Three Fingered Salute

We’ve started the great Vacuum Cleaner hunt last night. Armed with pamphlets, a wattage comparison chart and a list of tools downloaded from the Internet, we took on the might of Curries and Comet.

We Lost.

Here is an actual conversation with the staff at one of those stores.

Staff : Can I help you? (after looking at a various models for about twenty seconds)
Me :What are the special features of this model ?
Staff : Well, it’s bagless, it has tools and it’s £230.
Me Pointing to another model: and this one?
Staff : Erm … it’s bagless, it has tools and it’s £220.
Me: What the difference between the two ?
Staff : about £10 pounds ?

Well give him some credit, at least he could subtract. When pressed on technical issues like the capacity of the bin, the power of the machine, he called over his mates who he then had a heated debate with. The conclusion they came up with was;-

1. It’s Bagless.
2. It has Tools.
3. It costs £230.

I could see that on the labels attached to it. The conclusion I’ve come to is DON’T ASK IF YOU CAN HELP ME WHEN YOU OBVIOUSLY CAN’T!

LSW can’t sleep and is very uncomfortable. Because she’s tired, she’s very grumpy and this means I can’t sleep either. Admittedly I was supposed to get some last night but we had a bit of a false alarm.

I was too tired to work on either the game or the website, but the two writers who proof read my story got back to me last night. I’ll be able to double to check each version and come up with a definite version of the ninth chapter, which means I’ll probably be able to finish the story off in the next week.

Well, that’s if we have time. It’s Vacuum Cleaner shopping time tonight !

Another weekend of DIY and Tension has come and gone. The main problem is LSW is bored and listless and while I have too much to do, what with the game and her father’s website. She’s got bugger all to do. This means she’s dwelling on the pain of the birth, getting up tight and then taking it out on me.

It was another fight which took three hours until we made up. So I’m even further behind with the website and game now when I was promised time to get on with these things. I’m trying to be understanding but when I don’t have the time to get on with things and then I get abuse for not finishing these things on time. It just makes my blood boil.

Well, DIY means the in-laws were up and everything is now in place ready for the new arrival. But typically just when you get things sorted out, the vacuum cleaners burns out and the washing machine has started to make strange noises. That’s more money needed that we don’t have.

The website has remained static but talking to MIL (Mother in Law) It seems that the only way to get new customers for the FIL (Father in Law)’s shop, is by a putting a website up because people seem to use the web to find shops these day instead of the yellow pages.

However, I’ve got to the first milestone with the game. A basic hot-seat version is working so I’ve now got to get it working with a single player option and a start to bite the bullet with Bluetooth. I am not looking forward to the Bluetooth thing.

LSW has complained about the Baby kicking her insides about. She doesn't know if it's supposed to happen or that contractions have started.

I’ve finally managed to get some work done. Crusty has finally shut up about his issues and Scooter has left me alone to get on with some design work. However, TMCM has decided that the work I’m doing is going overseas. Which means I’m going to loose some of client four’s work to the Johnny Foreigners. However this is not bad news. It means I’m moving to a more R&D role working on the next revision of our reporting product.

I’m getting to learn JAVA and .NET properly for the next few months. It’s the Holy Grail of Modern Working. Training!

The in-laws are up again. The cupboard of hell is getting a facelift from the father-in-law and he’s already fixed a pipe which broke this morning. What would we do without the in-laws (probably a lot more DIY). I’m scheduled to complete the Box for the kitchen this weekend and then hopefully that will be the house done. Only the garage will remain.

The game is progressing quite well. I put a lot of effort in last night while LSW was watching the footy. It’s now at a state where I’m going to test the hot seat for the first time. One thing I have notice is how dry the screens are. They are going to need some Graphical Icons with the lists and selection boxes juts to make things Look a little more professional. Some kind of Splash Screen will be needed as well while it loads. It’s just how the heck do you make an interface interesting?

We have finally finished the nursery! AND cleaned up the study! After months of Arguing, tantrums and tears (and that’s just me), the house is now ready for the new arrival. LSW seems to be holding up quite well now that she’s off work. I’m really surprised by how big she’s got.

She’s over the moon about the England result so I’ve been sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting “La La La” a lot. At least she looks a lot more relaxed than usual. It’s funny that I’ve become a football widower.

I haven’t been able to work on the game for a few days. This is mostly because I’ve been swearing at this Bluetooth stuff that I’ve been trying to get working. It’s like getting blood out of a stone.

At work, Crusty is kicking up a stink. It’s something that he’s really got nothing to do with him but he’s stirring it like crazy. I’ve got work to do for client one which has to ready next week. I’m really having trouble coping with the various different clients.

