Category Archives: Diary

Christmas must be coming, bum boys got a cold

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Morning started slowly with editing Android batch files for arm7 directories to be correct. When that was out of the way, which took longer than expected due to the joys of DOS batch it was time for lunch. Sandwich duly made, I walked the dog, which of course was a cue for the heavens to open and we were pissed on.

Came back and got stuck into some interesting client / server type code, haven’t done that in many moons, made quite a pleasant day. Then went to the gym and did Combat, which was the new release, performed by Liz in a Santa hat.

Came back, ate salad. Watched multiple episodes of ‘The Hotel Inspector’, almost up to date on it now, not bad considering it was recorded in August. Still haven’t put the tree up yet, but Christmas must be getting pretty close as Jamie has yet another bloody cold. Meanwhile my body appears to have returned to pretty much normal.

In my quest for heating that works properly, I’ve now ordered a differential temperature thermocouple. Also I think the programmer is a bit buggered and the relay has jammed on the heating side, I need to pull the wiring centre apart and take some measurements.

Oh the fire alarm across the road…..by 8AM it was silenced.

I’ve enjoyed listening to your fire alarm for three days, by now I’m pretty certain there is no fire.

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So the day started with trying to finish off a film I’d been watching all week but has now been removed by LoveFilm. Cheers guys, it was just getting to all the fun rapey scenes as well. Ended up watching some teen dram film thing after some fairly mediocre sex.

Got up and did the first job of the day which quite honestly now I can’t remember what it was, oh yes, sorting out some laptops. Did one. Had lunch. Walked the dog. Did the other. Then fiddled with the heating again, something is definitely screwed wiring wise or the 3 port is buggered as if the heating on the timer is off the boiler still kicks in if the room stat triggers. So tried balancing everything again with the lower pump speed, gave up when the house reached the temperature of the Sahara. I’ve now opened all the lockshields and have a flow drop of about 10 degrees, I think to be honest that’s about as good as I’m going to get, I may try it on it’s lowest speed, but I do want to avoid any pipe banging, plus there’s also the issue of boiler over heat if it can’t get shot of it fast enough. Anyway, something to play about with next week.

Oh, stomach seems pretty much back to normal today. Ass is still a little gassy. So bath and some wine I think.

Oh the Yankee Candle’s factory across the road, it’s fire alarm has been going non stop since Friday lunchtime, it’s now Sunday evening. I tried calling the police, who were as usual a complete waste of fucking time, it’s apparently the councils problem, considering all the run ins I’ve had with them in the past I’ll already rule them out as a complete waste of fucking time. So I found the number of the letting agents and left them a nice answer phone message for Monday morning. I am, not one, to piss off. Bath time.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m pumping too hard

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So this morning started off very much how last night ended, in a great deal of pain. I did have breakfast and kept that down no problem. Got up in the end at about 3PM as the shopping needed to be done. It took several bathroom attempts before I was ready, I still seem to be losing liquid weight out of my arse.

At Tesco at the moment is this ‘videogameathon’ or something, where they are trying to make a browser game in 48 hours. Been there, done that, but many many many years ago. I did smile when I saw all the bottles of Coke and all the Pro-plus pills. Took me back to 25 years ago when perhaps I wasn’t so fucking bitter. There was this kid there who was obsessed by Sonic, he turned up with his parents as Jamie had one of his Sonic Show banners up. How the parents haven’t actually killed him by now is a miracle, talk about geek.

Did the shopping. Came back home and went back to bed with a nice cup of tea and the paper. I’m feeling generally okay except for a massive amount of pain in my kidneys still. I think I’ll watch the end of a film I’ve been slowly getting through then try and make a move on a few things.

Oh yes, the pumping thing. The circulation pump has three settings, it’s always been set to high, I reckon that’s why the radiators have always been a pain in the ass to balance, and probably why there is always a huge amount of air in the system (it sucks it in via the vent). I’ve now set it on medium, heating is now virtually silent, but everything of course now needs balancing again.

Then my body decided to do it’s own personal ‘PowerFlush’

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I had the day off today as it was the office Christmas party which I wasn’t going to for various reasons, and as it turns out this was a very wise move.

