My Oh-so-exciting LiveJournal

What a joke...

2009-11-22T20:44:09Z

It really is! So I haven't gone out my way to announce that I have a car to everyone, but anyone knowing isn't such a big deal. I mean, why should it be? Unless it's my brother, of course. He found out that I have a car yesterday. Today, while I was out, he apparently called for me. He had cut his thumb and expected me to drive some plasters down to his for him!! What the hell? I KNEW he would be calling for stuff as soon as he knew I have a car, but THAT SOON?! *sigh*

Vrroom Vrroom!

2009-10-19T16:31:46Z

I have a car! It has wheels... and doors! OMG!!!11!!!one1!

It wasn't the 'reasonable' price I had in mind in my previous post, but my view on what is reasonable when it comes to cars has changed dramatically. There was me hoping to get something newer for not much more than £3k, which turned out to be a very difficult catch after that Ford Focus got taken from under my nose. Instead, I've practically spent double that, which seems to be the norm, depending on the car, of course. I'll get straight to the point and just say that I got a '55' reg Seat Ibiza 1.9 TDI Sport - '55' reg being the later part of 2005, so 4yrs old. Price guides say it was average price for that specific car with only 31k miles on the clock. Couldn't get the price down anymore after pushing a small reduction and the addition of road tax. I'm happy though; I have wheels. Now to pick somewhere to actually drive to...

I'll post a pic upon request :)

Unfortunately, it didn't come with a flux capacitor :(

Aside from this, I have more or less just been working, eating and sleeping. Will hopefully book some holidays from work soon and go driving places. Time will tell.

Auto Detect today says: Can't Detect

Work, movies and cars

2009-09-26T10:30:25Z

So I haven't updated in ages, as usual. Things have been pretty much the same, so there's been nothing new to report, unless the few readers want to know how I went to work, came home, ate and slept :P

On the work side of things though, I have been rather busy travelling from one end of the county to the other doing Active Directory migrations on all the computers in libraries, installing more stuff in schools, and just general computery stuffs. Not the most exciting thing to report about, but let's just say that I've been kept busy for the last few weeks and it's finally starting to catch up on me.

This in turn leads me to put some serious consideration in to planning a holiday from work. I'm not sure where I want to go, or what I want to do, but a break in itself would be nice after all this running about. I would like to go off somewhere though, but it's just a matter of where. I'm also currently putting a lot of thought in to getting a car, so a holiday abroad might be out of the question. With said car though, I could go see various friends around the country :)

It's just a matter of finding a car for a reasonable price now though. Parents say get something newer, within the last 5yrs. This knocks the price up a little. Will I have to get a loan instead of hoping to scrape up the cash? Mum insists of buying local first. Apparently this is the thing to do for your first car... get ripped off by local garages instead of shopping around. She says go for garages. Dad says check ebay and autotrader. Seen some good deals on some cars on autotrader actually - a Ford Focus 2004, 1.8L Petrol, 30k miles, for £2700! A bargain, but it was gone already when I tried to enquire. Not surprising. I suppose mum's idea of buying local is to avoid travelling loads to see cars I might not even buy. Lloyd insists I get something cheap because 'everyone crashes their first car'. His record of totalling his first car within 3-4 days isn't much to go by :P For the supersticious, it was on Friday 13th though. Besides, I've driven loads with work as of late, so I'm pretty confident that I won't be crashing too quickly, if at all. And in contradiction to keeping an eye on costs while going newer, I had one person constantly sending me old boy racer cars... Honda Type-R models mainly - Civics, Preludes, Integras. Car was cheapish, insurance wouldn't be! So the search continues...

Oh yeah... Went to see Inglorious Basterds last week. Good movie. Went fast though. Felt like a 1h30 movie, was actually 2h30. Still good regardless. Next is District 9. I hear it's very good, so Wyeside Cinema will get it... in a year or so? They're SO SLOW! Time will tell.

ADDITION: LJ has this 'Detect' feature to auto enter your location. ALWAYS gets it wrong. Today has been the closest though... Bristol!

