I really didn’t want to go into work today as it was freezing. It was so nice to just stay under the covers of the duvet and I was just not brave enough to venture outside! At least for me, my period of exposure to the harsh environment is short.. it’s a mere 2 minute dash across the road to the Elephant & Castle tube station and then I’m underground for most of it until I surface up Gunnersbury. It’s a short work across the road to the business park and then I’m in the office! I’m exposed to the elements for probably about 10 minutes in total!
To be honest, as I walked into the office today, it was so nice and warm.. I was really happy to be in the office and I really enjoyed the day at work (’sad’ some may say!)
When I finished work and was on my way home, I saw the Evening Standard placard, ‘minus 10 degrees’ it mentioned! Cripes! Anyway, I went online to see if I could get more info apparently it could get that cold in Wales or West of England… it maybe the coldest the UK has ever been. Apparently the coldest it’s ever been was the winter of 1962-1963 but some people think this may be the year to beat it!!
I haven’t finished playing Fallout 3 yet but when I went into work the other day, I was told about a game called Left 4 Dead. He said that this game was the ‘bollocks’ (for those not partial to our UK slang-speak.. this means that it is a superb game). I then thought I’d do some investigating on You Tube and buy the game myself.
Before I got the game, I noted that it was a first person shooter.. I’m not particularly fond of those as I am pretty crap at them and my reflexes aren’t what they used to be. However, when I loaded up the game, the intro was so captivating that I felt I had to have a play. I played the single player option.. the game is actually meant to be played as a 4-person co-op but it was about 3am and I didn’t think anyone would be around then! Playing in the single player mode, you have 3 computer players who follow you around… and tha’ts the problem, they just follow and don’t go first! I had to lead them into the room and then they would do the work.. I didn’t like rushing in the room as the zombies rush as you when they see you. They are not like the ones which you see in Resident Evil which slowly amber towards you… the ones in Left 4 Dead run full pelt at you and there’s not one.. they cluster in groups of 5 or more so it’s pretty scary! I jump easily in these sort of games so ideally I would need someone to lead and I’ll be backup and pick them off from a distance. However, in 1 player mode, you have to lead.
The game is superb and everyone who has played it has mentioned how fantastic it is.. the perfect co-op shooter. I certainly love it but I’ll need some friends to play it with me! haha!
I have upgraded the Wordpress software which powers this blog to the new 2.7 version. It was painless as usual, downloaded the zipfile which was 1.2 meg in size and it extracted to 5 meg or so. I simply copied the files over the existing ones and off I went.. it just worked.
There is a message to say that the database needs to be upgrade, you press ok and it’s done. The interface is a bit neater and so far, it looks quite nice! I remember when I did this last time with Wordpress, it worked ok but then I had all sorts of problems with uploading pictures.. it was buggy.
The Wordpress team were obviously a lot more careful this time and I am pleased with it… so far no problems at all. There are a few nice features, the quick post bit where you can just log in and type something and upload to your blog…
I like free software and Wordpress is definately one of my favourites!
I don’t usually play computer games.. well, you wouldn’t say that if you knew me 10 years ago… I was a complete game nut then and would spend probably 90% of my waking life playing games. I would sometimes play way into the night and vastly diminishing my sleep time.. in fact, I think it may have stunted my growth… when you’re growing, especially during puberty, you grow most in your sleep and, of course, if you didn’t get enough sleep, then perhaps you didn’t grow so much!!!
Anyway, I am going off a tangent here but generally, these days, I don’t like to play too many computer games. I can’t help feel that they are a waste of time and effort. The other thing that I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is that time flies… life is indeed short and there is so much. You will only live this life once so you should make the most out of it! Games are great entertainment but hours, days can just disappear on you and you’ve achieved nothing… except that your ingame character is a level 20 arch-mage or something! In the real world, this means nothing of course.
With such a negative feeling towards video games in particular, it’s not like me to play any games. I do love technology however and do like to see how graphics in games have progressed. I particularly like to watch my friends play games and admire the graphics (and not have to deal with the stress of doing poorly in the game).
