This morning was a bit weird. Started in one of those odd dream states. There was no way I could afford 95 grand. Okay, this is what happened, we decided that on our American trip we couldn’t survive without all our worldly goods. So we packed them into a container. We then got a haulage company to transport the whole lot to Tokyo. But on the day they were due to go I told Jamie that it really wasn’t worth bothering with and that he should cancel it. So he rang them up and the lady was quite upset because apparently the two guys taking the lorry had planned their route to pick up a load of booze on the way back. I then said he should ring the broker as well as they would need informing. I’d already paid out eight grand for the haulage. The broker then told me to cancel would be anywhere between a grand and ninty-five grand. There was no way I could afford that so refused to sign.

I hadn’t even eaton any cheese before that.

Got up and siliconed the flooring in the kitchen. We then took the dogs out to the field. Came back and popped up to the mall, I looked at headphones, still undecided.

Came back and put down a few lengths of beading, still a load more to do, but it’s a start.

Put on the Dan & Phil, radio one show. And oh yes, my video was the first on. Okay, they synced it to another track, but hey, that’s one more than Jamie has ever achieved.

I can die happy, but I’m going to eat first.

This morning started fairly early, but to be honest I was very tired, so I kept dozing off into some amazing R.E.M. sleep with some very vivid dreams. I eventually go up at about mid-day. Took Sasha out as Dillon wasn’t interested. Weighed her at the vets, she’s losing weight at a rate that I’d like to. So I’ve put them on a tin each for tea now.

Had lunch. Went to B&Q. Had a hell of a job finding upvc quadrant. Got everything in the end. Then drove towards town. Walked in, tested out a few sets of headphones. Walked back to the car again, picked it up and went to tool station. Got some more silicone sealant and a mitre saw. Drove home. Did want sex with Jamie but he wasn’t there. Did the accounts. Then made pan cakes. Every year I make the same mistake. I make myself about six, but they are so bloody filling I can only eat about two. ‘Barcelona’ came on the radio, Dillon and I were singing along to it. Ordered a new UPS, okay, it’s a reconditioned one, but still over two hundred quid. But as it’s a work thing it’s fully tax deductible. Tomorrow I get to do more DIY things.

Shaders will be the death of me I’m sure. I’m so intimate with that damn compiler source it’s almost like were having an affair. The whole day was spent trying to get a set of shaders to compile with global params in one block. Works fine standalone but then goes tits when used as part of the build chain. Gave up just after ten at night, a fun one to get stuck into on Monday.

Spoke to Sarah, well attempted to, soon as I got through the Tesco van arrived, so unloaded shopping. Then had anther pop. She’s spoken to mother, who unsurprisingly was in something of denial. We’ve basically left the ball entirely i her court, we can give her help, or she can go rot. Her choice. Oddly she sent an email to her one and only friend in reply to something, she said nothing except for the subject of the email (which was about her uncle in a care home). So she knows big brother is watching (and relaying to big sister).

Went to Body Pump, then did a really good session with Laverne afterwards. I’m getting very strong up top. Didn’t do much else then other than have a bath and collapse in front of the TV.

Woke up feeling more worse for wear than I was planning. Joys of finishing off about four bottles of wine. They weren’t all full incidentally. Just a mixture. Checked email then twitter. Got a very off tweet, “I want my socks back! I have spent the last 30 years wondering where they went you bastard!” It was from an old friend of mine who I went to school with. Haven’t seen him in many years, hope all is well with you Andy. Just shows with all this social media you have no idea who’s watching your videos or reading your tweets. Or indeed reading your blog. I know for certain one person who isn’t. Apparently my sister has spoken to her today, I haven’t spoken to my sister yet though.

Work wise, today was all about shaders. I have an interesting issue that I have hundreds of global params spread all over shaders and I need them all in one block. After a hell of a lot of thinking and several false starts I finally worked out a way of doing it. It does mean altering every shader yet again though. Still, fin job for a Friday.

Went to Spin. Uneventful.

Came back and played with Traktor Pro. This is DJ mixing software. I have a USB controller, which I finally managed to configure correctly. Still going through the manual but it’s good fun to play about with. Did some more work.

Lots on at the moment. Lots to play with. Never a dull moment.

Torture porn night.

Forgot to mention yesterday, when I was doing the flooring, Jamie had the dogs in the bedroom for about seven hours. When he eventually came down Dillon went out for a pee and we stood there giggle as he was going for about three minutes.

Work was tidying up a few bits from last week. Also looking at a few optimisation things. Walked the dogs. Did more work.

