Revenge of the Dark Side...

I'm sitting here rather nervously, surrounded by a circuit boards, miniature LCD displays, tiny bits of plastic and a few screws.

Having got bored of the knackered scuffed and scratched "I am old" finish of my Ipaq, I've decided to give it a bit of a facelift. Originally I had bought some yellow spray and some spray lacquer, to get a nice finish on it, but when neither shop I went to was able to furnish me with white primer (one was out of stock, the other was CLOSED (on a wednesday afternoon!), I decided to use black as a primer and spray (lots of coats of) yellow over that before lacquering it.

Having carefully taken the Ipaq to bits, a process that took about 20 rather nervous and painstaking minutes, the sprayed halves of the case are now downstairs drying from a rather-too-thick coat of Games Workshop's finest "Chaos Black".

In the meantime I'm sat here wondering if I can put the thing back together, and if I can, will it work again.

So hey.

21:26: Jesus and Mary on a pogo stick! Where to begin. Sometime chronologically after the events depicted in the last paragraph is always a good start.

The paint dried surprisingly quicky with an unintended (but not unpleasant) speckly finish, on top of which went a couple of coats of lacquer. The remainder ended up on my hands, which wasn't particularly nice.

But, time came to put the thing back together, and it actually went together again pretty easily. Just a case of "follow the instructions in reverse order", and I was clipping the case closed five minutes later.

All was well, until the stylus got jammed inside the thing. I took it apart to unjam it (a task made difficult by the fact that you CAN'T take it apart while the stylus is inside it), and succeeded in extricating the stylus.

Then I noticed that the center selector button control whatsit was jamming frequently. This turned out to be caused by me seating one of the springs that supported it, in the (slightly!) wrong position.

Finally, after having it back together for an hour, I'd stopped shaking with frustration and was reflecting on the fact that "I preferred it in Silver". At this point, the paint started flaking off. Not happy.

I took the thing apart to scrape the paint off it, realising that I'd rather have a silver Ipaq than a black one where the silver showed through every little scratch and scuff. This took about half an hour, during which time, while delicately trying to bend one of the buttons into place, thinking it was metal when it wasn't, I snapped it.

Snapped button fixed, I reassembled the device, and it stayed whole until the stylus got jammed again. Took it apart, cleaned the stylus housing, sprayed some WD40 down there, and put it back together.
This time, the thing crashed on the startup screen. Solution? Reseat the battery...

Tedious? Yes, it was, several hours of it!!! You got off light!

Fast forward...

The Ipaq is now sitting on my desk, fully functional, in its nice lovely silver trim. After about 5 hours of arsing about, I've got a half empty can of lacquer, I've emptied the can of Chaos Black that I've had for ages, and I've accomplished the square root of fcuk all.

But hey, I've also got a fully functioning Ipaq. Things could have been worse.

In other news, my nephew's been coming round to stay the night for the past few days, which is really cool. I love the lil guy to bits, and he loves me to help him on his DS with "scrungebob" and various other platformers, all featuring an aray of anthropomorphic sponges, starfish, rats, et al.
What with tonight's arsing about, I didn't get round to spending nearly as much time with him as I should have. I've already promised him a surprise (banana custard with jelly) next time he stays over :-), as some kind of compensation/guilt reducing measure :p.

As for the rest of today, the time before everything went to ratshit, my mate Nick picked me up and eventually after travelling through Leeds for a while, we ended up at what is proudly dubbed by its staff "Leeds Bradford International Airport". We were only there for a quick look around, to see if there were any official vantage points for photography (using unofficial vantage points tends to result in you getting the knee of an airport police officer in the small of your back).

Nothing, at all. Admittedly you can get fairly close to the smaller aircraft (as in, you could throw a stone and crack the canopy of one), by parking up at the flight training school on the opposite side of the runway, but as for official viewing places, nothing at all.
And that lack of anything had clearly inspired the rest of the airport.
For an international airport, Leeds Bradford (EGNM) is nothing more than a couple of buildings on a field in the middle of feck-all-nowhereland. It's the sort of place that they'd film The Vicar of Dibley, if there wasn't an international airport there. Yeadon (the surrounding village, from which the airport took its original name) is not a big place. BUT - I noted - Yeadon lake DOES have a viewing platform, where the airport next door, doesn't.

But that's okay, because yesterday, we were at Manchester airport - the second (if I remember correctly) busiest airport in the UK.

NOT set in the middle of nowhere, NOT hard to find, and where you DON'T see an aircraft every 20 minutes if you're lucky, Manchester is the much better photographer's place, and it was there that I managed to take a good 200 odd photos of the day's business, which was pretty cool. It was bitterly cold, but the low sun and the clear wintry sky made the light incredible. The snow on the Pennines in the background made the whole scene even more picturesque.

I noticed that the new hangar for Concorde is nearly completed. Though looking at it, under construction, seeing this incredible work of engineering, an aircraft with performance that far surpasses airliners designed more than 30 years after it left the drawing board, I couldn't help but find it a bit depressing. As I said to Nick, "there's a bird that doesn't belong in a cage".
As he said to me "You should write that down". Heh.
There was the story of an aircraft that deserved far better than it ever got.

Other than that, not much to report. I've finally ordered a replacement stylus for the tablet (an aftermarked one that DOESN'T have fits), and the new replacement battery has allowed me to use the tablet just like any laptop. So yeah, cool :). My 1gb of ram turned up, but it doesn't fit, so it has been relisted. Bleah.

But hey, anyways.

I'll leave you with a random assortment of pictures that bear a vague relevance to the past day or so..

PS: Ever get a tune that gets stuck in your head and you end up listening to it over and over again?
This is this week's "my tune".
PS PS: This is also this week's "my tune", as well as this". And "this" one.

More Technological Gizmos

...Or something.

Well, I've had a good week on the technology front. My Ipaq now works pretty well (even if the on-screen keyboard is a bit hit-and-miss), I'm getting to grips with my video camera, and even the tablet has been behaving itself recently.

With the exception of the stylus, which had this problem, where it would click on things as you held it above the screen, whether you wanted it to or not.
In retrospect and with the benefit of hindsight, this seems to be because the little metal contact in the front was loose, and was free to move backwards and forwards semi-independently of the stylus tip itself. How do I know? Let's not delve any further into that shall we?

Anyway, according to the forums I frequent, this is apparently a design flaw common to the TC1000 stylii (is that even a word?) and therefore replacing the stylus with a new one would not fix the issue.

What would fix the issue is an aftermarket stylus made by another company, and such stylii (there I go again) are available on ebay, for what works out at like £35. Hmm, I think I'll leave it a bit.