However, I got a copy of the game Fallout 3 and heard that it was a good game. I loaded it up on my computer and thought I would give it a go to admire the graphics. The first thing was that the graphics were ok.. they weren’t spectacular but I was drawn into the game immediately. You start off (in training mode) watching yourself being born.. your head is out of your mother’s, er, womb and when you finally do pop out, your mother dies…
The next level, you’re a little kid… you can’t do much in this level but it’s a way for you to get used to the controls and moving around.. this is the training level.
Fast forward a few years and you’re having your birthday party.. you get the chance to interact with people and depending on how you do this, you can build your character. I particularly like the dialogue you have with people in the game.. it all goes to building a story and your character.
Although the game is predominately a first person game, it has the character building elements of a role playing type game. You also choose the direction of your development as a character.. you can be a nice guy and help everyone out or be a mean ass and blow everyone to smithereens… however, the game neither encourages or discourages you from choosing either so there is a huge element of openess in the game. You can’t really get stuck for doing the ‘wrong’ thing.The dialogues you have with the other characters in the game also influence what happens.
There is a main story to follow but there are so many small missions to follow or you can just go wandering around the wilderness blowing up raiders (to gain experience and hence enhanced skills) and/or collecting items to sell for money (to get new guns, upgrades, armour etc).
The game is so vast that I have lost over 8 hours playing this game and I’ve only done a couple of levels. I feel really guilty for playing this game but it really addictive… games like these should have a health warning (like those on the front of cigarettes). The game has had rave reviews and as a non-hardened gamer, I recommend it.
Just so you know, I played the game on PC but it is available also on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
I have compiled a list of where you can get it at the best prices:
Last Friday on my day off I thought I would go and visit the newly opened Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherds Bush… I have been reading that it is the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe. However, on the same page as the previous information in Wikipedia, it says that it is the third largest shopping centre in the UK. Unless I am missing something, the two previous statements contradict each other.. hey, I am not saying this, I am just repeating what I have read!
Anyway, it makes me think what something like the Westfield shopping centre does to shopping centres in Bluewater and Lakeside.. also, in Central London, Oxford Street is the busiest.. with the opening of the Westfield shopping centre in London, what does it mean for them now? I wish I could answer that and if I had the time I would go for a wander to the other shopping areas to see.
However, my visit to the Westfield shopping centre was on their second day of opening. I came out of Shepherds Bush station and was pleasantly surprised… they have done the station up and it looks modern and can handle the capacity of all these new found shoppers.
The walk up to the centre itself from the station is a mere 5 minutes or so but it was pretty impressive. Modern architecture and designer looking buildings make it so much more pleasing to the eye. To be honest, I am not a shopping fan but something out of the ordinary shopping centres makes things more interesting.
Being new however, I noticed on the walk up to the shopping centre, there were cash points which were not working. There were also a few shops which had not completely open.. in that I mean some were not open at all and some obviously had some snags.. there was one restaurant where you had to pay cash only as they hadn’t got their card payment systems in place as yet.
The amount of people in the centre was phenomenal.. being a Friday when I expected the majority of people to be at work didn’t make it make a difference. Perhaps people had taken a day off to visit, or these were people who had been laid off due to the credit crunch.. I don’t know but whatever it was, there were way too many people..
We were hoping to have a late lunch in the food hall.. it was around 3pm by this time but the whole place was chokka.. we could not get a seat at all. The decor was pretty impressive though, all designer chairs and tables.. very impressive. We ended up buying some wraps at M&S and munching our food whilst browsing.
On Tuesday, I read in the papers that the Icelandic bank, Icesave was on the brink of collapse, another casualty in the credit crunch crisis that is hitting the world. It struck fear and anxiety in me as I have all my savings in the bank.. arrrgh!! Their website read:
“We are not currently processing any deposits or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave internet accounts. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our customers.”
I was able to log into the site and look at my balance but indeed, I was unable to get my money out… the press were saying that the first chunk of money was not covered by the FSA but with the Icelandic Deposit Guarantees and Investor-Compensation Scheme.. anyway, rather than me explain, I’ve just copied and pasted as below:
“Deposits made with Icesave are protected under the Icelandic Deposit Guarantees and Investor-Compensation Scheme (details of this scheme may be obtained from www.landsbanki.com/legislation). Payments under this scheme are limited to the first €20,887 (or the sterling equivalent) of your total deposits held with us.http://www.icesave.co.uk/financial-protection.html
You have further protection from the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (www.fscs.org.uk). Payments under this scheme are limited to 100% of the first £2000 of all your deposits with us, plus 90% of the next £33,000 of your total deposits with us, less any payments made under the Icelandic scheme. This means that the maximum claim amount as at June 2006 is £31,700.”
