Today is Faye's 23rd birthday, her sisters and friends here yesterday evening, we drunk champagne, they all went for Mexican meal and dancing. My place overloaded with bodies sleeping everywhere, almost made me feel guilty for sleeping alone in my double bed taking up all that space when I could have curled up in a sleeping bag. Almost. Soddit, they're young and I do apreciate my comfort at my age. Gawd knows I've slept on enough lino in my time.
23 years ago since the forceps birth early hours of the morning, the panic as doctor called from sleep cleared her throat, she breathed.... and cried. Celebration of life.
Today my three daughters have taken their grandmother for a meal with their cousins, quite touching to see them care so much for her. That's my ex's Mum btw, not my Mum. And my ex's Mum is a person I hold very dear, she's one of the good ones. Just thought I'd say that.
Sophie daughter told me a tale today. She went into the karzi at the Cutty Sark pub some time ago and into one of the traps. Noticing someone had deposited a huge log in the waters that wouldn't flush away she exited and chose another stall. Afterwards, washing hands, she noticed a woman go in to the trap with the large deposit and come out again looking a little cheesed off.
Sophie caught her eye and said 'I done that'.
The woman looked at her, a surprised expression turning to something approaching disgust and left the ladies room.
Sophie then realised that whereas she had meant she also entered the cubicle and exited the woman thought Sophie meant she was the one who had laid the rather large unflushable egg when she said 'I done that'.
Well it made me laugh.
Games. Today I thought I'd try my racing games and steering wheel within Win 7 as I hadn't done since install in Oct 09.
Disappointing.
The only racing games I have that worked in Vista are:
1) Race 07 (Steam)
2) GTR Evolution (Steam)
3) Flat Out (Steam)
4) Live For Speed (Demo only, independent)
5) Race Driver GRID (Codemasters)
Race 07 and GTR Evolution wouldn't work with the steering wheel whereas they did with Vista, they worked really well, so I'm a bit poxed off about that.
Flat Out works well, it's a cheapo arcadey game but good fun.
And Live For Speed (demo) worked better. But LFS is a bugger of a game to set up for the steeering wheel, took me ages to work out the software settings. But when I finally got it working, this is a superb game engine. I'm going to buy this one. Originally recommended to me by Chris Postill, incidentally.
Racemaster GRID never worked well with the steering wheel in Vista and it's just the same in Win 7. Which is a damn shame cos it looks beautiful. And it works ok with the X-Box controller as well but handling is not good with this joypad, just not the same as a wheel.
And that's it. Like I said, disappointing. I'm wary of trying newer racing games, tbh.
My steering wheel was a gift from a mate for building his computer and is a Thrustmaster F430 Ferrari wheel. It is quite possible, I suppose, that this is not a very good wheel. I do have the latest drivers installed which apparently is a beta for Win7.
But it does work so well within Live For Speed (particularly) and Flat Out. So I dunno.
And Batman Arkham Asylum. I'm stuck. I'm only 8% into the game and got my first boss level: Bane. I've tried to defeat him about 25 times now and I can't do it. I've read all the tips, all the hints, there are no cheats available, I'm stuck.
I really hate it when games are so hard they rather defeat the enjoyment. I honestly don't enjoy them at all.
So, I'll try on and off for another week and if I still can't get through this level it's the uninstall button and flog game off.
Since losing my CoD4 profile in BIOS flash crash I've gradually been working up again, up to gunnery sargeant 2 now, a little frustrating but still enjoyable getting there. It is SO much better than CoD WAW2.
And have been playing Unreal Tourney & Unreal Tourney 2004 again. very enjoyable, almost finished the first one, they seem so easy now where they seemed fairly difficult then.
Have decided to start playing vinyl again and have moved turntable into living room with Valve amp. Am going to sort out vinyl I want to keep next time I visit lockup. Am going to build turntable stand from pine board and paving stone. Very novel, playing vinyl again. And yes, it really does sound better, though not all, it really does depend on the quality of the pressing.
Currently using Shure 35C cartridge, have ordered new Nagaoka Boron MP11 stylus from 'net to suit my old cartridge, should arrive by Friday, looking forward to trying that.
Currently using cheapo phono preamp, will eventually build valve phono preamp and also acquire retro turntable, either Lenco GL75 (the most likely) or garrad 301 or 401. I am on a mission to Hi Fi loveliness. Odd to think I almost totally transferred to compressed audio for playback on digital devices only to discover analogue again at the 11th hour. Phew.
It's me mate's birthday party this Saturday coming. Band & Disco at The Pelton Arms, the pub where they filmed parts of 'Rock Salmon' the Only Fools & Horses Prequel recently shown on TV.
And that, folks, is about enough waffling from me for now. May the last year of the noughties be a good one for you all