domdavis.com

I go so throughly hacked of with Windows Vista that I decided to upgrade [sic] to XP. It’s been a bit of a faff as installing windows on a laptop where you don’t know what bits it’s got inside can be a real dark art but I should [touch wood] now have a computer that will play games without:

• Slowing down every 10 seconds
• Crashing ever 30 minutes or so due to graphics card issues
• Making lots of clicks when it plays sounds

Of course if it fails to do this (I’ll know in about 30 minutes when The Orange Box finishes installing) I’ll have a laptop for sale (not recommended for gaming)

Actually, it’s probably more Notwork Fcuking Rail, but regardless there just seems to be a complete bloody inability to run anything that looks even bloody remotely like a train these days. Due to a derailment in the Marks Tey area NXEA are delighted to inform me that I need to get a bus to Witham then a train the rest of the way into London. What with the amount of engineering works that have been going on for the past year you’d think things would be getting better, but no. They keep dropping bridges, having power lines fall down and trains hopping off the tracks on top of the whole run of the mill engineering works which seem to involve replacing everything everywhere and, in the case of the siding (yes, siding, not mainline track, siding. One of many. That could be closed during the day and worked on then) outside my flat, taking 6 months of Sunday nigts to do it. I’m going to have a lie down and go over the following fantasy in my head:

Scene: Meeting room somewhere. High ranking officials from NXEA and Notwork Rail sitting round the table. Me, prowling round, Glock 17 in hand.

Me: [Looking at head honcho of NXEA] Are there trains running this weekend between Colchester and London?
Head honcho of NXEA: Well, due to problem with a dera….

Loud bang, guys head explodes in a pink mist, everyone sat round the table in shock

Me: [Looking at head honcho of Notwork Rail] Are there trains running this weekend between Colchester and London?
Head Honcho of Notwork Rail: Yes, but a part of your journey will have to be by bus…

Loud bang, more pink mist. I turn to the next most important person…

You can work the rest out for yourself

So I won’t be playing Portal today as I’d hoped as, despite the fact it’s been nearly a [expletive deleted] year the drivers for Vista (which came pre-installed on my laptop) still don’t work properly. I’m going to upgrade it to Mico$loth Winblows Ex-Pee so that I can actually use the damn thing to play games with (the only reasony why I bought it in the first place) but given that’s such a painful experience I’ll do it during the week. If that doesn’t work I’ll be restoring Vista from the recovery disks and flogging the thing. Grrrr.

This kind of thing just annoys me. You get a bunch of kids who beat someone to death because that person looks different and now they’re appealing the verdict, probably because they didn’t believe they’d get into trouble for doing it and they’re really, really sorry and promise to just knife people to wound them rather than killing them in future. There’s a general lack of respect from younger people these days and it seems the law to them is a joke. What we need is to instill some fear into them. Give them a reason to follow the rules. Arm the police, give them license to kill on the spot for certain crimes and bill the family for the bullet, cleanup and burial. None of this ASBO crap.

I’ve been meaning to go through my cupboards for a while now and get rid of some stuff, put some boxes in the loft and generally have a clear out and a tidy up. I also needed to find space to store all the Rock Band stuff as I didn’t want it lying about making the place look untidy when it wasn’t in use (having a rule of ‘if it doesn’t have somewhere to live it goes in the bin‘ really helps keep the place tidy). Anyway, today I tackled the challenge and managed to get 6 (yes, six) black bin bags full of rubbish to get rid of. Admittedly 2 bags were just from the Rock Band boxes, but there were also heaps of other stuff to get rid of. Now I have empty drawers again and everything is neat and tidy, even behind closed doors

After lunch I need to sort out the bookshelf (having left work it means I now have all my work books at home too) then I’ll go piss the neighbours off again by banging away on my little plastic drum kit

Oh, and why oh why oh why can’t people work out that if the rubbish isn’t in a bag, in the bin in the bin store the bin men wont take it away? Grrr. Fed up of sorting out other peoples rubbish.

