Come in, have a cigar...

Catch-Up IV: Turn It Up To, Er, Four.

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:55:37 GMT

Five months later, what's been and gone?

The 5.5Gen iPod (80GB) given to me by a friend, and later returned to said friend when I splashed out on an 8GB iPod touch, which does Wi-Fi, web, email and all that jazz. It's really more of a PDA that happens to do music. I've taken to carrying that to Uni with me each day instead of the MacBook, simply because it's 5 pounds less of stuff to carry all day (and this semester, all day means all day), which might make me sound weak, but hey - blame British Airways for mashing my back with a 16-hour flight to New York. Never been quite the same since then.

The first semester of the second year of Uni was hard work. Very hard work. That said, the chunks of fun that were scattered liberally throughout made it all worth it, including but not limited to starting MacSoc (Macintosh and Alternative Computing) and becoming the first President, though I am shortly to be deposed along with the rest of the committee at the AGM and will have to stand for re-election.

I hope that I get back in... I'll be minorly pissed if I don't.

Current music is the Beatles' "LOVE" album, which is actually quite good despite being the Beatles, a band whom I respect immensely but very rarely choose to listen to because none of their stuff really interests me. It's much like Da Vinci's Virgin Of The Rocks - it's very good, but if I were choosing a painting to hang in my own house, I'd rather have something a little more exciting.

Not so with LOVE, which is basically a giant album-length (26 track!) mashup designed to back a show by Cirque du Soleil. Some songs are almost exactly as you'd know them aside from the segues - Help and Come Together jump to mind. Others have been chopped up and combined with others, or parts of others, and generally improved by some hugely creative yet very tasteful remixing. Imagine adding a full complement of woodland animals to Virgin Of The Rocks. Not total heresy, but makes it nicer to look at.

The launch of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" came and went, and in fact we're now up to 10.5.2. Goodness, that was a quick one. It's a nice OS, and it's got some great stuff, but I haven't found myself putting it on my PowerMac, which could take it, but I simply don't need the new features on there. It's all a bit evolutionary.

Torchwood has been on too, hasn't it? And what a series it's been! Virtually every episode of Series 2 has been better than pretty much all of Series 1. The balance has been redressed to make it much less dingy, and plenty of humour is now creeping in. Though "Sleeper" somehow made Ianto turn hugely and uncharacteristically camp for one week only.

Ianto: [Mimes picking phone up] Hello? Is there anyone there? No, because the phones are down!

Well, now this entry's getting a little epic, I'll sign off and stick iJournal in my dock. I would like to keep blogging, but I keep forgetting - maybe a dock icon would aid my memory?

And note also my current music - Lady Madonna. Da Vinci painted a couple of them.

No, he did not paint The Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies.

dances

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:00:30 GMT

OK, so I bought Duran Duran's Strange Behaviour album... wow. They did good songs in 7" form (see the Greatest album for 20 or so examples of that...), but the 12" mixes are killers! Extended instrumentals, solos, and the occasional chunks of Simon Le Bon groaning and gasping like, well, like he's, er, yeah.

Oh - and the person on eBay who relisted another Duran Duran album I missed the end of (and it finished with no bids) at my request with a higher starting bid - you shot yourself in the foot there - I went and bought a better one for less money. Your own fault.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and put the Night Version of Girls On Film on. Loud.

Using Macs Becomes A Chore When...

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:53:17 GMT

When people laugh at you and deride you based purely on what OS you run. I wrote an extensive post about this on OG and here are the edited highlights:

"I'm getting increasingly apathetic towards what runs on my computer. The internet outside this forum is chock full of people who want to judge me as a moron or a style tube for using Macs and OS X, and they're bleeding into the real world. The bigger Apple gets, the more trendy it gets to bash them and the closest outlet for this is the users. I've had to endure jibes from people I don't even know when I've gone to lectures and got my MacBook out to take notes. I'm already running XP in a virtual machine because of the demands of my course.

It's getting to the point that I can't be bothered to hold out any more. The MacBook has AppleCare until February 2010, so I'm not making any changes until then, but I'm running out of tenacity and patience. It's stopped being fun."

