When you cross my mind you best look both ways.

If you're coming to my reception...

2009-09-14T10:16:47Z

...you might want this postcode: M31 4DJ. There's no number for the house, but you should be able to find it once you're on the right road. If you come off the M60 at junction 8, turn left at the roundabout, go straight on forever (watch out for the speed cameras, especially in the 30 limit) and pass a gasworks you're heading in the right direction. Once you go under the bridge you can either park up in the very wide road on the left (called Broadway) or pull into the second drive on the right and take your chances.

Google Maps screwed it all up so you're on your own if you'd like an easy pictorial reference.

If you're taking public transport it's very easy. Train to Manchester Piccadilly, walk or tram to Piccadilly Gardens and then the 255 bus to Partington. Get off after going under the bridge past the gasworks and it's the house opposite. Thorn written on one gate post, Lea on the other. Come round the back because I don't know if the front door has been opened in years.

It's Saturday 26th, aim to turn up about 2 p.m.

Awesome.

2009-09-06T09:58:42Z

Just downloaded The Mary Whitehouse Experience and it's as good as I remember it being. :) Shocking quality but considering it's come off 18-year old videotape I can't complain.

When it's quiet...

2009-08-30T14:52:42Z

...I walk around work. I work alone on Sundays, so I can walk up and down the office or do press-ups without people thinking I'm a freak. I mostly walk when I'm on the phone to Alicia, I figure I must cover two or three miles when we speak.

Life in Sheffield continues apace. I have a wonderful flat all to myself and I'm slowly tearing myself away from my PC (easier since it's slowly dying) and other interests to actually get out and try to change my life. Or not change it, since it's pretty good at the moment, but improve it.

I'm reminded of a book lent to me by Doctor Bob, Neil Strauss' "The Game". I know I'm late to this particular party but I've also learnt I'm something of a "natural", so no real need for me to know of it. One of the pick-up artists in the book had a dream of starting a community where everyone would try to improve themselves and each other together. Never happened of course, the place imploded under a great weight of neuroses and imperfections.

Not something I see happening in my own life. Alicia does try very hard to improve me, at my own request I hasten to add, and I'm glad of it. And I attempt, weakly, to improve my own situation. It's funny that for someone so into cars it took me this long to stop spinning my wheels and gain some traction on life. Still, I'm on the move now. :)

Speaking of which I will be heading to the US at the end of the year. Pretty much everything I own will be up for auction, which is a very scary thing. Still, if any of you have ever looked at some of my stuff and thought "I'd like that", this is your chance. Of particular interest is my car, which is looking for the right owner.

It's been a while.

2009-07-26T10:50:50Z

My dear Alicia (who I'm marrying in less than two months) will already have read this...

I get a call asking me when we can have an engineer to a server call. It was logged earlier and the agreed fix time is early Monday morning but apparently some higher-ups from my company and their company decided it should be done quicker. I speak to Incident Management and they say we can't do the call because we're waiting on a part.

All good, I tell the dude and he asks me to tell a senior manager who will be known here as JW to tell him that because he's not a happy bunny.

I hang up but find out we don't need a part, there's a whole other server on site which was delivered for precisely this reason. I ring IM again who say Allocation don't have an engineer free because he's doing Tesco calls. I want to ring the guy from the exec phone back just to tell him the real reason but can't remember his name so I go looking through the comms text of the incident for any clues. This character (who will be called their Andy from now on) pops up in the same paragraph as JW so I call him. He isn't the man I wanted but he _does_ know about the call I'm referring to. He is JW's boss.

So he wants the call doing due to this outstanding arrangement and I think of sending our on-call server engineer to do it. Whilst I'm chatting to the engineer (who lives the other side of London to the site) one of our high-ups (about the same level as JW and who will be known as our Andy) calls the exec phone to explain that their Andy has just called and to ask what we're doing about it. So after an hour or so of calling round I finally have an engineer on the way, instructions, directions, ETAs and everything sorted.

Now I've just got to call the Branch Manager to tell her when the engineer will arrive so she can go back to open the branch. This is when her mobile goes straight to voicemail.

My heart stopped.

