Roo-dimentary Knowledge

2010-06-08T21:47:00.001+02:00

2010-06-08T11:38:00.001+02:00

Soundhound and Jimi Hendrix

2010-05-04T11:10:00.001+02:00

I would like to recommend a couple of things to you that I have come across the last couple of days. The first is an iPhone app and the second is an album.

Soundhound:

This iPhone app is a music app for a couple of things. Firstly, if you hear a song on the radio and want to know what it is you let loose this app and it will search it’s database and come up with, not only the name of the song, artist and album, but also you can then get the lyrics, find youtube video’s and even buy the song. Normally not enough for me to recommend an app though so what I then would like to recommend is it’s other functionality which is as a replacement for the iPod app. Yes, this app should be used and completely replace your iPod app. The iPod app is good and has things that Soundhound doesn’t, for example it has the letters of the alphabet down the right hand side making scrolling to a chosen letter much easier.

What Soundhound has what the iPod doesn’t is fantastic Music playback. I always thought that the iPod has great Music playback until I listened to Music through Soundhound. The same songs are louder and everything just seems to be clearer. The bass line on Miles Davis’s “So What” is just there and clear, each individual note can be heard, I could only hear a slur of bass with the iPod app a day ago at the same sound levels. And when the trumpet came in I almost had to turn the sound down quite a bit because of the sharpness and clarity of the First note.

I have my own theories as to why and have yet to find any confirmation on the internet. I have read somewhere that in european law all portable musical devices with earphones should have a limiter, meaning that the volume only go so far. This could be the difference between Soundhound and iPod app but somehow it doesn’t. It just seems to be more than volume. Perhaps someone in america could test the difference as I don’t think they have the same limiter rules there.

I have not yet purchased the Soundhound app and am content to see ads. What will make me purchase it though is if the Music playback becomes just as easy to use as the iPod app with the mentioned alphabet included and also a ‘back’ button. If I choose an album from 1 artist and start playing it, there is no way to go back to the list of that artists albums. You have to back to the whole list again. There are a couple of other small things but all these won’t stop me from now using Soundhound as my number 1 music app on my iPhone.

Valleys of Neptune by Jimi Hendrix:

I have quite a few of Jimi’s albums and personally thought I had enough. I don’t really want 50 different versions of Purple Haze, maybe 1 and on some occasions maybe 2 versions is more than enough. So when Valleys of Neptune came out I didn’t really pay much attention to what was on the album and decided not to get it. Very occasionally I would see an advert or hear Jimi on my iPhone and think about the album again but it wasn’t until I read a review in Guitar-techniques magazine that I changed my mind. It wasn’t the fact that it mentioned that it had unreleased versions on it but more the fact that I saw the album cover once more and loved the colours and artwork. Get this album, I got it and have not regreted it, it is in my opinion his best work. Don’t get me wrong the albums he made whilst alive are great and some real gems on them but as a full album they are let down by certain songs. Valleys of Neptune on the other hand is just full of great songs and is just a fantastic album. I just love the funky Bleading Heart and have added it to the growing list of songs I would love to be able to play on the guitar and will learn in the future.

So get Soundhound and get Valleys of Neptune by Jimi Hendrix

Update

2010-03-17T15:45:00.001+01:00

Wicklywoo.blogpress.com

has been updated

a change of plan

2010-03-16T16:03:00.001+01:00

Today’s blog was going to be about guitarists and their differences or was it going to be about women from different countries, I can’t remember now. Well instead this blog is about my new blog site.

http://wicklywoo.wordpress.com/

I thought I check wordpress out, I’ve heard quite alot about it and most of the blog apps on the iphone are for wordpress so 3 + 4 = 7 and voila I joined wordpress. I have no idea yet if this will replace my blogger account because having everything in my google account has it’s advantages, like………

Hmmmmm…..

Another reason for wordpress could be that I can then write blogs via safari which does not work properly with blogger, not that I write many blogs these days, I must be to busy at work :-) It Works in Firefox but I won’t to use just 1 browser and I like Safari (no idea why), it just seems the correct thing to use on the Mac. I have updated my wordpress blog with a small iPhone typed blog just to give you something to read whilst waiting with anticipation for my next entry. Hopefully I can get back to my few blogs a week mode.

E.V.I.L.

2010-03-15T13:29:00.001+01:00

I read an article by Giles Coren today, he has a column in The Times and is always a good read. This weeks article was about how he couldn’t believe that the Vatican had a full time Exorcist on the payroll and this in 2010. What intrigued me though was what somebody wrote in the comments section of Giles’s column. He wrote:

‘Evil only exists to religious people as it’s a necessary invention to be the opposite of the religion itself’

I got to thinking if I agree with this satement. As a rule I do not hate anybody, this is impossible for me. I also do not think that anything is evil, it even sounds like a strange and non-existent word to me, something that only exists in films. So I then thought that I should read up on what the word actually means, perhaps it’s just my perception of the word evil that doesn’t exist.

Wikipedia says:

Evil is defined as something that is immoral, causes pain or harm, is offensive, or threatening

This sounds to vague and open to way to much codemnation and hatred,

Oxford dictionary says:

• adjective 1 deeply immoral and malevolent. 2 embodying or associated with the devil. 3extremely unpleasant: an evil smell.

• noun 1 extreme wickedness and depravity, especially when regarded as a supernatural force. 2 something harmful or undesirable.

It seems that almost everyone in the World is evil. One countries morals can seems immoral and thus evil to another country, take USA and Iran for example, both are evil countries to each other.

So the church has it’s own meaning to the word evil and politicians have yet another meaning and me….well I think it makes a good album title.

Google will win

2010-03-12T16:18:00.002+01:00

This robot, this cute little Android is the reason why I think Google will win the mobile war in the near future. If Google can exploit it ten fold then it won't be too long until their already good mobile phone software will become the standard to beat

They still have a bit to do to beat the iPhone experience but then I have yet to see and feel the Android 2.1 version.

This could also be a look at things to come. Chrome OS is also nearly upon us, will Google do the same and show the iPad what a much cheaper tablet can do.

Bonsai

2010-03-03T16:18:00.001+01:00

More bonsai serenity

Mood changes

2010-03-03T10:56:00.001+01:00

I noticed a complete mood change today that I can’t remember noticing before. Of course I have had these mood changes before but have never really conciously noticed the actual change. I arrived at work with the usual ‘my body is at work but my head is somewhere else’ mood, work is work. I usually say good morning to the ladies at reception before going upstairs to my office to start my daily routine.

This time, upon entering the building, I was tackled by Liz, our Norwegian temp. She is probably the best looking girl at work (shame she’s leaving). Anyway, she had a problem, needed someone from IT and I just happened to enter the building with a big red S on my t-shirt. She explained the problem and I solved it for her. It was at this moment that my mood changed, with the problem solved I suddenly transformed from IT guy solving a user problem to flirty IT guy trying to hit it on with Liz. I prolonged our walk for as long as I could before reaching my office door and with an au revoir I watched as she dissapeared into the distance as she turned the corner to her office. *sigh*

I took this euphoria with me to my desk and cherished it. I am now back to working IT mode but I am smiling whilst writing about this encounter.

Long live pretty girls.

New iPhone app

2010-03-02T16:29:00.001+01:00

Bonsai

Film weekend

2010-03-01T15:17:00.001+01:00

I watched 2 films last weekend, Avatar and Pandorum.

I really liked Avatar, it’s extremely colourful planet was visual candy for my eyes. Although in typical Hollywood style it didn’t seem to bother me in this film and even though you could easily see the similarities to the real World i.e. cowboys versus Indians, it’s CGI took you far enough away from earth so as not to think that at any moment John Wayne would appear. The cheesey “falling in love’ scene always annoys me, do we always have to have a love scene in a film no matter how short. A lot of the film was very predictable which I suppose added to the enjoyment because you already know that the Na’vi are going to win in the end, which is what we want anyway.

Apparently they invented a language for the Na’vi containing about 1000 words which I find a very nice touch to film creation, on par with Lord of the Rings. Unlike Lord of the Rings though I found that when the Na’vi spoke it didn’t sound like their native language, it sounded to much like someone had just taught them a few phrases to say when they are holiday in Pandora. Perhaps the inflection was just wrong, a bit like Brad Pitt talking Italian in Inglorious Bastards, well worth checking out by the way, he has such a glorious italian accent.

All in all a good film with the best CGI I have ever seen (interaction Na’vi and humans) and one of the most glorious planets ever created.

Pandorum on the other hand was almost a waste of my time. Don’t get me wrong, it was a decent enough film if you have nothing else to do, but I have so many unwatched films I just wish I had watched a different one. It did have a ‘I wasn’t expecting that’ moment at the end which was good.

Nendoroids

2010-02-27T14:05:00.006+01:00

Just a few pictures of my Nendoroids

Jamming to the new Airbourne CD

Mio Akiyama singing 'Girls in Black'

Rockin' it real

Listening habits

2010-02-25T15:55:00.002+01:00

Today I finally reached the end of my listening project. Many weeks ago whilst listening to my iPhone Music in the car I got to wondering what sort of algorithm Apple used to play songs randomly. I often heard the same songs two or three times in a week which indicates that every random choice is made from the Total list of songs every time. I find this to be a bad way to randomly choose songs because theoretically you could randomly get the same number every single time.

I remember for my exam project back in the eighties I created a poker game on the commodore PET. I spent ages working on a great routine for choosing random cards and this gave me good insight into the very many ways of randomly choosing from a list.

Anyway, I tried a couple of experiments on my iPhone to see if I could stop this reoccurring song play ‘mess’. Nothing seemed to work, so what I eventually did so as to listen to all my songs at least once is, I decided to pick the category songs and just start from A to Z. I have finished this as of today and I must say it is quite an enjoyable way to listen to your Music. I found myself listening in more detail, especially when a song started and ended. I tried to guess the name of the song and band as quick as possible, guess when the next letter of the alphabet came along and guess what the next song would be based on what I was listening to.

I noticed just how many songs I had starting with certain letters, the letter ‘I’ and the ‘W’ for example. I noticed that certain bands had made albums with many songs starting with the same letter. The last album by the band Muse have 4 out of 11 songs beginning with the letter ‘U’. None of these facts would have come to light had I not tried this experiment, I have also noticed that I still have quite a few songs that begin with a number, something I always delete when importing into iTunes (unless it does actually start with a number).

All in all an interesting and enjoyable experiment.

Rock on - Nendoroids

2010-02-23T14:45:00.001+01:00

After thinking about it for a couple of days I thought why not and went and ordered a couple of new dolls to play with (smiles). They are called Nendoroids and are Japanese manga figurines. The ones I have bought both play guitar and will go perfectly in my guitar room at home. I hope to decorate the room with more guitar related stuff in the future, I already have my eyes on a 15cm Joe Satriani guitar and a Jimi Hendrix figurine.

Anyway these Nendoroids are based on a Japanese manga comic about a band called K-On! I have bought Yui Hirasawa who plays a Les Paul and is the lead singer and Mio Akiyama who is a left handed Fender jazz bass player. I shall post some photo’s when they arrive.

Great game

2010-02-22T14:35:00.003+01:00

Lately I have been re-establishing my half love for gaming on the XBox. I say half love because I’m not really a gamer, I’m what you might call a very casual gamer. I haven’t really played in several months I spend most of my time playing around on my guitar and don’t really give myself any time to play games or watch TV. I still haven’t got round to installing my Sky box since the move so it’s not like I’m missing TV.