"The effect of the dripping Mac hatred from both on and off the internet is that over the last few years, I've gone from the proud and ecstatic owner of an iBook to someone who's using a MacBook because it's what's in front of him - the passion and fun have gone.

I should also probably explain this isn't a sudden mood swing - it's been brewing for months, and I recently saw the straw that broke the camel's back on another forum. I'm far too self-conscious, I know, and seeing that in one thread, there were so many people who couldn't see past the shiny exteriors of Macs it just made me want to get out of the rat race, as it were, and settle down with "the norm"."

The thread was a shot in the arm for my confidence of Mac usage, along with the offer from a friend that I should point out the culprit, and he would "deck them". As such, I think I'll be sticking with Mac OS for the time being, with the possibility of putting a bigger hard drive in and dual booting one day.

And then you come across this kind of thing:

http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/parallels-and-vmware-are-gateway-drugs-to-windows/

Summary: Shun Parallels and VMware because they'll entice you back to the world of Windows.

I mean - it's just about as mad as you can get. A valid point, yes, but saying:

"This is why Parallels and VMware are gateway drugs. Using the Nancy Reagan philosophy of “Just Say No,” there is no safe amount of usage for either tool. Both of them, inevitably, will lead to less and less time with OS X and more time with Windows. But just saying no is hard. And saying yes could be the death of the Mac platform."

What?! I shouldn't ever take advantage of the fact I can take the Best Of Both Worlds approach? I shouldn't ever have my cake and eat it until my stomach hurts?

You're having a laugh. Artificially cut myself off from being able to run any binary ever (I've got Linux as well, remember) on principle to ensure the survival of a perfectly healthy platform...

Pish.

*hugs VMware*

On ADSL Broadband and why it leaves a sour taste in my mouth...

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:54:05 GMT

June 30th 2007: Before moving into the shared student house I'm inhabiting with 3 equally mad others next year, I get final confirmation from Virgin Media that I can't get cable.
Early July 2007: It turns out that there's a residual Pipex service on our BT line. We can't get the internet in until September. We decide to go with Be.
September 10th 2007: Be bill me and get the internet set up on our line.
September 14th 2007: Internet goes live. I'm still in Kent - the other inhabitants set the internet up and speed test it for me. It's running at 6 meg - rather than the 24 meg we thought we'd get.
September 15th 2007: After running through all the line tests and troubleshooting steps with Be, it turns out our line is 4km of cable away from the BT exchange. BT said it was 1.2km. Be say that you need to be within 3km of cable from the exchange to get a good service.

Sidenote: At the root of it, this is British Telecom's fault for not knowing how long their own lines are. (Be wouldn't be able to test the line thoroughly before enabling it for their service.)

This is now the second time that I've fallen foul of a crappy phone line foiling decent speed ADSL broadband. The connection works - Simon's been talking to me over MSN. But it's a quarter of the speed we were sold on the strentgh of (loving the weasel words of "up to 24 meg") which is minorly galling but I can live with it. It's the reliability of the connection that I'm worried about. Is this connection going to be able to support 4 people using it without crashing? Is it going to be able to support BBC iPlayer, 4OD and BitTorrent (hey - plenty of legal stuff is exchanged over BitT...) downloads - where quality of connection is critical to getting the file quickly?

I know ADSL works fine for a lot of people in the country - but please can someone explain why it has yet to "just work" for me?

Aqua and X Servers.

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 23:02:58 GMT

Structure of Mac OS X:

Aqua GUI
--------------
Multimedia Frameworks
--------------
Kernel

Structure of Linux:

X Server GUI
-------------------
Kernel

Similar enough.

Now, in Linux, the X Server can crash, same as Aqua can crash in OS X. However, in Linux, you can hit Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and the X Server restarts instantly. After having Aqua crash and lock up on me, I can say:

Please Apple, please, for the love of whatever deity you prefer - add an Aqua reboot key combo and let me do that rather than having to force the whole OS to reboot!

Meme nicked from CMC42...

