Archives
April 30, 2006
On The Mend
Gaming PC repairs have begun. I've repaired its radiator with waterproof plastic glue & PTFE tape, & it is now on a 24 hour leak test. If it passes that I'll buy a cheap replacement motherboard.
I hope that apeases all of the Battlefield 2 gamers that keep badgering me.
New Tree
Look what appeared in our garden. A tree was on the plans, but we didn't really expect one. Apparently it is a rowan tree, with some hocus pocus druidic mythology attached to it.
April 29, 2006
Headcrabs For Sale! Come And Get Your Headcrabs!
Valve are selling plush headcrabs in the run up to the release of Half-Life 2 Episode 1. An unbelievably excellent idea. I'll be needing a plush crowbar to go with that.
Preloading of the new Half-Life 2 episode begins via Steam this month, with activation on June 1st. Damn - I really am going to have to repair my gaming PC. First step, superglue. Second step, find out how many components got fried and how expensive this is going to be.
Get all your Half-Life 2 Episode 1 news here.
April 28, 2006
No XBox360 for me
Some of the reasons why I won't be buying the XBox 360:
www.opinionatedgeek.com/Blog/blogentry=000178/Blog.aspx
Microsoft really seem to have missed the point AGAIN. Lots of people may sway towards the 360 as a living room multimedia hub, but not if it is noisy, not if it doesn't interact with existing kit, and not if you can't do basic internetty things with it.
The reason I'm looking at this is because I've been playing with Media Player 10 for the last couple of days on my home theatre PC. I normally use iTunes to rip and tag my music, but it doesn't put album art into the folder for XP to see, so my music and video organising software Meedio shows ugly folder icons instead of pretty album art. Media Player will solve this, but I have to right-click each album and ask it nicely. If I leave Media Player running it leaks memory and freezes. Nice. I regularly forget how much hard work Microsoft software can be. I'll give up with that and download a nice simple piece of third-party freeware to do the job instead, no doubt written by a very competent 13 year old.
April 27, 2006
Exam Time!
Anatomy spotter exam 2 was this morning. Hence the tie.
April 26, 2006
Textbooks
It seems to be the time of year for the publishers Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins to send out new versions of their textbooks to us lecturers. For those of you interested, Moore's Essential Clinical Anatomy is now on edition 3, Langman's Medical Embryology is on edition 10 (some nice additions in there), and there's a new Snell anatomy text (I think): Clinical Anatomy by Systems. My shelves are beginning to bow under the strain of so many books. I'm also reviewing some new genetics and child health texts, which makes a pleasant change from my usual reading of the last couple of years.
April 25, 2006
Sea Fog
Cycling home tonight a sea fog had rolled in, blanketing Mumbles (on the right). The sky dropped to the sea, and the horizon came close to the beach. It almost made marking exam papers for 5 hours worthwhile. Almost.
The really cool thing is that this panoramic image was made entirely within my mobile phone. Funky software, although it could have fixed the exposure for the 3 images to help the blend.
April 24, 2006
Drowning in paper
I'm in the midst of marking and second marking a pile of 2000 word essays, and am about to receive 2 sets of 70-odd exam papers to mark from 2 exams this week, of which each paper deserves the same attention as all the others. Mondays, eh? Far too much coffee will be drank in the couple of weeks.
17" MacBook Pro
Apple have released a huger 17" version of their new top-end notebook for sale:
Looks nice, but it's too big for me. I'm waiting for the 12" that'll fit into my bike bag easily, weigh less than a kilo and have a terabyte hard disk. OK, that last bit's rather unlikely for a while...
April 23, 2006
A Baby Boy!
Jo has just given birth to a baby boy, Bradley, at 8lb 3oz. All are well & I hope she'll be sending photos soon.
Top! Congratulations to Jo & Leighton!
April 19, 2006
Long Easter Weekend
I am recovering from an incredibly busy Easter weekend. Lots of fun, lots of people, lots of Jack. Here are some pics:
Easter egg hunt.
