All these games have gone into the bin. All old VGA and Windows 95/98 rubbish but still very emotional to throw away all these old friends. Hey-ho, at least I can move around in my den now ...
25 October, 2007
Look what Vista made me do!
All these games have gone into the bin. All old VGA and Windows 95/98 rubbish but still very emotional to throw away all these old friends. Hey-ho, at least I can move around in my den now ...
23 October, 2007
F4 Phantom cockpit
Here I am in the cockpit of the F4 Phantom jet fighter Simulator at the Yorkshire Flight Centre, near Knaresborough. The whole thing is on a hydraulic rig to simulate movement. I've played Flight Simulator on my PC for years, but this was something else! They had me flying on the deck, under pylon wires, and between the towers at Dounreay power station. I definitely would have caused a nuclear incident if I had been flying for real. It's nice not to have to pay the consequences of your actions - other than being thrown around the cockpit if I got a bit too energetic with the ol' joystick . Couldn't stop grinning for ages :-)
22 October, 2007
09 October, 2007
Back to normal
Don't think we'll be having lunch on the lawn today. That's not a pond, that's the bowling green. :-(
07 October, 2007
October sunshine
Denise patiently (!) waiting for me to stop faffing around and join her in an al-fresco lunch on an unseasonably beautiful October day. Maybe I didn't miss summer after all :-)
05 October, 2007
I found a photo of my old Tenni on my phone
This is the other Guzzi I had before the Breva. It's totally retro-racer in stying, in Moto Guzzi racing silver and green. The photo's only in VGA resolution, from my old camera phone, so it's not brilliant. But there you go; you get the idea.
For anyone interested in bike tech, it had Brembo Serie Oro (Gold Series) brakes, upside-down titanium-nitride coated Marzocchi forks, a lightened competition clutch, carbon-fibre silencers (to reduce weight!), and was one of only 200 made, I think. I was gutted when it was written off after a relatively low speed drop when I skidded on some oil.
Something for nothing!
Did you know you can get free smoke alarms from your local Fire Brigade (or Fire and Rescue Service, as they like to be called now)? One of the nurses asked me if I'd like a safety check at home, and considering I'm not as mobile as I was, I thought it was a good idea.
They told me a couple of things I didn't know before, such as you can be overcome by smoke within 15 breaths! After five you're feeling short of breath, after 10 you're feeling woozy, and after 15 you're down and out. Got to consider that if you're thinking of making a run for it though the smoke. Another thing they told me was how to break a double-glazed window if you're trapped in a room with a window that doesn't open: you hit the corner with a blunt instrument. If you start hitting the middle, you'll be there all day.
The smoke alarms they fit have 10 year batteries in them, so no more going out to the garage for a ladder in the middle of the night when they start going beep! beep! as the battery gets low. When the battery does run out, it gives a warning beep, and you dial a phone number to get the whole unit replaced. Oh, and I keep forgetting to clean it. These things have a little grill in them, and you just get the hoover onto that, and you're done. No having to get up there and open it.
Another 'did you know': a wooden door can hold back a fire for 30 minutes, so the best thing to do, if trapped in the house, is to shut yourself up in a room with a phone in it, stuff a blanket at the bottom of the door, and dial 999 (or 112).
I'd really recommend having this check done. You can find the number in your phone book.
There you go. A bit of safety advice, from someone who cares about you. :-)
They told me a couple of things I didn't know before, such as you can be overcome by smoke within 15 breaths! After five you're feeling short of breath, after 10 you're feeling woozy, and after 15 you're down and out. Got to consider that if you're thinking of making a run for it though the smoke. Another thing they told me was how to break a double-glazed window if you're trapped in a room with a window that doesn't open: you hit the corner with a blunt instrument. If you start hitting the middle, you'll be there all day.
The smoke alarms they fit have 10 year batteries in them, so no more going out to the garage for a ladder in the middle of the night when they start going beep! beep! as the battery gets low. When the battery does run out, it gives a warning beep, and you dial a phone number to get the whole unit replaced. Oh, and I keep forgetting to clean it. These things have a little grill in them, and you just get the hoover onto that, and you're done. No having to get up there and open it.