So I've gone for a solution that fixes the issue, without being a stylus, but while still being a sparkly input device. I spent the grand total of £1.99 (not wanting to waste money fixing a problem Compaq created) by buying one of these finger mice doodahs.

Quite sparkly and cool, and I think it suits the tablet quite well, because a strange non-standard computer demands a strange non-standard input device.
I've also bought a little foam mat thingie for resting the computer on, so I've got something to use as a "mouse mat" when I'm out and about with the camera. Should be pretty cool. One other thing I've bought, to offset the tablet's third and final problem, is two 512mb memory modules. The TC1000 has always had novelty value, but it seems even when it was released, its performance lagged behind its competitors. These days, it's nothing short of woefully underpowered. With that in mind, I've managed to score two memory SODIMMS to rectify the problem, giving the tablet a total of 1gb of ram, which while still not stellar, is no longer miserably poor. Apparently you have to partially disassemble the tablet to reach one of the memory slots, so wait for the photos and the "I broke it" (or more hopefully, the "It works!") blog post here. I'm still waiting for the damn battery to turn up. Meh. [EDIT: 10:37AM - it has arrived in this morning's post]

Things have been progressing on the car front (did he say car?) as well, with me going as far as to get insurance quotes for different cars.
What brought it on was a mate of mine saying "oh hai (that's real life internet patois that is!), btw I've got a '94 Mazda MX5 for £1200 if you want it".

"Woo!" I thought, "A total hairdresser's car for just over a grand". But I've been a fan of Need for Speed too long to ever look at a car in stock trim as anything other than a blank canvas. "A grand for the car" I thought, and another grand or two to get it looking like this".
Okay, some new wheels, (BBS RR of course!), a decent bodykit, a window tinting kit, and a decent spoiler later, and I'd have a decent looking car.

With the soundtrack to the various Need for Speed games blasting out over my speakers, I happily searched round sites looking for wheels, new tyres, carbon spoilers etc etc. I daydreamed happily about warm summer nights in donny, the night air filled with tyre smoke, and the roar of engines, hundreds of faces illuminated by the glow of underbody neons and headlights, music thumping out of a dozen different cars, and me putting the finishing touches on a fully sorted and thoroughly sexy carbon spoiler, while bystanders walked past my car, muttering comments of admiration (Look, admittedly this sounds like a bit of an automotive fantasy, but why should it be so unrealistic? I've been doing the bike equivalent ever since I got the RS). I'd be able to cruise around with my mate in the other seat, bask in the warmth of my A Pillar Gauges, and listen to the lovely exhaust note of my now quite handsome ride.

I was very excited. Throw some money at the MX5, and I could actually end up with a decent looking car.

A decent looking hairdresser's car. Meh.
I started going off the idea even before my mate told me it was an automatic (which horrified me). What's the bloody point of a rear-wheel-drive automatic? It's like training the perfect athlete and then getting him hopelessly drunk before the big race. "How the hell do you do burnouts in an automatic?" the Boi Racer in me asked. I wasn't pleased with the answer.

Anyway, time to go shopping for insurance quotes, courtesy of Gocompare, an insurance comparison site, which searches millions of insurers. Except it doesn't; due to circumstances beyond GC's control, 80% of the insurers it searched on my behalf had turned their servers off before going home for the evening. Evidently loads of vacant middle managers took their respective bosses' requests to "turn everything off before you leave" a little too literally. This gave me a screen full of "We are sorry, we are not able to connect to this insurer" or something along those lines.

Fair enough, still 20% of lots of insurers to sift through. 95% of those insurers said variously: "What, he wants a sports car, at 23? hahahaha" "He's not had his car licence a year yet and he wants a sports car? hahahaha" and other things along those lines.
Surprisingly, two insurers did come back with quotes, the best of which was provided by theaa.com. "Okay" they said, "we'll insure you". "23 years old, not had car licence for a year, but you're stupid enough to want a sports car for your first car (We'll come to this in a second). Okay, we'll insure you. £3288.50, Third Party Only". Hmm.

Why do I want a sports car as my first car? Well, the Mazda isn't what I'd call a sports car, in it's stock trim, it's a matter of how cruel I'm feeling as to whether I'd call it a heterosexual male's car, if you want to press the issue, but an R34 Skyline it isn't. In my eyes, in my own private little world where everyone drives R34's, RX7's, Supras, Celicas, 350Z's etc that are modded to the nth degree, I was just as likely to get giggled at in an unmodified mx5 as I would be in a stock KIA Picanto (apparently "a gorgeousa smalla car, weev five doors").
Of course I figured that expecting to get insured in an R34 or RX7 (neither of which I could afford even if I COULD get insured for them) would be asking to get laughed at by the insurance company, so I figured I'd go for the middle ground, and get something that wasn't an f reg fiesta, but wasn't quite as expensive as a Le Mans Quattro.

Of course, the insurer's idea of the middle ground, was quite different to my idea. In a world where the roads are full of white van men, lovely (but quite blind and stupid) old women with their weekly hairnets and dogfood, and fast food delivery guys with a questionable grasp of English, anything that wasn't a rusting old bucket with a top speed restricted by its blowing exhaust and the (deaf, by now) squirrel living in the airbox, was classed as high risk.

I searched for other cars. I looked around and the insurance quotes were still (but not quite as) nuts. Peugeot 206 1.9 GTI? £1,300 TPO, to you, sir. Well at least it's not three grand, and (get this) the 206 has a bigger engine.

So what am I going to do? Have I given up on the idea of a nice car?
Well no. But I have given up on the idea of owning one while I'm working <20 hours a week in a £5.75/hour job.

Assuming I don't get in the army, I'm going to see if I can find another job with better wages, then I'll look into the situation again. If I do get into the army, well, £16,000 a year wages?

I'll buy the RX7, one or two companies will insure me TPO in one (for just under £4000/year).
Come on, it's a huge expense, but then, aren't all cars?

Anyway, I'm off to sit about and be generally docile for the day. Might go for my run later.

Have fun!

Farewell Tinsley Towers...

I've been spending more time than I should, chatting with pals, talking about the demolition of the Tinsley Towers. And I spose the message that I've come away, carrying is a positive one.

Damned if I know how I am supposed to translate the destruction of two beloved landmarks into a message of human love and survivability, at 2:23 am, after the benefit of several beers.

Well let me give you bastards a god damned guess.
I think the demolition of the towers was a fu...

*whoa, wait, i'm being censored*

Okay. Christ. Not five months into the new landscape and life has gone on like they were never there. Two huge bigass cooling towers, they came down just like that and life has basically said "whoa the towers have come down, I'm gonna cry for 0.5 seconds, and the get on with cooking the chicken nuggets for my kids before they burn!".