The weather was appalling, so spent most of the morning catching up on iPlayer stuff. Eventually got up and had lunch and took the dog out for a walk in the pouring rain. Then I decided I wasn’t in the mood to do pump so thought I’d just to go the gym and do some running. So off I went, ran for almost an hour but the body was slowly beginning to say no.

Came back home, my back was beginning to hurt a bit, so I decided to lie on the bed with a nice cup of tea. Within an hour my temperature had shot up to volcano levels and liquids were firing out of every available orifice. To say then that I was having a bit of a rough night was an understatement. My stomach did settle down pretty quickly and I was able to eat a sausage roll, but my kidneys feel like they have been constantly kicked by the mother-in-law wearing hobnail boots. I was also having some very weird dreams about linux setups and xml files which didn’t help. Still I’ve lost over a stone in weight. I thought it may have been food poisoning but I haven’t eaten anything out of the ordinary so I’m assuming it’s actually the winter vomit bug, or Norovirus.

Never in 40 years have I decided that ordering a kebab would be a great idea

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So spent the day working on OsX on iMac. I was supposed to be looking at some tcp/ip network code next but I remembered that the new audio lib hadn’t been tested on iMac. In the end I ended up using all the iOS codec code rather than codec code for the other platforms. The only minor alteration required was that OsX doesn’t support hardware codecs, that was about it apart from a few 64 bit pointer arithmetic warnings. It did however highlight a bug in the library that only showed up on OsX which was weird. Anyway, all working now.

Jamie was still in bed at lunchtime. He was cruising his phone looking at the kebab shop menu. He was lying in bed very much as a polar bear would bask on an iceberg, except he’s colder inside. I went and made a sandwich. By the time I’d finished the doorbell went, it was the delivery man from Pizza Hut. Oh, well, at least he hadn’t ordered a shoe, which is what I affectionately refer to his kebabs as, I’d rather eat the polystyrene box.

I walked the dog. Very chilly out. Came back, did some more work. Shut down for the long weekend. Went to the gym. Now playing around with the boiler output temperature, I still think there’s something wrong somewhere. Need to get a temperature probe really.

Anyway, torture porn night. Bring on the wine.

Potterton Netaheat you have been retired after 20 years of virtually fault free service. (And now unceremoniously dumped in the front garden)

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So started off a very long day at 6:15AM. The dog was already on the ball after checking her calendar last night, knowing it was Wednesday, she was up and ready for breakfast, wolfed it down and was ready to get into her harness in about three minutes. We sat in the car and discussed North Korea’s missile launch while we waited for the car to defrost. She got to day care at 6:50, I was back in bed by 7:15.

Was rudely awaken by two smiling boiler fitters at 8:30. They came in, I introduced them to the kettle and coffee machine then left them to it. They turned the water off grunted a bit and got on with it. Deciding that it was pointless trying to go back to bed I started work, well I started iPlayer anyway and caught up with another episode of Merlin anyway.

Today I was working on OsX (iMac) again, found the issue with the audio, wasn’t audio related at all, but was to do with memory alignment, OsX requires 16 byte alignment as it uses multimedia registers. Also fixed a few issues with minimise/maximise. Got one of our apps working fine on iMac which was great. Also did a few more bits on the upcoming mobile game update.

Boiler men were finished by 2PM. Okay, lets see. Boiler fitted, the inside of the flu has been jammed with expanding foam and not the neatest thing in the world. They told me my three port valve wasn’t working properly and when there was a call for heat only it was also going to the water tank. They also told me for maximum efficiency it I should run the boiler on max. They filled all the paperwork out and buggered off (I even paid them).

