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Thursday: Nice.

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 21, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

Everyone should have a nice day once in a while. Now, although the following will sound quite bizzare to some of you, you should conclude that Thursday all in all was a very good day for me, otherwise what the hell are you people thinking? Or maybe I will fail badly in that task that my writing skills would be best served in McDonalds along with the McSarcasm Shake and McMystery Meat.

What I refer to of course, is a day where you get nothing but good news, and events happen which cause a smile to appear on your bloodshot face. Sounds like it could never happen these days what with the fact the death looms around ever corner thanks to Foreigners, Fat and Hoodies asking you to buy fags from the local Spar.

We wander through, wondering when Big Brother will be back on our screens, whose got a baby and why not me? And of course we all get sexually aroused at hearing there is a “Next” sale. But it’s not all bad.

Sometimes it just happens. Things which conspire together which by themselves seem silly to others but to you, and only you, there’s nothing but joy. Kind of like the same feeling you get if you went along with a mate “on the pull” because the only relationship he’s had recently is with his right hand and you are there for support. Except the uber sexy girl he was trying to get was completely wanting you instead, and you didn’t even have to speak.

The first little thing on Thursday was: I wasn’t tired. Now after three long days of travelling back and forth to Birmingham International, learning wonderful new things about Windows 2003 Network bits and eating very bad stuff for me which in turn I am getting fatter in the process, day 4 of this week I should have been on Life support.

No instead, I bounded out of bed like it was Christmas Day and I was expecting a BMW from Santa and that’s the thing. I am not a morning person at all, in fact I would prefer the day to start at 10am and not 6. I mean, whose got their (insert suitable analogy for brown objects here) together at that time of day? As I was awake and sorted out without rushing around silly like I normally do, I was feeling rather please with myself.

Next, the trains going to Birmingham International all ran on time, even to the point of arriving early in Birmingham New Street so I had bags of time to get lunch. Now if you are a big public transport fan you know this doesn’t happen that often.

May as well say to someone “There’s someone who walks about here giving away money, but I don’t know when he will be back.” And trying to get connections, you sir are a gambler. But no, that was not the case today either, so yet another little thing to add to that bloodstained smile I mentioned earlier.

I finished the training course material a day early. Which the tutor liked as we had proceeded at a fast pace through the whole week. So we basically started going through Active Directory bits which I was iffy about, as it was likely I would not get another chance at asking this from training, so it was an excellent use of the time. By jove I got a lot out of this week.

To make things even better, Paul Bremer, a mate from the Foundation Degree (you know how much I love that thing, don’t you? 🙂 ) told me that if I were to pass the exam for the weeks training, I can effectively skip a module at Uni. APL it’s called, which means if you can show prior learning for the topic you wish to skip, you have to do it.

It sounds too good to be true. You see, I asked about this last year for a topic which happened to contain everything I do for a living, and I couldn’t bypass it because….umm.. no, haven’t a clue.

Maybe I can pull it off this time?

At Birmingham New Street on the way home, I met Andy from Work who had a bit of a mare of a day, so we had a brief natter. During this, two rather interesting things occurred.

1) A man and a woman were racing each other both carrying huge suitcases on wheels. This was funny to see.
2) A group of Asian lads were trying to beat the literal (insert analogy used earlier for brown stuff) out of each other with a white girl effing and jeffing don’t touch me or something like that.

And the police were no where to be seen. And they were really going for it, not just play fights but then again would you really do that at a security conscious train station surrounded by lots and lots of witnesses? Yes it seems.

It took a few moments for the staff not the police to break it up, and one of the Asian lads was clearly on the warpath as he threw his beloved Man Utd shirt to the floor and walked out trying to look hard but ultimately looked like a complete (naughty word)wit who was about to go into a fight with Russell Crowe. The white girl in tow, trying to do something, have no idea.

And all this happened at the height of rush hour in front of dozens of people who were trying to go home. Brilliant.

Well that did beat reading the paper waiting for the train….:)

I got home afterwards, Andy had texted to say the Police had won in the end against the Gladiators and I had toasted cheese. Which tasted superb, which again was odd, as it was same toasted cheese I’ve had lots of times.

