Monthly Archives: November 2004

by | November 30, 2004

Half Life 2

I ordered Half Life 2 from Amazon on Saturday and it arrived this morning on my doormat. I installed it (eventually) and gave it a go.

I was awestruck at the beauty of the thing. Even on my Athlon XP 2200 with a Geforce 4 64MB graphics card machine it looked absolutely stunning. I’ve never seen graphics like it, ever. I’ve not got very far, though I have managed to get hold of the crowbar and hit things. The last thing I did was die under a train – this may take a while to get the hang of seeing as I don’t tend to play FPS games.

I don’t anticipate watching much TV for a while though, plus I may have to get some painkillers for my wrists, and not for the usual reason.

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Filed under Entertainment

by | November 29, 2004

Slackware 10.0

I fucking love Katherine HeiglI’ve been doing a lot of fiddling with my Operating System recently, and the lovely image on the left there is the result. I’ve installed Slackware 10.0 on my PC, which seems to be working pretty well at the moment. I’ve also installed Dropline Gnome on there for a rather snazzy desktop.

The gorgeous lady in the background is the fantastically gorgeous Katherine Heigl, who I love with all my physical being. I quite enjoyed Roswell when it was on, and she was one of the reasons for me watching it every week. She has to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Hmmmm…

Anyway, you can view a bigger version of that HERE if you like. Notice the groovy transparent terminal window too. I’m getting to quite like Dropline Gnome.

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Filed under Geekery

by | November 29, 2004

Three generations

I spent the weekend up in Leeds, and had the pleasure of having lunch with my dad plus Uncle Ken, who’s my (late) Grandad’s brother. He’s in his late 80s, but still in pretty good shape by the look of it, and it was fantastic to have the three generations of Rutt’s round the pub table together.

Uncle Ken is the last of his generation in my family, at least as far as close relatives are concerned. Most have made it into their 80s, which is good news for my potential longevity, and there’s not much history of baldness either. I may, however, suffer from high blood pressure, glaucoma and prostrate problems. I can live with that.

It was especially nice to see him in such good health. Obviously he’s getting a little frail these days, but he did seem in fairly good fettle. This was the first time in over 20 years that I’ve been to his house in Halifax, and I really hope that I’ll be visiting again before too long. Halifax is in a lovely area – Calder Valley is beautiful, and Halifax itself is more like a big village than a town. This is one of my favourite places and well worth a visit – Bronte country is just down the road (Howarth) and there are some spectacular views of the Pennines.

It was a good weekend in all. I got to spend some quality time with my mum too, plus she makes the best breakfast sarnies, even better than Megacobs (and they’re bloody lovely).

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Filed under General Chunterings

by | November 26, 2004

Cats – the truth

What is a cat?

1. Cats do what they want.
2. They rarely listen to you.
3. They’re totally unpredictable.
4. They whine when they are not happy.
5. When you want to play, they want to be alone.
6. When you want to be alone, they want to play.
7. They expect you to cater to their every whim.
8. They’re moody.
9. They leave hair everywhere.
10. They drive you nuts and cost an arm and a leg.

Conclusion: They’re tiny little women in cheap fur coats.

From DDN

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Filed under "Jokes"

by | November 26, 2004

More Christmas Tunes

Yuletide is creeping into my life whether I want it to or not. Despite my determination to refrain from such seasonal celebrations for at least a few weeks, I found myself playing yet more Christmas-related music last night. I had a phonecall from Dave Wright of Ibstock Brick Brass seeing if I was available to come down for a rehearsal – they had a few cornet players missing and could do with a spare pair of lips.

So, I went down for a blow (no sniggering at the back). Of course, the time of year dictated the type of music being rehearsed and there were Christmasy tunes a-plenty on offer. One of these is possibly the most detested Christmas arrangements of all time – Christmas Swinglong by Derek Ashmore. It’s total shite but there are three catchy tunes going on that audiences can sing along to, so it always seems to get an airing.

Thankfully there were some other, much preferable arrangements to play too. White Christmas, arranged by Mark Freeh, was one such piece. Very good indeed.

There was an outing for next year’s area piece for the first section – Comedy Overture – which was quite entertaining to play, though far from funny. It’s a tricky little piece and caused me to play a few bum notes here and there due to my dodgy sight-reading.

It was worth the trip out there though – I really love to play and the people at Ibstock are a funny bunch too. Very entertaining.

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Filed under Musical Notes

by | November 25, 2004

Oh my poor lips

I think my face is bruised today, specifically in the lip region. I had the fortune to play Christmas Carols for FOUR HOURS last night at the McArthurGlen retail outlet near Mansfield, and I’m pretty sure that might be able to pull my lips over the top of my head this morning.

It was a bit chilly and the place was deserted – the outlet had recently suffered quite a major fire and last night was it’s first day open afterwards – but it was worth it in the end. The band funds are better off now and I have a new waterproof coat so that I won’t get so wet if it’s raining during my walk into work.