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 19:38:23 GMT

Your Score: Power Mac G5

You scored 215 skilled, 75 artistic, 35 gamer, and 25 conformity!

You like your computer powerful, but you like it to look good. Look no further than the Power Mac G5. It has the power you need, and the modern art deco look you've been craving. Sure it doesn't run Windows or play games, but it's not like you need either of those things anyway. You play by your own rules.

Link: The Which Computer are You Test written by mridlen on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Woop. I'm a PowerMac. Who woulda guessed? :P

Summer, Sun, Windows Update and Floppy-Haired Vampires.

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:07:27 GMT

Summer, summer, summer - enjoyed by many across the globe on a yearly basis, for others it's a long haul of heat and humidity. Under all my hair, it's definitely heat and humidity for me. (No, my hair is in no way linked to the vampire of the title - hang on for that.) The London Underground plays no small part in this, being too hot, too humid and underground. However, it did take me to the London Eye and the Dali exhibition on Westminster Pier on Wednesday, and the Science Museum and Covent Garden Market on Saturday. All in all, two good day trips.

Oh, and the Regent Street Apple Store on Wednesday. Where I may or may not have bought one of the new wired Apple Keyboards. It's pleasantly relaxing to type on.

*kicks family Windows computer*

Trying to do two years of updates in one afternoon is a BAD idea...

I've also been discovering new TV shows. Shaun The Sheep for one is amazing - it's all silent comedy and produced by some of the people behind the amazing Rex The Runt series of claymations from 1998/2001. As such, it's regularly much, much cleverer than being a TV show about sheep would lead you to believe, but still fun at the same time.

Next up on the list of newly discovered shows is Blood Ties, in which a private investigator woman teams up with a Vampire (with suitably floppy hair), who just happens to be the 500 year old illegitimate son of King Henry VIII. What he's doing in America, I'm not sure. Oddly enough, the floppy-haired vampire bloke seemed to be being made the unique selling point of the series during the commercials and voice-overs on LivingTV*, which was a shame, because I thought it deserved a little bit more than that - maybe (and I'm going out on a limb here) it could be promoted on the strength of the plot and storytelling? Anyway, I'm following the storyplot with interest.

Oh - and House. That's great - Hugh Laurie is slightly American whilst he tries to cure people of odd illnesses without having to either see them or be even remotely cheerful. Best bits, though, are his conversations with clinic patients. Anyone who's seen it will know what I mean.

*This reminds me of that series called Supernatural, which ITV trailered with "Nights In White Satin" as backing music and the tagline "Scary just got sexy." Which, frankly, just sounds like there was another tiff in the Spice Girls.

Right, is there anything else? Ah - yes. I now have a full 2GB of RAM for my MacBook. This pleases both me, and the pixes that run it.

Catch-Up III: This Time It's Impersonal

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:37:46 GMT

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

"You are the 100-sided dice, also known as the legendary Zocchihedron. You are the bit of data that registers so far off the chart that the average person doesn't even know you exist. You are desperate for attention and will get it any way you can. Your jokes have the lowest laugh ratio, but you go for quantity, not quality. Once you get started on a pointless tangent, it takes a group effort to bring you back to reality and make you shut up. You are a distraction who is permanently distracted. You consider yourself silly and entertaining, but everyone else complains about how lame and annoying you are. The one secret they aren't telling you, is how they sometimes actually miss the noise when you're gone."

Oh yes. :P

OK, so the rest of Doctor Who Series III rocked (Blink = AMAZING, Utopia = Masterful, The Sound Of Drums = Baby, baby, you are my Voodoo Child, Last Of The Time Lords = SQUEEEEEE!), I got a 1st for my first year of Uni (71%!), I'm a d100 and I'm now running OS X, Windows XP and Kubuntu Linux on my MacBook through the magic of VMware Fusion. Oh, and the University paid me to play with Liquid Nitrogen and Lasers for 4 weeks. :D

More when I think of it.

Recent Who, Exams, And A New Umbrella

Thu, 31 May 2007 12:00:33 GMT

Ah, exams have started, and the day before the first, wouldn't you know that I go get a head cold? Lovely.