It wasn’t good reading particularly since there is no money in the Icelandic system due to what’s happened but then the British Government stepped in and have guaranteed all savers their money which is fantastic, I feel so much better…
So, ok, how do I take my money out? I have absolutely no idea but the first thing you should do is to login to the site and print out your statement so you don’t get screwed over.
Although the British government has said that they guarantee the retail deposits, the same cannot be true of the wholesale deposits… the UK treasury hasn’t mentioned bailing them out. The things is, a load of councils had their money in the Iceland banks which in total may amount to £1 billion. The links below shows the amount of money invested by various councils in the UK:
Sorry it’s been quiet.. I’ve not updated my blog in a week or so now as I was in Cape Town on business. It’s beautiful out there (I am mostly speaking from my last trip out there) but this time, the weather was exactly like that of the UK, it was raining constantly with dark clouds.
Anyway, the start of my journey was from the newly built Terminal 5… it was my first journey from there so I was keen to see what the place looked like. The word that comes to mind is huge and it reminds me of the new Hong Kong airport.
To cut a long story short as I can go on for quite a bit.. when I went to check in, they had told me that they had oversold the Business Class tickets and that they would have to put me in the class below which was Club Traveller Plus (BA have four classes for their flights now, First Class, Business Class, Club Traveller Plus and Club Traveller (aka Economy class)). They would refund the cost of the tickets of course (to the company I work for of course as they paid for them) and would give me something by way of compensation.
To be honest, I wasn’t too annoyed about the downgrade itself but what annoys me here is the reason why British Airways can get into this situation. Their policy is to always oversell the high end tickets as they expect a few not to turn up.. however, if you consider the price of a Business Class ticket is about £3000 and it make me shudder to think what a First Class ticket would cost.. would you really miss it? However, for someone to afford a First Class ticket, they must have so much money not to really care so perhaps that’s the logic behind it.
For sure, those downgraded get very irate (I was not best pleased either despite my rather philosophical view) but the word that comes to mind is GREED!! Yep, that ugly word! I mean, the seats are booked and paid for already so if someone doesn’t turn up for it, they have already made their money on it.. BA just want to be able to capitalise on the situation and make a few extra bucks at the expense of customer service. Admitedly they do give you the best seats of the class below your intended but it’s still GREED and it’s been lodged at the back of my mind that they put profits before their customers.
At the departure gate, they give you your personal compensation which is a prepaid credit card holding £200. They were very keen for me to sign this and in doing so, it indemnifys any legal loss or damage… Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I refused to sign it, would they give me more?
Anyway, when I got back to the UK, I went to the cash machine to see if I could take out the money in full and yep, I did, a nice £200 in crisp notes! Anyway, here are some pictures of the prepaid credit card:
Recently I got fed up of Internet Explorer and went to use Firefox. I really liked how quick Firefox was and it had a huge library of plugins which worked seemlessly with it.
That was a few weeks ago and now I hear of a new Internet browswer called Chrome which has been released by Google! I was dead excited and I thought I would give it a go..
Well, the initial download didn’t take long.. it said about 500 kb but it is actually an installer program which uses the web to download the rest of it’s components. I went to see how large the install folder was for Chrome and it was about 65 meg. Firefox by comparison is 25 meg and the Internet Explorer folder says 1.45 meg which is tiny but I suspect it sits in other places within Windows.
Chrome is pretty nippy and pages open up in a flash… I also like how it looks very minimalist meaning you get a very large view area. When you fire up Chrome for the second time, it gives you a display of your previous viewed pages in a screenshot format.. that is a rather nice feature.
There is also a feature called ‘incognito’ mode which allows you to surf the web invisibly.. well, sort of.. the page description says:
You’ve gone incognito. Pages that you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Any files that you download or bookmarks that you create will be preserved, however.
