Flops' Friday mini blog

[floppybootstomp]

Erm... your "farewell" sounded a tad "final"... you're not suffering from bloggers-block, or thinking of retiring the thread, I hope..?

Nah, whenst the mood doth take me I shall waffle on again probably.

Today I bought a galvanised steel watering can, holds 8 litres, and gave all me plants their spring feed.

Also spotted a container of something called 'Patio Magic' for a tenner from Sainsburys Homebase to clean some paving stones on patio then totally forgot to buy it. Doh. Then noticed Wickes do patio cleaner for 4 quid but don't know if it's any good.

Ho hum ho hum.

 

[Taffycat]

Haven't tried the Wickes product either, but apparently, it was given a "favourable mention" in a "Which" report - according to folk on the MoneySavingExpert forum. They didn't seem to be so keen on "Patio Magic" though. But possibly the formula has changed since the posts were written (2008).

 

[floppybootstomp]

Nothing much going down atm. Like most of us, I suspect.

Clocks go forward soon don't they? Good good good, my favourite time of year.

This morning had a filling at the dentists at Guys Hospital, student male done the job, he was ok, but I pointed out to him afterwards that using my top lip as a rest for the side of his hand as he works is not recommended as it bloody well hurts. He looked at me somewhat bemused but said he took the point on board. I notice most experienced dentists don't do this.

So atm I have no dental work outstanding, that's good.

There's a dance studio not far from me where my girls used to go when they were younger, it's over the top of Greenwich Town Hall where I've seen a fair few bands including Fairport Convention, Climax Chicago & Christy Moore.

The local band, Squeeze, played one of their first (or indeed maybe their very first, not sure) gig there back in '75, in the dance studio. So the studio decided to erect a plaque honouring the occasion and I went along and took a few pix. The mayor of Greenwich and his horsey looking missus were there as was the director of the dance studio.

Glenn Tilbrook & Chris Difford of Squeeze said a few words and we all shivered in the icy rain.

Here's a few pix:

During his speech Chris Difford joked that he was coming back late at night to nick the plaque. When I drove past there this morning the plaque wasn't there, maybe he wasn't joking, lol

All my 3 daughters are staying with me atm and on Friday twin girls are taking me to Thorpe Park for the day as a Birthday Pressie. Yowsah! Lucy's boyfriend coming too to even out numbers for the rides meaning nobody on their own when riding. Looking forward to that, I lurve that place.

I'm on the cusp of buying an LCD TV, there's a few name make 37" 1080 with 3 x HDMI inputs at Richer Sounds for £400.00. And with this I'll probably buy a Games console.

Still only conjecture though, still not sure, and still waiting for a few cheques to come in.

And after a lot of thought and consideration the console I will buy (if I do) will be, wait for it - an XBox

Xbox Elite with one pad and Gears Of War 2 and Halo 3 is £200.00 in Currys.

Now, the main reason for choosing X-box is Gears Of War 1 & 2. Awesome games plus I enjoyed Halo 1 & 2 a great deal so Halo 3 would be good. Also, lots of cheap games, pre-owned, in GAME stores.

Some may remember I was passionately in favour of PS3 in the past, I still am, actually.

And eventually I'll get one of those as well. But atm with the expenditure of the TV, an Xbox makes economic sense. And, er, GOW 1 & 2.

Tomorrow I'm finishing off my stage lighting job, just bought £300.00 worth of parts, mostly replacement bulbs, from a supplier at London Bridge, Stage Electrics.

That'll do for now.

Pip Pip!

 

[captain zed]

I have GOW2 and HAlo 3 for ya when ya get sorted.............

 

[Taffycat]

Sometimes I think dentists get a bit engrossed in what they're doing, and "forget" they have a patient on the other end of the tooth they're treating! Lol Having said that... I think the Hygienists are the ones who can give one the most grief...

Our surgery has a really nice team, but not long ago, they took on a new person - sheesh! She was lethal with her high-volume, water-squirter-thingy and nearly drowned me! She didn't last long - I think quite a few patients complained about their "water-boarding" treatment at her hands. Lol

Nice photos Flopps and a decent turn-out for the Squeeze lads - did you ever discover what happened to that plaque?

Hope you and "the Floppettes" enjoy a great time at Thorpe Park today. Have fun

 

[floppybootstomp]

I have GOW2 and HAlo 3 for ya when ya get sorted.............

So is it worth me choosing two different games when selecting a package? Or perhaps just buying Elite without games for £180.00.

Please PM me details zed, thanks

I also notice GOW 1 is available for £12 used and lots of other cheapie good games available.

TC: Thanks for the comments

Have just got back from Thorpe Park and had a smashing day.

The SAW Rollercoaster was new to me and it's great, went on it three times

 

[V_R]

Have just got back from Thorpe Park and had a smashing day.

The SAW Rollercoaster was new to me and it's great, went on it three times

Damn you!

