Flops' Friday mini blog

[bootneck02]

Well done, it is good to hear of young people going for their goals in life and succeeding, usually you only hear of the negatives with the young. They have obviously got their heads screwed on and well done the parents as well, as they have done their job well in bringing up their children.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Lookin' at Potguys 'Leaving Uni' thread and reading historian's comments made me think about when I left school. September 1968, I left on a sour note with one GCE English O Level and about five assorted CSE's. The O level was good, the CSE's were and are worthless.

I left on a sour note as not one teacher would sign my slip for a leaving certificate, they all figured I'd behaved too badly in my six years at Malory Comprehensive School. The head teacher had died three months previously, he would have signed it for me, Mr McCarthy was a good guy, he only ever saw good in me where all the other teachers basically wanted to ignore me or beat my lights out for being a thoroughly obnoxious PITA.

But McCarthy always spoke to me, reasoned, before he caned me, lol It was probably Mr McCarthy who saved me from going totally off the rails. Anyhow, as Historian said, jobs were plentiful when I left school although there are at least ten years between the two of us so qualifications didn't really matter.

It was only less than twenty years after WW2 after all and male stocks hadn't been replenished by 1968.

After a few unsuccessful job applications I figured I had nothing to lose so I lied, I told prospective employers I had 5 O Levels. They all believed me, nobody ever checked and I soon found myself employed. That was a valuable early lesson to me - all is not what it seems and a load of old rabbit sometimes counts for more than the real deal.

There is only one piece of advice I offer to youngsters entering employment - place more importance to the people you work with rather than your competence to do the task you have been employed to do.

For no matter how good you are at your profession if you fall foul of the workplace's inner politics you are well and truly fubar'd. Watch out for your back, listen and watch your workmates like a hawk for it is, sadly, human nature that 75% of your work colleagues will be out to stab you in the back. Just why, I'm still not sure to this day but it is so.

My time at school. Mixed bag. Liked some but mostly hated it. I was always in trouble and oddly always in the top class and often top of that class in some subjects. I think the teachers found me an enigma, always being caned, doing detention, suspended on two occasions, interviewed by CID police on the school premises on two occasions but - always good marks.

It wasn't until the 6th form I finally saw sense. I stopped kicking against the system (school) and wondered why I had been kicking out anyway, I mean - why? I joined in with the social activities, joined the drama society and took part in productions, joined the school choir and helped sing 'Sloop John B' in front of parents - and enjoyed the whole thing.

Not to mention I was suddenly talking to lots of girls, now, this was a good thing.

So, I figure I was pretty much a pillock really, classic rebel without a cause.

There is a small black bug crawling round near my keyboard. Hey! where did you come from Mr Bug?

Games.

Last night started playing the new Aliens Vs Predator that I downloaded on Steam El Cheapo a few weeks back. It's not too bad. Not gonna win any prizes for originality and it's not as scary as the original but it's passable.

Once I started I played for 90 minutes so it can't be too bad. But. It is old gameply by numbers, nothing new here, predictable would be the word to describe this one. And easy mode is easy, a bit too easy so I switched to normal. Plus, although there are lots of check points (a good thing) you still have to save the game manually to last check point or you go right back to the beginning. Quite odd.

Other than that have been playing more Red Dead Redemption Zombie on X-Box and Oblivion IV Shivering Isles extension on PC. And some CoD 4 online, drunk, which probably isn't a good idea.

I have no work, am composing some flyers, hope I get something to do during school holidays coming up. Good news is I do have enough to buy a new washing machine and pay bills to mid July.

The way my work has dropped off over the last five years I sometimes wonder if it's because I am older, look older now, and I'm also fairly frickin' ugly after my illness, scarred throat and all. Let's face it, physical appearance matters on first impressions and I wonder sometimes whether my appearance puts younger guys off employing me for work. Or maybe I'm just getting paranoid.

Still, whatever, I am alive, it is Spring, the bills are paid, daughters are all doing ok, still musing on the fact ex-wife sent me a bottle of very expensive brandy for my last birthday, that threw me a bit, lol, must get round to actually tasting it.