The two I've had so far seemed to go OK, so fingers crossed and brian (not typo. :P) in gear for the final one next Tuesday. That shouldn't be too bad. Course, saying that, it'll now be dreadful. And so it goes on.

Right, Who-review...

42 - Real-time? Now, that's an idea... though I'd be interested to hear how long passed between the climax and the ending - did the Doctor and Martha spend only about 50 minutes on the spaceship? Just running off when their work was done? Seems like someone's trying to move on all the time still. And all that business about Mr Saxon - just what is going on here? One thing's sure - I'm going to be on the edge on my seat come episodes 11, 12 and 13.

Human Nature - Wow. Just - wow. I had reservations about how the story would translate from the 7th to the 10th Doctor, but it was pulled off just fantastically. I never for a moment believed I was watching an adaptation of a novel written for a different Doctor. And that journal - there's something I'd pay money for a replica of...

And I'm already starting to get jittery about The Family Of Blood - and here's hoping for another veiled reference to Mr Saxon and his plans... :D

New umbrella? Ah, yes... may last golfing umbrella was destroyed in a freak gust of wind at the end of the last rainy season. As such, I've managed with rubbishy little ladies' ones - but I finally managed to get myself a new proper one a few days ago. Even if it does say "ENGLAND" all over it and is red and white in the shape of the flag of St. George.

And one more thing... Apple's WWDC conference is approaching, and so approaches a Stevenote. Rumours point to a replacement for the Mac Mini and updates to the MacBook Pro and iMac. I'm wondering if they're going to bring back the old G4 Cube in the niche it should have filled to begin with - a low end, expandable machine.

June looks exciting from here.

New-Who, Delays, Bank Holidays, 2RAMs, Winning The West and A Surfeit Of 13C NMR Data.

Sat, 05 May 2007 20:14:09 GMT

18:05, 4/5/2007

Ladies and Gentlemen, come 12th May 2007, the unthinkable will happen. Doctor Who will be bumped a week to accommodate Eurovision and Any Dream Will Do. It's the end of the world. Or so the outrage in Doctor Who fandom will have you believe. Which makes me wonder why they're so outraged without good reason... (though some do have legitimate reasons to be annoyed, like plans made deliberately for after the end of the series)... but they are. When a thread grows to 15 pages in a day or two, all full of people saying "I'm outraged! Write to the BBC!" and others saying "Get a life!" it really does make you wonder.

As for the rest of the New-Who Series 3 setup...

Smith and Jones - Vampiric Old Ladies, Gothic Galactic Policemen and Leather Men. What's not to love? :P
The Shakespeare Code - Not bad at all. Highlight is the end, oddly enough. That was a blinder.
Gridlock - Yes. Yes, yes, yes. What a premise and the execution! And hints of bestiality, but we'll let them slide for now, I think. Brain bleach, anyone?
Daleks In Manhatten/Evolution of the Daleks - Now, this is where the ball was dropped for me... I just can't raise an opinion past "Meh." They just failed to engage me. Sad, because the premise was good.

Now, we await the screening of The Lazarus Experiment in around 24 hours. I'm picking up an odd vibe about this one... it might just be something great. ;)

And now for something completely different - my MacBook has only 2 RAMs (using the designation of 1 RAM = 512MB to avoid needless jargon) and is paging like mad. It doesn't affect the performance much, though, so I'm in two minds about whether to upgrade it. I'm really getting to the point where everyone around me is pimping their Macs like there's no tomorrow and I'm sitting here wondering whether I should just hop off the upgrade treadmill once and for all. Just say "That's it. End." and not upgrade any more. No more RAM, no bigger hard drive, no Leopard. The machine does everything I want of it - so why push it to do more? It's a tricky decision.

*is distracted by pizza*

*real life intervenes*

14:25, 5/5/2007

Right, back to the journal entry. I'm now in The Giddy Bridge, in Southampton. A nice place, does good food. And I have a Southern Fried Chicken Wrap on order. Yum.

Now, Winning The West, or more precisely How The West Was Won - a fantastic live album by Led Zeppelin. Expensive, but great.

