I can see clearly now...

OK! On Friday I picked up my new specs and bought a new monitor (NEC Multisync 2080UX+ TFT). My new Gigabyte Geforce 6600 also arrived on Friday to complete my visual treat.

Since then, I've been mostly enjoying having the ability to see (after wearing no glasses for a month or so due to one pair breaking and me misplacing the others) and playing Doom 3. I say that I have been playing Doom 3, more precisely, I've been playing Last Man Standing which is an awesome co-op multiplayer mod for Doom 3.

My new graphics card and monitor really do make playing LMS a treat. The performance is truly amazing and I now just need a bit more RAM and a faster CPU to bump the performance another couple of notches :-)

Bundled with the card was also a game called Thief - Deadly Shadows but I'm yet to install that. I'll update on that and Earth 2160 (when it arrives) as soon as I've had chance to 'test' them.

The new graphics card

My shiny new graphics card with possibly the biggest heatsink I've ever seen - it's mounted on both sides of the card with a heatpipe between the two halves!

The League of Gentlemen - Live!

On Wednesday, we went to the Apollo again - this time for the League of Gentlemen. A very good (and rather funny) show.

The first half of the show was open auditions for the 'Communitivity' that the Legs Akimbo Theatre Company were to perofrm. The idea was that members of the Royston Vasey community would perform in a nativity play.

The second half was a pantomime featuring all the characters that hadn't featured so far.

It was great how they managed to get all the characters in and I would definately recommend it if you like the TV show.

A fun-filled weekend!

Well a busy and enjoyable weekend was had.

On Friday I went to watch the quarter-finals of the snooker at the Guild Hall. We watched Steven Hendry play David Gray - Hendry won - and we could clearly be seen on the TV. :-)

On Saturday I then went to the Apollo in Manchester to watch the Kaiser Chiefs. Not a bad gig. Supporting were the Cribs (appauling!) and Maximo Parks (not bad - although Caoline thought that they were rubbish). The Kaiser Chiefs performed well though - since I'm not a huge fan I didn't enjoy it as much as Caroline but they were good.

I was a little dubious about the parking, however. We parked down some street where we paid a guy in a yellow jacket £5 to look after the car. Sounds even more dodgy than it seemed at the time - if that's possible. At least my car was still there and unharmed when we got back to it so all was good. Caroline's a little concerned about leaving her car there on Wednesday when we go to see the League of Gentlemen (more about that after the event).

Sunday was then spent at home stripping wallpaper in my bedroom. I now have 4 walls and a window so the end is nearly in sight - there is a lot still to do before the house will be finished though.

The keyboard & mouse arrived!

Well the keyboard and mouse arrived a couple of weeks ago now and they're are brilliant - at least the mouse is. I'm not sure that the keyboard is wirth it but the bundle only coat £10 more than just buying the mouse and a cordless keyboard may come in handy at some point.

I'm yet to really test the kit since Doom 3 has been playing up - I keep getting jittery graphics. This could be due to only having a GeForce FX 5200 but it has worked fine in the past so it must be somthing I've done recently - I've been playing about with Omega drivers and they may have cocked something up.

The proper test can wait until I get a new machine - I'm just biding my time until I can get a cheap dual Xeon workstation. I'll then do a fresh install and see what happens. :-)

The singles pool tournament

I participated in my singles pool match at the Queens arms in Kirkham on Wenesday. As I feared I didn't make it past the first round. I made several silly mistakes - one costing me the second match. In fairness, my opponent was rather good and went on to win the second round aginst an excellent young player from the Wrea Green Institute.

Vikki faired better on Thursday at the Huntsman in Kirkham. She won 2-1 in the first round and then lost 2-1 in the second round. She was rather unforunate but played impressively.

My uneventful life

Well... other than ordering (and not receiving) my new mouse, I haven't really been up to a great deal.

Things are slowly getting better at work and the light at the end of the tunnel can now be seen - hope it's not a train ;-) My server room is nearly finished too so I'll soon be able to move them into their very own air-conditioned room which will be nice.

I'm off to uni on Thursday too - should give me a rest from the nagging.

Will it ever arrive?

I decided over a week ago to take the plunge and splash out on a new keyboard and mouse since I've never spent any money on either for many years. I decided that I may as well get one of the best available and plumped for the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3100 Laser.

Anyway, Ebuyer have totally pissed about with my order and I am still waiting. :-( How upset am I? Very!

I was hoping to have had a good play with it by now to let the world know whether it was worth the £65 but alas we shall all have to wait.