Went to BodyCombat. Was great fun. My arms are looking damn fine. Chatting to Sarah, were going to see if we can do something about mother. As murder is a bit dodgy, we may look inter power of attorney instead. Oh I’ve looked it up, it’s £110 for the financial form.

Came back and did a bit more work. Then decided to re-edit my heli video. But to use the radio edit of the song so it’s shorter. Installed all my new FCPX plug-ins. They are fantastic. Had great fun with light bleeding, lens flares and volumetric lighting. Need another couple of sessions on it, but looking good.

Going to have a torture porn night tonight, as it’s been about a month since I’ve watched a film.

Don’t forget to watch my new video ’99 anecdotes and the bitch is in all of them’.

So woke up with a little bit of a hangover, which isn’t really surprising after not drinking for a month. Still, had breakfast and read the paper. Then just cracked on. Got the new steam mop out and cleaned the lino. Then just started cutting away. I spent the next seven hours cutting and laying laminate flooring. And to be honest I made a fucking good job of it. All done. And I have enough left over to do the downstairs loo. The saw I bought was an absolute gem. It really served it’s purpose well. I need to put silicone sealant round it next and then add the beading. I’m really pleased with it. The only slight cock-up I made was when I put the washing machine back, I turned the hot water on rather than the cold, and flooded underneath the unit. It was late, I’d been at it all day…..So At the moment the washing machine I stuck out in the middle of the floor while it all dries out.

I’ve decided I’m going to do the whole of the dinning room and the lounge, this will enable me to get the cables in I want.

My camera sold for a hundred and twelve pounds which was pretty good. Had a bath, drank some home brew. Now looking forward to some food and sleep.

Had an email from my mother. I answered in a curt but professional manner. If she wants to see the last season of Dexter, she will have to save up and buy the box set, after all it’s a lot less than a Nina Lemon skirt.

Today I had a bit of a’me’ day. That is I did stuff that I wanted to do, rather than to the benefit of anyone else. So had breakfast and fed the dogs, cruised the internet for a bit. I then walked Sasha, Dillon wasn’t interested. Then I decided to make some videos, I actually ended up making three videos. Well I did the filming for three anyway, as thats the bit that takes the time. I then popped out to Tesco’s. Can back and then spent the next three hours editing. I decided to go for my next bitching video first. So I edited ’99 anecdotes and the bitch is in all of them’ first. This is quite an amusing video about my mothers story telling. In between I moved the whole of the kitchen into the dinning room. This is so I can do the laminate flooring tomorrow.

Bought a steam cleaner for the laminate flooring and picked up Jamie. Had a shower. We then went to the local Italian. It was good to see it really busy. I had a lovely pizza, Jamie had the steak. Now the prohibition is over I drank three pints of Stella and feel rather pissed. So I’m having an early night, lots of DIY tomorrow.

You can find my latest video here ’99 problems and the bitch is in all of them.’

Today I didn’t have to do anything with video codecs. Actually I did remote play which turned out to be remarkably easy. Then ended up with a truly horrible thread issue. I’ll go into fun detail on this. A thread is created via normal system, so this had a thread ID. This is a system task, which then creates several other threads. These threads do memory allocations, the memory allocator keeps a track of the calling thread ID. If the ID doesn’t have an internal context then one is created. At the end of each frame all contexts are tested to see if they are then stale, if they are they are deleted. Now this all worked fine, until today. Here was the fun scenario. A thread was created, this had an ID, the system then allocated a load of other threads which had memory callbacks so contexts were created. All good. Except then the thread was closed, the system threads then exited, but a new thread was created the same frame. The system allocated a thread ID of one of the old system threads, this then happens to be in the context hash table as it’s yet to be marked as stale. It then all goes bang. I got round it by doing a manual flush after the thread was deemed, but it is rather a strange case. The moral of the story is not to ignore that the system can reallocate thread ID’s just when you’re not expecting it. Another fun issue of the day is that we needed a build for Monday. This after about four attempts using the automated build system is still failing. So I had to produce one here, package it up, rar it and I’m now uploading it.

Apart from that not a lot else happened. Oh I’ve got my fun little DJ controller, I’ll have a pop with that on the Mac the weekend. Went to Pump. Then did a good session with Laverne afterwards. Ate too much chocolate. Had spaghetti and meatballs, which tasted a bit ass.

Last day off the booze. I’ve surprised myself, managed all 28 days, without any issues. The fridges are back on. But tonight I’m sat down with a pint. A pint of water. I may make some videos and play about with some stuff tomorrow. Sundays going to be a full on bloody hard day.