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1-2-2006 Fits and BurstsThat's the way it seems to go isn't it? One minute you're blogging away like a responsible adult, and then all of a sudden it's been several months and Josh is gently prodding you to do an update. Thanks Josh - you're a powerful force for good, and just gave me the necessary kick there! Think it was mostly Christmas's fault. It's horrificly busy isn't it? Not convinced I like Christmas at the moment.
So, not too much to say at the moment. Had Simon McDonut over the other day - he seems quite happy. He's got one of those projecting keyboards for his mobile. He also appears to have influenced his church into using Screen Giant for worship projection, so that's very nice of him. Just lately I've been meeting up with a lovely lady that I met on Fusion101, from Leicester. Still getting to know her, so I don't know if we'll take it anywhere, but she's a lovely lass. And today I ate some kangaroo. Sorry, Tom - beat you to it, I suspect. Somebody at work brough in some kangaroo jerky. Like regular beef jerky it's not very good, but hell - it IS kangaroo.
Not quite a "new years resolution", but this year I'm hoping to get myself a whopping big mortgage and buy an' 'ouse. Progress is slow, so far, at least partly due to being continually run into the ground. V. tired lately and can't actually get to having the brain power to look at finances/mortgages. Have been ill too, mind. Amazing how quickly January disappeared, though. Time flies when you actually want to get stuff done, as they say. 20-10-2005 QuickieOkay, yes. It's been a while. I'm not actually terribly sure what I've been doing between the last entry and now. I think it's involved an endless repetition of the cycle of "sleep badly", "try to catch up on sleep - fail - interesting programme on TV", "try to catch up on sleep - fail - mind in full flow - sleep tricky", "try to catch up on sleep - yay - feeling fine". There's probably been more going on than that, but I've slept since then (possibly!). Like I can remember any of it! Still, on the plus side, I've been making good progress with my free worship projection software lately. Have been optimistically touting "Christmas/New Year" as the release date for the first useful version (although it will probably still be labelled "pre-release" for a little while), and actually think that I might have been being vaguely realistic. And tonight I've bought myself a shiny new domain name for it, to celebrate - www.screen-giant.com, hurrah! Oh, and the opportunity has again arisen to learn to play drums for church, so I might do that. And my plans to go on the Atkins diet are gradually coming together - I've learnt to cook an omlette! (not actually sure if I'd ever eaten one before a week ago!) And I'm spending more time at the laundrette than I used to. Must get that thing fixed, but it's MOT month, so it'll have to wait. Urk! Christmas stuff keeps turning up on telly and that. Urk! That was a year? Erm, okay, if you say so! 25-9-2005 Wall to wall, er, stuffTom's alway's saying that to him a week is ages. For me a
week seems to go missing in about three days, so this week's been quite
curious in that it's actually taken maybe seven or eight days.
Wow. Anyway, the latest happenings.
Well, today it's Sunday, right. So see the Sunday before
this one, and then the day before that one? Well that was a
Saturday. I went shopping. Bought a very small table for a
particular purpose from Argos. Nearly didn't work because I'd
misinterpretted the measurements. Close one. Okay in the
end. Also bought one of those small hi-fis from Argos (about
£40) for the kitchen (old one's bust - they last about a year in my
house). It reckons it plays MP3s. I reckon stopping every
minute and being silent for two seconds in the middle of the song
doesn't count. What a load of rubbish. Plan to return it
next week. It has a USB port as well. Argos don't actually
advertise what you can do with it (can I plug a scanner in?).
Brilliantly the manual doesn't tell you much more. Thankfully the
super cheap food mixer seems to be fine, and I am now equipped to serve
Angel Delight (to myself mostly). And the table's packaging was
great for reinforcing the sofa - yay! Mind you, I recently
discovered this "wood" stuff in a DIY store - I reckon it might work even better than cardboard!
That evening Corene hosted (and hosted rather well, as she does) a
bit of a board games evening at her house, and kindly let me come
too. A rather smashing night. Lots of semi-familiar faces,
who by now are probably a little bit more familiar. Only down
side was that thanks to a rubbishy sleeping previous week, I was a bit
worn and only just up to the job. Party type things are more fun
when you're fully conscious aren't they?
The day after that (that's right, Sunday - you're doing well), I
let my body dictate whether morning church was happening. Turned
out it wasn't. Turned out I needed sleep. Not a big shock
really! Unfortunately, this meant I wasn't actually swift enough
to make it to the jamming session after church which somebody had
arranged for anyone who might be interested. I hadn't the fogiest
whether it would be a me thing, but had kind of hoped to go and give it
a shot. Oh, well. Hopefully there'll be another.
