I'm back at home for the next three months after nine months living in a tiny little room at Lambert Hall in Manchester.
To be fair... my room at home is no bigger; it's this tiny room (big enough to fit my bed) with a massively sloping ceiling (I can only just stand up in the centre) full of bags and boxes that have still not been unpacked.
The Internet here is slow (or, slower than in my ex-room at university) and there are big people that live downstairs to contend with.
There are advantages, however: 'speakers, a decent TV, cheap 'phonecalls and cooked meals (although Xx always cooks for me and if she doesn't we always went out!). I'm sure there are some more non-material benefits too, but they're hardly important!
I've just got my server up and running. It's sat humming behind the TV (conveniently connected with a spare 10m network cable Xiaoxiao just happened to have spare (maybe I'll go into why she had this spare another time)) with my little Shuttle acting as a set-top-box (even if it is underneath the TV).
The Shuttle is running Freevo and has lots of films, television programmes, music, etc. The idea is to eventually get my Dad's TV tuner card working (but that's more complicated than it sounds under FreeBSD) and use Freevo to its full potential (as a PVR).
Hopefully www.lewiz.org and www.fajita.org are fully back online (please tell me if you run into problems), while www.lewiz.net (a lewiz.org mirror) will be back up soon. Note that those with accounts on www.fajita.org will no longer be able to access any content — it is disabled as the ADSL line here will not like a hammering.
Sunday, 13 June 2004
Thursday, 10 June 2004
Secret Window
Not the kind of film I usually go for. In fact, the only reason we saw this film (after a few of us went out for a meal at Gio Ristorante near the G-Mex Centre) was because Orange had their two-for-one offer on and, since I have an Orange 'phone, Vlad and I could get in cheap.
It's probably best it was so cheap — it really wasn't worth £1.50 each! An obvious, uneventful film that really didn't make good of the last Stephen King book-to-film translation, The Green Mile.
At the moment the average IMDb rating is 6.2 but I had to push to give it a 5.
It's probably best it was so cheap — it really wasn't worth £1.50 each! An obvious, uneventful film that really didn't make good of the last Stephen King book-to-film translation, The Green Mile.
At the moment the average IMDb rating is 6.2 but I had to push to give it a 5.
Tuesday, 8 June 2004
The Day After Tomorrow
... was the film for this evening.
I was impressed with the realistic effects and graphics but overall feel more than a little let down by the worn-out plot used in Dante's Peak, Twister, and all of the other natural disaster movies.
This one wasn't quite the same — it had some nice points: the obvious deaths were for the black kid and the rich kid (sorry, I don't know their names) but these did not happen — refreshing.
Something Vlad pointed out was the way that the “lovey-dovey” stuff was kept out, again something that sets it apart; the amount of emotion was “just right”.
My other main criticism is that it was too far-fetched. Okay, I'm aware it's just a film and I accept that up to a point. However, the way that such a massive tsunami materialised from nowhere to flood New York was beyond belief, as was the 10F decrease in temperature per second at the eye of the storm. If they'd cut these down a bit I'd have probably not have anything in terms of reality to complain about.
A good film but nothing amazing — a 6.5 out of 10 at the most.
I was impressed with the realistic effects and graphics but overall feel more than a little let down by the worn-out plot used in Dante's Peak, Twister, and all of the other natural disaster movies.
This one wasn't quite the same — it had some nice points: the obvious deaths were for the black kid and the rich kid (sorry, I don't know their names) but these did not happen — refreshing.
Something Vlad pointed out was the way that the “lovey-dovey” stuff was kept out, again something that sets it apart; the amount of emotion was “just right”.
My other main criticism is that it was too far-fetched. Okay, I'm aware it's just a film and I accept that up to a point. However, the way that such a massive tsunami materialised from nowhere to flood New York was beyond belief, as was the 10F decrease in temperature per second at the eye of the storm. If they'd cut these down a bit I'd have probably not have anything in terms of reality to complain about.
A good film but nothing amazing — a 6.5 out of 10 at the most.
Monday, 7 June 2004
Yamaha NS-1000Ms!
At last! I own a pair of Yamaha NS-1000Ms! I put a bid down of $650 while at work on Sunday, expecting them to go far higher than that ($700? $800? $900? $1,000?) — by the time I got back to Manchester I had been outbid, but only by a little amount. I put down a final bid of just over $711 with about 30 minutes to go.
The occasional refresh when there was between 10 and five minutes to go... followed by a mad frenzy of refreshing in the last few minutes. I was surprised — no further bids, not even during the last minute.
I presumed there must be a sniper (or two) waiting for the last 10 or 20 seconds before they bid; five seconds, nothing; two seconds, still nothing! By now my heart is pounding — I can't explain it, it's sort of similar to the feeling at the top of a big rollercoaster, only intensified!
One second... I am still the high bidder! Two more refreshes and... Lewis has won a pair of Yamaha NS-1000Ms!
The occasional refresh when there was between 10 and five minutes to go... followed by a mad frenzy of refreshing in the last few minutes. I was surprised — no further bids, not even during the last minute.
I presumed there must be a sniper (or two) waiting for the last 10 or 20 seconds before they bid; five seconds, nothing; two seconds, still nothing! By now my heart is pounding — I can't explain it, it's sort of similar to the feeling at the top of a big rollercoaster, only intensified!
One second... I am still the high bidder! Two more refreshes and... Lewis has won a pair of Yamaha NS-1000Ms!
Friday, 4 June 2004
Improvements from devel.lewiz.org...
I've imported some of the code from devel.lewiz.org... there are a few minor changes:
I'm really looking for some help with the layout and design — if anybody has any tips or hints, I'd love to hear them!
- The CSS is now quite different — there are two floats (one for the main column and one for the sidebar)
- BBCode has been implemented, which allows comments (and my entires) to have style markup (much like HTML). A full description of how to use it can be found at http://pear.php.net/pepr/pepr-bbcode-help.php
- I have begun working on the gallery. While this is not yet functional you can now view the galleries available and the date they were created (not very useful right now).
I'm really looking for some help with the layout and design — if anybody has any tips or hints, I'd love to hear them!
Wednesday, 2 June 2004
Pub Lunch
I had my first pub meal in a long time earlier on; Xiaoxiao was pretty hungry so we were walking down to get her a baked potato when we passed a pub and decided to go in.
I've not had scampi in a while (my traditional English pub meal) and I quite fancied a bite to eat myself. It's not the best food in the world but it certainly hit the spot — as well as being a refreshing change to pizza, curry, Chinese and Mexican.
I've not had scampi in a while (my traditional English pub meal) and I quite fancied a bite to eat myself. It's not the best food in the world but it certainly hit the spot — as well as being a refreshing change to pizza, curry, Chinese and Mexican.
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