Ok, I'm waffling, farewell for now my fickle friends, farewell for now

 

[floppybootstomp]

The weather is confusing. It went from icy cold to mid-summer and now it seems just like September/October, the seasons are all out of wack

Serious Sam remade is seriously good fun, getting harder the further I progress. Good memories with improved graphics and many other subtle changes.

Last night I watched a movie (for die hard Brits substitute 'film' for 'movie') - 'Machete'. Hmm.

So which one was Lindsay Lohan then? I still not quite sure about that one, wondering how come Robert De Niro agreed to take part in it, I thought he had some class. Maybe I missed something but it sure nuff seemed like some cheapo violent movie to me, perhaps I missd the irony and the obvious parody? I dunno. Weren't bad though, quite enjoyable.

The Robin Hood movie with Russell Crow and that rather tasty skinny bird whose name escapes me for the moment (edit: Cate Blanchett). Three times now I've tried to watch it, three times I've fallen asleep, each time managing to watch a little more. That's a long movie, lol

 

[crazylegs]

Huh still popping in here and reading this and still enjoying every minute of it..

Mr Flopp's I think you would do very well with a real proper blog out there in the ether, would beat many blogs out there that are just plain boring to read, but pupport to be cutting edge and hip, but most are empty and soulless..

Yours has soul in spades and is every bit cutting edge as any I have read and are reading..

Oh and good news on Sophie your daughter getting a job!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Why thank you o one of the crazy lower limbs, nice of you to say so

Nottalot to write about lately, I got toothache right now a new washing machine and bills paid to August 1st. Could be worse.

Also a new cartridge for my turntable which cost £109.00 and a whole truckload of new vinyl albums for a quid each including Mussgorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition on the Deutsch Gramophon label in perfect condition. Super.

Will update when I got something worth mentioning

 

[floppybootstomp]

Well it no Friday but I thought I’d post anyhow.

It’s now 4 years since I had just arrived home from a rain-logged and very muddy Glastonbury festival. I left, with great difficulty through the muddy rain-sodden fields, on Sunday morning.

I probably wouldn’t have managed it without the help of Brian. I didn’t know Brian but my friends did. Apparently, when he wasn’t working as security at Glastonbury he lived in a cave at Cornwall.

Whatever, he saved my bacon that morning, fabulous geezer. Haven’t seen Brian since but if I ever meet him again I’ll probably kiss him. Or at least buy him a pint.

Glastonbury this year had a good lineup imo (apart, maybe, from Coldplay & The Wombles) but I noticed with some sadness that it rained again early on, lots of mud. But Sunday was sunny, I felt happy for the punters and they were going to see Beyonce as well. Strange choice for Glastonbury, certainly not my choice but she probably went down very well.

No Glastonbury next year, the farmer is ‘resting the land’.

Games.

I’ve been playing Duke Nukem Forever and enjoying it. I’ve also read the reviews and they’re mostly right. It IS a tedious ten year old old-school rubbish game with some extremely frustrating moments.

Now, I like old school, Quake, Doom, Unreal are the biz, but Duke Nukem Forever kinda shames the original a little, imo. As others have said, don’t be a numpty like me and pay £27 for it, wait until it’s at least a tenner then satisfy your curiosity for yourself and buy it. Verdict: 75% good; 25% you gotta be kidding.

Some newer games I’ve just had to give up on, too hard for me. I figure this is either cos I’m too old and my reflexes ain’t what they used to be or I ain’t got the patience to die 22,000 times before passing a level.

Probably a combination of each. I do know this though, lately I’ve been playing games between 10 & 13 years old, games I considered hard at the time but now consider dead easy. Prime example: Kiss: Psycho Circus. This tells me games are harder now.

Steam makes cheats in games impossible. Cheats in MP of course are a no no but within SP when you’re frustrated as hell using a cheat to get past a sticky part in my mind is quite justified. I paid thirty quid for this thing to enjoy myself, not be beaten up around the head.

So, I’ve had to give up (or go punch somebody through anger) on the following:

Batman Arkham Asylum
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Just Cause 2
Crysis 2

And there’s a few others I’ve paused but I figure I will get past the part I’m stuck at.