21:10, 5/5/2007

The food arrived. :P

So, looking forward to and back at the Lazarus Experiment - it was utterly schizophrenic. It was on one hand, totally by the numbers, and yet it was also so magnificently curiosity-inducing. Mr Saxon seems to be arriving on the scene. And if the rumours I've been hearing are true - he's both arrived and not arrived at the same time. But he will be.

And the surfeit of 13C NMR data? I finished dealing with that 3 hours ago.

Kaiser Chiefs and LEGO Star Wars

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:53:47 GMT

"Yours Truly, Angry Mob" by the Kaiser Chiefs is a rather natty album... standouts being "Retirement" and "The Angry Mob". It's not really got another "I Predict A Riot" in the sense that the songs on there won't really penetrate public consciousness on the scale that IPAR did - that song became almost ubiquitous at one point. But public consciousness has a history of ignoring some rather fantastic songs, so I'm not going to let that get in the way. But that's not a slur on IPAR - that's just genius.

LEGO Star Wars - I was a bit hesitant about buying this for my MacBook, as it's got integrated graphics, and they're traditionally looked down on for gaming. As it turns out, I think that might well have an element of snobbery about it. The graphics aren't wonderful and amazing, but they're playable, and I'm not ruling out the MacBook for serving as a low-end secondary purpose gaming rig. Sure, I'd have liked a MacBook Pro, but I've not got the surfeit of money or lack of sense to blow £1500 on a laptop in my current position, and that's ignoring my worries about the Pro's portability (even 13.3 inch is pushing it for the limits of what I'm willing to lug around...).

And finally... Lab Reports are hard to concentrate on.

The Great-3-Month-Catch-Up, Vol. 2...

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:21:57 GMT

Mhmm. They went quick, didn't they?

Another term of Uni, some rather good results and two new computers. First up, a PowerMac G4 with 17-inch screen (currently on loan to a friend with a dodgy Win XP laptop) and a MacBook Core2 2.0GHz.

My beloved iBook has been passed on to my Dad after the hard drive made some funny noises in a Physics of the Solar System lecture. As of the moment, it still works, but there's no way I'd trust it with important data, and I can't afford to lose anything, so I would have had to replace the hard drive. At a cost of about 50% of the value of the computer (which is about 60% of what I paid for it...). That just wasn't making sense on a G4 iBook. So down to the Apple Store in Southampton...

Oh yes, we have an Apple Store. I got a free T-Shirt by being one of the first 1000 in the door.

... and buy a MacBook. That took 2 hours of faffing about looking for codes and trying to get the connection to head office back up. But there we go, you gotta buy when you gotta buy and I'm getting used to the new keyboard, larger touchpad and integrated webcam. Though at 13.3 inches in 16:10 ratio - it's a bit bulkier. And a bit heavier. But much thinner. Oh, and it's white. I wanted the black, but it would have cost too much.

Well, 19 in under a week... good grief, where did that year go? Where did the other 18 go? Just another and it'll be the big 20. Phew.

New discoveries? The Mighty Boosh - they're funny. Deep Purple's "Made In Japan" album is amazing. The Darkness's second album, "One Way Ticket To Hell... And Back" wasn't as good as the first, but it's got "English Country Garden" on it. Which rocks with a whiff of Queen...

Ah - music - new iPod too. Shuffle this time, due to waning Nano battery life. Though the Nano is still good if there's power, and I could probably squeeze a car trip out of it if I charged it the night before.

There's lots more stuff I might write about at some point, but for the moment, that'll do.

The great 3-month Catch Up.

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 16:03:50 GMT

So, Uni. First term come and gone. I've acquired the Doctor Who Werewolf figure I wanted to adorn my desk - and very nice he is. I call him Mini-Wolfie. Torchwood has been running around in circles for about 10-11 weeks, and that's been fun, if a little full of the feeling it might have been better. My DVD box set of Series 2 of Doctor Who's here, and the 5.1 kicks bum.