There was also the bonus that there was no Little Donkey in our Carol books. I bloody hate that tune X¬(

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Filed under Musical Notes

by | November 25, 2004

Modern Technology eh?

On Tuesday I had the pleasure of visiting the delightful city of Coventry for a meeting, for which I was required to have a hire car. I’ve not had very many of these trips out, so it’s always nice to get a modern car to driver, especially as mine is now 8 years old.

They buggers gave me a 1.2 litre Corsa. I was a little underwelmed by their generosity, but I was slightly impressed by the quality of the car. It seemed very well put-together and was very comfortable, but a bit lacking in power. Still, it got me to and from Coventry with the minimum of fuss, plus it had a CD player which is something I don’t have in my car.

The Corsa did cause me some embarrasment when I came to fill it up after my trip though. We’re required to ensure that the tank is refilled after we’ve finished with the car, so I took it to Sainsbury’s to get some petrol put in it. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out how to open the bloody petrol cap! I figured that there must be some sort of switch or lever to release it, but I couldn’t find one thus causing a queue behind me at the pump. I had to drive off in the end, seeing as no-one that I asked was able to tell me how to release it.

I ended up stopping at a less-popular station in Beeston, so I got out and asked the guy at the counter if he knew. He said he knew nothing about cars, but then suggested that some cars have the flap that covers the petrol cap tied into the central locking system. I tried the “unlock” button on the fob again, and bugger me, it opened it up.

Stupid cars. And here’s me, an engineer, unable to put petrol in a car. Me = dim.

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Filed under General Chunterings

by | November 19, 2004

Dear Spammers

Thank you very much for visiting my website with your little bot. I always appreciate comments suggesting that I visit your website so that I can buy whatever drug or pornography that you’re peddling. I have no problem whatsover providing you with free advertising and that one extra link to your link-farm.

Under no circumstances would I use MT Blacklist to prevent this from happening, nor would I try and despam the few entries that get through the filters due to your never-ending quest to buy new domain names.

I’m pleased to see that you’re also leaving plenty of “trackback pings” on my site to your scat and BDSH sites. Again, I’m delighted that you’re having such an active time updating your own website and then letting me know about it. Please carry on doing so. I never check my emails anyway, and as I’ve not installed or activated MT Blacklist I wouldn’t be told that you’ve just left me a comment or a ping.

You’re nearly up to the big 1000 already! Well done on your industriousness. Wow, I’m really impressed. In fact I’m so impressed that I just wet myself.

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Filed under Geekery

by | November 18, 2004

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TimeI’ve been doing a lot of reading recently, and I’ve just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I only bought this book because I noticed that it had won the Whitbread Prize and there was “buy one get one half-price” deal going on in WHSmiths.

This was an inspired purchase though, because this book is incredible.

The story, not that there’s really much of a plot, centres around a 15 year-old autistic boy called Christopher Boone, who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. He’s unable to understand facial expressions and thinks ultra-logically so that whereas he knows what Metaphors are, he thinks of them as “lies” and cannot understand what they mean. He has a brilliant mathematical brain and remembers everything that he sees down to tiny details.

His social interaction is severely affected by his condition, so that he can’t bear to be touched, won’t talk to strangers and is often over-whelmed by his senses so much that he has to kneel down and start groaning to block out all the information that’s flooding his brain.

One evening he finds the dog of one of his neighbours dead with a pitchfork through it. He decides that he wants to find out who killed it and sets out on his own investigations. The story, written in the first person, explains in great detail Christopher’s thought processes as he ponders the dog’s murder. He ends up discovering a bit more than he sets out to, much to his distress and an adventure begins that takes him away from his family home with his father into the unfamiliar territory of London.

There isn’t a very strong storyline to hold all this together, but you’re swept along anyway. Christopher relates everything in a very detached way, such are his thought processes, but you can still feel the exasperation of those that come into contract with him, and the distress of those closest to him.

It’s alternately funny and sad, and has opened my eyes to the plight of those unfortunate enough to either be affected by Asperger’s Syndrome or those that care for a sufferer.

It’s easily my favourite book for a very long time.

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by | November 18, 2004

So many browsers….

John over at theMouthPiece.com has asked me to write an article about web browsers. Apparently he seems to think that I know a thing or two about such things, so I figured I might as well write something up. Maybe I’ll prove my ignorance.

So, what is a web browser?

A tabbed browser in actionMany people just click on the little “e” icon on their desktop to launch the internet and don’t think for one minute that they’re using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, a program designed to display web pages. Google has links to web pages that define what a Web Browser is, but in essence it’s just another program that you run so that you can see and read internet pages.

What many people don’t realise is that there are quite a few browsers out there other than Internet Explorer. You don’t actually need to use the one that Microsoft gives you with Windows, you can install and run any number of these other browsers, many of which give you a more convenient way of surfing the web.

Continue reading →

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