What makes you happy ?

I have 2 games for the wii. I have a spare controller for the wii. I have the nunchuck controller for the wii. I’m just missing the damn wii. Ah well.. it will arrive. At some point. More time to complete SSX. Did a Pro-Master slopestyle. 9 minutes, 3 tracks (maybe 4). Top Score was ~2.1 million. First go I completed it and was 8000 points off top score. Really annoying and I couldn’t complete again. Was trying too hard, missing combos.

Ever have a day where work is the same, nothing different but you can’t seem to get ahead of the game? Something crops up, gets in the way… today was my day. And I wasn’t up late either.

I had written a few paragraphs on some thoughts as I was trudging around the muddy fields with Winston but when checking it for typos I realised that it would be very close to home for someone – not good.

And hopefully I’ll catch Firas in irc to get some code written…

The mini. Was impressed that it burned a dvd iso for me with no additional software. I have something on Global Warming to watch when it’s not too inconvenient. But I flipping my lid at it later. Had to install RealPlayer so I could get radio on it and for some reason it wouldn’t work. So I restarted it. And i-bloody-Tunes starts. And iScrobbler wants to connect. So I have to wait to get Synergy going for decent mouse control which is annoying. Google ‘disable itunes autostart’ – no joy. It’s in a setting I cannot find. Check a few boxes. Restart. Same damn thing. More googling. Zilch. Drag iTunes to the Trash. Try and drag iScrobbler – no, can’t. It’s running. Did I ask it to run? No. Can I find an autostart menu anywhere? Not obvious, no (I’m sure it will exist somewhere though). Quit it, trash it. Restart – and all is as it should be. I had a TFFT moment. But what’s with an add-on pulling up a main program? That is very very odd. Bad as far as I see it. It’s a damn plugin – they should not pull strings.
Reversi is really easy too. It has useless strategy built in. Or maybe I’m just damn good :)

This made me laugh today – If Operating Systems ran the Airlines

Another day of feeling like crap.

Still, much work has been done, problems solved.

Looking at pre-ordering the Wii. That’s £220 for the basics, £40/game – I want several games …. at a minimum that’s 500 quid I’ve spent. In my head anyway.

I’m sure I wrote about 10 days ago that we’d had a guy round for an aerial quote. He wanted £366 for a new aerial, amp/booster, cables and a good pic on up to 6 tv’s. Not that we will use 6 but plans are made. That price J thought was a bit high. So we get another quote. £180. This will get us a clip-on digital aerial, new holes in the front and back of the house, lots of co-ax and a ‘booster’ that looked like some cheap plastic. The first guy was on his own, seemed confident, left a written quote, was a company guy. This latest quote was from a pair of guys who did a “D’ya think they’ll need….” “Yeah, at the least they will” routine, left nothing in writing, appeared to want money more than the job – they waited just that fraction too long when I said I’ll think about it. The first guy said “Here’s the quote”, described it and then left. These two hung around as if waiting for me to say “Okay guys” and I just know they’d have done it in an hour or less (“We guarantee it mate, we’ll even tune all the TV’s in”). Half the price is nice but they need to look and act the part too. I’m ringing the local TV shop tomorrow – get a personal rec.

Michael.
There are many words I can just type. As badly as I do type my fingers can hop around and with the use of the backspace and delete keys it’s not too bad. Words that I spell infrequently (like that one) I have to look at the keyboard for but it’s no huge problem. But then I have words like Michael. I can’t just type it. I have to really look at the keyboard and command each finger to hit each key. It’s not that I have an aversion to the word, just that the letters seem to be wrong somehow so I need to concentrate more than normal. Even writing it takes that “How do I spell it” moment. I can spell diarrhoea with less effort. Odd.

Thank you to everyone for the good words yesterday :) I’d say that we had gone out and done something new and exciting but .. well.. after 20 years there’s little left :)

P is in hospital tomorrow so I’m up at 6am to head in with her. It’s fairly non-invasive but it’s still a GA so we’ll be there a while. She has to be nil-by-mouth from midnight and we don’t expect her to be in surgery until around 11am so I’ll be nbm too. She’s under for about 45 minutes though so I reckon I can squeeze food and coffee into that gap :) My laptop won’t work from there so it’s time off work too.

An oddness. Went to a local shopping centre. I told J to call/text if needed. Walk down toward Tesco and she texts. I open and read. I walk into Tesco. I need to call – no signal. Step out of Tesco, signal. Step into Tesco, dead. And this is a big mall type Tesco, no doors. And a solid no signal. It really was quite a clear boundary. Stop staff texting? Security to stop a Great Broccolli Burglary? Odd.

One smidge of lightning so far away I can’t see it and the net connection goes. Stupid. Or maybe the massive surge zapped something inside the Belkin. I need a new modem. And I didn’t get to the gym because the guy who was coming at 6pm came earlier and by the time he’d gone I couldn’t go (because I have an off-peak membership as it’s the cheapest). So my muscles are still saying “Can we go?”.

Out earlier with Woinston and I saw a stoat. It could have been a weasel. It ran across the disused road we walk down each day. It crossed 3 times. Just after I said “I think that’s a stoat” and “Yep, I’m sure it is” I realised I had the camera in my left hand. At that point Mr Stoat went all shy. Maybe I should drink more coffee.

Maybe I should remember what I was going to say when I started this – but I forgot and took the beast for a walk.

I had forgotten just how busy the local Freecycle group is when I rejoined late yesterday. 60+ emails already. I’m after a couple of bits but in the spirit of it I’ll wait before asking and see if I can help someone else out. I left before because it turned into a “I’d like a new bike” and “I need a new laptop, unused of course” type of charade and I’d hate to go there myself. So I’ll bide my time.

And although it’s gone midnight I’ve cracked the workload I’d set for today. In fairness I’ve put off some FreshlyPressed work until tomorrow/Sunday but it’s better suited there when I have more time. And by Monday – when I ring the taxman – I reckon I should be squared away nicely with regard to work left undone.

Isn’t Helen Mirren just damn sexy? She is. Oh yes. Definitely.

I’m not mentioning the holiday company yet because the volley of complaints continues later this morning. But I’ll give you a quote:

Yes Mrs *****, we know this hotel is completely unsuitable for you.
Do enjoy your holiday.

150m from the beach it said. Try 800m and 50+ steps. And the entire hotel was totally unsuitable for anyone with any walking difficulties. Nice eh? We complained within hours of arrival and they did nothing.

Anyway, we are back, D has excellent GCSE results and I’ve a serious amount of emails to wade through.

Drink of choice:

and a very amusing joke

The Independent does not have a favicon.
Some good fast help from the Autohotkey forum. Problem could be a combination of a wireless keyboard, the ctrl key + key buffer and also my selection of shortcuts keys. So, ctrl-f now becomes ctrl-win-f. I shall test throughout tomorrow.

It’s 02:23 .. I suppose I should head to bed soon..

Update: Autohotkey fails completely no matter what. Activate, press ONE key combo and lose control of the kb until I randomly press ctrl or win and the program decides to let me back in. YMMV.