Anyway, I bought a new game, Mini Ninja’s it’s called and is one of my all time favourite games. As you can see it’s has a Anime style to it, little characters, bright vibrant colours and heaps of cuteness about it. My favourite of the six ninja’s you get to control is Shun, he’s master of the Kyudo (bow) and also the most tense of the Ninja’s and hence says the most words, always uttering things to himself whilst stealthily approaching his victims.

I tweet therefore I.......don't blog

2009-07-27T14:44:00.001+02:00

I started tweeting about a couple of months ago, I had a Twitter account for much longer but never really did anything. Since the last few months though I have found that I am constantly twittering, albeit, rubbish, but I am still doing it. I will no doubt tweet that I have updated my blog. I have about 60 followers now, most if not all are marketing companies posing as young blond girls who like sex. I am following about 10 people, Peter (my brother), Stephan Fry and Jonathan Agnew to name a few. It’s just with all this tweeting I am no longer blogging which I find a shame as I like to write but just don’t fancy repeating the things I tweet in my blog.

Showroom house

2009-07-01T19:37:00.002+02:00

This picture is taken in the living room of a showroom house almost opposite the house we have bought you can see it on the left through the window. The news on our house is, well, unusual or even dissapointing you could say.

A few weeks ago we saw a crack in the wall which is not unusual in a new house, all the water in the cement walls dries and you always get cracks, nothing to worry about.

A week ago we were supposed to have the first inspection where you can walk around the house and let the contractor know what you think is wrong and they can get it all fixed before finally giving you the key. This inspection was postponed because the contractor thought the cracks to be on the "worrying large side". The second inspection was also postponed due to the outcome of the meeting between all sorts of people, all denying resposibility.

What seems to have happened is that the building site next our house have built a dam wall (this being Holland and under see level) but this wall has managed to upset the foundations of our house and thus cracks in the wall have appeared.....and got bigger and now the outside resembles that famous Italian building, well not quite that bad.

Anyway it seems that the lawyers and contractors and whom ever else they can get together are going to sort it out.

Must be a claim there somewhere for someone..

Not moving yet then.

My not so easy album choice

2009-06-15T13:55:00.001+02:00

I decided to give myself the almost impossible task of trying to name my favourite 3 albums. At first I thought about 10 albums but this was much much easier which is why I wanted the difficult task of naming 3.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Rush – Moving Pictures

Iron Maiden – The number of the beast

Joe Satriani – The Extremist

Radiohead – In Rainbows

Even after naming the 3 that I now have chosen I am still not sure if they are my 3 top albums. Just choosing my favourite Rush album was hard enough. Fly by night has so many good numbers, 2112 is an ultimate classic but side B is not so good, Permanent waves has the amazing Jacobs ladder on it and more, I just love Hemispheres but I finally choose Moving pictures, it has 3 masterpieces on it Red Barchetta, YYZ and Limelight and also my absolute Rush favourite The Camera eye. But even after writing this I still fight myself and am continually finding arguments to challenge my choice.

I had less of a fight choosing my favourite Satriani album and ended up choosing The Extremist even though it does not have my top songs on it.

The number of the beast by Iron Maiden is just pure heavy metal greatness.

I have just noticed that I have 4 in the list and not 3. The 4^th one, In Rainbows by Radiohead, is the newest Radiohead album and has grown to be one of my all time favourite albums, so many great and diverse numbers on it. But now you see my problem, I have 4 on the list and I said 3 so now I have to lose 1. Hmmmmmm……

Well it surprises me too but I will choose The Extremist as the one to lose. Or….no….you see, I can’t choose. Anyway a few more worthwhile albums that were in my top are:

Porcupine tree – Deadwing

Ayreon – 01011001

Airbourne – Airbourne

Mercyful Fate – Melissa

Slipknot – Vol. 3 The subliminal verses

More Rush and more Satriani

Try it yourself and you will be amazed how difficult it is to let go of great albums just so that you can choose your top 3. I think I will now try and choose my favourite 3 songs.

Deep FAT fryer

2009-06-08T09:49:00.001+02:00

After reading Peter’s blog I thought I would also write a little something just to agree with what he has written. He noticed that they have taken the word FAT away from the deep fat fryer because nobody wants to associate themselves with eating fatty chips. Good marketing trick if you ask me, just by taking the word away many will no longer think that chips are fatty and will eat more. Well that may be going too far but it is probably what the marketing geeks have thought.

Whenever shopping I nearly always go for the whipped cream, mayonnaise, Greek yoghurt with the rich creamy fatty goodness in, it tastes just so much better. Low fat milk, diet chocolate, fried bacon without the fat, it’s not the same. Anyway I’m drifting.

Going back to the disassociation with the word fat brings me to a TV series I have been watching of late called Ashes to Ashes. It’s about a women detective who has been shot in the head and that bullet has taken her back in time to 1982 where she is also a detective. I know, back to the eighties, how crap is that. Being a child of the eighties I don’t think I would want to do it again BUT….Seeing it again brought to me via this series I’m thinking, wow, such an uncomplicated decade. I’m not sure that 1980’s police brutality is the way to go as it was then but the “criminals have rights too” these days is just too much. There are many more examples of this uncomplicated time but it’s better if you see the series especially if you yourself are a child of the 80’s.

I blame the media as you may well know but I do notice a slight change these days especially in the British media. Whether this is artificial and media driven I don’t know but it seems that there is tendency to bring more and more products out for men and women separately. I saw an advert for “man crisps” and when man gave a namby pamby answer to a ballet question in this advert he got zapped. There are hundreds of man magazines these days and I’m not talking about Vogue for men with tips on shaving but FHM types with tit’s an arse in them.

Oh well

Cricket, music and more apps

2009-05-27T09:44:00.001+02:00

Cricket

England won against the West Indies and convincingly too. They won the test with ease and the ODI’s even easier, I just hope that this doesn’t mean that England can only win against teams when playing in England although seeing as the world cup is in England and starts 5^th June (during the normal England season) it feels as though England could go far this time. We shall see.

Music

I’ve been practicing a few more songs the last few weeks, I may have already mentioned Jimi Hendrix’s Little wing, I have been continuing to practice this song a lot as I want to really nail this one on the electric as well as acoustic. Others songs are

Always with me, Always with you – Joe Satriani

Are you gonna go my way – Lenny Kravitz

Speed King – Deep Purple

Apps

A few more apps of interest are:

ECB cricket

A free application from the England Cricket Board, allowing you to follow the scores (very nice old fashioned scoreboard), get the latest news and watch some TV cricket news.

Reference

A total guitar reference app, very cool indeed. It has already helped me with chords and scales.

iMastermind

The mastermind game, it’s worth a couple of plays but I probably won’t play it that much

iShift

Cool black and white game where you have to escape from a maze, but the cool thing is that you have to turn your world upside down to change from black to white to do certain things.

Yetisports

Hit the penguin as far you can

More apps

2009-05-05T12:03:00.001+02:00

I bought some more apps for my iPhone and still have not been disappointed with the diversity and creativity of the developers out there.

1. Nintaii – great puzzle app. The idea being that you have to push a block around a maze and get it into a hole, much more difficult than it sounds. Japanese always no how to make great mind apps. Price 0.79

2. Realmaze 3D – Very gorgeous dungeon maze with great atmospheric sounds too. Just find your way out is the game plan. You can choose between tiny, small, normal, big, huge and enormous. The dungeons are all multi-level and when you start a new maze it is never the same. Price 0.79

3. iKitty – A tamagotchi style app but with a kitty cat to look after. Bet you can guess who I bought this for. It not’s very responsive unfortunately, kinda slow but at least you can poke kitty in the eyes. Price 0.79

4. Archers – Try and kill your opponent with arrows by firing them, changing speed and angle. Head shots are better. Great simple game for two to play. Price free

5. Cricket 2020 – Yep, another cricket game for my expanding collection. Apparently this is the number one app in India and Pakistan. Haven’t figured out how to play well yet, my fielding is hopeless and my batting is so so. Graphics aren’t that great but it’s more of an addictive game. Price (last week 2.99) now 0.79

6. Route Candle – A cute cartoon game in the style of Little big Planet but with colouring pencils for the graphics. I have only got the lite version so far but may get the full if I get addicted. The idea is to help “things” escape before your flame blows out. Price free

7. qTweeter – This is a jailbroken app. It’s for updating twitter and facebook at the same time but from within any application. So if I’m listening to music I can just swipe my finger and then type in my message and update my twitface status. Haven’t bought it yet, it’s donation software but before I buy it I would like to see if it is this application that makes some other official apps crash, Also I may wait for Apple Update 3.0 and see if qTweeter still works. Price, well anything from 2.99 to whatever.

I may have missed a couple because I have downloaded so many the last few weeks and don’t keep them all on my iPhone until ready. Most are free apps, there are plenty of them out there. My favourite of these…..Nintaii

Films

2009-04-27T11:21:00.001+02:00

I watched a couple of films this weekend, I had some spare time and thought it was such a long time since I had watched a film that I would do 2.

SAW V.

I like the SAW films, they normally have a good twist in them, hahahaha, literally too. SAW V though I found a bit, well not farfetched but it seemed as though they had tried too hard to get a story together just so that they could film some gruesome shots.

The Day the Earth stood still.

This is the remake of the classic black and white film, Klaatu barada nikto, what a great film. It came as no surprise that this would not be as good as the original. Of course it had good special effects and it also had the basic good storyline but it just didn’t pull it off in the 2008 remake. For me it was the stupid happy feely Hollywood scenes that are almost mandatory that makes it just a bit to ridiculous.

“Please don’t destroy us, we humans can change, honest we can.” Followed by all the things that Hollywood could think of to make humans look as though they are worthy of saving but those are the things that the film got wrong. It was all a bit….nah, I won’t bother, if you really want to see this film go ahead but don’t blame me if you think it’s naf.

So a little bit of a waste of time really, but you never know before if the film is going to be good or not. After two films like these I had to watch something that was good though, it was my duty to myself, I ended up watching an episode of Spooks season 4, great stuff.

Wacom pen

2009-04-14T12:02:00.001+02:00

On Friday I bought a new pen and tablet to replace my mouse. I had been having pain/throbbing/numbness with my left hand a couple of months back and so switched back to right. I should point out that it’s not really painful it’s just not normal but couldn’t think of a better word.

Anyway I have always moused with my right hand until a couple of years ago when I started to have the same symptoms, so I switched to my left and now of course back to my right. It didn’t take long for the same symptoms to come back to my right hand so I had a bit of a problem. I didn’t want it to get any worse and become a victim. Also after reading Kristina’s blog describing atrophy I thought no way.

So, we had a pen mouse at work that wasn’t in use and thought I’d give it a try. After two days of getting used to it I find that I no longer feel the symptoms after 5 minutes as I did when using the mouse. I then thought I’d better get one for home use too, there is no use using one at work and then mousing all evening on my Mac at home.

Being slightly design conscious I opted for the more expensive iMac matching white version of the Wacom Bamboo pen. Now all I have to do is wait until I get writers cramp :-)

New iPhone App

2009-04-07T11:26:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I bought a new application for my iPhone again, this one is called Amazing Slow downer. This application makes learning difficult or fast phrases on the guitar simple. You load a song, then slow it down and change the pitch if needed and then loop the bit you want to practice again and again.

I thought it quite strange that, with the amount of guitar software available on the iPhone, that no one had yet brought out speed and pitch changing software. Amazing slow downer is in my opinion the best there is when it comes to slowing down a song without ruining it. I have tried more than 10 different applications on my Mac, some of which completely make the song inaudible when slowing it right down and others that are just to complicated to use and also ruin the song.

