Stuff Archives

I'm feeling a little bit upset with Microsoft right now. The computer I use at home for the TV, this webserver and my home email server was running Vista and I upgraded it to Windows 7 in order to accommodate a new TV tuner that required the updated operating system.

I bought the upgrade and performed the install a few months back and everything was fine and dandy.

Then ... the hard disk crashed. No idea what happened to it, but it wont read and I (still) can't seem to mount it (computer won't boot when it's attached). Annoying, but these things happen. So, I switched some drives around and then re-installed the operating system.

Now here's the kicker. I used the Windows 7 upgrade disk to install the operating system given that this is what I need on the machine. No problems with the install, loaded perfectly without any issues.

And everybody lived happily ever after .... at least for 30 days anyway.

A message pops up on the screen telling me I don't have a valid license for the operating system. I enter the license and it tells me it's an upgrade license and not a clean install license. OK - makes sense, but I can enter the Vista key and then the W7 key .... hmmm, no way to do this, so phone the help desk.

The help desk was incredibly unhelpful, although I'm not necessarily going to blame the individual I was talking to as they're working within the bounds they're told to. The result was to tell me that I have to install Vista first and then install the upgrade on top as I only have an upgrade license. Now, the fun part is that I'd thrown away the Vista recovery disks thinking I'd no longer need them. I explained this to the person I was talking to and they told me I had to go back to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and get the Vista disks from them.

I will give credit where credit's due - HP provided me with excellent service for the machine and sent me the recovery disks and we're now up and running fine (after re-installing Vista and then upgrading to W7 - what a memorable weekend that was).

Microsoft .... not so much. I find it hard to believe that I couldn't validate my license keys and get something that would work for the machine. There's no piracy going on here - I'm trying to use a product that I have a valid license for and I have to go through this ridiculous procedure of re-installing one operating system and then upgrading the next.

I've got quite a number of Microsoft products form Operating Systems to XBoxes. I keep getting told to look at Linux and the Playstation. Maybe it's time to listen.

Wow!! I've just caught up with the Premier League results and I have to say I'm somewhat shocked. That was a real trousers and pants down, let's get out the paddle and administer a thorough spanking. Man United 8 Arsenal 2. I haven't seen any interviews, but my guess is the only thing Wenger could say is “please sir, may I have another.”

I know there have been some big results like Spurs 9-1 thrashing of Wigan, but that's Wigan and they don't have the resources of Arsenal. Also, full credit to Wigan for taking the thrashing and then bouncing back - at least not letting it destroy the team. Being a Leicester fan, you have to take your beatings every now and then. They're going to happen - just move on and focus on the games you can win. But this is Arsenal. A team that's used to sending the message, not receiving it.

Based on the little I see, it seems as if Arsene's plan is to sign younger and lesser known players as opposed to Chelsea and Manchester City that seem to want to compete over who can spend the most money. Maybe I can get William signed up to play for them next week .... he couldn't do any worse.

Why am I sat at the airport (Phoenix) listening to some muppet give directions on how to get to the gate? Literally, this guy's on a phone talking to someone else describing the walk down the concourse and what bars/restaurants the gate is near. Next he says “I'll stand in the concourse and maybe you'll be able to see me”

We're at gate A5!

It's easily identified. It's got an f'ing great sign above marked A5. It's between gates A3 and A7, opposite A6. Obviously the gate designation system the airport came up with is not adequate enough. Gates can only be identified by a frantically waiving muppet in the middle of the concourse.

Maybe I'm just a bit stressed. Maybe it's a good job I'm going on holiday this week .... provided I can find the gate to that plane.

I've been traveling round the country staying in a different hotel more or less every day. Last night I got in from Dinner, took the elevator up to my floor and stood there staring as I couldn't remember which room I was in. I'm actually quite impressed I remembered the floor. Anyway I thought there must be some top tips to learn from this traveling and I thought ... ah yes, there's a good one from that morning that resulted in a nasty mishap. Today's traveler's tip is:

Don't leave you hemorrhoid cream next to your toothbrush at night.

On the positive side, I did have minty fresh farts all day long.

And here was me thinking that EastBayRag was my only claim to fame. I was doing some research on places to go for a trip in the UK and what birding opportunities there were and came across this excellent site:

Fatbirder

I feel that it was written with myself in mind.