Ben & Jerry's

2009-08-11T17:41:43Z

...is overrated.

SUSHIIIIIIIIII! :D

2009-08-09T17:25:18Z

Attempt #2 went rather well:

And yes, that's a riceball snowman :P

Ashisogi Jizou

2009-08-08T13:09:24Z

Random drawing I did the other day (copied as always (not traced!))

In your schools, stealing your...

2009-07-19T12:00:30Z

Routers!

Over the past 2 weeks, I've done a significant amount of driving on behalf of my new job thing. Quite scary to start off with considering I hadn't driven for about 5 years with the exception of a day or two last year in Aus, but that was an automatic, so it was easier. Regardless, I made sure that the car was diesel so I would know what to expect - those that don't know, diesel cars are easier on the clutch. 2 weeks in, I'm enjoying the driving, getting out of the office and venturing around the county (county, not country - it's not a typo), although it's quite tiring. The people I'm working with are fun though, despite the sexual harassment :P Nah, it's just a lot of joking about, but it's more than what happens in the office, so the change is good. Shame the project will practically end next week, with the odd exception. That said, I haven't even mentioned what said project is! I'm basically replacing some equipment in various schools while the other people I work with reconfigure everything to make sure it all works with the new kit. Sounds boring and it probably would be if it wasn't for the company, so for working with people with a sense of humour I am grateful.

That aside, nothing too exciting has happened. Work, work and... drinking at the weekend :P Wai gets to the UK in a couple of days too, so it'll be good to have the chance to see her sometime, although I'm not sure when yet as she's going to be in London. Time will tell...

Costumes Costumes Everywhere!

2009-07-04T20:17:52Z

Last night was rather fun and gave me the chance to actually use my camera a bit, while also perving over many a skantily dressed women. Having all suited up, Lloyd, Ieu, Hicks and I made our way to Llanidloes for the Llani Fancy Dress, which is basically just one big costumed street party. I'm not actually sure what we were meant to be in our glowing bright white overalls, but during the night we were given a few tags including 'butchers', 'CSI' and I had one girl insisting that I be a Ghostbuster, despite being dressed in the wrong colour. We certainly stood out at least as we patrolled the streets in single file while checking out the variety of costumes that so many looked as though they had put great effort in to, which included zombies, super heroes, Thunderbirds and a large group of ladyboys. I saw the odd person that I recognised, and any that I should have recognised were obviously too well disguised... or were just hiding from me! It was a good night overall though, which of course involved drinking, and a bit of dancing while trying to drink and juggle my camera and remaining cans of beer. Luckily, we didn't get stranded and managed to catch the bus in time for the return home, while still in one piece and surprisingly still bright white and stainless.

For such an event, photos work better than words, so HERE THEY ARE!

2 days in...

2009-06-18T19:01:15Z

Having just finished my 2nd day in work, I'm still feeling rather lost as to where I'm going to start picking things up. Ieu will make the joke that I'm no different to anyone else in IT, but he wouldn't be far off in some respect. There's only one other person doing the same work as me, and due to me joining in the middle of the start of an Active Directory rollout, they're also not sure exactly what they're doing with regards to AD, so it's a learning experience for us all. I can't be expected to know too much by the end of my 2nd day though, where I should still be going over induction stuff, including figuring out when my proper induction day will be. My first day was practically just reading over the 'induction handbook' and being shown around. Today started off slow, just reading over some things and doing a few bits that I can't quite remember, followed by sitting in on a brief meeting about a rollout that I'll be involved in in the coming weeks. After lunch, a guy came round to demonstrate some software that we'll eventually be using - the demo failed, meaning he was around much longer than needed as he tried to fix the issue. He just showed us the software on his own laptop in the end and arranged for someone to call us tomorrow to try to help us get the issues sorted. That'll be fun as I was struggling to follow some of the terminology used earlier today, so I may just sit back and let the guy do what he needs to remotely.

