground..ebay has one in the USA but they want too much, plus postage plus probably import costs

If anyone has one...let me know, otherwise I'll just have to keep my eyes open

Ahthankyew

unconned???

I bought a cheap t-shirt from the guitar seller I mentioned a few post ago, and left immediate bad feedback...sure enough he got back in touch and refunded me both the cost of the guitar and the t-shirt.

result....he wants the feeback removed...I'll give it a couple of days. He claims another guitar is on the way, if so I will indeed pay for it. But somehow I doubt it..
I'm really not one who has a big downer on human nature, I always give people the benefit of the doubt, so I'll see what develops, but I do rather think the effect of negative feedback and the warning it sends to others may have more to do with his getting back to me than his alleged return from holiday.

How bizzare, as I was typing this..I got a call on my mobile from China....so I assume it was my guitar selling friend apologising for the oversight.....I didn't answer, but I did listen to the message...an apology and a request to pay when it arrives.

Perhaps my faith in human nature is indeed well placed....got my money back and an apology......oh go on then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.



Ahthankyew

New Blog

Not going to be as funny as this one, but I promise I will try to treat cancer with the utter disdain and ridicule it deserves.

My Cancer Blog



Ahthankyew