Now here’s the reality. The outside flu is tidy, the inside looks like it was done by a 3 year old. The actual boiler fitting is fine. There’s nothing wrong with the three port valve, I tested it on heat/heat&water/water and the valve moved between all positions just fine, I assume they didn’t have the controls set correctly. In the paperwork they said they flushed the system and then added inhibitor using the brand name ‘Fernox’, this is complete bollocks. How do I know this? Well they chucked the used container of cheapo Toolstation inhibitor in the kitchen bin. Running the boiler at max temperature setting, again, as far as I can tell complete bollocks. Every bit of research I have done says a condensing boiler gets more efficient when the return flow is below 55 degrees, so chucking the water out at 86 and then hoping for a 30 degree drop across all the radiators is a bit much. Also they only drained the system from the boiler level not from the under the lowest radiator, this left half the system full and not flushed. This also introduced an airlock, meaning I’ll be bleeding radiators for the next six months as they will contain more air than my ass after a decent curry. So would I use them again? Too bloody right I would. I paid about five hundred quid for fitting which included all sundries, testing and paperwork. Plus about three tubes of expanding foam. At the end of the day British Gas wanted an extra £1500 for the exact same job (okay, except the £7 I had to spend on a length of cable). They may have done a better job of the finish and may have even drained it properly but at the end of the day, it was the same boiler. So I paid a bargain bucket price for the bear legal and safety requirements, which is exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t have done it myself as it wouldn’t be legal and I don’t have a fucking great drill for the flu. Also I don’t have the testing gear necessary. So overall, very happy, just need to rebalance the radiators and adjust the output to the minimum required to reach the required temperature. Oh and bleed all the fart air out of the radiators.

After they went, I decided that as it was only minus six outside it would be a great idea to go out and run 12 miles. So I did. I then came back and picked up the dog. She was very happy. I was very happy. I had lunch. Did a bit more work and finished a bit earlier due to the early start.

I then cleaned out the cupboards where I’d removed all the stuff yesterday for the condense pipe and put all the stuff back in. More wine turned up today, and dog food. I’ll try not to use that as nibbles. Had a bath, drank wine, ate salad. Dog is at the vet tomorrow for her shots. I’ve got Friday off, I won’t get excited.

Today was bloody brass monkeys

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So back to the Android pak in pak problem, which thankfully was fairly easily solvable in the end. So now it can load a compressed file from an asset file. Then it was on to more mobile update tweaks. Finally got on to doing some work on OsX, OpenAL, was an ass.

Today I waited in for the cleaners, after a couple phone calls they turned up just before five. Which means madam didn’t get her walk. So after they left I took her out and by god was it cold.

I had a follow up call to do for a dog, I quickly checked on the website and there it was, after six months the new owners returned him. This pissed me off somewhat, the dog was lovely, the owners however were a pain in the ass. That poor dog, which was in a nice home with what he thought were his forever family has now been taken back to the kennels where he will get to spend the next however many weeks in a cold kennel until he’s hopefully chosen again and has to go through all the trauma of trying to settle in again. Okay, his recall was a bit poor, he pulled on his lead and tended to bark a lot when left alone for eight hours at a time. Were you expecting the perfect dog? I hope you have a quiet dog free night.

Didn’t go to the gym. Had a bath. Had a glass of wine. Didn’t even eat salad, had something hot. Boiler being changed tomorrow.

Pak in Pak

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And another unexciting week begins. Well it could get exciting I guess, wait and see.

So started off tracing a bug in the mobile update. Then played around with a few bits on it. Took dog out for a walk fairly early as I wanted to get a full afternoon in. Had lunch, it’s a chicken salad sandwich, it always is.

So back looking at Android in the afternoon. This was this pak inside a pak problem again. To recap, Android has all it’s data in an archive, I’ve already stopped archive data in the archive being archived. For the stupid amongst you that means nothing is stored compressed inside the main compressed file. Now I had all this working, but by god was it slow. After several hours I traced it to wonderful recursion, for every file it wanted to open inside the child archive it actually loaded the entire archive. So it looks like the solution is to get the file position in the parent archive and then open that as the child archive. The fun now is how to actually get that file position, which will require no doubt diving through a load of structures which will all be endian swapped. Still that’s fun for tomorrow.

Went to gym. Did Body Combat. Only one more before Christmas apparently. Came back, did another change to mobile game update. Sat down, ate salad. Cleaners coming tomorrow, boiler being done Wednesday. The excitement may never start.

I was very un-gay, I went to B&Q and bought cistern parts

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So started off in bed. Told Jamie he was unattractive lots. This mad him hate me somewhat. Still need to keep him trim or by the time he’s 30 he’ll look like my mother. Watched X-Factor on the iPad, followed by ‘The McFly Show’, which was a TV special but good fun. Harry has a great bod, but I’d definitely do Dougie. Just before the third ad-break we had sex, it was very good. Finished watching TV. Got up, Jamie said when are you going to fix the toilet, which has been talking to itself now for several months. I took the top off and poked things, came to the conclusion that the syphon and the inlet ball valve were both fucked. So I did the manly thing and went to B&Q and bought a ‘complete easy fit conversion kit’. Hmmm.

