a hint about my brain

Swimming with the fishes

2008-07-06T15:02:00.002-03:00

Well had a really good day yesterday boating around Bermuda, with the couple of snorkeling with the fishes episodes.

Am going to have to get better at swimming, and also a lot better at remembering to put sunblock on my back. I sort of hurt today :(

Opps 2 months have gone

2008-06-12T11:39:00.002-03:00

So yep, went to New York and saw New Model Army twice. It was really cool.

Got to chat with must of the band after the second gig.

Bought a new laptop, a Mac Book pro. It's lovely and really nice :)

Then did lights on a show called "Intimate Apparel" (in Bermuda, the link a review of a professional show of it). It was really good.

Then moved to a new cottage which is really nice.
Then went on holiday to Toronto and Guelph for 10 days. Had a really good time there. Lots of meeting people and eating and relaxing. Unfortunately got the cough of death.

Came back and got rid of cough of death (hurray) and got 2 kittens. :)

Pictures to follow of kittens

Little woolen hat

2008-03-17T11:36:00.003-03:00

Well my head is now cold, and bald :) I personally raised in the region of $1300 which wasn't bad.

Photos are now available here

And if anyone still wants to donate you can do that here.
A photo of me in little woolen hat will probably appear while in New York (where apparently it's a bit cold ;) )

Nearly time for the bald

2008-03-14T16:07:00.002-03:00

And so within a few hours I will be bald. It's not too late for people to donate money on the above link.

However I do have red hair at the moment which is fun :)

Next week off to New York to see New Model Army, Spamalot and Phantom of the Opera

Things I've read recently (and pointed remark about head shaving)

2008-02-22T22:53:00.003-04:00

Well as well as my mcse course notes (2 exams left, currently my average score is 91%) I've also read a load of books :)

Alison Bechdel's Fun House, which is a really good autobiographical story about her relationship with her dad.

David Petersen's Mouse Guard (Fall 1152) which is both really sweet and cute and also pretty brutal. So do I wait until Winter 1152 is collected or get it in comic form. Argghh (yes we all know the answer is both)

Harry Potter 3-5 (still really really good, and I left 6&7 at home or would have gone through them as well)

30 days of Night. Kinda meh really.

Y the last man (books 3&4) I'd read 1 and 2 awhile ago and never really got round to buying anymore, and had forgotten that it was really good. Will be getting the rest over time when I get home as it's now finished.

Just started Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts, which is a short story collection of horror stories (although the introduction says they are not all horror) well read the first and on the second and it's really good so far. I had picked up his novel (Heart shaped box) a few months ago, and that was far better than a story about an aging death metal singer who bought a ghost should be. I had first heard of him in Neil Gaiman's blog, and figured I would give him a go. (I tried this before with Suzanne Clarke who Neil had also raved about, unfortunately I just cannot get through Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell)

Also as it's getting fairly close to me shaving my head for charity it would be nice if someone donated some cash

MCSE and twitter

2008-02-15T15:47:00.002-04:00

So two exams through my MCSE (passed Security + and XP) and also started up a twitter account. I've added the feed on the right hand side.

And by the way Chicago in February redefines the word cold. Sunday when I landed it was -20 degrees F (-28 C) when you include the wind chill. Today is a lovely 17 F (-8 C)

And it looks like we're back to Windows 2003 server (currently doing the different types of groups)

Shaving my head

2008-02-08T10:13:00.000-04:00

After about 19 years of having long hair, I'm shaving it all off for this year's St Baldricks day. This is a charity that raises money for kids cancer research and fellowships.

Here is a link to my participation page. And you can donate online, so please feel free to pass this around and also donate :)

Have fun

Animals

2008-02-01T20:23:00.000-04:00

Well for a while now we have had a load of tropical fish. We have had a few die which is depressing but think we have the water and feeding all sorted now.

So we have 1 big angel fish, 2 cat fish, 1 mollie and have just noticed we have about 5 baby mollies. This is a big surprise :)

We are also currently bird sitting a found Mynah bird, called Bill (or at least he says hello bill a lot as well as a ton of other phrases :) )

Star Wars

2008-01-10T15:01:00.000-04:00

I'm currently playing through Lego Star Wars, the complete Saga, which is the coolest Star Wars games I've seen, and then I saw this

Vader and Yoda in Soul Calibur 4, watch the video trailer and tell me you didn't go whee when Vadar's breathing was heard. Sooooooo cooool :) :) :)

Training course in Fort Lauderdale

2007-12-13T20:44:00.001-04:00

Well landed back in Bermuda last week at about midnight Saturday, vegged on Sunday, went to work Monday morning and then flew to Fort Lauderdale in Florida for another course (This one was IBM San stuff for the 2 people who are interested)

So yea nice place but I was knackered.

Anyway flying back to Bermuda tomorrow.

Had a very brief trip to Miami today after the course finished but it was raining and everything seemed to be closed (it was 5:30pm by the time we got there so all the day things were closed but it was too early for anything else)

And raining in Miami, isn't that against the law or something.

Mutent Enemy Picket day

2007-12-13T20:44:00.000-04:00

After my course finished last week I went down to the picket help by the crew and a lot of the actors of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Serenity.

This was held outside Fox's offices in LA. After four hours of picketing (I got three blisters and grazed both my knees after tripping over something doh ), where over 400 people protested against the way the TV and Film writers of America are being treated. From the press etc that I've seen after it and the huge support from the many (hundreds) of cars that drove past honking I would say the public know who the good guys are in this.

I also went to the picnic afterwards which was also really cool

I met a load of really cool people, and took a load of photos of actors and Joss Whedon, who was the only none fan person I spoke to (turning round and realizing that I was walking in front of Juliet Landau [who played Drusilla in Buffy] and saying hi doesn't really count ;) )

The group flickr site has loads of photos from loads of people who were there, including mine

I have a few videos as will which I haven't had a chance to upload to youtube yet but I will and will post the link on here

Yes there is a photo in there with me, Juliet Landau and Nick Brandon (so cool :) )

LA training course

2007-12-04T19:12:00.000-04:00

So I flew to New York from Bermuda which was a easy 2 hour flight. Got off the plane waited at the gate (my next flight was at the same gate hurray) and then flew to LA. Which took about 6 or 7 hours.

That was generally ok but long.

LA seems pretty cool so far, the hotel is nice. My back was delayed but if turned up ok yesterday so that was cool.

Went out to see Beowulf last night as there is a Imax screen fairly nearby. So saw the 3D Imax version. After a while apart from the climatic ending, the 3Dness just was part of the story. It was really good to see this on a big screen. Unfortunately the screen it's showing on in Bermuda is basically slightly bigger than my telly.

Anyway it was a good film, really good film.

As my training course is going to finish early on friday I'll be able to make it to the Mutant Emery picket on friday, hurray. Currently it looks like various cool actors will be there as well as cool writers etc so that'll be nice :)

Writer's strike and fans for writers

2007-11-14T09:49:00.000-04:00

If you're a fan of story driven TV shows and want to support the writers who are on strike, then check out Fans4writers.com

Hopefully I will get a chance to offer support when I'm over in LA soon.

Writer's strike (and bad back)

2007-11-10T10:56:00.000-04:00

And all member of the Writers Guild of America are on strike, so tv shows live Lost, 24, Gray's Anatomy, Dollhouse (new Joss Whedon show hurray) and many many many, in fact all shows that have writers are picketing and stopping.

Good for them, I watch a fair bit of tv and it's all story driven stuff the sort where the writers and show runners (exec producers) are the people who create the worlds that I spend time in.

From what I have read the strike isn't really, it's a stopping working as the old contract has expired and the new one is (to be honest) taking the piss.
Here's a link to lots more info about it
As I have a training course in LA (hurray going to LA :) ) sort of hoping that I get a change to visit the picket lines to both show my support and go 'ere you're Joss Whedon :) Of course my course is bound to be miles from the picket lines and LA is bound to be massive

In other news my back is very angry at me, and i spent most of yesterday at the ER. Home now and hoping that drugs and my chiropractor appointment on tuesday (monday is a holiday in Bermuda) will fix it all.

But need to get a GP so I can get a MRI so I can find out if anything serious is happening with it

New Bike and Halloween

2007-10-28T08:44:00.000-03:00

Due to my bike's electrics dying ever 2-3 months and with rental bike charges and cost of getting it repaired I bought a new scooter. it's 150 cc and in black and that's about it. :)

Last night went to a Halloween party at a old fort here in Bermuda, it was really good fun, there was a tour around the catacombs with people jumping out at us. Very good fun :)

I went as a demonic priest including glue on nails painted black (which i can't now get off hence the length of this post, work tomorrow will be fun :) ) my girlfriend went as a beautiful flower fairy with wonderful wings. Pictures will be found later

It's been a while

2007-10-13T21:09:00.000-03:00

Well it's been a while, stuff has generally happened. Things have finished and other things have started.

And I appear to be the only person on the planet who just can't get into Halo3.
I suppose flying to England to try and sell my house might have put a small dent in my efforts of this but still :)

Regular blogging will now return

Ear Candles

2007-05-09T14:44:00.001-03:00

Ear Candles
Originally uploaded by fmwt.

A collegue at work just bought these. Apparently you stick them in your ears and then set them on fire.

Needless to say I need, NEED I say, to buy some and give it a go. A day isn't complete without sticking something in your ears and setting them alight. :) Will report back after trying.

General stuff and news

2007-04-15T12:28:00.000-03:00

Well after a load of good fun things happening the last week has been not as good.

I hit a small wall in the car which pushed back the driver's side front wheel by about an inch. So that's not great.

Then riding home on wednesday I locked the front wheel when some muppet in front decided the best course of action was to jam on their brakes when a police car was going the other direction with it's lights and sirens going. There was nothing in front of the car or in front of the police car so why stopping was the option I have no idea.

