Human After All

This weekend has not been at all what I expected, my plan originally was to hold the lan event on Saturday then on Sunday to help Jo and Holly clear their new allotment.
Friday night came around, I worked on the game server, Bruce and Phil came over so we played a few games and watched Zero Punctuation. Phil told me about the achievement servers for Team Fortress. Servers set up only to enable players to improve their ratings. I must admit it was fun burning up everything as a Pyro.
Saturday the lan went off, it was well attended with 19 of us crammed into the legion it was a fun day. The games weren't without problems Steam once again failed to work correctly, I think it might be the last time I use Steam at a lan.
It was all going great Fun that is until about 8 O'Clock when my stomach decided to start playing up. The pain was intense, and I had to leave early, it was the first event I haven't stayed through to the end. I had to get a lift home then pretty much stay in the bathroom for the next couple of hours, not a great way to spend Saturday night.
Needless to say I had to skip going round to Jo allotment and have spent the day reading and resting. I started the Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky masterpiece. It is a bit heavy going Second only in length War and Peace so it might take a while, but if its anywhere near as good as The Idiot or Crime and Punishment then it will be well worth the effort.

I Woke Up In A Strange Place

Today was the day of the Lan Party. It wasn't the best planned event I just have not been able to find the time to play games never mine set up game servers. So I spent last night tweaking the server to at least play the usual compliment of games. It took a couple of hours to update everything. After which I caught up on lost. I have reservations about what they are doing, this season they seem to want to try something different but at the same time not know where to take the story.

I woke up shutdown and packed up the servers then grabbed breakfast. While I was eating my mum needed to go out, she going to the hairdresser with my grandma. My dad offered to back out my car and let her out as I was eating. 10 minutes later he came in and told me it wouldn't start. We called the AA and the man arrived in about 25minutes. He poked around and suggested that the fuel pump isnt pumping anymore, so he transported it to a garage. Its probably going to cost £100's to fix, C'est La Vie.

I had to ring Bruce and ask nicely if he would pick me up. We mosied on over to Phils as they had arrange for the keys to be dropped off there. Phil had to take his parents to the Airport as they were off back to Deux Alps to see Tina again. Bruce and I waited while he left and came back, still noone bearing keys arrived. So Phil phoned the guy, and two minutes later found the keys, thye had been dropped off the night before :S

We squeezed the gear into the cars and headed to the legion. I opened the door, tapped the code into the alarm, it kept beeping. I shouted to Phil he tried, then the alarm went off. The noise was excruciatingly loud, I thought my head was going to explode. The club were burglarised recently, so two things happened, firstly they changed the alarm code secondly they added two extra loud sirens. Another phone call and we managed to get the code, it only went off for a few minutes but it felt like and eternity.

We finally got into the club with no sirens blaring, and had our first stroke of luck. Someone had left some extra tables. We set up the tables and chairs with the extra we were more than ready for a crowd. Unfortunately the setup was marred by the game server dieing. It has done over 10 lan's without a hitch the server for the games event broke. We tried a repair and managed (about 2 hours after people arrived) to rig up something but it caused a lot of disruption and meant we couldn't share files around easily.

After we got going the gaming went alright though and we dropped the £5 entry fee because of the disruption. After gaming, Pizza and a few beers everyone seemed to have a great day so despite everything we made a success of things.

Terminal Tournaments XV

Yesterday was the 15th an largest lan party held by myself Bruce and Phil under the ejected brass name. In case you missed out its a gathering of people who enjoy computer games, beer, pizza and a few laughs. We are a little community who every few months drag our PC's so we can murder each other, in game! Its usually a fun day and yesterday was no exception.

It was the highest ever turnout, though there was only one new person (somebody Berger roped in following their trip up Snowdon). The rest were returnees pretty much everyone who has ever been to an event before before. It was really good to have so many people though I was quiet tired helping to get everyone going, working the bar running the game servers and clearing up at the end.

We made a pizza order for 21 pizzas from the pizza place in Cheadle Hulme it looked pretty funny me and Phil carrying so many pizza boxes out of the place.