That afternoon I thought I'd better do some washing. Here
comes the advertisement for "Servis" washing machines.... Don't
buy 'em. Mine packed in washing a near empty load of socks (and
they're honestly not that toxic). Think that's a year and two
months old - well done Servis, well sturdy! And it's software's
got bugs in it. Rubbish. They handled the original delivery
to my house as well. That's was amazingly rubbish! Will
probably have a look at some consumer rights stuff when I get time,
since it turns out we've got some even outside of the guarantee period.
Monday was worship practice - fun as usual. Actually,
they're getting more fun. And Tuesday was my 29th Birthday!
Yay! Thanks to anyone who sent me a card, nearly sent me a card,
would have if they'd have realised/known my address or if they'd
not been locked in their garden shed for a fortnight. It was
really nice actually. I even got a card at work - and it was
actually quite heart warming, and I'm not normally very sentimental
about much really. And my next door neighbour got me one too,
which was fantastically excellent of her - I mean we only have a quick
chat, say, once a fortnight or something. She's great. But
she's my neighbour, so hands off. Get your own.
For the birthday I, as usual didn't bother with a party or
anything (see, I said I wasn't normally sentimental), but I tried a
"don't do anything you could call work" policy for an evening.
Wow. How relaxing is that?! I might do some further
experiments with laziness, if I can get some time for it!
Wednesday night I initally felt a bit shivery. By late
evening I was making regular trips to the loo and thinking that evening
that nice Andrex stuff I bought didn't really feel that soft
anymore. Ow. So Thursday, I skived work, took some "bind me
up" pills, watched a few DVDs and went to bed with the digestive system
in pretty reasonable working order. Still a bit shivery
mind. Friday, woke - felt fine. Went to work. Food
and drink made me feel a bit sicky, but by bed-time all hunky
dory. Smashing. Weekend.
Friday night was a pleasant evening sat around my telly with Jason and Darronium. Bit of Eddie Izzard. Bit of Red Dwarf. Bit of (yay!) Vic Reeves Big Night Out (PBUI). And once Jason had tootled off, a bit of The Weekenders and Les Lives. A pleasant evening of chuckling, and Darren polished off that Thai Green Curry that's been haunting my freezer for a month or so. Yay again - really. Saturday, slept as far as possible (4.00am sessions in the loo
don't help regular sleep). Got up about 11. Got a call from
Julie Hare about 2 or something. There was some dubious sounding
auction/sale thing going on at Huntingdon Race Course - she wanted one
of those £99 lap tops! So off we set, with thoughts of "they're
going to be con-merchants aren't they?". Cancelled. Oh,
well. Now I know Huntingdon's got a race course at least.
So we went to watch Charlie and The Chocolate Factory in Huntingdon
instead: three stars, I say. Good bits. But bad bits
too. Most of the scenes inside the factory were relatively
tedious. The ooompa-lumpa's songs have probably ensured the
instanteous deletion of any film soundtrack that might be released
(terrible, terrible, trashy songs). Julie observed that they'd
changed it quite a lot, and that a lot more of the focus was placed on
Willy Wonka, when the book's supposed to be about Charlie. She's
probably right. I thought the changes were quite interesting
really, though. Wonder if they'll do "The Glass Elevator".
In fact, I wonder if anyone's ever read that, or knows what happens in
it?
Sunday: Church (Erica visiting - yay!), eat whilst watching
friends, afternoon nap. No energy. Eat watching Mighty
Boosh. Go check out the laundrette's opening times. Julie
did my washing for me yesterday (yay!). No energy. Write
this. Bed soon. Work tomorrow. Men & Motors
showing "Magnum". Not really interested. Saw that Joe
Pasquale doing stand up on there the other night. He was singing
the Weird Al Yankovic song that goes "got a funny feeling you don't
love me anymore". So he was, like, doing a cover version of
comedy. Got a funny feeling I don't love him anymore,
either. Well, I only ever thought he was okay, anyway, to be fair.
