We Surrender!

So let's take a quick summary of the last 4 weeks...

• Jason's car dies and needs a new starter motor.
• My car suffers from a blow-out whilst I am driving the girls to nursery.
• Jason's PC's graphics card dies and the replacement has taken over two weeks to be delivered (still waiting).
• Lauren catches chicken pox.
• Jocey catches chicken pox.
• The tumble-dryer stops drying.
• And finally, the hot water pipe that supplies the washing machine decides to supply the kitchen floor at the same time.

We are nearly £1,000 worse off than we were at the start of the month and neither of us has had a decent night's sleep in far too long. 

We give in!  No more please!

Got a spare $200,000?

I just got this email from Virgin for an amazing experience.

Only problem is, I don't think I can afford it! It would be really amazing though and a once in a lifetime experience.

So those of you with $200,000 to spare should have a think about it...

At last a film to look forward to!

Dah, dah dah, daahhhh!  Dah, dah dahhhhh!

Predictions!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Format Wars...
Anyone who has talked technology with me in the last month, will not have been shocked by the delay of the Euro launch of the PS3 as I have been predicting it.
Just reading a couple of news sites made it perfectly clear that Sony was way behind in building the PS3 and wouldn't have enough (more than 5 million units needed) for a glocal release. Even more scary is that they may only manage 1 million units for November, which would mean the US would only get 500,000 or so (demand there was predicted to be 10 times that number).
However, does the delay mean that HD-DVD will get a head start over Blu-ray?
I had been predicting that Blu-ray would win the format war, solely on the back of the PS3.
Most consumers are smart enough to wait for the format war to settle down before buying new kit and I reckoned the Christmas rush for the PS3 and its built in Blu-ray player would result in a big enough market share to kill HD-DVD pretty quickly.
Even more weird is the concept that Blu-ray will win in Japan and the US, but Europe and Oz will pick HD-DVD. Not a problem for film distributors, as their content is localised anyway, but hardware manufacturers won't like it. In the end I expect that Blu-ray would be forced upon us by the Japan/US technology market.
Anyway, Sony has fumbled the ball and it remains to see if this could be their undoing.

Way back I postulated that Blu-Ray would eventually win the HD format wars, based solely on the integration with the PS3.

Looks like I was right as Toshiba (the main HD-DVD technology producer) has decided to pull out of that format following the mass evacuation of its original supporters.  I'm so glad I didn't leap on that bandwagon.  Especially since I would have picked HD-DVD as the superior format!!!!

If it's not one thing it's another!

We are saving money like crazy so we can build a new PC.
Gareth's PC woes have managed to infect us though, as the video card in our main PC decided to blow up on Friday night and is well and truly dead.
Since that system uses the older AGP format, getting a replacement will be neither easy nor cheap, so we may just have to wait for a couple of months for the new machine.
BUMMER!

Lessons in PC Voodoo!

I love urban myths, but I get a secret grin when I tell people some things that I know to be facts and they dismiss them as Urban Myths or me pulling their leg!

My first example is the hard disk in the freezer trick!  If your PC won't boot up and you reckon this is down to a hard disk drive failure then if all things fail I suggest taking the drive out and wrapping it up in cling film or a sealed freezer bag (must be air tight) and then leaving it in the freezer for an hour.  The most common cause of HDD failure is component seizure and rapid cooling can unstick a stuck drive.  However the problem is very likely to recur so this only gives you about 15-30 mins of cold life during which you should back up everything you can from that disk.

My second example is very much a last resort and will only work for a self acknowledged geek.  We all know that in Voodoo rituals you often require the blood of a freshly sacrificed chicken, but given that techno geeks tend to steer clear of anything fresh or bloody, I can confirm that waving frozen chicken portions over a dead PC, three times clockwise and three times anti-clockwise gives a true believer the ability to reboot a stalled system!

If you do find the two tricks above don't work for you all I can say is that (a) the hard disk is REALLY fucked or (b) your faith / geekiness is not true enough.

Further Unleashed

Here are all of the videos on SW Force Unleashed.

Unleashed

The more I see of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed the more I start to salivate!

Look at the video in this post here.

For Sale...

1997 Honda Civic in Red.

One careful owner (and me).

Be warned that this car has a sense of humour and likes to breakdown when it is most inconvenient.

Example 1:  I am in Twickenham and I have to drive to Luton Airport to fly up to Edinburgh...  Car refuses to start and I end up needing a new battery and making my flight by literally seconds.

Example 2:  I am at Lauren's nursery and it is dark, she is tired and wants her tea...  Car won't start and ends up needing a new starter motor.  Fortunately the AA gave me priority service due to Lauren's presence in the car so I was bump started home within 30 mins.

Given that Example 2 was last night, I am very glad that it is pay day today.