I caught up with the new Episode of Prison Break which was grand and had a long chat with Natalie which went very well, during the course of which I discovered the film Run, Fatboy, Run is out, so that was Saturday evening sorted out. And the one thing which had annoyed for a long while had been finally solved.

I found my Ipod. I thought that I had left it in Telford somewhere so had been without mobile music for quite some time now. But no, it was in a Waterstones’ bag along with self-help books detailing how to live life like it’s a home and lifestyle channel on Sky. Cue happiness.

Now based on what you have read here in this post, you might be thinking “Hmm, that seems to be a complete waste of effort to write. Why did you bother? Hang on, you also took away a few minutes of my life that I will never get back. Burn in Hell Hughes!!?!”

Or something similar.

The truth is like I said. I had a really good day, with a few elements thrown in to make it better. Nothing has really changed. I am still 25, still doing what I normally do, but every once in a while you get a day with surprises. Thursday was one of those days.

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Bioshock Review

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 20, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

Bioshock review

This is one of the funniest reviews I have ever watched. Granted it’s for a game I really like but watch it and I think you will agree, the man has talent.

Posted in Gaming | Leave a reply

Team Fortress 2

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 19, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

TIMMAH!!

Oh yes, I should have mentioned, I have ordered the Orange Box from Steam, and Team Fortress 2 was unlocked yesterday as a beta to try before the final version is released in October. So for so good, the main issue I had was running the game. It breaks for some reason but if you have issues try these fixes by adding these arguments to the shortcut to the game on your desktops:

“C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -applaunch 440 -fullscreen -width 1920 -height 1200 -refresh 60

this got the game running at full screen for me and working which was better than before. You can tweak this to your screen res of course or simply:

“C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe” -applaunch 440 -window

which should work and then you can fiddle with the graphics settings.

BTW, playing it online even for the ever so brief time I got yesterday, the yanks are on and well it appears they still have the mentality of 8 year olds. As if we all needed that. One bloke was on the voice shouting “what are all you doing? listen to me etc etc.”

It was the first day of play and already we have people like that? Many others then just decided to shoot him as friendly fire was allowed to count. He got the message. And that was thanks to someone from Utah. So I guess that they’re not all bad.

Posted in Gaming, Geek | Leave a reply

Wednesday brings tiredness

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 19, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

This travelling to Birmingham International and back to Oswestry every day is killing me atm. I am basically getting more and more tired as the week goes on and I am starting to fall more and more asleep as time goes on.

Almost missed the train this morning which would have been silly, except the second train was late to Birmingham anyway so was late getting to the Training course regardless. What a load of rubbish the reliance of public transport is, no wonder we all use cars. And next time I go away some where which takes longer than two hours total travel via the various modes of transport, i am staying in a hotel. I can do more in the evening and not be as tired.

Oh yes, the course is going well, learned a few things today, and I must admit I am half tempted to take the exam for the course (70-291 for MS Exam fans) next week to see how it goes. but still thinking about it being honest and there is an awful lot of material which we have gone through the past few days.

I have the first episode of prison break to watch, it started again monday, and someone kindly taped it for me, but that can wait for the weekend along with other lovely things. Sometimes I do wonder how other people do it.

Catching all sorts of travel every day just to go to work, then go home and then find time to cook a 17-course meal for 20, wash the kids (whosoever they belong to) and find time for life-affirming hobbies. At least the lifestyle programmes would have you believe that methinks, most people I think just collapse and pull out beans on toast for the 18 billionth time, failing that dipping bread in anything runnier than bread, while watching crap designed to bore you to death so you have something to talk about the next day at work because that’s all you ever see.

And it’s the strangest thing, but I have never seen so many funny runs. Seriously, there are lots of people who have a really funny way of running for a train. You have the businessman young and old who seems to stride his way quickly like off the “Ministry of Funny Walks” sketch from Monty Python, but the greatest ones so far are done by women.

Now before you think I am being sexist, just go to Birmingham New Street, King’s Cross, any rush hour busy train station, and I bet you will see all sorts of women running based on their footwear.

High Heals seem to be the best, because you can clearly see they are in pain, and their running for the train which doesn’t go for another ten minutes looks like they are either needing a poo, or they are treading over loose floorboards to make sure they don’t wake their mum and dad up after getting it on with some 11 year old behind the bike sheds. Well that’s what’s going on at schools these days, and that’s just the teachers…. 🙂

And everyone and I mean everyone is trying to look hard and dignified, like they are the important ones and everyone else is in the way of them getting to an important board meeting where they discuss raising the price of trousers or not. Bless them eh?

