Tomorrow, I return to Employment Place, after three days on the sick, as last week I came down with some dreadful flu thing. Once again. Unfrotunately, this time, instead of it just affecting my nose and throat, this time it decided to take my left ear and chest with it. I’m still not right. My ear still feels like there’s a bowling ball stuck in it, and my throat is once again making it difficult to swallow.

Oh, the joys of being poorly.

The time off, however, has allowed me to get some of the things I meant to do ages ago out of the way. Firstly, I upgraded Beastbits, my main machine. You may remember on 31st March, I tried to install Windows XP onto a SATA drive, with absolutely no success at all.

Yesterday, I tried a different approach, which I didn’t think would work. I backed up my installation of Windows XP onto 2 bootable DVDs with the help of Nero BackItUp (or whatever it’s called). I then put in the new hard drive, and restored the image back to the hard drive.

It only bloody worked.

Not only did this bypass the rigmarole of having to restore everything, it means that I know this method actually works. Unfortunately, the whole process seemed to take forever. Sooo, now I have XP installed on a SATA drive. Wooty.

On the subject of upgrades, the amount of free space I have on mercuryvapour.co.uk has increased too! It WAS 800Mb, it’s now 2Gb. Unfortunately, as of yet, there has not been any bandwidth increase, so basically they’ve gave me a larger bucket, but the same amount of water to keep in it…

Yeah, that analogy works.

So, onto the theme music bit. None of you will remember a show that aired on the Disney channel (and at come point Channel 5) named “Okavango”. It was one of those awful Sunday afternoon things, about a family who moved from the city to… er, “Okavango” to look after all the wildlife. Or something. I didn’t really watch it. It did have one good thing about it. The theme music. I loved it.

Eventually, the show fizzled off the airwaves, and was never seen again. No DVD release, no repeat, nothing.

A few years ago, I tried to locate the theme music, with absolutely no success. in fact, I was amazed by the amount of information I DIDN’T find.

Following on from a thread about “best theme music“, on Glen’s forum, I suddenly had a recollection of Okavango, and how much I liked the theme tune.

I tried to find the video on Youtube, with no luck. I had to resort to a google search which turned up this low quality video.

I didn’t expect anyone to have heard of the show, and indeed, they didn’t. Glen said…

“Never heard of it, but I recognised the bird off of Alien Nation. Do I win a prize?”

To, which, I replied, jokingly…

“Only if you can find a better copy of that theme music.”

At this point, if I had a sound effect for a jaw dropping, I’d be playing it right now. I do have this picture, however.

Within two hours, Glen had tracked down a 2-minute long MP3 of it. Oh my! But, it was just a preview, thetrefore low quality and no ID3 information at all. Unbelieveable.

He titled the email “I rock”, and he certainly does rock. Not stopping there, however, I badger him for some further information, and his response….

“It’s Invent Yourself by Julian Laxton”

In the posting was the link where he got the preview from, and also a link to where it can be purchased. Turns out the full track is just under 6 minutes long. Awesome!

So, I purchased it. The site was located in South Africa, which means the cost of getting the track was 8.74 Rand. And that works out at roughly 60p. Bonus!

I shall be back at work in 7 hours time. Apparently there’s a new phone system. This WILL be fun.

Technorati Tags: backup, beastbits, disk, hard drive, hdd, julian laxton, okavango, theme music, upgrade, website space increase

Hello Mr. Cleaner of Windows,

I hope this blog post finds you in a good mood. Unfortunately, having to write it doesn’t put me in the best of moods. First of all, let me thank you for polishing our house-holes on a fortnightly basis. Your thoughtfulness saves me having to drag the ladders around the front of the house, and for that I am grateful.

Unfortunately, I do have a couple of points I wish to bring up.

Firstly, when the time comes for me to hand over sufficient currency, please do not ring the doorbell if you see me sitting on the sofa. Instead, please feel free to acknowledge my prescence with a small tap on the window. This saves me having to calm down two dogs who think it’s World War III each time they hear “Greensleeves”, or whichever shitty tune our doorbell decides to blurt out.

