I've got a PC with an Opteron 150 and a gig of memory. It is flacky, there is not mouse or keyboard connect so i have to use the USB ports of which it has gobs of. However they don't always work when the PC is switched on. Plus sometimes it never starts up or occasionally reboots. Basically it's shagged. But i like the case and the PC is pretty meaty. So I'm looking at a replacement motherboard, processor and memory (what I'e got is ECC).

Preferrably a quad or duo processor. Not sure if I should go intel or amd. Heart says i should support amd but compatibility and reliability says intel. i am torn.

I'm a little sozzled. A birthday meal for Jo's Mum. Some bear, some German champagne. The room is not spinning yet but my head hurts and I've got that dry sensation in my mouth that says I should be drinking water by now.

Got the fast train this morning. Doors opened to reveal wall to wall people. A bit of pushing and shoving and there was room for five more. Today's rant is to those who stand with their backs against the hand rails. Makes it very difficult for the rest of us not to fall on you when the train jerks from side to side.

It is going up because of fuel and food. So King and Darling want to raise interest rates to stop inflation rising. What gives!

Haven't blogged for over a year. Must get back into this blogging lark. Still doing the same thing though I sold my car last June so we've been a one car family for a while now.

Whats happening with the weather. Has the UK lost summers altogether?

Desperately want to get a iTouch iPod. Bored with my 2Gb mp3 player, can't get enough music on it. Keep listening to the same stuff again and again.

Can't stand people who sit on the train and insist on putting their bag behind their legs so that (1) there feet are where you need to put yours if you sit opposite them and (2) you can' t stretch your legs out to avoid their feet because their bag is in the way. Give me strength.

Need tea.....

What is going on. My heyfever has started early. Normally it doesn't kick in till June. I can't stay outside for long periods before my eyes sting and I sneeze twenty times in a row. Plus it makes me tired and really grumpy. I just hope it finishes early as well.

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Solaris is on Film 4. I've got it on DVD but I'm compelled to watch it again as I find it a very brave film. I remember the original, watching it as a kid late at night on TV, not quite understanding what was going and half falling asleep. Hell knows what age I was.

It has been a fair few months since I last blogged. I've changed jobs and now no longer need to travel to Gloucester from London every couple of weeks. I also started off with my manager and other team members being in the same office. However since starting I have had a new manager in New York. Oh well.

There is talk of Top Gear not returning to BBC2. That would be a shame. It is no longer the car show but a entertainment show. It's got to the point in my household where we all enjoy watching. The kids won't let me delete the episodes I have on the Hummy.

Not heard the album yet but Bombs is magic!

Well I finally purchased my shiny new Humax 9200t last weekend. I unpacked it, slotted it into where my trusty old Labgear Set-pal receiver was and fired it up. Initially not good. I could see an image on the TV but it was way to dark and rolled, just like the tuner being out slightly. This was via a SCART lead so there was no tuner involved. So I checked the connections, everything tight. CRAP, what now. I know lets try the cable that came with the unit and not the one I've been using for a couple of years without problems. Hey presto, up pops the installtion menu.

A few minutes later I've got all the channels set up and everything is go. So now I can pause live tv, rewind, record programmes in the same quality they are transmitted in (my VCR is really grainy).

Next into the search feature, hmm, can't find Battlestar Galactica on Sky Three. Ah the guide hasn't fully updated. Then I remember it could take a day for the seven day guide to completely fill [note: I still missed recording BSG!!!]. The search does have a by genre option, so I selected movies. Moments later I had scheduled the following films for recording:

• Fifth Element
• Man with the Golden Gun
• Sexy Beast
• Lost in Translation
  
• Bad Boys
• Back to the Future
• Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo [for the kids]
• Robocop
• Small Soldiers
• ... I can't remember them all now.

On top of the films the kids also love to see 80's classic 'Monkey', so that was scheduled as well (plus a few Basil Brush episodes).