Amazing slow downer is very simple and the song, even when slowed to less than 50%, is still perfect to listen to. I had already bought this for my Mac but then always had to cut/paste/sync to my iPhone so that I didn’t have to sit in front of my Mac for guitar practice but now with ASD on the iPhone all I do now is just play.

http://www.ronimusic.com/

New House

2009-04-01T15:46:00.001+02:00

If you click on my photo link I have added more photo’s of the fully furnished showroom house that we visited a few weeks ago. These photo’s are much better than the iPhone photo’s you may have already looked at.

First class rules

2009-03-30T21:19:00.001+02:00

On my trip to Sweden I boarded the plane. It is 8:15 and quite full, something I wasn't expecting seeing as I had to get up at 5 in the morning to catch this flight. I am somewhere over the sea now and should land in about ¹hour.

Just after take off and before the drinks the stewardess decided, as with all flights, to draw that curtains so that first class can have a bit of privacy. I didn't think it had first class but it did but as you can see from the photo the curtains were very small and didn't give any privacy at all. I wonder how much extra the people paid for this luxury.

2009-03-29T08:54:00.002+02:00

Notice any similarities. Yep they are all blond and are all models and adult film stars. Another similarity that they have which I only just realized are their names. (from left to right)

Sandy Summers
Jenna Jameson
Hannah Hilton
Brea Bennet

So not only do you have to look good and have blond hair to be in the adult film business you also have to be lucky enough to have a name that has the same letter for first and last name.

My perfect mate

2009-03-26T13:36:00.003+01:00

In a quest to find my perfect mate I took it upon myself to install the Love calculator on my iPhone. Desperate to find out who is my destiny I sat with anticipation as the app installed itself. Finally installed I started the app up and read the instructions on finding my true love. Could it be so simple, all I had to do was type in the name of the other person and the love calculator would tell me.

I immediately typed in who I hope it would be:

Leny = 33% (love of my life)

It wasn’t to be, it seems that for 15 years I have been living with the wrong person. I continued my quest typing firstly from people on my iPhone.

Marjan = 60% (Leny’s sister)

Miranda = 58% (Leny’s sister)

Perhaps I had chosen the wrong sister I thought but 60% is still to low.

David = 25% (brother)

Peter = 41% (brother)

Perhaps I’m gay and have a taste for inbreeding but these results show this not to be.

Kristina = 43% (American friend)

Michelle = 54% (Aussie friend)

Even the mystique of the overseas women doesn’t do it for me.

Minki = 33% (photo)

I got daring and thought I’d give it a shot. But Minki van der Westhuizen wasn’t to be. I was now getting desperate , perhaps there is nobody out there for me.

Richard = 29% (me)

I wasn’t in love with myself. I just had one last chance for today, would I find my real mate so I type it in.

AnyDumbBlond= 23% (grrrr)

Zzzzzz = 67% (?)

This was the best so far but by no means convincing, 67% is still to low.

My quest continues…….

3 more games

2009-03-26T08:46:00.008+01:00

I bought four more iPhone games last night, thought I go on a spending spree. I spent in total 4 euro's. I am still surprised that games and apps are still so cheap but it also proves that if the price is good people will buy them, a lesson for the music industry.

The first game is Cricket, of course, you would expect anything else from me. I didn't know that it existed and came across it by accident. Cool game and as all iPhone games should be, very easy just to play a few minutes and then come back to it later without forgetting what you are supposed to do. My high score at the moment is now much, 44/5 in 3 overs. It is also a networked game so all scores go to the worldwide database but I don't think mine will be up there at the top just yet. Price 0.80

Next is Flight Control, a highly addictive game about trying to land planes on the appropriate runway making sure that don't crash into one another. It has great 50's retro style graphics and all you do is touch a plane and then drag it's path to the runway but that's what makes it so addictive I think, it's simplicity. I have a high score of 31 at the moment but have only played it three times so far. Price 0.80

The third one is called 7 cities. I bought it for Leny because she just loves tower defense games. The idea in this one is to build towers on the banks of the river and stop the enemy ships from reaching your city.
There are an array of different towers and enemies all having good and bad sides to them. This is one of the better graphical tower defense games and reminds me of Age of Empires, another game Leny really loves. She hasn't played it yet so I don't have any idea how the gameplay is but I suppose you can't go to wrong with a tower defense game. Price 0.80

The last one is Rasta Monkey. I do love my games with colourful graphics and cute creatures as the protagonist. The idea is to swing around collecting the fruit for and old greying rastafarian who can't collect them anymore. Have only played two levels so far but the graphics, although simple are just great and the background reggae music is well up in da irie top one hundred, yeah man. Sorry, let myself go a bit, I do appologise.
Again a simple game. Price 1.60

Yellowstone

2009-03-25T09:36:00.001+01:00

Not the usual picture that you see of Yellowstone. I watched part 2 of the BBC series all about Yellowstone last night and what an incredible series it is and what an incredible place it is.

If you can, watch it. The commentary is so so but the pictures awesome.

New game

2009-03-24T15:06:00.001+01:00

Got a new iPhone game today, it's called sway and has a really cute lizard in it. The idea is to sway Lizzy from side to side and collect as many stars in as short a time as you can.

It's so addictive.

Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving ISTP

2009-03-24T09:40:00.001+01:00

I took one of those internet Jung typology tests today (saw it on Kristina’s site) and below are some of the descriptions of my personality. I have also put some comments of my own next to it.

Artisans tend to be fun-loving, optimistic, realistic, and focused on the here and now

- TRUE

Artisans pride themselves on being unconventional, bold, and spontaneous.

- TRUE except spontaneous

Artisans make playful mates, creative parents, and troubleshooting leaders.

- Playful yes, the other two don’t know

Artisans are excitable, trust their impulses, want to make a splash, seek stimulation, prize freedom, and dream of mastering action skills.

- Excitable, no way. The rest are slight yeses

Artisan Portrait of the Crafter (ISTP)

The nature of Crafters are the true masters of tool work, with an innate ability to command tools and to become expert at all the crafts requiring tool skills. Even from an early age they are drawn to tools as to a magnet-tools fall into their hands demanding use, and they must work with them.

Crafters are hard to get to know. Their lack of expressiveness can isolate them and their actual conversation is sparse and brief.

Crafters can be wonderfully generous and loyal to their friends. On the other hand, they can be fiercely insubordinate to those in authority, seeing rules and regulations as unnecessarily confining. Crafters will not usually go against regulations openly, but will simply ignore them. More than anything, Crafters want to be free to do their own thing, and they are proud of their ability to do it with an artist's skill.

-------

The above text is part of a bigger text, these are the bits that I feel true to how I am.

The windmills

2009-03-23T08:49:00.002+01:00

On Saturday we went for a walk seeing as it was such good weather. It's called in Dutch the Molenviergangroute (The 4 Windmills path) and is a walk very close to where we live but have never traversed it before. From where we started it's about a 10 km walk which isn't to far for a Saturday afternoon.

The windmill in the photo is the direction that you go and you get to see 4 windmills from close up and we counted about 10 in total. At windmill number 2 we asked the windmiller a simple question which led on to a fantastic guided tour of the workings of these windmills. The 4 mills on this route are all part of a water level pumping system. If the water gets to high then they all pump in unison to move thousands of liters of water up to the nearby river, thus keeping this farming land from flooding.

Two facts stood out from the guided tour: they pump about 66000 litres of water an hour and the blades of the windmill turn at about 100 km/h.

The resty of the photos you can find via the usual link which you may or may not have but I have now included it in the links on my blog site.

The men

2009-03-23T08:44:00.001+01:00

Even though they lost I still think they did quite well against the West Indies in the second ODI. I think they probably would have won it if Strauss had lasted a couple more overs but now it makes for a more exciting 3, 4 and 5 ODI.

On to Barbados

The women

2009-03-23T08:41:00.003+01:00

They did it. The England womens cricket team won the world cup, beating New Zealand quite easily in the end.

Congratulations

Word game

2009-03-17T10:02:00.001+01:00

I joined in with a word game that I saw on Kristina’s blog and she gave me the letter E to think about. I came up with lots of words but got rid of a few because I didn’t like the word after reading it out, anyway here is my list.

éclair

eclipse

ecstasy

emptiness

emboss

enchanting

enclave

enjoy

escarpment

evening

eeek

E=mc2

Last two are words but I like them, especially eeek.

Wanna letter?

New game

2009-03-16T21:08:00.001+01:00

I bought myself a new iPhone game tonight. It's called Let's Golf and is a cartoony gold game. I love playing cartoon golf games and already have a game on my psp but just had to get this one for my iPhone. A bargain at 5 euros.

Time to play, I'm 5 over par at the moment :-(

I am GOD

2009-03-16T13:01:00.002+01:00

I got this game for the iPhone, it's called pocket God and the idea is that you play God. This means you can do what you want to the world and people on it. Activate the volvanco, feed your people to the sharks or just sinply drown them.

After drowning one and frightening the rest with an earthquake I found that I couldn't do it anymore. Just look at how peaceful they look when they are sleeping.

I shall now look at them occasionally and smile. Not really the point of the game though.

They win again

2009-03-12T16:16:00.002+01:00

In contrast to the men’s team, England’s women cricket team are at the top of their game and seem quite unstoppable at the moment with 17 wins in a row. They have now played and convincingly won three matches at the World Cup, beating Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. They now go on to play New Zealand, Australia and West Indies.

What’s more, they are good to look at.

This text belongs to the photo below. Blogger wouldn't let me put them together for some reason

They win again

2009-03-12T16:11:00.002+01:00

Congratulations

2009-03-11T08:45:00.004+01:00

In yet another agonizingly close game for England, the West Indies held out once more to draw the game and win the series 1-0.
Yet again I found myself on the edge of my seat in the last few overs. Could England do it this time, could they take the last three wickets and win this game. If I was a nail biter then I would have no nails left.
With 4 overs to go Anderson bowled a legend of a reverse swinging yorker to bowl out Powell. 1 down 2 to go in 3 overs. With some of the best bowling I have seen England do and on such a flat pitch they almost took the wickets but as luck would have it, the balls were just to good for the batsmen, just missing the edge of the bat on nearly every occasion.

So congratulations to Chris Gayle (photo) and his team on winning the Wisden trophey back again after 9 years. On a positive note, I hope England can remember how well they played batting and bowling in this last innings because this will serve them well for the up and coming Twenty20 and ODI matches, something they are not well known to be good at.

England now move down to sixth in the world, 3 years ago they were number 2. Work to be done I think....

Pleased to see you

2009-03-08T08:48:00.001+01:00

It's been a long time since we have had a really rainy day. I've missed it. I'd just love to be somewhere in the Lake District or the glens in Scotland right now with this weather.

:-)

Contrasts

2009-03-07T20:26:00.001+01:00

The contrast between the West Indies vs. England and the South Africa test cricket matches could not be greater.

The WI Eng match is slow and relatively dire with the WI showing no intent on trying to win the match.

The SA Aus match on the other hand has two teams literally going for blood. Fast bowling at it's best.

M. Johnson for Aus was bowling every ball at 95 mph, got 2 players out, broke G. Smiths hand, injured 2 other peoples hands and drew blood from an excellent bouncer to the chin of J. Kallis.

Can't wait to see Johnson in England for the ashes in July.

I'm doomed, I didn't buy anything

2009-03-06T15:45:00.001+01:00

Found this on a site. I have know idea how true something like this is but…..

