Serving Hard Time
Sunday 30th Jul 2006 - Posted By: Ste Riley at 01:07AM
Well, here I am, nearly 1am and I am sat in work on a Saturday night, I never thought it would happen but it has. Anyway I'm here tonight to upload a few files online then I have to sit here till up to 10am Sunday morning. I'm going to be keeping a blow-by-blow account here of what happening. I've been out to John's party tonight and I was in no mood for going to work when we rolled into town at half 11. This was never going to be easy though so I've had to bite the bullet and wave goodbye to the remaining party revellers.
11:45pm - Arrive at the CIS building, every entrance has the shutters down. I bang on one, then try the next and notice an intercom on the wall; I give it a press and get security. After him telling me there is no one in the building "no shit" I repeat my name several times and he lets me in.
11:48pm - Get to my desk, the lights are off, I need a piss first so I head for the toilets. All the lights and switches are easy to find on the way. On my return I find clamber around in the dark and finally find the switch for the floor. Let there be light. Walk back to my desk to notice a copy of the Open magazine, people actually drop this rubbish off on your desk after you've gone home. They must have a worse job that me! All I can hear at the moment is the ticking of the clock on the wall and the clicking of the hard-drive... my new friends.
12:00am - Time to fill in my timesheet, I'd forgotten all about it on Friday, filled in John's as well, seems we was in too much of a rush to get to the pub on Friday night.
12:15am - I get the call to say I should publish the files to live. That's all I'm here for, an hour ahead of time, maybe I'll get to go home at 9am, oh the joy.
12:45am - After waiting for the cache to clear I finally raise the call to say I'm done. I've already had a call to see what the hell was going on, in this job; the cache is a complete bastard. Learn to hate it.
1:00am - I'm meant to phone security every hour but I can't be arsed with that, its a bit too short for my liking. It's probably a health and safety issue, but I feel quite healthy at the moment, so I'll wait till 2.
1:05am - Reality is beginning to set in now, at the earliest I might be able to go at 8am, but that?s wishful thinking probably, I'm not sure now what to do. I can hit another Pro Plus to keep me going, I'll be doing 1 every hour now for the next 8. This stuff better be good shit!
1:17am - Just invited 6 people from RunnersWorld to my Nike+ Challenge to run 50 miles. Just checked my goals and I'm already behind since I've not been out running Friday and Saturday because I've been drunk or saving energy for tonight. I'll have to recover my losses over the week. My eyes are feeling pretty heavy already when I close them, could be trouble ahead.
1:25am - The feckin lights just went out on me; they must be on a timer of an hour if you don't move about. Just had security come up as well to remind me to phone him every hour, seems like I won't be able to have any sleep after all!
2:55am - Just finished reading about Micheal Schumachers career, things really are that low. I'm writing this in the dark as the lights have gone off again; I'm going to get sick of turning them back on quite soon. Only another 5 minutes to go till I get the joy of phoning security again to tell them I'm still alive. Might hit the PSP soon for some gaming.
2:59am - Haha, I've just bothered to check if the web sites have actually updated with the changes I made a couple of hours ago. Thank god they have!
3:11am - While sinking deeper into sadness I looked up the CIS Tower entry on Wikipedia and by chance, someone has just removed the Tube of Justice reference this Saturday afternoon. For god's sake, I'm looking at the dam thing now!!! The tube of justice exists... who dares edit that from that page? Whoever it was is stupid enough to believe that there is a nuclear bunker under the tower anyway, unless they know something about -B6. *FURY* Time for another Pro Plus.
3:51am - Just been playing GTA on the PSP for a while, its the same old stuff though and I'm pretty bored with it already, I'm going to see if I can load of LocoRoco and try something a bit new that requires less brain power. Will give my friend in security a call soon and hit another Pro Plus.
4:58am - Nearing the half way point now, the sun is coming up over Manchester now as I look out the window. Time for something to eat, I've got some corn-dog butties with me to snaffle. Might as well eat these and watch the sun come up. Been playing this LocoRoco game on the PSP for the last hour. I've not got a clue what its about, you just control some singing blob that rolls around, its helping passing the time though.
5:26am - Well that?s the food entertainment all gone. 2 corn-dog butties, 1 mini pork pie and an apple. Pretty bored now, it's getting pretty light outside though, I can sit here with the lights off now and see what I'm doing. Had a wonder around the floor for a while but nothing much of interest to report on. I think these Pro Plus are doing the job though don't feel to bad sleep wise.
5:37am - I can see the sun! I've just burnt my eyes out looking at it too much. Taken some photos with my poxy camera, don't know how well they'll turn out. I've resorted to taking photos of my sad looking face in the glow of the sun too. Rocking to the Stevie Wonder video (below) at the moment, make sure to check it out.
6:07am - Starting to feel pretty tired now, done my 6th Pro Plus, I can only have another 2 till I'm OD'ing. Stuck on some tunes now and trying to get some shuteye but my heads pounding a bit now. Yawning quite often as well, this is it; I'll have to fight it all the way now. I can't fall asleep or I'll have Trevor the security guard come prodding me checking I'm alive if I don't give him a call on the hour. I'm on about my 3rd Litre of water now too; think I'm just drinking out of boredom.
