Gareth Evans

Screaming like a little biatch!

That is all.

Rant!

Not really...too tired and "Teh System" is slow due to ripping, transferring, backing up and cutting my own hair!



Not least various other networking things going...

And seriously GOOD LUCK to Peachie Keen!

I wish a major fashion chain wanted my pants!!1!

Just a quick post...

Realised I hadn't posted for a while...so here's a few piccies.



Oh, and congratulations to Peachie Keen who look like they are going to be stocked by Top Shop!!!

Epiphany

Had a wonderful (which is odd) trip to London today for a meeting...at the new offices...very near Paddington so much less hassle than before...plus it was OK (e.g organised)...and I found a book...

I have rarely found books that affect (effect?) me deeply: Stranger In A Strange Land (Heinlein), History Of Western Philosophy (Russell)...Pity The Nation (Fisk), The Wishing Chair (Blyton)...and probably many others.

Finding this book was opportune. I've recently been interested in (again) Dice-Theory and more deeply: The unbearable lightness of being.

Long story short; I decided to say, "Yes".

Things that happened: Yes + 0:
- Gave £1.63 to a bloke who asked for spare change (So had no change for train home, got taxi...found fiver in back of cab)
- Possibility of a (hideous) job in Marketing (there is another HR issue which means maybe only chance of payrise)
- Lil on Saturday (there are trains on Saturday, not on Sunday when I normally have her!!!)
- Lots to do at work tomorrow

I may start a separate YesBlog... ;o

3G

3 Generations that is...I only just realised we had 3 generations of "my bit" of the Smith family in one room!



M&D were down last Saturday and we had a wonderful few hours with Lil...and Lil seemed to really enjoy it too. She was a bit shy (just sort of staring and quiet) for the first 10 minutes or so, but was soon captivated (especially by Grandad's tricks...see video below!).



I'll lett the pics etc do the rest....except to say: I am definitely getting a haircut! I'm going to book the appointment tomorrow!! As soon as I get the number for Sean's place again off John!!!



Damn that's some long hair...

Shame you don't see Grandad in any of the pics....but someone had to hold the camera and the video of Granny Jan with the Faery Cloth didn't seem to encode very well (plus waiting for 54 Meg to upload to YouTube is no fun)...

So here it is...

Merry Lil-mas!!!



Everybody's having fun...



Lil for the future man....



She's only (nearly) 8 months ooooooo-oooold...



She loves a bit of dub though....played some Dillinger, Bob and also some Toots & The Maytals...she loved it all (bouncing up and down in her box).

BTW, you may think it cruel to put a baby in a box, but apparently I spent a large part of my formative years playng in a cardboard box in the corner of the kitchen...never did me any harm ;-)

Even though the box is stuffed full of toys and things to chew on Lil has discovered that the box is (relatively) edible. I turned my back for a few minutes, wondered why it was quiet, and when I turned round she'd gnawed an inch square section. I have just realised that what I need is something like the big plastic tub I have to keep my T-Shirts in...

END.

Fairhaven

Big shout going out to the one like Buck who popped down fo tea & toast with Lil and I this morning.

There will be pictures tomorrow as I'm having her again for a couple of hours...I'm saving them all up for you :-)

In the meantime, please check out the video below. It's the kind of school I wish I'd been to...only not in Amerika!

When all is said and done...

...I fell asleep listening to my Buddha Machine after reading a bit of my all time favourite book. Which is, when all is said and done, a lot more Old Skool than I have been recently [cf. geeking out on Linux and the new Mac Mini I got]...

The gig last night was odd...crap support acts, a strange mix of people and very smoky, and I had a couple of rum & cokes with Ricola(F)

I think I may have actually made a mistake in getting the micro-freeview thingamuhickey added to the mega-system....not having had a TV for nearly a year I was expecting great things (in terms of sitting on the sofa entertained), but lo and behold, it is still all absolute c***ing s*i*e!



Mind you, I've basically just backgrounded it with a schedule of things to record, and made an Automator script to copy recordings to the correct directory (based on show info, e.g. Documentary, Film (with genre) etc) on the external hard drive when done. In the meantime, Knight Rider is dl'ing for Hen & since he suggested it I think I may enjoy watching again too...

So, with a day off work what did I do? Tried building more bits of Stealth Video Cams for ZSL & Joe...then I took Lil to the park for a bit before coming back to mine for some singing!



My cuz Chris has updated his website (and got maxxed out in the process ;), but you really should check out this!



Dear Jarn, please calm down about the Mac/Linux thing....you know that I know that we all know that I am right!

BLEEP!

OK OK I was wrong.....look around...Bleep Player should be here somewhere...

Now you can thank JP for me assualting your ears as well as your eyes!

Parp!

I have also updated the Digg links thing on the right....no longer is it Main Page...just my Dugg stuf...and that's only cos I have no memory (they're all in my Bookmarks too....somewhere).

W00t!

Cocktails with Pants tomorrow, then off to see Babel...Wednesday off work!

Where the hell is my EyeTV!

Hmmm Camino....?

...some odd browser behaviour from Camino....maybe I'll just have to get the Blogger widget instead and bypass all this old fashioned browser nonsense ;-)

Anyway...great morning with Lil today. Here's some pics of the pigs she seems to love.




Hanging out with Dad....


Oh and in case I haven't said it today: Mac's Rule (but so does Linux)!

Thiiiis oooonnneeesss ffffoooorrr Jjjjaaaaaaaahhhhn!!!

Sung in a high-pitched ghey voice.

