Link o Blog

Needed something to distract my mind whilst on the way to the hospital, so grabbed a CD I haven’t listened to in a while.  It’s odd how you find things sometimes, I don’t think this could be more fitting:

You Always Believed – In This Moment

I think back on the years we shared
All the times you stood by me
All the pain you wiped away
All the things you ever said
I think back how you carried me
And you never once have doubted me
And you were my
My hero through it all

And you held me through it all
And you never let me fall
And you let me fly away
And you always believed in me

I love you sis…

Got my 1st bill today, which is when I was told that I could ring up and use the magical VOL number I was given.  Turnes out the guy was more of an arse than I thought and gave me a duff reference!

Anyway, called up, got a real VOL number, and a £40 credit to my account for the line rental of the 1st 3 months.

I also pointed out that their online system was screwed as I selected paperless billing and they have me on paper billing.  The chap too my username for the online interface, nothing unusual there.. then asked for my password…. “Wait, are you just logging into it to change it?”, “Yes sir, this is the only way I could check it and set it for you”…. *FACEPALM* I thanked him and told him I would simply do it myself as I am not giving my password out to anyone.

I get back to my flat with my Ikea gubbins and the extortionate Maplin stuff (they wanted £20 for a 1m digital phono – phono cable.. no I didn’t buy one, I giggled lots).  Had to make two trips from the car to my flat.  So big heavy shelving 1st then back for the gifflar and maplin bits.

As I was opening my front door I heard the lift close behind me and decend, this it will only do if someone calls it from a lower floor, I look round to see it stop at the first floor… I had to stand and watch just to see, but yep, someone on the 1st floor is sufficiently bone idle to use the lift to get down 1 floor to the groundfloor! YE GADS!

When I was on my way back with my second lot of stuff from teh car I accidentally clipped the 2nd floor button (me being on the 3rd), so the lift naturally stopped at 2 first.  As I lent forward to press the closedoors button (got bored of waiting), the lift filled with the stench of smoking!! the lift opens into the hallway shared between all the flats on that floor! and the hallway smelt bad enough that the lift filled with the smell in seconds!  I wonder if someone is smoking in the hallways rather than their own flat or someone is really going for it and the smell is escaping!

GRIM anyway.  Thankfully the same is not true on my floor.

WTF!

I know they are purposfully confusing, but lifts that have one set of buttons on one side of the lift and the other set on the other side.  Not a full set on either, one lot goes to one floor the other lot other floors!

When I get in with my trolley as I knew I was collecting large long boxes as I had chosen online using their website checked stock etc, I find I have to go through the checkouts the wrong way to get into the warehouse! now all the Aisle locator machines are at the other end of the warehouse!

Arse about tit or what!  Just because they seem to want everyone to walk through the store!! ARGH!

So, new house (flat), new phone line.  Let the battle commence.

I moved in on the 29th of March, so I thought I would get stuff rolling ASAP and ordered online via BT’s website my shiny new phone line.  The box is already in, marked with “Openreach”, extensions in, so a simple jumper job I thinks…

I select paperless billing, I get a letter from them telling me I have chosen paper billing!! ok, fair enough.

It also says an Engineer visit for the 20th of April, not quite sure why I have to wait almost a month! but hey ho.  I book the time off work, sit in and wait between the allocated times (8am – 1pm, larger than most peoples half day :/)  No show.  So I ring to ask whats going on as the line is still dead, chap on the phone tries to fob me off at every turn.  I am told work at the exchange has been completed and my line will be active by midnight that night.

Next morning, 7AM, line still dead.. pretty sure this is after midnight too.. so get in work and ring up BT again.  This time get a much more helpful guy, who once again apologises and rings Openreach, this time.. underground routing issues, line will be up by the end of business today..

This morning 7AM, line still dead.. starting to feel quite familiar.  Ring BT again, 1st off it takes me through the automated phone system, which includes an advert about the world cup read/shouted by a man in a shower cubicle it sounds like, then after poking at the damn thing I get told the lines arn’t open yet! ARGH.  Ring back a few minutes later get through and am now told that the issue is at the exchange.  He didn’t seem to happy when I suggested they were using some random excuse generator.  Apparently I was sent a text to inform me of the delay.. none recieved, and the engineer will call to let me know when he is coming to the property to check the line.  I then pointed out I am at work (why is it service companies don’t seem to grasp that to pay for them people must work?) and was helpfully told that if I was not present at the property I would have to rebook an engineer visit and be charged for the missed appointment!  All kinds of NO!  Especially after them wasting my time!