Jack plus cousins.
At the park.
A friend's new puppy.
A friend back from traveling the world.
Fishing (50-60lb of carp plus bream, roach, chub - excellent).
Nana & Jack spending lots of time together.
April 16, 2006
Ian and Leisa Latchford
We went to Camarthen to see two friends get married yesterday. It was a fantastic day for the guests, and for the bride and groom, in a beautiful location. The chapel was perfect, the big band was superb, and the bride was gorgeous. Some of my photos have gone up onto the photos page.
April 14, 2006
P.M.
(Video taken after playing on Caswell beach - Jack's wellies were filled with seawater as usual).
April 13, 2006
Rhossili
At least its not actually raining. Time for a pint in the pub, I think.
April 12, 2006
Mug
Jo has been gone for only a few days, and take a look at her horrible mug already!
April 10, 2006
Maternity Leave
Thursday was, in theory, my "human structure" colleague Jo's last day at work before she began her maternity leave. (Sorry about the photo, it's not very flattering.) On Friday Jo was in work before me and left just after I did, so I was waiting to make sure that she really wouldn't be in today. I seem to have the office to myself now, and towers of papers and files all around me. Not all of it needs to be seen to immediately though, I have some time.
Best of luck, Jo!
April 09, 2006
April 07, 2006
DARE
Jack's a big Gorillaz fan. Well, OK, he's a very short Gorillaz fan, but nonetheless, he likes the music very much. He has only recently started watching the videos, so believe it or not he got into the music first and the animated videos second. Cool, huh?
One of his favourite tracks is DARE, so he's probably one of the only 3-year-olds in Britain (in the world?) who recognises Shaun Ryder. Jack knows the tune just fine, but the lyrics he sings are gibberish, so I went on a hunt on the internet to find the true lyrics:
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's DARE
It's DARE
You've got to press it on you
You'll just be thinking
That's what you do, baby
Hold it down, DARE
Jump with the moon and move it
Jump back and forth
And feel like you were there yourself
Work it out
I Never did no harm
Never did no harm
It's DARE
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's DARE
You've got to press it on you
You just, think it, that's what you do baby
Hold it down, DARE
Jump with them all and move it
Jump back and forth
And feel like you were there yourself
Work it out
Never did no harm
Never did no harm
It's DARE
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's DARE
Never did no harm
Never did no harm
It's DARE
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's coming up
It's DARE
You've got to press it on you
You just, think it, that's what you do baby
Hold it down, DARE
Jump with them all and move it
Jump back and forth
And feel like you were there yourself
Work it out
You've got to press it on you
You just, think it, that's what you do baby
Hold it down, DARE
Jump with them all and move it
Jump back and forth
And feel like you were there yourself
Work it out
My mistake. Jack knows the lyrics perfectly, and they are indeed gibberish.
An Evening At Whitesprings
I popped up to Whitesprings Fishery for a session last night. Lots of fun bagging up on these small carp (F1 hybrids? - the one on the right is more cruciany). Thanks to my recent birthday I've picked up some new feeder kit and it helps - I've never caught so many carp on the feeder.
April 05, 2006
Swansea Bay in Spring
I am really looking forward to my first summer in Swansea. Sunny today, and you'd think that spring is actually getting going, but sleet is forecast for Sunday.
Spring Evening Ripples
This is the first blog entry this month, suggesting I've been too busy to do anything interesting. (Not entirely true - my dad came down on the weekend to babysit, which made for a great weekend). I did manage to get out to fish for a couple of hours last night, which was gorgeous except for the cold wind. I slowly filled up my keepnet with carp on the method feeder from the epicentre of those ripples, right on the corner of that island. I was mostly working on technique with some new kit I acquired recently, and it's obvious that I need more practice. I only bagged about 10lb of carp in 2 and a half hours, and missed more bites than I hit. Nonetheless, it was better than it has been.