Back to the topic of Uni. It's been cool - Southampton is a fantastic place, full of life, and the people are amazing. The course hasn't been bad, either - combination of interesting and fun, and the lab sessions have on occasion been full of particularly interesting chemicals. And we get free supplies of purple nitrile gloves. Useful if you don't want to spend money on washing up gloves. Or want to pretend to be a chicken. A purple one.

Anything else?

Ah. Neraly had to replace my beloved iBook G4 with an Intel Mac to run Windows as a dual-boot. Luckily that got avoided by finding a Mac equivalent of the chemical drawing software we needed. Phew.

More?

Managed to introduce loads of Uni friends to The Moody Blues. You wouldn't think that other people actually like long proggy flute solos, but they apparently do. But then, on the other end of the scale, we found Reflex. It's a bar. It plays 80s music like Soft Cell and Eurythmics and Europe until 2am. Man, there were some good parties there. :D

Hopefully I'll get around to writing here again before March...

People Sometimes Really Annoy Me.

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:48:37 GMT

In the last 24 hours, on two normally sensible internet forums, I have been inferred to be a n00b, and had my musical tastes made a mockery of. Man, I'm pissed off.

Holiday and New Stuff

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 21:28:29 GMT

OK, back from holiday a week ago, and it was a lovely relax. Plus the whole fact I got into my first choice Uni with 3 "A"s, a "B" and a "C" at A2 was nice to know. Southampton - here I come!

Here are two backdated LJ entries from whilst I was on holiday:

- - -

No. More. Millennium.

Written: Friday, 25 August 2006 - Saturday, 26 August 2006.

It's midnight exactly and I've just decided that those Millennium Season 3 DVDs are going on eBay. Or in a cupboard or somewhere. I have just spent 15 minutes lying in the dark in our holiday cottage utterly petrified of the insight into the twisted minds of killers that Chris Carter so nicely provided when trying to move away from The X-Files. So much so, that I am sitting here with the light on and Syd Barrett's "The Madcap Laughs" playing to try and regain some composure. I sincerely doubt I'll sleep tonight and I'm writing this largely in an excorcism attept to try and get my mind around the rational side of things.

I did think I'd managed to get over childhood paranoias and nightmares, but Frank Black's exploits have touched a raw nerve after seeing only 10 episodes - the final two a year and a bit back, the pilot about two weeks ago, and the first seven of Season Three after I bought them on DVD.

I'm sure some will read this with some level of smirking. If you are smirking, then you really don't know what just happened inside my head, and have no appreciation of how terrifying the human imagination can be to itself.

- - -

Apple Battery Recall

Written: Saturday, 26 August 2006.

So I have to send off to Apple for a replacement battery because my iBook uses a power cell similar to the ones involved in the great exploding Dell debacle. Great. Thanks Sony. With delivery listed as up to 6 weeks, and being off to Uni about 4 weeks from the earliest date I can send off for a replacement - I shall have to continue using the existing one until the replacement arrives. Though, I do also plan to drop by the Apple Store at Bluewater to see if they can do anything.

Happy First Birthday, MiBook G4. Have a new battery.

- - -

As an amendment to that last one - I discovered that my iBook has a battery that is one of a good batch not affected by the recall. So relief all round there.

Also grabbed a Bluetooth Mighty Mouse for myself. It's got the comfortable bits of the old Apple Pro Mouse and the multibutton bits of every other mouse on the market. And a rather cool omnidirectional scroll ball. It's hugely excessive, but it's really great to be able to properly cut the cable without losing the comfort factor of the Pro Mouse. Plus the laser track system removes the great "cursor leaps for the corner of the screen" problem. "Problem?" you shout. Well, when you have hot corners activating everything from iTunes to Expose to Screensaver, it is.

And finally - I want one of the new Werewolf figures from the Doctor Who toys range thing. That is SO what I want adorning my desk at Uni.

Awaiting Uni Results

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:46:45 GMT

Well, 15 minutes until the UCAS tracker is supposed to go live with the result of my university application. This is tense.

Long time no see...

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:44:32 GMT

Well, in the time since my last update, I've got properly into Led Zeppelin, got Pink Floyd's P*U*L*S*E on DVD (kickass!), got a job (wall-to-wall Microsoft, but I'm paid to use it) and got jittery about the A-Level results coming on the 17th. Hmm.