And yes I should be able to stop safely in any and all circumstances, I was surprised after checking out the police car to look back to the car in front of me and see it stopped. I shouldn't have braked as hard as I did in the rain. So yep I take responsibility for it.

But in the good news department a friend sent me a link to this which then led me to this Google tool.

And Britian James Toseland is currently leading the World Superbike championship, and in fact has done since round 1.

Good friday kite flying (and making sandcastles)

2007-04-06T19:46:00.000-03:00

Well good friday in Bermuda is about flying kites, I have no idea why but hay I'm just going with it.

Yesterday I got tricked into helping a friend (Helen) make her kite (traditional Bermuda kites are made not bought).

Well today started off with a thunderstorm and lots and lots of rain, but luckily it all went away, so down to the beach me and Ness went. We met up with Helen, her cousin (Naomi) and Naomi boyfriend Chris.
Due to the weather and Helen leaving her kite at work we couldn't fly hers. But Ness (being all prepared and everything) had already bought some cheap plastic ones. Needless to say these were mocked by Bermudians but did have the advantage of flying.

After we got bored with flying kite (it just went up in the air a long way) we buried the handle in the sand and proceded to make a big sandcastle. All in all a really fun day.

Test to show rss feeds

2007-03-31T16:38:00.001-03:00

This is a test

Bermuda Film Festival Wrap party and Speech

2007-03-25T12:04:00.000-03:00

For the last few weeks Bermuda has had a film festival which due to work and being knackered I've not been to any films. However I did get 4 free tickets for the wrap party. Carrie Fisher and Richard Dreyfus were there as the judges of the feature film. What I didn't realise was that it was a free bar. :)

Anyway Ness, myself, Helen and a very mad friend of Helen's called Claire came along (mad might be relative term however). At some point there will be photos of Claire stalking both Carrie Fisher and Richard Dreyfus. There was drinking and dancing (and some accidental air guitar, not quite sure how that happened.)

And then getting home about 3. Luckily I or Ness don't have to work in Bermuda's zoo today, it's a pity the same can't be said for Helen and Claire. :)

And also found this speech that a cool Marketing/Business guy called Guy Kawasaki (http://www.guykawasaki.com/) gave to school leavers about 10 years ago. Hindsight http://www.gallagher.com/hindsight.html

Linux music players

2007-03-18T20:10:00.000-03:00

For reasons that are far too un-important to go into here my home computer runs openSUSE 10.2 and my work laptop running Suse Linux enterprise desktop. I've tried to keep my work laptop pretty much supportable and also as Novell designed it. So on my home computer I use Amarok and for the one or two times I've played music on the laptop, I used Banshee.

Ok today I've been using the laptop to actually listen to music and actually do stuff with it. So got really frustrated with Banshee and finally installed Amarok, which is like so so much better.

Yep I understand Novell needs to push all mono type stuff which is cool. But Banshee plays songs really well whereas Amarok does that, and so much more.

Oh in case you're wondering both work fine with my 80GB iPod. To be honest Amarok is probably better than iTunes as well.

Vagina Monologues

2007-03-18T12:51:00.000-03:00

Went to see the Vagina monologues on Friday night. It was playing a 2 night run in Bermuda. It was really good, although I seem to have a different sense of humour then a lot of the people in the crowd. Some pieces were really funny. The moaning one probably being the funniest. However people were laughing at some really odd parts. The one called the Flood and the birth one springs to mind.

Apparently the Thursday night crowd was hugely different.

In other news I've been working lots, and now know all I want to know about migrating users from NT4 domains/Exchange 5.5 to W2k3 AD and Exchange 2003.

A new friend called Helen (producer of above mentioned Vagina Monologues) introduced me to a band called The Weakerthans. As usual I had already been given a track by them by Dan. But hadn't really listening to it properly. Anyway after listening to it and some others that Helen gave me, they're really good.

If you have a dog that you're having trouble with you really need to watch the Dog Whisperer (really crap name for a good show), and normally reality shows I hate with a passion.

Favour for Neil Gaiman

2007-02-02T19:40:00.000-04:00

So in the war currently going in between Neil and his friend Penn Jillette Neil's asked reader of his blog to link to a post and give it the link text of Penn Jillette.

See this link for more info.

Upgrading my computer

2007-01-28T07:55:00.000-04:00

Well as my old computer was making odd noises and would lose the bios setting if I turned it off for any length of time (like overnight), and also as Quake 4 would just stop in some places I decided it might be time to look at upgrading.

Old setup P4 2.? processor 1.5GB DDR memory, an ATI Radeon 9800 pro with 128MB, and 3 disks 1 very old 16GB ide 66 or 33, 1 60GB ide 133 (or maybe 66) and 1 150GB SATA 1 drive. Oh all of this is running Suse 10.0 with KDE.

New set up AMD 64 x2 4200+ with 1GB DDR2 ram, and ATI x1600 with 512MB. New motherboard is a MSI K9N SLI. All of this I got second hand from a friend from work.

As the 12Gb just had windows on it (which wouldn't boot and I never needed to fix it) and was a possible cause of odd noises this was a good candidate to n0t be moved across. Which was good as the new motherboard had one ide connector so I had the 60GB as master and my dvd as secondary, not great but I needed the 60GB as it had all my mp3 on it, and not enough room on the SATA.

Anyway the hardware installation was easy. I have a 20 pin power supply which I was slightly concerned about plugging in it into the 24 port motherboard, but after reading the manual (yes it does happen) I found out it was fine. So cool.
And it booted first time which is alway nice.

Software: Well seeing as most of my partitions has changed from hdb to hda I had to change the fstab file to point to the new settings.

Suse 10.0 then booted fine. Sound didn't work and I couldn't get the ati drive to work for 3d graphics. After a bit of checking and also as Suse 10.0 has an bit of an issue with USB2 I decided to install Suse 10.2.

In Linux it generally a good idea to have a seperate partition for home so you can wipe the root partition but keep all your setting and personal data. Anyway I have this so bunged Suse 10.2 on, I picked Gnome this time as I prefer the new Novell Gnome menu to the new KDE one. I added KTorrent and it found all my ongoing Torrents and continue downloading them.

Amarok I prefer to Helix as an music player so that got added as well. Again as all settings are held in a hidden directory under home it brought all my settings over. I had to repoint the library as it had changed from hdb to hda.

The ATI driver was a bit of a pain (and to be honest I'm not sure how I fixed it but it's working so that's cool) and XGL (cool new spinning cube stuff) doesn't support the x1600 yet, but Cedega (World of Warcraft runs very nicely) works fine, and Quake 4 and Doom3 runs really well at 1268 x 1024 at Ultimate quality.

Oh and while this isn't a Linux v Vista post (that'll be later) I would have had to re-activate Vista if I have changed this amount of hardware. So ringing up and getting it re-activated. Huge pain.

Post from BDA Dept of Comminication and Information

2007-01-26T12:45:00.001-04:00

WEATHER UPDATE

Based on current weather forecasts by the Bermuda Weather Service (BWS),
the Island will continue to experience sustained winds of 50 to 60 knots
this afternoon.

As such a determination has been made by the Ministry of Works of
Engineering to close the Causeway Bridge to all vehicular traffic as of
1.30 p.m.

Members of the public are urged to stay tuned to continuous, regular
updates via the various media outlets and the Government Website
(www.gov.bm) as the situation is assessed.

An announcement as to when the Causeway will be reopened will be made as
the day progresses.

The Ministry of Education is advising parents that all Government
schools will close effective immediately due to the deteriorating
weather conditions.

Bermuda Causway looking to be closed today (Updated closing at 13:30)

2007-01-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

Due to a storm currently hitting BDA and looking to be getting worse (gusting up to Hurricane speeds), the Ministry of Works and Engineering are currently meeting to discuss closing the Causeway.

Mum and other people who know me, this shouldn't affect me personally apart from getting a lift home in the car not riding home :)

Update: The Causeway is closing at 13:30

Photos from Ness' weekend job

2007-01-13T17:00:00.000-04:00

Vanessa has a weekend job that involved going up a tower. As I'm taxi-ing her around at the moment and indeed have actually been up the tower here are some photos)

The last one is a shot from the ground (I'm pretty sure I took it from the yellow car, see first photo), there's another shot from the top out to sea. The third shot is for the people who aren't comfortable with heights :)

Photo_123006_002.jpg

Photo_123006_001.jpg

Photo_123006_004.jpg

Photo_123006_006.jpg

Bermuda's ability to ride/drive

2007-01-13T16:50:00.000-04:00

Well a whole 13 days into the new year there has been the first death on the roads here.

At this rate the 14 deaths of last year will be beaten easily.

This is really impressive on an island that's 26 miles long and 1.5 miles wide at it's widest point.

As it looks like this year will be an election year what are the chances either party does anything about trying to reduce this. (Better training and a harder test would get my vote, if I could vote)

Really new year

2007-01-06T13:42:00.000-04:00

Went to some friends for a meal on New Year's eve and then went in their boat to watch fireworks be set off at St George's (this is kind of Bermuda's New York's Time square, only we have a onion that drops instead of an apple). It was really nice and seeing the packed crowd in St George we were very glad we were on the boat.

And yes I did forget to take photos, which is a pain.

Christmas, & new year.

2007-01-06T09:11:00.000-04:00

Went back to the UK for Christmas, Ness had an operation on her wrist to take a plate out of it. This is hopefully the last op from the accident nearly 4 years ago. It went really well and considering how much travelling we did over Christmas, (Bermuda [plane], London [train], Woking [train], Plymouth [plane], Gatwick [plane], Bermuda) she had a lot better Christmas than I had thought she would have.

Saw my parents and sister and family which was really good.