One in three women would dump their partner over an 'inadequate' Christmas gift

Research by dating website FreeDating.co.uk found that 36% of women would dump their partner for giving an 'inadequate' Christmas gift. This was particularly the case when the present was the latest in a series of disappointing let-downs within the relationship.

Examples of gifts which were deemed inadequate included cooking utensils, cleaning products, and a sticky tape dispenser.

Highly educated women were much more likely to end a relationship for this reason than those with no qualifications.

Women working in the legal profession were especially demanding, nearly two thirds of whom considered a poor present as grounds for ditching a partner.

Just 17% of men would end a relationship over their partner's choice of Christmas present.

"Clearly men and women attach different levels of significance to gifts within relationships."

"The danger is that men will judge the importance of their gift choice for a partner based on their own expectations, which are dramatically lower."

Fair play, no I'll refer that

2009-03-02T11:09:00.001+01:00

What with the referral system in both the South Africa vs. Australia and West Indies vs. England test cricket matches not working at all well, it seems that this new system will die a quick death and not come back until it has been thoroughly thought through. The idea is a good one in my opinion, using technology as an aid in decision making but this time around it looks as though the rules for it’s use and the education of how to use it has been lacking somewhat. My only problem with the system in the future is that I hope it doesn’t make the umpires current decision making easier. I would hate to think that an umpire starts to think “That was a difficult one I’ll give him out anyway, they can challenge me”. I also hope that when it is finally brought back that the time it takes to make a decision is reduced.

I am sometimes dumbfounded with the amount of time taken to arrive at a decision. Viewers can see in seconds that the ball was never going on to hit the stumps and yet the third umpire can sometimes take almost a minute, rewinding and viewing the tape again and again..grrrrr….get on with the game. And whilst I’m in the mood to grrrrrr…..ENFORCE the no sub rule, the rule is there now since this year so stop letting the subs come on when the players go off for a cocktail or what ever they do go off for. Ricky Ponting was furious during the 2005 ashes tour because every 5 minutes there was a sub on for somebody who wanted a bit of a rest, but every team does the same so he shouldn’t complain.

Finally, my hat goes off to J.P. Duminy of the South African team who played fairly and walked off the field when he knew he was out, not waiting for the umpires decision.

iMac problem solved

2009-03-02T10:17:00.002+01:00

I have finally got it working again. The restore that I first tried seemed to work at first but when I rebooted the Mac it was the same problem again. Obviously the problem was also in the backup which at least meant that it was software related. I have not done any software clean up, defrag or any maintenance in the 15 years that I have a Mac. This one I have had 5 years near enough and with the amount of rubbish I have installed, deleted, re-installed and also the lack of Mac knowledge that I have I shall put this problem down to the user….Leny of course. Never let a woman touch anything technical.

:-)

The iMac problem

2009-02-26T10:04:00.001+01:00

I thought I would write down what I have been doing the last few days with my computer. I thought I had a problem with my Bluetooth (bt) mouse, it just wasn’t connecting anymore. This meant that I could not click on my picture to logon. No problem, I have a usb mouse and connected it, it didn’t work either. Hmmmmm.

After several restarts and zapping of PRAM (parameter RAM) it still wasn’t working, I still thought no problem I’ll just boot from DVD and check disk permissions and repair anything. All seemed well because booting from the DVD showed at least that bt wasn’t broken, so I fixed all the problems and rebooted. I still couldn’t logon. Hmmmmm.

I now started to think, I hope that the backup that I make daily works, I have tested restoring a few files just to make sure it works but it’s still a little bit worrying when you think you may have to do a full restore. I called the Mac shop just to make sure there wasn’t an easy way out, but they hadn’t heard of such a problem so suggested an archive install which is basically reinstalling the system but all user settings are kept. I did this but it didn’t work. Hmmmmm.

I couldn’t start any programs, no idea why they wouldn’t start. This meant of course that I couldn’t start my restore program. There was nothing left to do, I gave in, gulped and shuddered at the thought and then completely wiped my HD. I then did a new install. Finally I could start my iMac up and login. Hmmmmm.

The next problem, wireless internet wasn’t working so I couldn’t download the update of the software I need to do a restore. Will it never end…..I opened up my Mac and readjusted the wireless antenna. This worked but it was now three days later and getting late.

Tonight I shall hopefully be finished if all goes well with the restore.

Digital music returns

2009-02-20T10:51:00.000+01:00

I mentioned in my digital music blog that I had no idea what companies should be doing to add extras to the aged MP3 format. Well I thought I’d mention the following new idea that I read about today.

Melodeo have just brought out an iPhone application where for $3 you purchase the whole four album collection of the Presidents of the USA. Also included in the app is rare and exclusive stuff and access to even more online extras.

This sounds like a good idea to me, although I would like to be able to listen to the music on my HiFi but maybe I am asking to much for $3, I shouldn’t complain.

Anyone else like the idea

P.S. I have just been looking on the Net and it seems as though this idea is not as new as I thought

Test Cricket

2009-02-20T10:32:00.001+01:00

In response to a comment that Simon left on my blog I felt compelled to write about the latest test match between the West Indies and England. Simon’s first lines “What a fantastic test match” ring so true. Incredible. I had been following the test match on TV but figured that after lunch on the last days play it was done and dusted and England would get a well deserved win.

Every now and then during guitar practice I would l take a look on the CricInfo site to see what was happening but found myself ditching my guitar after seeing that England had got 8 out with only 16 overs to go. Could the last two batters, Powell and Edwards, last for sixteen overs. I hoped that they would at least last until the 9 over, showing some of the fight that the West Indies haven’t had of late. Who’d have thought then that the number 9 and 10 would last all the way to the end of the game, bringing back memories of the ashes in 2005 when England couldn’t bowl Australia out. So agonizing sitting in front of the TV, ball by ball, just hoping that Swann would just get a thin edge to Prior. It was not to be, the West Indies showed that they too can save a test match when all is against them.

England played extremely well, showing that they have got what it takes to win a match, their batting in the first innings showed just how good they are albeit on a good batting pitch and their bowling on the last day was very disciplined and well thought out. Bring on the next match.

Who said test cricket was dead

Cricket

2009-02-18T12:46:00.001+01:00

I haven’t really commented on Cricket of late. Why? Well, even though there was an awful lot of good juicy stuff to comment on, I just really fancied commenting on a good game, something that seems to be lacking from England games. So when it does happen it makes it all the more exciting to comment on.

But that’s not what I am going to write about. Today’s topic is that of the English cricket fans that travel to watch England play. They are called the Barmy Army and what England seem to be lacking on and off the field the Barmy Army make up for ten fold. If it where fans that gave you the number 1 position in the world then England would have been number 1 for years and years.

Digital friends

2009-02-16T10:37:00.001+01:00

My last digital blog commented on how much I loathe the digital music age and also how much I love it. Yesterday I re-discovered yet another reason to love the digital age, this time digital friends.

Nothing compares to real friends, seeing your mates at the weekend as Peter commented on in his last blog entry. What I really mean with digital friends are people whom I consider a friend but due to certain reasons, mainly distance, I can only talk to them online or via the phone, but I shall forget the phone for the purpose of this digital blog. Some examples:

1. My brothers, Dave and Pete. I see Dave the most as he is the closest to me, only taking a days driving to get to his house. Pete on the other hand I only contact via email, or chat. Without internet I would have no contact at all.

2. Kristina, my blog friend State side. A fine example of someone I would never have ‘met’ were it not for internet. Even having not met face to face you can still get that vibe with written contact, something I discovered. You know, the vibe that tells you that this person could be a friend or not.

3. Lost friends. Simon, Martin and now Sheldon. All these people I thought I had lost contact with completely but thanks to internet and other people I now have contact again.

Who knows what else digital friends may bring. Well with any luck, real contact.

Game on

2009-02-14T09:53:00.000+01:00

I was searching the net during the week, searching for nothing but something interesting to look at or read when I came across a site that had some amazing stuff. It had computer games of old, games I used to play on my first colour computer, games I used to love and play hours on end and games I always finished before moving onto the next game.

Platform arcade games.

WOW. I downloaded Commander Keen 1 through to 6 and had a go at playing. I was excellent at all the Keen games (not anymore) although I seem to recall the graphics looking better than this ported to the Mac version, still, I still love this game and it seems to have something that a lot of these next gen games don't have...replayability.
I have and X-Box 360, about 10 games and although the graphics are exceptional, the gameplay doesn't leave me wanting to keep on playing again and again. What X-Box games have is a series of points, called achievements, that you can earn by doing certain things, but this for me is just an excuse to cover up the fact that if the achievements were not there you would not play the game again unless online with your 'virtual maybe real friends'.

Still. I'm glad I have found these games for the Mac, time to save Commander Keen.

Digital music

2009-02-11T13:35:00.001+01:00

I love the digital age but then again I dislike it immensely. I love the convenience of it, ripping all of my CD’s into iTunes keeps everything is in one place. I can then search and play music I want to hear without looking through my CD collection. I can shuffle whole collections and not just the CD that’s playing. I can sync my collection with my iPhone and listen to music in the car without having a box full of CD’s that just seem to get scratched no matter how gentle you handle them. All of these things make the pleasure of listening to music easier and quicker.

But…it’s all just so digital, so clean, so lifeless. Gone are the days when I used to travel to London monthly to a music shop called Shades and search through the huge collection of albums trying to fathom out which album(s) to buy. Sometimes taking a chance on an album because it had amazing artwork or it was a centerfold album or was recommended by the bloke who worked there. I know it’s going back a bit but albums were full of life, something to hold onto and read whilst listening to the music, most of them had the lyrics and some even had stories, adding to your listening experience. Listening was a real experience, if one song was bad you couldn’t just delete it like an MP3, so you gave it another chance and then another and then another and finally that song often became a real gem. Even CD’s have this quality of having something in your hands with CD booklets often getting bigger and bigger with more and more information on them.

So you see my ‘dilemma’, I want the life back in my music, the extra’s that enhance my experience. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go back to the time when you got home after buying a new album only to find it had a scratch on it. Not even back to the time when you have to keep changing CD’s to listen to something different. No, what I want is the digital convenience but with added extra’s, what’s these extra’s should be I don’t really know, how do you give substance to a 0101101 (new track) by Dream Theater for example, perhaps give the user buying the digital download the chance to also download a PDF containing info on the band or better still enhance the now very old MP3 format to some new enriched format containing lyrics, stories, video’s, you name it. Bandwidth is no problem these days. On the other hand, without have it physically in my hand would I bother reading it, I know for sure I wouldn’t print anything.

After writing all this it seems strange then to tell you that yesterday I bought my very first digital download. I first tried iTunes but couldn’t find any reference as to the quality I would be downloading so moved onto the next site. Anyway the next site had a quality of 192 so that was no good. I sort of gave up and said to myself, ‘see, buying the CD’s also get’s you the better quality’. So it was off to Amazon I went, but something in the back of my mind kept bugging me so it was back to the site of the artist in question and that’s where I found out what. On the site with the 192 quality it said artists receive 91% of the money and this more than anything convinced me not to go with Amazon or iTunes but just buy it from the site with a lesser quality. Lucky for me though the site kept crashing because it made me look at one more site and that is where I bought it from. The site in question is musicishere.com they give you a choice of which quality you wish to download the music in. I chose FLAC (lossless format), paid for it and downloaded it straight away. I then converted it to 320 quality MP3 and added it to iTunes.