The only negative point so far has been my screw up recording CSI:Miami on Tuesday evening. I was trying out the instant record so I left the player on 'five' and about 9:30 decided to press the record. I foolishly thought it would spot that it was half way through CSI and use some of the chase play recording to make up for the time missed at the start (it buffers up to an hour of what you are watching). Alas no, it started recording immediately and wiped out the proceeding chase play buffer. Ouch! Interestingly I picked up CSI from half way in without any trouble at all.

I've since upgraded the firmware and believe it does what I thought it should, or it is possible rewind live and record. I'll have to try it out again. Later I'll have to play with uploading MP3s and downloading video using the USB port. I many ways it is a shame it doesn't have an ethernet port.

Everything is all England v Sweden today. Lots of silly news items on the TV this morning given this evenings football match. Of course it's going to most boring match from hell because neither team are going to have an incentive to work their players as both are through to the next round.

Adobe wound me up today. Yesterday I opened up a PDF file to be presented with a dialog box asking me to install Acrobat updates. Hey what harm could they do? Well apart from the 'shrink-to-toolbar' button not actually removing the update progress windows after installation I was asked if wanted to 'reboot now or reboot later'. What the heck does Adobe install that needs a reboot? I selected later because I was busy, forgot all about it till the evening when ye olde laptop appeared to struggle out of hibernation. Hmm, I'll reboot tomorrow morning. Well to be honest I didn't have much choice because the desktop didn't really wanted start properly, so I rebooted.

Alas that wasn't the end of it. After restarting up pops the familiar Adobe 'reboot now or reboot later'. Eh? Okay reboot now. Here we go, get the head down and get back to work. No no, Adobe now needs to install the rest of the updates it downloaded yesterday. Grr, reboot again.

Still haven't got my Humax 9200t. Not long though.

One of my phones bills arrived this week with a just can't pass up offer [tongue firmly in cheek].

I have two phone bills for the one phone line. The BT bill is for the line rental and the Talk Talk bill is for the calls. This means that my BT bill is the same flat cost every quarter, it doesn't go up and it doesn't go down. With this quarters bill BT have included an offer of spreading out my bills at a flat rate on a monthly basis. As an incentive I could save up to £12 a year on my bill.

Initially I was interested, any way to save some cash is good with me. Then I saw what they wanted to charge me a month. My current quarterly bill is £36 but the projected monthly bill would be £16. Now my maths aren't great but doesn't that mean I'll end up paying an extra £12 a quarter!!! Supposedly BT came to this value by taking my average bill over the last few quarters. Well I've been on the current scheme for well over a year now so however they calculate their average must be badly broken. Given the £12 yearly discount as well I thought my monthly cost would be £11 a month (£36 / 3 - £12 / 12) and not £16.

Hmm. I don't think I'm going to signing up to that great offer. I'll continue to use my credit card on a quartley basis [my card gives points that are redeemable for vouchers, I am so near getting a Humax 9200t].

This all reminded me of an argument I had many years ago with a BT sales person who had cold called me about changing my phone package. They wanted me to sign up for a package that I paid a little each month up front for my call charges. You know, the "Pay an extra X per month and get Y free minutes on the phone". Well those minutes aren't free because you've paid for them up front. I think this sort of wording should be disallowed on adverts. Admittedly they might be cheaper minutes than paying for them after you've used those minutes. The problem was at the time the unused minutes were lost at the end of each month and my current call charges were less than the up front payment.

Therefore I couldn't see any benefit from signing up and I made this fact very clear to the sales rep. on the phone. So then they started out on the line that I'd get a better level of service if I signed up. I questioned in what way would the service be better. It's the same old phone line passing through the branches of a neighbours tree [every winter we'd normally have a strong storm and loose our phone line for a day]. The rep. just refused to acknowledge that nothing would be different but also couldn't tell me how the service would be better. Of course we can all guess at the real reason for making me sign up. I didn't take up that stunning offer either.