Got loads of books for Christmas which was great. Started the new Robin Hobb series and a friend at work lent me the first of the George RR Martin Song of Ice and Fire series. (He didn't tell me that it's a 7 book series and only the first 4 are out, the git :) )

New year next post as I need to go out to taxi Ness to her weekend job.

Sitting in a pub next to my hotel

2006-11-13T20:11:00.000-04:00

Well I've been in Canada for about 4 hours. Since then I've landed (always a good start) got to my hotel (all good so far) and then went for a wander. For those who don't know Toronto, basically it's a grid which is a bit boring but makes things easy to find. I'm on Bloor street which is the main street going east to west. Down the centre is Yonge street. To the west of Yonge is Bloor street West. I'm on 280 Bloor street west. East from here is Oxford street like shops. I went in HMV just for Dan. :) West is more hippy student type shops. Needless to say bought a load of Christmas presents from the hippy shops :) Also I just so happen to be staying near a comic shop which is Page45 in it's coolness (well nearly). As it's actually illegal to go into a comic shop in Canada and not buy some Cerebus, I did (Signed phone book of Guys). I also bought a copy of Absolute Sandman. Due to currancy wierdness this ended up being about 30 quid (I'm not sure who much it's in the UK but I seem to remember around double that). I resisted buying the Sandman 10th aniversary statue that the shop had discounted if you bought Absolute Sandman. Good thing the shop closes before I would start drinking as I might get it anyway.

Bermudian Saves the world (possibly)

2006-11-09T23:27:00.000-04:00

Bermudian Lena Headey has been cast as Sarah Connor in the pilot of the Terminator TV show.

Of course it'll have to be very good to compare to the first two films.

And is anyone watching Heroes? Really impressed with the episodes so far, will see how it carried on

New Bike

2006-10-23T20:59:00.000-03:00

dscf0139,
originally uploaded by fmwt.

Well bought a new bike. It's a 125cc MZ SM125 Supermotard. Supermotards are bascially dirt bikes with street tyres. Got it second hand, it's only done 4,000km so still really new.

Will hopefully be posting about how much fun it is soon.

Reviews of Films and Trailers

2006-10-22T13:10:00.000-03:00

As I've seen a few films recently here's me doing a Barry Norman

Black Daliha.

So noir it went through noir and came out the other side, and became poo. I really really wanted to like this and was raving over the trailers and genarally made my wife come to see it. So when I actually thought that the projectionist had missed a reel I was a bit disappointed. It was well acted, but really badly edited or directed. It just didn't have any flow to it, and characters randomly started acting out of character for no real reason. Generally poo, (but still not as bad as Steve Martin's Pink Panther)

Guardian.

Now this one I was dragged to, in a it's Kevin Costner so unless it's Waterworld it'll be poo (hay I liked waterworld) and bazarely it was good, almost very good. Characters I actually cared for, well acted, The plot was a little predicablem well ok very predicable. The ending was the only thing that was both a little odd and felt slightly tagged on to turn it into a legend.

The Departed

A remake of a Hong Kong film called Inferal Affairs. This was really good, however be warned lots and lots and lots of swearing. And people getting shot. The ending was surprising and shocking but it all fitted together. Jack Nicholson went a bit Witches of Eastwick at times but to be honest I have a feeling the films went a bit Jack not the other way round. Leonardo and Matt Damon were good, Shock Matt Damon can actually act, well it was a suprise for me.

And a review of the trailers.
Saw 3. Oh for f**k's sake. (This isn't me disliking Horror films, just being bored with slasher flicks did we not learn anything from Scream?) Some one make another Clive Barker book into a film.
Eragon, loved the book, (and the second in the trilogy) heard that the film was going to be not great. But nice looking trailer. the books written by a teenager and it's got dragons in it, so don't expect War and Peace.
Random annimated animal funny. Yep it's be very funny and cool and good, but after Ice Age, and all the rest I've seen they're beginning to blur into one.
300 (ok so this wasn't on at the cinema but I saw it on www.quicktime.com) really good comic but I was strangely disappointed by the trailer. The King was a bit too shouty. What's it about I hear you ask? Well think Sin City crossed with 300 Spartian fighting against several thousand Persians. Sin City because it was written by the same guy and the 300 Spartian because well that's what happened.
Employee of the month (or whatever it was called) just crap.
Hopefully going to see all apart from Saw and Employee.

Heartless Bastards and the Swizzle Inn Pub Quiz

2006-10-21T17:03:00.000-03:00

As is becoming a tradition (well been twice anyhow) we went to a Pub Quiz at the Swizzle Inn (north) on Thursday, two remarkable things happened. One is we came joint second which got us a 12 pack of beer (unfortunately Bud but beggars can't be choosers). This was despite me poo-pooing someone's answer to who declared war on the UK and then a few year later switched to declaring war on Germany. I thought Italy stayed enemies for much longer, but I was very very wrong. I also nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by crossing out 45 and putting 51 as the age of Roger Moore when he took over from Sean Connery (45 it was). Luckily I redeemed myself by correctly answering Battlestar Galactica, Iron Maiden and Superman (they were all easy questions if you're into comics, SF and a bit of metal so no huge problem), quite where I pulled the answer to what Jill bandaged Jack with, I have no idea but vinegar and Brown Paper it was.

The other remarkable thing (and this is only interesting if you're a IT geek) is the games machines in the Swizzle run on Linux (I only knew as one rebooted and I recognised the boot up process). However if this every comes up as a question I and all my readers are sorted :). It'll also mean that the quiz master reads this, which is just a tad unlikely.

Found a really good band on Emusic called Heartless Bastards. They're gentle country punk, the female lead has a really distinctive voice, which I can see would be an acquired taste. And Emusic is cool, it's 20 USD a month and you get 90 downloads a month without any evil DRM (it's in mp3 format). It's not hit music (which is fine by me) and if you want to cancel you don't lose any of your music. Also downloaded: Lennon, Nick Cave (I know why do I not already have all his stuff, this is question I have been asking myself), Young Gods, Skinny Puppy, Gods speed you black emperor, Yo La Tango, Early Day Miners and Neko Case.

Neil Gaiman

2006-10-21T14:26:00.000-03:00

For people who have heard of Neil Gaiman, I got a comment on his blog (it's about half way down do a search for Kim Newman) hurray, I do the dance of joy :)

For those of you who haven't and are at all interesting in Fantasical writing or Non-superhero comics you really need to pick up something by him.
On the book front, American Gods, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Anansi Boys, Neverwhere, and Stardust. (Also a load of really good kids books)
Comics; Black Orchid, Death, 1602 and Sandman (more on Sandman later)
Films & TV; MirrorMask, Stardust and Neverwhere (oh and an episode of Babylon 5 which is better on the second watching several years after watching it the first time).

As promised (or possible warned) Sandman. Sandman is a modern myth, it is, along with Cerebus and most Alan Moore stuff, arguably the most literary comic around. It lasted for 75 issues and is constantly in print in a series of collected editions. Well in a bid to produce a definitive edition (and also rake some more money in) DC has started releasing Absolute Editions. Book 1 has just been released. It collects the first 20 issues (the first 3 or 4 collected books) and is apparently massive.

Anyway if you live in Bermuda, wander into Comic Stop on Front street and ask what Sandman stuff they have, it's very unlikely you'll be disappointed (unless they don't have any).

Fast ferry trip, and browser stats

2006-10-16T22:19:00.000-03:00

Work organised a trip out on a local ferry on Friday evening. Not too interesting you say, well the ferry's called the Wildcat and is a 2,000bhp catamaran , it holds about 35 people and will do over 45 knots. Which is a bit quick in nautical terms. All very good fun and just highlights again how small this place is. If I could travel the fastest I've ever been on my bike for the lenght of it would take me 9 minutes to go from end to end. Ignoring the whole riding into sea and drowing element.

After not posting anything for a while I've just checked out the stats for this page. And Firefox is running at 39% which is good. Linux is there at 6% which could be better, but I think I might need to actually write something technical and interesting to get any more Linux users.

On the Bermuda front 1 in 5 people are using Firefox (to visit this site) which is much better than it was, however I don't think I can start saying 20% of all Bermudians surf with it. Unless I also want to clain that all Chinese surf using Linux and firefox. (Had 1 chinese visitor and yep that's what (s)he used)

Urm stats can be made to say what you want.

Carnivale, and other shows

2006-09-19T19:24:00.000-03:00

Well I've finished series two of Carnivale.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was happy that it had been decided that it was only going to have two seasons. Well after watching it I'm not so sure. I was under the slightly naive view that this was because the story was finished and completed. Well it wasn't. Also reading various sites it appears that the second season was shorterned apart way through. This is backed up with plot lines just appearing to vanish.

Overall it was very good, but it could have been a great. The final episode changes one character profoundly and it just doesn't fit.

House series 3 has started showing (ep 3 is on tonight) and it's as good as the last two seasons
. Bones is also is coming along well as well. It's not quite hitting all the spots that the first series did, the new character is a bit jarring but we shall see.

Oh one new series is on just after Bones called Judgement. It's apparently doing for lawyers what House did for doctors. Urm really not sure about that, and in fact about the show at all. All the lawyers, especially the guy in change (I have no idea of the characters name, which really isn't a good sign), are really not very nice (insert obligatory lawyer joke here). But it's only episode 4. I'm really not sure I'm going to make it to the end of the season.

Ep 1 of the new series of How I met you mother was on last night, yep still as cuddly and fluffy as last year.

Blogging to NMA (live at Norwich from 1991 apparently)

Draft Review of V for Vendetta

2006-09-16T18:49:00.000-03:00

I wrote this just after watching the film at the Cinema

A friend at work has just bought the DVD and my review came up in conversation with someone else. Anyway here it is.

Anarchy, democracy, fascism and V for Vendetta

While this is a review of a film, and basically a film (especially one made by Hollywood) is never going to change anyone's way of life or way of thinking, I would suggest the issues of personal responsibility, and styles of government that it raises are valid. I'm going to leave out any spoilers so hopefully won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it.