Aside from that though, it's been alright. Days have gone quick enough. People are friendly. Something I will have to be careful about if I'm to speak about work on here is that I'll have to try to generalise and be non-specific for security reasons. Fun!

Friday tomorrow! Maybe I'll be lucky and finally get my swipe card so I can start using it at the start of the new week. We will see...

Hooray for heat rash!

2009-06-13T20:49:26Z

After living in Australia for 2 years, you'd think I'd be used to the heat that the sun throws at us. Unfortunately not. Got some lovely blotches across my wrists and ankles. Meh, doesn't hurt or anything, so I'm sure I'll live (oh noes!)

Picking up from where I left the last post, we went to Beziers on Thursday. 'We' being just my nan, grandad and I seeing that Gemma was having a 'moment'. I had to take a wander by myself for the first hour as my nan had an appointment somewhere, so I picked a random street and headed in the general direction of the cathedral. I surprisingly found it, despite feeling that I'd walked back on myself at one point, and went about taking photos from the lookout that was near the cathedral itself. I must have been there a while just looking because before I got the chance to even consider going in to the cathedral itself, I was summoned back to the main boulevard where I'd arranged to meet my grandparents. Unfortunately, at this point, it was now close to midday, so the cathedral would have been closed by the time we got back there to have a look, so we had a drink before heading to the steps of locks that are on the canal that runs through Beziers. More random photos were taken before heading home to jump in to the pool... again.

Also, that morning, I received an SMS from my new boss informing me that references have come back, medical checks cheared, and so forth, so I am expected to start working at 9am next Wednesday! :) I'd kind of already been given a heads up about this though as one of his 'clients' (he sells insurance) told him so, thus annoying me of the apparent breach of confidentiality in telling him in the first place, especially before telling me!

ANYWAY...

We all went to Montpellier yesterday (Friday), Gemma included. We took a long walk around the city and down the alleyways. It was the first time I'd seen a tram since leaving Melbourne, 7 months ago, which they use primarily for transporting visitors from the carparks that are further out from the city centre itself in to the city. I did take a few more photos, just to be a typical tourist, which I'll share upon request as I'm being lazy and can't be bothered linking to them right now.

Today was a lazy, and very hot day. We did nothing in particular and just enjoyed the weather the best we could. Because of this, I was in the pool earlier than usual, so there was no shade of half of the pool as usual, so I appear to have caught the sun a bit -_- I didn't burn much, but I'll be peeling soon enough! Long live the pale-ness!

Tomorrow, we're going to the Sunday market in Capestang, but it will be another lazy day for our last day here in France before the early Monday morning flight home!

And now that I've covered the next couple of days, I don't have to bother updating this for another month or so... :P

That French Place

2009-06-10T20:06:32Z

So I arrived in France on Monday morning having had little to no sleep since waking up at 10am the day before. Surprisingly, I wasn't all that tired and managed throughout the lazy day that was made of Monday. Gemma had passed out on the plane, and didn't even stir for takeoff, dozing in and out until just before landing at Beziers just after 9am. Having found a space in the scurry of people that were rushing to get off the plane, we collected Gemma's bag and were greeted through the glass divide by nan and grandad. Following a brief shopping trip in Beziers for food, we arrived at their house in Maureilhan to laze.

Tuesday was a late start, having needed 13 hours of sleep to catch up from the day before. We had some breakfast about 11am and went for a drive. Nan and grandad were keeping an eye over a friend's house while they are away, so our first stop was there in Puisserguier. Their house was a bit weird in that they had a well in their living room! It wasn't an open well, but the fact it was there was novelty in itself. Next was a stop off at a lookout over a dried up salt lake near Montady that has now been turned in to fertile land. From the lay of the land, it looks akin to a dartboard of sorts. Looking on Google Maps for an above view shows it to be a rather strange dartboard if at all, but it still has an interesting layout for sure. We also checked out the only tunnel that is along the nearby canal, the Canal Du Midi. It certainly was a tunnel! This was followed by a stop-off in Colombiers for a drink before heading home for the rest of the afternoon.