Well campers, I say no. I look like a bit of a freak and that’s fine. I have no important meeting to go to and if It looks like I am about to miss the next connecting train due to the late arrival of the one before, I don’t run. What’s the point? I only lose ten minutes at best.

Rush hours means there are more trains on so you don’t have long to wait for the next one. And you know what. I feel better for it. Leave the rushing around to others. Enjoy a cup of tea instead.

There are only two more days of the training to go which is a bit sad, as it has meant time from work to learn things I didn’t really know about. And I like learning things I can use in work or elsewhere. It just costs so much for proper training, that it is like pixie dust.

When it comes along you have to kill and maim everyone in front of you just for a glimpse of it. Either that or pay the £1495 that this week has cost yourself. Hmm, does anyone really have that amount of cash about every few months? Meh.

And finally I have looked at my bank balance today and it sends me the blues. It is a s**t load of money overdrawn yet again. Come on the 23rd, I want to be in the black for at least a week again!! The money is a rant that will be done another time methinks. As I am tired, and in the mood for fighting with fresh air and loosing the war. I am calling it a day. farewell good campers, till we meet again on the battlefield of life.

Posted in Overview | Leave a reply

Talk like a Pirate day

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 19, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

Yep, every September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate day. Just a shame we can’t get a bank holiday out of it. Find out more about the day at: Talk Like a Pirate

Thus we reach the post’s conclusion for the one of the greatest things ever convinced. Granted it’s been covered before but it was such a biggie, it was worth mentioning here again. Enjoy!

Posted in And Finally... | Leave a reply

Training Day

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 17, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

Hello good people I am writing this in the middle of doing a Windows 2003 Network Services Course, you see the workstations we use have internet access so while I am waiting to log into a magic imaginary machine, I figure I may as well get on the blog page and write what it has been like so far.

I am the class.

No joke there, the course has a complement of 1. Me. There were two people meant to be on it in total and I am one of them. So far it actually has been quite good, albeit a wee bit silly, with just the instructor and me. Though I have been able to get a few things clarified as a result which has been good. It will be like this all week by the looks of things so woooo!!!

As a footnote, Andy Parson was very good last night in Shrewsbury, though he does eff and jeff a wee bit too much, but some of the jokes were brilliant. Fair play! Well I have to actually troubleshoot names resolution now so for now campers, BYE!!

Posted in And Finally... | Leave a reply

Yawn. It appears to be late…

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 15, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

Still not getting any more creative with the blog titles, it seems to be a bit of effort! Anyway campers, the past day or so has been sort of good, getting in contact with people, Saw Chris and Dave in Mold for the first time in yonks and it was a bloody good evening thanks to them. Cheers again for the Robocop trilogy and the wonga, it was well spent trust me. The thing is, I know it would end up being 16 billion years till I saw them again, which is always a shame.

Sometimes you enjoy the banter of old and indeed new.

Friday was a long day, visited Natalie and I think we sorted out a few things. It has been fraught recently and I have a better understanding as to why.

Needless to say it ain’t going on the blog. All that remains is to look forward to seeing Andy Parsons in Shrewsbury tomorrow, he was one of the comedians I actually did see a bit of his gig at Glastonbury earlier in the year, and Ad from Work told us he was there. Tickets were bought, and hopefully should be good.

Been very lazy again today, just could not be bothered today, did a bit of shopping with Aunty Bett, and that has been it. Played WOW today for a fair while and got to Level 30 on the character I have been using. It occurred to me that If I were to say what the name of the chracter was, people would think why?

It should be a ye olde name, but the sad fact is: I like Phoenix Nights too much. And that’s it for the geek banter i know I keep mentioning WOW recently, what it is, Uni started again recently and once again they are showing what a waste of time it is.

This year it appears to be of the attitude of “Turn up if you want.” I think they simply lost the will to give a s**t any more. I do understand. I lost the will for the degree a while ago, due to the ropey last semester. Oh joy, what else will come our way? And Uni will have to take precedence over game playing so I am getting in as much as possible while I can.