These are getting longer aren't they? 12-9-2005 The tiny, little, fast-moving, painting man inside the TV. How do they fit him in these new LCD ones? Where does he find elbow room?Ooooo - managed to get myself all shattered again there for a while. Thankfully this weekend just gone was a nice chilled out one, and I've nearly got myself back together again. A few good nights sleep (not the pattern lately it seems) and hopefully I'll be back on track. Hope so, anyway, when you think for a living, it's always nice to have a functioning brain. The big news from my point of view right now, is that I'm going to be an uncle. Apparently this may mean I become known as "Uncle Phil". I'm hoping this will quickly swing around to something more catchy, like "Dodgey Phil" or "Uncle Dave". Fingers crossed. Well this weekend just gone, was mostly quiet - and it needed to be too. I did get through quite a few items on the "to do" list, but it was all lightly peppered with a bit of chilling out. Interestingly found that my rear indicator light stopped playing up when I replaced the bulb too, despite the bulb I took out looking fine. The weekend before that (and I'm sorry I forgot to get photos), Matt came to visit. He was at a wedding vaguely local to me, so turned up late Saturday looking for a bed. Shockingly he also hung around until about 6 on the Sunday, which involved hanging out playing rounders with our church's ever expanding youth group. He's pretty good with teens you know. Even better, that morning was baptisms at church and this year it wasn't just me and a few who decided to throw themselves in the oversized paddling pool - most of the kids/teens did - yay! Finally - can't believe it took them a year to catch on. They threw Matt in too, which was definitely a good idea. And on the Friday preceeding Matt's arrival, me and Becky, had a bit of a phone call, and it's all off for now. Hope that hasn't upset anyone! As far as I know, neither Becky or I, are amazingly upset anyway. I think we were both a little bit unsure because it all felt a bit more like friendship than romance - like it could use a little extra spark. So for the time being we're leaving it, but I don't think it's necessarily ruled out in the future if we feel that way inclined. We'll stay in contact a see what we reckon. That's the plan anyway. If there's any more developments I'll make sure you're all the first to know (I won't really, it'll probably be Tom). And there's a Vic Reeves Big Night Out DVD released very soon, which is quite exciting news too. And Gary Skelton is marrying the lovely Jenni in Bermuda this coming Sunday as well. Tom'll be there lapping up the sun as well (the lucky blighter). Hopefully Tom'll provide photos later on. 29-8-2005 Bank Holiday WeekendWell, I waved Tom off about an hour ago. He's been down here since Friday evening. I've added a new photo album of what we got up to. There was a lot of going to bed at 3 or 4 am, a lot of Mighty Boosh, a bit of Mr Ben, a bit of "Bernard and the Genie", a bit of visiting a local town called Colne and the surrounding countryside, a really nice day out in Great Yarmouth and a slight risk of getting sand in the more intimate areas of my camera. Babooshka (whatever that means). 22-8-2005 Northampton Balloon FestivalSo, it turns out that Becky's old uni friend Helen lives in
Northampton, which it turns out isn't so far from me. So Helen
and her bloke Rob had a bit of a barbeque over the weekend and Becky
tootled off there. She slept over and I drove there on the Sunday
and met everyone - nice bunch. We checked out the Northampton
Balloon festival - you know hot air balloons and that. They had a
fair, and the rides were really very good - log flume, roller coasters
etc. We didn't actually go on anything in the end, but still -
the photos should be v. nearby indeed. I've also uploaded all those old photos from my old website - there's nearly two thousand of them. So click here if you want to see them. 19-8-2005 WibbleNot too much news this time either, but last weekend I went to see
Becky in Southampton. Actually, we went camping in the
surrounding areas to avoid the cats that infest her house. Still
managed to get a bit icky, but not too badly. Anyway, there's a
new photo album of the weekend added to the photos section. A lot
of it is shot a Paulton's Park - like Alton Towers, but with animals and with much tamer rides. I've been nicely run into the ground this week, so thankfully this weekend is -a little bit- tamer. And the weekend after that, it's time for a visit from Tom, which is always nice. 6-8-2005 Don't mess with me - I've got a turnip down my trousersWell, they say no news is good news don't they? Well there's no news. Oh, actually, come to think of it - there is news: I'm getting my haircut next week. That'll be a lot of fun. Oh, and I reckon that the new series of the Mighty Boosh is really quite good so far (have seen the first three, now). And I've picked up every Your Sinclair and Your Spectrum issue on DVD from here, and a nice book on algorithims on Amazon for a bargain price. Yay! 26-7-2005 The LatestBeen quite busy lately. Thankfully, next weekend I'm due a chill out - absolutely necessary, really.
And apart from the fact that there's oil leaking slowly but surely from the bottom of my car, that's your lot. Thanks for popping by! 10-7-2005 Microscopic Dairy FarmOoops. That's nearly a month of silence isn't it? Oh, well, here's a quick update of what I've been up to:
17th June:Simon McDonut popped in on the way to his usual Oak Hall holiday (to Italy AGAIN I think!). Good to catch up.
