Month: August 2004

So in less than 24 hours, I have died 6 times in CoH. I currently have just under 9k debt. It sucks hard. Still one benefit someone pointed out is a higher influence level throughout. I’ve gotta kill more to get to the next level so I’ll have more to spend on SO. This is a good thing.

I suspect I’ll get some of the nice people in my supergroup to power me a bit over the weekend. Get sidekicked for an hour, do nothing at all but stay close and rack up 600XP per kill. Not the most fun way to play but it’ll get me out of this hole.

I’m listeing to 200Km/h in the Wrong Lane, the album by short lived Russian girl group tATu. It’s surprisingly good. I remember a number of people saying that when it came out but I only got around to listening to it last night.

And in today’s Olypmic news. Swimming is rather boring to be honest, at least watching it is. I was surprised by how much the weight lifting captivated me. When a fairly normally built 19 year old from China can lift over 33 stone to win a gold medal, well that’s fucking impressive. The Badminton was awesome. The British team did an excellent job and well deserved a medal. Commentary from the Beeb fairly biased of course but I did have to wonder about a comment on how the Chinese players were playing their game (or tricks may have been the actual word) when they spoke to the umpire. Anyway I think the Brit’s were pretty happy with silver and fair play to them, great match. That was really it I think.

Well in the internet world it looks to have been a huge day. XP SP2 really began it’s rollout to home machines, as mentioned earlier Google IPO’s and the US Court of appeals has made what looks to be a historic decison. Short of it is software companies cannot be held responsible for copyright infringement which happens on their networks. So Bit Torrent appears to be in the clear!

And on that note I’m going to sleep, it’s late.

At various stages yesterday I found myself watching the Olympics. Highlight was the USA vs. Greece basketball match. I caught the last quarter and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. US won it, with difficulty. Greece kept them going to the very end. Shame the crowd didn’t seem to have any Olympic spirit or indeed any sporting spirit as they were booing the US constantly. Caught some of the sculling, badminton and gymnastics. All very impressive. I think think the judges were too harsh on the US in gymnastics, a couple of more obvious mistakes but at the same time several impressive tumbles. Not as good as Romania but I would have said silver. Still medals at least. Also saw the final in the men’s double trap shooting. Now that was impressive stuff. The reflexes and skill it must take to hit the first one and then swing around to hit the second, damn impressive.
I don’t have a stereo so I usually listen to music in my room through TV and dvd player or xbox. Several times when I went to do a bit of reading I turned the TV on to play something and ended up watching an hour or so.

It’s funny how some people or indeed organisations still don’t understand the internet. I believe the correct response to these t&c is a resounding fuck you.

In other news, my Pixies tickets arrived and they are indeed for downstairs standing. Roll on Friday night. It should be a damn good one. Will probably fuck off out of work a bit early to get some food and a pint or two and then off to scream and jump around for the evening.

Modest Mouse the following week arrived too. Looking forward to that a good bit too.

CCP seem to have gone and put in stupid levels of pre requirements for the TL2 gunnery skills. In order to be able to train the skill itself would require me to train 3 other skills to level 5 (I have one of the 4 already) at a time of 79 days, 10 hours and 17 minutes. Man they better bring on those training boosters if I’m even going to think about this. The good news is I only need 3 days training to get up the prereqs for the new assault frigs. That will be all done on Saturday and then I can get the skill trained up so as ships come out in the next few weeks I can fly em. I’m really tempted to train up Interceptors too. Just so I can fly em. Given that I’m working on being able to fly all races ships, getting the basics in for the advanced ships and then spending time bring up the other races when it fits in, may be a good idea. Then again boosters are really going to have to be used to get Gallente Cruiser V. I want to be able to fly anything they bring in with Shiva and you know it’s gonna be useful. Guess I should start saving money, boosters could be damn expensive. I do hope it’s limited by cash and not anything else. I can earn some money real quick and should be able to constantly afford boosters.