The other half and I were going to go yesterday, with me bro and co. Weather said no. lol

We went on the Saw ride last time, i loved it, but she? Not so much. I want to go in the live Saw Maze, I have absolutely 0% change of getting her in it though lmao. Did you go in?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Damn you!

The other half and I were going to go yesterday, with me bro and co. Weather said no. lol

We went on the Saw ride last time, i loved it, but she? Not so much. I want to go in the live Saw Maze, I have absolutely 0% change of getting her in it though lmao. Did you go in?

Weather forecast for Staines for today said light showers. We got rained on once, queuing for Nemesis, for about 5 mins and that was it. The heaviest shower came when we were indoors, eating lunch.

The queues were light today, as well, went on all big rides at least twice and everything else.

My girls and Danny, Sophie's boyfriend, went in the Live Maze, I declined. They thought it was great, I couldn't trust myself not to give a live person who scared the crap out of me and grabbed my legs a slap, lol

So I went and ate an ice cream.

Only downside was Stealth wasn't working - again

Last time I went in 2008 it wasn't working either.

They had a problem with the launch method. We actually saw a carriage reach the top, pause, but it didn't have enough momentum to make it over the crest and slid back down again, which must have sent the fear up and down the rider's spines, lol

It opened a couple of times, but then closed down again. I think they should lop a coupla metres off the top, it'd work ok then.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Politics.

There will very likely be a general election this year.

I don't like talking politics on PC Review but I saw a BBC news item that perfectly mirrored my feelings so I'll post the link.

Here's a quote from the article, my feelings entirely:

At this stage I am in quandary as to whether I am going to vote at all," she concludes.

"There is not much to choose between the parties or the leaders, but in bred into me is this thing that I should vote, I should do the right thing. I can't complain about things if I don't do something about it, but I will struggle to choose, and I may well not vote, sadly."

And here's the link to the story

And I thought it was just me, bit of a relief to read this.

And tonight I was telephoned-spammed by a fella who said he was from the Labour Party and wanted to ask me some questions.

I sort of laughed dementedly down the phone for about 15 seconds and hung up on him. He probably thought I was mad. He may well be right.

On reflection I wish I'd hung on and heard his questions but, oh well, dat's life

 

[V_R]

They had a problem with the launch method. We actually saw a carriage reach the top, pause, but it didn't have enough momentum to make it over the crest and slid back down again, which must have sent the fear up and down the rider's spines, lol

It opened a couple of times, but then closed down again. I think they should lop a coupla metres off the top, it'd work ok then.

lol it did that the last time we were there, apparently its better like that than when it does properly! I'd have loved to be on it when it did it.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Forum's quiet this evening and I wonder whether tis nobler in the heart to waffle, or not to waffle, as the case may be.

Finally done a clean install of XP on AMD/XP machine and overall impression was something like 'People may love to bitch about Microsoft and complain about business practices and high prices but Win 7 is actually streets ahead of Win 98.

And so it should be, really.

I encountered problems installing hardware & software to XP that both Vista and Win 7 would have shrugged off. Fact.

My install of XP was totally fubar'ed after 18 months to 2 years, fact. No nasties, malware or viruses, just totally overloaded and buggered up. Because despite it's user friendliness, XP was far from perfect and my experience of this OS showed that every single install, eventually, would enter meltdown with need for a reinstall.

Vista, so far, has been the only really stable Windows OS since I first loaded DOS 6.22. fact. It's too early to comment on Win 7 but I do love Win 7, it really has a nice feel to it.

Despite my daughter trying to listen to an online radio on Win 7 and instigating my third Win 7 BSOD.

I'm just reporting these facts as I experience them, no influence, no bias.

Makes me think Windows has never been perfect, some Linux Distros work much more stable, much faster.

Still, one has to weigh up the situation in the real world.

Here's the folder within a folder of my Win XP install, this one titled 'Drivers & Apps'

 

[Abarbarian]

Don't forget the Acronis backup. I put mine in the Acronis Secure Zone.

Have a copy of XP raw with all updates, XP with updates and programs and a copy of XP as it is today. Also keep three copies of Mandy, replacing oldest with todays version. That way I keep a stable backup of both os's. Total space used 56 GB 18 of that is for the Mandys.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Have done an Acronis backup.

How do you backup up Mandriva then?

Cos Acronis backup doesn't work in Linux. Does it?

Or did you just clone disc?

The blog thing

Getting a little worried about receiving payment for a job I done late February but I do know this school's a late payer. Still. Hmm. Worried.

Finished the stage lighting job today, A-Level rehearsals going on as I worked on top of scaffolding tower.

Doing a 21st Disco this Friday at Dartford. I am somewhat older than 21. Sometimes I wonder.

But there again I know I'm better than some younger DJ's.

And that's not boasting, it's a fact. rarely do I fail to get a place moving.

I'm busy for the next two weeks at least. This is a good thing.

Red Faction Guerilla, the game, is a pile of crap, lol, it was a freebie with Metro 2033.