The artist and CD in question: Andy James – In the wake of chaos

This is an amazing album, it’s heavy instrumental guitar. It’s a mix between Joe Satriani and John Petrucci but then John Petrucci on the Stream of consciousness album so nice and heavy with 7 string guitars.

Check him out at MySpace and YouTube:

http://www.myspace.com/andyjamesf1

Let me know what you think.

Meeting

2009-02-09T14:13:00.000+01:00

Just had lunch. Before that though we had a meeting about the future of our dept. EDP (electronic data processing, very old fashioned). Well, the good news is that we aren’t being shutdown. I say that as though there is bad news but as it stands there is no bad news.

We shall no longer be called EDP, we are now officially called IT (wow! how modern) and we are no longer a lone IT dept, we are now part of divisional IT Europe (read Sweden, all the other European countries don’t have there own IT dept.). There is also a US division but because of the distance we won’t be supporting them. As it is at the moment the idea is that we shall be supporting Belgium, UK, france and of course the Netherlands and Sweden will give support to Denmark, Norway and Sweden. I’m not sure if there are any other counties but I don’t think so.

What I will be doing in this new IT division is slightly foggy, I will be a part of the Operational side of things but what that means I have no idea and because of the freshness of this new IT division no one can tell me just yet. One of the biggest reasons for the new IT Europe is that fact that Europe will be dumping all it’s old software and we will all start to use the same programs. The new software that has been chosen is Microsoft Dynamics and the first project of the new IT is to migrate The Netherlands to Dynamics.

Hopefully I will know more on the 24^th, this is when the divisional chief is coming to Holland to say hello and chat to us about the future.

Guitar

2009-02-09T09:35:00.001+01:00

After my finishing my intense all day guitar practice on Sunday I just couldn’t get enough of guitars so decided to have a look on you tube at some new video’s of other guitarists playing songs that I myself want to learn in the future. I came across this one of a guy playing Rush’s YYZ. Not very special I hear you say, but this guy plays all the instruments not just the guitar. Anyway hears the link (because I still haven’t looked for a way to embed the video on my blog).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZmP4FngzHA

Talking of practice though, hears a list of what keeps me busy of late:

Acoustic:

Tears in the Rain – Joe Satriani

Although it is a relatively easy enough finger picking song it’s the chords he’s uses that require lots of practice. A few more months of practice and I hope I will be able to play it fluently but probably not at the speed Joe plays it at.

Broon’s bane - Rush

This is another one that requires a lot of concentration. This time it’s the finger picking that I seem to get wrong all the time. Anyway, I practice this one slightly less due to the amount of time I actually have to play guitar.

Folk blues

This is more of a general practice routine, no real songs but licks and techniques in the form of 4 bar songs.

(incidentally a big thanks to Leny for all her patience and love throughout my practice, kiss kiss)

Electric:

Sultans of Swing – Dire straits

Been practicing this one for weeks now for guitar lessons. Have been going through it week by week will my teacher and it’s going really well. It took some time at the beginning because there are an enormous amount of licks to learn but the hardest part was getting the timing of the licks right.

This is the only song I have been practicing, the rest of the time is spent learning different techniques. I have finally found a video of how to do heavy metal rhythm, something I have been struggling with and it works. After just 5 minutes copying the technique they showed me I could play better than I have been able to so far. ROOOAAARRR

Sadness

2009-01-26T09:39:00.000+01:00

Yet another fine weekend had come and gone and I'm quite sad about it, but this means I will be looking forward the next weekend all week and it will be an even better weekend than the last. Not much more to write really, no inspiration to write at this moment in time.

Surprise 3

2008-12-22T11:25:00.001+01:00

On Sunday I decided to watch Score, this is the name of a live concert DVD of the band Dream Theater. Years ago I bought a different live concert DVD of this band called Metropolis. I didn't like it at all, it was boring and everything didn't feel quite right. The band didn't seem to be enjoying themselves, the sound engineers hadn't done their best and the camera angles and techniques used didn't give it that live concert feel. Overall, boring, I have never watched the whole concert and maybe should give it a chance but I can never seem to get passed the first two songs.

So there I was, Sunday, had already made the decision to put Score on and hoped at least that it wouldn't be as bad as the other one. Surprise 3, this is ONE brilliant concert, everything was fantastic. Half way through the concert the Ocatavarium orchestra joins in and I suppose this could be surprise number 4. I really really do not like orchestra's playing pop/rock/metal songs, whether that be on their own or with the band. Score on the other hand was perfect, it could just be that progressive rock and the songs written by Dream Theater just automatically go together with an orchestra but whatever it is they did it extremely well.

It's set Dream Theater in a new light in my eyes. All CD's except the CD Train of Thought I had stopped playing because I had got to the point that I couldn't hear their music anymore. All I heard was a band playing as difficult as they could, choosing not to play 4/4 beat songs for the sake of it not being difficult enough, always choosing some strange Hungarian A#min scale instead of a C major scale. I have no qualm with them doing this but to me it just sounded as though they were doing it all for the sake of it. BUT...as I said, I see them in a new light now and will start listening to my collection again, giving them a new chance to impress me.

Well done DT

Surprise 1 and 2

2008-12-22T10:08:00.001+01:00

Well surprise 1 is the fact that I did some exercise on Saturday, went for a long walk, ended up around the 15 km mark I think. We had decided to start the walk at a bird sanctuary/nature reserve and just decide there and then which way to go. This brings me to the second surprise and what a surprise it was, the nature reserve was only 5 minutes from my house, I had never seen it before. You can check out some photo's by clicking on the link

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=wicklywoo&target=ALBUM&id=5264314581898383937&authkey=H8LTZeooG2k&feat=email

It's not a massive reserve and it is man made but hey what do you expect in tiny tiny Holland. After about an hour walking through the reserve it was time to continue the walk further. I won't bore you with GPS data and the route we took suffice to say that I got to use Google maps on my iPhone. It was a few hours into the walk when we all decided that coffee would be really nice. I typed the word Café on my iPhone and hey presto a red marker appeared quite near us indicating a Café. I then selected the red marker, it showed me all the details, name, address, web address and telephone number and then looked on the net to see if it was open. It was. Just shows you the value as a business of having your details on the Net. After the coffee stop it was back to the car to sit with my Uncle at the fireside....oh no, sorry got carried away with a Rush song....back to the car and then to our friends home for cheese raclette, yummy yummy.

The benefit of reading

2008-12-15T12:12:00.001+01:00

People in IT are well known for not bothering with reading manuals, instructions or any forms of help. I don't really know why, it's not as if PC's are intuitive or user friendly, a classic windows example is click on start to shutdown. Mac users are even less likely to read a manual let alone admit that a manual exists, "the Mac is so user friendly we do not need instructions" you may here us say and to some degree this is true. I have had a Mac since the early nineties and still know very little about the operating system but have had no need to know or find out about it because it works, if I click here it does this, if I click there is does that, I have in all my years barely had a problem that I have had to consult a manual or apple support site.

But....if only

If only I had consulted the internet, looked on the Apple support site before Sunday's attempt at something new. I decided it was about time I moved my music collection from the internal HD to an external HD due to lack of space. I had already moved my music once before, from point A on my disk to point B on the same disk and that was no problem, all went smoothly. This, and the fact that I don't read manuals, is the reason why I thought all would go well this time but also why I should have googled it first.

I moved my music, this took about two hours and then started iTunes. All looked well but as soon as I clicked on some music it said it couldn't find it. Hmmmm....perhaps I should read up on why it doesn't work. Instead of reading the whole document , I read as little as possible, just enough to find out that I should click on an option in iTunes and all will be fixed. By consolidating my library it would copy all my music to the appropriate changed HD space. This didn't take very long seeing as I had already moved the music but the result was the same, it still couldn't find my music. Even then I refused to look further on the Net for the answer and made up my mind it was because the XML file still contained links to the old location. I downloaded a text editor, opened the XML file and with find and replace, changed the 9000 old location links to the new location. Ha...problem fixed.....don't think so...oh bollocks...by this time hours had passed by and not only did iTunes not know where my songs were, this time around opening iTunes resulted in an empty library, everything gone....pfffffffff

What next, well, I now decided it was time to just import my newly relocated music and let iTunes do the rest, problem solved....still don't think so.....grrrrrrr.....I forgot, by doing this all my playlists were gone and did not want to spend hours going through my music recreating my playlists. I had now wasted most of my Sunday with no results so decided to restore all my music back to the internal HD and leave it like it was before I started.

At last, everything back to normal, problem fixed....well not quite. I still had an almost full HD and an empty external HD. OK...OK...I'll do it, I thought to myself, I shall consult the internet and read the whole article on how to move my music. Reading the 10 lines on my monitor took all of 1 minute and by following the instructions everything was moved and working in a couple of hours....phew...finally.

Ah, the benefits of reading.....

Clowns

2008-11-18T10:04:00.002+01:00

I almost forgot this. What a sad day it was.

I have never liked clowns but I must admit I do not remember seeing one when I was young so don't really have a basis for this disliking. They are not scary nor funny.....Having said that, this particular clown was the scariest I have seen. There is something quite sinister about a clown with a German accent shouting at all ze kinders und adults as if recruiting for the Hitler youth. It started with a parade of children all dressed up as witches, demons, all things to do with Halloween, not a single one dressed up as a gorilla, ah well. Then 'clown Mengele' got them all to march in unison to show off their uniforms...er....fancy dress, part of me shuddered to think how easy it is to get new recruits in this way. Everyone of them got a departing toy but I suspect when you pulled the chord on the teddies back you got random quotes from Mein Kampf.

Clowns are rubbish

Oh.....dear.

2008-11-18T09:20:00.001+01:00

Guitar update

2008-11-13T15:25:00.001+01:00

After finally finishing the Hotel California solo it's time to move on to the next song. Well I say finished, I can play it fully but not to my liking, there are still some bits of it that I have trouble with when playing at full speed but I think I am my worst critic because my teacher thinks it's alright. He could be right, I've only been playing 11 months now.

Anyway, the new songs with 1 exception are funky songs to get me practicing my 16th beat strumming rhythms:

Venus - Shocking Blue

Long train running - Doobie brothers

Another brick in the wall - Pink Floyd

The rhythms are quite easy and didn't take much effort to get these mastered. I'm looking forward to the wonderful solo in the Wall, I started it last night and it's more difficult than it sounds, I also played with my foot pedal settings for quite some time to get the sound right and now can't wait to be able to play it properly.

1 letter wonder

2008-11-07T11:05:00.001+01:00

Since leaving school and moving to Holland I have always had more of an interest in the English language than I did when I was actually at school. I liked the subject and my English teacher was my favourite but I just didn't pay enough attention at school and was always talking in class. This interest has never faded and whenever I read, listen or watch I'm always on the lookout for subtleties in this great language. Thus I would like to share one with you.

I was listening to a comedy radio programme and the sentence mentioned is a great example of two totally different meanings just by adding a letter at the end of one word, see what you think. It's about a politician meeting up with a billionaire to try and win some money over for the election campaign.

He saw him four times in a single weekend.

He saw him four times in a singles weekend.

This 1 letter wonder makes an enormous difference of how you look at that politician and makes for great comedy. Just think of the consequences if the tabloid trash had made this typo.

Apps apps apps

2008-11-05T12:05:00.001+01:00

Thought I talk about some of the apps I now am using on my iPhone seeing as we have been inseparable for the last couple of months. As a phone I don't think I have used it more than about 5 minutes, I'm not really and phoning person, will never be a phoning person and lets face it, it's not why I bought the iPhone in the first place, music, music, music, this is why I purchased it. I have sent quite my fair share of text messages and on the iPhone these messages are viewed in in the form of chat bubbles, just like cartoons, making the experience quite pleasurable.

