graeme.blog

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  • Magdalen Bridge Roadwork Blues

    Magdalen Bridge, at the base of the High Street in Oxford, is one of the main routes into the centre of the city. Cut that off, and you create massive problems for public transport. So why is it being dug up for the second time in a year? Fun? Insanity? Sadistic pleasure?

    Also, why are cars being allowed to drive towards it, when it is so congested? Ban them whilst the works are going on, let them go via other routes instead. We should have a proper congestion charge in Oxford anyway, but this would help ease the situation.

    I think I’m going to research some more, and see if I can find out just what is going on.

  • Achievements

    So I’ve now got myself a Wii, and very nice it is too. However I feel I’m missing something, namely the sense of pointless achievement I get with playing the Xbox 360. If you haven’t seen the online side of the 360, as a player you get points for achieving certain tasks in every game, and built up an overall score, your gamerscore. It is your personal badge of how seriously you take your gaming, how far you’ve got in all your games.

    And it goes deeper than that as well, you can compare yourself to your friends, see down to the individual achievement how far they’ve got in a game you both have. I like this, it spurs me on to try and outplay my friends. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but I feel it just adds an extra little purpose to gaming.

    This I find lacking on the Wii. I don’t know what games my friends have, I can barely play them on any games at the moment (only one, Mario Strikers, and I don’t fancy that), and I don’t know how they’re getting on. In this day and age, you also tend not to be told how far you are through a game, so I don’t get the same sense of progression. As far as I understand it, PS3 has a similar system. I hope Nintendo are going to start to rectify this somehow, but at present there doesn’t seem to be any enthusiasm from them to do so. It’s a shame.

  • It’s now summer, officially.

    Summer has come. Wimbledon has finished, and thus we are allowed decent weather the second the final ball is struck. So we’ve been active, we had a little cycle ride down to The Prince of Wales, which amongst other things proved how thin the saddle on my new bike was. It is better today. I’ve done loads of weeding, I’m a few more sessions away from getting it cleared to my satisfaction, but I may be starting to break the back of it. And I managed to watch plenty of motorsport whilst not in the sun.

    Also tested out my new Flip 3 tent. I am kicking myself for not getting the camera out whilst I tested it, I might do it again so I can get a few images of it. It’s large and a bit unwieldy to carry, as it is a big flat circle when packed. The genius though is that you take it out of the cover, pull back the strap, and it explodes into a fully-erected tent! Something of a decent-sized one as well. Even more surprising is that whilst it takes longer to put away, that is mainly down to technique, it is pretty easy to do that too. Only downside is that it is a big flat circle when packed, not the best shape, does come with shoulder straps on the bag, but it wouldn’t be suitable for hiking or suchlike. Fine for a festival though. We shall camp like princes.

  • The lawn gods are against me

    This past weekend, my parents very kindly treated me to a new lawn mower. I’ve been patiently waiting out the weather so that I could use it for the first time. Yesterday evening I finally saw a gap in the rain long enough to try it out. It was working fine until I hit a stone. One blast of sparks later, and a little further along, I found I’d managed to bend the blade and then gouge chunks out of the lawn. I left that for the time being, and instead moved onto raking up some of the dead grass that hadn’t been picked up. The second I pulled on the rake, the head fell clean off, as its wooden pole had rotted through. I’ve given up gardening for the week now.

    On the bright side, the blade looks like it won’t cost much more than £15 to replace, which is a bonus. I will get my garden looking less rubbish, I swear.

  • Holiday, Rain and the Wii

    Well, a good week off, spend the majority of it down in Devon visiting the fb-in-laws, which was very pleasant. Shame about the weather, which was variable to filthy most of the week. However we got to have wanders around Plymouth and Exeter, eat some good food, and generally take things very easy. Then had my own parents up on Saturday, and had an incredibly nice meal out at Gee’s restaurant (I had an outrageous fillet of beef).

    I’ve also bought a Wii and a tent along the way. The Wii is excellent fun, I have to have a think and write a post about that, but I’ve really being enjoying it. By and large, the controls work rather well. And it is oddly great having a speaker in your hand.