Your 'Mr Piss' Bleep Odeo was funny but wrong. I cannot 'syndicate' (that is the word you were looking for) such a feed....I have however added it to my Bloglines in that whole Web 2.0, "let's share" kinda way.

Hopefully I'll be arsed enough tomorrow to post some pics of Lil; not sure what we're up to tomorrow...depends on the weather really.

BTW Buckle, your car still rules the roadz!

Just that I rule the I [dot] T [dot] Sh1zzle!!!1!1!!

Oh noes, the Mac is amazing and my other PC is still Linux and all are happily talking to each other...if only I can get Frontrow to use DivX/XVid AVI I'm a laffing!


END!

I got Mac...

...no Windows in my house, except those I use to look out of.



Wooo!!1!1!!!...I am mildly confused by the current 2 Monitors,2 Mice & 2 Keyboard thing...keep typing on the wrong thing...thats the Mini on the left, remote in front of it, Gumstix to the right (under the 19"monitor)...2 Mices...2 Phat phlat screens!!



Hey, thank the mo' for Apple hardware/Software though! I wont be leaving the house for weeks except for the essentials: work, food, air and sun....

I've yet to take a pic with the Craptop added to the mix! It usually sits on myleft...

Look at that mini Mac! (mini Linux machine also shown...next to an old-skool Valve!)

There are no pictures today.

Evening.

I feel a rant coming on; brace yourselves for typos, probable swearing, and generally....well ranting and punctuation in inappropriate places.

So, the other night I decided I would have a preview of the next release of Ubuntu (Dapper Drake Flight 6 to be precise). Now, I know I have been a bit of an advocate of Linux in general recently and Ubuntu (and, sort of by default, Debian), but there were two completely unexpected outcomes of trying this...one of which was probably down to me (OK, was down to me) and the other definitely down to knowing more than just the basics when "f*cking with the system".

A favourite hobby of mine.

PRECONDITIONS:
i - I use an external USB 250Gb Drive for storing 90% of my media, personal and work files.
ii - I backed up /home (that's like "My Documents" and more for you Windows only people)
ii - I downloaded the LiveCD (that means it all runs from the CD)
iv - I am scared of messing with Boot Loaders (see GRUB)

METHOD & RESULTS:
1 - LiveCD Torrent downloaded very quickly and burnt [45 mins total]
[Take that Mico$oft!....did I mention that cost me nothing]
2 - Dapper is fast! Even with the LiveCD it's a little faster for many things than than my Breezy install.
[Breezy runs faster than XP on my machine!....Take that Bill!]
3 - So I ran the "This is GREAT! Install it" application linked on the Desktop. No problem....took about 30 mins [*bof*], looked good....restarted.

Everything was broken! Not even an Operating System.

Stuck the Breezy CD in, rebooted, waited an hour, ran Automatix, waited an hour.

[ *quak*]

Edit a file. Bobs your uncle all back!

CONCLUSION:
A - Learn a little more than the basics about your computer or find someone who does and that you trust.

B - F|_|cK Microsoft! Not literally....but why use them? Human usable Linux distributions do exist and they are not difficult to setup alongside or in place of Windoze! But make sure you get a Linux distro you can use as you want!

C - None of this cost me anything except a bit of time and a desire to go to the pub! If I'd been using Windows and it all borked I'd probably have had to pay (or steal) some of the software along the way! And it would have taken longer!!!

Some other fantastic news. Bristol Wireless have moved to the St Werb's Community Centre so I am hoping to get my CANtenna built at last....then I can connect for free at about the same speed as I have now....however I personally have some qualms about using a free access point, regardless of the professionality of the installation. I'm still going to do it though, if not at least so I can connect R (who has been thinking BBand)....wow, how about a repeater station on R's roof to a secure access point at mine, that connects back to the StWCC?!?

My brain hurts.

In other news, I removed the pink sofa from my lounge to the bin area for it to be collected tomorrow morning (for 15 notes to the council) on my own, but then collected loads of old boxes and big crap from neighbours and added it to the pile. A clean yard is a happy yard! Now I need to buy a dining table that can double as another work area (or vice versa)...

Tomorrow is the official day of conception of GuriNet...fully-fledged GuriMedia will be here with the arrival of EyeTV ;) and getting a decent WLAN bridge together...explanation and pics to come.

Scheduled a massive p!ss-up in Bruxelles for early May to celebrate the launch of a platform I had nothing to do with at the time....way to go I say!

Lil has more teeth coming so is red-cheeked and grumpy, but we had an OK time today....Sunday might be harder.

That is all.

Un Post pour Yasmina

This post is for Yasmina from Paris, who was intrigued by mention of The City Farm here in St Werburghs...the nearest translation I can come up with is "Ferme Citoyenne"....Citizens' Farm.

Anyway the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. But I just want to say that I love the fact that this resource is available pretty much in the middle of the city.



The farm sits in the hollow between lots of hills...a pearl at the bottom of the teacup.

There is a wonderful cafe with a small adventure playground.

Little Pigs....the massive pig was not there today.

There a couple of sheep, ducks, turkeys, chickens....

My personal favourite...Goat!

Lots of useful shops near my house!

This is the park that I can see from my window...Lil's favourite is the swings!


And here's a bad shot of Lil in the harness :)




In other news: The desk is finally built and installed with all the gadgetron required....except I went a bit mad this week and bought a Mac Mini....I know, I know...but it's sooo small and I can use BootCamp to run Windows XP on it too if I should be so mad.....Miniscule (16.5 x 16.5 x 5 cm) Home Theatre PC here I come!



Here's Lil before we set off.