I think everyone had a good time, we made some money to buy new kit for next time, definitely including some new power strips. At one point due to a bit of bad planning all the power cables were plugged into each other and the wire was starting to get awfully hot! Fortunately we didn't burn the club down :)

I actually really enjoy running the events though I often find it difficult to get the time to do all the setup which is required. If we can grow the events further though it would be great to see how big we could go.

You don't care about us

On Friday I saw something I have been waiting for a long time, Scan had Dell 24 inch flat panel monitor on Scan today only. I have basically wanted one of these since Bruce bought one nearly two years ago. It has taken me a while to save up enough cash and I really could have done without spending it before China however as we were planning a lan on Saturday it was just meant to be :)

I placed the order but had to wait until Saturday morning for the confirmation, the lan was to start at 2pm and as Scan was in Bolton need the Rebok arena. Typically the order confirmation was late, not arriving 11:12. I had already spent 15 minutes on hold listening to a loops of a women telling me how advanced scans ordering systems were only to find when I reached an operator she couldn't tell me anything!
Bruce and Phil wanted to pick up some bits, so I picked them up and we headed down, I only had to wait a coupld of minutes and my screen was handed to me 12:15 plenty of time to get back to the lan and set up. Only Bruce and Phil were still in the queue to buy, Bruce got his bits, Phil paid then waited, and waited and waited. 1pm came and went, I was getting panicky. I made fevered phone calls to Endo to see if he could go down and intercept any early people. He did but not quickly enough as two people came and went. Finally Phil got the call something he ordered could not be located so they gave him a free upgrade to a better model, a result but we were still late.

We arrived and got the keys in time to open up and put the tables out, but it was very rushed. Setting up there were some weird glitches, not sure what the new guys thought about it. All a little amateur night, oh well once the games actually started things seem to go pretty well I think everyone enjoyed it.

Attendance was down from the previous lan and because of mess-ups in the morning we missed out on two players, and were in a total rush all day. I felt very frazzled by the end, though I did enjoy playing except for stairs of doom which was just way too much.

Welcome Home

Ttoday was spend preparing for then at Terminal Tournaments XII, Our semi regular lan gaming event. It was a really good day today the most people to date turned up having 20 people gaming was pretty good fun. Though I feel tired after having to set up, carry the gear around, keep things running, help on the bar and play games can be a little draining.

The new years healthy living went totally to pot today, there was far too much chocolate about, then pizza for dinner its all bad. Add to the my mum seem intent on feeding me. I stil have this foul cold it just dosnt seem to want to go, its really putting a stopper on going to the gym Some people advocate goign when it to "sweat it out" but it makes me feel worse doing that. WOuld rather wait until I am better plus the gym at the time of year is usually packed with people who will go religiously for a month then drop out between February and March.

I am rambling a little so I think I shoudl get to bed, I have to meet Becky for a chat about her Horse box hire website tomorrow. Plus I need to try and get my head round webservices so I do not look like too much of a joker next week.

Terminal Tournaments X

The tenth ejected brass was held yesterday it was pretty succsessful we have plenty of people turn up to play. My ex workmate Jon made the trip from Leeds with his Macbook, we couldnt get Windows installed so he ended up sharing my pc. He is a bit of a quake fiend.
The server ran really well after a few tweask even Counter Strike seemed to play ball. Bruce loaned us a Cisco switch and buy did it make a big difference it seemed to handle file transfers a lot better than the 3com. I think we might have to buy one in the long term I m certainly a convert now I have seen real world how well they work.

Lan gaming, late night chats and hangovers

Yesterday was terminal tournaments 9 the most popular so far with 16 people present, it went pretty well except for failures with steam. I really wonder why Valve make it so hard to run events off line it just seems like they went totally overboard piracy is a problem but must we all suffer? Had a few new people turn up which is great and generally I think people had a good time.

After the lan I went round to see Ian, Faye is on Holiday so we were able to have a good chat and a few drinks, Nick and Becky were there, she had been out drinking with Nikkie. Nikkie has split up from her long term boyfriend Neil so she and Becs had been drinking and setting the world to rights, I dont think I have ever seen Becky so drunk before. She was on form embarrasing Nick talkign aboutm marrage, and other things. I did take a rather sick pleasure in watching him squirm me bad!

