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When asked if you want the mint conditioner say ‘no’. It… I suppose ’stings’ is the best word here, something chronic.

Ooh yay! Mass Effect (XBox 360) has finally been released after god knows how many month of waiting. There doesn’t appear to be a huge amount of excitement about it from my gaming friends (they’re all jumping up and down about The Orange Box and Assassins Creed, the latter of which I have for PS3 but haven’t played yet). The graphics are a little dissapointing with lots of little glitches but the game itself seems quite fun. Looking forward to playing it some more Really should play Halo 3 a bit more too. I suspect the 10 minutes worth of half hearted play I gave it before going ‘Meh.’ didn’t really give it a fair chance

So, bad news for you lot as blog output is down due to me watching House on the shiny while on the train instead of whittering away on my laptop. Still, good news for me. Now I no longer need to troll around with the Urban Geek Pack I can now take my gym bag to work. This means I have no excuse for not going (of late it’s been cold and dark which saps the will to leave the house once you’re in it. No swimming though. To cold and I have a cold which is never condusive to a dip. At some point I need to sort out a resistance program for my arms. Waving swords about is killing the muscles in them

You can still buy lion bars.

I have new clothes. I may even reinstate shirt watch to cover all the new tshirts and hoodies I’ve bought (because I know you lot just love coming here and thinking ‘why the hell has he posted that? We don’t care!’). I have t-shirts with humorous slogans: ‘Meh.‘, ‘I void warranties‘, ‘Keep out of direct sunlight‘ and ‘I see stupid people‘ being some of them.

I have t-shirts that tell people about my mood. For example, if I am in a good mood I have one that says: ‘Not antisocial, just shy (you can talk to me!)’ (thanks to Bathgirl for that one) which means I’m in a good mood, I wish to talk to people and, if you’re cute and single, please feel free to leap on me. I also have my ‘leave me alone t-shirts’. There is the vaguely miffed one that says: ‘This is my fuck you anti-social hate the world scary black t-shirt‘. Then there is the seriously miffed one that says: ‘Is there life after death? Piss me off and find out!‘

Since I can’t really wear these to work I also have a nice sign that says ‘I’ve run out of sick days, I’m calling in dead’ (again, thanks to BG for that) which I’ll be putting up in my cube.

I love shopping in Camden. My credit card doesn’t though

Harmony, my sword with the live blade, bit me the other day. Nothing serious and it was my own fault. Wasn’t paying attention when I was sheathing her, however, I was seriously impressed at how well she cut. I literally rubbed the blade gently across my finger and was rewarded with an inch long, perfectly straight cut. Now, if it had been a papercut it would rate as pretty serious, but for a [remarkably sharp] sword it was a scratch (I’ve done worse with kitchen knives) Still, seriously impressed by what that blade can do.

A day in the life of an iPhone owner (henceforth referred to as The Shiny, or just Shiny). Note: All times are exact, except when they’re not.

05:10:00 shiny gently reminds me that the radio alarm has been on for 10 minutes and asks if I would like to arise from my slumber.

05:10:15 finally work out what the beeping is. Ask shiny to kindly sod off. Use flash looking UI to turn off the early alarms, turn on the late alarms, pray I’ve not set my main alarm.

05:15:00 Main alarm goes off.

05:15:10 Main alarm turned off. Shiny checked for email.

07:10:00 Shiny points out that I really should get up.

07:10:05 Thank shiny, deal with 2 early morning text messages. Swear at world for inflicting another morning on me.

07:55:00 Shiny emits blaring alarm to warn me I need to be out of the house. Unhook shiny from laptop, apply headphones, start playing music.

07:09:45 Train arrives, get seat, sort early morning emails out, write some blog entries in the notepad (net connection not stable enough to blog on journey in) while listening to music. Watch some videos, pity the blackberry users.

09:11:00 Pull into Liverpool Street station, stop videos and restart music, place shiny back in pocket.

09:15:00 Arrive at desk, turn music down a notch, put shiny on desk so texts and emails can be dealt with.

12:00:00 Cease music playback, remove headphones, have lunch.

13:00:00 Return from lunch, reapply headphones, restart music, deal with emails received during lunch on Shiny.

14:00:00 Enter pointless meeting. Many managers with crackberrys looking uninterested and checking their email. Remove one earphone, get out shiny, surf web. Pity the crackberry users.

14:08:00 Pointless meeting over, reapply second headphones, select a new set of music to listen to since I have shiny in my hand.

14:10:00 Back at desk, shiny on desk again to deal with comms. Plug shiny in to USB port to let it recharge.

17:23:15 Leave desk, put shiny in pocket, turn up music, leave for train.

17:32:50 Get on train, connect to wi-fi network, frolic through the bloggosphere.

17:50:00 Train pulls out. Shiny automatically changes to use EDGE, start composing this blog entry while organising a night out.

18:16:10 Catch up with now, realise I haven’t covered an entire day, splice in last night in the hope you don’t notice.

18:48:00 Pull into Colchester (late, grr), get off train, turn music to 11, attempt to call friend. Music fades out automagically.

18:48:06 Hang up on friends voicemail, music fades back in.

18:55:00 Get home. Noodle about for a bit while continuing to listen to tunes.

19:23:54 Call friend while doing ironing using hands free headphones.

20:07:28 Remove headphones (music playback stops), and put shiny on table for easy access should I get email or text. Watch TV

21:30:00 Set early alarm on shiny, plug into laptop to sync and charge. Go to sleep.