Not to bore you will all the apps I have I shall only mention a few of the ones I use daily.

Ambience: I use this program to fall asleep to, it has nature sounds in it and is wonderfully relaxing. I usually listen to birds or waves.

Fizz weather: A slightly better weather program than Apple's own in that it has morning and evening weather not just daily.

Shozu: My Mobile Blogger

Pixelpipe: To upload my photos to Picasa, I used AirMe before this as you may remember, but this one does batch uploading.

BeejiveIM: Mobile chat, although nobody ever seems to be online except my colleagues but they are sitting right opposite me.

Tuner: Marvellous streaming radio software.

Facebook: Don't know to much about this one yet but looks good and is easy and I have the most friends in this program already even though I have it on my iPhone 2 days.

Feeds: Still haven't found the perfect RSS reader but this one and Manifesto are my cup of tea.

Twitteriffic: I only use this at the moment to follow Stephen Fry's travels.

Oxford English dictionary: Always handy, I had an American one, Wordbook, very good but it's just not of the same quality and has a meagre explanation of each word. What it does have however is a good thesaurus, so I will be using both.

Cricket-live: For all my live cricket schedules and scores.

Cycorder: Downloaded yesterday, free software to turn the camera into a video camera.

Of course the iPod software is what I use it for mostly and I have found or seem no better software for doing this than on the iPhone.

Foggy life in a cloudy world

2008-11-04T10:23:00.001+01:00

I have mentioned before in my Blog that I am trying to expand my net-social life by trying to incorporate all manner of new software services into my life. I now have Google mail, Blog and web albums. I have joined Twitter, MSN and Facebook, so you can see that the intention to become a socialite is there. By the way the astute and not colour blind amongst you will have directly noticed that I have changed my Blog ever so slightly, please feel free to let me know if it is preferred to the old.

Back to my net-life, having added my life to all these services I still feel overwhelmed as what to do with all these services. Has it something to do with my age, am I no longer able to comprehend new technology as was my mum when trying her hand at programming the video recorder. Am I trying to hard by adding to many services as to know what to do with them, should I be adding 1 service at a time and getting used to each one individually. Is it my lack of net friends that is the problem, I remember that you learned much from friends by word of mouth but with net friends, unless using a chat program, it's all send/reply, send/reply and conversation does not take place. Maybe it's a combination of all of the above, maybe it's none of the above but whatever the case it all seems like today's weather, rather foggy.

I hope to become proficient in the services I choose to participate in and as Geddy Lee once sung 'All at once the clouds are parted, light streams down in bright unbroken beams', I do hope that with time the cumulonimbus clouds will start parting into cirrus clouds before opening up into a beautiful blue sunny sky.

Holiday....Photos will be posted Picasa soon

2008-11-03T16:34:00.001+01:00

Well, here I am, back from a gorgeously gratifying 1 week holiday to beautiful Britain that always seems to feel like returning home. Such an assuring warm feeling of being returned to the womb of wonderland, where, around every corner, nostalgia fills every cell in my body. It's not just always great to be back in England but also great seeing my big brother.

We arrived at D's with a little bit of jet lag after 7 hours on the boat and 4 hours of driving, thanks Leny. The night boat is actually the best means of transport we have taken so far in terms of distances, times etc, very relaxing. It was a bit less than an hour to the port, we got straight on the boat and then sat at the bar until bedtime. We used to drive all the way to Calais in France and get on the boat but that is another 4 hour drive....hmmmmm...what to do, drive 4 hours to Calais or sit at the bar in Hoek van Holland.

So what did we do this holiday:

Clotted cream: where do I start, it must be one of mans greatest creations. I consumed it only three times this holiday, which is probably enough in 1 week due to the amount of fat and calories involved. Twice in the usual manner: Cream tea which is a pot of tea, scones, jam and once on top of a homemade (read Davemade) apple/blackberry crumble, yummy, I was about to say poured onto but as you may well know, clotted cream cannot be poured. Just as many thousands of believers travel the long road of salvation to Santiago de Compostela I feel I must one day take it upon myself to travel the pilgrims route to Devon and Cornwall in search of the ultimate cream tea, who knows what hardships I will endure. I just had a thought, I wonder if Vampires have the same wondrous sensation when they eating clotted blood as we do when we eat clotted cream.

Fish and chips: fush and chups for my New Zealand readers. Slight detour here, saw a New Zealand comedy series called Flight of the Concord's that Dave had recorded, funny in a really weird way, have to see if I can see some more now. Always, always-always-always have to have fish and chips during my stay. Old colonials may know what I am talking about, the English way of 'doing' fish and chips is like no other, if you like it you will love it and otherwise you probably love those weedy, thin as you like, 'hmmm, have I eaten enough' french fucking fries made oh so popular by American fast food chains. Actually, aren't they called freedom fries or have the Americans forgiven the french for their treachery, I hope not. (n.b. the french do not deserve a capital letter)

Tea: I do love a cup of tea and with the exception of Guinness it is my favourite drink. A good brew with a dash of milk and a spoonful of honey, bliss. Of course first the tea and then the milk and not the working class way ;-)

My favourite has to be chai which is an Indian blend of 5 spices (look it up) but my favourite 'normal' tea is Earl Grey. Litre upon litre of tea were guzzled down and sometimes with a biscuit so as you can tell: clotted cream, fish and chips, biscuits, the calories are now piling on and my waist has expanded somewhat. The other beverage I drank this holiday and also for the first time was pear cider, it's delicious and very refreshing, I could see me getting drunk on this in the summer unfortunately though they don't sell it in Holland. All this tea and cider brings me nicely onto the next subject of weeing or should I say Wii-ing.

The Wii: I now understand the rage, I had never played on the Wii before but it's just so much fun, playing, well it's more like interacting with the games. First of all you create what they call a Mii by choosing different parts of your face and clothing so as to looking somewhat like the real you. Once created it's playtime. Of all the games I played it was tennis, golf and bowling that I played the most, these were the most fun. I tried Wii fit too, I love the idea of getting the kids to do some exercise, if they must play on a console then get them moving at the same time.

Outside activities included a trip to Wookey Hole which is a cave and dinosaur theme park rolled into one. Thinking of going? Don't, Cheddar gorge caves are much more impressive and not to far away from Wookey Hole.

Shopping of course, must not forget shopping, I like to buy my clothes in England still, the Dutch are all very tall and the clothes reflect this so I try to buy trousers whenever in England.

If I have left anything out it's because I should be working but cannot motivate myself to do any work today, writing this Blog seemed much more interesting and I know Peter will appreciate it.

Toodle pip

2008-11-03T07:34:00.001+01:00

welcome home

stop ironing and give us attention
Posted via Pixelpipe.

Something good on TV tonight

2008-10-22T20:48:00.001+02:00

Weekend

2008-10-20T11:32:00.001+02:00

If you have looked then you will have noticed that there are not very many photos of the weekend's festivities. Well, that's because it was way to dark and as I mentioned the iPhone is not the best camera for dark photography. It was getting dark by the time we arrived at Crazy Pianos but I managed to take a couple of snaps. The evening itself wasn't my cup of tea, music I didn't really like, the food, average and those songs that I did like I didn't particularly enjoy the piano version of it. I can imagine that if you like the music and the ambience of the place then you will have a great evening but it's not for me. I did enjoy the company so that made up for the fact that the rest wasn't much at all. We eventually left some when between 10:30 and 11:00.

On Saturday after doing the shopping we went to Alphen to search for the Holy Grail for games computers, the Balance board for the Nintendo Wii. It seems that this elusive piece of plastic is one of the most sort after accessories and is sold out in many a country, well in England and Holland at least. After much searching it was nowhere to be found and empty handed we returned home.

Sunday was a family get together as it was that time of year again. Sinterklaas is on the 5th December but long before then we put everyone's list of wanted presents in envelopes, each with their name on it. These are then shuffled and 1 by 1 are picked, the idea being that the person you pick, you have to make a surprise present for them and in that surprise is the real present that you have bought for them. Oh yes, almost forgot, you also write a poem about that person and hints as to what is inside the surprise.

Ah well, it's Monday now, work again for another week.

You socializer you......

2008-10-17T16:46:00.001+02:00

Spurred on by fellow Blogonian Lore at www.dreamsilently.com whom has taken it upon herself to expand her site with all sorts of new net-gadgetry and also to further expand my limited social-net life, I have downloaded two more programs for my iPhone.

The first one, Twitterrific is a program, well, as the program name reveals, to twitter far and wide. I have heard of the Twitter phenomenon but had no idea of what it exactly is and after using this program for a few days I am still a wee bit clueless as to what to do. I am now 'following' as it it called, Stephen Fry as he makes a new documentary travelling to different parts of the world in search of animals that were rare a quarter of a century ago, to see if these animals are still rare or even, God forbid, extinct. He is in Uganda at the moment and every hour or so he transmits a comment to his Twitter site that appears in my software. So it seems that Twitter is nothing more than a hour/minute diary that you share on the net with everyone/friends but as I said I'm not sure. I welcome enlightenment.

The second piece of software is called AirMe which does very little, but what it does it does easily and well. It lets you take a picture and then automatically sends that picture to a Flickr or in my case Picasa Web album to share. It then adds extra information about where it was taken. I have taken one already which you can see:

http://picasaweb.google.com/wicklywoo/AirMe

Seeing as the iPhone is absolute rubbish at taking photo's in bad light it makes it pretty worthless for those evening parties that would be ideal for instant sharing. I will give it a try though, it's Friday 17th October and Cinders has a party to go to tonight, I shall take pictures and share them with you in the hope that AirMe turns Cinders here into Social-Me. Now where did I put those glass slippers.

Test iPhone boog

2008-10-15T21:44:00.001+02:00

Miauw. This is joris when he was little

Arrrgghh......

2008-10-15T21:33:00.001+02:00

This is quite a good title for a song after playing hotel califonia for song long. I thought I'd give that song a rest for tonight and do something else. This song comes from and course called Total rock guitar by Troy Stetina and it's been a while since I last studied from this book, I'm on chapter 5 now I think. Pretty cool sounding arpeggio and 'disturbing' middle riff.

I rock.

Nightmare or......

2008-10-15T16:58:00.001+02:00

This whole week and last week too I have been practicing the solo to Hotel California and I ain't finished yet but it's got to the stage that I keep dreaming it. I'm not to sure if I really wake up from it but it feels like it. Hopefully I will finish the solo this weekend and then get some rest again. Leny will also be pleased when it's finished because she actually woke up from a deep sleep with the beginning of the solo in her head....oops....sorry Leny

Stephen Fry in America

2008-10-13T10:07:00.001+02:00

Stephen Fry's new TV series has finally started. I had been looking at the online TV guide daily, trying to catch a glimpse of information as to when this series would start. Every time I found nothing I sighed and panicked slightly, thinking that maybe I had missed it altogether, I would hate to miss any TV programme with Stephen Fry in it. I still hadn't spotted any advertisement for the series when low and behold Leny told me when I got home on Friday that the series would be starting on Sunday, yesterday, 12 October 2008. I paused whatever I was watching, activated the Sky+ guide and searched for Sunday 21:00. There it was, it was actually staring me in the face, I pressed the record button and the record the whole series button, double checked it and then relaxed.