We watched 3 kings together and drank chatting about Frahas birthday which Ina had done providing the bar for her but apparently a load of people started causing trouble so much so the party was stopped early, not a good scene for a memorable birthday. Once the film was over Nick took Becky to bed, and Ian and I stayed up chatting and drinking, we had all the beer than went onto Jonny Walker great stuff. I cant even remeber what we were sayng but by the time i set off home it was getting light.

Today I feel like ive been run over by a train my room is a top, my server imaking horrible noises think it need replacing more money sigh.

More Linux, and Lost

I felt so tired waking up this morning; fortunately to cheer me up I received Lulu's new year card today, was such a welcome surprise hiding in amongst my junk mail. It was lovely to read and made me smile a lot. I wish I had been able to put the same level of sentiment into my letter t her I guess I am just not as good at expressing my feelings as she.

I decided to do something productive with my, so I read some of my latest buy does anything eat wasps a book published from the last word articles from the back of New Scientist. There are some really freaking / interesting questions and answers well worth an afternoon read. I also managed to clean the layer of dirt off my car its black again now!

After that I went to the gym for my first weights routine of 2006, a month off weights certainly makes a massive difference I was a lot weaker, hopefully I should be able to build back up fairly rapidly though.
I the evening Bruce and Phil came over we upgraded the memory in the terminal tournaments server and also built a new Linux kernel optimised for the server. Hopefully this will give a significant performance benefit. I also started downloading a fresh steam installation in an effort to fix the weird start-up issues we had at the last Lan. The next one should probably be the biggest yet with a load of returnees who couldn't make it to the Christmas bash and some of the new Christmas players coming back for more. I can't wait!

Whilst it was downloading we watched episodes 10 and 11 of lost series two, I know I have said it before but lost is getting more and more weird diverging from what I liked about it in the first place. It's still enjoyable to watch just not quiet as cool as series one. We also watched a bizarre Japanese film called Dead or Alive it was violent weird and visual Phil's going to have a great time when he visits there in March.

Lantasic

Today was terminal tournaments VI was held today, personally I felt like it went badly, dispite the extra effort getting the server working it still wasnt right. I feel I have failed and came in for a lot of flack, I don't really feel like it was worth the effort I put in, perhaps I am just tired and pissed off, I dont know. Martin thinks it went well.
Got some random and franly unwelcome texts from Liz which really served to blacken my mood, its seems that dispite her intention I feel like she brings out the worst deamons in me. I have been very up an down recently trying to work out where my life is going I feel kind of like I am wasting my time going nowhere but at the same time I haven't really got a clue about what else I should be doing. I just want to have something more creative in my life, I see people like Paul and I want to be able to touch the hearts and minds of other people to be part of something more.
Its not that I hate what I do enotirly its somewhat stimulating, but I am working for something I don't really believe in after my own expeiences in dealing with money or lact of it. Talking of which today I was amazed that everyone around me can afford so many gadgets and gizmos, is it that I am poorer that I dont have a £700 tft monitor or play station portable. Am I right to be saing my money away earning a few pound interest or hoping for stock market growth, should I be more like them making myself happy with the material, or should I be more like Nick finding my own wyas to profit. Should I even care so much about money.
So many things so much on my mind I also feel very alone, I take comfort in my friends both in the real world and the internet, they are leaving my though finding there own paths whilst I stay static. Typical me I end up feeling morose, I can never seem just to be happy.