Anyway, the story has a mostly happy ending, after about twenty minutes I managed to get through, she wasn't aware an engineer was being sent today so closed the branch at 1200 like normal and went to help her daughter move house. She's not exactly thrilled to be going back to the branch five hours after leaving for the day but we have sowed the wind and now we're reaping the whirlwind.

The bright spot in my day though came when our Andy tells me "JW isn't a problem any more". I expect to see his bullet-riddled corpse pop up in a ditch around Leeds any day now.

By the way, if you weren't invited to my wedding/reception and think I made a mistake, tell me in the comments!

B of the bastards.

2009-04-15T11:34:41Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7999570.stm

This is probably my favourite work of public art and now they're taking it down. I wonder how much it would cost to buy? I mean, there isn't that much metal in it, the scrap value can't be much.

It'd be interesting to put in the yard, threatening sudden spiky death from the sky to my neighbours.

19th September it is.

2009-03-25T19:07:54Z

The wedding date is set for 19th September in Minneapolis. If you would like to attend (I'm afraid you'll be paying your own airfare) then feel free to add a comment saying so.

For all those who cannot make it to the US but would still like to see us, we'll be having a pretty informal reception in Manchester on the 26th of the same month. Again, drop me a comment if you'd like to be there.

Hey peeps? I'm engaged.

2009-03-22T08:21:33Z

Yeah, I asked and Alicia said yes, so it looks like I'll be off Stateside sometime soon. We're planning the wedding for September most likely, should be confirmed soon.

Stuff from the States.

2009-03-12T13:54:11Z

OK, quick update, I'm still working at FSC, I'm currently on holiday in the US visiting my wonderful girlfriend and I'll be moving into a nice apartment by myself in July. I know I have been neglecting this blog but I'll be trying to put up some more interesting thoughts and updates in the near future. My new work hours should make this a little easier. :)

Anyway, as is my habit I was reading right-wing blogs (it's always useful to read opinions from both sides of a debate), specifically Cato, a libertarian website, and I found this charming piece on prohibition.

Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure

You see, the cannabis question has opinions on either side. Cannabis isn't dangerous vs. Cannabis has become more potent. Cannabis causes schizophrenia vs. Cannabis only highlights existing conditions. More people will take it vs. Legal action can prevent children from gaining access to it. And the only semi-concrete facts we have as to what might happen if cannabis were to be legalised is the aftermath of America's Volstead Act. So, reading up on what worked and what failed about Prohibition in the US might help us form more accurate predictions on what would happen should cannabis be legalised. Anyway, go away and do your own research, form your own conclusions. As for my belief, I will leave you with a quote from perhaps the greatest economist of the 20th Century, Milton Friedman.

"But, you may say, must we accept defeat? Why not simply end the drug traffic? That is where experience under Prohibition is most relevant. We cannot end the drug traffic. We may be able to cut off opium from Turkey but there are innumerable other places where the opium poppy grows. With French cooperation, we may be able to make Marseilles an unhealthy place to manufacture heroin but there are innumerable other places where the simple manufacturing operations involved can be carried out. So long as large sums of money are involved-and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal-it is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others in our image."

Well I promised.

2008-09-20T18:42:51Z

Yesterday was mine and Alicia's two year anniversary, or something. She has come over for a long time and it is all going well. We're going to the States for Thanksgiving, it should be fun.

One week to go.

2008-06-29T22:10:12Z

In one week my wonderful girlfriend will be arriving for a long stay. It will be awesome.

That is all.

The walk.

2008-06-15T19:12:58Z

Well, I didn't make it the whole 54 miles, just 42, but I'm still pretty impressed with that. I'd like to thank our awesome support team (Adrian, Marielle and Darren) who made it all possible, and the volunteers who gave so much so people could carry on. I recommend the Caledonian Challenge to anyone who likes hot physiotherapists.

Stage 1 went well, we were all feeling good after starting at 0900 and the midges weren't too much of a bother with our hats on. We took a wrong turn briefly but got back on track and finished the longest stage with a reasonable time. Mostly the stage was about warming up and finding a pace for the rest of the distance. The rest stop was longer than we had planned for but we all took on a load of tasty carbohydrates and I found out that my smoking was actively encouraged to keep the midges at bay.

