Hi all,
I’m not here all that much these days. I’ve made the move to Google+ and love it over there.
I still come here to read and check on everyone else’s updates so please please don’t delete me from your distribution lists!
I’ve added an RSS feed from my G+ but I don’t think you’ll get updates. Feel free to check in once in a while if you like though, or are bored…
Pete
So, while I was holidaying in Wales, Sony Ericsson released the newest iteration of my phone software to the world. Right when I couldn’t get at it. Right when I couldn’t install it. Bastards.
However it is not all bad. While waiting to get it the wonderful devs over at xda developers went nuts on it and within a very short time the new OS has been rooted. For those unaware when an Android phone is rooted, you have superuser access to it. Means you can install apps that have greater control over phone hardware in complete contrast to what is the walled garden of iPhone ‘bliss’.
So far, awesome. Camera is amazing and still has the face detection I know and enjoy. Great phone again. Thanks for finally releasing the software, Sony Ericsson and moreso thank you to the geniuses at XDA for making rooting possible. Brilliant.
Oh yeah, I am now back home 
I am here: 53 10.195 N 4 3.446 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:53.16992,-4.05744
Not sure how well this will work but I am today in Wales at the location above – for the next 10 mins anyway.
I don’t want to rub this in but I am now off work for 2 weeks. I need this as I am more hacked off with work than ever before.
Not many plans but I do intend to clear out the shit cupboard storage area under the stairs, get new car insurance, search for a job and take a caravan trip to Wales. Static though, I won’t be holding traffic up 
Recently after watching a bear baiting TV show here in the UK referenced in a previous post by the name of Jeremy Kyle in which the subject was a poor older gentleman who was addicted to eating, I decided to take a look at my own frame, build and Western lifestyle and the results ladies and gentleman is that I am unfit. Not only that but I am not happy about it. When I first moved to my new place I decided to start cycling more but through being lazy that fell by the wayside. Excuses ranged from weather to (actual, not made up) back and shoulder pain. My bike sat unused for days, weeks.
Mrs PeteGraham‘s Uncle called me a couple of weeks ago from within a local sports store where he was looking at bikes so now after his purchase we are going out cycling together most days and I feel great.
He has also told me of a gym he joined 8 months ago where there are no membership fees or contracts. He has been once. We are to start going there too as he also needs to shape up. I dont want to end up looking like the chavs you see walking round with their tshirts off showing their twig-like frames. Nor do I want to look like a body builder. I just want to tone up a little.
The family member has gone away working this week so I am cycling alone. If you find yourself in my neck of the woods and see a strange looking figure pounding the streets on a bike he is very proud of, please don’t mock him. It will be me.
I really like this house. It is nice, quiet, close to everything and most of all since I got rid of sky tv and now only have freeview, I also have some awesome neighbours. They have 2 daughters that I know of. Both quite pretty but emo-ish. There is a younger child and a mother and father. The rows we can hear through the walls are EPIC.
For whatever reason, maybe even legitimately, the father is claiming benefits which according to last nights barney is a HUGE bone of contention.
Tonight the mother is apparently a fat fuck. I have seen her, she is by no means overweight. Earlier I thought one of the girls was strangling the other. It is awesome to hear them and I am never moving house again!
That is all.
I’ve recently been on interview with another company. It’s a very big brand, well known through the world.
I got through the first interview and was pleased to hear I’d gotten a second. This took place two weeks ago wednesday coming.
Today, I got the call. Of all the people they interviewed, they brought 2 back. One was me, the other was the successful applicant. Turns out that he was already contracting for this company and as such he was being rewarded for his work.
Part of me thinks it’s nice that a company will go to those lengths to reward their staff. The rest of me sits here in a stench of disappointment wishing it had been a different phonecall I’d just received.
The girl breaking the news was lovely, and I thanked her and the interviewers for the opportunity to try for the role. They’re keeping me on file, so maybe in the future I’ll receive a call from them asking me back for another interview.
Ah well, keep calm, carry on.
I was earmarked a few months back for a stint in New Zealand to help out with the Rugby World Cup as the company I work for has dealings in that kind of thing.
A few weeks ago, I get taken outside by my boss to be told that I won’t be getting the chance to go out, as the company can’t afford it. This in the same breath as half the exec team flies out to the US for a ‘meeting’.
Now, whilst I am pissed off that I can’t put that on my CV, there are more pressing reasons I am so fucked off they have taken this opportunity from me.
Unless you’ve been living beneath a rock for the last year or so, you will know that there has been severe devastation in New Zealand, by way of earthquakes – some as recently as last week.
My plan when (before I was told) I got out there, I would work several days of the week for the company I despise, and for my off days I would donate myself in any way possible to help rebuild the broken areas of NZ which I was near. I had hopes of blood donation (only once as I am only there for 5 weeks), hopes to help rebuild – I am no structural engineer but I can build walls, I have also in my past been a glazier, and I have painted and decorated more rooms than I care to mention, hopes to help in any way I can. Anything I can do, even if it was just to lug stuff around from one place on a rebuild site to another.
Sadly, the company I work for has put paid to my plans. I just want to help.
Thank you, life.
With all the problems going on in the world, and especially with some of my fellow bloggers, this may seem insignificant but to me, it’s a pain in the derriere and this is my blog so this is where it goes.
I was out on Saturday, enjoying a couple of beers with friends. Not a bad day, got home and went to bed as it was late.
Sunday morning, I got up and made a brew. Turned on the power for the telly and sat down ready to watch the news when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a light. A small, red, flashing light.
I don’t like warning lights. They make me nervous. This one was on my PS3. My original, launch PS3 – 60GB version that would play PS2 games, had 4 USB ports, held pictures that were very dear to me and that I’d neglected to back up*, held video clips that were similar in content to the pictures, expired.
Being a nerd, the first thing I did once the tears had dried was to begin stripping it down. It’s way out of warranty and I’ve heard that reflowing the solder on the board can help. Should use a heat gun but I am all out of those so a hairdryer was the weapon of choice. There was also a BluRay stuck in the drive and I didn’t want it warped so I had to strip the complete device down. Disc rescued, on with reflowing.
So with the PS3 in pieces, armed with a hairdryer I let rip. Half an hour I worked on the bastard thing. Put it all back together and plugged in the mains. Excellent, red power light on! Here we go!!
I turned the PS3 on. 1 second. Yellow light, flashing red light. Fuck.
So I did what any good tech would do. Stripped out the hard drive and put it to one side. Got on to the interwebranets and found me a decent deal on a PS3 slim 160Gb. Went out and bought it. Brought it home, took it out of the box and before connecting anything, put the 500Gb drive out of my old and now redundant PS3 into the new one.
Booted it up and there was an error on screen. No firmware on drive. Goddamnit! So Sony encrypt the drive so it only works in the machine it was formatted on. No way to get the pics and vids back, no way to get my saved games, no way to get messages, anything off it. Bollocks.
Sony, I try my hardest to support you. I like some of your stuff. I like my telly, my PS3 (or did), my amp, my hard drive recorder, my walkmen, my phones, I really do – but now you’re pissing me off.
* I am a geek. A total geek. I have backups on hard drives stored in safe places everywhere, and multiple copies of those backups. Thankfully all the pics and vids I thought I had lost were all safe.
My PS3 game saves however, were not.
I took a ride out early this morning and ended up at Audenshaw Reservoirs. For some reason united utilities have banned people from going up and around the reservoirs themselves which is a shame but thanks to a lovely elderly gentleman who had keys to get in I was shown a gap in the fence and got to cycle round. This is my new favourite route. Pics should be somewhere in this post. Bloody mobiles…