We had an early start today as we making a trip to Narbonne and wanted to get there before midday. It seems that the French drop everything as soon as it hits 12 for lunch, leaving the only places open being restaurants. This lunch break last until around 2pm when all shutters open again to continue business. Annoying if you have nothing to do to fill those 2 hours during a visit. We arrived before 12, bought a few bits from the indoor market to restock the fridge and headed towards the cathedral. They wanted to make sure they meet their midday closing time and wouldn't let us in at 11:45, so we went for a drink first before wandering further for a bite to eat. We finally got to have a look around the cathedral before driving down to Narbonne Plage (the beach) for a quick look around for my sake. It was surprisingly quiet considering today's weather, which was around 27°C. Previous days have been rather cloudy, so today was the most intense sun we've seen this week. Returning home, I took a dip in the pool, which included failed attempts to get on to a lilo bed thing and now aching shoulders from the mere existence of exercise! I believe nan got some photos of me swimming and falling off the lilo, so I'll have to check those later for my own amusement (no, I don't plan on sharing my pasty white body with you all :P).

Tomorrow, we will be off to Beziers for a short while, but due to expected high temperatures, the day may be spent mainly at home. See what happens.

Not seeing... stuff!

2009-06-06T17:57:02Z

Picked up my new glasses today :D There have been several issues though :( The story goes...

My dad and I arrived at Specsavers ready to both get our new glasses fitted. Dad's were fine. I was having 2 pairs, one as my new sunnies. The lady started with my clears. Getting them out of their case, the first thing I noticed was a white arm... something I specifically avoided. Having a closer look, they were the wrong frames! I found the frames that I actually chose on the shelf and they fixed them up for me, where I had to come back an hour later while the lenses were fitted to them. For the inconvenience, they upgraded my lenses to 'ultra-clear', which stopped glare and stuff :) So we sorted the sunnies and came back a bit later.

Trying on the clears, I noticed what I'd previously noticed in the sunnies - the right eye didn't 'feel' right. They explained that new lenses can sometimes take some getting used to (bull!) and that it might be worth trying them for a week and seeing how I go. I agreed just because I really need some sunglasses for my week in France starting this Monday, so I will be returning them as soon as I get back. Even walking around Hereford in my new glasses, it felt like I had something over my right eye the whole time... covering each eye shows a definite issue and wearing them for too long will only give me headaches. Nice frames though regardless, just a shame that there has to be an issue :(

To top off the day, I also got charged £10.75 on customs for some tshirts that I ordered from the US. Why the hell didn't they tick the 'gift' box??? So what worked out to be some reasonably priced tshirts turned in to your typical expensive ones *sigh*

HOME

2009-06-05T14:29:08Z

http://www.youtube.com/homeproject

References

2009-06-05T08:09:17Z

Just had an old work colleague add me to facebook with the message "Hi James, it's blah from blah. Can you send me your email address asap re a reference." (obviously inserting 'blah' for real names)

So she's been contacted about a reference for me! Is that a good sign, or is it a bad sign that she needs to contact me about it? =/

Seeing... stuff!

2009-05-27T19:12:03Z

What have I been doing... Oh yes! I went to Hereford today with the father person in order to get some new sunglasses in prep for my trip to France. He also wanted some new glasses, and on my recommendation, came with me to Specsavers after being disappointed with the place in town ('Should have gone to Specsavers!' Ba-dum!). They have a 2 for 1 deal (always), so I made use of that and got some new everyday glasses too. To top it off, I also got money off through some voucher that I get with being on the dole AND the test itself for free, so after standing there forever looking at the cheaper frames, I get told about this voucher and immediately move up the line for more choice :D Ended up choosing a 'designer' pair (well, 2 pairs) because the frame suited better to other I had been looking at. There were actually several I looked at in the cheaper range, but there was also something off with them... usually the stupid bright pattern on the arms, thus ruining the perfectly good frame >:( I also wanted the option of those half frames - you know, the ones with nothing holding the bottom of the lens in - but got told that because of my prescription, the lenses would be quite thick in a certain area across the bottom and would stand out too much *sigh* Did find a designer pair that were half frame, but were ok, but again it had stupid arms! ANYWAY...Got 2 designer pairs, forgotten the name, both different, one for everyday, one for sunnies. Cost £125 each, but it was 2 for 1. Also with this dole-voucher-thing, so I came out paying £88.80 for a test AND 2 pairs of expensive glasses :D Also got some snazzy flip-flops for the beach *hides in the shade*