Stage 2 is where it all started to go wrong for me. Andrew, our leader if you will, was dehydrated coming up Devil's Staircase (550m elevation) so we were a bit worried about that and by the time we'd reached the bottom of the far side my knees were starting to play up. Coming into Glen Coe I could hardly bend my legs and on the long hill up to the rest stop I was making terrible time, barely planting one foot in front of the other. The rest stop was a revelation though. Merielle (one of the support crew and a former finisher and physio at the event) managed to get me in to see one of her mates in the physio tent and two ibuprofen and one massage later I felt like a new man. I forced down some food and we headed out for Stage 3.

Stage 3 was along the old military road and it was hard going on the feet. It has some beautiful views and is mostly flat so it's at least easy on the legs. It was also where we saw our first retirement, a lady from another team who was looking extremely ill. Fortunately her team had it all in hand, one stayed with her whilst the other quickly covered the three miles to the next checkpoint to fetch medical help. The medics were on hand with an ambulance to get it all sorted. Good men. The military road is also notable for every team member needing a toilet break. Yo was first to give in, jumping a gate into a forest to find some cover whilst Andrew and Geoff ran to the rest stop. I remembered some substantial rhododendrum bushes from the practise walk so waited for them. We also met the charming members of a Glaswegian boxing club who were planning to walk the entire West Highland Way. I hope they make it. At the rest stop I decided to have my feet taped up (a blister on each heel and the balls of my feet were aching from the stony road surface) rather than get another massage. That may have been a mistake.

Stage 4 started well, although since it was 2300 by now and I had forgotten my headlight I was worried about how well we were going to do with someone having to light my way. Turns out it was a nice easy track for the first third or so. A nice easy track with wild Highland cattle that is. Honestly, who lets two tons of muscle and big fucking horns wander about when 1500 people are going to come by? We survived our encounter with the local fauna although I wonder at the number of people who must have turned back confronted by a massive mum on one side of the road and her two defenceless calves on the other. Apart from that, and the return of sore knees, I was feeling pretty confident. Then we hit the hard part. Following the track with a sheer drop on one side (and me in the middle of the night with nothing to light my way except my team-mates) was a climb up what appeared to be a riverbed, then a scramble up some rocks before getting to a very uneven footpath. Not good. Still, we survived that (with more ibuprofen my legs were feeling better again) and looked forward to the next rest stop. The signs said six and a half miles to the stop, six and a half miles later the signs said two and a half miles, and two and a half miles after that we were reassured that the stop was ten minutes away. By this time Yo had gone very quiet and Andrew was flagging badly. My legs were feeling alright, not great, but the soles of my feet felt like I'd been testing a hammer on them. When Yo announced her decision to retire at the end of the stage I was surprised, I always thought I'd be first to quit (and at the end of the second stage I thought I was going to be) and Yo is a serious walker. But on the way into the stage end I could see her limping and wondered if a massage was going to be able to fix this one. We sat in the support van to chat about what was going to happen, Andrew was still panting as though he was in the middle of a climb. He knew it was dangerous for him to continue and told us he would be dropping out too. I thought about the ache in my feet, the damage to my knees, the knots in my calves and the new pain in my ankles, then I thought about how the next 12 mile stage to the finish would be over a quarter of the distance we had covered already and decided that I wasn't going to make it. I wasn't sure my mind was there and I really didn't want to end up hating walking. Geoff performed like a star and went to find a team to buddy up with.

I wasn't awake when Geoff finished (being swept across a loch by Royal Marines) but I was very glad he'd managed it. Apparently the fifth stage was the worst by far (for me it was unimaginable that something could be worse than stage four) but he slogged it out to pick up our team's only gold medal. You're a legend Geoff.

I think I'll be back next year, I felt pretty good despite all the aches and pains, I still had a load of energy and it was only the worry of permanent damage and the nagging doubts of finishing the stage that stopped me. Next year people I'm going to do it all.

Walk to end my life.

2008-06-13T08:02:27Z

Hello peeps. As some of you may know I'm off on a quick jaunt this weekend, specifically walking 54 miles across the West Highland Way in 24 hours as part of the Caledonian Challenge.