Also, I took th Dante's Hell test thing.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Cripes. I'll just sit here and wave a trident about a bit.

Kasmir-Who. Seriously.

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:54:14 GMT

Right. Once I was arguing with someone that if Warner-Chapell ever withdrew the BBC's rights to the Doctor Who theme, they should use Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. Well, I got bored. And using iMovie 6 at G4 speed, I carefully chopped the front off Girl In The Fireplace and spliced a live version of Kasmir over the titles.

Does it work?

Judge for yourself.

Clicky heere.

Doomsday...

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:50:08 GMT

So, we draw to a close another series of New-Who, with a episode that topped even Army Of Ghosts, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and The Girl In The Fireplace. The ending may have been a bit drawn out, but it was a fitting farewell to Rose Tyler. In true Who style though, the sadness wasn't how we were all left hanging. A bride appeared in the TARDIS - and the end credits carried a note that "Doctor Who Will Return At Christmas In The Runaway Bride". As for the choice of person to play the bride - I may not like the Catherine Tate Show, but I'm willing to take her on her merits as an actress.

And also, we know the next companion will be played by Freema Agyeman. As I've never actually seen her other than her brief appearance in Army Of Ghosts, I can't really judge what she'll be like.

And finally, I have eaten way too much in the last 3 days. So I'm going to lie down and make odd noises for a bit.

Army Of Ghosts

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 20:12:01 GMT

This is likely the quickest update after an episode of Who. Well, this was the first one that caused me to actually emit a bizarre noise of delight and excitement. That was likely the best episode of New-Who so far, and quite possibly the best episode of Who full stop. Shivers up, down and across the spine.

I'm utterly lost for words, actually.

RTD, I raise a glass to you.

Goodbye School!

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 09:11:37 GMT

Ah. Exams done. That's a really nice feeling. :)

The customary Doctor Who comment: Fear Her was cool, not the best but not the worst. But still miles better than most of the rubbish that hits TV screens. Yes, Eastenders, I'm looking at you...

Now - I have spent waaaay too much money this week. My search for the perfect keyboard has finally ended, and after taking in models from Advent, Microsoft and Datel, I have settled on a current-model Apple Keyboard. The Datel and the Advent were squishy and horrible to type on, the Microsoft clicked with a truly horrible sound... I'm so picky about this. Anyway, the Apple has a good balance between squish and feedback, and the sound doesn't make me want to throw it out of the window.

And on another note - I did choose this one because it was the best one for me - I would still have had it if it had "Bum Corp. of Tilliton" written on it.

Ah - Black Books! An amazing work of genius. Dylan Moran as a drunk Irish guy - bliss! And Bill Bailey! All three series have been reduced on DVD, so I give them a "Thoroughly Recommended" rating.

And another DVD - The Eagles Farewell 1 Live From Melbourne. Ungainly title, but brilliant concert. At more than 2 1/2 hours, there's a wealth of great songs, and the DTS production is just gorgeous. Standout: cliched, but it's got to be Hotel California.

Then of course, back to the Who for the first part of the season finale tonight - Army Of Ghosts. Oooh... the tension...

Doctor Who Fans do it again...

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:44:50 GMT

Well, The Satan Pit didn't disappoint. Rather wonderful, that was...

Love & Monsters was also great fun. However, something about it wasn't. I said a couple of posts back about Doctor Who Fans and obsessiveness and bitterness and such. Well. World Wars III, IV and V borke out on a DW forum I frequent on Saturday night. There was name-calling. There was bitching. It was like a bad 80s soap opera all over again. Shame they weren't slapping each other.

Following on from the 80s... I bought a copy of "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Brilliant slice of camp pop - the over-produced 14-minute title track is the standout, but then you've also got "War", "Two Tribes", "The Power Of Love" and the one and only "Relax".

And finally. I've had a go with a MacBook Pro. I thought a G4 ran hot. Core Duos run even hotter. 60 degrees C from normal usage. I'm keeping the iBook until the heat issues get sorted.