Those I have thoroughly enjoyed recently:

Mafia 2
Bulletstorm
All Quake games on Steam
Oblivion Shivering Isles
All Call Of Duty Single Player
FEAR 2
Lara Croft & The Guardian Of Light
Serious Sam 1st & 2nd Encounters in HD on Steam
Unreal 1
Unreal 2 (Both Unreals available budget updated to run in Win 7, and also included the 1st 2 Unreal Tournaments – bargain!)
Borderlands (Original plus all 4 add-ons)
Dead Space 1 (needs to be tweaked via Nvidia control panel to make playable on PC)
Dead Space 2 (Brilliant!)
Test Drive Unlimited 1

I’ve also been playing X-Blades and it’s mildly enjoyable but I have to get through this part now where blades pop through the floor and you have to perform this choreography to get past it. I’ve downloaded the sequence from a walkthrough but I don’t know if I can be arsed tbh.

Picked up STALKER (the 1st one) for 2 quid in a charity shop and applied the big patch. The first thing the patch does is not enable you to get the STALKER camouflage suit in the first level. Hmmph.

I’ve played a couple of levels, I can see it is a good game but it’s not really my thing, too slow, too much stealth. I will probably uninstall.

So, installed a new hard disk in my main machine to free up space.

My primary disk now less than 100Gb which means I could swap it (them) out for a 100Gb SSD. I could get a 100Gb SSD for £152 but I notice there’s a faster 100Gb SSD aavailable for a helluva lot more money, more than twice the price. The more expensive one is more than twice the price but also more than twice the speed, I think.

I do wonder whether buying the slower speed SSD would actually give me an improvement in speed over my pair of WD ‘Raptors in RAID 0. I think probably not a lot.

Anyway, put in new disk, in last remaining (of six) SATA slots and this is how things are now. All data on main computer is backed up to external disk.

About 15 years ago me and the ex bought our twin daughters a pair of bicycles from Makros for Christmas for their birthdays. Lucy doesn’t have hers anymore but Sophie does. Sophie’s bike is at Cambridge and she’s just moved in with her mother at Frome, Somerset, having finished Uni course.

‘Dad, would you go and collect my bike from Cambridge and store it at your place?’ Of course, my leetle pumpernickel. Hmm, thirty quids worth of petrol to preserve twenty quids worth of push bike, I must be mad. Still, sentimental value, as they say.

So Tuesday that’s where I’m going, have configured a few calls in East London and Thurrock on the same journey to attempt to make it worthwhile.

Work appears to be non-existent. I’m ok until August but August isn’t far away. Things are bad as suppliers are regularly phoning me now asking if I have work and would I like to buy some stuff? Sorry mate but no, Cameron and Clegg have made things even worse than Blair/Brown ever could have. That’s NOT a biased POV, it’s just fact.

Cameron’s mate died in a karzi at Glastonbury festival over the weekend btw, I’m quite speechless about that, a million barbed humour comments come to mind but I better not I could think of worse ways to go.

Today was the first really hot day we’ve had this year. I was going to go out on my push bike, visit the pub in the afternoon, but the bloody lift broke down, blowed if I’m wheeling my bike up and down six flights of stairs.

So I applied the last coat of wood preserver to patio chairs and played computer games. And washing. And crap. Bored.

Bought a new washing machine cos 9 year old Indesit started going faulty. The Indesit had been good, flawless for 9 years and all that went wrong was it got stuck on wash cycle, had to manually move on with timer switch.

Bought a fancy-arse LG direct drive steam clean thingie for £650 purely because I had the money at the time and because I could. Possibly a wrong decision, couldda got another Indesit for about £280 and upgraded computer but what the hell, it’s a rather fabulous washing machine, washed my Duvet a week ago, yowsah.

This one. Ignore the price, they say they’ll match other online prices and they did.

Still, washing machine or DX11, hard choice eh?

After paying out 650 for this big black thing that sings a tune when it finishes it’s cycle I am now broke. Life’s endless cycle perchance?