And what is there to learn from all this?
Ostensibly? fcuk all. It's 2:26am on a sunday morning. I'm surrounded by empty beercans, and I'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, by talking about the towers, I'm giving them a better sendoff than the thousand explosion-whores that surrounded me that night.

I'd like to pretend that I'm feeling sorry for my Yorkshire Brethren, when fact is, that I'm missing mr Salt and Pepper (the two cooling towers) because, I dunno.
They were a kind of demarkation line between the north and the south, you know.

You pass the towers heading south and it's like

"Welcome to the south, the home of Chesterfield, Mansfield, cheap nottinghamshire youths who want to pretend that they're Yorkshire lads, they want it so bad that they'll stop you in the street and braaaappppp your ass.

You pass it heading north and it's like "Welcome to the real world, the world where people don't have to elbow each other in the face to make their point, the fact where it's considered normal to not live in a greasy cardboard box, just vacated by some greasy illegal tapas waiter called "jose".

In any case, it's not quite the anniversarry of the towers coming down, and already I'm listening to tunes and thinking about those big fat concrete bastards, and marvelling at both myself and my fellow man.

Only homo sapiens could attach an emotional value to feck knows how many tons of inert concrete, and only homo sapiens, could mourn the permenant disfiguration of said arrangement of concrete.
And I include myself in this, because I was plenty upset by the towers coming down.

anyways.

Here's some more pics of the towers again.









And now we've got that out of the waym I'd like to introduce you folks to Herr Garth Brooks.

And this rather cheery video. Why? Because Garth Brooks generally puts me in a cheery mood, because he doesn't give me an age complex like most other contemparory musicians do.
Indeed, to my astonishment, Mr Brooks here, wasn't a TN born musician, nore was he born a few months before I came into the world. No, 23 years my Senior, mr Brooks seems to have done pretty well for himself. So there's hope for us all.

coming from OH instead. Scary that, when I was a kid, the best buddy I ever had, Ryon, came from OH.
I still wish I knew where that damn kid was. The best damned soulmate any stupid teenager could ask for.

Garth Brooks has always been cheerful as far as I'm concerned. "Ain't goin down till the sun comes up" would pound through my headphones as my RS lifted its front wheel, the exhausts screaming, ready for another run across the Yorkshire TT. The only way to listen to that tune is at 12,000rpm at 110mph Buwahahaha.

Ahem.

So I kinda look on the whole thing as a positve thing. Wonderfully vague eh?

Nah.
Shit happens in life, things always balance em out, eventually.
The cooling towers are gone, hey. They made more on an impact in their last year than they did in their previous 70 years standing.

Life is life, and life goes on, until it ends, folks.
May it not end for any of you, for a good while yet :D.

I'll leave you with the best drinking tune ever :)

Peace.

Freezing Cold

Is how it's been for the past few days, with a cold spell plunging pretty much the entire country into the minuses. Roads, cars, and grass are all covered in a scintillating layer of thick frost. Frozen solid, even puddles ceased to be an inconvenience, becoming instead, a bloody hazard.

And out in the middle of it last night, was me, buzzing about, here there and everywhere. Slippety-sliding about on roads that resembled glass, losing all feeling in my fingers/toes, and generally shivering my arse off.

I had a couple of scares, notably when the wheels decided they wanted to go in directions other than straight forwards, but apart from that, and the aforementioned cold (which was enough to cover my scoot in ice while I was riding it) it was a pretty uneventful shift.

The walk back was amazing though. Everything covered in this frost made the entire place look as if it was made from frosted glass. Tree trunks, their branches, and every individual blade of grass shone as if illuminated from within, and the moon, complete with halo, was the brightest I had ever seen. Even the sky - at midnight - seemed to glow.

I've got to repeat the whole thing tonight, as I'm on the exact same shift.

In other news, the tablet PC is now working at close to 100%. Windows XP has been upgraded to service pack 2 and the majority of software I've installed (memory permitting) works just fine.
I've ordered the new batteries for both the TC1000 and the Ipaq, the total being some £40, and they should hopefully be here before long. The internet is no longer a problem. We couldn't get the internal wi-fi working, so my dad and I have skipped the entire issue by installing a PCMCIA network adaptor in the spare card slot, and we're using that instead, having disabled the internal adaptor.

The tablet sorely needs a memory upgrade, as at the moment, it will only run videos in windows media player at some 4 or 5 frames a second. Not an auspicious beginning, but something that can be fixed. Again, at a price.

But hey, is time to be going now. I want some time to myself before I have to go to work and freeze my arse off, again.

"Holy freaking S***"

...Is a politely edited version of the first words out of my mouth when I discovered that the adaptor that has JUST arrived (after being ordered on the 26th) actually fits both my docking station and my tablet PC.

About bloody time!

On a related note, my Ipaq - ha haha, yes, you've guessed it - needs another battery.
Turns out "Paq" is korean for "Battery", and "Com" is Korean for "Faulty".

"Compaq" as a company was given its name to suggest to consumers that as all its products were shipped out with dead batteries, they would end up paying much much less overall, than competitors that used fully charged ones. I can see the adverts now.

"Did you know that over an electronic device's ten-year life cycle, it spends 9 years turned off doing nothing?

Don't pay money for excess charge that you don't need!

Our method guaruntees zero software problems over the entire life of the product!"

Still, now I'm off to rearrange my desk. Now I've got to fit two computers on it.

National Presents Day...

Or so you'd think - I got lots of pressies at Christmas, and today I got even more!
No cards or anything but that's because the ponly person who celebrates National Presents Day so far is me :-).

After a fairly sedentary past few days (if you don't count me going into work on my day off, and THEN finishing later than I originally said I would) I woke up bright and early-ish in the afternoon (having already woken in the morning, realising I had nothing pressing to do, and rolling down the hill, across the streem and back to sleep (eh?)). I was in a fairly cheerful and relatively productive mood, and so after a while of sitting about, productively doing nothing, I decided to get my hair cut.

The cold hit me as soon as I opened the door. Absolutely freezing, and it's been like this for the past few days, with temperatures in parts of the UK now occasionally reaching below minus ten (if this's global warming, then we should all pat ourselves on the back for helping to prevent an ice age. just imagine what it would be like if we hadn't dumped all that shi'ite into the atmosphere), it was bitterly cold.

But, quite pleasant. A bright sun shone low on the horizon, illuminating the few cirrus that were sticking around, having decided they were outnumbered by the dozen or so visible contrails, that extended in all directions for many, many miles above my head.
The wind blew, and with it came the biting cold, but it was mostly silent and still.
A few people here and there, not many though, even the roads seemed quiet.