Came back, had lunch and read the paper. So assembled all the tools, tried to isolate the cold water from the tank, found a tap for it, turned it off. The water in the bath now stopped running. The water to the cistern however didn’t. So the bloody thing was mains pressure, wrestled with the stop tap, stopped water. Now had to remove the old cistern. This thing had no doubt been in place since the first world war, so the screws holding it on to the wall had rusted away. So took the heads of and undid them with pliers. Undid the pipes and the screws holding it to the pan. Removed cistern. The removed the cistern internals. Then took about an hour cleaning out the cistern with the shower spray, removing congealed toilet duck and something that was trying to evolve. Then inserted the new flip valve thing. Put cistern back on bog, noticed it was rotated wrongly. Removed cistern, rotated it. Reassembled, tried to set the height of the inlet valve, then worked out there was no bloody way that was going to fit. Disassembled, hack-sawed off the end of the overflow. Reassembled. Fitted inlet valve. Reconnected all the pipes. Turned the water on. Enjoyed watching the water pissing out the bottom of the cistern. Turned water off. Tightened everything up. Turned water on. Took out all handle and replace with a push button. Linked that up, watched it fail to work. Played around with it until it did work. Then tried to put the lid back on the cistern, now that didn’t fit. Swore at the inlet value, until it shrank below the level of the cistern top (also required persuasion tool), replaced top. It’s now all working, I think the inlet may be seeping a bit, need to keep an eye on it.

Next job of the day was cleaning out the freezer. Removed everything, got rid of a load of tat that Jamie had just stored in there as he could never be arsed to eat it. Cleaned everything and put it all back. I’m out of peas.

Next job was cleaning out the larder. This is the storage place where Jamie will use an item, not read the back of it which says ‘refrigerate after opening and use within one month’. There were new live forms evolving there. Took everything out, cleaned all the shelves and put it all back again. Then removed all the bio-degrading plastic bags from under the sink. Sorted out the cardboard, had a poo.

Patrick Moore died today, shame, nice guy, a bit odd, but the world would be very dull if it was full of people like Gordon Brown.

Just seen a very odd thing outside my Window, whole group of Indians (as in the country, not the squaw type), walking down the road followed by a fully dressed Santa. Then out of their door came at least another three Santa’s that got into a people carrier and drove off. The people carrier was being driven by another Santa. You would think that with all this eco-warrior type shit Santa would have at least had a Prius. I hadn’t been drinking at all. May be it’s time to start. I’m going to have a bath while admiring my new toilet flush.

Today I bought a new washing up brush

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Started the morning with a weird dream, can’t remember it though which is a bit of a shame. Got up at a reasonable hour, well just before midday. Walked the dog, stopped in the vets on the way round and booked her in for her boosters. Did the shopping. Had loads and loads of vouchers for stuff, so stocked up on pickled onions, toothpaste and biscuits. All the stuff I didn’t need.

Came back and had lunch, read the paper. Walked into town, nice German market there at the moment. Bought a new washing up bowl and a brush, as the existing one’s really are looking a bit manky. Called in mothers on the way back. Fixed her curtain rail again (big big screw this time). Got her Christmas tree down from the loft and found her a recipe for Brandy Sauce.

Came back home and did the accounts. Worked how much money I’m owed, it’s a lot, but not as much as I thought. Tonight we are having Chicken Tikka Jelfrezi. Which will be about the fourth Saturday curry in a row, but I am getting really good at them now. So quick bath I think, then on with the cooking.

Tonight I’m typing this on the i-Mac as I’m currently trying to sync my iPad while downloading tunes from Amazon and then syncing them with iTunes. This I’m sure being a Mac, will not actually work first time. People always say oh iMac’s are wonderful, actually they’re not. This one falls over way more often than my Windows7 box which I use far more often. Every time I switch this one on it tells me the mouse batteries are flat, it’s done that ever since I’ve had it. But it is very useful for watching iPlayer on.