I can’t get settled today and it’s beginning to drive me nuts. Doesn’t help that I’ve got a stack load of paperwork I want to do in preparation for not having an income and living off savings. Restless and dull paperwork are not good bed fellows. Going to give it until 4 and then I’m going to go kill myself down the gym if I haven’t settled by then. In the mean time today is bought to you by: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! [shouted while running about aimlessly with hands waving above head]

Right. Spam exists for one reason and one reason only. It’s making people money. OK, so these people are the scum of the earth who deserve a slow and painful death, but the truth is there must be enough idiots out there who actually respond to these things. With that in mind lets just make sure my readership are up to scratch on a few things:

• It’s probably not as tiny as you think it is, and if it is, well… tough. You’re stuck with it. No amount of herbal remedies, pumps, unguents, gels or cremes is going to help. If you really think your life would be better if you were hung like a rhino then I’d go see a psychiatrist. It wont help with your manhood but it’ll probably be cheaper in the long run and you’ll hopefully come out slightly better adjusted.
• The only people who are going to make money on that great stock are the people perpetuating the email. You see they get lots of idiots (hint: that’s you buying the stock at the behest of the email) to buy stock which would otherwise be doing nothing at all which pushes the price up which allows the perpetrators to make money. In the long run it’s easier to just send the money to me. You’ll still be out of pocket, but I’ll be happy, pump and dump spam will reduce making other people happy and you wont feel like a moron for being conned.
• NO ONE, and I really mean NO ONE, in Nigeria has THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ($300,000,000). I don’t give a flying crap who they claim to be. Even if they did do you really think they’re going to give it away? The fact that you believe someone is about to hand you millions on a platter after selecting you at random from the entire population of the planet means you’re a cretin who deserves to get scammed, but please God try to stop being so thick so we can stop the torrent of 419 emails. For full details on how to stop getting sucked in by such scams please send ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS ($1,000) to cover administrative fees and I’ll send you a detailed email.
• Guess what, you’ve not won a lottery in [insert country here] which you were automatically entered into. It’s just a slightly more advanced version of the above scam. For full details on avoiding this please send £500 to cover administrative costs and I’ll drop you an email.
• ANY email asking you to pass it onto ‘x’ number of friends is a social virus designed to clog up email servers and generally be a pain in the arse. Nothing will happen to you, your friends, your loved ones, little Tommy dying in the hospital, or anyone else for that matter if you don’t send the emails on. Actually, that’s not true. Send them on to me and you may be the victim of physical violence. Just to be on the safe side though make sure that you and 10 of your friends all send me £100 to ensure your safety otherwise your computer could short out causing a spike on the power grid resulting in a meltdown at a nuclear power station and the subsequent obliteration of all life on the planet.
• That OEM software for really cheap prices… it’s fake pirated stuff and, hell, you wouldn’t steal a car would you? If you’re really lucky it wont come infested with viruses, trojan horses, malware, spyware, key logers, etc, etc, etc.
• All the porn spam you’re getting. That’s your own fault for putting your email address about on dodgy websites. Tough

Please spread the word, preferably with the aid of a baseball bat.

*wonders off muttering something about requiring licenses before people can breed*

Tiny point, but you keep making this mistake. Big Ben is the nickname for the bell within the clock tower. The tower is not called Big Ben. See hither. Sometimes I think this country is just going down the toilet.

One of the things that’s been driving me nuts of late is the posting of wall items on the Facebook iPhone site. The post button is impossible to hit. You press to low down on the screen and it thinks you’re trying to edit the text. Half a nanomillimeter up and suddenly it thinks you want the photos tab (thus looking the wall post and nessesitating entering I’d again). You also don’t seem to be able to zoom in so the button becomes so big you can’t miss it. Highly annoying.

There has been talk of frequenting a public house this coming Friday prior to clubbing, however, in order for me to turn up I need to be assured that at least one of you lot will be there until 11 (or will be coming clubbing with me) otherwise I get to kick around London until Sedition starts and I’m not so keen on that. Would rather go home at normal time, possibly even pop into the local, drool over CBT, then head back into London having showered, shaved, made oneself look stunning and generally not kicking about by myself bored. If we can’t get these assurances (possibly with written contracts, signed in blood) then I’ll not be coming out to play until Sedition at 11ish. Promises to come followed by cancellations will be met with a swift, brutal and disproportionately violent death.

With that in mind, who wants to come to the pub on Friday?