Also reading back what I just wrote, it seems the only exciting bit people may be interested in is the lady friend natter. The sad fact is, well people do things every day that others may like but others won’t and to try and cater for all kinds is next to impossible. So what the hey?

Anyway it is close to Midnight and I am in the strange mood to watch the DVD of Beavis and Butthead. And some wine. And some other things to stuff my face with, increasing my stomach size once again, and in the morning feeling awful and then attempting in vain to do something about it.

What’s the worst that can happen campers? BYE!

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Paintball

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 13, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureSeptember 13, 2007

Paintball hurts although you tend to look like everyone else. Here’s a picture from Saturday:

The clan

Courtesy of Mr Morgan whose birthday it was, I couldn’t stay for the whole day I’m afraid due to other things coming up, which wasn’t actually that bad as it goes. But it was fun while I was with the rest. Fair play everyone, and Paintballing costs money btw. If you shoot like nobody’s business, you need more. And the mask tends to steam up too but hey, what’s the fun without being able to see right? Oh yes, I am the one in the middle, I kind of stand out there.

Posted in And Finally... | Leave a reply

Will this happen here?

Lord of Leisure Posted on September 12, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

BBC News Link

This news story when it came up at the ultra large screen on mine here at Camp Sometimes (Wait that sounds like a new gay website which has ripped off the name here!) and I thought, fair play to the Russians! Though in some ways, you start thinking why the population has started decreasing after the fall of the soviet union.

I suppose you could point to the fact that lots of people wanted the life given in the West as it was conceived to be better than what they had in their homeland. But that was then, surely have things not improved since then? It seems not, the healthcare system has failed citizens, and the birth rate has fallen.

I think it could lead to the popular TV game show “MEGA BABY MONEY!!”, where you make babies and money and have a lot of fun doing it, you can win big too at the nappy of fortune. Dear me, but if any other nation faced the same thing that the Russians face, it makes you wonder what measures would be taken to encourage people to stay in their country and make little people.

But then in a way it starts kind of making you think about the one thing that it seems no-one ever looks at except for disaster movies: What would happen if certain circumstances happened at the same time? Such as no-one being born or there was only one country in the world where life can continue due to it being the only place on the planet with resources left for energy, food, and other development.

On Monday I was standing up over the front of the bullring near a set of toilets and i watched people wandering around quite happy, getting on with their jobs, shopping for the latest “must-have” piece of crap from some name I hadn’t even heard of and all the time I couldn’t help but wonder, what would all these people do if the rules went out the window?

If suddenly the people of the nation decided enough was enough and just started rioting, taking who and what they wanted. The women who prance around thinking they are all safe right now, would not have a clue what to do, and all the things we think is right and wrong, who would be able to say what is in that type of situation.

After all, we all keep to the rules until push comes to shove and then we do what we want. In a way that does come to explain what criminals do what they do, the terrorists do what they want. They want to do what they want and because they are in the minority, they can’t get what they want. But if lots of others acted in the same way, you would have simply revolution and chaos. I just couldn’t help but think this:

Everyone is just living in a dream land and really don’t want to face the real truth. We are always a hair’s breath from what we all know to be right being thrown out the window and the animal in humans taking over.

I guess that is a bit way out there even for me, but every once in a while, I do have these profound thoughts and although they can be considered rubbish, once every so often someone does tell me there is a point there.

I actually have a few thoughts about what goes on in this little world. Some of it can be repeated here in text so it’s isn’t entirely lost but there are other points I would like to say out loud, but alas popular culture being as it is, i would be ostracised and hated. I guess that does lead onto another point I wanted to make this evening:

People are never themselves. You know you hear in all the papers and mags, that people (men or women now) love it when you are yourself. But what exactly does it mean to “be yourself?” I have no idea what it means these days, as there are always two people you meet that share the same body:

  • One person is the social person, the guy / girl who everyone wants to be around, funny, knowledgeable and smart
  • And then there is the other person, who can’t stand half the people they know, and basically hate white people.
  • There are two sides to everyone. It’s just strange that being yourself means be the person that other people want to you to be. No matter what they say, they want to see what they want to see. People want to see other people as funny witty people who can provide laughs, and be semi-smart without ever pushing it.