I have this horrible vision of them lifting two install charges from my bank via DD now and refusing to return the money.

Why can nothing ever be simple and as its described?

On Friday I collected my keys. I am now the proud owner of a shiny new flat not too far from the centre of Manchester.

It is somewhat daunting however, bills and mortgage ontop of debt and living :/ if I have done my maths right, then the savings should offset the increased costs….. I hope

First order of the day however is getting flooring installed. I wasn’t early enough to buy to be able to specify any options, so I have what is called “builders finish” as a floor at the moment. Tomorrow sees my dad and I taking on the job of laying lamminate and vynal flooring. Hopefully all be done, and I can start the moving in process proper.

Going to be a long, stressful day, and costly :/ being a Sunday also limited time wise for raiding diy stores. I have taken Monday off work too so I can spenc that whole day moving and fitting things.

Exciting and daunting at the same time.

I am sure everyone has strange dreams, but this one seems to have stuck even after waking.. anyway..

1st off it started in a Cats & Dogs way with talking dogs seemingly trying to sort something (not all the details are still there), these later became actual people.  I think at the point of transition, a white poodle whith a pink mohecan was found dead, drowned.. after this people seem to be the main characters.

The drowning seemed to stick, and ended up with people seeming to flit between two realities, one where everything was normal, the other where there was no atmosphere, just water.  However the two bled together causing the sight of people ’swimming’ in air and drowning.  Later one it transpired that looking in though a window at a certain temperature would cause the reality flip!

Someone gets killed, someone else gets blamed and there is now a seeming battle between red and blue armies (denoted by their uniforms being red and blue, and their dugouts being painted in their colours!).  Possibly leading on for the killed person or something, kinda just flipped.

Lots of running and then someone saying “The Owl is coming!” and “The Owl has returned”.  cut to an over city view of red and blue dugouts converging on a single point where ‘The Owl’ is and is kicking bottom!  The Owl in this case would be of the AtariOwl variety (I know because I saw him).

I then woke up wondering what the hell, but also.. COOL!

Well it was entertaining at least

Spotted that mr slick had posted an update from his blackberry wordpress app, so not to be out done I am posting this from my iPhone wordpress app

Nothing much to put, well I suppose there is but nothing in a sensible mental format at the moment

This is going to be my 1st xmas away from the kids, up until a few days ago all was fine.  Not so much now, I see why this is said to be the hardest time of year for parents away from their kids.

Its been quite a while since I wrote on this blog, partly that was due to the FaceBook abomination (hate it but, well, its becoming an annoyingly common part of life).  Still its not as permanent as a blog, and well I like owning my own thoughts thank-you-very-much so I am not getting rid of this just yet

As well as those changes, life itself has been somewhat complicated, the most complex portion of this being my home life.  I am not going to go into any detail, not everything needs to be on the net for the world to read, but suffice to say I have seperated from my wife and am now lodging with an old friend who very generously has allowed me into is home (cheers mate, massively appreciated and huge help).  Things are different but thankfully amicable between myself and my ex, she is being very good about the whole thing and we are both getting on with our lives.  The kids are naturally the biggest concern and both myself and my ex are taking every measure to ensure they are not ill-affected by all this.  Little man was concerned that the internet would go away and the PS3 taken.. *wipes tear* that’s ma’ boy   he has his priorities sorted.. good lad.

Work is going immensely well, and I am finding my place in life again.  Hopefully I will get back into all the things that interest me over the next few months and find time to comment on them here.  There are so many groups of individuals who have helped me come though this difficult period with their support, kind words and thoughts.  Big thanks to my WoW Guild Fallen-Shadow and to my Jaguar related friends whom have been a big help (special shout to GazTee for getting me to Watchmen with Dave Gibbons and JFUK’09  cheers m8)

Now, ONWARDS!

Decided to take the plunge and get this setup on my own little slice of interwebs. Have been chatting to a colleague about the joys and the problems that lie ahead. So rather than wait until they bite me in the arse at work, I am making use of my colo (sorry for those who suffer hosting outages because of it.. but it really is for the best ).