I turned into the local park, remembering back to a time in weather very similar to this, in that exact spot, when I had walked down that same path in extreme pain. I count myself lucky, to no longer be in that pain. I remember writing about it here (the entry also includes that brief Alastair Reynolds review, KB).
Funny, it didn't feel like nearly a year had gone by.

But there was life in the park. Crows hopped about warily, waddling like black chickens. The odd dog walker (and a couple of less odd ones) were visible in the distance. As I walked past one of them, absentmindedly watching her pick up a rubber ring from her dog - a rather large but evidently very playful brown type - and to the dog's obvious delight, throw it into the distance, I noted just how great a turn of speed that dog had, and I noticed how skilled it was at catching the ring even as it rolled away at high speed. At least here in this park, someone seemed well adjusted and happy with their lot, regardless of the troubles of the world.

I got to the barbers though, and eventually I got seen. While I reflected on how I'd been unfortunate enough to inherit my mum's hairline, I noted with some alarm that this person was going back and forth over the same area of my head, and my hair there was getting shorter and shorter. I'd never had a "bad" haircut and I certainly didn't want one then, but I was pleased to note a few minutes later that it didn't look that bad.
Right, job jobbed, I'll go back next year.

I returned home, back through the park, pleased to see the woman and her dog were still there, that that that little part of the world, was still ticking along nicely, and happily. I stopped at the local chippy to get one of my car crash meals.

Sitting with my meal and a nice cold coke at home, I took in the latest Dr Ashen videos (1 2 3), before playing some more with my tablet PC.

See, I've discovered that while the adaptor that I need (18.5V - I ordered it on the 26th!) is the one designed for the tablet, with a little (reversible) adapting (aha-ha-haha) my mum's 20V laptop adaptor can be made to fit (!) both the docking station and the tablet itself.

With this, I've been able to not only get the tablet doing something resembling normal operation, but I've been able to get most of the software onto it.
What I haven't been able to do, is fix the problem with the stylus being a pain in the arse (some have suggested that a new (difficult to find) battery may be required). Not to worry, I'm learning to use the stylus sparingly, and am actually enjoying using the tablet. Great Stuff.

However another thing that I've not been able to do, is get the wi-fi to kick in. I'm trying to join the local house network, and the tablet is now simultaneously advising that;

A. it doesn't have an IP address or a Mac address, and that it has no internal network hardware. (according to ipconfig)
B. I am now connected to a local network I have never heard of. (according to internet connection bubble).
C. I do not have access to the Internets (Internets Exploder)
D. I am connected to a wireless network (wireless network status light).

Very irritating. Especially since I need service pack 2 to run the majority of the software I've put on the tablet. Still.

Later, I was graced by the jolly bringer of gifts, or my mate Nick (the dude who randomly gave me lots of camera equipment for nothing) who had kindly come round to bring back my software CD so that I could finish shoving the software on the tablet (see above).
However, he had once again come bearing gifts, and while politely refusing a cuppa, dumped a second camera bag of free loot on the kitchen side.

We had a chat, I showed him around the bat cave (my room), and we generally chilled out.
Eventually though, he had to go (on pain of getting shouted at by his mrs) and I took an opportunity to check out the latest goodies.

Yep, he has given me, completely randomly (fantastically welcome and very appreciated though) both a JVC Video Recorder (as in camcorder, not VCR player) and a Compaq Ipaq 3600. Okay, so it's not exactly a D3 and a Hi-Def movie rig, but who cares, it's cool gadgets, they do cool things, and most of all, they do it for free. So very appreciated nick, keep the gadgets coming :D.

Seriously though, we're looking at going scouting for other places to do some shooting, and Nick figured some new kit might come in handy, so hey.
The camcorder is charged, the ipaq is (still! how long does it take?!) charging.
And now after a bout of late night photography and blog writing, I'm kinda tired.
So here's the pictures, and I'm gonna get to bed :-).

Have fun!

Rory - What's in a name?

Like many other people, I have my own little habits, that as with everyone else, are quite cute, if a little bizarre and inexplicable at times. One of these is my Rory.
Rory, as pictured here, is a large drinking vessel that evades description. It's one of those novelty cup things.
I vaguely remember getting it from Primrose Valley a few years ago, paying something silly like £4 for it, complete with pepsi, on the basis that you get a cool cup and free refills.
It holds about 750ml though, so see how many free refills you get before you start feeling ill. Or before you start shaking.

"Rory" is therefore the noun for the cup/thing, on the basis that it has no other description. Hence phrases like "I'm going to get a Rory". "I'm going to refill my Rory".

Rory is also a verb. If you can drink a drink, you can Rory a Rory.
So there, for everyone who wanted to know (which is more than a few since everyone seems to lose the thread when Rory is mentioned), is the answer to the mystery of the rory.

In other news, I've made some progress on the Tablet PC, if only enough to consider dumping the whole thing in the nearest river. I can now get the thing to turn on and boot, but I can't get past the administrator password, and I can't reinstall windows to get rid of this, because even if I had the disc, I don't have a power lead for the base unit, which is the only part of the computer with a CD drive.

"Don't you have an adaptor?" you ask. Yes, I do. For the tablet itself. Having taken the base unit apart to confirm my suspicions, I can confirm that the base unit and the tablet itself use DIFFERENT FECKING SIZES of adaptors, and one that fits the tablet, is way too big to fit the base station. Who's bright bloody idea was that.

That and the fact that the stylus is playing silly buggers.
In a bizarre twist on the theme of "touch screen", this one is a NO-touch screen. I.e. you don't have to touch the fecking screen with the stylus for it to go selecting and clicking on whatever the hell is within 2 inches of the tip of the damn thing, whether you touch the screen or not. Interesting.

It's certainly a sparkly and interesting little bit of kit, and does have the potential to be quite useful. But if things keep going like this, it's only going to be useful for proping up a table with one leg shorter than the rest, because right now, after 20 minutes of staring at a "did you forget your password" bubble, I've half a mind to shove this in a cupboard and forget about it. It's not that it's too difficult or too uneconomical to repair, because it isn't.
It's because it's pissed me off.

Grrr.

That adaptor had better fecking turn up. I've been waiting six days for the goddamn thing.

Grr, not happy.

My mum's gone out, and I've asked her to fetch the CD on the way back.
It would be oh-so-wonderful if she could fetch something resembling a useful adaptor too :).

EDIT: Right.
The tablet stylus thingie problem is apparently common to that model, and something I'll have to get used to. Fair enough, it beats leaving scratches all over the screen anyway. Why did they put a depressable tip on it then???

There's no solution for the adaptor problem, other than for the guys at the shipping company to pull their fecking fingers out and ship the backstard thing to me.

And breathe...

