Delicious Purchases

in the usual regime of keeping relatively up to date with televisual entertainment i realised that i was missing the latest series of the boosh so on scheduling its release date i also decided to catch up with some classics,  the latest two additions are every episode of the original series of captain scarlet and the first series of scooby doo.
i used to watch both years and years ago and only have been recently reminded how special they were in their own right, especially after utterly terrible sequels have been made of both of them.
all i have to hope for now is that they’re delivered on the same day and he decided not to take them with him.

yay nostalgia!

Academy Place

on monday, i quested through torrential rain, flooding and truly immense volumes of traffic (seriously, we’re talking about 20mp/h).
getting there on time i did a quick mathematics multi-guess paper and was given a cup of tea before being led to the interview room.
questions started out simple, steadily got more complicated then were followed up by some ‘what would you do in this situation’ type questions until i was offered a place around 45 minutes into the interview.
all going well i should start late february and be h4xing the mainframe while everybody is learning the inner workings of  winmine and whatever else you do… y’know the sort.

Not MySpace

i’ve had an abandoned myspace account now for about 6 or so months and had changed all of my notification settings so i received absolutely nothing and that was to be how it would stay until a recent <a href=”http://bloggasm.com/january-30th-is-international-delete-your-myspace-account-day” target=”_blank”>blog post</a> caught my attention. agreeing with the vast majority of what was said and realising that there was a shedload of information on there i didn’t want the general public seeing i decided to join the masses and also delete my long dead account.
so, after a whole load of stupid self preservation on the myspace front by not sending me emails with the confirmation codes that i needed and me changing my email address a couple of times to avoid the whole “not our fault, spam blockers” response, i finally got the confirmation email no less than a month after i had originally sent the request and with a few swift clicks, the beast was slain. now to accept the fallout of all the peeps i knew there that will no longer be able to get in touch through anything but email.
edit: interestingly enough, i’ve seen a section on BBC news about some university student who couldn’t delete his account either. it would seem as though this is either a wide reaching problem or a very slow news day.

Interview Date

just had a phone call confirming when my zenos interview will be, monday afternoon in wakefield. getting there shouldn’t be a problem as i’m getting a lift and as long as everythings played cool i see no problems getting in. i can give them a flash of leg if they’re gonna say no and problem solved. just need my shirt and possibly my suit washing, as i only wear it once every few months it accumulates the wardrobe smell so you don’t really notice that it hasn’t been washed which is somewhat worrying.
so, big things may be on the horizon… if i get this place then i should be able to sail through the work and get a placement doing something that i like doing and that should mean more monies which is always a plus i mean… how am i ever gonna be able to build my own house on minimum part time wage?

Huge Reposititory Changes

well last night i sat down after starting serenity working on its latest VM test with the websites repository open i noticed that it was fairly empty so i decided to start rebuilding it all again. serenitys’ repository is now the primary one and houses all my longhorn patches (binary, not txt!) and the sources for all the current serenity builds.
i also massively updated the iso build script which was fairly cool, now it detects if nLite is installed and will remove it. the source is in the repository (Source\Internal\Build.bat) if you’re interested.

Plans for the future

Well yesterday i has my Zenos presentation thing so there i went all suited and booted to Leeds where we got lost on the way there due to some damn confusing instructions
so, there i was on time and where i should be. there were 3 other ‘applicants’ and then 8 just as entourage, i mean who honestly brings their parents and then brothers to an ICT presentation..?
then the presentation went ahead, it was mainly an overview of the 5 month course of 9-5 (oh noes!) 7 days a week programme with some details about the extra 7 you’ll be doing later and a little vista bashing on the side.
it all seemed fairly interesting and even if i’m not challenged throughout the entire time i can just catch up and have every other friday off, w00t! with all said and done i just need to wait until i get a letter about my interview date & time in wakefield as its a hellovalot closer than the academy in leeds with its ‘no public transport zone’ that surrounds it in a 5 mile radius.

More Hardware Stoof?

yup, unsatisfied with my previous bounty of computer bits and bobs i’ve decided to splash out once again. this time getting a new graphics card (XFX 8500GT) and 2GB of RAM to bring my total up to 3.5, which will actually be 3.0 as i don’t have all that many slots for them.

if all goes well they should be here by the 8th which is ironically the same day i have my zenos thingy majig in leeds. oh happy days planning for the future and the like. hell, i still don’t even know what zenos is or does, their website is so poorly made, structured, contains conflicting information and so many placeholder or # pages i’m beginning to lose faith in them already. check it peeps, if you can figure it out then comment and enlighten me.

Yay Christmas!

my first christmas as a ‘real adult’ has actually been much the same as usual.
i was there all expecting brussel sprouts, socks, bricks and books as y’know… all adults get that kinda crap but i got myself a handy dandy acoustic guitar which i have the annoying habit of loosing my plectrum in the inside of which takes a good ten minutes to get out by frantically shaking it upside down. i also got some of the usual stuff like monies and sweet stoofs and some clothes that i’ve been wanting.
christmas day went well, my grandad came over for lunch and was there playing pong and gran turismo on the PS1 that was hooked up to the new TV. all this reminds me of just how awesome the PS1 was at the time. i mean these games are going on 8 years old and still give great laughs and gameplay.
so there you go, christmas over for another year. who knows what the situation will be next year…

An Update on Driving

well peeps, as per most mondays i have a weekly driving lesson. tomorrow i won’t be having one as its new years eve but that doesn’t really matter…

a lot has been going on since my first nervous wonder around a car park speeds so slow they don’t register.
now i am a cruising machine, seamlessly starting and stopping as is fairly customery in an average potter around the local town centre avoiding pedestrians with a obviously have a death wish and chavs with stereos so loud you can feel the mundane monotone vibrations in your feet waiting at the lights, skillfully swerving around these mere obstructions and noting all the failings of fellow drivers as i go.
on the todo pile is still a 3 point turn, uphill start, some serious reversing and an emergency stop. after that i believe that a few more pottering round lessons and i’ll be fairly proficient.

Serenity Reset, It’s Official

so, as numerous pieces of proof float around, i’ll make it official:

as the previous incarnation of serenity was beginning to have the same issues as the first i have again reset the entire project.
this time the project will be based upon xp sp3 alphas (which in my experience are still incredibly stable and speedy) instead of the more eccentric option of server 2003. this way there will be absolutely no possibility of program incompatibilities which a couple of testers complained about as more research for 5.2 fixes was required. the logon screen and defaults were also annoying me with server as was the noticeably longer boot time which is still fairly inexplicable.
anyway, on with the new. the projects aims are still fairly similar, but this time MCE and O’03 probably won’t be available until the project is finished as they bloat the ISO by a whole load of byties.
progress seems to be going well, about 20% of the original serenity codebase has been updated and re-integrated while the rest is in the process. this time, files will be removed directly from the source to decrease installation time, script complexity and source size as in the previous incarnation of serenity there were just hundreds of lines of files to delete which could freeze setup under certain circumstances.
oh, and there will be hta documentation and a dedicated web site to help reduce the complexity more. the site is empty and nothing is being hosted, but you can find it at http://serenity.stevey.biz/.

with that said, this may be the final serenity post in this blog… so long good friend.