That weekend my RSS programme on the iPhone also got a new feed from the Stephen Fry site introducing the coming TV series. For those who don't know, the series is following Stephen Fry as he travels to every state in USA in a London taxi cab looking and interacting with the real Americans and not the gun totin' psychopaths that the media present them to be.

My favourite excerpt from his introduction is the following observation of one of the differences between the English and the Americans.

-------------------

There is one phrase I probably heard more than any other on my travels: Only in America!

If you were to hear a Briton say ‘Tch! only in Britain, eh?’ it would probably refer to something that was either predictable, miserable, oppressive, dull, bureaucratic, queuey, damp, spoil-sporty or incompetent - or a mixture of all of those. ‘Only in America!’ on the other hand, always refers to something shocking, amazing, eccentric, wild, weird or unpredictable. Americans are constantly being surprised by their own country. Britons are constantly having their worst fears confirmed about theirs. This seems to be one of the major differences between us.

-------------------

His full Blog entry can be read here:

http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=58

If you like reading or writing or both the take a look, he has a remarkable

New House

2008-10-12T11:41:00.004+02:00

I realized I hadn't put a single photograph of the new house on my blog. Seeing as I can't get much closer than this to take the picture I have also accentuated the outskirts of the house to make it easy to see.

All four floors have now been added and they are even starting to add brick work on the ground floor.

Ground floor: hall, 1 room
First floor: Living room, kitchen
Second floor: Master bedroom, TV room and another bedroom
Third floor: Another bedroom and cat room with ensuite balcony

My Safety Blanket

2008-10-12T09:12:00.003+02:00

Over most of the financial world there is a crisis of some sorts. The media, whom, having been starved of some really big news of late, are loving every moment of this disaster and are graciously filling up every lost second of TV time or newspaper article with their scaremongering. In their defense, 'we all do love a good story' even if it somehow effects us.

Where am I going with this?

Well if there is one thing in this world you can really count on when all around falls apart, it's AC/DC. Their new album Black Ice is out, yes I'm that old and still call them albums. Once again AC/DC prove that if the formula works do not change it. You can always rely on the new AC/DC album sounding the same as all their other albums and quite rightly so. These guys produce pure unspoilt Rock and have been churning out the same album for decades now. You've gotta love 'em.

AC/DC rule...

Cloud sharing

2008-10-07T10:09:00.001+02:00

Every few months or so my brother and I try and get some sort of file sharing going on. At first we tried some sort of apache solution but this was just to much effort to get going. Neither of us has enough knowledge to get this up and running.

Next we thought about the film the Great Escape and thought of tunneling our way to each others computers via remote access and ssh. This was far to complicated for me, I bought a mac to make things easy so I refuse to use terminal to get something up and running. If I want complexity then I'll start using Linux.

Finally we have settled for an easy solution. We now share some cloud space via a site called box.net who give you ¹GB space which is plenty for sharing the odd file or three.

As I was saying

2008-10-03T21:54:00.001+02:00

This of course is Halewijn. As I was saying he is the only one of our three cats that spells trouble. Here you can see him at the top of a folding ladder that we used to wash the windows. As soon as he sees something new he goes to investigate and the ladder was no exception. He climbed straight to the top and thought he was on top of the world.

Christmas is here again

2008-10-03T21:26:00.001+02:00

I took this photo at the local garden centre. Christmas is upon us once more but this year is full of dread. Halewijn, our abessinian cat whom has already destroyed more than his fair share of glass vases and of course the surround sound speakers, has this year become more and more curious and playful.

Last year he was caught in the tree many a time but I can only imagine what he will break this time around.

Anyway the garden centres here in Holland always go out of their way to make sure their shops have as much stuff as possible. This is an example of the cool things they build. From villages to the North pole, they make everything.

Life is good

2008-09-28T21:25:00.001+02:00

Three of the special things in life on a table 40x40. First a delicious meal that I threw together, couscous with paprika in orange and coriander sauce with Lebanese balls, no not testicles, these are vegetarian. Second of the list of good things is a gorgeous pint of Belgian Trappist beer and last but not least, the remote to Sky TV for hours of glorious educative programs to watch.

All that's missing is Leny, but she wouldn't fit on the table.

Me in the shower.

2008-09-28T17:45:00.001+02:00

As promised a photo of me with my new iPhone. I've had it about 3 weeks now and I cannot remember the last time that I have had so much fun wiith a gadget.

With the added bonus of Internet at my side I am forever just picking the iphone up just to do things on it. As you well know, my blogs are now written via my iphone, I stream Internet radio, I remotely manage my iTunes library and well, if I could have sex with it I would probably do that too.

I would recommend this to anybody but only with unlimited Internet access, otherwise you may just as well get the cheaper iPod.

So far I have paid for ¹app, Manifesto, an RSS reader and soon be buying my next app, Snapture. It's photography software that I am surprised Apple didn't add itself.

I shall you informed.

Spring...er...Autumn cleaning

2008-09-28T15:57:00.001+02:00

It's normally the sort of thing you do in spring, I know but it's been a while since we last did a major clean like this.

Why?

Well, Saturday we (our house) are open to the public as part of our trying to sell the house. The idea being that on this day anyone can turn up and have a look at the house without first having to make an appointment with the real estate agent. Fingers crossed a potential buyer will come along and make an offer but what with all this financial negativety at the moment I won't be getting my hopes up.

My first tractor

2008-09-24T16:20:00.001+02:00

This is a photo of my cousin in Scotland on her newly acquired MF tractor. She still has to do it up and who knows, she may even paint it pink, that'd be cool. Anyway, there are plenty of fields for her to plough.

Keep 'em quiet.....haha

2008-09-20T15:53:00.001+02:00

This weekend we played babysitter to two girls. I always used to think 'as long as they are quiet then they can stay'. Now, it makes a pleasant change to have them over for a weekend. It must be their age, I'm sure it wouldn't have been so pleasant if they were both still very young. It could also be they I have grown up but whatever it is they behaved very well as you can see in the picture.

They are both getting down to a painting by numbers job.

My first iPhone blog entry

2008-09-19T13:59:00.001+02:00

I downloaded an app called ShoZu and thought I'd give it a try. First impressions are very good, easy to use and looks good too. The picture is of a field on my way home from work, nothing special, just my first geo-tagged photo.

2008-09-12T09:41:00.001+02:00

Continuing along the lines of the Miss Carolina story, I think I have finally found out two more things about her.

1. She is japanese
2. She is a web designer

This makes her pretty clever and not the dumb blonde on the video, below you will find my evidence. It's the 'Contact Us' section of the Japanese web site monocolle-motorsport.com

-------
Answer to the question takes several days.

As for Japan, there is a case that it can't check in case of a different environment in the adaptation and so on in the question about the articles.

Please Ask us a question in easy English.

-------

Irrefutable evidence don't you think.

Chrome

2008-09-03T13:57:00.001+02:00

My first impressions of Chrome, Google's new internet browser, are good. Chrome is quick, it looks nice and has not had any problems with any pages so far (excluding supid sites that use ASP). I shall be using it as my default browser instead of Firefox for the coming weeks to see how it continues to function.

I still can't understand though why they have only made a beta version for windows with Mac and Linux versions to follow. Here is a company challenging Microsoft in many areas so you would think that a version for all OS's coming out at the same time would be a much better idea.

Is being beautiful enough?

2008-09-02T11:34:00.005+02:00

I found the following you tube video and thought I would share it with those who have not already seen it. I haven't read up on how to embed a video yet so just click on the link or copy and paste it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII

I suppose this is more of a man thing but it got me thinking whether or not beauty is enough. Caitlin Upton is the lovely ladies name and if she really is this stupid how many of you would put up with it just to have a beautiful lady at your side.

Me....my direct answer is yes, most definitely, but if I start to think about it I have to ask myself the same question again and again....Bur my answer is still yes, beauty wins everytime, I'm that shallow.

I also found the following which is a statement made by Caitlin sometime afterwards.

“Personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on a map,” she said. “I don’t know anyone else who doesn’t. If the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography in our education so people will learn how to read maps better.”

She's not stupid after all and even her grammar is correct, how many people do you know who say "me and my friends" instead of the correct "my friends and I"

Good on ya' Caitlin.

Cricket and films

2008-08-22T16:14:00.001+02:00

What with the Twenty20 being can celled due to a flooded pitch I only have the ODI to look forward too now. Luckily they start start today and England have a real chance of beating South Africa with the team they have chosen. Let's hope they do, the N-Power girls will be cheering too.

I watched Handcock this week, it was quite a good film, very decent CGI and always good to watch a film with Charlize Theron but the story just didn't do it for me at the end.

A lovely week

2008-08-18T15:11:00.000+02:00

Had a pretty good week and weekend and all that healthy goodness is continuing as I write this blog entry too with the new single from Slipknot on the radio. Got a mega programming project at the beginning of the week and thought that it would spoil my whole week but it turned out to be a interesting project and one that should take no longer then a few weeks if that, I really hate those projects that drag on for months, they always start and end interesting but all those weeks in between are just tedious.

I sold my iPod touch this week too. After much consideration I have decided to get an iPhone, yeah, I know, waste waste but I'm still going to get one anyway and so had no need for my iPod touch. Since owning the iPod, apart from music I use it daily for internet stuff like email, RSS feeds, surfing e.t.c. I also have a sony ericsson mobile phone and the contract runs out at the end of august. I don't know how it works in other countries but here in Holland you get a mobile phone free or reduced in price depending on the contract and so I thought why not get an iPhone. The 2 year contract costs €30 a month for 150 minutes calling time, 150 text messages and unlimited fast internet. I'll take a picture of my smiley face and blog it when I have it in my hands.

Next on the agenda was my guitar playing this week, I hadn't been playing my electric guitar for a few weeks now, just acoustic and was really surprised to find just how easy the electric is after the thick strings of an acoustic. The songs I am practising at the moment are:

Paranoid Android - Radiohead

If I could fly - Joe Satriani

Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan

I am also doing a lot of theory on scales/modes and how to build chords using these scales. Knowing just the basics makes it a lot easier than trying to remember where each chord is and the shape of the chord. I spent nearly the whole Sunday learning these scales.

OS blues

2008-08-06T11:58:00.002+02:00

At work I have an XP machine for my daily chores and at home I have a Mac for all the nicer things in life. XP does it's job and I rarely have any problems, most of which are resolved using the standard helpdesk solution of restarting my computer. My Mac has had one problem in the 3 or 4 years I have had it so all is well at work and play.

Enter the two, for me, new operating systems I have finally had the "pleasure" of testing for a while: Ubuntu and Vista. One of them pleasantly surprised me, the other annoyed me. People who have used them both will probably know which is which but for those who haven't please read on.

Ubuntu: My last experience with Linux was using Corel Linux 1.0 which I downloaded several years ago. Although it looked quite nice graphically I gave up on it rather quickly after having to try and use terminal just to install a printer, which incidentally I failed in. Several years later and friend downloaded Ubuntu and gave me the CD (not a DVD) to try. I was very surprised at the time taken to install, just 15 minutes. It booted quickly graphically looked great, just like other OS's all except the font, that was quite ugly, a tad uglier than XP, but having used a Mac, no other OS comes close to the smoothness of the on screen graphics and fonts. Software was easy to install using the add apps icon although I did fail to install Acrobat reader, double clicking the icon didn't work and reading the readme didn't help because that steered me towards terminal (not again). After installing the correct graphics driver Ubuntu was even more of a pleasure to use, visually impressive fancy opening and closing of windows and more, you get the picture. All this on an old PC with just 512 MB memory, very very responsive (take note Apple and Microsoft). My only complaint is that I still get the feeling that I will not be able to have the full experience of Ubuntu without using terminal and I refuse, computers are supposed to be user friendly.

