I’ll never get to sing wth Michael Ball

So we were about to go on stage but my mother was insisting we went through this bloody contract with a fine tooth comb. Michael was getting impatient, the band were starting up. Then there was bloody great crash, Jamie and I both suddenly woke up. Dillion had managed to knock the step ladder over with his fat ass, it came crashing down into the bedroom. I picked it back up and sent the back to bed. My only comment to Jamie was, ‘I”m never going to sing with Michael Ball now’, then I went back to sleep.

Going back earlier, I spoke to my mother in the bath. Let me clarify this, I was in the bath, not her, actually she may well have been, actually not as her bath is still in her front garden. She was not going through a contract. She did however start off with a really typical patronising comment based on my recent failed relocation attempt. She has a bit of a history of these, they are all delivered in the same way. When I used to play rugby, which I was actually quite good at, I wanted to pursue it on the school team but the only comment I got in front of a bunch of people was, ‘Oh he’s so small they’ll use him as the ball….hahahha’. And the same for basketball, ‘Oh they’d use you as a step….hahaha’. I pursued neither as it was too much stress and would probably have screwed with her schedule. She made the comment and did the usual ‘hahaha’, it’s a shame I wasn’t there as I’d have quite happily punched her square in the face before the second ‘ha’.

Today I had an answerphone message which I promptly ignored, ‘Oh Tim I think my battery is gone on my laptop, it came up and said it’s almost flat and then it switched off, I don’t know what to do’. I’d give you a suggestion, but I want all those pills for myself.

Then when I got home from the gym, two text messages, first just reiterated the answerphone message, the second said she found the power cable wasn’t plugged in. If she had intelligence she’d be dangerous…..hahaha.

Wiring your speakers via a banana will not improve the base

Popped into town yesterday to the ‘Sound & Vision’ show, should have been renamed ‘Expensive stuff that does nothing show’, there wasn’t very much in the way of ‘vision’ apart from a Dolby Atmos demo which you couldn’t really tell much as the whole thing was with it ‘on’, so impossible to compare. What I did find amusing though was the shear amount of bollocks available for ludicrous prices. And people believing the hype. Now I’m not a cretin, I can happily hear the difference between a one hundred pound turntable and a five hundred pound turntable, I can even hear the difference between a five hundred pound turntable and a fifteen hundred pound turntable (not much), but I can’t make out the difference between a fifteen hundred pound turntable and a five grand one. I can also not hear the difference if you place it on five hundred quids worth of wood that ‘isolates’ it from the surroundings. It also makes no difference to me if you wire the speakers using cable that cost a tenner or cable that cost a million quid. I had an argument with a guy from a cable company, he was trying to convince me that my treble would be amazing due to the oxygen free content of his five hundred quid interconnect. I pointed to the amplifier it was connecting to which had the lid off and said that it was all fine, except that the amp socket was connected to the circuit board using 2p’s worth of Chinese coax. He didn’t have an answer for that. He could have got away with, ‘Ah, but that’s only two inches long and is isolated within the chassis’. The biggest bullshit purveyors of the lot though are those who sell digital interconnects. Providing the cable can transmit the signal error free, it really doesn’t matter if it costs two grand or two quid, the signal will be the same. So for all these hi-fi reviewers who say ‘the blacks looked so much darker and the colours more vibrant’, you are talking absolute shit.

I’ve worked out a way to make a fortune. I’m sure vinyl is designed to be played at a certain temperature. So I’m going to invent a fridge that you put your turntable in, so it’s at the exact correct temperature. Or for the full effect, offer to install perfect air-conditioning to reduce the whole room temperature down to thirty below zero. Your vinyl will sound great, but the increased treble will be over shadowed by the sound of your knackers shivering. But somewhere out there will be a guy with an Aaron sweater, loafers and an Audi who will spend fifty grand on it.

Statute of limitations, doesn’t exist in this country…….