And my plants. Others are now getting munched. This is war, I don’t care. Bugs is gonna die, lol

 

[crazylegs]

Love it Flopp's!

a million barbed humour comments come to mind but I better not

That made me laugh, I must admit I did titter to myself when I heard the news, apparently he was in there for 18 hours before being discovered..

£650 for a washing machine woooooooooohhh that is what you call being cleaned out..

I got the same problem with my cucumbers at the moment and my radishes, although I know who the damn culprit is..Earwigs eating the leaves, I'm gonna squish em I tell ya..

Thanks for updating mate..always enjoy reading..

 

[Taffycat]

I enjoyed reading your latest installment too Sir Floppington, great stuff.

Liking the sound of your posh washer a lot.... but I'm curious to know what happens about detergent/powder? Does the steam setting mean that you can do away with the need for any other cleaning agents? If so, that could save a mint, in time.

 

[muckshifter]

as always, a good read

not sure about the washing machine, mine is a £99 'white' no name jobbie, been going 5years now, but I only use it once a week

maybe I should paint it black ... cue the rolling stones

 

[nivrip]

‘Dad, would you go and collect my bike from Cambridge and store it at your place?’ Of course, my leetle pumpernickel. Hmm, thirty quids worth of petrol to preserve twenty quids worth of push bike, I must be mad.

Well, that's daughters for you. I have two of my own and I know how you feel. They seem to have this ability to wrap me around their fingers.

But, I wouldn't want it any other way.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for the replies folks, apreciated.

TC: the Steam Clean thing? As far as I can see you can't use the Steam Clean facility by itself, it has to follow a cycle. I suppose it could be tagged on after a 'Quick 30 minute clean cycle' without using any detergent but I'm not sure.

I've used the Steam Clean just once so far and it does make a difference. 'Fluffy, bright and soft' would sum it up.

Delayed cambridge trip until tomorrow then I had a call come in to price up a job from a builder's firm. They are going to knock down part of a building in a school where I maintain their sound system and the amp rack is in the part of the building that is being demolished. They want me to move it.

That may sound easy but the cables from the rack (microphones, loudspeaker lines and fire alarm initiation) go off into the building's infrastructure. The rack has to be moved to the right a little and two floors down to the intake room. Finding the cables could prove very difficult.

On top of that the building firm is one I haven't dealt with before so not sure how good they are at paying.

Oh well, play it by ear, as they say.

I had a spammer here today, I made what I thought was a witty comment, banned the spammer, deleted spam link and let the post stand. But Ian deleted it. Ian, you are such a killjoy, lol

Have to use car tomorrow so thought I best make sure it will start as hasn't been used for 3 weeks and Passat batteries get drained quickly, aparently, according to RAC man. It wouldn't start so battery is on charge in the kitchen.

I'm friends with Christopher Postill on facebook and from looking at his posts I can tell you he's doing ok. He's recently been to New York, visited Ground Zero and commented that a new tower is now half way built. The way he talk he don't seem like a copper to me, hopefully the new breed better than the old breed (Life On Mars anybody?)

Still playing vinyl, it's not all good, vinyl very much dependent on condition if it's second hand and of course original recording quality, more so than digital methinks. Still, when it's good it's very good.

Only other sound source from the seven I have plugged in that comes close is the I-Pod, which, to be honest, confuses me. But the ears don't lie, do they?

Cambridge now on Thursday. Tomorrow is Bow, RS Trade Counter at Bow and probably IKEA at Thurrock for to buy a filing cabinet thingie for me A4 paper and stuff.

Pip pip

 

[Taffycat]

I've used the Steam Clean just once so far and it does make a difference. 'Fluffy, bright and soft' would sum it up.

Mmm... fluffy, bright and soft sounds good to me; I would think there would be the added bonus of knowing stuff is thoroughly clean too, after a good blast of steam.

Our current washer is only a couple of years old, but we're not too impressed by the awful racket it makes through the spin cycles. We almost need ear-defenders, so we try to time washes at times when we don't need to be in the kitchen!

