Three Fingered Salute

Well, I’ve had a couple of days to get to grips with the game and last night I managed to get a few of the screens working, so I’m a little geed up.

LSW has spent the last of couple of nights eating and sleeping, although last night she did go swimming, so she’s been quite relaxed. Even though the bairn is playing football with her bladder.

I’ve just realised that I’m running out of time to write my short story for the BBC competition, I’ll be finishing that off during my lunch hours till the end of the week. The star wars story’s is being re-written because I cannot get it to work right

We have a shed coming at the end of this week, so I’ll be moving wood and building shelves all bank-holiday.

We are still waiting on our new phones through, We’ve signed up to a new Mobile Network and I had great satisfaction in “firing” the last one. They sure as hell try to make you feel guilty about leaving but sod them, they could supply the service I required so – “YOUR FIRED!”

Ar*e, Ar*e, Ar*e! I’ve been counting on being able to use the IMEI number of a phone as a registration for the players. Looks like I’ll have to use DRS used by Nokia instead.

It also looks like I’m going have some competition. Worms is coming to the N-Gage and it’s going to support Bluetooth. The difference is the game is turned based, while mine is real-time. I’ve also been looking at what’s coming up on the N-Gage and it does seem that I’m going to be little fish in a big pond.

I think the only advantage is that this game will work on more than just the N-Gage. I’ve been checking ‘What Cellphone.’ every month, just to see if anybody else has had a similar idea. So far - nothing (thankfully). But now it feels like I have a real deadline because I would like to have the first multiplayer Bluetooth game.

The weekend was difficult (there is a surprise). LSW was having a crisis over the cupboard in the nursery. It’s been resolved but the tension between us still remains. The In-Laws turned up to help last night and I’m so grateful because some things were tidied and LSW calmed down.

Work is quiet so I’m taking the opportunity to catch up with smaller tasks, it’s so nice to be left alone to get on with it.

I’ve been threatened with the sack!

One of our high up managers was having a bad day and took it out on me. I brought him this database that people had told me wanted upgraded and when I explained that I thought that something was up with the data. He flew into a tirade. I found out which database he did need upgrading, upgraded it and that seemed to calm him down.

Still can’t help wondering if I got set up a little there. Could be me being paranoid though !

I have to get this sub-system ready for client four and what happens I get dragged off for other demos. Come On Guys, if you carry on doing that I’m going to miss the deadline and that means penalties. I’m not going to work my arse off to get this working for you anymore.

We had an Antenatal Session last night, met a lot of other expectant couples. It was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Most of the people were pleasant so I was relieved that the awkward tension that you get at these things dissipated quite quickly.

LSW and I had a heart to heart last night as well. There was a major argument brewing but thankfully it was diffused. However, it almost made us late for the class so all we had to eat was cheesy toast. I now feel like Denies and Dave from ‘The Royle Family’. (Anybody for dairylea on toast?)

Nothing’s happened with the game because of all this kack, but I’m hoping to have a crack at some of it tonight. I’ll be printing more tutorials at lunch.

Well, Mad panic as usual. We have failures flying about left right and centre over here. Client Two, Four and Five all have problems. Although, I’m getting through their problems but it’s leaving me with no time to do other tasks and I’m up against deadlines as it is.

I’ve been climbing the walls about this so much; everybody at work has threatened to buy me a bottle of Kalms to help with my highly-strung nature. I must be a right pain to work with at the moment, but the workload is increasing and I do feel that I’m beginning to get swamped again.

Home life is quiet at the moment after the amount of progress on the nursery but the house is still a tip. The baby furniture has arrived and is being stored in very strange locations because we’re out of space. I’ve got to give the car seat and pram a dry run in my car so I know if I’m going to need a new car sooner rather than later.

We have our first set of birth classes tonight. LSW is not the happiest person when it comes to handling lots of pain and I know as sure as hell she’s going to pass any pain she gets onto me at any opportunity. All the books say, you’ve got to be supportive and helpful but it’s going to hurt.

I’ve started work on a web site for the father-in-laws shop. It’s as a thank you for the all the work he’s done for us and also for his birthday and father’s day. Apparently, it’s not doing very well and needs some kind of boost. These days I know if you’re not on the web, then you’re at a disadvantage compared to those that are.

I’m running though tutorials for the mobile phone game. I’m trying to get a couple of cheap phones from eBay, which I can use to test it on, but I’m not having too much luck. I keep on getting outbid. Both of us are getting new phones over then next few days, so I’ll be able to use them.