Well if I’m not allowed 500M of plastic sheeting and a set of chefs knives then I’ll have to take an alternative approach. I always said I’d do a rather revealing video when I’m fifty, but I’m getting itchy feet five years early and now have the perfect opportunity to upset the status quo. From my research though, I’m unable to fill in a missing five years, I need to do a bit more investigative work first. It’s a waste of time going through all the ball ache if the end result has already occurred.

I think we’ve reached out and grabbed nothing

After the fun revelation that the company that wanted everyone for the US now just wants to open an office in London kind of screws up all future plans in that direction. Still it was fun while it lasted. So back to plan A and continue with the decorating. I may even decorate the office at some point and install air-conditioning, anyone know an air-conditioning engineer? Mind you I believe I can do anything except cycle through a revolving door (I had a broken ankle to prove the point), it’s only a couple of pipes and a bit of gas, how hard can it be? Wondering what would be a good colour, possibly a blue. Need to finish the bedroom first, still have a third of the ceiling to do.

Bring on gen 2

So there are now eighty new Pokemon to catch. Well I’ve made a good start and got about thirty of them in two days. Cold now going, replaced by a roaring cough. It’s more annoying than anything else but I think it will clear in a couple of days.

Passed all everything I needed to pass but now have a situation that there is no where actually to put me. This has pissed me off somewhat. Still, there are a few possibilities left. Hopefully get some more painting done tomorrow then have to go to dinner at the father-in-laws, which is never a fun experience, it’s all just a little bit dull.

Okay, so I did come down with diphtheria in the end

Spent yesterday in bed, felt awful. But did catch up on a lot of television on the various catchup services. Did go for a walk in the evening to clear my head. Back to work today and pulled off a full ten hours. Spent it all dealing with gravel, very unexciting. Was supposed to have a phone call of the transatlantic flavour but that got cancelled. Hopefully reschedule that for tomorrow.

May be MI5?

Had an odd job pop up on email the other morning. ‘Cyber security engineer’. Sounds like fun. May be put my thirty years of games skills to good use. Then I saw what they were paying, maybe they only want me to work for four months of the year. Had another email, more phone calls to take place later in the week.

I’ll skip the ‘Special Brew’, thanks mate

Spent the night in the spare room as Jamie was snoring like a train. Previous night we both had a tickle in our throats. I jammed about thirty quids worth of chemicals up my nose and Jamie did nothing. Today I’m fine and Jamie has a stinking cold. Colds are beatable, you just have to time it right. Didn’t manage to get a paper yesterday so got out of bed fairly early. Walked Sasha and then headed into town. Nothing memorable button the way back I was standing around twitting with my phone and a homeless guy came up to me, I thought he was about to ask for money but no…..’Alright mate’, then he offered me his can of Special Brew, do I really look that bad? Stopped off at B&Q, bought paint, bedroom is going to be a sort of piss yellow white. On the way out of B&Q carpark I managed to completely twat a bollard in the middle of the road that I just didn’t see at all, all I heard was a scraping and the car flying into the air. Thankfully apart from the plastic bumper thing that’s far too low and now has another scrape out of it, it’s built like a tank, so took it all very much in its stride. Mind you I was only doing about ten mile an hour and it probably thought it was just another speed bump. Not that cars can think, pretty much like the driver at the time. So another night in the spare room as Jamie starts working at 4AM. I’ve even changed the sheets in there. I’ll be in there again tomorrow as well, not just because Jamie will sound like a stomach and flu ward, but it will stink of paint.

Never thought my knowledge of HDR would prove that useful

Spent most of the day looking at gravel, which was a fantastic use of my time. That was after I looked at snow and dirt. It’s been bloody cold today, I mean freezing. Plus I’ve had a really bad headache all day. Went for a walk early evening to clear my head. Then had a very interesting chat with a chap on sort of Skype but not. My knowledge of HDR processing came in handy, plus my ability to debug multiple threads. Just wait now to see if they want to reach out.