  • Said I’d take some pics of the garden

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    And found these butterflies up to no good. It was quite tricky to get a good close-up of them, I didn’t want to disturb them.

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    This is probably a fair indicator of where I’m up to at the moment with the garden, there is a lot of work to do around the edges. The dark area at the back needs clearing and sorting out, not really sure what I’ll do with it yet. I think I’ll clear it first, then worry about that. It lacks a lot of sunlight for starters, so I’m not quite sure what will best grow there, I would like to see something there though.

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    This ramshackle thing is a quince bush (I’ve been told, anyways). I’m trying to encourage it along the fence a bit more, and should really hack it back into a bit of shape. May do that tonight if I’m feeling energetic.

  • Weekended

    Well mainly a good weekend. Got to see our friends J&S on Friday and Saturday night, and had a good time playing charades and Buzz, and consuming plenty of quality cheeses. However I was somewhat ill on Saturday afternoon. Felt a bit odd coming home after a quick trip to B&Q (rest easy, the shower is now fixed), and when we got back I went to bed for a couple of hours. Woke up, and just felt utterly grot, like each step was a effort. Put up with it through Saturday night, but really wasn’t very happy at all. However Sunday morning I felt fine. Very perculiar, I’d say it was some sort of 24 hour bug, but even then it seemed to last about 12 hours. I could do without that though.

    The garden is coming on a bit, I’m trying to weed a bit more each evening, and I’ve got some giant sunflower seeds planted out, so hopefully they will sprout up next month. When I’m a bit more organised, I’ll try and get some pictures done. I’m also pondering what needs cutting and pruning at the back of the garden to give it a bit more sunlight, it’s got quite thick out there.

    I also celebrated last night hitting the 5000 point mark on Xbox 360 Live, I now have respectable proof of how I’ve wasted my life. Pacman skills on Pacman CE and Ms. Pacman got me there, but I intend to play through some more Forza 2 to keep up the momentum.

  • Lazy weekend ahead

    Not too much planned, friends over tonight, then need to fix the shower which is broken, then general pottering about for the rest of the weekend. I’ve not done badly on getting the garden weeded and looking slightly less shabby, what I could do with is a bit of work to start getting it looking nice. I think a lot of judicious pruning is in order.

    Not much else to report, am definitely in Friday mode, head locked on being in the pub as soon as possible after work finishes.

  • I’ve been a little lost for words

    Not in a bad way, just haven’t had much to say lately. And as they say, if you can’t say anything, don’t say something for the sake of saying something. Or something.

    We’re due another fairly quiet weekend, having just had one. We had a little shopping, did some chores around the house, I hacked the lawn and weeded somewhat (in fact I’ve weeded the past two nights as well, and there is plenty left to do), and read, watched telly and played games.

    At the moment I’m playing a lot of Forza 2, which is a wonderful racing game, but it’s a bit intense on the wrists (I’ve had to turn off the rumble as it was trashing them somewhat). To have a little break from it now and then, I’ve just got Pacman Championship Edition from Live Arcade, which is an odd updating of the classic. It’s got a lot more hectic and hypnotic. I’ve played it properly a few times tonight and it is quite satisfyingly intense.

    I’m presently halfway through a geekcourse on XML, which in the main is going in. However I’m also quite distracted by the thought of my diabolo, which I’ve finally got into again for the summer (it is normally cast aside in winter, then when summer comes around is a wonderful excuse to get down the park). I’ve been watching a movie called The Art of Diabology, which is the best instruction in the art I’ve ever had. Very inspiring, but the difficulty level in it ramps up massively. So during my course I’ve found my mind wandering to tumbling diabolos on strings occasionally.

    One last thing, there’s a new comment on the P Wyndham Little project. Look at the recent comments on the front page for more.

  • Submerge Podcast

    The Submerge Podcast is well worth a listen, particularly if you like your old House and Detroit Techno. I’d particularly recommend the interview with Ron Murphy (links direct to mp3), which is a lengthy piece talking to one of the unsung heroes of Techno, whilst playing some of the tunes he had a hand in. Murphy was the record cutter of choice for the top Detroit artists, and in doing so on his analogue equipment helped them to achieve the true deep sound they were looking for. Thanks to Tim for putting me onto this.