The nursery for the bairn is more than half done. The father-in-law and myself spent most of yesterday putting it all together, coving, sanding and painting. Been trying to finish off a lot of small things for the kitchen and my arms are so sore from all the sawing.

Saturday was a ‘Green Day’, in other words I got roped into gardening. After cutting the grass LSW took me to every garden centre in the local area, looking for a pot that looked right. Because LSW can’t bend over too well at the moment, I’ve got to help out with the shifting of plants and so on.

It must be pointed out that I hate DIY and gardening. If it weren’t for the in-laws turning up to help out, then we would have been stuffed. However, LSW had another attack of the hormones and my patience snapped. Another fight but this time we sorted things out. LSW was calm and happy for the rest of the day and I’m hoping that this is a bit of a turning point.

For once I didn’t work the weekend, so I’m catching up with events stateside. I’m trying to sort out the swamping issue, which is causing us grief. Hopefully this will get sorted at some time in the next few days. Scooter and Kackman are having loads of meetings and I’m beginning to feel circumvented. On a more positive note though, my CV is ready, just in-case things get nasty.

Story wise I’m putting the web on hold while I work on the BBC competition entry. As it’s only 1200 words long, it shouldn’t take too long to write and I’ve got an idea, which should work.

The game is hold while I integrate the various J2ME SDKs into my development environment and run through a few tutorials to build up some confidence. However, I’ve volunteered to a web site for my father-in-law, which is going take a little time to sort out. I’m going to have make it the best site because, at the moment, his business is not doing to good.

Done It.

The first Graphical Prototype for the game. I'm now going to celibrate by getting some sleep.

We ordered some furniture for the nursery, which we asked to be delivered in June. However, it’s ready for delivery now and if we don’t pick it up then it will probably go ‘Missing’. Of course all this was my fault and so we’re at it again. I hate this, I’m completely stumped about what to do. It’s almost a month now of argument. There’s more than just hormones going on here.

TMCM is going to be the death of me. While I was away at the hospital, they tested some of my code for client four. However, the functionality is similar to something I demonstrated to him for client six. So TMCM instructed ‘the Doctor’ about how it was supposed to work and (surprise, surprise) it didn’t work.

Mad panic ensues, they first of all can’t find me because I’m at the hospital. Then they can’t call me because the mobile’s turned off (raises voice) because I’m At The Hospital. And then they want me to pull the code (shouting) because I’M AT THE HOSPITAL! Anyway I get back after a stressful trip and I get these big red warnings on the desk when I get back.

Ten minutes later, after I explained how things worked properly, the mad panic subsided, the alerts were all cancelled and the code’s back in the system. However, my blood pressure is still up and I’m having a little trouble claming down. (Can you tell?)

LSW is fine, blood pressure normal and the baby’s heartbeat is strong. It’s not in the right position yet but it’s still got time move around. But when the time comes, I hope it’s doesn’t want to come out between 4:00pm and 6:30pm because it’ll be a nightmare getting to the hospital.

One of the developers called me at 04:55 last night. He’s had problems with his queries and he wants to know how to get it to perform better. It’s 5 to 5 FFS, I need to be home soon. I tell him to run statistics and email me the query to look at it tomorrow. The query in question is the complex, convoluted piece of kack I’ve seen and in order to get it to work properly, the schema will have to be over hauled.

Gave up and took LSW swimming. ½ a mile of almost drowning, one Chinese Take Out later and a tense conversation about finances later, we settled down in front of the telly. It took her about five minutes to fall asleep, so I covered her with a blanket and headed upstairs to code for the rest of the night.

Got a phone call from my father last night, my mother’s operation was successful and there have been no complications. Even so I found it difficult to concentrate on coding, so I gave up and played Homeworld until I was too tired to continue.

I’ve been looking to the future of the game and I’m wondering how to finance the promotion and the running costs. I’ve got only a few options; -
· Go to the Bank, demonstrate the program and see what they say about backing.
· Talk to Nokia or one of the other big phone companies and see what they say.
· Find a publisher, demonstrate and see what they offer.

This is the bit I’m scared about because I don’t want to put my family in financial trouble. I know Business is supposed to be a risk, but when you have a baby on the way and you’re up to your eyes in debt, then you want to play it safe.