But first a bit of history about the source material. It was created by Alan Moore (whose name you will not see anywhere on the film) and David Lloyd in the early 80's as a response to then Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher. The reason Alan Moore wanted to have his name taken off it is best described here http://www.alanmoorefansite.com/news.html#moorevfv

While it's never actively discussed in the film, it has three basic ideologies running through it. Fascism as shown by Norsefire (the Government), and Anarchy as practised by V. The examples of fascism used are the concentration camps populated by homosexuals, non white races and any undesirables. The use of torture, breaking curfews punishable by imprisonment, medical testing are all elements of the nature of the fascist Government. V's response to this is to attempt to show to the people that they are mainly to blame for letting the situation get to this level. He also practices Insurrectionary Anarchism tactics to try to cause the Government to lose control. (ie he blows stuff up). Democracy is the third ideology however it is arguable whether it's in the film or not. It's power if felt by it's lack.

It's far too easy to say the Government in the film is based on Bush's current government or indeed on Thatcher's 80's Government (although both [and many others] have shown elements that cause worry, Clause 28 in the UK and elements of the privacy laws in the US) It's about the Government that could happen if people allow themselves to be ruled by fear and abdicate responsibility to the Government.

"A people shouldn't be afraid of it's Government , a Government should be afraid of it's people" As my copy of the book is several thousand miles away I'm not sure if this quote is in the book. However as V's inital soliloquy I'm pretty sure if lifted straight from the book it wouldn't suprise me.

Governments (a bit of politics)

2006-09-16T11:01:00.000-03:00

Recently the Bermudian government (or perhaps it was just one element of it) have made a series of really good decision about information and how to distribute it, and one huge howler.

There's a blog about a Bermudian Policy called Sustainable Developement which initially had problems hosting files as well. So someone asked Limey in Bermuda to host the documents. Really good idea number one.

Anyway when Florence hit, the Bermuda Government web site went down (and in fact still appears to be down) so the above blog was hijacked to give information about the hurricane, and what to do. Really good idea number 2.

After Flo (as her friends like to call her) I along with a load of other Bermuda blogs and forums, got an email asking if we would like to help distribute information in the future. Basically the idea is if you have a network of information sources it's better than having a single one. Really good idea number 3 (slightly letdown by including me, however this was mitigated by sending it to the wrong email address ;) )

Now apparently TPTB have got the hump about the above Documents being on Limey's site. And asked him to take them down. So the whole idea about the having a network of sites distrbuting the information is already ignored. Funnily enough not a great idea

Now reading between the lines it looks like all the good ideas can be traced to one person (or one department) and the bad idea comes from higher up in the Bermudian Govenment. Now Limey isn't even that critical of the current Govenment.

On a slightly related note am going to see a play of Ben Elton's book Popcorn tonight so that should be fun.

Blogging to Fun-Da-Mental new album All is War

The crane part 2

2006-09-12T16:42:00.000-03:00

Well after the huge (for me) influx of readers on Sunday and Monday (a whole 126 page loads and 94 unique visitors) I'm sure I'll get back to single figures again very soon.

For everyone that was worried that the Crane was going to be turned into a large pretzel by the storm, don't worry, looking at it today I could see no damage at all. (Yes I'm a bit disappointed by that as well)

For some reason the most of the videos I took yesterday got corrupted but I do a have a few of trees being blown around.

Click on these links
Vid 1
Vid 2
Vid 3
Vid 4
Vid 5

There are all quite short, which makes things better. :)

There is another storm coming up but that looks like it's going to pass about 300 nautical miles away, so that shouldn't cause any problems.

Post Hurricane Post.

2006-09-11T20:08:00.000-03:00

Well it all went past, not 100% sure it did end up being a Hurricane. No damage to the house (or any people inside it). Ended up watching series 1 of House until the power cut at about 14:00. Then went to bed for a while as we were knackered. As it was all over by about 17:00 we started clearing up , and are now ready to go back to work tomorrow. As it looks like another one is turning up on thursday, we're not putting most stuff back outside.

Hopefully the power will come back up tonight or early tomorrow. Luckily as we're in a valley we didn't get hit with much of it. I hope everyone else had as an easy ride of it as we did.

Anyway first hurricane (or maybe tropical storm not sure what it ended up being) was a bit boring. But I'm told that this is much better than the alternative.

10pm Sunday

2006-09-10T20:23:00.000-03:00

Not a lot happened. Just wind and rain. All ok. Waiting for the real thing tomorrow at 9:30am
Ok edit to actually make this into a real post.

After the thunderstorm at 10:00 it's basically done nothing all day.

To alivate the boredom, my in laws and myself took a trip down to South Shore, popped into Mid Ocean Club and had a look at the waves. Apparently this is a common destination before a hurricane as Phil from Limey in Bermuda went there too. I have a few photos and videos from the day but they're on phones and cameras and I haven't re-plugged in the desktop to upload them . I'll do that after the Hurricane goes away. (If the power goes down here it'll wait until work on Tuesday.)

In an idea nicked (as well an actual copy and paste, he gets a lot more traffc than me so I don't feel too guilty :) ) from Limey here's some other blogs posting about Flo.
Bill Davidson, Sean Soares, Shawn and Sue and Mark Carey.

Shutting down due to thunderstorm

2006-09-10T12:22:00.000-03:00

Well we have a thunderstorm over our heads so I'm shutting down all the computers and unplugging everything. Yes I have surge protection on everything but the number of those I've seen blown while I've been here means I don't trust them that much.

I'll still take photos and video interesting weather. And I'll blog really interesting stuff by my phone but I want to keep that charged for emergencies (That assumes the wireless network stays up, it probably will)

So everyone on the Island hope everything goes ok, and everybody I'll speak to you all later.

T-1 day

2006-09-10T09:55:00.000-03:00

Well it's still on track. Have taken a few videos with my phone that I'm planning on editing together and post after it all calms down.

After all the prepartions yesterday went out to a restaurent in town called Portofino's which Ness' dad likes a lot and is a really nice Italian place.

Anyway I've eaten there before (it really is lovely) and funnily enough do like pizzas. And the best pizza in the entire world is a Calzone, which is a folded Cornish Pastie type affair (oh yea even though I am from Devon I hate Cornish Pasties sorry Paul). So far the best Calzone I have ever had was a takeaway pizza place in Headingly, Leeds called Harpos, I used to live on these when I was a student and when I had the money (which was often as they were really cheap)

Anyway Portofino's Calzone is almost as good but is much much bigger (and the Harpo's one was sold in a shoe box). The one I had last night was hanging off a plate that looks about 12inchs in diameter. So very big. Basically I now don't need to eat until Flo gone her way. :)

T-2 days

2006-09-09T22:02:00.000-03:00

Yep I got bored with saying Storm update or whatever.

Anyway went into work and shut all the servers down, and then went home and helped Vanessa and her parents prepare everything.
Apparently the winds and rain is just going to get stronger starting tomorrow morning, until it hits

However in the good news section we have made it to the BBC Website and also CNN.
As our living room is now full of stuff from around the pool, the cats are having a great time hiding in odd places, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before Bast decides to attack me from under neath something. (But that's just because she's evil)

Florence update

2006-09-08T16:09:00.000-03:00

Well it still looks like it going to hit but the people who know seem to think it'll be a CAT2 which is windy but nothing too serious. It moving faster towards us and it now looks like it'll pass on the Eastern side (a whole 30NM away, ie pretty much nothing)

Storm update

2006-09-07T22:45:00.000-03:00

Apparently Florence will become a cat 3 hurricane by the time it get close to us. Well that'll be fun :)

The next couple of days will be made up as follows.

Friday (tomorrow)
Chat about the hurricane instead of working (there's always an excuse not to work ), do some last minute food shopping (including cat food)

Sat,
Do house prepartion work, so move anything that isn't nailed down inside. Close all the shutters. Dump loads of chemicals into the water tanks. Basically prepare for a period of time without electricity (and possible no internet sob).

Sunday,
Watch telly, depending on how things go nip into work and turn off all the servers. (This might happen saturday night, or whenever I get bored and decide to turn them off remotely)
Randomly put more gibberish up here. Watch some more of Carnivale (series 2 has turned up, hurray). Still have all 5 seasons of Angel to watch as well, which will fill some time (assuming power is still on).

Sunday evening and monday it all depends on what has happened.

Of course I'm sure that at some point I'll get the chance to quote Hudson from Aliens "All we need now is a deck of cards" :) Yes Dan that one is for you :)

Is this going to here next week.

2006-09-07T14:08:00.000-03:00

Is this going to here next week.,
originally uploaded by fmwt.

A large building is being built near to city hall (behind me when I took this photo). To build this, a large crane has been cemented into the ground.

I'll photograph it again next week (unless Florence turns the corner and goes somewhere) to see what damage, if any has been caused.

Just been to the hardware shop and bought loads of candles and torches and other stuff.

Tropical storm approaching

2006-09-06T08:38:00.000-03:00

Tropical Storm Florence might come within 239 nautical miles of here.
Watch this http://www.sharkoil.bm/tracking to check out it's progress. It's going to hit (or get close) on the 11th at 02:30am

A report from the local news paper.

Another newer report.

Sandcastles, Carnivale and Creaming Jesus

2006-09-04T12:06:00.000-03:00

Bermuda had a sandcastle competition, well sand sculpture really. Here are some photos from some of the better ones, and also one really big one by a professional team.

After wandering up and down the beach looking at these we ended up at the newer Swizzle Inn down the Southampton End of the island. It wasn't as good as the older Swizzle but still a nice meal.