Secondly, let me introduce you to something.

You’d be right in thinking that this is a satellite dish. Now, although this particular example may be getting on in years, it is still a functional and well-used device. Its sole purpose on this planet is to pick up signals from outer space, which in turn are converted by a magical box underneath the television, in order to provide high quality entertainment into my living room 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you see me sitting on the sofa, I may very well be enjoying some of that top notch entertainment. Please note, it is also capable of showing The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Therefore, may I remind you that your ladder is not a tennis racquet, and this satellite dish is not a soft ball, It is not designed to be twatted. This normally results in loss of signal.

This “blue screen of death”, as these things appear to be called nowadays, signifies that there is no satellite signal being received. This is confirmed with a quick visit outside, to see that the satellite dish is pointing in a completely different direction to what it was moments ago.

So, in order to correct this, I have to enter the back garden, drag the ladders around the front of the house, straighten the dish back up, to within an inch of its original position. You know, considering I went through all that effort, why didn’t I just do the sodding windows myself in the first place?

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Yours sincerely,
Angry Jamie.

Technorati Tags: angry jamie, cleaner, dish, knock, satellite, window

Following on from my previous post, yes there was a huge fire in Hartlepool today, which could be seen from pretty much the entire town.

I was on nights last night, so I slept through part of it, but Daddykins had gone out, and returned at about 4:45. He’d informed me that something nearby was on fire. His first thought was the old BonneBouche / Sweet + Savoury building which has been derelict since its surprise closure in February 2007.

I was not feeling particularly well, as it felt like I had a cold coming on, and I couldn’t be bothered to go back to sleep, so I got up, looked out of the window, and yes, he was right. The whole estate was under a huge black soot-filled cloud.

I literally threw some clothes on (it turned out I’d actually put my shirt on inside-out, but I fastened my coat up so nobody would notice.It became apparent thatthis wasn’t any normal fire, this was something totally out of control.

This was the view from the Davison Drive / Warren Road junction. This was pretty much directly under the path of the smoke, and let me tell you, it stunk of burned plastic. I put my coat over my face, and walked through the cloud, which was slowly descending towards the ground.

Eventually, I got to to the other side, and made my way down towards the vacinity of the fire. It was quite apparent which buidling was ablaze…

After snapping some of the flames, I went down and got as close as I could to the fire, but of course, making sure that I stood downwind.

Naturally, as with such an incident taking place, there were police about, who moved people back to the road that divides the industrial estate, however they didn’t seem to mind me (and a few other poeple) getting a little closer in order to take photos. Of course, after I’d had my share, I also moved back behind the cordon.

I took a few last pictures, just as they got the cherry-picker into action.

I started heading back, and bumped into Andy The Iridium Fan who was there also taking video / photos of the incident. He lives the other side of the town, and said that he could see the smoke from there. Hardly unsurprising!

I went past it about an hour later on my way to work, it appeared that part of the building had collapsed (the BBC reported this too on their website). In the morning, I’ll have another walk down and take photos, assuming it stops raining.

EDIT: The full flickr set is located here. I’ll also add any forthcoming photos to that set too. Also, don’t forget I’m supporting CSS Naked day, so don’t be alarmed at the lack of design.

EDIT THE SECOND: The aftermath pics have been added to the above link.

Technorati Tags: bonne bouche, cake, fire, flames, flickr, hartlepool, Photos, smoke

There’s a big fire currently burning on the Oakesway Industrial Park, the old Sweet + Savoury has gone up in flames.

Technorati Tags: bonne bouche, burning, cake, fire, hartlepool, sweet and savoury

Ironically, following on from my failed April Fools joke a few days ago, I’ve gone one step further, and have will temporarily remove the stylesheets, in honour of the third CSS Naked Day, 9th April.

Just so you don’t all leave comments saying that I’ve broken the site.

Technorati Tags: css, day, naked, removed, stylesheet