So it seems there's not actually anything wrong with the unit whatsoever, and all my problems are caused by me flying off the handle at having to wait for an adaptor I ordered nearly a week ago. But i'm pretty certain that if one adaptor fits the tablet, it won't fit the base unit. The connections are 2mm apart in size. What a stupid thing to have done during the design phase.

I'm off to get something tasty to eat. And to put this tablet away until that adaptor arrives.

Hi there, 2009!

Wow. 25 minutes into 2009 and MSN's on the blink, the sky news website is so full to capacity you can hardly navigate on it, seems like everyone is trying to do the same thing at once.

For my part, now that my computer is playing silly buggers, I'm going to sit and chill out for not very long, before possibly getting some Christmas Pudding, and having a shower and an early night.

Got to be up early tomorrow/today/whatever.
Well, I haven't, but I'd like to be :).

EDIT: This blog says that I wrote this on the 31st of December.
I actually finished it about two minutes ago, at 36 minutes past midnight, on the morning of January First, 2009.

I don't know how to set the bloody time zone and it's annoying me.

EDIT EDIT: I just fixed it after getting off my digital bum and doing something about it.

Have fun!

Farewell 2008! Hey, 2009, let's get to know each other!

Yep. Some countries were evidently so disappointed by 2008 that they've decided to leave it behind before us and celebrate the new year early.
Well, local time. Same difference, hehe.

Here, there are already one or two fireworks going off every now and again, and tonight at work, though quiet, we've been plying a steady trade, with one guy who was obviously hosting a house party, ordering 10 pizzas with all the trimmings (I can't decide if I like that expression, or loathe it, so I'll use it out of bored indifference). Order came to nearly £70 and he tipped the person who delivered it, £15!
I have to make do with my meagre £6.88, but at least I didn't have to carry ten pizzas and all the - side orders.
Kudos to Chris who worked like a b*stard to get 10 pizzas made one after the other, fast enough to get the last ones out before the first ones went cold.

10:01, MIDNIGHT IN ATHENS. Happy new year, Greece :-).

Anyway, yes. Tonight on the scooter was weeeeiiiiirddd.

The pavements were full of people, the pubs were full of people, the roads were absolutely empty. It was/is also bitterly cold outside, very very cold in fact, all the water on the ground is frozen. So I'm sat there riding around freezing my arse off, looking hard to see where I'm going. Did I mention the mist?

This year, as with every new year's eve, it's been extremely misty. It is extremely misty. You could see it billowing around the headlight, I felt like a sodding airplane. The mist closed up around me and just left me with my head poking out of the top. I must have looked silly.

Speaking of airplanes, today I flew my longest X-plane flight ever - Dublin to Montreal - took me 5 hours. In a Virgin Atlantic 747-400. Just like this one, actually (not my photo).
No, I didn't sit in front of a flightsim for 5 hours. I did everything from starting the plane to levelling off at 30,000, and let the autopilot take over. 5 hours and 2500+ miles later, I took the plane in for approach, landed, docked it, and shut it down.
Was pretty fun. My longest-distance (simulated) flight ever.
The time between I was just surfing the net or reading or doing whatever.

Well, that's just about it for now. I'm not going to do a "2008 in review" for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that I don't want to read the entire year's blogs again to remember what happened.
But all in all, 2008 has been a pretty good year. Nothing MAJORLY bad has happened (unlike other years where it's all come at once), so yeah. I'll look back on 2008 as a pretty good year :).

Have fun, see you next year!

Christmas 2008 In Review

Well, we're coming to the close of the Christmas hysteria, but worry not. It's only another 9 months before the shops start selling tinsel and Christmas CDs again, so you won't have too long to wait.

You'll notice that I go on about christmas a lot, even from relatively early in the year.
Something I share with my mum, and always have ever since I was little, is my great love of Christmas.
Where my dad and sister seem less enthralled with the whole christmas season, I find it, while not as magical as I used to when I was younger, still a special time of year. People tend to be kinder to each other, the world becomes a smaller place as people concentrate less on work and more of their families, and a sort of warm atmosphere imbues everything and everyone with a bit of christmas cheer.

Ahem.

Gainsborough: Christmas for our family - my mum and I at least (everyone else seems to either keep their own little christmas traditions private, or they genuinely do play less of a part in Christmas) starts in earnest around late november, with our trip (my mum and I go) to Gainsborough Old Hall. A nice 15th century timber-framed house. They have a christmas themed market, where you can wander around inside the house, look at various examples of home made crafts and suchlike (and it's great for Christmas presents too). They have a real fire (something of a rarity these days) in front of which you can sit, listen to Christmas music, and eat your home made mince pies, with fruit punch.
After going there, we usually wander into the town and have some chips, before going round the market. It's a little family tradition, and it's quite nice.

This year on the way back from Gainsborough, we also popped into Tickhill Garden Center - a local garden center between Maltby and Gainsborough (on your right hand side going towards Gainsborough). These guys have got a christmas department that's usually pretty big, and have lots of lights and trees and suchlike to look at and consider buying - we usually stop off their on the way back, shopping for new Xmas decorations.

While a nice day out in its own right, this trip was followed about a week later by a visit to Kelham Island's victorian christmas market. Pretty much the same sort of thing as Gainsborough, except this time, the setting is an industrial museum towards the center of town. This time, we took the entire family (with the exception of my brother and his other half) along.
It was pretty good, the museum was packed with examples of machines that helped give Sheffield the extremely important manufacturing base that it had before, during and after the war, and helped instil a sense of pride, when I realised just how important my home town had been during WW2. Jingoistic Nationalism aside though, it was also pretty fun wandering around with the family, taking in the sights ect. My nephew got to design his own christmas decorations, I got a few good photos, and we all had a pretty nice time.

In the days after this, we merrily got the house tidied and had started putting the Christmas decorations up.
I also had the misfortune to go completely deaf in my left ear, which for the week I was thus afflicted, was very alarming and offputting. Towards the end, as depressing (or should that be cheery?) as it sounds, I simply got used to it. But still, a quick trip sorted me out, and meant that I wouldn't have to spend all Christmas asking people to repeat themselves.

My nephew and sister and their new dog visited quite often during early December, and this presented us with a great opportunity to make Christmas that bit more magical for my little nephew, by taking him on journeys and trips through the "Magical Christmas Kingdom" (The next housing estate, where many houses had very elaborate lights). This also gave us the opportunity to take the new dog for a walk, which I'm sure she enjoyed. It also helped me figure out which house was the one with the lights that I could see straight out my my window, on the opposite hillside.