That'll do

 

[Abarbarian]

To tell the truth I can not remember how I did the Mandy backup. I think I used the Acronis Live CD I burnt. Will have a look tomorrow if I get the chance. I recall that I had to do a sector by sector backup as Acronis whatever that is I think.

We did a lot of work for councils notoriously bad payers until we put a rider on our invoices, 10% discount if paid within 30 days, but a 10% automatic surcharge for payments made after 30 days. Can't remember the exact wording and of course we added on 10% before giving the discount. Payments were pretty prompt after that.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Abarb: The majority of my work I give quotations for so I do the work at a fixed price so I'm blowed if I'm going to swallow 10% for prompt payment, my quotes have to be competitive as it is.

However, most of my work is for schools and they're mostly good payers.

And the cheque I spoke of above came to me yesterday

So - TV & Xbox or put it into the ISA?

I just tried to reinstate Steam and the backup failed. I installed Steam from their site and then browsed to my Steam backup folder, all 45Gb of it. Steam backs up to several folders thatcould be burnt to DVD's if you wanted to do it that way but Steam says it will restore from multi folders stored on a hard disk.

It bloody well won't

There's an *.exe file in the first folder and clicking on that starts the reinstall process. It got through the first disk ok then froze on the second.

Right now I'm copying the backup folder to 'C' drive from a secondary drive and then I'm going to put all the contents into one folder and try again. I will probably uninstall/reinstall Steam first.

If it doesn't work then getting Steam back to it's original state through downloading each game individually is going to use up a sizeable chunk of my 50Gb monthly bandwidth allowance.

This annoys me a great deal.

Steam may seem like a good idea and to my mind it works well but when purchasing games, because of bandwidth considerations I will always favour a hard copy.

I wonder where a game has limited activations, as in Bioshock II, whether a Steam download after a fresh install counts as an activation? As when I've loaded games into Steam that way I've never had to enter the code number for the game.

In this neck of the woods it has turned extremely cold but today we have bright sunshine and clear blue skies - good stuff

I've just paid that cheque in the bank and now I'm going to sort out the music for tomorrow's 21st Disco I'm doing.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I always know it's Spring cos there are a few pointers.

The clocks go forward, the funfair sets up on Blackheath, preparation for the London marathon starts taking place also on Blackheath and the Eurovision song contest usually takes place though I haven't noticed any indication of that happening yet, which is perhaps a blessing.

These things make me feel good.

I can remember walking from my friend Richard's place with his girlfriend Maria and my 1st wife-to-be Jackie and having a drink in the Princess Of Wales Pub on Blackheath, outside, at this time of year. We spoke of what we were going to do with our lives and how we were going to get married and buy a property. Everything seemed great, full of promise and we were optimistic.

Within five years we'd both married, bought properties and seperated from our wives. Life is not a fairy tale is it?

Done the 21st disco last night and it went well. Seems to me every choice of disc I made just got better and better. But then I fluffed it, about 15 minutes from the end. When everybody's tiddled they do like a bit of Sweet Child Of Mine by Guns n Roses and I was playing that. Then I had a brain burp and decided the Dirty Dancing song 'Ive Had The Time Of My Life' would be a better idea and faded G n R down and started playing that.

Assorted 'I can't believe It' looks, groans and shaking of heads. Bugger, I've messed up, so I faded G n R in again, but the damage was done, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

Still, overall it was a success, one cock-up ain't too bad but I'm still cringing when I think about it.

I've set up the Bosch Plena controller amplifier and loaded the software ready to program. Have studied the manual, it's quite clear but I haven't fully sussed it yet. I had some trouble formatting the hard disk I wanted to use for this thing, booted from Paragon Partition Manager floppy, chose to format it but it wouldn't, just froze.

So booted from Ultimate Boot CD and tried three different erase/format programs. Again, they wouldn't/couldn't do it.

Then took hard disk from caddy and connected to SATA port 6 on computer and formatted within Windows. Very odd.

Still, used Acronis to load Raw version of XP and have loaded Bosch software.

I've had a few, so not going to play Metro 2033 but instead will play some CoD4 online methinks.

 

[yuvi0464]

opportunities for authors

Are you a spiritual author ?



Would you like to get your message out to the world ?



Authors from all over the world are invited to join this prestigious competition.





Big bad Spam Edit - fbs

 

[floppybootstomp]

Are you a spiritual author ?



Would you like to get your message out to the world ?



Authors from all over the world are invited to join this prestigious competition.





Big bad Spam Edit - fbs

The only spirit I could write with some certain authority about my little spamming gherkin, comes in a bottle and is named Jack Daniels

 

[Taffycat]

The only spirit I could write with some certain authority about my little spamming gherkin, comes in a bottle and is named Jack Daniels

Amen to that!!

 

[nivrip]

Are you a spiritual author ?



Would you like to get your message out to the world ?



Authors from all over the world are invited to join this prestigious competition.

No.

No.

No thanks.