Went to Swansea the other day, got some new trousers for the upcoming work.

Got out of that stupid 2 week New Deal thing that the Jobcentre were trying to make me do.

Ummm there was something else, but I've forgotten already. Will just leave it at that for now.

YAY FOR NEW STUFFS FOR ME! (Just a shame I had to pay for it :P)

Edit: I don't have said glasses yet. Picking them up next week.

Yayness!

2009-05-19T18:14:03Z

Hell yes! I got the job! Now I can start complaining about work instead of complaining about the lack of work :D Well, I can in a few weeks when I actually start. This is all dependent on how long it takes to do CRB checks and to contact my references. Shouldn't take long, apparently, although mum says that CRB checks are taking up to 4 weeks as of late. Not sure how she knows that, but we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I've booked a holiday to France to visit my grandparents for a week starting on the 8th. Should be nice weather, and they have a pool! I'm a bit too white for the sun though, I think, so I may just hide in the shade and look at the pool instead ;) Will be nice to get a change of scenery too, and seeing that I won't have to work my way around going on holiday while on the dole now, things should work out well. The flights were cheap too, so that's a bonus.

Obviously, I went and cancelled the interview that I was invited to on Thursday... because I'm nice like that and didn't want to leave them waiting for me when I wouldn't be turning up. I can also now tell the jobcentre that I now have a job, which means I don't have to go on this stupid New Deal 2 week course thing in Newtown either :D Still going to try and get the railcard that gives me half price train tickets though. May have to not tell them I have a job tomorrow and wait for Thursday for that to work *cough*

And now, it's time for some Arrested Development!

Mud

2009-05-18T22:08:07Z

Worked this weekend. First time I've worked in a while. Shame it was just standing there punching holes in peoples' tickets. Doesn't feel as accomplished then, but I guess it's all a bit of extra money, even if they jobcentre do kill my dole for the week. I come out £15 up compared to what the dole would have given me, hehe. It was alright though, easy work, went quick, even when it was tipping it down.

Had that interview at Powys CC today too. It went ok. I already knew one of the women in the interview as they had interviewed me last time I was there for some other IT role. Rather laid back, moreso than last time, probably because I already knew them. I was able to answer all of the questions well, I think, so if it went as well as my last interview, I should be quite high up... might even get it providing someone with the experience doesn't beat me to it. I find out tomorrow.

I've also decided that I might go an on brief holiday. This is entirely dependant on whether I get this job or not as I can arrange it as a pre-booked event that they'd have to honour, as opposed to trying to get away with a holiday while on the dole. See what happens based on tomorrow's result.

To be concluded...

Fingers

2009-05-12T14:38:10Z

Well that's a turnout! Today I received two letters - ohh I'm popular! One was for work this weekend at the Smallholder & Garden Festival at the show ground - 10hrs as a Ticket Checker. The second was for an interview at Powys County Council on Monday. Awesome! I then got a call from Brightwells (estate agent) for a part time position that I applied for there, asking for an interview next Thursday!

I'll work the weekend and put preference in to the Powys job. I should even hear back from Powys before I even go for the interview at Brightwells anyway, so if that falls through, I have another to fall back on.

Fingers crossed.

GAH!

2009-05-11T10:01:17Z

DAMNIT! Woke up not long ago, stubbing my toe on the corner of something as soon as I stepped out of bed >.< No blood, just very sore. Joys!