Terminal Tournaments V

Ah the sound of fans wirring, glow of leds and smell of pizza it must be a lan party!
This is the fifth lan we have run under the terminal tournaments banner, and the first one to feature a competition with prizes. The competition worked well even though I got knocked out in the second round by eventual winner Leon. I was upset that we didnt get any new people but 13 is a good turnout by any standards. I think perhaps we were not as organised as we could have been, I hope next time we can sort out a more professional gaming session.
Disorganisation aside it was a good lan with plenty of fragging especially by David B and Leon aka Bezza.
My new graphics card proved to be nice and slick for playing quake four and counter strike source, though Bruces 24 inch lcd monitor proved to be the biggest crowd pleaser.
Martin O seemed to be down I think he is having girlfriend troubles poor him, whilst Martin G was in a fine mood recieving many text from this new girl Charlotte. Whilst I am really pleased for him I do feel down that increasingly I am the only single person of my friends. I might join yahoo personals see if I can meet anyone new hopefully it will be better than the disaster that was loopylove.

Terminal Tournaments IV

Another Lan bash, another day of Quake, Counter Strike and Unreal (with some flat out for good measure). After spending most of yesterday tweaking the server in order to be ready for today, all last minute as usual I was already pretty tired and my day did not start well Berger rang me before 9am wanting a lift (cheers mates! A little warning next time perhaps?). Berger's car was in the garage for repair and of course Berger uses the garage near Woodford so he thought I was the best bet for a lift,
I had been trying to sort out some of the niggles that we had suffered with at the previous lan namely the maps not rotating on Quake, and games starting before everyone is ready. Also trying to add mani statistics recording to Counter Strike. Apart from quake maps I unfortunately failed on all counts. I did however add a nice implementation of Samba and introduce a web site with some crafty batch files. Overall with the addition of some extra memory the games server was running pretty well I thought. Many thanks to David Bourne for his efforts with mani next time I hope things will be running somewhat sweeter for you.
The actual lan was a success in many ways but I felt a bit of a failure overall, whilst we have improved massively since the first shambling event we have not increased the popularity (in fact less people attended than TT3) and some of the original niggles still remain and will do until the server is perfect. Hopefully we have got something to build on we can actually get some things done rather than continually talking without taking action.
Apart from that the games were excellent I do well at Quake and Flatout only to be given a hiding on Counter Strike and Onslaught.
Tidying up went well we were out in about 45minutes including tidying everything up and hoovering up, pity Martin O missed it really. I was really upset with Bruce getting double booked given how far in advance the event had been booked for. , I also worry that we are reliant on his equipment. Eventually I would like to use some of the profit to procure some TT own equipment which is used only for the lan's I guess thats just dreaming at the moment but I think its the way forward, at least that and building up the numbers with some better marketing.

Meat + Death

This weekend was fairly good as it goes after having a relaxing night on Friday Saturday Martin myself and Bruce went to meet up with a fellow Slayradio listener Driller.
We had a few drink;s at various bars in Manchester and got the last bus home. I must better getting old or something I felt so tired by 10 I needed my bed. At least Bruce and Martin were in the same boat I blame being busy at work.
It was the first time I had caught a bus in ages; I must say although it was a bit slow taking a really long route £1.80 return is excellent value on the 157 Bullocks bus from Woodford to Manchester.
Sunday I went to the gym completing a rather hard session (for me anyway) 50 minutes on the treadmill I managed to cover about 6.5km. Eventually I want to try and build up to 10-15KM but that's going to take sometime. I also completed a full weights workout using the men's health trainer.
In order to undo all that good work at the gym I then went round to Martins with Bruce and Phil (Simon joined us later) for a BBQ so much meat was consumed it was a lovely sunny afternoon and all enjoyed ourselves.
Afterwards we had a mini lan bash killing each other for a couple of hours on Unreal 2004 and Quake 3, couldn't get Flatout to run :-( The idea of the evening had been to try and organise things for the next lan bash (terminal tournaments IV) but that somehow dropped by the wayside after a beer and food oh well hopefully we will sort it out before the next tournament.

Terminal Tournaments III

After last night I was abit tired so found it dificult loading up the car to go to the lan.
Setup went well apart form one minor hitch with the gigabit card.
We played quake counte stike unal flatout ate pizza and had a few beers all without any major hitches which is a real achievement. I think we can tabl in another one possibly two games next time. From speaking to David (aka Cool Hand Luke) he enjoyed himself as did Bruces Friend Steven. I think its a rea triumph there ill be pictures going up on the website soon.