It’s Monday morning, and I’ve just discovered I am the only one in my office today (there are normally three of us). What fun.

I’ve written down 1 hour for sorting out email, timesheets and so on (the usual Monday morning trudge), and now find myself with 10 minutes left over. Rather than get on with anything, I’m having a cup of tea and writing this…

The weekend was actually pretty good. I took Saturday off (based on the fact that I had done over 50 hours work from Monday to Friday), and we went shopping. I ended up (as ever) coming home with a number of second hand computer games from the bargain bin at Game Station.

This weekend’s trawl included “Dot Hack:Infection”, “Megaman X8″, and “Metal Slug 4″. MegaMan and Metal Slug are both shooters (very good too), whereas Dot Hack is a very different animal indeed.

Based on a series of comic books, Dot Hack is a role playing game where you play as a girl who’s friend is in a coma after playing an online role playing game, called “The World”. With the help of a man who is investigating “The World”, you both enter the game, and try to find out what has been happening.

Yes - that’s right - you play a game inside the game. It’s very, very clever. I got rather confused at one point when I tried to exit the game to let W have a go, and had to be told by W that I was only exiting the game within the game - not the game itself. My poor little brain blew to pieces at that point.

It’s an amazingly designed game. The look and feel is very manga, and there are some wonderful touches, such as the 45 minute anime movie that comes with it, explaining the pre-amble to the game (the meeting of the girl with the investigator, and their entry into “The World”).

The most worrying this is that this game is in 4 parts, and this is only the first… I may be putting some searches out on E-Bay over the coming weeks to find the next chapters in the story.

I never thought I would end up saying this, but the latest version of Microsoft’s “Windows Media Player” (currently in beta) really does rule.

You should be able to figure out from the picture above that it has thumbs of all the albums - regardless of where they come from. It seems to be able to play most types of file “out of the box”, but doesn’t play DVDs - you need to but a codec for that from a third party. I bought one from Intervideo earlier, and it worked immediately.

I can now watch my box set of Buck Rogers while I’m working :)

Over the last few months I have found myself with very little time outside of work to persue my own interests, and have been watching television less than ever before. Without exaggerating at all, I can honestly say that I’ve spent more time in the cinema over the last month than watching television.

With this in mind, I have found myself reading regularly again. My only time for reading at the moment tends to be for half an hour or so before I go to bed, but at least it’s something.

I’ve always loved books. They require imagination and escapism. You tend to participate in a book far more than a movie - in the book you actively decide how people look, and how they sound. I find it far more engaging than movies.

Anyway - I’m not sure if I’ve written about this in my blog before. I run a reading group. It’s over on Yahoo Groups, and is called Bookworm Corner.

The main idea is for a group of people to read the same book as each other during the month, and discuss it afterwards. Also, during each month members suggest books to go into a poll for the next month, which is then voted on, and so on. That’s really all there is to it.

I started the group because I was getting a bit fed up of reading books and having nobody to talk to who had read the same book. I also wanted some way of forcing myself to read books I otherwise wouldn’t have looked at.

So there you go - Bookworm Corner. Why not visit today? It’s free to join (you just need a Yahoo account, which is also free)…

It’s Wednesday morning, and I feel like it’s the end of the week already. So far I have logged over 24 hours work for the week so far. That’s in two days. If things keep on like this, I’ll have done my normally weekly hours in 3 days, and will be looking at 80 hours for the week.

In the past I always seem to have found something to write about in my blog, but that kind of depends on “having a life” in order to write about it. Seeing that I have no life at the moment, and am not allowed to write about work, I’m a bit stuck.

I’m guessing that what I really need to do is spend my coffee breaks looking for distractions on the web - if anybody can suggest great websites to go visit, let me know…

One of my friends on the internet “tagged” me with a set of questions, and I sheepishly agreed to reply to them. Enjoy…

6 habits that annoy you

- People who repeat themselves. Family members are the worst for this - repeating the same story to you that you’ve heard ten times before, and of course - being English I have good manners and don’t shout “YOU’VE TOLD US THIS STORY TEN F*CKING TIMES ALREADY”

- People who moan about things. I get really angry with people who continually moan about the most stupid things. Why do they think other people want to know about their problems? It’s fine if you’ve asked how they are, but otherwise… It *really* gets to me when people complain about things that they have the power to change if they got off their ass.