Notice how I can now spend almost the entire day wired for sound, safe in the knowledge that no matter how loud the music is I’m not going to miss a call or a text (the music fades and an alert is played when one comes in). I no longer need to carry my laptop with me and I don’t need to engage with idiots for most of the day. When I do have to deal with them I can show them up and play at the same time. It’s my perfect little digital universe in a handy pocket size. Get one, then we can interact

The Urban Geek Pack, as a concept, is years old. The Urban Warrior Coat came out of a conversation about superhero names. I came up with The Urban Warrior who is a cross between Blade (from the Blade movies) and Neo (from the Matrix movies). Costume consists of black combats, black paraboots, plain black t-shirt, full length black leather coat, black shad and, vicious, back mounted sword. A master in martial arts, stronger and faster than most humans and with the ability to heal rapidly the Urban Warrior strikes fear into those he hunts. Dedicated to protecting Middle England the Urban Warrior stalks the city streets hunting chavs, numpties and morons extracting swift and brutal payment for their crimes (existence being considered a crime, especially in the case of chavs). His word is law, his judgment final, his punishment disproportionately brutal as he executes those who offend him with extreme prejudice.

What’s your superhero name and what would you do with your powers?

Ah, the Urban Geek Pack, mainstay of any proud city geek containing all the days requirements. Take mine, for example:

• Laptop (17″ Macbook Pro)
• PSP (plus games and USB charging cable)
• DS (plus games, no charger)
• GPS (plus USB charger)
• iPod and digital camera (both carried on person in right hand trouser pocket)
• USB cables for iPod and digital camera.
• Optional book
• External mounted umbrella
• Passport
• Cheque book
• Various random crap

While compact and catering for almost every eventuality it was heavy and incompatible with my big leather coat (carrying a rucksack with that is not comfy as the back of the coat bunches up).

With the iPhone I have been able to discard the Urban Geek Pack for most day to day operations and replace it with the Urban Warrior Coat.

Like the Urban Geek Pack the Urban Warrior Coat is more of a tactical system than a single entity thus, while I’m mobile, the iPhone lives in the coats inside pocket, yet this can be transferred to the right hand trouser pocket if coat is in the ‘off’ state. In addition the application of cargo pants greatly increases the carrying capacity and flexibility of this system.

The laptop, iPod, camera and, to a limited extent, GPS and PSP, have been replaced with the iPhone as previously stated. A day to day configuration then has the left inside coat pocket loaded with sunglasses and any small items. Left outer coat pocket can, optionally loaded with the PSP or book. The right hand coat pocket is then configured with a small compact umbrella. As with the Urban Geek Pack the left hand trouser pocket is reserved for wallet, money, keys, etc. and the rear pockets for rail tickets, bits of paper or similar items.

Cold weather operations replace the two outer coat pockets with glove storage and the inside left pocket becomes umbrella storage.

For special operations combat or cargo trousers are warn. PSP, digital camera and GPS storage (as needed depending on the operation at hand) can be loaded into the extra pockets allowing for the Urban Warrior Coat to be configured for cold weather operations or with a book and sunglasses (again, as needed).

Any of these configurations can be made fully tactical with the addition of a back mounted sword bag capable of holding either two katana, or one katana and two bokken.

Despite the huge flexibly of the system and it’s increased comfort and mobility over the Urban Geek Pack there are space considerations which make it sub-optimal for overnight operations. It is also susceptible to heat meaning I will need to rethink the summer time Urban Geek layout.

…yeah…

Been away… kind of… (well, I’ve not been anywhere, I’ve just not been frolicing round the blogs as Blue so eloquently put it ). Anyway, I’m back… sort of… (I know someone out there hates ellipsis, just can’t remember if they’re a reader of my blog or not, if you are, sorry ). Still grumpy, still tired, but I’m less likely to rip your arm off and beat you to death with the bloody stump for minor infractions like existing. Who knows, come next Monday I might even be pleasant to know and civil when spoken to

Got a crap load of stuff to blog about (when I get the time). There is the devastation that was wrought round Cromer last weekend (much photo evidence), Piccies from Cromer Zoo (and probably en explination  about that cos I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it properly, and even if I have I’m going to plug it again), sharp shiny shit, cutting myself on sharp shiny shit, blunt shiny shit, shiny shiny shit (although to be fair, I did blog a bit about the iPhone, but I could rave about it some more ) and I may even share some very funny youtube videos with you (although knowing you lot you saw them months ago and I’m just catching up). There’s also the Urban Geek Pack, it’s retirement, the Urban Warrior coat, my superhero concept and… nope, think that’s it. Oh, yeah, and I’ve finished all the sweeties except for the lollipops and the bonbons at work.

Anyway, I shall leave you with the following thought:

Wouldn’t it be cool to have your own orbital weapons platform? Nothing too fancy, just a space based laser canon that you could position to hit anywhere in the world to within, oooh, I dunno, say 10cm? Give it a blast radius of about 5 meters and we should be sorted. Nice iPhone based user interface and we’re away. Someone annoys you, bring up a specially customised version of Google Earth on your phone with a live high res feed from your orbital array, find the numpty you with to rain fiery death upon, lock the target and *zap* Instantly vapourised. Didn’t even know what hit them. You could take out idiots in cars, morons on the road, people in houses playing their music too loud, the possibilities are endless. Seriously, orbital weapons platforms, it the way forward.

Toodles