    In my line of work, I get on a lot better with people if I act the fool and pretend not to know too much. It actually has got me quite far. But I were to stop, and show more of my true intelligence then people would go off me. It sounds weird but alas I have seen what both sides bring and the funny side of me brings in more opportunities so the other me gets pushed inside more.

    I guess I just personalised it a bit, but I bet you a shiny penny that i am not the only one out there in the world not to discover this fact about people. Sometimes it just feels false.

    I had to write something about what bothered me today. I don’t know why.

    Posted in Overview | Leave a reply

    The Day After Monday, which is Tuesday.

    Lord of Leisure Posted on September 11, 2007 by The Lord of LeisureApril 6, 2008

    And once again, it appears my nack for Blog titles are fantastic as usual. Does anyone know it was Tuesday today? Granted I may not have done but that was because I was being silly and having yet another day at home to mess around with various things and frolics.

    I felt like a man today because I changed the pull cord light switch in the Bathroom, all by myself. It take forever mind you and well it would have been better off actually done by someone in the electrical business but hey ho, you have to learn these things at some point.

    Also cut down a tree in the garden, a new washing line was put up and this may cause a shock to some people, I was once again playing WOW.

    Well I start back to Uni on Thursday and well that will drive me mental. So in turn this blog and other things will keep me sane(ish) I figure I may as well p**s away my hours playing a game which takes forever to achieve anything but when you do you feel “Thank God I don’t have to do that again!” until the next quest where you feel you are doing the same thing but with different characters.

    Actually I have to ask you all right now, does anyone remember the book I was writing a long time ago? At the start of the year, one of my aims was to write about the year in the life of me. Then because of the fact it was too close to the knuckle, it was changed but then got shelved because well I got writers’ block.

    I really could not go anywhere with what I had written, only 3 chapters mind you, and a lot of it was very bland. Good thing it will never see the light of day I say. Think I would have to really think about what I want to write about and why.

    Then again, I already do enough things as it is, it’s a case of sitting down and trying to decide what the priorities are for things to do. I enjoy writing this blog, granted it’s nowhere near the same as writing a book, but it’s as good as it gets at the moment.

    The podcast by the way is still in the process of being finalised, it’s the content which keeps changing because of the stuff of V, the things which happened since then, I am still trying to sort it all out. It will be out this month!?! (What out this month?!? I can really narrow it down can’t I?) The Website’s change over to Flash is actually stopped at the design phase because of the fact that separate “movies” need to be loaded into the interface for each section.

    Natalie’s site is at the gallery construction stage, because this is the majority of what her site will be made of, to show her works. And that is it for the creative stuff on the website business. As you saw on this site, I am now able to host flash files all here for the movies, not relying on MySpace or anything, altering the free player available on the internet, and well so far so good, the encoding to the FLA format works fine now and the file size is quite good for broadband. Nice.

    The real world news has been an eyeful, hasn’t it? The McCanns are in the naughty over their missing daughter, as the Spanish police have found Madeleine’s blood in the back of their hire car. It just gets worse doesn’t it? I really do wonder what is going to come next. It’s sounded iffy the whole story from the beginning, and now the news is coming through of all sorts of goings-on. Which way will it go?

    Today was another anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and people morn the few thousand who died this day, The problem of obesity in Britain (of which I suppose I should say, I am a part of the problem. May as well say it, it’s the truth) poses a serious threat to the future of the NHS in England according to a report which states as more of us go into Hospital due to being fat, it will diminish NHS resources further which is bad.

    Oh and a couple who have lived in Travelodge’s for more than 20 years are to have a room named after them. Why would anyone stay in a Travellodge for over 20 years? I know the £26 rooms are cheap but still, it’s taking the p**s!

    I go to bed, knowing full well that the day will bring bad stuff again at work. It normally does after being off. that’s the only thing you never look forward to from work. The foresight of seeing things going wrong and there is nothing you can do.

    I also feel quite strange about other recent events which I suppose I will go into another time. I have just finished watching Red Dwarf Series 3 (cheers Glyn, Kelly and Christine for that) and so to bed. One last thing:

    Pre-order HL: Episode 2 now. (I am also looking at Adobe Audition 3 which is due November and about time too)

    Good night campers. 🙂

    Posted in Tuesday Tandoori | Leave a reply

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