Annoyingly Serena and I had already decided to go car hunting this weekend and the car could have been off our hands before the repair was needed...  I have a feeling that the cost of this repair is going to be a nasty shock.

Oh, yeah...  How much?  I'll take £1,500 for cash.  I fact, I'll take £1,000 if you promise to remove it quickly!!!!

Funny or Not?

When I first saw this I laughed, but you do have to feel sad for some of the people involved!

9.30 pm... Time for Bed!

I have a workshop in Brighton starting 8 am tomorrow!  My train leaves London Bridge at 6.21 am, so I need to be out the door at 5.15 am!  That is worse than flying to Glasgow!

Being Responsible!

There are moments I am glad that I have a wife and young family and I therefore have to act responsibly!

For example I could have been in this photo!!!!!

White Knight or Black Hawk?

This article cracked me up!

Lord Preserve Me!

6.30 am start on 2nd January. I need more coffee!!!!
And now they are forecasting snow for tomorrow!
I am not impressed... what happened to Global Warming? I clearly need to up my carbon emmissions!
I'll try the drive to work in snow the first time, but I suspect I may be taking the longer / more expensive train route if it proves to be a nightmare.

After a very busy Christmas and New Year I am looking forward to a quiet January with lots of early nights! I am very sleep deprived! I may even extend that wish into February! I also really need to think about getting back to the gym! (Maybe next week)

I would like to thank Serena publically for an amazing performance of the last 3 weeks. Our oven has never seen so much action!

Happy New Year

HNY2008 from me to all of you!

I must get round to doing my review of the year for 2007....  Someday!

Merry Christmas Everyone

So what do we think the chances are that the big box under the tree is:

(a) For Me

and

(b) a Nintendo Wii?

I'm reckoning slim to none!

We may starve!

What do think?  Is there enough food in the fridge and freezer for Christmas?

Ha Ha!

Whilst Jase's greenfields site may be devoid of celebs, I have spotted one of my all time favourite people in Chiswick today!!!

I saw Hugh Fearney-Whittingstall driving a white van on Chiswick High Road. He's one of my favourite TV chefs and food hero.

Now beat that, Jase!

New Job - First Impressions

So here we are, two weeks into my new job. Time for a bit of a first impressions blog.

Wow! The commute sucks but my new job is great. Once the schools are back my drive to work will take between 60 and 90 mins and my drive home will take 80+ minutes. At the moment it is OK as the traffic is quiet in the morning and manageable in the evening.

My job title is “Senior Business Analyst”, but my role can be summed up as helping the business decide how it wants to change it’s processes and then helping to drive that change though. Most of this will be through IT projects, but it should also include process re-engineering.

I am kind of going back to my roots with this move to L&G, as it’s core business (Protection) is what I started out doing at both Standard Life and NAB.

The people here are all really friendly (even the contractors!) and whilst politics clearly play a part on the day to day machinations of the company, they don’t seem to cause too many blockages.

The building has an odd layout (being like a giant figure 8), and the loos are all in the central hub (which is annoying as I work at the top of the figure 8 and the canteen / café is at the bottom of the 8). The café does a nice cappuccino and the restaurant is reasonably priced (if not subsidised) and the food is of good quality.

Whilst I haven’t got my own laptop yet, the PCs and infrastructure seem to work well, although I am dismayed to be using Office 2000 again. Using Outlook as opposed to Lotus Notes is also a refreshing change.

The current big project is close to deployment and looks like it will work well. The majority of my time at the moment is being spent with the contractors learning about the new system so that, along with the other new starts, we can become the new business experts on the system.

I am the second new analyst to be hired in the last month, with one more joining this week and another in the New Year. I think the ultimate goal is to recruit 5 in total, so they are still one short. The team consists entirely of contractors and a permy manager, so the business is clearly looking for fresh blood to clear out the contractors. I hope we are given ample time for the “knowledge transfer”.

I also need to come up with a new feature for my Blog header as this greenfields site is completely devoid of celebrities! Suggestions on a post card!

Relief and Disaster

I checked my bank account this morning and was relieved to see my Christmas paycheck sitting there, smiling back at me. Not having a proper paycheck for 5 months has been no fun at all. Now I just need to remember my Credit Card bill and not start planning a spending spree!

I then opened my email to find out that a close friend has just been told that he will be one of the 40% of his company being laid off in January.

I'll be doing a "Review of 2007" post next week, and was trying to really be upbeat for Christmas, but news like that really kicks you in the nads. At least I got 3 months' notice from NAB and kind of saw it coming from about 3 months prior to that. I think 1 month's notice out of the blue just before Christmas is the worst thing to do to someone. It ranks up there with 1 week's notice, 2 months before someone's wife is due to give birth!

My commiserations mate. :(