Alas however it would seem that one major problem I need to address is my secondary DNS server which resides off my work network, a paid for VM. As it uses virtuozzo for its virtualisation I am told by the nice chaps at 1&1 that its not possible to have IPv6. The kernel that it presents to its VMs is a 2.6.9 and has no IPv6 module They of course did not use this as an opportunity to try and up-sell me a root server package.. oh no.. of course not…

Well until I get my finger out and move that VM somewhere else at least I can get the rest of it happily co-existing in IPv6 and IPv4 space.. I hope. Today was fun, got myself a /48 from SixXS.net and once I figured out that deleting the multicast link addresses from the interfaces was bad (NUBTARD!) I was soon happily pinging google from my server. Huzzah!

Hopefully tonight I can improve the config to ensure the servers keep their addresses on reboot and can start seeing about getting me some traffic over those there links. None of this crazy auto address stuff for me thanks, I want to be able to remember my v6 addresses

Managed to grab some tickets to see this show which I have heard several people raving about. Looks like I just managed to get the tickets in time, as they were pretty good seats, same level as the stage pretty much and to the side. Looking at the floor-plan of the Liverpool Echo I honestly thought we would be sat right at the side of it, thankfully we were not, and had a great view of the whole stage.

Never having been to this kind of show before, I was expecting something more along the lines of a play, rather than a band and singers. So was a little unsure at 1st. However that soon changed once it kicked in. It was very impressive and awe inspiring, didn’t find myself bored at all. Pretty much whistled by!

Really impressed with the stamina of the musicians, and the quality. Superbe! Told the story really well, and although the CGI was cheesy as hell, I can let it pass, not sure if its intentionally bad or not, but it worked. (PS3 or X-box 360 could have produced better in real time tbh).

Very enjoyable night out it was. Added to the awe of the show was also the pure hilarity of idiots and completely un-courteous fools in a full carpark. One women who we spotted on arrival taking 6+ attempts to reverse into a parking space (no car in either space to her sides), subsequently stalled the lift not once, not twice but 3 times! Later on leaving she was cursing every car that didn’t give HER sole right of way and nearly crashed into 2 or 3 others. I just sat and actually laughed (as Diane can attest) at the ballet/dodgems of people battling to get out NOWNOWNOWNOW!!!!!

But that aside (I expected parking drama tbh.. in their credit Liverpool Echo parking staff I think did a top notch job of keeping it going as smoothly as they could) top night out, go and see it if you can.

Ah they learn so quickly. Had a complaint from Monkey (aged 7) that his younger sister Froo (5.5) had called him (and I quote) “an ignorant pig”

Sometimes I wonder just how old she really is

Is good. Just because you are covered and wearing a helmet doesn’t mean the damn sun won’t sneak through the HUGE vents in your helmet and cook your skin… making you look somewhat a burk… much to the delight of those I work with.

Just seen the following Interesting Article about the BBC creating a BotNet and then using it to do tests. Although this is IMHO questionable anyway I do wonder if they will be reimbursing people who incur traffic and usage costs for their connection. One of the tests was to DDoS a test site they had setup, which is obviously going to use resources on the source machines.

What gives them the right to do this, they may have had good intentions but what would have happened if that botnet was compromised itself?

They claim to be contacting the affected machines owners to let them know, quite how they are going to do this I am not sure, perhaps the hack was done after credentials were entered into a site and confirmed? Still a very worrying thing to be done.

I have come down to Reading to see Nightwish thanks to a very generous offer from friends (cheers guys) who are also putting me up whilst I am here.

Last night I drove down, thinking ahead I thought I would set off quite late so as to miss all the rushhour nonsence. It seemed to work, nice empty ish flowing motorways.. great, I even stayed on the M6 instead of using the Toll (credit crunch and all ).

Big gripe? (there has to be a gripe I am updating my blog! ). road works.. millions of em! (well about 3 per motorway on average).

I can understand the speed restriction stuff, its a fair point, it does bug me a little when there is no one at the site in the evening, perhaps a slight loosening of the restriction would help us night time drivers, but I can live with it 50’s not too bad for a few miles.

What does annoy me is when they take the piss because they can. The M42 has long been a personal peeve of mine, tonight was no exception. Due to its gantry based speed cams (they are on, I saw them get someone) you have to abide by the dynamic speed signs. Which should be fine. But at around 23:00 on an empty motorway 40MPH is somewhat annoying… this is further compounded by the limit being removed and then a new set of road works about 500yrds further down the road. This time, completely empty motorway, no workmen in sight (found them putting cones out a mile or so later), restriction? 20MPH!!!!!

WTF!

really annoyed me, there was much slamming on from people and a seemingly confused pause as we crawled past the camera on this massive empty stretch of tarmac. Only to speed back up to something sensible later.

Yeah protect workforce, but don’t take the piss.