 

[bootneck02]

I had the same thing with my daughter her PC was playing up and could I fixit for her,. So I trundled down to Shepton Mallet about 140 ish miles with Brandy stay the weekend bring back the PC to work on it here because the blue screen of death kept popping up and kept crashing . I couldn't even get into the BIOS until I replaced the motherboard battery as the existing one was flat as a dodo. Backed up her files did a OS & software reinstall, bought a external drive so she could do a weekly backup now everything is fine and dandy and runs as sweet as a nut. Only thing I have got it here taking up room and I suspect I will have to take it back to her and set it up for her. You are right Floppy we will do anything for our little girls especially when they say " Oh Daddy could just" then you know you have a job on your hands that you weren't expecting, but we do because we love them dearly and they are still our little girls.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I seem to be waffling a lot lately.

So, put battery into car, it started, drove to site, discussed works, on reversing out of school car park stalled car like a complete dufuss. this, unknown to me, flooded it and it wouldn't restart. then suffered the indignity of having the guy who signs cheques for work carried out push me off main road thorouhfare back into car park.

Tried to start, ran battery flat, called Green Flag recovery service who are provided as part of Natwest monthly bank charge. This also includes mobile phone insurance so makes the monthly £13.00 charge so far break even. If I can find one more thing to take advantage of I'll be up on the deal but so far holiday insurance is not a thing I use very often.

Green Flag man, A tiny, quite old, very friendly Indian geezer, gave me a jump start and car started straight away. He told me I needed a new battery, bought one from him £84 fitted, they are £90 in Halfords so fair enough.

I also have another prob with the motor and without going into detail here and now, this guy gave me a more or less free diagnosis using his mobile computer which plugged into car's computer port. I will detail problem later but suffice to say this guy put my mind at rest and done for nothing which other garages wanted to charge me £60 for. I gave him a £6 tip which is all I had left after buying battery. Chap!

On my media machine I had Antivir installed. Their update popup screen has become more agressive/annoying lately but today they tried to convince me to download and install a toolbar. Enough! As good as they may be I can't stand spamming so uninstalled Antivir and installed MS Security Eseentials. As they say 'The no-nonsense, no pop-up, no annoying anti-virus software'. They may be right.

MSSE did catch a nasty no other did recently on one of my machines. So that makes for me: 1 machine: Avast. Another two: MSSE. Fourth machine: not connected online (Win 98, games only) so no AV software

Tonight played some more Witcher 1 enhanced t's good, albeit a little slow, I will come back to this one. £15 at GAME store and it includes a thick manual and game strategy guide. If you like rpg's this one is worth it.

Also played some more Dragon Age II. Now, this game is quite good but it's basically an interactive movie with the occasional point and click sequence. It also has quite odd interface controls.

Despite that, it's good, looks good and is enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. I don't really like that kind of thing, prefer more gameplay to cut-scenes but itdoes have my curiosity piqued so I'll probably carry on playing it.

Currently listening to UB40's 1989 'Labour Of LOve II' on vinyl which sounds great. Cost me a whole quid at local shop. Love it.

Work is slight. Have thought: Design disco flyer as 'Old fart Boogie' specialists in Irish Wedings/celebrations and rock/indie'.

Somebody might bite Will just have to phone Fat Guts and make sure he's available for drive/help still.

Think I'll go to bed now, has been a fairly fulfilling day today, which makes a change

 

[crazylegs]

Keep it going Flopp's keep it goin..

You got me wondering what the car problem is now, Garages really are rip-off merchants aren't they.

Got Labour of love I II and III and they are great..

 

[floppybootstomp]

My car prob.

It's a ten year old Volkswagen Passat Estate 20V Turbo 1.9L. dark blue. I didn't realise it was a turbo version when I bought it but it is very fast.

After purchasing it in January after driving it home for about five miles the oil warning light came on and the computer display urged me to stop driving immediately. Obviously this alarmed me and in hindsight I should have taken the car straight back to the dealer and tried to get my money back but I've since discovered this trader is a rogue and I probably wouldn't have been successful as I signed an agreement 'sold as seen'.

Anyhow, I kept the car and the oil warnings came and went intermittently. I had new oil sensors fitted to the side of the engine block (oil pressure) and the sump (oil level). No difference.