Shortly before my trip to the doctors though, we took a trip down to London, to visit the Christmas market, and do some shopping, and generally have a look about. We visited harrods, as well as a couple of other places, and the day passed pretty well. We didn't buy a huge amount, but we did have a nice time out. I like London. I used to feel like an unwelcome outsider when I was there, but in the past year or so I've come to realise that London is populated almost exclusively by people that weren't born there, and that I was no more unwelcome than anyone else. Which is probably not saying much (hehe). The trip round the tower was very good though, and I got some photos that I'm very happy with.

That same day, I started my Christmas Countdown. To summarise, when my parents came back from their holiday in Italy (which they thoroughly enjoyed), they brought me back a little tub or whatever you'd call it, of different bottles of spirits. I decided to save them for a special occasion, and I ended up using them as a Christmas advent calendar, with me have one of them each day, and doing a little writeup on how I found each drink and what I thought. Some were better then others!

In the days that followed, I set to work at my new job getting a bit of Christmas money together (except that they haven't paid me, so it's not Christmas money now is it. Grr), and I counted down the days to Christmas.

December the 23rd was important, and yet reasonably unpleasant, as I went without sleep and stayed up till silly times, insistent that I was finally going to finish my dad's Christmas present. Everything went wrong, either the CD software crashed mid-burn, or the printer ran out of ink, or the guillotine I was using to cut the pages to size was blunt and shredded the paper, I was not a happy bunny, but thankfully, and amazingly, I got the whole damn thing finished at long last.
My dad's Xmas present started out being a labour of love, and ended up being just a bloody labour. Didn't stop me from double-wrapping it though, first in a DVD gift box and then with wrapping round it, so he could make as big an effort to get it out of the box as I made to get it all in...

Christmas Eve was initially disappointing. One of our family's yearly christmas traditions is that we all go shopping as a family, and prepare for christmas as a family. This year, it had looked as though it was going to be different, with the abscence of my sister and my nephew, who it appeared had decided not to come along for the shopping, but fortunately we managed to bump into them before the store opened, and we did our shopping again, as a family again.

I was suffering with the cold a bit them, so I was grateful to get home and have a sleep. I woke up in the early afternoon though, and by juggling with the clock a bit, I was able to take my nephew out to see father christmas on his van, before going and working for a few hours.
After this, I gladly came home, wrapping up the last few presents. I had a shower and was generally variously grateful to the company that made my bed, the company that put an "off" switch on my alarm clock, and everyone else that didn't interfere with my plans, allowing me to have a nice sleep, which quickly ushered in Christmas Day itself.

The Day started easily enough, I had to grab the presents from the loft and help set everything up, of course, but the greatest effort was put in by my mum, who cooked a fantastic meal for dinner, but (OMG No Wai! etc etc) forgot the white sauce (!!!!!). Each year, my grandad swaps between spending christmas day at our house, and boxing day at the aunt's, and then vice versa the following year. My brother and his other half have a similar thing going on at their end, except it's with sarah's parents.
This year we were lucky enough to have Grandad over for Christmas Day at our house.
My Bro and his other half weren't able to come because my bro is recovering from an operation. Not to worry, there's a way around that...

Christmas Day was pretty good, everyone got what they wanted, more or less, and we had a nice christmas day walk in the park with my sister, nephew, remote control car/UFO and the dog, which gave us a moment of pause in what was turning out to be a nice but hectic christmas day, so that was welcome too. You'll note that Christmas Day's blog was very sparse. I was too busy having a nice christmas with the family to spend time writing about it, I think I had the right priorities :-).

Boxing Day came around, almost without me realising it (It was about 1am before I went to bed) and after a few little arguments (as is traditional at Christmas in every house, I am sure) we managed to grab my sis and nephew, and go along to my Brother's House for Boxing Day.

And I enjoyed it. It was one of those nice family occasions where everyone gets together and spends time with each other. Everyone got a few more pressies, which was always a good thing, and I got an interesting technological christmas project to work on.

After this were a few opportunities to just kick back and enjoy Christmas, drink the Christmas beer, eat the turkey curry (I had some yesterday, very nice it was too!) and generally enjoy the last few days of the "season of goodwill".

I think that Chrismas 2008 was probably one of the best Christmases I've had for a while. It beat 2007's which seemed a bit frugal, and definitely beat 2006's which was full of arguments.
This christmas was full of wine and nice food, and a nice christmas week with the family, which I think is something that I'd be a fool to ever take for granted. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and everything seemed to work out well.
There were a few arguments from my dad (who else) throughout the week, but that always happens, and this year they were reined in reasonably well, and so didn't cause too much disruption. So yeah, a nice christmas, one that I'd repeat happily :-).

And now I'm off to eat some turkey curry, if we have any left.

Boxing Day

00:23: I spent the last hour or so of Christmas Day watching a documentary on Blackadder, cleaning my camera sensor (took two of my 12 swabs - and they're £25 for a set of 12!!) and tidying my room out after filling it with cool new stuff.

So now I'm sat chilling, eating chilli, drinking beer and watching Father Ted.
My ickle buddy Conory's been on, he's had an awesome christmas too, and has either filled his camera's memory card up, or run his battery down. One of the two - either way, he said his camera is temporarily resting.

23:51: Okay, if I was writing this any later, it wouldn't be boxing day, now would it. Today is boxing day for me, or perhaps "60x1Ng D4Y" or even "60X0RZ", I suppose either could be applied to it by a special kind of AOLer, but we'll come to that later.

I woke up in the early afternoon with a moderate hangover. Nothing major, but I saw no compelling reason to get out of bed, so I didn't.
I woke up in the slightly-less-early afternoon, to the news that we were going to my brother's house for our traditional boxing day buffet banquet type thing in 45 minutes, and would I please wash my hair now. After a series of polite, and eventually less polite refusals, I relented, if only to keep the peace. During that time, we all had a series of nice arguments mostly centered around the fact that we were apparently going to be setting off 50 minutes early, and what was the bloody point of me asking what time we should go there if they're just going to ignore me as usual and do their own thing? Of course I was then told that I wasn't entitled to an explaination which set me off, and the whole happy ensemble continued until we got bored of it.

Eventually though, after a while of fecking about, it was time to go. Off we went. As dad set the alarm, my mum and I tried to muscle out of the house carrying armfuls of christmas presents (my brother wasn't present yesterday, so we're doing his/his fiancee's presents today) for the trip. My mum, in the rush, drops one of the christmas presents, and I try to go in to retrieve it before the alarm goes off, before my dad, during trying to stop me getting into the house, reveals that he picked it up and decided not to tell anyone for the sake of being bloody akward.

A quick journey later though, and we're at my brother's house. Not a bad place, considering we have similar tastes in interior decoration (every horizontal surface covered with gadgets/computer equipment). We sit and chat for a while, drinking some of the cutest little bottles of coke I've ever seen, and then get underway with the whole opening presents thing.