As it's been raining all day yesterday and today I've finally got round to watching Carnivale (I got the season 1 box set for Christmas) I'm kinda of glad that they stopped after the second series (which I haven't seen yet, it's on it's way) as I then know it's got an end. The first season was really good. As with most of the TV shows I like, there is a narative (arc) to the whole thing.

After getting hold of Dan's recommendation Early Day Miners' Offshore I while ago I had forgotten about it (it was left on my laptop and never moved to the desktop) well finally remembered it and it's playing now. Despressing music I love it ;)

On a slightly more Goth/Punk shouty mad people note. I appear (according to Last.fm) to be Creaming Jesus' biggest fan :)

Fishing got cancelled

2006-09-02T09:18:00.000-03:00

Apparently everyone but me and the owner of the boat cancelled, so am not going fishing today. :(

Going Fishing

2006-08-30T20:51:00.000-03:00

I've been inviting fishing, yes me a fish alergic, disagree with hunting for sport person (there really should be a word for that).

Anyway I'm sure that I'll be spiked by a merlin and then eaten by a Tiger shark so that's ok. (This will be a lot funnier when the site I want to link to is back up)

I'll report back after and now I have blogging from my phone working there might be live blogs with pictures.

About to watch second series of Bones which is starting tonight. I only mention this as it'll take months to get to the UK :) Watch out for me mentioning other TV shows starting here before it gets to the UK.

New Dave Sim web comic

2006-08-28T22:09:00.000-03:00

No idea about this at all.

Babylon 5

2006-08-28T21:52:00.000-03:00

Well I've just finished the last episode of series 5. The last series faltered at the beginning (this isn't an new idea by any stretch of the imagination) with the Telepaths and I really don't know why. I personally just didn't like Bryon. Lyta's slow tranformation from lapdog to terrorist (or weapon of mass destruction) was convincing it's just the rest came over to me like Church of England wimps. (I'm not calling all COE people wimps but you know the stereotype).

Anyway the rest was on a par with series 2,3,or 4. The last few episodes were great, and the feeling of the story ending as everyone slowly left the station was one I personally identified with as I have left one country and moved to another. Ironically I've watched the entire 5 series run in my new home.

The final episode was as affecting as The Body from Buffy, obviously both eps deal with death and how you deal with it, in one the inevitable death of yourself, the other the death of a parent/friend.

I think I'll have a gap before I watch the movies and then Crusade. Because they're not as good and B5 is a great story that needs a pause before another lesser story is told in the same universe.

It does make me slightly pissed off that I got rid of the 3 novel trilogies before I moved, but that was my choice. Maybe with the new B5 tales anthologies TV show that going direct to DVD they may re-issue then (or even better release them as e-books)

Update on weather

2006-08-28T07:50:00.000-03:00

Well the hurricane passed 1000 miles away and we got a bit of weather. In fact I completely forgot about it until I was reading a guy's blog this morning, who was here for Fabian (a hurricane that hit 3 years ago and was the worse to hit Bermuda in 50 years).

So we got a bit of rain basically. When I announced the Ness that this was a bit boring, I got a the responce that where weather is concerned boring is good. :)

Went out for a meal on Saturday night with a group of people from the Bermuda's New Islanders Club, had a fun time and met some nice people.

Test post from my Treo 650.

2006-08-23T21:32:00.000-03:00

I'm not really sure why I'm doing this as I don't really blog that often. At the moment this is just a test. But hay perhaps I'll use this more often if the muse takes me :)

Rain, frogs and lizards

2006-08-23T20:11:00.000-03:00

Ok now living in paradise aparently, apart from I've seem more rain here in the last 3 months than in the last year in the UK.

Yep it's still about 30 degrees C but when the rainful is measured in feet not inches then somethings up. :)

A hurricane is going by in a few days about 1000 miles off somewhere so we're going to "get some weather" according to Ness :)
Just been told yesterday it eas expected to pass 1400 miles ssw and now it's 1040 ssw so it's getting closer, anyway that'll be fun. (Note to Mum and other relatives, it'll be fine and will miss by a long way)

The little fuffly bunnies of doom (or the cats) have started bringing in tiny little tree frogs, and small lizards. Bast just drops them on the floor and plays with them for a bit and then gets bored. Loki eats them. Anyway seeing as we felt that this was generally not very nice, I've taken to rescuing them.

Bast brought in a lizard the other day which was about 7 inchs or so long. Both ends were hanging out of her mouth, she dropped it and it decided to run up my leg and hide in my hair.

Anyway it was let lose in the garden so all well.

Oh and a tiger shark was caught off the coast a few weeks ago so even less chance of me swimming in the sea.

Prospero's Cave

2006-08-06T19:40:00.000-03:00

Got invited out on the parents' of a friend's boat today. Went for a sail for all the afternoon and generally had a really good time.

As usual I swam in the sea with all the style and elegance of a rock. (in a spooky aside Ozric Tentacles' Sploosh has been picked by my music player)

We swam to the shore at one point and went to see some caves, one of them being called Prospero's Cave. I have a feeling this is called this in the same way that most of Cornwall has King Arthur related place names, as Bermuda was first settled in 1609 and Shakespeare died in 1616. Anyway it was really nice and there was a large pool in the cave that you could swim in. (It was a look more refreshing and cool than the sea which was warm). However seeing as Bermuda has a history of Hurricanes and Tornados it does fit with the Tempest.

Had a night out on Friday night, and ended up at a place called the Swizzle Inn (you go drinking in Bermuda and you usually end up at one of the two Swizzles). Some blokie was belting out Billy Joel covers which was a little odd, but he was very good. Next time I go in I'm planning on asking him if he's heard of Marah. And Dan (god of all music that's odd) has suggested Offshore by Early Day Miners I'm hoping that this can be ordered for slightly less than my left arm.

Every year Bermuda has a Cup match where the two ends of the island place against each other at Cricket. The entire island shuts for two days, so we had a 4 day weekend. Unfortunately I didn't get to go to it but maybe next year.

For any fans of Serenity/Firefly you can download (legally and for free) a fan made documentary about the whole thing. Called Done the Impossible it's looking good so far (I've watched about half).

A legend has passed

2006-07-29T01:13:00.000-03:00

Just found out that David Gemmell died this morning.

I really liked his books especially his early ones. They weren't great art but they were very good stories about people making a difference.

King beyond the gate is possible my favorite Herioc fantasy novel. And the first two Jon Shannow my favorite westerns (which is a little unfair as I'm not a huge reader of western books).

I met him a couple of times at conventions or signing and he seemed a really nice bloke.

My thoughts are with his family and friends.

After a month of working

2006-07-09T08:53:00.000-03:00

Well after a month of being on the Island and working, it's really good. Everyone's really cool at work.

Have used the pool a few times and will be using it again next weekend when we're having a party to celebrate mine and Ness' second anniversary.

Have seen Superman Returns which was really good. I'm not a huge Superman fan, preferring the slightly (to very) darker tales of Batman, but like Alan Moore's Superman stories (he only did a few), I really enjoyed the film. Loved the image of Superman waiting in space to hear the next crisis, I'm pretty sure it's nicked from an Alex Ross painting but still :)

When I left LGC they gave me a load of books, DVDs, and cds.
I am currently watching the complete Babylon 5 box set. Have seen Legend of the Rangers, which apart from the ludicrous targeting system wasn't too bad. I think it would have got better with development. G'kar was cool, the "no-one is what they seem" line was slightly over used. My condolences to Andreas Katsulas' family on his recent passing.

I have watched the first series, which was a lot better than I remembered, and just started the second.

Am currently getting hold of the final episode of Doctor Who. Thought last weeks was really good. And I really liked Gods and Monsters, the episode pretty much without the Doctor and Rose. Hopefully will be watching the final ep tonight.

One thing I've learned while working is that apparently Canadians don't know what bollocks means :) I will try out more slightly obscure English phrases and report back :)

ps I just been reminded that I haven't said that I have best wife in the world, in this post. How remiss of me ;) Consider it said :)

Quick post about my ride in this morning

2006-06-16T13:04:00.000-03:00

Well it's raining, not really heavy rain, just slightly more than a drizzle, but as it's still 23 degress C (or so) it warm and not like the horrible wet cold drizzle you get back home.

Anyway as Bermudians seem to shrink in the rain (or at least there were a lot less on the road this morning) the traffic was a lot lighter. :)

Basically there is only one route you can take from where we are living (Shelly Bay for any locals) to where I work Par-le-ville road, there are actually quite a few passing opertunities especially if you are following some other bikes as you can tell if anything is coming as they move back to their side of the road.

Oh yesterday I saw two smart young men standing next to a main road with a big sign saying Honk if you're prayed this morning. Needless to say nearly fell of my bike laughing (as I really really hadn't), obviously someone had showed their displeasure (of whom I'm not sure) by making it rain, and they weren't there today.

Am officially here and on the internet

2006-06-15T21:10:00.001-03:00

Well after 15 days we are indeed pretty much settled in, I'm sure there is some unpacking still to do but that's pretty normal.

Got a net connection downstairs (the walls etc are too thick for wireless) by using two of these and remarkly it works. Network stuff over power cables, just a little scary.

So we got a car. It's a yello Chevy Spark, so yes the bananamobile.
And work gave me a scooter for a month, so far I've not scared too many locals as this 50cc hairdryer with wheels passes them :) and funnily enough the speedo needle does indeed bounce off the end pin. Slightly more than 65 kph apparently, obviously not on a public road.

And yes it is hot and humid. It might thunder tonight which will actually be quite nice (although the ride tomorrow will be interesting)

Not in Kansas any more

2006-06-02T10:26:00.000-03:00

Well we landed and got settled in ok. The cats are happy now.

Will post more later. Going out to possible buy a car.

Have fun

Possible last post before we move countries

2006-05-29T09:26:00.000-03:00

Well the massive list of things that we needed to do before we move has indeed grown into massive times several.