The car had only had one previous owner since new and had a full service record, it's been regularly serviced, mostly by Volkswagen dealers. It last had an oil change four weeks before I bought it. It has high mileage, 136,000 when I bought it, 137,000 now. I paid £1100 for it which, again in hindsight, was probably about £200 less than the average price for such a car at the time and that should have made me suspicious.

I had taken it for a test drive for about ten minutes prior to purchase and it seemed fine, no oil warning light came on. The dealer said it was going cheap cos of the high mileage which seemed believable.

It doesn't lose oil, it doesn't smoke, there's no sludge under the oil filler cap and it drives very smoothly. In April I took it up to 100mph down the A21 and it still had a little left to go.

My local garage couldn't find anything up with it but suggested the oil pump may be worn but that was 'extremely rare'.

So, the Green Flag fella connected his hand held computer gadget and erased the oil fault from the onboard computer's memory as apparently once this car's computer logs a fault, it stays in it's memory and has to be manually erased by an external computer.

He also gave it a full engine diagnosis and pronounced it fault free.

He then took off the oil filler cap and said 'You hear that tapping noise? The tappets are making that noise. You should be seeing oil splashing there (looking in oil filler cap) and it isn't. That means one or two tappets aren't working.

'They will either need replacing or cleaning and that should stop the tapping noise and the oil warning light coming on. Should cost you 2 to 3 hundred pounds. Other than that there's nothing wrong with that engine, it sounds great and it's running very sweetly indeed'.

So, some relief there that I haven't bought a complete turkey and as soon as I get some money I shall get it seen to. My local garage announced the tappets making a noise as 'Just normal engine wear for that mileage' so I think I shall have to look elsewhere to get the work done. Me mate's cousin owns Volks-A-Part, a breakers, so I'll ask him to ask his cousin if he knows any good VW mechanics.

Apart from all that the car is good, excellent bodywork and upholstery and no other mechanical faults. Passed the MOT three weeks ago.

The joys of motoring

 

[Ian]

Fingers crossed that this does the trick . Sounds like the free green flag guy was more help than the garage!

I had a spammer here today, I made what I thought was a witty comment, banned the spammer, deleted spam link and let the post stand. But Ian deleted it. Ian, you are such a killjoy, lol

Sorry flops, I didn't see your comment at the end, I just saw what looked like a spam post and zapped it in my haste .

 

[EvanDavis]

On my media machine I had Antivir installed. Their update popup screen has become more agressive/annoying lately but today they tried to convince me to download and install a toolbar. Enough! As good as they may be I can't stand spamming so uninstalled Antivir and installed MS Security Eseentials. As they say 'The no-nonsense, no pop-up, no annoying anti-virus software'. They may be right.

Sorry to jump in on your thread FBS, but for anybody else who uses Avira and gets annoyed by those pesky pop-ups. Follow the link on how to disable them
http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-the-Popup-Ads-in-Avira-Antivir

 

[floppybootstomp]

Sorry to jump in on your thread FBS, but for anybody else who uses Avira and gets annoyed by those pesky pop-ups. Follow the link on how to disable them
http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-the-Popup-Ads-in-Avira-Antivir

No probs ED, good link.

However, in the past I've used several methods to disable the popups from Antivir but their updates will eventually disable those methods.

Antivir do supply a good free AV program so I suppose they're kind of entitled to give you a mild prompt to buy their fuller software version. But encouraging toolbars is a definite no-no in my book.

And when there are at least two alternative less annoying free AV programs then it seems pointless to put up with the annoying pop-ups and prompts.

 

[floppybootstomp]

And while I'm posting a few more wafflings from moi.

Looks like I will have a week or two's work shortly, at Bethnal Green, talk about saved by the bell, phew.

Was looking at game prices this evening, and noticed that Amazon have increased the prices of most games on all platforms since April. Sometimes only by a coupla quid but they've definitely increased.

There are quite a few new games I fancy.

And that's it really, I seem to have run out of thin draughts of words to blow into your ears.

Unless, of course, you met me for real and then I'd talk the hind legs off a chicken