Now before we get into it, I complain about the media ban.

(LITTLE SUB-STORY: THE MEDIA BAN)

See, I'm an information nut. My computer is filled with photos, documents, and importantly, videos. If I've done something special, been somewhere special, or seen anything special, I probably have at least a few minutes of videos to go along with it.

Why?

I'm not one of these people who asks people to pose for official photos, I want to get the atmosphere of the thing as it happens. I want to record not just what happens, but the reactions to it, people's moods, and the whole atmosphere of the event I'm recording.
Preserved, like a fly in amber (what a cliche - sorry) those events are forever open to me, for me to go into them, and experience them again. Why make do with "I remember" when you can see everything exactly as it was?

To paraphrase Spike Milligan, "why do we grow so attached to the past? Is it that with the future unknown, and the present unpleasant, the now-distant and safe past beckons us and welcomes us to happier times?"

Unfortunately, As a result, I've acquired something (among about 2 people) of a reputation for having three eyes - my regular two, and one made of optical glass - and that kinda unnerves people. I don't know whether people are worried that once I have them on video I can do anything I want with their souls, for the rest of eternity, muahahaha - ahem, or whatever, but the fact is that people generally don't like cameras being shoved in their face (which I don't do) or even pointed at them (which I do do).

As I said to my sister though, people might dislike having a camera pointed at them, but they'd dislike not having Christmas/Birthday/Wedding/Bar Mitzva/Loss of Virginity/Childbirth/Whatever, photos and videos of their special occasions even more. And for those with common sense, even those against the whole camera thing would be well advised to consider it a neccessary evil, for the sake of their own future "cherished memories", and so that I don't have to mentally groan and roll my eyes with private derision.

In any case, in an effort to record every detail - including the food eaten at certain events (it's not just me, even Spike Milligan made a note of the menu served at one of his postings in WW2) I have been pointing the camera every which way recently, which my brother decided he didn't want me doing at his boxing day feast/banquet/buffet thing (shame as it was bloody nice), and so said that he didn't want any cameras at the table.
Of course me being me, I got the huff and accidentally deliberately forgot to bring a camera altogether. Rather irresponsible of me in retrospect.

(Now back to your regular programming)

Anyway, my bro says that I should go along and shoot with his D80. I initially feel flattered and honoured until I remember that I've got a few thousand photos on my D200 under my belt. I go out and prep the D80 (attaching flash etc), my mind smugly muttering that evil quote, "the circle is now complete. When I met you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master". Okay that's a lie, it never occured to me at the time, but hey, it would have been good if it had hey?
First time I picked up the D80 I wondered what all the glowy red things in the viewfinder were for, and all the buttons had weird acronyms. This time, I found myself looking at the camera thinking "where the hell is the focus area selector? How the hell do I change autofocus modes on this thing? The once mysterious acronyms now seemed as vaguely amusing and unimaginative as those on my own camera. In short, I knew what I was doing this time :-).

Anyway, the present opening commenced. My nephew was lucky enough to get exactly what he'd been ranting about for the past few months, which was a really cool sweetshop counter type thing, complete with a little scoop, weighing scales, and a till complete with money.
And an incredibly huge tub of sweets (which he gorged himself on until he was dancing on the spot with hyperactivity). I thought it was really cool though, the weighing scales worked and he had all sorts of sweets to go along with it.

In addition, he also got a playmobil camper van, which I thought was really cool considering his other playmobil related pressies. It's certainly been a bumper christmas for him.
I in the meantime am getting to grips with the D80 and the (to my mind) annoyingly slow recycle times of the SB-800 (You can lower the recycle time, but you have to buy an external battery pack, and if you keep firing the flash at full power without letting it cool down, you can eventually melt the electronics and even the body of the flash!).
I muse later, that I hadn't intended to shoot any pictures. When I did, I shot about 70!

My mum got a DVD, and I opened my first pressie to find a Budweiser presentation gift pack thingie. Great! I don't often drink Budweiser (because it's bloody expensive - or at least it is to low-brow six-pack drinkers like me), not only that, but I actually now had my own drinking glass again - something I hadn't had until I accidentally smashed my own London Eye souvenir tankard by dropping a battery (I think) onto it.

Later on I unwrapped a DVD, which turned out to be Rowan Atkinson - Live.
Now, to say this production and I go back is something of an understatement. When I was at primary school, no more than 8 or 9, I watched this so often (because I found it very funny, and perhaps because my parents either didn't know or were too busy to stop me :p) that I learned every line of every sketch, to the point where I was able to convince my teacher at the time, to allow me to pull her class out of the classroom, into the playground, where I gave a 10 minute one-boy show.

I can't remember the reaction, I remember they laughed, but I remember it wasn't a stellar performance (even I didn't understand some of the humour) but they found it vaugley funny, and looking back, I was and am glad that I did it :-). I'm not sure whether the teacher had words with my mum (hehe).

Anyway, I was very happy to actually own a copy, after my brother's VHS (no DVD's at that time) copy disappeared in mysterious circumstances.

My brother unwrapped the presents from me - a book about the formula one circuits, which he seemed pretty pleased with (yay) despite the fact that it's so bloody big that he'll have to store it under a rug or something.

I gave a copy of Century Rain to him too, to try to get him into Alastair Reynolds :-).

The third pressie wasn't so great.

My bro is something of a star wars fan, so while at Manchester Airport, I'd been careful to keep an eye out for one of Flybe's Dash 8's, which bore the registration number G-JEDI. Of course eventually I managed to get a few snaps of her as she flew out, seemingly desperate to avoid the glare of my camera lens. One of these snaps I'd printed and framed.

Remember me mentioning that one of the presents got dropped earlier?
During showing my brother just why he'd want a framed photo of an airplane, I noticed that old familiar "mr-spider-has-been-ice-skating-here" pattern that I used to see oh-so often when I lived in Bolton, which indicated broken glass. Bugger.

Presents over, the chatting resumed. I flew my little UFO around the room, assembled my nephew's camper van, and watched the dog run around in circles.
Or maybe I assembled my nephew's dog, flew my little camper van around the room, and watched my nephew running around in circles. I can't remember, but I do know he did lots of circular running.

I also helped remove the spoon from that snake's throat for the 50th time since Christmas Morning. Once I did this, it flew around the screen in quite a worrying fashion.

Eventually though, the food appeared, and very nice it was too. Dips, hula hoops, mini scotch eggs, ham that was sliced to an almost invisible 0.02 microns (and vigorously stuck together) which was very nice, breadsticks, all sorts of nice foods.