This has basically meant that most of the people we wanted to see before we moved didn't get visited.
If we haven't had a chance to see you please don't take it personally.

I'm about to take the computer to bits to take the harddisks out so I can take them with us. Will post again when I can blag the laptop off Ness.

Have fun & we will be posting links (and sending emails) to BA sales when they are announced so people can come and visit us.

Wolves in the Walls & Tai Chi

2006-04-28T21:19:00.000-03:00

As it was my birthday today Ness (my wife) took me to the theatre to see Wolves in the Walls, my best man Mark also came along. This is a Neil Gaimen/Dave McKean children's book turned into a musical. It took a while to get going but was funny and the puppet wolves were very cool.

It was fun chatting after the musical and was nice to know that I wasn't gibbering when I said to Ness a while ago about a film term ovre (no idea how it's spelt, it's a French world describing a director's body of work)

Have started going to Tai Chi twice a week now. We have done the Yang Style short form and I can usually muddle my way through with too many huge mistakes.
Our instructor has also being teaching us Hsing-I and Ba Gau (also spelt Pa Kwa) as well as the Yang Style long form. Hopfully will find an instructor in Bermuda who teaches these styles.

I'm really enjoying this and it's really nice to learn something new that isn't work or computer related. Which this in mind I'm going to take up climbing (there is a climbing wall outside Ness' dad's office in Bermuda so planning on going there). Mark and his wife Pu bought me a climbing crabina and belaying thingy. Me and Ness are hoping to make it down to Bristol before we move as a friend works in a climbing centre. Needless to say I'll probably be rubbish at it ;)

Update on Nick Hornby and Marah

2006-04-12T03:31:00.000-03:00

Over at Penguin Podcasts they're are talking about "an exclusive podcast of a special event featuring Nick Hornby and Marah - an explosive combination of books and rock. We'll be podcasting this in two episodes (it's a big file!) and the enhanced version will be packed with pictures from the show. Tune in on Wednesday for the loudest Penguin podcast yet!"

So hopefully this will be a live recording of the gig last thursday at Dingwalls. Hurray

Will know more later when it's available to download.

Update
Yep it's the gig, will be downloading this tonight at home

List of Bermuda based Blogs, forums, & Wikis

2006-04-10T04:00:00.000-03:00

On a forums I'm on some asked about Bermuda based blogs, forums etc.
So I found these

There are a number of Bermuda based blogs. (I've not visited all of these so don't know how Bermuda orientated they are)
Dark & Stormy - http://spaces.msn.com/darkandstormy/ although the author has moved away from the MSN Spaces blogging system (a good move in my opinon as the formatting was rubbish to http://www.bravozulu.bm/
Bermuda Blog - http://www.markcarey.com/bermuda/
Bermuda 2006 - http://bermuda-ironbridge.blogspot.com
A Yankee in Bermuda - http://bermudayankee.blogspot.com
Bermuda Thoughts - http://bermudathoughts.blogspot.com
http://tomquinn.blogspot.com/
http://spaces.msn.com/ilonapbda/PersonalSpace.aspx
http://www.killbot.bm/
http://www.imho.bm/
www.limeyinbermuda.com
www.bermudacruise.blogspot.com
www.politics.bm

Limey in BM has also posted about a few more
http://www.limeyinbermuda.com/latest_news/2005/02/the_bermudian_b.html

From the forum point of view I've only really found BermudaSucks and
http://www.bermudashorts.bm/

I had forgotten about this Wiki (it's a web page that pretty much anyone can edit see this for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki )
http://bda.bermudawiki.com

Nick Hornby and Marah

2006-04-07T12:05:00.000-03:00

Went to a gig last night.

The author Nick Hornby (him of Fever Pitch, About a Boy, High Fidelity and other books that'll probably become films at some point) really really likes Marah, US rock bluesie band. (Apparently so does Stephen King, Bruce Springsteen, and Phil Jupitus definitly does as he was there last night and said so). He wrote a load of essays about his relationship with music and live bands through his life. Last night with Dan and his wife Ester we saw him read these essays with Marah as a musical backdrop. Then Marah played their own set.

It was really really good. They are really good live. If you get a chance to see them, then do yourself a favour.

Here a much better review of the show.

Clash fan nicked under anti terrorism law

2006-04-05T09:12:00.000-03:00

Remind me never to play music I like to any Taxi driver ever.

Clash fan nicked | The Register

Giving stuff away

2006-04-04T08:52:00.000-03:00

Not really sure why I haven't mentioned this before.

If you have some things that you don't want/need anymore think about Freecycling it
http://www.freecycle.org/

As part of going through our house for the move we have re-distributed a lot of stuff to people in the local area.

And if you are one of the 20 or so people who read this from Bermuda then check out the Bermuda group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdafreecycle/
Which incidentally Ness (my wife) set up :)

Computer security or why you should patch your pc

2006-03-30T18:25:00.000-04:00

In case any of you are not patching your computer read this http://tinyurl.com/jn6nd

The important thing is
"An unpatched Windows 2000 Server was the quickest to be compromised, at an hour and 17 minutes, while unpatched Windows Server 2003 lasted slightly longer. Windows XP Professional, unpatched, lasted one hour and 12 seconds"
"However, patching does make a difference. Patched versions of Windows fared far better, remaining untouched throughout the test"

If you're using any older os the changes are your pc has already been compromised.

In a perfect world of course you'd be using Linux
"Meanwhile, Unpatched Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SuSE Linux 9 Desktop weren't compromised during the month and a half it was exposed to the Internet."

And yes a firewall would help a lot as well

have fun

ps use Firefox that'll help as well

Goth is the new black

2006-03-21T09:04:00.000-04:00

Cor after all these years apparently goths are good.

Guardian

But one really good thing about this article is the news that the Sisters of Mercy are on tour again. Hurray
http://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com/news/livenews.htm

War of the worlds not completely rubbish, shock

2006-03-09T15:23:00.000-04:00

Well saw (as you may have guessed from the subject) War of The Worlds.

And surprise, surprise Tom Cruise didn't save the world, and in fact it wasn't completely rubbish.

It actually followed the story (urm from the album, I've never actually read the book, which is really bad of me) quite closely, or at least the themes of the story.
Yep the Reverend and Artilleryman were combined to become one person. But it was still about one man running away and hoping that something will fix it all.

Yep there was the blowing up of one tripod with grenades and Cruise noticing the shield was done on one. But seeing as that one was going to die soon anyway it doesn't really count.

Mind you, the film didn't move me at all, and I didn't care about anyone in it. Dakota Fanning's character was the best acted but seeing as all she really had to do was look with big eyes and scream that's not a huge accomplishment. I do feel that's a tad harsh when the actor is about 10 and she was much better than the child actors in Naria.

Might to watch Serenity again to see how a SF film should be done. ;)

Snakes, bikes and Linux

2006-03-05T10:44:00.000-04:00

A friend (Mark) had his 30th birthday party last night, and I got introduced to his 2 new snakes.

One was a foot long baby python called Topaz, she was really sweet and didn't mind me carring her around for a while.
The other was a 6 foot long boa called Colin (the constrictor), Mark carried him around but i did stroke him. I had never touched a snake before, and actually really enjoyed it.

Well World Superbikes have started up again. James Toseland from the UK (2004 champion) has started off much better than last year. After 4 races he's current second in the championship, one point of the leader, Troy Bayliss from Oz.

Also I read this (http://www.whiprush.org/2006/03/tegnologiedetro.html) about taking donated computers, teaching kids in deprived areas to configure them and install Linux (licensing reasons mean you can't do this with Wind0ws) and then familes in the area get $100 computers. I assume the kids working on the computers are members of the families who get the computers. But even if they aren't they get tutorials on various elements of computing, from hardware, web page coding, etc.

Been watching a new TV Show called "How I met you mother" the only reason I got into it in the first place was because Alyson Hannigan from Buffy is in it, and after a slightly ropey pilot episode, it's really good. There are elements of Friends in there, and if you hated everything single thing about Friends then this probably isn't for you. Basically a father tells his kids stories, in the future, about how he met their mother. But he hasn't met her yet. It uses flashbacks in a similar way to Wonder years. It's not as smultzy as this makes it sound. And the characters are funny. The guy who played Dougie Howser (and also was in Starship Troopers) plays a single guy who wants to stay single and have one night stands for ever. He is very funny.

Loki update and new book by Joolz

2006-02-23T16:30:00.000-04:00

Well after pretending to be a lampshade for a few weeks he's has the stitches out and no longer has to wear the collar. He's much happier about this.
We decided not to take photos and post them on the net for all the world to see as that would be cruel, that and the batteries ran out on Ness' camera.

Joolz Denby has a new book out. Borrowed Light. It's about surfing and set in Cornwall (ok obviously it's not about surfing). I'm about half way through and so far it's as good as Billy Morgan (Orange prize shortlisted and Booker longlisted Billy Morgan). As I have been a fan of Joolz' art from the covers of New Model Army albums, and her spoken word albums for years, it's not a huge surprise that I've always liked her books.

That and the fact that I seem to always buy them from the merchandising stall at Army gigs and get her to sign them :) Unfortunatly not this time.

And finally a great photo of Dan and Godzilla. Dan's on the left. (Oh ok I'm sorry but I've been thinking about that joke since Dan sent me the link :) )

Spearhead/Disposable Heroes

2006-02-16T17:29:00.000-04:00

The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy created one of my favorite albums of the 90's Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury. It's a really really good political industrial hip hop album that sits really well next to Consolidated and Jello Biafra.

Anyway after this brilliant album Michael Franti went off to be part of Spearhead and created Home. Slighty less political, no industrial, more r&b. Very good. The second album was Chocolate Superhigh way. Which I never really got on with.