7:02am - Well the last hour has been fairly uneventful, I've just phoned Trevor to check in and he said he's going home now so I'll have a new Trevor when I call at 8. Nice and bright now, just listening to MP3's still. Flicked through the dull pages of the internal company magazine for half an hour, nearly put me to sleep, so I've put it away.
7:28am - ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO! It's gone live earlier than expected, I'm free to go, woohoo! Time to get home n get some kip.
PHP5 Happy & Nike+ Challenge
Tuesday 25th Jul 2006 - Posted By: Ste Riley at 09:54PM
I've finally had the server upgraded to PHP5 so I can get on with some online developments for the site! To kick things off I've built a brand new RSS Feed reader that takes advantage of PHP5's SimpleXML, it works like an absolute dream and coding takes up a lot less brain power.
On the development front, I've been reading Head Rush Ajax at work to finally get my head around this Ajax business once and for all, I've found it quite interesting so far. No doubt I'll be presenting a few experiments with it sooner or later.
The weathers still boiling hot at the moment, I'm loving it. I've clocked up a good 19 miles running in the last 10 days accoring to my Nike+ kit not bad for me! I'm giving it a rest today though since my joints are pretty sore, so I've been sat in listening to some crazy tunes.
If any readers have a Nike+ kit and your interested in doing a challenge against me, I'm setting up a 50 mile distance race to start 31st July, so use the contact me page to register your interest.
Stevie Wonder On Sesame Street
Friday 21st Jul 2006 - Posted By: Ste Riley at 10:37PM
I just watched this video over at Fazed and loved it, so I thought I'd share it here too. It's an absolute stonker of a live performance of a true classic 'Superstition' on the classic kids show Sesame Street. Watch out for the kid with the crazy dance going for it, it's just a shame Big Bird didn't get in on the act. "Seeeessssame Streeeet, Seeeessssame Streeeet, that's where I will beeee"
Hot Weather
Thursday 20th Jul 2006 - Posted By: Ste Riley at 08:33PM
It's been great weather this past couple of days, hittings the 30C mark has made it feel like I'm still on holiday! Sadly I've been couped up in the office for most of it so only managed to catch the sun for an hour or so in the garden when I get home. It's been hard work running in the heat though. I've managed to clock up 10 miles in the past 5 days, not bad for me. I'd set myself a target of doing 12 in 4 weeks but I think that was a bit low as I'm going to smash that tonight most likely.
On another note, the server this site sits on has finally been upgraded and I've finally got web stats back! It's been nearly 18 months I've not had access to them for so I can finally see who's visiting. Most suprisingly most of my hits are coming from Japan, they must be loving the speed test.
I've just been informed by my brother also that the menu is broke on my site for IE users! Don't know how long its been like that for but I suspect its been for quite a while. I'll try and get that fixed now, time for a redesign soon also (as I keep saying).
Nike+iPod
Saturday 15th Jul 2006 - Posted By: Ste Riley at 07:11PM
I bought a new gizmo yesterday a pair of Nike trainers (£65) that have a sensor in them similar to a pedometer that transmits data to my iPod while I'm running. A transmitter (£20) plugs into my iPod nano and give me information about distance covered, current speed, calories burnt and the total time I've been working out. I read about it in the paper on Thursday but was not able to get hold of one till yesterday afternoon.
One of my favorite features is the Power Song if you hold down the centre button on the iPod then your favorite tune will kick in to fire you over that final hurdle. I have heard its meant to play also when your slowing down also but I've yet to see how this is triggered yet. When I completed my run today, I got a little message from Lance Armstrong played into my ears telling me I'd just completed by best work out to date :0p
Once I plug my iPod back into my PC and run iTunes, it sends the data to the Nike+ web site and keeps a log of all my runs and displays information about each workout. I can also set myself goals and see how well I'm progressing. I hope that they can make the stats public eventually so that they can be shared on blogs or viewed by friends. There are more planned community features coming to the web site in the near future.
It's the ideal gizmo for anyone who likes running and already has an iPod nano. I'm really pleased with it so far! You can read all the details about it at the nikeipod web site.
Back From Holiday
Sunday 9th Jul 2006 - Posted By: Ste Riley at 08:47PM
Well I'm back from my week away in San Antonio Bay, Ibiza and I had an ace time. Managed to get over to a few clubs first visit being to Space on Sunday to see David Guetta, who played an ace set. I was not familar with the guy till we went to see him, but listened to one of his CD's in the airport before going home and was pretty impressed.
On Tuesday we went to see Dave Pearce at Eden for Gatecrasher classics, that was a proper glow sticks and whistle night which was fun. Then finally a visit to Amnesia on Thursday for Paul van Dyk's Cream night, the most impressive feature in Amnesia is the ice cannon that blasts the dance floor with a jet of freezing fog to keep everyone cool.
We missed out on going to Es Paradis, Privilege and Pacha though, could have done with another week to go to them. Maybe another visit in the future is in order for that :)
One of the highlights of the week was sat on the rocks with some beers near Café del Mar watching the sunset listening to some chillout music from the bar. The low point being barfed on by some dickhead outside Ground Zero, San Antonio on the Monday.
All told is was a brilliant holiday and I'd love to go again, especially to visit some of the other clubs. I'm just totally knackered now and in need of some serious sleep.
Browse all 157 entries in the Blog archives