Anyway, it seems that I've neglected this for about a month, so I figured I'd make an entry just for the sake of it seeing that I'll only forget about LJ if I leave it much longer. The thing is, if I were to make regular updates, they'd just say the same damn thing every week; nothing new is really happening at the moment, so there's nothing new to report. Just for the record, I spend most of each week searching for work, with a mix of 'surfing' the web/chatting, followed by going out at the weekends. Aside from that though...

FINALLY got to see Watchmen several weeks back! Good movie, they did a good job of converting it from the graphic novel, which I made sure I read before hand :)

I had an interview that I couldn't be bothered writing about a while back. It was at the Swinton Insurance branch in town. Apparently the guy really liked me, but felt I was too leant towards IT to take me on and didn't want me running off to a different job if he gave me the job at Swinton. Bastard. I didn't get the chance to give him such an impression further than him asking me what area I've been looking for work in previously, which I answered with "I've mainly been look for IT work, considering my background, but have also been open to opportunities to spread out and increase my skills in other fields." - Or something along those lines. But yeah, long story short, I didn't get it.

I went to a job fair at the show ground last Weds for work during the Royal Welsh Show in July. It was basically just several tables with the people who organising the work in different areas during the show. I mainly spoke the to security guy, because of the large amount of hours just for 1 week of work (72hrs - would be a nice lump of cash to keep me going with), and the 'personal parking' guy who does traffic control, cashier jobs, ticket checking etc. The latter seemed very keen to get me working for him, and advised me to put down 'ticket checker' on the application form instead of 'all categories'. I think this was because of my age because everyone else were 16-18 and in college, where he wanted someone 'maturer' for ticket checking :P They might also have work this coming weekend for some flower show that's on, so that'd be nice if I can get a bit of extra pocket money. Does mean coming off the dole... for a week though. Probably going to make it difficult to get back on though. See what happens...

I may or may not have previously mentioned that my sister also is preggers. 21 weeks gone and had a scan recently to determine the sex. It's a girl. There are scans available if anyone wants to see, but considering I might leave this entry public, I'm going to leave it out for now, so just message me if you want to see :)

I don't think there's anything else particularly worth mentioning. I turned 24 several weeks back. So did Ieuan. Brother turned 22. Did nothing special for any of it, although Lloyd and Ieuan did get me the Elfen Lied boxset, which was pretty cool. And that's about it... I think.

END.

Ohhh! And Wai is coming to the UK in July! Confirmed date, apparently, so that'll be awesome if I can get my arse down to London to see her... or wherever she'll be.

REAL END.

Vegetable juice!

2009-04-07T17:20:20Z

Well, seeing that CERTAIN forums like ignoring anything I post, I figured that I'd share my... I mean, Lloyd's... I mean, Lyall's awesome, catchy find on here for my very few readers to see:

Travelling in style!

2009-04-07T15:22:52Z

Had that interview in Caerphilly yesterday. It went ok, I think. I always think it went ok though, but we can only wait to see what the outcome is. There were basic tests too that I wasn't even told about - thankyou recruitment agency lady! *frown* They were stupidly easy though... an aptitude test and one on basic Java and SQL. I couldn't answer the SQL question though, even though it was only a basic query. It's just been so long since I even looked at SQL, so... And thanks to the lack of information from the recruitment lady, I didn't know to have to skim over it. Oh well.

Having just arrived and pulled in to the car park, dad's car decided to die. As unfortunate as it is, it was damn good timing for it to happen. Battery light came on, along with some warning light, and power steering was lost. It wasn't anything that could be fixed there and then, so we got to travel home in a breakdown truck. How exciting! Breakdown guy was fine until conversation died on the way home, then he turned in to a grumpy bastard. He was getting paid for driving anyway, so he can't complain!

Aside from that, everything went ok interview-wise. They said they'd contact me shortly, so hopefully that means before the end of the week. We'll see.

And the searching continues...

2009-04-05T13:36:01Z

So the jobcentre FINALLY got back to me with a response to the interview I had with them... over a month ago!! Took their damn time. I didn't get it.