I'm still trying to raise sponsorship so if you'd like to sling the Scottish Communities Foundation some money please visit:

http://www.caledonianchallenge.com/sponsorship/online.php

Our team is the boringly-named Fujitsu-Siemens Computers and you can donate up to the first of August.

boyraceruk @ 2008-06-08T17:55:00

2008-06-08T16:59:12Z

Now, I know a lot of my friends are not from Sheffield and so won't realise the import of this photo.

What I find interesting isn't that someone has decided to paint up his scooter with a Henderson's Relish scheme (I mean he's from Sheffield, it was that or red & white/blue & white stripes.) but that the photo (which I pulled off the Henderson's Relish website) is labelled "Hendo Bike".

HENDOOOOO! HENDOOOOO!

Beware you don't run into the Hendo Mob on West Street, they'll fuck you up good and leave you smelling of vinegar.

boyraceruk @ 2008-06-07T16:50:00

2008-06-07T15:50:55Z

I'm 30 tomorrow.

*sigh*

boyraceruk @ 2008-05-31T16:17:00

2008-05-31T15:24:50Z

This proves that plagiarism is both for fun and profit.

To Adrian Sutil

2008-05-25T14:21:00Z

Damn, I don't know if I'd of handled it as well as you did. Heartbreaking. Good drive though dude.

It's not just the Japanese who do the mental...

2008-05-24T18:14:01Z

...from the southern states of the US comes this.

I kinda like it. To drive one of these is to, I am reliably informed, "box a donk donk".

Have _you_ had an unexpected stimulant injection lately?

2008-05-23T13:14:13Z

"User called to advise that he has spilled coffee on the base unit of his PC, and the monitor has stopped working.

It seems that the monitor cable in the back of the base unit bore the brunt of the caffienated deluge, as the user had to dry the connector before he was able to unscrew it and reseat the cable.

He has done this, but despite the fact that both monitor and base unit have power, the screen is displaying a "no signal" message.

Passing to FSC to check monitor, and make sure that there is no further damage from the unexpected stimulant injection."

What's up with this guy?

2008-05-22T17:12:16Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GgWrV8TcUc

Officer Rivieri of the Baltimore PD needs to calm down and get fired.

Motherfuckers

2008-05-21T21:45:24Z

And now the bonnet badge has gone off my car. Since the bonnet needs repainting anyway I'll probably leave it, but still. Motherfuckers.

Karma is a bitch.

This one couldn't wait.

2008-05-14T15:28:05Z

"user advised that a tofee sweet fell into the printer, the paper fed through the printer taking the tofee sweet with it

the printer smells of burning as the toffe sweet has gone through the printer

user advied they are unable to use the printer as the printer has tofee inside it"

You crazy Japanese!

2008-05-10T16:58:01Z

God bless you, you crazy island nation. Although I didn't know they had carnies over there.

IV

2008-05-03T18:27:51Z

For those who haven't heard yet, GTA IV is good. Really good. Maybe _too_ good?

Any tiny flaw in the game sticks out a mile because the rest is just so polished. I'm not saying Rockstar should settle for level mediocrity because I love them pushing the boat out, it's just that I can't help but feel that the game may have been a better experience if it were not as good. The smallest problem or glitch now makes me rant or weep.

I'm fucking conflicted y'all.

Still it's well worth the money, _well_ worth it, and I have no regrets about having the limited edition version which comes with some typically high-quality goodies. Rockstar's attention to detail is second to none.

Now comes the science, feel free to tune out.

The game cost $100 million to make, that's the most expensive videogame of all time peeps. It took three and a half years to make, Rockstar set up an office in NYC for research, Rockstar North took two trips to the city as well as getting Rockstar NYC to send them, amongst other things, data on neighbourhood ethnicity and videos of traffic patterns.

The game has made $186 million in its first day out. That's the highest grossing opening day of all time yo!

In short, this game may not herald a new age in videogame production, I think that happened some time ago, but it does represent the best implementation of this new way of making games. Go, play it.

GTA4.

2008-04-26T09:46:59Z

Well, it's only a couple of days away and I have a problem. I have built this game up so much that if it doesn't be awesome straight out of the box (or preferably even whilst inside the box) I will probably die of disappointment.

How can I temper my expectations?

boyraceruk @ 2008-04-20T00:05:00

2008-04-19T23:02:21Z