- 01.08.2002 -
Blast from the past
I went to the computer fait to meet up with University buddies Dave and Jeff. I was a tad early and I ran into Gary aka Aztec from High Heaven, the first name given to my Amiga demo group. I haven't seen him since 1992. Like most of us he'd put on a few pounds. He also had his daughter with him. He's working for the council now reprogramming their email system. Man, time flies.
The computer fair
I needed a few items for my PC and a PSX that I had been given (broken 7002 model). I was pretty impressed with the prices of the wares on offer. Why would anyone go to PC World and pay 8ukp for a two-meter USB cable when you can get it for 1ukp here? Nice one. That should speed up my scanner to printer jobs when I need photocopies doing.
The PSX I had been given had been pretty badly treated. It needed a new spindle which cost me 2.50ukp. I had no controllers and I ended up getting one free when I bought two copies of PS-X-change for some friends (7ukp each). I got the PSX to work and cleaned it up. I threw in my memory card and a pile of games and gave it to my little sister. She has hardly come out of her room since.
I passed on buying some CDRs, as the competitively priced ones were shiny underneath and I wasn't sure my writer would like them. I've since discovered that it likes the TRAXDATA 8x 80min ones just fine so I'll get some next time around. They go for 4.50ukp for 25.
Out and about
I've been heading out and about recently just to do something other than sitting on my ass and surfing or reading a book. I've been going for drives with my girl. We've been to the coast and to the countryside. The only problem is she can't drive so I can't drink.
I managed to finish all of the Tomb Raider Gold games during several moments of boredom. Well, hours. That's the only time I've played computer games though. Honest.
I went to see GOLDMEMBER with my sisters yesterday. I was looking forward to having a good laugh and I wasn't to disappointed. There were some funny moments in this film. However, it tried to hard and came up with nothing original, just the old fart, piss, T&A jokes that have become the repertoire of most of today's comical movies. I don't think I will want a copy of this film when it is released to the home viewer market.
- 04.08.2002 -
Well I've tried everything that I can to please Geocities but there seems to be no joy. I reduced the amount of bytes on the index page of my site so that each time you came to read the comic, the data transfer was small. I even put a tracker on the front page so we can see that at the moment the daily hit count is quite small owing to the fact that I'm not doing regular updates at present. But no, Geocities or should I say Yahoo, who own them now, still regularly send me emails saying that my hit count is way to high and that on occasion they have to turn my site off. How could I possibly rectify this problem they say? By buying their premium package rather than using their free web space. Sigh, like Hotmail (owned by Microsoft) when the big guys buy something good they try to make it bad so you'll pay them for their other services.
So I find myself looking around for new web space. There's my freeserve account with 30MBs but I'm not sure how good that is but I might give it a try. I think its also time I started looking around for my own domain name as one of my problems with increasing my hit count/readership levels is that my URL is currently not easy to remember.
Question. Do you want the latest Wild Rain entry to appear on the front page again or are you happy with the current format?
'My Last Serenade' by Killswitch Engage, rocks!
- 06.08.2002 -
A month of comics in a day
OK ok I'll admit it. I have too much time on my hands. But this time it came in useful as I had a wave of inspiration for storyline ideas for this comic. I jotted them down in a text file so I won't forget any. There are enough ideas here for two months worth of strips. By that I mean daily strips. Seven days a week!
I left my PC on and went to fix myself a nice strong mug of coffee. An hour later and I had created four of the new strips. I logged on to catch up with JP via email and as often happens with JP's emails, they generated some further ideas. I was up to strip 18 by lunchtime. I had to take a break as it is my sister's birthday and people were popping around.
Further ideas for strips that I thought were pretty funny kept pouring forth. I only stopped knocking out new strips when an idea called for a new template such as a salesman and saleswoman in the up-coming strips where Dave, JP and Wes go to a computer fair and get into all sorts of situations.
I've aired the new strips to my expert team of critics (my sisters) and they have given them the thumbs up. So enjoy, as Detox comic strip once again becomes daily (until I get a real job anyway).
Use it or lose it
Just a quick note to say that if you want the forum to stay online then you need to start using it. It's a ghost town at the moment (except for Batman and Boy Wonder) so use it or lose it!
Checkered past
Another way of spending my time is reading. I'm currently reading Norman Davies book, 'The Isles: A History'. A heavy tome but it does cover the history of the British and Irish Isles from the ice age to the present. It probably won't interest most of you but I like reading about history and knowing this kind of stuff. For instance, most people can't tell the difference between Britain (England and Wales circa 1600), Great(er) Britain (England, Wales and Scotland circa 1707), United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (circa 1801), United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (circa 1922 when Ireland became independent Eire or the Republic of Ireland as it is now known.). I am currently up to the Celts.
Another book I am reading is Patrick Wolf's 'The Complete Idiots Guide to Chess'. I can play chess but like the majority of chess players, a family member or a friend taught me. This lays out the official rules and answers a few questions I've had such as:
- When you face a chessboard, the bottom right square must be white otherwise you change the queen-king and bishop colour configurations.
- Chess was played during the age of chivalry so the queen is always on her own colour square.
- A pawn can be taken sideways by an enemy pawn if it moves two squares forward on its first move and stops to the side of an enemy pawn.
