I remember when I was I kid I used to hate Sundays.. not because of what happened on them.. no more because all Sunday I was dreading Monday and School!

That changed about 16-17 years ago I used to look forward to Sunday because of Magic and Monday’s and all the other things.. Saturday and Sunday were cool and the “weekend” was it…

Why mention this eh? Well I have that same feeling now, you see tomorrow I go to work for a month.. Away for a whole month offshore.. Away from everyone.. Kind of like going to prison for a month and having to work 12-14 hour days to boot, I used to wonder how people could cope with prison.. I sort think I would be able to handle it after doing this job a year now.. Yeah I get to come home after a month.. *sometimes* but it’s… Hard.. Yes the money is good.. Well good to most other people.. But would they do the job? Could they handle it? Many people I work with have the same problems.. They just turn to drink or gambling as a way of dealing with it..

Me.. I want to get another job.. And now.. The trouble is when your home.. You want to chill out and relax after a month living on your nerves it’s hard to want to do anything, let alone look for another job!

Still next time I *will* try and find another job.. I have no excuses now..

But for the time being.. I’m all packed and hating every minute of this day.

Spent a couple of hours trying to talk someone out of making a mistake, should have just accepted they wanted to do it and charged them for the time.. would have been much easier than all the hassle I went through.. Oh well.. Hounds went onto the hills this afternoon.. was a good laugh actually with Smudge bouncing around like Tiger from Winnie the Pooh and Tia running about like a demented Tasmanian Devil.. She even has the tongue!

Finally worked out why I couldn’t dump the Xbox 360 with the USB programmer.. Seems I had connected up the wires wrong (opps) still once changed was able to dump and reflash in 1/10th the time it took with the LPT cable.. Put the new heatsink and Xclamp onto the beastie then left it to overheat for 45 mins before tightening the clamp up a little more and blow me down it worked Well so far anyway lol..

Watched some more DVD’s finished up Darker than Black and then started watching “Halo Legends” the edispode “1337″ is very Red vers Blue lol..

Tomorrow is a day of really getting ready

So the bits and bobs have finally been finished and the builder has even sorted out the dip in the drive (yey)..

The Hdd units arrived for the Bubba 2 as well so I managed to get them started while we popped out and about, I also soldered up the USB programmer for the Xbox 360 and tried to dump the firmware in the evening, without luck.. Watched some TV and DVD’s.. generally chilled out, have to see a client tomorrow about some websites and err.. yeah had a call from a couple of others about issues, one is turning into a right nightmare with bad formatting all over the place..

Not long and then back to work too .. Seems only the other day I was working offshore and now I’m going back again

Getting more and more cheesed off with the government of today and the way they are trying to sneak in ACTA in without letting anyone have a say about it, or even know what it’s about!.. Seems to me if you say anything bad about a company or person with more money that you.. then you had best go hide because you can bet if not someone will be visiting you in the very near future to talk about your attitude.. Welcome to Syndicate Wars.. Only in real life.. SUCKS!

So got the beast working! Sticking it behind the Load Balancer was a bit hit and miss at first but a firmware update to the ADSL Router and it’s all working again, not sure why but the mail now works too.. Strange.

One of the things that I was getting stuck on was accessing the Bubba from my Windows 7 PC just kept showing bugger all under network, in the end I rebooted the Bubba (from XP) and it started to work, must remember to login with my details though

Ordered up 3TB of disc space from eBuyer and some external eSata enclosures for the beast of a media player, spent the afternoon playing with the squeezebox player in windows and then found a remote app for my G1.. Can pause and play the audio on my PC and download tracks to the phone too! COOL!..

What else today.. Had to go back to insert a keyboard and mouse in an office, seems their unable/willing to buy one themselves?!?!

Also fixed a couple of other issues while there.. Well why not?

Trying to find out about Bonding my Lines together to increase the speed to 40mb+ waiting to hear about it right now

So today decided to have a bit more of a play about with the Bubba two, so whilst the Builder bashes out the back and Lemmy waffles on the radio (ooerr) I start playing about with the Bubba. After a rather annoying day (for Angel at least) with the internet going on and off because of my fiddling with the ADSL router and load balancer I finally decided to install it after the router *and* load balancer, instead just forwarding all traffic on WAN1 to the Bubba Two (as it’s static) and WAN2 to the server (using DYNDNS).

Try getting the mail to work but get a call and have to shoot off out and sort out a PC with a keyboard fault (as in not working lol), I swapped one of my Xbox 360’s for a broken one (RROD) and £50, well he did get a deal after all, anyway thought I might check to see if I can fix it the other day (as probably mentioned) so tomorrow will try and re-flash it with my nice shiny USB programmer.

Also found out that the Syndi water in the area is full (sadly I’m not “in the know” so I was pretty much certain to never get in.. Oh well), still could have been worse.. I think…

Had a chinese tonight.. was a bit too much though although starting to like the way they do the soup.. Yummy…

Well after a couple of months put the ceiling back up in the shed again, not the best job I have done as the plasterboard was a different thickness, still I should be able to cover it up with a skim of finishing plaster during the week. I also fixed the back gate with Angel managed to bow outward, I think this was more down to the problem with damp than anything else truth be told. Also started to clean the shed up and put up another set of shelves and painted around the door and the window ledge (at last).