We’ve got a hospital visit today at two. Blood pressure check apparently, but LSW wants me along. I’m in no way superstitious about the fact this is happening on the 13th !!!!

LSW spent most of the night asleep again, so I disappeared to work and printed off about half a volume of development notes for the game. I was working on things for client two at the time, so free overtime for them, free printouts for me. Fair swap I’d say.

Client Two are quiet but this security issue is causing quite a number of concerns. As soon as I notified the development team about the big security hole, Crusty came over and asked about these issues. All the time he was pretending that he hadn’t given the Web User full administrator rights, but everybody knows he has and that’s going to be his problem to sort it out.

Client Five is receiving upgrades just to monitor their situation. People failed to tell me its configuration and so we’ve got to do some ‘Big Brother’ work to make sure things are running smoothly.

My mother is going into hospital today, she’s having an operation to remove gall stones. I never knew what the gall bladder was until a few months ago. She says she’s not scared, but I know she is. It should be all over in the next few days. I’ll be giving my father a call tonight to see how he’s doing.

I’ve been doing research into bluetooth operations for my game. I’m still abit hesitant about the hole thing but the more I read through it, the more confidence I have that this game will work. Been debugging it over this lunchtime and I’ll have a fully working prototype by the end of the week.

The penultimate chapter from my story has been put up on the website. Already I’ve had a comment about it in my guestbook. It does your ego good. I’ve been looking at the BBC’s writing competition and I’ve got an idea for a nice little ending to one of their stories. Hopefully, I’ll get that done next week. However, I’ve got work to do on the nursery.

Yeah ! Eeyore’s back and full of the joys of spring. He’s found out that the system people screwed up our systems in the states He’s kicking their backsides and loving it. It’s as if he’s found the outlet for all that stress, which was building up.

Meanwhile, I have just discovered a major security leak within out websites. It turns out that Crusty gives the web account administrator privileges so his code runs properly. This is a No No. It basically allows anybody to log onto the server as an administrator. It’s a huge ****ing NO NO! Because of this client seven and four are on hold until I can get this sorted.

I’ve got to do a presentation today to a guy from Sweden. I just know every time he speaks I’m going to be thinking of the Swedish Chief from the Muppets.

LSW is very tired. I came back last night to find her fast asleep. We went shopping, had tea and then she fell asleep. Her work is running her ragged, so she’s coming home exhausted. And when she’s tired, she’s not exactly the most tolerant person on the planet. I feel like I’m constantly walking around on eggshells.

This constant sleeping has meant I get left alone to work on the Nursery. I spent a good half hour, poly-filler in hand, going around filling in holes, cracks and actually enjoying it. Perhaps it’s because that’s so different from what I normally do, but it nice to basically switch the brain off.

I’ve been working on the game again, adding in new functionality and animations. There is one large piece of functionality left to test and one small bug to sort out before I’m ready to put it through play testing. I’ve been also looking at the issues like play modes, GPRS communication, back end server support and web sites to promote it. It seems that there’s just as much there as in the actual game it’s self and I haven’t even put it onto a phone yet. !

What a weekend, the folks stayed until Saturday morning. LSW and Myself argued again. This time it’s about the finances after the baby is born. More panics. The cupboard is not finished but well on the way.

This argument was the worst. We were up till 1am. Tears, tantrums, bad language were all used and that was by both of us. Next morning LSW says it’s just hormones and to be fair, things have been very calm for the last 36 hrs or so, but that could be because we haven’t spent too much time together.

Other things, still no sign of Eeyore at work. It’s like he’s dropped off the face of the planet. Turned up today for a couple of hours and caught up with some work for Client Two. Hopefully this won’t cause problems to the same magnitude than the Developer’s in the states have caused, but it is new and largely untested code.

Client seven are not happy either, our system is not talking to theirs properly and so I’m digging through why. The only way I found I was able to do their work was by using the dreaded SQL Server cursors. It worked under our test conditions but there was no luck with the Clients.

I’ve also decided to enter a writing competition. The BBC is running it. You have to finish a story by one of eight leading writers. I’ll have a glance through and see what I can come up with over the next few days. The Eight Chapter of my little story has been placed on the Website. The Website is getting hundreds of hits a day. Dunno how many are reading my story but I am getting a lot of feedback.

Work on the game continues, a bug had stopped me until I’d realised I hadn’t include some supporting code. How embarrassing. I’m making mistakes only a Junior Programmer would make. *Hangs head in Shame.