And the other game of course being CoH. Made 23 last night. Not been in it all that much lately. Unlike lower levels, these really do seem to make a difference. I’m able to solo my missions and rarely need respites. I’ve died a couple of times sure, one of them was when a team mate aggroed a group we weren’t ready to take on and the other was me getting too big for my boots and being held by a 3 levels up boss. I’m able to work off the debt pretty quickly tho. I’ll get Health at 24 (tonight or tomorrow) but for my fuck up that would be stamina and I’d be rocking and rolling. Still it lets me get a double slot onto it and 3 x SO should be a nice helper. I’m planned out till level 28, then I’m all open. Thinking about opening up speed for Hasten but not really sure I need anything else in the power set. Guess I could just work on my main sets.

Can you tell it’s a quiet day in work?

sweetness, I was only joking.

Two levels in CoH over the weekend and quite a bit of missioning within Eve. Yes it was a very quiet weekend, why do you ask?

Saturday night, I had a couple of beers with some of the lads I play Eve with. We started off in Waxy’s and ended up somewhere up towards Oxford Street. Nice guys. Funny moment when cake ended up holding up the bag with his brand new copy of Doom 3 in it and pointing at the store title when the debates got a little heated.

So yes a quiet weekend. Tho great progress was made in the bar on Friday night and it was whiskey by about 8. One of those moods where it was get onto the JD or go home and sit around. Easy choice really. I was in a very strange mood. We did watch most of the Olympic opening ceremony there. In places it was really shit (the parade of Greek history), in places it was really good. In particular the sculpture breaking apart to reveal many layers beneath was really impressive. The corner of the pub we were in wasn’t quite shouting but we were desperately wishing it would reform as a fire engine or a big fuck off truck. LOST OPPORTUNITY GREECE! When you have hundreds of millions watching and you have something like that, you should have gone the whole hog and fucking transformed it! Overall it wasn’t bad and I liked the countdown of the modern Olympics as the torch was run around the arena.

Dave is back so I’m off to play chess for lunch.

Here but now they’re gone

What do you think happens after you die?
Nothing, you just die. That, as they say, is that.

Do you believe in heaven?
Nope

Do you believe in hell?
Nope

Do you think you will be judged after you die?
Only by the people I leave alive who probably judge me already

How many people would attend your funeral?
I don’t want a funeral but I imagine there would be a couple of hundred.

Would you rather that people cry or laugh at your funeral?
Laughing is good but they can save that for the wake.

What’s better? A shot in the head or downing pills?
Pills, as painless as possible.

What should be written on your tombstone?
I told you I didn’t want a fuckin tombstone

Would you rather die childless or divorced?
Childless.

Do you want to die in the morning, afternoon, or night?
Night if I’ve had a good day, morning otherwise

If you had a million dollars to leave, who would you leave it to?
Most to my family. Some of a couple of charities and a decent amount to pay for a wake.

What kind of flowers do you want at your funeral?
None.

On your deathbed, which moment will you most remember?
Um, hmm

Have you ever watched someone die?
Yes. When I was 15 or 16 one of the lads in school fell down during PE and died a few moments later. We found out shortly afterwards he had a dodgy heart.

What’s the most gruesome death you can imagine?
Lets not.

How often do you think about death?
Pretty rarely.

Is fear of dying your number one fear?
Nope, damaging my eyes in some way would have to be up there.

Do you believe in reincarnation?
Nope

Have you ever wished someone you loved were dead?
No, in hindsight I do but I just didn’t know well enough back then.

Do you consider life short or long?
Too short. I’d like to live long enough to see the world go through some serious changes and of course to leave the world.

Do you think you have a soul?
Nope

Assisted suicide for a terminally ill person is:
completely acceptable.

If you were cremated, where would you like your ashes?
floating in space.

Would you choose to be immortal, if you could be?
Hmm, if I had the option to die by my choice, yes absolutely. Otherwise probably yes too.

How have I managed..

to live so long and not have gotten into The Smiths?

I had been meaning to pickup a best of for a good while now after much mention on the V and V types LJ around here. A few weeks ago I did. But I only got around to listening to it a couple of days ago.

Man I’ve been missing out. Completely amazed by how many of their songs I know but never knew it was them.