Various random stuffs.

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:39:12 GMT

First up, Doctor Who. Age Of Steel, The Idiot's Lantern and The Impossible Planet have all gone out since my last update. Age of Steel was OK, not brilliant, but still not bad. The Idiot's Lantern was a real corker for me - lots of energy and pace running through that one. And a surprising domestic violence in the 1950s subplot. But all are nothing compared to The Impossible Planet.

The Impossible Planet was a true masterpiece of Who. Eerie, scary, and with what promises to be a downright terrifying monster next week - Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Satan himself! If the second part (The Satan Pit) is as good as the first part, then there will be sci-fi fans up and down the country jumping up and down with joy and generally passing out with the excitement of the Doctor and Rose going to a totally alien planet, with totally alien aliens. Also, the Ood look like Zoidberg from Futurama, so that's an extra cool point for them.

So I'm looking forward to that.

Second, tomorrow is the sixth day of the sixth month of two thousand and six. (Nice little creepy coincidence that The Impossible Planet was giving out energy at the rate of six to the power of six every six seconds, and that Satan will be around next week.) So I dug out my copy of Guns N' Roses Greatest Hits and finally got around to listening to their cover of "Sympathy For The Devil" by The Rolling Stones. Amazing song. Must look out the Stones' version sometime. So, will the world end tomorrow? Meh. Didn't end on 6/06/1006. Or 6/06/0006. And frankly, one wonders why the Devil would even bother following our calendar.

Ah, thirdly, something Demonic. Strange - a fantasy TV series from 2003 starring Richard Coyle and Samantha Janus as demon hunters. IT's been re-running on the Sci-Fi Channel, and it is damn creepy. It creeped me three years back, and the memories of it haven't lied to me.

And finally, I hate Maths revision. Thank you.

"Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name!" - Sympathy For The Devil.

I've found a group worse than Mac users.

Fri, 19 May 2006 17:08:46 GMT

A few weeks back, I wrote about Mac zealots (1% of the community who bitch, bitch, bitch, and give the rest of us a bad name). Well, I've found a group who are worse. Doctor Who fans. Now, I am one, and a relatively normal one at that. I belong to a Who forum called Outpost Gallifrey. Mainly, I go there for fun and banter, and have discussed Who itself about once. At which point I was called thick for holding an opinion.

Well, to cut a long story short, there's a bloke, and he mouthed off about stuff, and has left said forum to start his own. But the controversy surrounding him! Name-calling, threats, personal insults - on forums not even linked to the place the mouthing-off was going on at!

So, there are Who nutters. And I mean nutters. To them also, the message - "Grow up!"

Well, I haven't mentioned Rise of the Cybermen" yet. It was great. Not a huge in-depth analysis of the human psyche, just fun TV. However, "Girl in the Fireplace" was not just fun TV. It was amazing TV! I was utterly riveted to that one. But I still have that soft spot for "Tooth and Claw". :)

Also, on a tangential note... Microsoft have announced you'll need 1GB of RAM and 15GB of hard drive and a 128MB graphics card (dedicated) to run Windows Vista. Eek! I'd be utterly terrified if I relied on Windows machines now. Because nothing I'd have ever afforded so far would have those specs. And then I'd have to buy the software! Also, what is the point in saying that the Home Edition won't connect to a server-based network? Crap.

Make no mistake, however, this is not because I hate Microsoft. If Apple did the same thing, they'd get the same treatment.

Another mid-week Who post.

Thu, 04 May 2006 17:05:24 GMT

School Reunion this time. Nice to see Sarah-Jane back, complete with K9 (who is currently in the process of being made into a solo CGI cartoon for Jetix), and a set of evil and distinctly menacing monsters. However, the whole thing got a bit soppy near the end, with the goodbyes and all that.

I'm not even going to attempt a full-fledged review now. I have to write SQL for an ICT exam paper.

In other news, I've found a great comic called Kernel Panic about some UNIX geeks running a company network, and trying to avoid the switch to the new "Doorways" operating system. Hehehe. Boogie on over to ubersoft.net/kpanic for that.