Vista: I'll start with the positives, the graphics look real tasty. That was it, it wasn't fast even though the laptop had 2GB memory, it was just OK to work with. After half a year of updates and new software install I can see Vista getting slow real quick. Talking of installing, the endless pop ups are so very annoying, I installed Flash and something else from macromedia and got a totally of six pop ups asking me to confirm or de-blok. On XP I find it annoying enough the amount of stupid balloons that appear at the bottom of my screen telling me useless info such as "You have unused icons on your desktop", bugger off, just do what you are supposed to do with annoying me. If you have a USB stick, attach it to Windows and you will get at least three balloons, New hardware found, new sotware being installed and New hardware can now be used. On a Mac and Ubuntu the stick just appears on your desktop in matter of seconds. Anyway Vista still has these annoying balloons and more. On the Mac, if you install new software just 1 window appears asking you to fill in you password to show that you have authority to install new things. On Vista, you get no such thing, just a window asking if you want to go ahead with the install or not, no password. Not to mention copying files, it just takes twice as long on the network using Vista than it does with XP.

I may give them both another try in the future but for now, long live XP and OSX.

Bacchus's day out

2008-07-08T09:39:00.000+02:00

Saturday was the annual sisters day, three sisters and their respective husbands/boyfriends have a day out organized by one of the sisters. This year it started off in the water as we went boating on one of the lakes nearby, nice and relaxing, cruising leisurely to our destination which was a cafe. Once there we started off with coffee and Dutch apple pie with whipped cream, yummy yummy. It was during our time at this cafe that we finished off a couple of bottles of white prosecco (delicious sparkling wine) whilst playing a game with tarot cards. The game involved everyone picking four cards each, the cards all had different words on them and then the idea was to, in turn, give a card to someone and say why you have given that card to that person. After the game we got back in the boat and picnic'd our way back to the harbour slowly.

The second half of the day out involved more food and drink of course, we normally go out for a meal somewhere but this time it was slightly different. We went to Leiden culinair: The city of Leiden organises a yearly event whereby one of the city squares is packed full of restaurant stalls (and a live band for background music) where you just go from one stall to the next and eat and drink what you like. We started off with Rosé prosecco and oysters, moved on to cigars followed by diverse typical Italian food, bruschetta, pizza, carpaccio and artichoke. For those who have never had artichoke, don't bother, what a waste it looks nice but there is hardly any food in it. Then it was onto cocktails: Mojito's and caiparinhas followed by a trip to the winner of this years recipe which was some sort of specially reared pig, it was delicious. More rosé wine afterwards, a fresh fruit yoghurt dessert and finally before going home some coffee with hand made bon bons.

Welcome Proteas

2008-07-07T16:47:00.001+02:00

This week sees the start of the next challenge in Test cricket for England but now against the mighty South Africans led by their charismatic captain Graeme Smith. This is definately going to be a tough test for England who beat a not very strong New Zealand very unconvincing manner. Not only do SA have a line up of exceptional batsmen they also have a fast bowling setup to rival that of the West Indies in the late 70's.

I am well looking forward to the Twenty20 and ODI's just to see these batsmen give England a masterclass in how to hit the ball. Don't get me wrong I want England to win, it's just... the only way I can see England winning is if the England bowlers show just how good they are because you cannot rely on the English batsmen to set a high score or even chase down a high score set by SA. For SA it's normal to get a score above 300 but for England, alas, this happens once in a blue moon.

Still, come on England.

Political correctness

2008-06-30T11:52:00.000+02:00

My brother found this on the BBC website, it is is going to far and is plain stupid, words fail me…..

---------------------------------------------
Birthday party snub sparks debate
An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.
The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.
The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.
The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman.
He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.
The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated.
"My son has taken it pretty hard," the boy's father told the newspaper Sydsvenskan.
"No one has the right to confiscate someone's property in this way, it's like taking someone's post," he added.
A verdict on the matter is likely to be reached in September, in time for the next school year.
-----------------------------------------------

What’s next, no more whipped cream on cakes because it insinuates that being white is something that people love, we can’t have that it’s discriminating.

Great fantasy artwork

2008-06-20T13:59:00.004+02:00

I found this piece of artwork on the website of a Blog friend or fellow Blogonian or whatever you feel at ease calling it. I had probably seen it before but probably just in a glancing mode, this time I looked properly. Created by Ladylore who also stars in the artwork I reckon, I haven't asked her yet, is it you?

This picture has a touch of nostalgia for me, remembering the times I used to spend afternoons playing Advanced dungeons and dragons with my brothers. To the annoyance of my oldest brother, my other brother used to just magic missile everything in his path. I always thought being a Paladin was really cool and if I wasn't a Paladin it was a elven magician.

Anyway I'd love to know where those stairs lead to and whether or not that beastie is good or does it have a pinch of chaotic good in it.

Thanks Ladylore: Vedui' lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva, as they say in Elven tongue

I can stay

2008-06-19T16:59:00.000+02:00

I had my biannual meeting with the boss today to discuss how he thought things were going the last half a year. Well, there wasn't much to say, he said everything is going great and keep up the good work and that was about it. The meeting was supposed to be an hour long but in total it lasted 1/2 hour with 2 minutes of this dedicated to work.

Tired, cricket and babes.

2008-06-19T10:13:00.002+02:00

Can't seem to keep awake in the afternoon since my holiday. I'm sitting behind my desk after lunch having just finished my chocolate bar, actually I think it's the chocolate that keeps me going for another hour but I start to feel a bit drowsy. At about 14:00, whilst still trying to fathom out why my program is or isn't working, my eyes become heavier and heavier. Now is the time to get up and go for a walk or drink something otherwise I would fall asleep. This ritual of trying to work, falling asleep and going for a walk carries on for about an hour and then all of a sudden it's over and I'm awake again. It's more annoying than anything else because I can't get any work done and generally can't concentrate at all.

Lots of controversy in cricket the last few days which I will not bore you with. New Zealand are still in England for the ODI and yesterday was the second of five. After nearly a whole day wasted due to rain they finally go underway with England clear favourites due to the way NZ had been playing of late. Anyway to make a long story short the game ended with no result due to a) the rain b) a couple of stupid rules that need to be changed.

Thought it about time I posted a photo of a babe but then not just any babe but a babe with a story. Chelsea White is 17 years old and wants to become a page 3 pin-up girl. For those who don't know what a page 3 pin-up is, it's page 3 of course, of a daily English newspaper, The Sun, which prints a full page photo of a topless girl. It's a bit of an institution like the centrefold of Playboy is in USA. Long live the English press. Anyway the BBC made a documentary following there life of this girl leading up to her 18th birthday when she can finally decided for herself if she wants to follow this career. I was explaining all this to some guys at work and their reply: "Can't wait to see her tits"

Ah well!

Joe Satriani - Friday 13th

2008-06-16T14:31:00.000+02:00

It was only when I sat down in the concert hall that I finally got excited at seeing Joe Satriani live again. I had been working all day but left early to go home and get changed before Leny and I set off to Paradiso in Amsterdam. Paradiso, for the people who don't know, is not one of those huge concert halls, it's more of an intimate hall where it doesn't matter where you stand/sit you always feel as though the artist is right in front of you. I was so close that I could see all the settings on his foot pedals. We had already decided earlier that we would drive to a town on the outskirts of A'dam and take the train and tram to Leidseplain, leaving us a short walk to Paradiso. The was a lot going on that Friday, Joe Satriani was playing of course, England were playing New Zealand in a Twenty20 cricket game and Holland were taking on France (boooooo) in their second match of the European cup football. A'dam was packed with Dutch supporters all wearing the famous orange colours, but we had a concert to go to with Steve Fister (strange name) as the support act to Joe Satriani as I had learned earlier.

Steve wasn't bad at all, very good guitarist, although I would have to listen to an album or two of his to really hear what the songs sound like. I think he must have played about 6 to 8 songs with great energy was a worthy support act. 20 minutes later it was Joe's turn and you could just feel that he really wanted to play, he was having fun and giving it his all. He played a fantastic mega long version of 'Always with me, always with you', in fact it was the jamming at the beginning and end of songs and not the songs themselves that you could really see him giving it everything, these were also my favourite. In fact, one of the reasons I don't go to more live concerts is because of the lack of improvising, bands just seem to play their songs and that's it, I can listen to the CD for that. This is the third or fourth time I have seen Joe and each time he has improvised his songs, always making it worth while to go and see him. I would say that this is probably the second best Satriani concert I have been to, the best being his Extremist tour. I thought about buying a t-shirt but €30 is a bit steep so I didn't bother.

After the concert we go outside to find that Holland had thrashed France 4-1 and the Leidseplein (party centre of A'dam) was going crazy, so much noise and cheering, everybody was orange and happy. We walked from here to the station to get the train back to the car and drove home, where, upon arrival, I decided to check the cricket score, England had thrashed New Zealand, so all in all a very successful evening

Twenty20 cricket

2008-06-12T16:17:00.002+02:00

Twenty20 season started again last night (loud cheers) and the first match was Kent versus my team Sussex.

Kent's line up looked really strong and with no players injured they were at full strength. Sussex on the other hand still have the number one spin bowler out after an operation.

Well the Sussex batting didn't go too well except for the captain Chris Adams (photo) who managed a swashbuckling 57 before being caught, they ended up with137 all out. Kent smashed the first few overs, they managed to get to 68 before losing the first wicket and it looked like it was going to be over real quick but Sussex clawed there way back. It ended up going down to the very last ball, Kent needing just 1 run but Sussex unfortunately bowled a semi bad ball they dribbled it way passed the wicket keeper all the way to the boundary for four.

Better luck in the next match Sussex, I hope they do better but they will have to do without their number 1 slog hitter due to him being on England duty against New Zealand.

Holiday

2008-06-10T09:23:00.000+02:00

Well, the three weeks holiday have come and gone and I suppose I shall start the countdown to the next holiday (even though I haven't planned one yet). As far as I can remember this is the first long holiday that I have stayed at home and done absolutely nothing. When I say nothing what I mean is going shopping, eating, relaxing in the sun, doing the garden and playing guitar, that sort of thing. The weather couldn't have been better, in fact there were times I wished it had been worse so that I could stay indoors but no complaints.

The garden is looking really beautiful and flowery now, having been to the garden centre a few times I suppose it should do, I hope to get a photo uploaded soon, also started a small herb garden, don't you just love the smell of basil and my favourite, rosemary.

Guitar practice is going really well, during the holiday I have mainly been focusing on two areas; finger picking and soloing. For finger picking I practise playing The Rain Song, Stairway to heaven and Babe I'm gonna leave you, all three Led Zep songs. For soloing I am just practicing 1 song, the mega cool solo in Stairway to heaven. It takes quite a bit of time learning a solo and timing each note with the beat of the song hence I only practiced one. Maybe when I get quite a bit better this will take a lot less time.

This is now my second day back at work and I must say that, although I'm not glad to be back at work, I am glad that there is no pile of work waiting for me this time, in fact, there is absolutely no work which gives me ample time to relax back into the 'work mode' again. I should be getting work again this afternoon.

Well, time to start thinking about the next holiday so I shall stop with this blog entry and scour the Net for things to see. Leave a comment if you have any ideas of where to go, what to see, you can even invite me over.

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