It's very sad, but we're now starting to recognize a number of people at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We seem to be becoming part of the furniture. We were, however, very pleased to see that Uncle Jesse once again made it out to the races.

As most people know, I've traveled to Phoenix to watch the NASCAR race there before heading off to Vegas to do the same next weekend. At the Nationwide race on Saturday, Mr O and I made new friends.

Buzz and his mate.

Buzz and his mate came from Bristol Tennessee and were very proud of it. Buzz took my phone number so he could send me a picture of the bus he and his mate were traveling round in. Interestingly, when I stored the number, it automatically filed it under “work number” which I think might be a stretch. It seems that they are traveling round the West Coast in a big red bus supporting Montoya. They had confessed to squatting in the seats they were occupying and I think it's safe to say this isn't part of a corporate entertaining package.

After getting acquainted with Buzz and his buddy, we agreed to look out for them in Vegas. His friend had suggested that Buzz send a photo of Sandy to us in order to convince us to look out for them. This photo promised quite a lot as Sandy, apparently, was “happy to get her tits out.” Interestingly, on further reflection (and confirming that we did indeed like tits), the friend suggested that Buzz not send a photo of Sandy, but in fact to send a picture of Anita on account of the fact that “she's got bigger tits!”

I can't do the accent in a blog post and I've only just scratched the surface of the intense, deep and meaningful conversation that we struck up with our new soul mates. I do hope we bump into them at Vegas as it would be good to continue the discussion. To be honest, it'd be quite nice to see Sandy and/or Anita, but I'm not sure Karen would be too happy about that. I'm not sure why she'd be jealous though as I'm sure she's got more teeth than the pair of them.

On a semi serious note, it would be good to bump into them again. We have a picture of the big red bus (just in case the description wasn't enough).

So it seems as if Halo has once again taken over a significant portion of my life. I have to be honest that they've done a really good job with Reach and made the multiplayer very exciting given how much you can customize it. Anyway, was poking around on one site or other and came across this video that I have to say is pretty well put together and you have to respect the talent with the sniper.



I'm also fascinated by the end and the badges that they created. Extermination has to be the hardest award to get (kill all four openents yourself within 4 seconds so they have none on the field and you get an overkill award). Has to be the hardest ..... or is it?

Well, I don't get any marks for style and there's a lot of luck, particularly with the player who came up the stairs and walked into my grenade, but here you go.



I call this:

“Anything you can do, I can do .... well, with a lot of luck!”

“Bring on the teenagers, there's still life in this old dog yet!”

“Getting the lead back in style”

I need to start by congratulating Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and the 48 Lowes team for winning their fifth NASCAR championship title in a row. We've run the NASCAR race game for 10 weeks through the chase and it's pretty obvious that it's almost impossible to predict the winner each week. In fact, the most anyone got right in any one week was two correct picks. I did manage to pick 8 of the top 10 in one week with all of my 10 picks being inside the top 12 which was pretty good, but on the whole, most picks only resulted in about 6 of the top ten with many people regularly having picks finishing worse than 30th. I mention this because it goes to show how tight the competition is. This isn't one of those competitions where the same person/team wins week on week which makes Jimmie Johnson's achievement even more unbelievable. A lot can be said about the fact that the team is stable with Chad Knaus and the Lowes sponsorship having been there throughout these championships, but is it really that stable? The entire pit crew was swapped out during the Texas race. I think you've just got to look at the talent for what it is.

So, to the race game. Congratulations to me for finishing on top of the 2010 NASCAR Chase Race leader board. For those of you who weren't playing, the note I sent out had words in it to the effect of me having invented a game that nobody else is interested in and I've won, now declaring myself the world champion. It would appear that my integration into American society is all but complete.

I'm happy to take any criticism around the fact that I picked the same drivers as Owen in the last week to make sure I won. Playing the player and not the game maybe, but it got the results. I did actually write down what I would have picked and it would have made little difference. I would have scored 40 points instead of 10 which would have still meant I won the overall competition, but wouldn't have won the last week regardless. Anyway, I have to get off to party with the San Francisco Giants as world champions!

Apologies for the dark photo, but it was taken at night with a cell phone. The name of this place did cause my mind to wander somewhat. I'm thinking of applying for a job there.