Oh My! We’re at it again. LSW and I were laying into each other (verbally I hasten to add), only this time about the shared drive. One of our Neighbours parked a Big SUV in the drive blocking all access. As it’s a drive that three houses have to share, the slightest blockage winds LSW up and as I’m the nearest, I get it.

Every time we have one of these arguments, I feel the connection between us lessen. It feels like they never get resolved. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re suited at all, people change and I don’t think I like what we’re changing into. I’m hoping that all this is PFH and once the Bairn is on the scene, then things change.

My father has made a superb effort with the fitted wardrobe. The frame is in place and it looks impressive. We’re just awaiting on the outside parts now. There is going to be enough wood left over to put together a really nice set of shelves. Oh God, I’ve grown up! I’m getting excited about shelves!!!! Help!

At work though, I noticed another of our developers printing out their CV. I’m looking into this myself but as much as I whinge and complain about this job, it’s far superior that working for a bank or another web development company. Mind you there’s not that many web companies left round here anymore. Maybe Mobile development is the next step.

Eeyore took the day off yesterday. I think its stress. With everything that’s going on over in the States, I think I’d crack up as well. I’m supposed to work on this subsystem I’ve been working on, but I’m getting pulled in several directions again. Scooter is trying to sort things out but it’s getting me into the state I was in before with Client Six. I had to take a week off to recover.

I just cracked on with the game last night and had a margin of success. I’ve got it mostly working as a Java App. However, it’s now got to be moved to J2ME and Bluetooth and GPRS have to be integrated, so although It feels like it’s almost over, I’m only half way there. And then I’ve got to look at how to market it.

Well, yesterday was a bit of a shocker. LSW, with my mother and mother-in-law, disappeared to a far off retail park for baby furniture. This left my father and father-in-law to gut the nursery and start planning new fixings. I was so glad I was at work. LSW explained to my father, who used to be a joiner, how she wanted the fitted wardrobe and he was there designing it well into the night.

How we get the raw materials from the supplier to our house it going to be a challenge. Might even have to hire a van.

The manager in the states is now threatening to fire a member of the stateside staff. He is so p*ssed off with them screwing the builds up. Every time I talk to him, he sounds like Eeyore or Marvin the Paranoid Android. So from now on he will be named as Eeyore.

TMCM is on my case constantly about the new functionality, constant updates every twenty minutes. I need a new definition of micromanage for this Guy. Scooter has returned and is catching up with various tasks and will probably have a go at me for something. Why Oh Why couldn’t my lottery numbers come up? I would be out of here so fast, I’d break the sound barrier.

Got a lot done on the game this morning.

Well, I was right about the things being quiet being ominous. It seems that the company, which supplies our system with data for Client Two, has screwed up. It’s flooding our system with information it neither wants nor needs. It’s causing our system to fall over. Now I know that we should filter better but this was just crazy. Over 140000 records on an un-indexed table and none of them will be used. I’ve now got to summarise the problem and then request action from the client. This will take ages.

LSW was very tired last night, but we’re going to have a full set of parents today. Both sets are turning up to do housework. Hell, I’m not complaining. The lot of them are spoiling the Bairn and he/she isn’t even born yet.

Did some work on the game. I was overjoyed to get some things out of the way that I’d been stuck on. I reckon the actual physical part of the game is more than half way. However, I did get distracted. I discovered how to play a favourite old computer game of mine on the PC. I was playing up till 2 am without noticing the time. I’m shattered.

Well, The FPH’s struck again over the weekend. At one point I was wondering what a divorce lawyer’s rates were. It says in the ‘What to expect book.’ That your wife might have symptoms similar to PMT, but these are short lived.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Try two months and running. LSW has taken nesting* to an extreme. It took three hours to tell her the options for the nursery and that got everything off to bad start.

Sunday and Monday, we were in Wales. It was my father’s 60th birthday. He got to drive a steam engine for a day. Never seen such a wide smile on his face.

Work is very quite. Not a squeak out of the yanks, which is always worrying sign. I’m just keeping my head down and keeping out of the way. The Doctor and Kackman were telling me of their exploits over the weekend, mostly involving going into Manchester and worrying people.

However, there’s nothing new on the game and nothing new on the story. Haven’t had time.


* New Term for the day - ‘Nesting’. This is the urge most pregnant women feel to create the right environment for their child. This normally includes methods such as nagging, emotional blackmail and outright threatening behaviour to get what they regard as right.