- Judging others. I really don’t like it when people judge others, and think of themselves as “better” in some way. The really maddening thing is the same people are so ignorant they will insist they don’t do it.

- Religious Zealots. Privately, it really annoys me when people insist on telling you about their wonderful religious beliefs, and you know damn well that (if you are either agnostic or an athiest) they have no capacity to understand you at all, will not try to understand your point of view, but will try to make you understand their faith. Most religious faiths are based upon the idea that all other belief/faith systems are inferior. How stupid is that…

- Unthinking People. How much effort does it require to check your actions or words before you come out with them? Not much, and yet many people just blunder on, completely oblivious to the damage they do.

- People who don’t apologise for their failings or mistakes. We are all human. We all have our failings. We all have bad days. Accidents happen. Shit happens. Deal with it, and apologise if you’ve caused a mess. People understand, and will surprise you if you admit you were an idiot.

6 places for my dream vacation

- Roraima, Venezuela. The real place that inspired “The Lost World”.
- New York. The city that never sleeps.
- Machu Picchu. Ancient city of the Incas.
- Angkor Watt. Ancient city in Cambodia.
- Egypt. Would love to visit the Giza plateau one day.
- Nepal. Would like to visit the base camp of Everest.

6 Favorite past times

- Meeting W, 2000. I met this amazing girl in a bar in Oxford one Saturday lunchtime six years ago, and fell in love with her.

- Our Wedding, September 2001. We had a white wedding in a church that was hundreds of years old, a reception in a 1920’s mansion, and reunited our family from all over the world. Amazing day.

- 1st visit to San Francisco. I visited when I was 27 years old to visit my cousin Charlotte, and nearly didn’t come back. Wonderful city, wonderful experience.

- Sixth Birthday Party. When I was 6 I had a birthday party and my Nan make a cake with flakes for candles, with cherries for flames. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

- Christmas. I have no idea how my parents did it, but we had wonderful christmases when I was young. I guess it continues in me through the joy I get in either doing things for people, or giving presents to them.

- Making unlikely friends on the internet. I have made a couple of amazing friends on the internet. Proper friends. The type that can spend days without speaking, but when we do it’s like we only talked an hour ago. You know who you are :)

6 accomplishments I would like to achieve in the next year.

- Finish decorating the house. We have lived here for 5 years now. Granted, we have been ploughing money into IVF over the last couple of years, so have had next to no money in the bank (we have been very deep into the red at times). Now following the adoption route, the house is being improved very quickly at last.

- Adopt children. Having found out we cannot have children “normally”, and having given IVF three tries, we are starting out on the process to adopting children.

- De-Stress. I worry about what is expected of me too much, and know I worry too much about what other people think all the time. I am getting better as I get older though. I tend to worry about myself and W rather than other people’s problems.

- Lose some weight. It’s not that I am fat, it’s just that I have some weight in the wrong places. I could really do with some exercise, but with the hours I’m working at the moment I get very little time to workout. When things calm down I may buy a bike and go do some miles around the countryside (I used to train on a bike a lot).

- Go swimming more. I used to love swimming, and always enjoy it when I go - I just don’t make enough time to go. We have a huge pool a few miles away too.

- Make time for art! Many years ago I went to art college, and am actually a far better artist than software developer. I have drawing books, canvases, paint, pencils, and all manner of other things. I just don’t have enough time to draw at the moment. I must make time.

6 songs that identify my personality

- Come What May, from Moulin Rouge. Says a lot about my feelings for W.
- Perfect Love Song, by The Divine Madness. Was very nearly our first dance.
- Don Quixote, by Nik Kershaw. I sometimes feel like I’m “tilting at windmills”.
- Living on the Edge, by Aerosmith. Describes a lot of my frustrations with the world.
- Penny Lane, by The Beatles. Reminds me of my childhood.
- In My Room, by The Beach Boys. I was very shy as a child, and this takes me back there.