Going incognito doesn’t affect the behaviour of other people, servers or software. Be wary of:
Websites that collect or share information about you
Internet service providers or employers that track the pages that you visit
Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
The only thing which I have been unable to get it to work with is those pages with embedded Java applications. I haven’t found a way to install the Java Virtual Machine
Well, if I were to rank the mainstream internet browsers right now, I would pick Firefox first, Google Chrome second and finally, sorry Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7.
Anyway, with Google Chrome, I’m sure that there are all sorts of neat tricks and I’ve only scratched the surface of it.. I can see that they have taken what has been popular in Firefox and Internet Explorer and worked to improve on it.. tabs are great and very quick to flip between. To read more about it, go to
Yesterday I participated in the Nike Human Race in London, UK where 30,000 people gathered in Wembley to race those in 25 participating countries. I always enjoy the Nike 10km runs and have tried to do them each year… last year, they took a break and there was nothing so I was glad to see that they were back with something, which I hoped would be fantastic and fun. I tend to go along with friends which make the experience so much more fun… anyway, here is my little rant!
I’m not generally any good in reading instructions but my friends had called me to tell me to meet them at 5pm at Wembley Park station where we would descend and make our way to the new stadium. There wasn’t too much information with regards to what was happening except that there was a concert and that we had to get into the stadium by 6pm.
Well, being in the UK means that the weather is very unpredictable and the heavens just opened up and it poored buckets whilst I was at the station, I prayed that it would stop and was thinking that perhaps a ride back home wouldn’t be such a bad thing.. the last thing I wanted was to be drenched and to get a cold.
Anyway, when everyone turned up at the station, the rain had stopped and we walked down the famous Olympic Way towards the new Wembley stadium, seeing a sea of red was quite impressive I must admit and felt proud to be part of it all.
The next half an hour was generally walking around and checking in our bags and making our way into the stadium itself. Although we were designated 4 waves which historically had all started after each other, there were no set instructions as to how the race would have been conducted… in fact, when the race materials arrived, it was only then did we realise that it was going to be a late Sunday start..
Anyway, into the stadium we gathered and stood… and stood and stood!! There was a band called Pendulum (I’d never heard of them) and also Moby. To be honest, I think most of the people just wanted to run but we waited almost 2 hours before we were allowed out and do the business. I didn’t particularly enjoy the concert too much despite the acts’ best efforts in stirring the crowd into a wild frenzy.. if I wanted to listen to techno rave music, I would have gone to a techno rave music type event. The waiting around got quite irritable and I got hungry, cold and thirsty… the thirst I could deal with as there was plenty of water available but having a mere £1 was not enough to buy any pizza which was being charged at a record £5.50 for a slice and a drink!!! Shocking!
The weather at this time was still holding up… however, as soon as they announced that it was time to do the run… the heavens opened up again! It was not pleasant!! It rained heavily for the first 5 km and I was soaked head to toe… the 10 km circuit was a real disappointment also, they had cobbled up a track in the midst of an industrial estate and the car parks of Ikea and other retail chains. At various parts, the visibility was so low as it was gone 8pm by this time and wet, that I ran through puddles which were about 3-4 inches in depth.. I was soaked anyway so it didn’t really make much difference to my overall being.
To be honest, it was a real big disappointment.. Nike really did a really poor job I thought compared with how well they had organised the events before. The track was very very disappointing… there were bins with nasty smells coming out of them which we ran through.. ugh!!
The only great thing was how you get a text alert almost immediately with the time that you finished. Mine was 51 mins and 22 seconds which was a little disappointing for me.. I was aiming for under 50.
I love watching the 100 metre sprints as I was once dubbed the fastest kid at school when I was about 14 years of age… I’ve never really developed my natural ability to sprint however but have instead started to train myself for longer distance running to remain trim.
Anyway, when Usain Bolt ran 100 metre sprint at the Beijing Olympics and made a new World Record, I went looking for a video (as I hadn’t managed to catch it on TV).. it was almost impossible to find due to copyright infringements on You Tube and the like.. anyway, I found one eventually but it’s not in English…
I think he could have ran it faster if he didn’t start showboating the last 10 metres or so!!