Anyway Spearhead is now Michael Franti & Spearhead and I've just got Stay Human. On the first listen it's as good as Home. Still more r&b than hip hop. Very political. Very very good.

Expect it to turn up on Last.fm quite a lot.

This started as a boring post but became ever so slightly interesting

2006-02-13T16:34:00.000-04:00

Well instead of waiting for something interesting to happen. I thought I would blog about a last few weeks.

Well, we, after several weekends, finished re-insulating and lay of floorboards in the loft. It took a lot longer than we thought it would, but worked out ok. Apart from Me and Ness now not being able to bend over. DIY is bad for your back.

We have been going to Tai Chi (which strictly speaking not boring) tomorrow will be our 4th or 5th week. I'm almost graceful. But of course still can't tell my left from my right.

Ness also had her eyes shot with lasers. And in fact her eyesight is now a lot better. (you know that's not boring either)

When Ness was recovering from the procedure at home in bed. I walked downstairs to find a worryingly large amount of blood on the living room floor. Eventually found Loki (who seems to be addicted to our vets) which both his front paws cuts. We think he was jumping up on to some barbed wired (no idea where around here) so down he went again. He's now had then sown up and has to wear a plastic cone to stop him from tearing out his stitches. Poor little bloke (not really boring but could still have done without it).

So far Loki has been to the vets (apart from the usual shots etc) for cystitis caused by stress (twice), being overweight, asthma, and now both paws being injured. And he's only 1 year and a few months old.

Bast (his elder [by about 20 mins] but smaller sister) has never been apart from when I was painting the garden fence and dripped some paint on her (This was completely my fault).

On a non cat related note I have officially accepted a job in Bermuda and handed in my notice at my current job. Which means we now are actually moving :)

World of Warcraft Characters

2006-01-15T16:11:00.000-04:00

This post is in no way a way of me keeping track of my characters after I lost one. (Or rather forgot which realm one was on)

Realm : Arathor
Character : Bubastis lvl 32 Night Elf Hunter
NMA lvl 8 Tauren Hunter
Realm : Nordrassil
Character: Dru lvl 9 Undead Warrior
Realm : Shadowsong
Character : Gavriel lvl 6 Human Paladin

Weekend and music site

2006-01-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

Well this weekend we spent the entire time clearing out the loft so we can, in a few weekends time, re-lay new insulation and put down boards so we can put all the stuff we have taken down (minus the stuff Ness has Freecycled and we have bined) back up along with all the stuff we aren't taking to Bermuda initally.

I also cut the old water tank up so we could get it down. So a very long way from my favorite activities for working/playing the computer, reading etc. Needless to say not my favorite weekend but it needed doing and when we have finished on the loft it'll mean we have a lot more storage space up there.

Also heard that Ness' and my friend Tony and his Wife Margaret have gained a new son. I mean in the normal way, they didn't like just find him at the shops or anything ;) So welcome John Matthew (or Matthew John, Tony obviously did say but I forgot, as Bill Hicks once said they are not alive until they're in my phone book) into the world.

I also found out by playing with Amarok (the music player that comes with SUSE Linux using KDE) about Last.fm a music social site. So here's a link to my profile.
http://www.last.fm/user/fmwt/ as you can see I've only joined up today. You can get pluggins that will upload info about what you're listening to (or you could use a proper OS and Amarok has it built in ;) )

The Nephilim album Mourning Sun is really good. So far Straight to the Light is my favorite track, and the cover of In the Year 2525 is so far from the original track. Which (in my shame) I actually quite like even if it is a 60s Hippy type track. (This is from memory, after I've got it [using iTunes unfortunatly] I will be no doubt saying something else)

TV better than Movies?

2006-01-11T17:46:00.000-04:00

As drunken people do, over the weekend we talked about stuff and someone (a drunk Dan) said that TV is rubbish. Now I didn't agree with him, citing Buffy, Babylon 5, Lost, Firefly etc (I should have mentioned Dr Who but didn't, I wasn't exactly sober myself), Dan had some good points about how B5 was good but he wouldn't want to watch it again. His argument about Buffy floundered somewhat when Ester (his wife) mentioned him only seeing about half an episode out of 7 series. ;)

Anyway saw a link to this which discusses who certain people (who have worked in both) think that TV is better than Movies.

I'm not sure I agree but also I think that a lot of Hollywood films
are rubbish, and there is a lot going for looking elsewhere (ie non US
films), whereas with a few notably exceptions (and I'll include UK
shows like Office etc) the best of American TV is better than anywhere
else.

The new year (Dan's off)

2006-01-10T14:46:00.000-04:00

Well here is 2006 (yep I'm only 10 days late ;) )

Went up to Nottingham last weekend to see Dan before he and his wife Ester leave from Tokyo. This meant several things. Drinking quite a bit more than I should have but not nearly as much as Dan :)
Buying lots of comics from Page 45 which I didn't leave in every pub we went to, this is much better than Dan's stag where I did. Thanks to Stephen from Page 45 who kept taking me back to the every pub we have just left.

I also bought the latest Fields of the Nephilim album Mouring Sun, which is really good dodgy old goth.

Had a really good weekend seeing Dan, Ester, Rich, Tina, Tom, Denise, and Kip anywhere Conway (so named for being able to sleep anywhere and everywhere)

I hope Dan and Ester have a great time in Japan.

Everyone thinks Serenity was great

2005-12-28T17:56:00.000-04:00

All posts from Whedonesque
UK flm mag Film Focus
Canadian Rental Company
And many other links for Whedonesque

After checking out what they had in Music Box today, bought the Region 1 box set of Carnivale, something I have heard good things about but not seen any off.

Region 2 of Serenity (and also maybe Night Watch) will be turning up in Feb.

And Dan did say it first about Walking Dead, which just shows how great and cool he is. Hopefully he'll read Vellum and explain it to me ;)

Serenity

2005-12-26T13:30:00.000-04:00

Well as part of my Christmas presents I got some gift vouchers for a local dvd/music shop (Music box in case anyone from Bermuda ever reads this).

So do I buy Region 1 Serenity which I will leave here or shall I wait until Feb and get region 2 which has more extras on it. Or I could buy both?

Thing is if I don't buy it from here I'm not hugely sure what to get from the shop as the music is mostly reggae.

Also after reading an interview with Carl Hiassen I decided to pick up Christopher Paolini's Eragon which I found in a Book shop here. Considering the guy is 19 now and wrote this a few years ago (admittedly he has re-written bits of it since then) this is a really good fantasy. Yep it does suffer from some fairly obvious plot devices, but you can excuse that as it's supposed to be a young adults book. The writing really doesn't come across as from a teen. Anyway am really looking forward to getting book 2 of (well it's fantasy they have to come in threes) the trilogy.

Also picked up book 4 of the collected Walking Dead. Still very good. I was going to talk about how impressed I was with Dan about him realising that the title refers to the survivors not the Zombies, until I read the final page of this collection where one of the characters makes that very point. However I can't find where Dan said it in his blog so I wont.

Proper weather

2005-12-26T11:59:00.000-04:00

Well just in case anyone was worried about the weather here. We had two really nice days of 20-23 degrees C and in fact went walking on the beach and paddling in the sea on Christmas day ;)

Now it's back to wet, cold (relatively) and windy. Really not looking forward to going back to -7 degrees C overnight weather.

Meant to say a while ago that I got wireless working under SUSE Linux. The only slight issue was that the OS was 64bit as the processor is an p4 with 64bit extensions. Once I realized that I had to find a 64bit windows driver for the nic. And configured ndiswrapper with it. There is the slight issue of it losing the default gateway after a few hours which I still need to sort out but it's generally fine.

Bermuda at Christmas

2005-12-23T16:46:00.000-04:00

Well so far the weather has been warm (about 17-20 degress C) but overcast and rainy. I think I'll ask for a refund.

Have had 5 interviews and think I should be getting some sort of offer out of 4 of them (although I have an technical interview with one of them which I could mess up). All 4 looks like they are interesting places to work. Basically all of them were supporting/consultanting for external customers. And I need to get my MCSE for all of them.

Have also passed my Bermuda driving test, which was a fun few days of sitting in the Bermuda vechicle licensing place. (The Transport Control Dept. TCD)

Saw Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. My feeling about the film may be slightly biased by the group of people talking and then indeed snoring behind me. Generally thought it was ok The fantastic characters fit within the film very well, possible because the children playing the humans were a bit silted. But I seem to remember the characters in the book being as silted.So it may not have been the actors faults. Although the girl playing Lucy (the youngest) seemed to be more convincing than the rest.

Oh and apparently my wife is the most wonderful person in the world (or so I've just been told :) )

Also have found a comic shop in Bermuda so that's ok we can move here ;) Ness was so happy when I told her that.

Apparently I'm needed to help wrap presents.

Vellum

2005-12-23T16:26:00.000-04:00

Have finally finished Vellum by Hal Duncan. It's good, I think when I read the second half (Ink published hopefully sometime next year) it'll become very good.

Ok so what's it about?

Urm well it's about the forces of order fighting the forces of chaos. But I don't think it is, it may be about identity and self. It may be about how things stays the same and history repeats itself, or even how history repeats it's self at the same time.

It may be about alienation and being an outcast, it could also be about being a god.

It's really not an easy book to read, and I'm hopeful that some of my, more intellient friends than me (that'll be most of them ;) ), will read it and in discussing it with them I'll get more out of it. If Ink is a while away I think I'll read it again just before reading Ink and I'll get more of an understanding.

I'm aware that I'm not doing a great job of selling it to anyone and the tone of the book does change in the second half of it so it's less Sumerian angel stuff. But it's really good. I'm just not 100% sure why.

Needless to say I didn't try reading it while listening to the Field of the Nephilim to try out my theory about the cosmic rift (it's near the end)

Why the internet is cool

2005-11-17T16:17:00.000-04:00

You find sites like this http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/willey.html

This is also why physics (a subject I was never very good at) is also cool.