Another 'did you know': a wooden door can hold back a fire for 30 minutes, so the best thing to do, if trapped in the house, is to shut yourself up in a room with a phone in it, stuff a blanket at the bottom of the door, and dial 999 (or 112).
I'd really recommend having this check done. You can find the number in your phone book.
There you go. A bit of safety advice, from someone who cares about you. :-)
04 October, 2007
Ho-Hum
Life's pretty dull at the moment. I'm just trying to build up the time I can wear my leg for. It's almost all day now, but that's not saying a lot considering I'm not getting up till pretty late. I wear a combination of thin and thick socks on my stump as padding, and at the moment my stump is getting thinner. I'm wearing two thick and one thin at the moment, and the prosthetists (mind your false teeth when saying that!) say that once I'm up to wearing at least three thick socks, it's time to trade in the cup on my prosthesis for a smaller one. I'm looking forward to that, because at the moment there are only about 3 pairs of my trousers that have a wide enough leg to fit over the cup: I've never been one for baggy styled trousers (cue song by Madness). So it's either those (which are now too big for me around the waist, since I lost weight in hospital - hooray! ... er, I think), or shorts. Shorts in October? I don't think so! Maybe I'll be able to wear jeans again once I've done the trade-in ...
At least it's the baseball post-season, and I can watch the games. This year, I'm going 'hardcore' for the World Series and watching it live. Hardcore, because the games start after 1 in the morning, our time, and go on for anything up to five hours, although they're more normally a little under three hours. Having said that, in the post-season, the teams are more closely matched, so the games will usually go on for longer to try to find a winner - no draws in American sport, no sir! They keep playing until a winner emerges, blinking bleary eyed into the night.
Wassat? What am I on about, with all this "post-season" malarky? Well, since you ask ("I didn't! I didn't! It was you! Can't you tell the difference?") it's the end of season playoffs, to find out who's really the best team in baseball this year. The 30 professional American (aka 'Major League') baseball teams are put into two Leagues (National League and American League), each of which has three divisions based on location (East, Central and West) rather than on ability or success rate; so at the end of the season, the winners of each division play each other to find out who's best in their League. These playoffs are called the Division Series and the Championship Series. It's really complicated, and typically American. They've tried to do something similar in Rugby League (another game dominated by the TV broadcasters), and now the players and managers are complaining that there are too many games; but the top teams don't want to kick up too much of a fuss, because it brings in a lot of the doh-ray-mee.
These play-off are a knock-out competition, so it's not a case of everyone playing everyone else a couple of times, like in football's Champions League. In each League, it starts off with four teams: three are the winners of their regional division, and the fourth is the best runner up (known as the 'wild card'). The highest scoring division winner plays the wildcard team, and the other two play each other. The winner of each of these best-out-of-five-game series goes through to the Championship Series. This usually works out OK: because the team with the best record plays the wildcard, the second best team plays in the other match. It's a sort of seeding process. There is a rule about the best team not being allowed to play the wildcard team if they are from the same division, though, which throws things out of kilter a little. This has happened this year in the American League: the New York Yankees from the Eastern Division qualified as the wildcard, and the Boston Red Sox, also from the Eastern Division, qualified with the best record. They get split up in this case, so the Red Sox are playing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and the Yankees are playing the Cleveland Indians from the Central Division. I so want the Indians to win!
The Championship Series comprise two best-of-seven-game matches, one for each League, and the winner of each goes on to represent their League in the World Series, which is the only Series where teams from one league plays a team from the other, aside from demonstration matches such as the All-Star games (where each League forms a single team comprising its best players, and takes on the other League).