Client Six has come back to us and it looks like we finally have a competitor. I’ve been to a demo of their software and I’m of the opinion that our presentation layer can’t match theirs (at the moment) however our systems performance is a lot faster than theirs. Client Six are looking at them however so we’re going to have to work hard to display these items.

Well, it’s almost there. The in-laws turned up again yesterday and fixed up the cot, the chest of drawers, the shelves and the electricity lights. The room looks brilliant. I caught LSW sitting in the room, rubbing her stomach and having a little cry. It’s just made such a difference, after two months of changing, hammering and stress it feels We’ve turned a corner.

Work has been manic the last couple of days. The Doctor spotted a bug in one of the pages and I’ve spent a hellish couple of hours trying to work out what I’d done wrong. It turns out that it was one of those ‘working on my machine but not on yours’ type of problems, so it was difficult to debug. Finally tracked it down to a type in a script but I almost was freaking out because it seemed that the code was the same on both machines.

Eeyore Phoned from the states and I had to go through each of his problems one by one with his sidekick Slowboy. Slowboy, as I call him, has the type of accent that takes him five minutes to say a short sentence, so the call was a lot longer than I really had spare. More free overtime to the company!

Angryman called from a production plant and I had to shoot over there and sort out all of his problems. I still got another call from him today and he’s going to wipe everything we did yesterday. I give up with him, you try and help him out and all you get is abuse.

Work is also showing promise; they’ve just given me a flash new machine, which I’m installing software on at the moment. Add to that I’ll be finding out the pay reviews over the next few days, fingers crossed that I’ll have turned a corner there as well.

Image problems have killed off any chance of completing the game by the end of July. (Baring a miracle!) However, I have decided to continue on regardless. There are two reasons.

1. I’ve learnt so much that it would be daft just to leave it now.
2. I’ll always regret it.

I suppose I was getting ahead of myself thinking that this could match the commercial games out there at the moment. They are far superior in terms of graphics, sound and playability. I’ll drop the MOB countdown and just carry on the best I can. There is far too much going on in my real life to allow the progress in this field that would be required. This is one of the areas where my lack of J2Me experience is showing.

The story is still on hold. I might have a crack at it tonight while the football is on. LSW has turned into a soccer couch potato. She secretly fancies Beckham I think, but not for his personality.

BTW, someone at work has decided to eat a pot noodle at work. It’s stinking the office out and some people are beginning to feel sick.

Well I want to take a pickaxe to the new cupboard. The damn thing is just an endless problem and money pit. We’ve probably spent double the amount as a normal cupboard. The quadrant is in but my DIY skills are in need of some improvement. LSW thinks it’s OK, which is a relief. So all that’s left in putting in the shelves and the father in law is putting on the edging on Wednesday. It took half the day to sort out which was used up instead of the game writing.

Things have improved with the game, all the standard non-game playing screens are in, supported by multiple languages and multiple themes (A theme determines the graphics which are available). Also used Inheritance for the first time in a program! OK not the most exciting thing to put in blog but it was so unusual to have something like that work for me, I was over the moon.

However, I’ve made my mind up to put a priority on my short story. It’s almost a month since I worked on it last and I feel it needs finishing off, otherwise it will be (yet another) unfinished item on my hard drive. I’m halfway through the Ninth and final chapter, just one small push and it’s finished. It’s time to break out the voice recognition software again.

Work has been exceptionally quiet, but I’ve just been notified that I will have to perform a presentation from the trip down south, I have five hours to prepare it as well as keep my normal tasks up to date (so that’s another five hours of free overtime for work).

A couple more hours will be required on the Father-in-laws Website tonight as well, so I feel I’m running out of time in the day.

Well, what can you expect at 1 in the morning. Still it's another working day for me (kind of). I'm presently working on my father-in-laws website. His shop is not doing as well as it should and both the mother-in-law and LSW reckon that a web site will help. So here I am coding a very basic browsing site to at least put a presence on the net.

Once it's established, then I'll start expanding it's functionality. Such as changing the online browser to an on-line shop and maybe adding a forum. I'm using this as an opportunity to learn ASP.NET so it will be useful from my point of view to get this up and running as well. Been having a look round his competitors sites and they do strike you as Amateurish.

LSW and I have been very tense. My fault really, I’m far too defensive. Thankfully the cupboard is almost complete, but I’ll be putting more edging on just to get it right. There is now, the question of our finances. Both the Kitchen and the Nursery has hit our savings quite badly so if any more nasty rises in interest rates happen, then we’ll be in trouble. Inflation will start to rise in a bit and so up goes interest rates and then ow! It’s another topic of tension.

I stormed ahead with the game last night. I’m now two days ahead of schedule. The problem being, of course, that I’ll loose those days further down the road, due to unforeseen issues.