- To castle, a king moves two squares towards a rook (don't call them castles) and the rook is placed on the other side of the king. Both pieces should have not moved previously.
I've also learned chess notation so I can follow games played by grandmasters.
Ah yes, the joy of having too much time on your hands. ;o)
- 10.08.2002 -
If its not one thing..
My car developed an oil leak so I took a look to see where it was coming from. It seemed straightforward. A pipe under the radiator was covered in oil, as was the cowling right underneath it. It looked like the spring clip was not doing its job so I replaced it with a jubilee clip.
The next problem was that the cowling was split so that came off. I'd like to say it came off easy but the bolts were rusted to hell so they kinda snapped off. Bugger. My Dad came up with a makeshift repair and bolt replacement method so that's back on now. The only problem is the oil is still leaking out. I obviously need a new part but my Haynes manual does not show the component that the pipe is coming off. It looks like an oil cooler.
- 16.08.2002 -
Taking the P
I went to my local Toyota dealer the other day to get a quote for some parts I needed. They quoted me £170 for the door trim! That's a piece of plastic and rubber on the outside of the driver's door with some clips.
The other item I priced was a pipe for the oil cooler. £40 inc. VAT. Is it braided in gold or what? The kid in the parts store told me that it was high pressure (bull) and high temperature with metal braided exterior (also bollocks). I took the pipe off my car and took it to a local parts dealer that I find reasonably competitive. I got a replacement for 60p. Yep there's a big difference between sixty pence and forty quid. Toyota is well and truly taking the p.
So my next mission is to get a replacement door trim for a reasonable price or somehow fix up the old one and buy the kit to fix it on which is about £4.
- 19.08.2002 -
See no evil
I was walking through the park yesterday when I noticed a group of people pointing at a car parked amongst some trees. A bunch of kids were sat in a blue Mazda 323 that looked a bit worse for wear. As I continued to walk I noticed tyre tracks all over the grass, through the trees and around the gardens.
I saw no sign of any park rangers or any police as I carried on walking. I then saw a guy rush for his kid as the car came barrelling down the hill across the grass meters away from him and his child. It proceeded to drive all over the lawns, around the ponds and then finally out of the park.
Now there were adults everywhere grabbing their kids and moving to safety but there was not one person of authority anywhere to be seen.
Later I ran into someone I know who works at the park. She promised to find out what had gone on when she went into work the next day, and let me know. She has since told me that the park officials hadn't a clue what she was talking about.
So not only did these kids get away with trashing the park in a car that was probably twoc'd, but no one apparently reported a thing.
- 21.08.2002 -
Project Triumph
It doesn't take a genius to work out that I have been a tad bored lately. When I'm not looking for work, visiting my girlfriend taking the dog for a walk or creating some comics you can usually find me trying to find something to do. I've blown the dust off of my guitar, brought my Amiga down from the loft, read some books I've been meaning to read, I'm learning grandmaster chess, and so on.
One of the books I've started reading is 'The fundamentals of motor vehicle technology'. The reason I'm reading this? Well I'm always told that I'm just like my Dad. Whereas he tinkers endlessly with cars, I tinker with computers. If I have a car problem, he sorts it, if he has a computer problem, I come to the rescue.
But wait a minute. Why is that? The reason I don't mind working on computer problems is because I understand them and enjoy it (most times). So why don't I work on my own cars more often? Well I'm afraid I'll break something because I don't know what I'm doing.
A possible solution would be to remove that fear of breaking something which might cost an arm and a leg to rectify, and one way of doing that would be to work on a car that you don't give two hoots about.
So there I am at my Grandma's today when she points out that the garage roof needs repairing and has fallen on the car within. You see, a while back we had so many cars and no where to park them so we scrapped a few, but one (that my sister wanted) got dumped into my Grandmas garage. Hmm a germ of an idea formed. After a quick phone call I was now its new owner to do with it whatever I pleased as long as I got rid of it afterwards.
We got the garage open and I took a look at the car. Its a Y-reg Triumph Acclaim (same model/body as the Honda Accord). The tyres were flat; the bodywork was rusted, as was the engine. The garage roof had caved in so the car was covered in rotting wood and felt. Still, the main reason I wanted the car was to have something to practice on. If I managed to get it on the road, well that would be a bonus. (My sister has already had first dibs as she's taking driving lessons, again).
So now I have a project to keep me occupied while I look for a job. First priority is to see if it will turn over. Meanwhile, why not check out my mate Matt's site Kardiak where you can find my car diary for the work I have started doing on the Supra.
- 28.08.2002 -
Due to lack of use and the Image Workshop moving to a secure server, the forum has been removed. You may of noticed that it had stopped working recently. This was due to path changes on the server.
Also todays comic strip was the last of the batch I had created. It should be no problem creating more except that my monitor is fubar'd and only works in shades of yellow. I have a spare but the rocker switch needs fixing. This of course causes problems when working with graphics. Hopefully I'll have it sorted soon.
- 29.08.2002 -
Contacted Doc Ziploc the technical expert that I always turn to in times of need. Enquired about how I can fix my monitor so I can create todays comic. I listened to his explicit details, writing them down then went to create today's strip. However I have another question for you mate. How long do I have to go on hitting this damn monitor? :o)
David Kei
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