Author Archives: AdminTim

Bye bye Psion…. Hello Eeepc

by AdminTim

OK well I now have a new toy to play with, a nice little EeePC which I got off ebay.

Basically that means a couple of things:

Firstly it ends my 12 years association with Psion, really as I started with off with a little Psion 3, and progressed through a 3a (which I got from a now defunct pawn brokers on the City Road) and a Revo, culminating in getting a much desired Psion 7 (again off of ebay).

After much work hunting around, I eventually managed to load it up with a Netbook personality module, a working wifi card, a full java 1.1 environment, and lots of abandonwear.

But time and tech wait for no man, and the psion (with associated kit) has finally left me to go to a collector in Russia, and the money has been recycled to get this little eeepc 701 running xandros.

I must admit I’ll miss the physicality of the keyboard and screen that came with the Psion 7/Netbook, but it’s nice to have a os you do some serious dev with.

Secondly, it may also mean that I might be able to blog post more often, as I can now write things up on the train to work, and post when I get in.

Well, hopefully……

Ulri..ka..ka..ka

by AdminTim

The Weather Girls came out to play last night, and the attractive duo had a successful run through the end of the I13 Midnighter arc, and also a couple of the Faultline arc mishes, with all the chatty EB’s (which went down surprisingly easily)

Not without it’s moments of comedy, as at the end of the last midnighter mish, when there are about 3 simultaneous Boss ambushes, HT faceplanted, and WL ended up speeding round and round the cargo hold with all the Warriors following her until she could drop spare insp on HT

Hurricane Tess 25
Winters Light 25

Incommunicado

by AdminTim

I’ve been incommunicado for a bit, I had an offsite course at the end of last week.

Anyway, the Shield Maidens romped through the end of Posi, and swiftly morphed into another trio who, for want of a better name, we shall call the Weather Girls. And it was indeed raining men as the utter awesomeness of Ice Patch stacked with Freezing Rain turned every? mish into a bit of a turkey shoot.

The assembled cast of players…

Maiden Shibuya 16 Shield/Energy tank
Maiden Afrique 16 Shield/Battle Axe tank
Maiden US 16 Shield/Strength?? tank

Misinformation 18 (woot) Elec/Elec Blaster
Hurricane Tess 24 Storm/Elec Defender
Winters Light 24 Ice/Storm Controller

O M G Posi Tron

by AdminTim

The Shield Maidens came out to party last night and they, like, totally beat up on everything and they almost totally finished the Posi task force.

Maiden US was like, bashing things, and like Maiden Shibuya was like bashing things too, and like Maiden Afrique was like hitting things too. Even those freaky floating dudes.

They only ended up face down in the last club of the night, it was all that vom from those freaky dead dudes eeyoouu !

Aaaanyway, we’ll finish up next week, yeah ?

Laters.

The Fake Bands post

by AdminTim | 1 Comment

Here are a new of my favourites:

Least Auklet – be at your side

Least Auklet - be at your side

Haling from Liverpool in the early 80’s, Least Auklet fitted snugly into the emerging 80’s pop-miserablist scene. They supported Echo and the Bunnymen on their “We’re a mite pissed-off” tour and seemed to be headed on for greater things.

However, things soon fell apart during their ill fated “Bring down Thatcher by staring at your shoes” tour, as the bands extreme taciturness mean’t that they never told each other where the venues actually were, and so everything disintegrated in an orgy of indifference.

The lead singer is now running a Chip Shop in Doncaster, while the drummer is the COO of an international investment bank

Artlenburg – Sure that everyone will

Artlenburg - Sure that everyone will

These wacky Latvian trip-hop ambient funsters exploded onto the club scene in the early 90’s. Charming the ectasy-ravaged ravers with their chill out anthems based on on traditional Latvian folk ditties.

However, they soon became disillusioned with the “commercialism” and “fakery” of the music business, and the fact that they couldn’t get laid.

They were last seen in an igloo somewhere above the Arctic Circle, playing their music as a “ambient tribute to the desolation”…. mainly to seals

Lady Chapel – I Myself Deny It

Lady Chapel - I Myself Deny It

Following the tried and trusted English musical formula piloted by The Primitives, Transvision Vamp and the Ting Tings of an attractive blonde fronting some anonymous indie-musos wearing black, Lady Chapel’s indie-jangle-pop enchanted many.

Their meteoric rise, and and subsequent precipitous fall from grace was sadly mirrored by lead singer Jayne Janie’s tragic death in a freak space hopper accident

Grauniad Plays Catchup

by AdminTim

With the Fake Band Game at least.

The rules they publish are slightly different from the ones I was using (thanks Swami)? a couple fo years ago which are:

  1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random – The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
  2. Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 – The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
  3. Visit http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/ – The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
  4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

Extra points for indicating the musical genre of the album, but if you get as far as putting together the track listing, naming the lead singer’s girlfriend or printing the Tour t-shirts off on Cafe Press, then you may have gone too far.

I’ll post a couple of my favourites in bit.

I must admit I tinkered with the idea of creating some actual music to go along with them on MySpace. Of my bands probably? Artlenburg would have been best, as I have no discernible musical talent.

Plus if I chose Lady Chapel, asking someone to act as lead singer to your fake internet band comes across as a little creepy

Anyway, I turned round an realised that I already had a life, so droppped the idea.

Virtual Sweat Shops

by AdminTim

There is a really interesting article here about the source of all that annoying spam email that hits your MMO account.

The tone is a bit morally ambiguous, a bit like to industry itself.

It overlooks the whole issue that any such gold mining is immediately in breach of the EULA of whatever MMO you happen to be playing. And of course you have some net-twat wittering on about new economy/development 2.0 (yuck)

Also, the workers are poorly paid and work long hours, though anyone who’s been to the UAE, or bought underwear from Primark can’t claim to be whiter than white.

I quite liked the bit about the division of labour between the geek-boy/proles and the college-educated young woman who did the marketing/client liaison.

Maiden Over

by AdminTim

As advertised last week, the shield maidens made an appearance this week, and after clearing out a few old missons, the 3 maids started a run at the Posi TF, started off well against the Vaz, and the second mish Clockwork came and went fairly speedily.

Then last mish of the night, CoT was much nastier, with a couple of almost team wipes.

Mind you the one major advantage of an all tank team is that as long as one of your comrades is still going, so much taunt is being generated that you can pop a wakie right in the middle and no one notices.

The roster
Maiden US 16
Maiden Afrique 16
Maiden Shibuya 16

Adjourned till new week, unless someone else turns up.