Trouble brewing

In our town tomorrow there is a march by an anti-Islamic group. Our community is made up of many different faiths and the police are expecting trouble. We are avoiding the town, the library is closed and I suppose many of the shops will be closed too. I can't stand intolerance and I hate the fact that these outsiders are coming to a peaceful community like ours to make trouble in this way.

Soon be May

May is just around the corner. Less than an hour away infact. It's been a busy week workwise, I've got a lot done but there is so much more to be done over the next few weeks. This weekend is a Bank Holiday, which means I have Monday off. The weather has gotten a bit cooler in the last 24 hours and it is apparently going to stay cold for the next few days, including rain. Shame about the rain, we were planning to do some gardening work. Might have to put that off.

Listening

I was enjoying listening to my iPod as I drove home this evening in the warm evening sunlight. A song by Krtistin Hirsch came on and reminded me how much I enjoyed her songs. The video below shows her in 1994, I really enjoyed this period of her music. Hope you enjoy it.

War Games

I had a nice few days off recently. I've got a few photos of my travels. I took some panorama shots from the top of a hill on Sunday morning. They turned out OK, it was the first time I used that feature on my phone - I didn't even know it had that feature to be honest!
I titled this post War Games because that is what I've been playing recently. More specifically, Battlefield Bad Company 2 on Xbox360. I don't normally play multiplayer games, preferring the story mode to what sometimes feels like mindless running around and shooting the crap out of each other. BFBC2 feels a bit different because your success depends on working as a team. I don't play with a headset, it just seems too nerdy to speak to other players and I don't take it all that seriously. I do like to play as a squad though and I play as a medic so I drop health packs on the ground and get points for the healing that they give to other players on my team. I also have the ability to use defibrillators to revive fallen team members after they've been shot, that's quite satisfying. Of course, I also have a bloody big gun that I use to kill with! There are other roles that can be adopted in a four person squad, so when I've racked up many more hours as a medic, I can stretch the game out even longer by adopting a new role and learning how to get good at it. I've looked at the player statistics and some people have over a hundred hours of play time. It makes my 6 hours of multiplayer mayhem seem miniscule.
Here's a photo of me on Sunday, enjoying the rays.

Weekend

My weekend has been quite good. On Friday night we went to see the filming of a TV show "infront of a live studio audience" at Pinewood Studios. The show was The IT Crowd, here's a clip from a previous episode. I've been once before, the studios there have a Bond 007 stage but I don't know if they do tours. They embarassed someone in the audience because we were told to turn off all our phones (they don't allow any filming etc.) but someone was Twittering and he got found out. I have no idea how they found out though.
On Saturday, our library had a big AV sale and I picked up a couple of videogames - one of the Grand Theft Auto series for PSP and the second Halo game for Xbox. A new exchange shop opened on Saturday in town and I bought another videogame, this time it was the first Halo game for Xbox. I really like the Halo universe.
Today, we had to go and get our old broken PC from the shop who had tried to repair it. I got some of my money back at least. Then we went out to go and buy a new one. I was looking at the new touch screen all in one PCs but we saw one that could just be plugged into our existing keyboard, monitor and speakers. It was more powerful than the all in one we could afford and because it was the last one in stock and was on display we could get it for 100 pounds less - the warranty and support terms were exactly the same, it just didn't include the original packaging.
I set it up this evening and moved most of the data off our old hard drive. The only hassle has been that our old programs are not on the new machine, so I've left a few things until I have more time to sort them out. At least we have a family computer again. We use it more than a car, so we spent a bit more than I was expecting to on it but I think we got a good deal in the end. Things don't last as long as they used to though, especially where computers are concerned.

Holiday coming up!

We're going to visit some friends of ours in the later half of this week, we haven't seen them for a while and they have gone through a few changes in life. They have two children now, so it will be interesting to see how they are liking it. I'm just looking forward to getting something of a break from work with my family. The place we're going to is an old Roman city in Northern England called York. It has a famous cathedral and I also like that the city walls are still intact and you can walk along the stone battlements. We'll probably visit the Viking centre because the city has a Viking heritage as well. Last time we went, my daughter and I met up to take a walking Ghost Tour of the city in the evening, it was very good - the man leading the tour was quite theatrical. I'm looking forward to doing that again. I like local history, especially if there are supernatural stories to hear.

General Election 2010

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a general election on May 6th. I am already completely bored by the politics. I really dislike politicians and don't trust any of them. None of the party leaders really appeal to me to be fair. I think there will be a hung parliament and I don't know if I remember anything like the election this time around. I will vote though, even though I despise politicians I believe in democracy and politics for the people by the people. I just wished that some of the politicians did as well.

Demanding week!

Hi, it feels like a long time since I've been able to blog. I'm looking forward to catching up with the blogs I like to read after this. The reason for my absence has been because of two things: firstly, at work I've had an incredible amount to do. I had to plan, organise and run a workshop on Thursday and secondly, our family computer just wouldn't work last Sunday. The power was working and it started all of the fans however after a few seconds (without any motherboard beeps) it would just power down without any information on the screen, so didn't even boot. So I took it in and was told there was a queue and it was taking up to 14 days to get to new repairs. I heard on Friday from them, so in better time than I expected, however the news wasn't good: they think the motherboard is the problem and they don't sell the same motherboard anymore and advised me that it was not really cost effective to repair, so we have to get a new PC. So, my wife has been using my netbook which I use for blogging this week - at least until we got her laptop from work to talk to our wireless broadband modem.

Gym in a park

We recently took the kids for a play on a park in a nearby village. We call it the Helter Skelter Park because it has a helter skelter in it but next to the children's play area there are a set of gym-like exercise machines for adults to try out. I think they are a great idea but it's the only park I've been to where I've seen such things. Here is a photo of one of the new machines recently put in place. When I say machines, they don't work on there own, you have to move the parts but they are great because the stuff you have to do can be done by any mobile adult - so the age range they can be used by is wide. Also, they don't require a lot of strength so you can be having a nice stroll and do some gentle exercise along your way. A great addition to the park I think, I wish more places had these sorts of human-friendly devices!