6 people I will never forget

- My better half. As time passes, and I see the various wreckages of relationships happen around me, I realised more and more how lucky I am - or perhaps how lucky we are. To paraphrase John Nash, she is “all my reasons”.

- My parents. I don’t know how they gave us the childhood we had. They didn’t have a great deal when we were young, and yet my memories are of amazing camping holidays, and wonderful christmases.

- My Step Grandfather. I never knew he was my step-grandfather until I was quite old, and that was his gift. He was funny, wise, knowledgeable, and everything you could ever hope a grandparent to be. Looking back (as an adult) he was incredibly gifted with children, and could capture them in an instant. I still miss him, many years after his death.

- Marilyn Monroe. I did a project about her at art college, and started reading the various biographies about her, and ended up being fascinated and enchanted. She probably did nothing to help her situation, but her death was still an enormous waste.

- Damon Hill. The last true gentleman to win the Formula One world championships. I doubt his like will ever win anything that big again.

- Leeann. A friend for several years who moved away. Many people could never understand our relationship. We were never “in love”, although we certainly loved each other (when not throwing things) more than most friends do. The bad times were more than balanced out by the good, and when things were good, we flew. Fantastic memories of drunken nights out, and drunken nights in. Because of her I still can’t face Redbull and Vodka after all these years…

6 things people would be surprised to know about you :

- I’m red green colourblind, which is surprising as I got an “A” in Art at college.

- I can’t drive. Well… I can drive, but I have never passed my driving test. I keep meaning to do something about it, but other things keep getting in the way.

- I won awards for art at college, and then walked away from it towards a career in software development. My art tutor was NOT happy.

- I love mathematics. I don’t know why. I always have. I have thought about going back to school to do a degree in pure maths, but my career has always got in the way.

- I used to run one of the biggest writing sites on the internet. The site was called “ThoughtCafe” and had upwards of 10,000 members. Myself and W packed it in because it got too successful (bizarre, but true).

- I run the local 5 mile running race each year. I’m not particularly great at running, but I do it anyway to stop me from becoming enormously fat.

So there you go. Feel free to leave comments :)

I’m not really sure if I’m coming or going any more.

It’s lunchtime on Monday at the time of writing. I’m having difficulty concentrating on anything. Perhaps the mental weekend might have something to do with it…

It all started after not going to bed on Friday night until about 2am because it was too hot to sleep. Following that, Saturday was filled with an attempt to catalogue about 7,000 photos on the computer, and then a trip out to visit friends later in the day. We arrived home at about 10, and didn’t go to bed until the early hours once more.

Sunday began with a few hours work at home, and then a trip to the DIY store with W to help her buy things for her new bathroom. While walking around the DIY place I got the idea in my head that it would be good if we turned out junk room - that used to be a study - back into a study. Therefore I bought one of those vertical storage unit things with draws to throw things in - thinking I might be able to tidy the study up a bit.

Tidying the study up meant re-arranging it - and doing that meant throwing a legion of crap away. We took the seats out of the car, and make a pilgrimage to the local rubbish tip - depositing two computers, two monitors, a Yahama synthesizer, an old office chair, and prodigious amounts of cardboard and paper.

Turning the study around was one of those exercises you wish you never started. We had never really planned how to fit things into the study - they just arrived in the room when we moved in, several years ago. In order to move things around meant taking pretty much everything out of the room. Doing that seemed to fill three other rooms and the hallway with junk…

Just to cap things off, W announced that we were going over to have dinner with her family in the evening, so I had to leave the house looking like a bomb really had hit it.

I finally finished putting *some* of the stuff back in the study last night, and finally went to bed at about 1:30am. This morning I was back up at 8, and back at work.

Tonight the carnage starts again - trying to tidy up the attic so I can put about 40 boxes up there that are currently forming an assault course on the stairs…

I think this might have to be a geeky post.

I had a portable hard drive delivered at home today to keep backups of both mine and W’s computers on. Aside from keeping entire copies of the computers, it’s also going to be used as a travelling data store for when W goes around the country researching family history. It’s big enough to hold about 400 CDs worth.