This I loved which is probably not a good sign for any children I may end up having :)

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/17/girl_who_didnt_do_ho.html

Stats about my blog

2005-11-16T14:47:00.000-04:00

Over the last 100 page loads

60% have used firefox or mozila browsers
34% IE
6% Safari

60% come from the UK
13% US
13% Bermuda

oh and 82% stayed for less than 5 seconds ;) which only proves that about 8 people on the planet read this ;)

Moving to Bermuda

2005-11-14T06:56:00.000-04:00

Me and Ness are going to move to Bermuda next year. We're planning on moving in June/July.

We don't have jobs sorted out yet but have contacts and will be checking things out when go this Christmas.

The idea is to both stay in our respective fields as there are enough opportunities out there for us. And as Ness is a Bermudian Citizen I get citizenship for as long as we stay married (so planning on a very long time ;) ) and Bermudian citizens get preference over non citizens for jobs.

Ops forgot to say the first time I posted this. Me and Ness will be going on a tour of all our friends to catch up and say hi etc before we go.

Back from Devon

2005-11-13T12:13:00.000-04:00

Well back from Devon.

Has a really nice time seeing my parents and sister and her family, and also seeing some friends. As usual didn't have enough time so felt like I was not spending enough time with people. Will be going back down again after Christmas.

Did watch The Descent and Sin City with Fizzy which was good.
Both really good films although Fizz raised the good issue of the monsters in Descent looking far too much like Gollum. But as she said if you take humans and put them underground for a long enough time you pretty much end up with the same type of thing.

Chaos for the up

2005-11-10T15:43:00.000-04:00

Gonna start a tribute band ;)

And I see Dan hasn't posted his review of Anansi Boys. Bad Dan.

Off to Devon for the weekend to see my parents.

More culture and bikes (surely the same thing)

2005-11-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

No I haven't read Iain M Banks' latest book. Ness did and liked it. I've never really got into his SF stuff.

After going to the theatre to see Otherwise Engaged we decided to go again and see The Producers. Mel Brooks is culture of a kind ;) This was about as far as I would prefer to step into musicals. It was very silly and fun.

Final motogp race tomorrow at Valencia. Rossi won the world Championship a while ago and is currently 156 points in the lead.

Right Loki (the bigger cat) is currently trying to eat books in an attempt to show me that he is hungry.

Fed up with blog spam

2005-10-27T15:05:00.000-03:00

Right as I'm getting more spam comments than real ones I've turned on word verfication. Hopefully this won't stop any real people from commenting.

Half dog half grizzley bear all Lenny

2005-10-27T14:19:00.000-03:00

A few days ago Ness heard from a friend that someone she knew was going put down a Rottweiller dog they had because they couldn't handle it. There was no attempt to re-home it, that was it unless something happen by 5pm on the next day the dog was going to die. (Vets are not supposed to do this on healthly animals so we're not 100% that this would of happened)

So Ness drove to Bristol after checking out various people who said yes they would be interested, and picked up this small pony of a dog. The owner was completely crap and unable to do anything. Ness (still on one crutch) walked in and got the dog under control within minutes.

Needless to say a good deed never goes un-punished, and all the people who had shown interest including one couple who had experience of Rotties and said they were deffinatly interested, dropped out.

As you may know from my flickr page we have two kittens (well they have just turned one so cats really) and the arrival of this huge slobbering dog wasn't going to go down well. But we didn't have a choice. Lenny got talken for a walk (there wasn't too much him talking me for one :) ) and then stayed in our smallish back garden until we shut him in the bathroom for the night so the cats wouldn't feel threatened.

After discussing it we realised that we really couldn't keep him as it would be cruel to both him and the cats. Our house and garden is just not big enough for him. We would have had to tie him up outside, the bathroom was ok for one night. So today Ness took him to Battersea Dogs home. They are going to look after him until they can rehome him.

He's a wonderfully even tempered dog, fine with other animals and adults. He does have an issue with children, apparently he was abused by some at his first owners. As he's hasn't been walked for about 3 months he overweight at the moment. But he did have three very long walks while we had him so I don't think he wants walks ever again. :)

I hope that his next owners treat him well.

Geeky stuff

2005-10-24T18:09:00.000-03:00

Well cut down my number of os's to two. Win XP and SUSE 10.
And got World of Warcraft working under Suse so happy there. And it appears to run quicker and at a higher resolution than under XP.

id and Raven have also released Linux binaries for Quake 4. So that'll be fun as well ;)

Still need to finish Half Life2. Currently stuck on the bit where youhave to position the sentry guns (not really from Aliens special edition) but will hopefully sort that bit out soon.

And met a guy called Nephilim on WOW playing an undead character. So we chatted about being sad old goths for a bit ;)

Turning Japanesse

2005-10-24T15:42:00.000-03:00

Not all prompted by Dan's reminder that it's been over a month since my last post, here's a new one.

Congratulations to the afore mentioned Dan for getting a new job in Japan, and also redesigning his blog to it looks lovely.

So since last time, Suse 10 has come out, and the entire county seemed to be out of stock of World of Warcraft (apart from a nice person on eBay who got a spare copy as a gift). Myself and Ness went on holiday to Spain. It's a bit sad that the best bit was a road from the resort to a town. It was all switch back turns up a mountain. Very fun ;)

As Serenity came out in the UK while we were on holiday (as well as missing two New Model Army gigs) saw that last week. Really, really really good. Best Science Fiction or genre film I have seen in ages. So much better than the lastest Star Wars films. Hopefully more will be coming.

Also went to the theatre in Woking last saturday. Basically Richard E Grant and Anthony Stewart Head were in it, so thought it would be good. It was called Otherwise Engaged. Not hugely sure about it. Apparently it moving the London so I really wouldn't spend lots on seeing it but it was ok.

On the book front, as usual on holiday anywhere I read anything and everything I could lay my hands on.

So Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys,
Terry Pratchett's Thrud
Kathy Reichs' Cross Bones
Hal Duncan's Vellum
Manual to World of Warcraft.

Funnily enough I enjoyed the manual more than Cross Bones especially as there wasn't a pirate in sight. Kathy Reichs seems to be falling foul of the same issue Patrica Cornwall did (before I got bored and stopped reading her stuff) ie loads of plot lines and confusion and then the guilty party basically grabs the protagonist at the end (in the last few pages) and says "I did it" Not impressed. This one did try in grab a bit of Da'Vinca Code's fame by maybe having the bones of Christ. She did try and excuse it with a, in the end all murders are done for the same reasons, type comment, but still not impressed.

Thrud was great. And not at all about the current issues in the middle east/US/ just about anywhere else where there are two people who disagree on things. It does amuse me that some people still think Pratchett writes "fantasy".

Anansi Boys was also great. It's odd reading the comments that Neil Gaiman put up on his blog while writing books and then remembering them ages later when you read what he's talking about.

Vellum (which I'm still reading, about a third of the way through at the moment) has huge potential. So far I'm getting elements of Storm Constantine's Hermatech, bits of the Wreaththu trilogy and the Grigori trilogy, Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash, and bits of Clive Barker's less horror stuff. I suspect reading it while listening to Elizium by the Nephilim would start some sort of cosmic rift. :)
Of course it could just end up as post modern Sumerian-cyberpunk gibberish.

Games/ OSs/ Music

2005-09-17T12:47:00.000-03:00

Well indeed New Model Army had a new album out on the 5th of September. After listening to it on repeat since I've got it. I like it, a lot.

The first few listens I really wasn't sure. The first track I really didn't like at all. And generally it was ok apart from Island which was the single that I heard before (and really liked) but after repeatedly playing it, it has got a lot better. Not as good as Thunder and Consolation or Impurity and no track is as good as Green and Gray or No Pain.

And after listening to a lot of NMA recently I've discovered my favorite track is Drummy B (The Billy McGan version) which I really didn't think it would be.

I have now have 3 OSs install on my pc

Windows XP (boo hiss) runs everything, but had so much anti spam, anti-virus, firewall etc on it, it takes ages to start up and has cost a load.

SUSE 9.3, is really quick and is the OS I use the most. It runs Quake3 Area, Half Life2, Doom3, Starcraft but will show the mac area of dual format cds, so won't install Warcraft3, Diablo2, StarCraft Brood war, and won't run Itunes. Cost £59 for the whole distro including an absolute ton of software. Burning DVDs (yep the software for that is included). Oh to play all the games apart from the id ones I bought some software from www.transgaming.com so there is cost involved

SUSE 10 OSS release client 1. This is new from (www.opensuse.org) this will show the PC area of dual format cds or dvds so will install the above but I can't get the ATI graphics drivers working yet. So Diablo2 and Starcraft (and it's expansion) will run but the stuff that needs 3d is a bit broken. :(

And the real reason I'm spending any time at all using XP is that I can't get World of Warcraft to run under Linux yet. And seeing as the evil people at PC Gamer have included a 14 day free demo of WOW I am spending a lot of time in XP. Addictive game no never :)

Another game that was demo'd was Fahrenheit it's a really good looking and playing adventure type game. Very interesting story line, you start by playing someone who has killed someone in an American Diner but he wasn't in control of his body at the time. So that looks good as well.

And will Valentino Rossi win the MotoGP championship with 6 races still to go, in Japan tomorrow, well we'll see.

Doom3 and NMA

2005-08-23T18:25:00.000-03:00

After getting a certain way through Doom3 I had stopped (I think Half Life2 came out), I have just got it working on Linux (really wasn't difficult copied some files and ran the Linux installer) and was playing it again from where I left off.

It's very scary :)

And after some thing close to 5 years New Model Army have a new single out (on iTunes) and a new album out on 5th of Sept.

The single Island is very good. And if a good representation of the album it could be another Impurity or Thunder and Consolation.