I’ve just spent 10 minutes looking through my archive for a post I was reminded of by the cheating poll on the V. I don’t see it anywhere which I’m sure is wrong. I’m fairly damn certain I’ve written it up before. Nevertheless, it’s a quiet morning in work so I’ll write it up anyway.

May 2002, I’m in Reston VA, working for a week. It was with my then boss and another guy on the team and we were doing some Macintosh stuff. It was a good week. Met up with quite a few people who have since become good friends and had already been long-term colleagues. There was much much drinking for the whole week. If any of you have been to Dulles or Reston or around there, you’ll know why. The place isn’t quite a desert but it’s close enough. Everytime you turn around, you really do expect to see tumbleweed.

Anyway Spider-Man was opening on the Friday in the US. It didn’t open in the UK for another few weeks. My boss and I being giant nerds were going to see it before we left. It just had to be done. So we booked tickets for midnight showing, that is 12.00am on whatever the date was. We had a few drinks beforehand… in fact we were completely trashed. It was our last night and we sat in various bars drinking ourselves silly. Then we went to the cinema, all very excited.

To find it was closing. There was a single guy locking up. Apparently 12.00am on a specific date means midday. Despite our objections and that, we got our money back but no apology or anything else. Not impressed at all. So disappointed, with no chance of seeing it the next day as we had a 10am flight we wandered back to the hotel. On the way we ran into a guy from the office there we knew. He was off to a party just around the corner…would we like to join him. Of course we did. Come 6 am we were still in the bar drinking. It was really really messy.

Anyway got back to the hotel and got about two hours sleep before dragging ourselves to the airport. When we got there (it’s no more than 20 miles down the road), we found a rather large queue for our check-in. A few minutes after that, we found out that a tornado had swept through the area and all the flights were fucked. There was pretty much a matching grin on my bosses face and mine when they told us that we would not be flying out until 7 that night now. They sorted a hotel room and taxis and that which was fine by us 🙂

So off to the hotel room, we dropped all of our stuff off and got straight into a taxi with instructions to take us to the nearest cinema. So at midday we saw one of the first showings of Spider-Man and it was most excellent. The other guy on the team was so fucked from the night before that by the time the opening the credits were done, he was leaning on the seat in front asleep.

I remember the whole move, I loved it. I remember cracking up when they played the old cartoon theme tune at the very end of the final credits, laughing so much it hurt. I don’t remember the rest of the afternoon. I have no idea what we did…oh wait yes I do. We went for food. We went to a McDonald’s right next to the petrol station a block away from the cinema. Then after that is a blank.

When we got back to the airport at whatever time it was, they told us we could get a slightly earlier flight. This was all good. What was even better was the fact that there was only 27 and I’m not making any of this up, 27 passengers going on a 747. We were travelling business of course so the flight was never going to be a bad thing…except they moved us all to first class. So the only time I’ve ever got to fly in such luxury and I was asleep within minutes. I remember getting a blanket placed over me by a rather cute stewardess and then I remember getting picked up at the airport the next morning.

It was a damn good trip.

I broke up with my girlfriend a few days later. I wonder how much of an influence the trip really had on that. I met a really nice girl at the party that Friday night. Her name was Kate. Nothing at all happened, but had I been single it would have.

I love this second panel here. It never fails to amuse me.

Today is going to be a big U2 day. I picked up Uncut’s special on them a couple of months ago and only got around to starting it last night. Not sure I agree completely with their 20 greatest U2 songs but it’s well written and an interesting read. I don’t have Boy with me in work unfortunately so I’ve got to make do with Achtung Baby. It’s a truly astounding album. Every single track on it is single worthy. It’s not a few singles and then some album songs, it’s just single after single after single.

I realised this morning why I’m so short on cash this month. Between buying tickets for people and lending some friends money, I’m close on £150 down. Could really do with getting some of that back as pay day is looking to be a long time away. Tho it will be nice to have a quiet month. This weekend was good. The aforementioned drinks on Saturday wasn’t bad at all, a couple of rounds wasn’t going to break the bank and it was good company.