Aside from that, I just signed up with the Amazon S3 service, and am busy backing up our data to it. For those that have no idea, “Amazon S3″ is a web service they are providing to use their storage network to store whatever you want - it’s really cheap too. Basic costs are 15 cents per month per gigabyte, with slightly more to actually transfer the data. Our main reason for doing it is because we are accumulating so many digital photographs. This gives us an “off site backup” capability for a very reasonable price - meaning our photos won’t get destroyed in any disaster such as a fire.

What else has been going on in my world? A new 17″ flat screen arrives tomorrow for my computer at home too - which means I’ll finally be able to get going with the cartooning. Expect lots of rather ropey first attempts in the near future.

And on that note I’m going to call it a night. It’s midnight, and I have work tomorrow.

Just before leaving the house this morning the postman came by, and delivered a jiffy bag. I stood in the hallway clutching it like a small child, almost too excited to inform W what I was holding.

This all started last weekend when I walked down to our local Blockbusters to raid their second hand game bin. I spotted Tekken on the shelf in the shop for £20, but decided that was far too much money to spend on a computer game - so bought movies, wine and chocolate instead.

On Monday morning during a coffee break at work I had a look on E-Bay to see what games were available - and there was Tekken with a “buy it now”. So I did.

Five minutes later I got an email from W (also at work), titled “You’ve been buying computer games”. After initially thinking that W must have telepathic powers, I decided that she must have received the purchase notification from E-Bay too (we have a joint account). Strangely, I don’t get notification of her buying stuff… I wrote back with something along the lines of “I can’t get away with anything any more”.

So - I was faced with a decision this morning while stood in the hallway clutching the jiffy bag. Do I go to work, or do I phone in with some fictional illness and play Tekken all day?

Which do you think I chose ?

I logged into Rojo this lunchtime to catch up with the various blogs I regularly read, and came across a news story that I have been expecting to see for some time.

The news has finally been made public that “Petite Anglais” was fired from her job earlier this year for writing about her employers in her blog. It’s worth pointing out that she never identified who she really was, where she worked, or who she worked with. The company fired her for “gross misconduct”.

I found myself in the strange position of “knowing” about this story at the time it happened - I didn’t know exactly what had happened, but following an email conversation with Petite had a rather large hunch about it.

I have been reading “Petite Anglais” for a couple of years now, and have always admired her writing style. She manages to be candid, entertaining, insightful, humorous, and writes in a wonderful literary style that reminds you just how badly written most blogs are.

The reaction across the blogging community has been unprecedented - most of the western world’s news networks picked up on the story as soon as Petite mentioned it at the top of her blog. On the same day she posted, she was being interviewed on the radio, and newspaper articles were being written across all of the national papers. I suspect that most of the journalists that picked the story up are regular readers of Petite’s blog - there is no other way the news could have spread so quickly.

I’m not sure how I feel about the story. While I can understand that the company wouldn’t have been happy, there is a question about how much an employer can dictate the life of their staff.

This is going to sound mad… it is Tuesday evening, and I am already crossing the 24 hours of work mark for the week so far. The subject of study this evening is “Code Access Security” - or more accurately, “How to strong name user control and web service assemblies, and then register those assemblies for use on a client computer”.

I wish I had a big book all about this stuff, but no books seem to exist. I feel a bit like Lex Luthor in the latest Superman movie - peering into the Abyss towards the oracle, and saying “Tell me everything….”

As a slight aside, I’m listening to possibly my favourite album at the moment - “City of Walls” by Paul Mounsey. I bought it at Stirling Castle in Scotland a couple of years ago. His music is fantastic - very evocative of the people and landscape up there. Think along the lines of some of Howard Shore’s music from the Rohan sections of LOTR, add a big helping of “folk” and a spoon of Mike Oldfield, and you’re getting somewhere near it. I just discovered a nice bio at “FootStompin“.

Anyway - time to get on with more work (I’ve been waiting for a 5 gig virtual machine to decompress from a ZIP file while writing this). If I get time later I’ll try and catch up with friends blogs.