What else.. threw away a load of empty boxes (huh) and watched some B5 on the TV.. thinking of sieving the garden during the week and maybe trying to finish the small wall along the path too.

Played a bit of Too Human and bloody well died right near the end of the level *again* ARGHHH!!!!..

Still managed to level my guy up to 23 which was cool..

Well today been playing about with a broken Xbox 360 and trying to see if I can get it to work (showing the dreaded RROD). Read up last night about re-flowing the board using a heat-gun, now me and power tools are not the best mix. So looked at other ways.. The way I decided to go for in the end was to remove the fan from the box and place it on-top of the CPU so that the machine didn’t shut down when the CPU got too hot (has thermal cutout built in). Left it for 35 minutes and then let it cool down.. I honestly didn’t expect too much but blow me down it worked! So ordered up some new bits (heatsink and xclamp).

Not really updated my blog a lot lately and the main reason for this my lack of faith in the whole Internet deal

The UK and most of the rest of the world are pretty much set to sign (have in fact signed already) some pretty crap laws about cutting people off without warning, or proof of file sharing. The law is pretty much if you are *suspected* then they can cut you off.. Ok bit more detailed than that, but still essentially the same thing. On top of that they now have a lovely law that states that ISP’s *must* block access to sites is the Mafia say so (replace mafia with those scum who say everyone is a pirate, MIPAA, BPI etc etc ).

I’m getting a little cheesed off with the way in which the public have no way of stopping these laws being passed, on one hand you have the government saying “everyone will be online by 20xx” and on the other they are saying “If you are suspected of file sharing, being a naughty boy or just saying something we don’t like, we will cut you off from the Internet and/or block access to you website”

And then there is OFCOM, what a bunch of usless paper pushers! They are supposed to “look after” the radio frequenecy but instead they have allowed the biggest ever pollution device to be sold on the shelves of super markets, because “it passes tests”. What tests are pretty mute as most of these were not to do with the radio like pulltion or even with them swicthed ON! You have to admire the way they then back these claims up by asking the industry what they should do about it “WHAT THE HELL! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE REGULATOR, NOT A COMPANY LACKY!!!” So instead I have +7 of noise all over my radio and I should be happy as I don’t pay a license fee anymore

Sorry ranting a bit eh?

Anyway this evening was cool Lemmy looked at me new Travel Guitar (bought from down the road in Ripe from Patrick at Playawayguitars) before we played Rock Band all night (yey!). I think the cats have now moved out of the area too, something about my singing being so damned good, I should be on stage I sing that well.

Ok.. Missed a few weeks here.. But goes a bit like this -

Laid a few more cables started one on the 22nd then abandoned due to the weather..

Got off on 23rd in the afternoon (after expecting to have to stay on another day due to weather), put up with boring trip in Taxi home..

After settling down, used Xbox 360 hacking to *calm* down a bit, did some work on websites, for peoples PC’s and sorted out an office (while bored)..

Played a lot of Rock Band and Lips on the Saturday, yey.

Bought an A3 printer, bought two new monitors for my PC, bought some WiFi and 433Mhz Modules for some testing (if I ever get more than five minutes at home)

Got a call on 3rd asking me to go back a week early (I hasten to add just after buying a new Guitar – which is ace thanks for asking) a nice little argument ruined the rest of that day

Back of the house is being sorted, made a mess of the internal walls upstairs (nice cracks).

Managed to get someone to cover for a few more days so back on the 13th now instead (Oh yes just in time to miss the new F1 season Grr)

Went out for a meal in Cooden (erm,.. was ok I guess)..

Looking at Kitchen cabinets and sideboard for Computer room as desks just pants for here, they take up too much room..

Spoke to Froodle for first time in ages.. Chatted to Lemmy on Radio and online for a bit..

Still need to practice my Guitar more (new one should help though ).

Still hate doing websites lol.

Oh and yet to setup the Bubba Two (which arrived and looks kinda cool).

Not long now till I go home (yey) but alas things are still not sorted here so have to sit down and do a lot more paperwork, decided to do some paperwork on the cable cut lengths and sealing stuff.. Started then had to rush down on deck and do some work there too.. Also managed to get the server running the way I wanted, so at last it is all up and running and (fingers crossed) it should stay that way without any input needed from anyone.

Although I did have a nightmare getting the DHCP server to supply the DNS for the WAN port.. Oh well. fingers crossed it should work fine.

Yep yesterday I was listening to a lot of music while working on documentation etc.. Did a fair bit but still have a load more to do. The stuff for the server and DVR arrived today so I ahve been going through that with an eye to working out what to do with it all, so fair I have added the HDD to the DVR and set up that (no picture to record at the moment though). Also trying to find out who is going to come and cover for me for a few weeks. The person that was suggested I have had to say no to as well.. Errr. They would probably end up having a fit on the deck and running about like a headless chicken or something.. Oh well..

Anyway managed to get another cable done which is cool..

Starting to get into a rhythm now, sods law really, so getting pretty laid back, couple of annoying gits on here but they won’t be here for ever.