2nd-4th July: Went to visit a long-term internet dating-site bud in Southampton and checked out her world. We got on rather well as it turns out, and it does look like there might be scope for something - she's dead nice. Her cats on the other hand kick off horrible allergic reactions, which really didn't help sleeping while I was there! Got on better with her horse, mind (well, technically it's a pony,apparenty). They're not actually very scarey at all it turns out.
Saturday 9th July (yesterday): Went go-karting with GSP (the company I work for). Good fun. I didn't quite come last, but I wasn't all that far off! Mind you, the go-karts do seem to be designed for shorter folk than me. During the practice lap, before they adjusted the seat for me, my feet were pushed onto the accelerator and break as a matter of course - the trick was lifting them up to actually not continuously break etc. Still - a good laugh. We then tootled off to a nice country pub where GSP fed us for nowt. Very kind of them. Nice lot GSP. Went home, had a few hours kip, and headed off to Darren and Lorraine's house-warming barbeque in Longstanton. Bit worn out for it really, but still had a good laugh, even if I didn't have the energy to talk to all the mysterious (and probably very nice) strangers there.
Sunday 10th July (today): Skived church to get a much needed sleep in. Last night my entire body was aching for some reason (think it's probably go-karting related), but thankfully this morning I seem to be mostly ache-free (yay!). Rest of the day looks ready to fill up very quickly. Should probably mow the grass - hmpphh.
Next weekend I've got Tony T., Matt and Josh coming to visit. No idea what we'll get up to at this stage. The weekend after that my mate from Southampton is coming to visit me. The year's slipping away (again), but I'm still gently plotting ways of getting Sam down here sometime, and to visit the grandparents, parents, brother and guys in Nelson/Colne/Burnley. Wonder how many of those I'll pull off!
Oh, and the RSI is clearing up quite well too, and the second series of The Mighty Boosh will apparently be showing from the 26th July on BBC 3, so that'll be dead good. Can't wait. 19-6-2005 The Open Road"Poop-poop" Today I set off in search of some decent countryside in my motorised wheelchair. Wasn't so sure about manually crossing the A14 without a bridge, but thankfully it's quite quiet on a Sunday. Perhaps didn't find any outstanding countryside, but there were at least some hills involved. Corene recommended a tiny little village called Little Gidding which she says is lovely, so I popped there. It's certainly not bad - perhaps not up Northern standards of countryside. Well, okay, no perhaps about it! Anyway, she also recommended a little Christian retreat called Ferrar House there. Popped my head around the door and quickly found myself sat with a plate of party food and a glass of lemonade yakking to some middled ladies about the history of the house. Shockingly hospitable folk! Apparently T.S. Elliot had visited at some point and wrote a poem about the place! 15-6-2005 Brum brum.Yay! The nice man at the garage has fixed my car! New gearbox and clutch. Cost about £400, which is roughly what's left of the car insurance money, so that's not so bad, really. Now if that bloke would stop nicking my parking space... Good news, also is that Catterick is now available on DVD at Amazon. Grand. That's not, the price, obviously. I'll probably buy it soon, but everyone else should pick it up if they see it for a pound at a charity shop sometime in 2015. It's probably worth at least four, actually. Yesterday went out delivering leaflets in St. Ives with Jason for The Bridge Church's Fun Day. A pleasant, if slightly sweat inducing experience. It's on Saturday and will feature a Bouncy Castle and Sumo Suits. Not sure if I'll go or not at this stage. Plus, if anyone's interested in some music theory, particularly directed at song writers, I've been recommended some that lives here. 9-6-2005 An Unfortunate Event (Just one, mind)It must have been the cheese. First, that crept under the film and spilt all over the show, and in a hurry to get on with watching the film, I just stuck a plate on top and stuck the bag on that. Seemed to take ages, but eventually the popping began, but, then, after a minute or two, the plate cracked clean down the middle. So I guess it must have somehow reached too high a temperature. Nevermind eh? Settled down to watch the DVD - "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events". It's quite good. Vastly superior to the Harry Potter films, although probably aimed at approximately the same audience. Concluded that Jim Carey is actually very talented. The microwave pop-corn was good too, and I'll be careful with Waitrose lasagne in future. Good news is that the other day, I took my flagging Micra to the "good with Nissans" garage and they reckon they'll have it sorted for under £400. Which just so happens to be the amount I've got left from the insurance payout, after the bump in December. It's gearbox is gone apparently, but they guy also said that he reckoned that the car, more generally was perfectly safe to drive, and that the bump couldn't have done anything serious. So, come Tuesday night it should be sorted with any luck. Driving to the garage was dead nice too. Haven't driven it for a few weeks and it was sooo nice to get out into unfamiliar territory - down some nice country lanes, sun shining. Ooooooo. Not bad, I reckon. 