Boontybox…away!

11°C

Boontybox, a notorious piece of software that requires some considerable getting rid of.

Actually I don’t think it’s as bad as the forums’ writers claim.

See here

This is the error message that the new files generate when the game crashes. Note there is no option if you think it’s NOT OK to terminate.

 

 

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Peska review: nice review of the new patch with more detail that I’d ever write. Non-geeks keep away!

Ditch water

7°C, rain clearing from NW

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As dull as…: I’m aware that some of my recent entries are rather dull lately. Probably because it’s a mistake to just open the blog and write. You really need to think in advance before adding a new entry online.

OK then…

"What music are you into?"

I have been thinking about the problem of what to say when a kid at school asks what kind of music I listen to.

What do I say?  Normally I’m stumped. I don’t really know what they want to know (or why). Some teenagers are quite tribal about music- it’s used to identify themselves- & what group they belong to. Others don’t do this, interestingly. So perhaps I can ask them and see what response comes forth.

I could list genres, but that’s an uncomfortable approach because of the problem with genres themselves. They so often seem formulaic. If for example, I say Jazz in answer to the above question, it could be any repetitive rubbish that follows the standard pattern for that music type. A worse example could be "Rock" or "blues"; music that is so often drag-and-drop clichés that could be generated by any AI programmed computer. Blues, dance, MTV rock always sound the same.

 

Could I just list a few bands that they may have heard of? No because the ones most have heard of – I just don’t listen to. If I say PJ Harvey, Capt. Beefheard, Tricky, The Books, or Lisa Gerrard – the kids look rather blank on hearing that.

 

For now the answer will have to be nearer to "there is some I like from Jazz, some from modern contemporary, latter romantic orchestral, experimental rock, some standard rock music" and so on. Or is it just better to list things I have played on the record player recently?

 

…yesterday that was Marilyn Manson

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The rest of today: a big chunk will be a cycle ride for 4 or 5 hours; Another layer on the painting; try to figure out why FB+Pe2 is crashing: got a RAM test to run on that; and finally – send April some photos of school. 

Another green day

18°C,

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Turpentine: Handprop, day two: which isn’t exactly a day’s work, more like 30 minutes.

I have a nagging feeling the figure should be laid out higher on the paper.

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Peshka 2: Installed the addon depite warnings about it’s installer program. It runs well to start with but I have had two game crashes- "program is unable to read memory" pplus lots of codes. The addon includes some had-written mission which are alsoway far better than the dynamic campaign generator. It’s a shame that, since the DCG used to be a separate program that you could run before a game, and I recall it being very good. Hand-written games have interesting clever twists of plot that automatic games can’t have. I just tried one, and the historical context is all there, but the game crashed before half-way.

Peshka

16°C

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Ubisoft paid addon is now available for Forgotten Battles. Pe-2

It’s a massive download at 160Mb, so it better be good. Ubi are using a nasty little download manager, which is probably good for dialup people who suffer broken downloads. It’s a shame we can’t download another way.

boontybox is the program they use, there are rumours on the forums about it installing spyware on your machine, UBI forums are populated of paranoics though, so who knows?

 

Still, it’s curious the patch being so big. there must be a language pack or maybe a new map or something ni there.

Another green ground

17°C;

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turpentine: Another green one, roughed out the figure straight away this time. It’s going ot be light, so I will work over this ground to get the lightness that looks right. Only took 20 minutes at most- can’t really do much more with it, even though I’m in the mood to paint. I have been thinking about this picture for over a week. I’m looking at the way skin colour changes, especially in the arm that is supporting this person’s weight. The fingers have pale bits across joints- where the blood is forced away by bone. I also fancy putting pin-cushion distortion on this picture- my glasses cause this effect.

Now it’s started.

Next step is to work-up the tonal range.

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Music– Holywood, by Marilyn Manson. the disc has some interesting pictures- mostly "photoshoped" photographs. He also does paintings, all watery – probably drawing inks, loosely worked up figures, with fluids and smudges.

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Finally– on the subject of pictures, today is the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The BBC have posted some stunning photographs of (presumably Chernobyl, or my guess the Pripyat area). There is something post-apocalyptic about them, it also seems to evoke a crumbling, once magnificent state.

Look ast the pop-up photo galleries, read the captions. You’ll be left speechless.

Stunning.

 

First day in shorts

20°C,

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Dreamweaver: busy with that web-tutorial for school today. I really like the new version, it’s so nice to use.

 

Today is the first day ofg the year where I wear shorts. Anything above 18°C is enough.

Wrist rest is bost!

14°C, clouds.

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Bost:

Actually it’s not, but it was- I fixed it about an hour ago. I like the sound of that Brummie word, it deserves wider use. In comparison to its origin, it is more omomatoepeic.

*Thinks* that doesn’t look rightly spelt.

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Mostly harmless

15°C, damn thermometer isn’t working,

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England is….

 England ‘addicted to sex and TV’

It comes from the Rough guide

as does:"overweight, alcopop-swilling, sex-and-celebrity obsessed television addicts"

Don’t know about the alopop…but 25% of UK children are overweight. The rest seems right, including all the nice stuff they said about us. Why Stonehenge gets so much attention I don’t know. I don’t think anyone who’s visited the place can fail to be at least a bit dissappointed. I am uncomfortable about English people being judged on londoners- surely the most unfriendly community in the world.

Cherie’s hair

£275 a day:

Here is a picture of hair that cost £7,700 a month,(read the link).

 

The Labour Party’s justification:

"So what?..we won the election."

OK so let’s play a wordgame, I’ll start off with

Decadent, corrupt, self-indulgent, wasteful, conceited, vain.

your turn…

Nightwork rail

13.4°( the thermometer is stuck again), rain.

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Network rail are keeping us awake at night. They start work on the line at about 11.30, and run a machine on the tracks that runs a noisy desiel engine in a train thing. It moves up and down the track in a pendulum motion, each time tichanges direction it enits a double blast of a horn. this goes on for hour after hour all night.

I’m tired of it now, but apparently they are doing this for a further month. Night after night.

Anyway- saw some interesting sculptures in Birmingham art gallery today. They are old, but back in those days no-one was ashamed of skill in making things.

Finally…

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I love the soulders in that last one. Hmm. I wonder what I can do with that….

*wanders off thinking*