I'm really looking forward to this year, because two of my favourite teams are through to the play-offs: the Boston Red Sox from the American League and the Arizona Diamondbacks from the National League. I like the Red Sox because they're unconventional, and not all squeaky-clean, short back and sides and regimented like the New York Yankees (it's like the difference in attitude between Red Bull and McLaren in Formula 1, if that helps at all). Also, the Sox have a sort of underdog status, despite having won the World Series five times. Having made it through to the playoffs several times in recent years, they've only won the World Series once: when they won in 2004 (against the mighty St Louis Cardinals) it was the first time they'd done so since 1918! They were obviously very good in the early days of organised baseball, but have lacked that finishing touch since.
I like the Diamondbacks because I was in Phoenix in 2002, and saw them play St Louis in a Division Series game. Although St Louis won the game and the Series, I knew that Arizona had been successful in the past (it seems in baseball that every team has its day to be a champion, unlike in football), and their merchandise rocked: very heavy metal, with lots of Diamondback snake motifs. Also, they remind me of the story Denise tells, of a time when she had been working at her company's Arizona office, and went out running after work. At one point, she says, she jumped over a 'large snake with a diamond pattern on it's back'. Denise!! That was a rattlesnake! A diamondback! A sidewinder!! You own a shirt with a picture of one on it, for chrissake. Remember? You bought it at the D'backs game? Locally known deadly wildlife, remember? Can slither faster than a man can run, and can strike from a huge distance away. Good job the snake was drowsy!! To quote a one-time colleague of mine (and Oor Wullie from The Broons), "jings!".
Ahem, anyway; I was writing about this year's baseball post-season, if you remember (are you awake, still?). I'm going to have to get in some serious supplies of popcorn, bratwurst and beer (British/European, not American, which is awful, apart from Samuel Addams ale). I've had my recording of last-night's game between the Red Sox and the Angels on pause all the time I've been writing this, so I've been wasting good viewing-time. Hope some of you non-baseball nuts made it this far, and that I've imparted some of my enthusiasm for this game, which is much misunderstood and maligned on this side of the pond. It has a lot in common with cricket in terms of strategy and cunning, and has a lot more to it than you might imagine, if you have a low opinion of American levels of sophistication. Try watching it sometime, with someone who has followed the game for a while and can expain some of the more confusing aspects. You can watch it as a simple game of bat and ball, and it can be exciting at that level (it can also be dull!) but when you get to know the personalities and capabilities of the managers and players, and learn about the strategies and techniques, there's loads to get into. It can still be dull, but so can any game. If you happen to catch a dull game, don't write the sport off because of that.
Cheers for now, and more later. Maybe about some other subject, eh? ;-)
At least it's the baseball post-season, and I can watch the games. This year, I'm going 'hardcore' for the World Series and watching it live. Hardcore, because the games start after 1 in the morning, our time, and go on for anything up to five hours, although they're more normally a little under three hours. Having said that, in the post-season, the teams are more closely matched, so the games will usually go on for longer to try to find a winner - no draws in American sport, no sir! They keep playing until a winner emerges, blinking bleary eyed into the night.
Wassat? What am I on about, with all this "post-season" malarky? Well, since you ask ("I didn't! I didn't! It was you! Can't you tell the difference?") it's the end of season playoffs, to find out who's really the best team in baseball this year. The 30 professional American (aka 'Major League') baseball teams are put into two Leagues (National League and American League), each of which has three divisions based on location (East, Central and West) rather than on ability or success rate; so at the end of the season, the winners of each division play each other to find out who's best in their League. These playoffs are called the Division Series and the Championship Series. It's really complicated, and typically American. They've tried to do something similar in Rugby League (another game dominated by the TV broadcasters), and now the players and managers are complaining that there are too many games; but the top teams don't want to kick up too much of a fuss, because it brings in a lot of the doh-ray-mee.