Got an interview tomorrow in Caerphilly though, Java Developer. Should be ok, but I've not been given a job spec or anything, so I'm not 100% sure what to expect. I'll just have to play it by ear and see what happens really. 6-12 month contract. Not ideal, but it's something if I can get it. Does mean moving though, but I'll deal with that IF I get it.

Persuaded dad to drive me down tomorrow though. Save me having to get a 7am train down for a 2:30pm interview, and getting home at 8pm. What a waste of time. So instead, I'll be leaving here at 12pm and getting there on time. Much better!

On a non-work related note, I found out that Wai is coming to the UK in June :) She's going to be in London, but I'm going to make an effort to go see her... or for her to visit me. Would be good to catch up and actually see another familiar face so soon since leaving Aus. Maybe I'll have a job by then and will be living somewhere where there's actually something to do too... See what happens.

23 bowls later...

2009-03-19T23:14:38Z

After being told there was a Japanese place in Birmingham that did all-you-can-eat, how could I refuse making the trip to get my next sushi fix?! So yesterday, up I got and made my way to go see Anna*. Due to the crappy train times from here, I only really had the choice of getting to Birmingham for 9:30am, so I had to make Anna get up early too to meet me at B'ham New St :P As it was a bit early for lunch, we just wandered a bit, looking at random stuff in Forbidden Planet and getting lost in Waterstones (book shop). Figured I'd look for more volumes of Hellsing (manga) while I was somewhere with decent enough shops that might have it. Not one store had Hellsing though :( Oh well. Lunchtime came, so we headed to Woktastic (the place... dun dun dahhhhh!) There was a menu (of course), but I wanted the all-you-can-eat, which was based on the food off the sushi train that went around the central cooking area. Anna had the same, but then didn't have much after realising that she wasn't so keen on the sushi, which sucks. I think I ate enough to get both of our money's worth though at £10 each. In total, I had 23 bowls off the sushi train! Lookie:

If you look in the background, you can see what kind of thing was in each bowl, so it's not like I ate 23 bowls full to the brim of stuff. Unfortunately, they cleared the table half way through, so there obviously isn't 23 bowls stacked there in the photo. Would have made more of an impressive photo for sure. Regardless, it was all good food and I enjoyed having some sushi again after so long :)

Afterwards, we headed back to the station to go back to Anna's, stopping off at Burger King on the way seeing that Anna hadn't eaten much. Getting back, we lazed about with some TV and I met Sally, their greyhound. Had to somehow fit in a large pizza that evening for tea, while still feeling rather full after all the sushi from 7hrs before.

Met Lily today, Anna's niece, before heading off in to Redditch for a wander before catching my train home... and here I am! Good couple of days away, nice to get a change of scenery :)

* That sounds bad. I didn't purely go to see Anna just for the sushi!

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I didn't get that Cardiff job.

When not to tip...

2009-03-14T12:23:41Z

As something different, Lloyd, Ieu and I went for an indian last night in Rhayader. Lyall was going to come too, but he was ill. It was good, taste-wise. Can't say much for them getting BOTH my foods wrong, bringing me a chicken tikka n... Hmm no, can't remember what it was called. Ieu had ordered it though except with lamb, and for some reason they thought I had too. I wanted my chicken tikka madras, damnit! Then they forgot my naan bread! Must have been the beard...

While waiting for my food to finally come out, we noticed a very distinct hair hanging off the edge of Lloyd's rice bowl. Of course, immediate thoughts go towards it being of the pubic nature, but not wanting to make a fuss, I told Ieu not to say anything. Thinking about it now, we should have. They messed up my order AND had hair in our food! Regardless of whether the food was good or not, the service wasn't so great. Bit of a let down really, I remember them being pretty good when I've been there in the past, so what the hell... To top it off, we went and tipped to round the bill up to the nearest 5, much to Ieu's disagreeance, which he explained after leaving and reminded us of the hair and order fuck up! Damn my memory sometimes...