So we ate for an hour or whatever and I noticed that my bro's tablet PC, once a show-offy talking point, was now laying rather dejected on the floor, in the corner, under the table. Not where I'd have expected to find it when I first saw its sparkliness. Passing comment on it, I was told that it didn't work, that it would work, that it got destroyed in the floods, that it got slightly damp but wasn't submerged, and that I could have it. Not necessarily in that order (hehe). This is where the "b0xing day" comment comes in. "Box" being slang used among leet hackers/12 year old AOL users for "computer".

Anyway, I looked the thing over and the more I looked at it the more I liked it. A cool gadget, and I'd just been randomly given it. Whoa, cool.

So I'm sat looking at it and everything, and the dog, now in my sister's arms (herself in a chair) wakes up. She sort of looks around, tries to right herself, fails, decides to get down as she is, She wriggles over the armrest of the chair, still trying to right herself, before rolling right over, and falling off the edge.
Take your typical picture of a dog stood on all fours. Now turn it upside down. Keep that image in mind.
With all four legs sticking firmly in the air, the dog fell the two feet off the armrest, onto the hard wooden floor with a bang that surprised us all.
She righted herself, and spent the next few minutes staring at the wall in stunned incomprehension/embarrasment, while us evil sods sniggered and joked.

Eventually though, against my protests (I rarely get to see my brother) it was time to go. Little nephew was very hyper at this point, and the discussion I was having ith my brother was obliterated by this little (lovable) loony running round and being noisy.

Eventually we got home, and with the tablet PC in hand, I set off to find an adaptor.
I found a bag of adaptors in the loft. Adaptors with small plugs, adaptors with big plugs, adaptors with plugs in the shape of swastikas, adaptors with several plugs, adaptors in all sizes and colours, EXCEPT the bloody size and voltage that I needed.

We eventually found a 12 volt adaptor and plugged into the nearest convenient wall (as opposed to inconvenient walls - those walls seperating me from south africa's gold reserves are such an example).

For the adaptor's trouble, the tablet PC showed a helpful "there is an adaptor plugged into me" light.
After several attempts though, it seemed that the screen would do no more than flicker while the hard drive occasionally restarted.

Later on I noticed that we need an 18 volt adaptor, not a 12 volt one. So now an 18 volt one is on the way. I've cleaned the docking station up and everything, and I'm looking forward to getting the thing working. IT's a fantastic lil gadget and it'll definitely turn heads. I was told by my mate Nick that the last time I appeared at manchester airport with the camera tethered to the laptop, he overheard several comments even from the die-hard plane spotter crowd "Does he know something we don't?" "which magazine does he work for?".

So I've been sat since, watching Rowan Atkinson Live. It's weird, as soon as I heard those first three big piano chords at the start of the show, well.
It was like I was 8 again. Very weird, and very welcome :). I got to the end of the DVD, and thought "Shall I watch Tinselworm? I've not seen it yet".
Then I thought "I love Bill Bailey, and I'm looking forward to Tinselworm, but I think I'll hit "replay".

Now playing - Fatal Beatings.

I've also been drinking my budweiser. And the lovely tin it came in? It's now serving in an illustrious new post as my tips jar :).

Anyway. Some photos.
More photos.
Sorry about the shite formatting. Blogger should let people insert tables.
Christ It's taken me over 90 minutes to write that lot (from 23:51 onwards)

Have fun!

Christmas Day! Yay!

Yay, it's Christmas Day!
Olé
We have pressays and turkay
yay.

Er, crap poetry aside, I am now sat here with a slight headache still waiting for the drier to finish my bedsheets and suchlike, so I can go to bed :).

09:44: Well, after about 7 hours pleasant but restless sleep, and a good 5 or so incredibly powerful sneezes, tis time to get the Xmas pressies down :).

13:24: YAY! All pressies are open, everything assembled, all the things that need to be on charge are on charge, and everyone is happy :).

A complete list of my Xmas pressies (in the orer I pick them up off my bed, so no favouritism):

Ye Olde Xmas Pressie List

Gerber Recon LED Torch Mum/Dad

Visibledust Sensor Clean Solution (8ml) Mum/Dad

Visibledust Lens Cleaning Solution Mum/Dad

Visibledust Lens Cleaning Cloth Mum/Dad

Visibledust Sensor Cleaning Swab (12 pack) Mum/Dad

Toblerone Christmas Collection (hehehe) Mum/Dad

Official replica of The Sovereign's Sceptre Mum

The Crown Jewels Official Guidebook Mum

Bill Bailey's "Tinselworm" tour on DVD Sister

Official Formula 1 Wash Bag with body spray/shower gel Aunt/Uncle

Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic On DVD Mum/Dad

Magic Garden "pour-the-solution-and-watch-crystals-grow" kit (I think this is a
replacement for my old Magic Christmas Tree) Mum/Dad

A large pillow cut jewel of some description, possible Ametrine (though it looks more like Citrine to me) Mum/Dad

A USB "Whack-a-mole" game Family Friend

Celtic Calligraphy by Vivien Lunniss Mum/Dad

Vellum Parchment - 20 sheets (cotton, not animal skin, so all you animal rights loonies can leave me alone and go back to your potatoes and 16 veg) Mum/Dad

Illumination For Calligraphy by Janet Mehigan Mum/Dad

A plastic tub containing: Burgundy, Silver, Gold, Green, Brown and Black 29.5ml Calligraphy Ink Bottles. Mum/Dad

New Slippers (A traditional Xmas pressie - my old ones are torn to shreds) Mum/Dad

Lexmark "perfect finish" photo paper (255gsm) Grandad

Remote Controlled "Firefly" UFO Mum/Dad

Milk Chocolate Creme Eggs (French Ones) Nephew

Do Ants have Arseholes by John Butler and Bruno Vincent Mum/Dad

Smart shirt from Burton Mum/Dad

Smart Trousers from Burton Mum/Dad

Socks with traditional risque joke Mum/Dad

Bench T-shirt Sister

Dozing Dragon Statue Mum

13:40: I've got to take the dog for a walk and give my nep-hoo the opportunity to play with his new RC/Car outside :). Back soon!

14:16: I'm back, but before I go any further, I'm gonna finish the list of pressies, up there^^. :)

14:49: I've been a bit busy trying to get this done along with helping to set the table, so I'm gonna sign off for a bit and go along and help. Sort of :).

17:41: Yikes! After a yummy scrummy christmas dinner (first course melon ("Mayon"), second course fresh-baked bread and minestrone soup, and third course, turkey (I had turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, and some of those little sausages with bacon wrapped around them) I set my nephew's keyboard up.
What followed was the little guy making loads and loads of noise and generally having lots of fun :).