These play-off are a knock-out competition, so it's not a case of everyone playing everyone else a couple of times, like in football's Champions League. In each League, it starts off with four teams: three are the winners of their regional division, and the fourth is the best runner up (known as the 'wild card'). The highest scoring division winner plays the wildcard team, and the other two play each other. The winner of each of these best-out-of-five-game series goes through to the Championship Series. This usually works out OK: because the team with the best record plays the wildcard, the second best team plays in the other match. It's a sort of seeding process. There is a rule about the best team not being allowed to play the wildcard team if they are from the same division, though, which throws things out of kilter a little. This has happened this year in the American League: the New York Yankees from the Eastern Division qualified as the wildcard, and the Boston Red Sox, also from the Eastern Division, qualified with the best record. They get split up in this case, so the Red Sox are playing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and the Yankees are playing the Cleveland Indians from the Central Division. I so want the Indians to win!
The Championship Series comprise two best-of-seven-game matches, one for each League, and the winner of each goes on to represent their League in the World Series, which is the only Series where teams from one league plays a team from the other, aside from demonstration matches such as the All-Star games (where each League forms a single team comprising its best players, and takes on the other League).
I'm really looking forward to this year, because two of my favourite teams are through to the play-offs: the Boston Red Sox from the American League and the Arizona Diamondbacks from the National League. I like the Red Sox because they're unconventional, and not all squeaky-clean, short back and sides and regimented like the New York Yankees (it's like the difference in attitude between Red Bull and McLaren in Formula 1, if that helps at all). Also, the Sox have a sort of underdog status, despite having won the World Series five times. Having made it through to the playoffs several times in recent years, they've only won the World Series once: when they won in 2004 (against the mighty St Louis Cardinals) it was the first time they'd done so since 1918! They were obviously very good in the early days of organised baseball, but have lacked that finishing touch since.
I like the Diamondbacks because I was in Phoenix in 2002, and saw them play St Louis in a Division Series game. Although St Louis won the game and the Series, I knew that Arizona had been successful in the past (it seems in baseball that every team has its day to be a champion, unlike in football), and their merchandise rocked: very heavy metal, with lots of Diamondback snake motifs. Also, they remind me of the story Denise tells, of a time when she had been working at her company's Arizona office, and went out running after work. At one point, she says, she jumped over a 'large snake with a diamond pattern on it's back'. Denise!! That was a rattlesnake! A diamondback! A sidewinder!! You own a shirt with a picture of one on it, for chrissake. Remember? You bought it at the D'backs game? Locally known deadly wildlife, remember? Can slither faster than a man can run, and can strike from a huge distance away. Good job the snake was drowsy!! To quote a one-time colleague of mine (and Oor Wullie from The Broons), "jings!".
Ahem, anyway; I was writing about this year's baseball post-season, if you remember (are you awake, still?). I'm going to have to get in some serious supplies of popcorn, bratwurst and beer (British/European, not American, which is awful, apart from Samuel Addams ale). I've had my recording of last-night's game between the Red Sox and the Angels on pause all the time I've been writing this, so I've been wasting good viewing-time. Hope some of you non-baseball nuts made it this far, and that I've imparted some of my enthusiasm for this game, which is much misunderstood and maligned on this side of the pond. It has a lot in common with cricket in terms of strategy and cunning, and has a lot more to it than you might imagine, if you have a low opinion of American levels of sophistication. Try watching it sometime, with someone who has followed the game for a while and can expain some of the more confusing aspects. You can watch it as a simple game of bat and ball, and it can be exciting at that level (it can also be dull!) but when you get to know the personalities and capabilities of the managers and players, and learn about the strategies and techniques, there's loads to get into. It can still be dull, but so can any game. If you happen to catch a dull game, don't write the sport off because of that.
Cheers for now, and more later. Maybe about some other subject, eh? ;-)
Dontcha just love packaging?
I ordered a new joystick cos new PCs don't have game ports any more, apparently. Look at the size of the box it came in! I thought it was my PC back from repair, much MUCH quicker than expected. Now I have to go and find somewhere in this house that I can get a 3G signal, so I can post this :-(. Oh. The bedroom, it seems. :-) Hope the 'stick is Vista compatible. I couldn't find one that explicitly stated that that it was, so I ordered this one in confidence that Logitech wouldn't let me down. Idiot!
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