Regardless, it was good to go do something different, treat ourselves to a meal of sorts. Maybe try a different indian next time? Builth? I don't remember the Llandod sit-in one being so great, but couldn't harm to check it out. All in good time, providing I don't end up in Cardiff or anywhere else at that matter anytime soon. Wouldn't say no to some sushi sometime too, but there's nowhere close, so I'll just have to hound Anna who says there's a good new place in Birmingham that I should check out.

Windows Live rant

2009-03-13T11:57:11Z

So after the success of facebook and other profile sites that have come and gone, Microsoft have decided they also want a go. They've had profiles for MSN/hotmail users for a long time, which changed in to 'Live Spaces', so it's more a development of that as opposed to a whole new thing they're trying out, but what I got in email today about the Windows Live services makes me think that they're trying too hard and that it won't really take off.

Want to connect to all of your friends around the web in a simple way? Now you can bring all your lives together on your very own home page at http://home.live.com

The mentioned home page basically provides a front for all your online activities. It reports status updates, allows you to add new personal details, photos, and even other web feeds, so you can have a box containing blog updates from other websites that you use. Is this not sounding very Facebook-y already? Of course, it's not only Facebook, there are plenty of other very similar profile sites out there that I don't know or care about because I don't want 10 or more profile sites to regularly have to update with the same information. My point is that Microsoft are just trying to do what many, MANY people have already done before, whether successful or not.

You can see the 'What's New' feed from your home page in your favourite Windows Live services too, like Messenger and Hotmail, so you're always instantly up-to-date.

Of course though, because it's Windows Live based, Microsoft have tied it in with their 'Windows Live Essential' software package (that would be the new name of the package you have to download to get Messenger nowadays). As such, the aforementioned status updates are from your Messenger, along with your Messenger display picture updates, on top of other updates that may be sent from the various other applications that come with Essentials. I've used the new stuff, disliked the new Messenger, saw some potential for Windows Live Writer (or whatever it was called) because it allowed me to update my blog without having to load my browser, and ignored the rest as I had no interest in them. Said potential for Writer was overruled by that I have to load my browser to go read my friends' blogs on here anyway, and as I'm not ignorant enough to pretend other peoples' updates don't exist, I wasn't prepared to simply update my own blog via Writer and completely forget about checking the site.

With this, I decided to uninstall the new Messenger (v9)(only), leaving Writer for potential use later on, so that I could reinstall 8.5 via an old install that I had seeing that Microsoft weren't going to let me download anything other than their new version, which I found out to be still in beta stages. This is what I was faced with:

A 'Catastrophic failure'! No indication of what the problem actually is, just that it's apparently something pretty bad to be calling it catastrophic! I later figured out that it was caused by me leaving part of the Essentials package installed and then trying to install an older version of the package. So despite options upon installing the package of being about to CHOOSE what you want to install, you're not allowed to install the old version of X from one package, and the new version of Y from the other without being given a rather uninformative error message. That's fine, I'll just keep using the older Messenger and visit my blogging site via my browser. I'd like to say "their loss", but it's a free application, so they're really not losing much out of me not using it. Oh well.

Bit of a tangent there, but where I was actually aiming at going from the apparent new Live Home Page and MS's attempt at creating a Facebook-y profile site, was that I don't see it taking off much at all. I don't know anyone who used to use their 'Live Spaces' to any extent, very rarely updating their profiles when, now an adult, they realise that it still says they're in primary school. I don't see people picking it up so easily either as so many already have a myface, or spacebook, or bebo, or twitter or... there are too many. Saying that, maybe it will. Some people have a profile on ALL these other sites, what will one more harm. Of course, these are the idiots who I won't be adding to my friends list because they just want to feel speshul and loved by all the 'friends' they claim to have.

Anyway, before I lose my train of thought through hunger, I'll leave my ranting there. If you want to find out more from a video promoting the Windows Live home page stuff by talking about a rather emo woman who 'needs' the internet to be sociable, you can check out this (although I wouldn't advise wasting your time):

What Is Windows Live?