Eve and City of Heroes provide more entertainment than anything else could for such a small amount of money a month. I spend less than £20 a month between them and I’ll easily get 3 nights entertainment from them and a good bit over the weekend. Each one is less than the price of a cinema trip. That’s not bad going.

[info]awatson has just this minute put up the best song every for today on the V. Given that the rule is you vote for the song, I had to be NIN’s Heresy but man not voting for Louis Armstrong in anything is painful. I tend to forget about him when anyone asks about my musical tastes but for We Have All The Time in The World and What a Wonderful World he gets a free pass to anything. It’s not often that a single person gets to sing two of the greatest songs of all time. My deep love for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service stems mainly from the book but using We Have All The Time… at the end just tops it off.

I am considering doing something for Commercial Suicide II. Alex was encouraging me on Saturday to try something. Seen as I do live with her to run stuff past her (read: have her edit into a readable shape) I may well think about something.

Comic stuff, I’ve not really read very much recently. Here is some of what I have.
First trade of Ennis et al War Stories. Big fan of these, have all the singles somewhere. I’ll pick up the trade for myself at some point. The fourth Mark Waid Fantastic Four trade was ok, nothing special.Swamp Thing: Bad Seed, I have no idea why I bought this to issue 6. I didn’t really enjoy the series and the artwork is pretty poor throughout.

Now going down the V route, 3 notable comics read this week. [info]mostlyblack’s Closer which was fun with decent art throughout, going to really pretty in places. Variance Press’ Anthology – Volume 1 was a good read. A little hit and miss. 3 main highlights, Alex’s piece with art from Paul Ridgon, [info]kgillen’s final (?) Hit and the last piece Faith: DragonSlayer by the stupidly talented Sam Hart. And oh, of course. I’m the proud owner of an autographed copy of X-Men Unlimited #4 (no not that one, the good one!). with [info]Marvel creator; Lee “Budgie” Barnett was kind enough to grace us with his presence for a drink last week and stayed to sign comics for well wishers.

Oh that reminds me. Justice League Unlimited just pulled off the first good Alan Moore adaption. I was disappointed not to see Jason Todd in there, would love them to have left the “Think clean thoughts chum” line in but the rest of it was perfect. That was one hell of an angry Superman, “Burn”. Liked the ending where you can hear the sounds of carnage in the background. All in all, well done. Approved by Mr Moore too from what I hear of it.

It’s rather disturbing that traces of Prozac can be found in drinking water. There are so many people taking it, it’s building up. Both of these facts are a bit disturbing. What does it say about the state of the country when so many people are taking anti-depressants? Story at the Beeb.

Firefox just updated, only a point increase but getting close to the big 1.0. What’s more impressive is the network. The update is 4.84 mb, I got it in 2 seconds. TWO FUCKING SECONDS. That’s close on 2.5mb per second. I want this at home, man I so want this at home.

Doom 3 actually made me jump yesterday. Bastard. It’s really really pretty and it so plays up the atmosphere. The duct tape mod is essential (and a damn smart solution, funny too)

That’s it for now. Going out to lunch.

15 years ago today…

Radiohead played their first gig in the Jericho Tavern in Oxford under the original name of On a Friday.

Wonder if they imagined what the next 15 years would bring?

I would like to take this opportunity to proclaim my undying love for the internet. Throughout my life, well the past 10 years of it anyway, it has been a constant companion and indeed for 5 of those years has paid my salary.

This morning, that love was confirmed when it loaded some pages for me. 4 pages in fact. The first was the details page, the second was the order page and then the payment page. Finally, it loaded the confirmation page and confirmed that I have Pixies tickets.

YEE HAW!

On the very first day that I don’t have to get up and walk Hebe before work, I’m 30 minutes late. It was a really shitty morning actually, my glasses snapped. The right frame around the lens snapped off while I was cleaning them.

I got a new pair about 2 year ago. At the same time, I got some prescription sunglasses. Not really caring too much what they looked like, I got them in the same frame. So cue 30 minutes of looking for my sunglass, trying to take the other lens out of the broken pair and then getting them into the sunglass frame…while half blind.

It was just what I wanted to start my day with.