5-6-2005 Hurrah for the Fire Service (and Welliphant, obviously)Oooof! Just made my first ever 999 call. You know those little circlular door handles you can have on interior doors in your house? Well, the one on my bedroom door just detached on the ouside, leaving me trapped in the bedroom. Had a bit of a rumble around my head and realised that everyone I could think of calling (thank goodness for the bedroom phone!) was either on holiday or on the church weekend away. Not that I had any phone numbers at hand, except perhaps Tom's (4 hour drive? - well, I suppose it'd test the friendship...!). So, after some pondering, called 999 and the fire brigade came down! They brought their massive truck and, I think it was four firemen for the job! They even put their little yellow hats on! In the end they just extended a ladder to my window and passed me a chunky screwdriver, which nailed it in about thirty seconds. Glad they didn't use the siren, mind. Wonder if I should feel silly about this? Dunno. Couldn't think of owt else to do at the time, and I guess if they get lady's toes out of taps...! Still, I notice that last week when I smacked a coffee stack with my shopping trolley and made a mess at Rainbow, I didn't really feel embarassed at all. Is shamelessness something that comes with age? 29-5-2005 Discovery: An absolute tonne of free Bible study softwareE-sword is the main software. It kicks off with a King James translation, but you can also install loads of other freely downloadable translations including The Good News Bible, The Message, The Contempary English Version, The American Standard... You can also choose to pay for some other. The NIV is missing though. There's also freely downloadable commentaries and dictionaries, and by default the program has loads of words that you can hover over for a more in depth explanation of their meaning. It's top donkey for nowt. Glad my dad pointed me to it really. Smashing. 19-5-2005 The Crap Video - Revisited, Monkey TrousersNo big news really. Just, that since I've now replaced my IBM Deathstar, and reinstalled Windows XP, my video digitising box is back in action. Last night I captured the first "Crap Video", from April 1993. Got a glitch in it somewhere along the way though. Might be because I'm using a USB 1 cable with a USB 2 device that actually pushes the data out quite fast. My SCART's a bit haggard as well. Plan to get some new cables and try again soonish. It'd be nice to get some of that old stuff stashed away digitally. Anyone interested in DVDs if I get that far? And "Monkey Trousers". ITV, Friday. It seems to be the "All Star Comedy Show" rebadged after the pilots. From the pilots I'd expect it's going to be okay, but probably not set the world alight. Catterick's still going on BBC 2 on Mondays mind... 16-5-2005 Putting Kim Wilde in the freezerBeen a little while hasn't it? I'm sure you're gagging to know what I've been up to, right? Erm, well - I've spent just over a week installing a new hard drive, reinstalling windows XP and all my applications onto it, and ghosting the lot using Norton Ghost 9. Smashing. Next time Windows craps itself, I should now be able to restore it in a jiffy. Hurrah! Also, now I've reinstalled, my video capture box is back in action. Am pondering doing DivXs of the two "Crap Videos" we shot back in the teenage years. They're quite a few hours long, so DivX could suit quite well. Perhaps I could cram them onto two DVDs that way. Aside from that, somebody just said to me that they'd heard that putting a CD in the freezer causes it's peaks and troughs to expand, and that it might be a good way of getting a damaged CD to play. Might try it with my Kim Wilde CD that I got from the charity shop. Oh, and went to a BBQ on Sunday. Meat is good. Tom's got a point. 7-5-2005 CatterickCatterick (featuring Vic & Bob) kicks off on BBC 2 at 10:00pm this Monday (9th April 2005). If you didn't catch it when it was on BBC 3, now might be the time. It's pretty good, incidentally. 5-5-2005 ZX Certified!Yay for me! I've just passed my exam at World Of Spectrum - I'm am officially ZX Certified! Here's my certificate to prove it: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/viewcert.cgi?candidate=Phil+Hackett Score: 72.50% Subcategory scores: * History of the ZX Spectrum and impact on the world: 100.00% Pass mark is 70%, so I'm a bit crap, actually! 4-5-2005 Married with ChildrenYou might think that happened very suddenly, but no, I'm talking about the TV programme. Stumbled across it last night on ITV2 and according to http://www.onthebox.com (a smart TV guide site) it's on again at 7.00pm and 7.30pm tonight. It's quite old now so it's probably cheap as monkeys. I think it's dead good, incidentally, which is probably why I mentioned it. |
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