We also seem to be suffering from bites. The last few days have been very hot and I’ve got these huge bite marks all over my back and legs. Either we’ve got some kind of bug nest close or LSW has decided to become a vampire in order to help the baby grow!

What’s wrong with me? Well, ‘run off my feet’ is an appropriate saying? I’ve been to various production plants and to demonstrations of rival software. Half the time I’m not needed at these plants and it’s a case of sitting around doing nothing. Waste of time for most of it really. Mostly waiting around and then five minutes of frantic typing before another long wait.

There is tension between LSW and myself. It’s over the nursery and the general state of the house. It’s been a tip for almost 2 months now and hopefully this will be the last push this weekend and that will be the end of it. I’m reading up on Anger Manegment and ways to calm down. This next year with the Bairn on the way will either make us or break us.

The game is progressing well. With most of the generic screens done and full language switching support almost implemented, it’s been a busy time. I’m still staying up till 1am to get things all done but at least I’m working through it.

I’ve been virused with a PWS.Hooker.Trojan. Hopefully this will not have given access to any of my various accounts but I’m wondering if I should change all my passwords to be on the safe side. It doesn’t seemed to have triggered and has latched on to a program I’m going to remove anyway. I’ll take the risk this time, but how it got onto this machine I have no idea !

Poor Doctor, He’s very I’ll. He had most of last week off and now he’s going home again. Scooter has approved my proposals for the checking of the new code for the “large heaving bug” after a small chat with the Quietman. It’s a 2 Hr change followed by 2 Weeks of Testing.

However, I did overhear a conversation from TMCM. He wants to outsource work to the Belgians. He disappeared over there last week and was very impressed with the work they were producing, so that’s yet another worry.

Between Myself, Crusty, Kackman and the American our reputation is not very good. We don’t really work as a team and I feel I’m the only one that unit tests, so you can imagine what the quality of our work is like. If I were management, I’d be looking for alternatives as well.

I got a little more work done on the game last night; I’ve almost finished coding the player maintence screens and they compile OK. However, there’s some refreshing code to write and, of course, the screens need to be tested.

Things have improved between LSW and myself. It’s just the other half a day I have to do on the cupboard and the new shelves to put up which are going to be arkward. Add to that all the assembling that I’ll have to do over the weekend, it’s going to be a pain.

In addition to all this, I’ve got to pull together a skeleton website for my father-in-law for Sunday Morning. I’ve got the basic web site done, but we’ve got to put content into it. We’re turning up on Wednesday to take a few pictures of the shop and scan the hard drive for useful images.

It turns out that it’s the charger, which is the problem. There’s nothing wrong with the phone at all. I borrowed a work colleague’s charger for his 6600 and it works fine. Hope I don’t have to send the whole phone back just because of the charger!

// posted by Phoenix_Dfire @ 4:20 pm

Well, so much for the new Phone Company. I’ve had this phone for only a few weeks and it looks like either it, or the charger has gone. The thing works fine apart from the charging. More yelling at call centres!

DIY has struck again. The cupboard is now complete. However, the new carpet went in and the cupboard door started to catch the carpet. Que Argument with LSW! Bloody Hell! Looks like I’ll have to take the door off and file it down. Or Something?

Progress has been non-existent on both the game and the story. One of the editors who check over my stuff before it’s ‘published’, his wife has just had they’re third child. Mother and child seem to be doing fine.

Work is Hell. At 5 to 5 on Friday, our American developer spotted a large heaving bug. I’m going to have to run it past the Quiet Man and inform Scooter that the system will not be ready this week. Why can’t these things bee found at 09:00 on a Monday instead?

According to LSW, it took me almost two hours and a four pack of boddies before I’d calmed down. (I’d like to point out that boddies is a rather nice beer from Manchester, not a serial killing spree)

I’ve got a major presentation tomorrow and they’re still piling the bugs on. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull together something decent for tomorrow. Our American Developer has checked in a view which will require double the usual amount of testing in order to validate we have the right figures.

I’m scared to go home to face LSW, I can feel she’s had a bad day at work and it’s not getting any better. My father’s finished his work on the cupboard and disappeared to my brothers. Even though I haven’t seen much of him and we haven’t talked much (as per usual), it was nice to have him about.

We’ll I’ve been reviewing the latest releases from E3 on the J2ME platform. Oh my God, I’m really up against it. There are several very good games in the pipeline that will be released in the next few months probably September. I’m beginning to feel I’ve missed the boat with this. I’ve got one month to pull together the code and Maybe another to test and approach the big publishers with it.

I’m having a crisis of confidence. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it because of normal work and home life, but what with the bairn due within a month now I don’t what’s going to happen. I’ve given myself a deadline. If by the end of July I don’t get it working then I’ll throw in the towel and pray for the lottery like the rest of us.

I'm going through bugs like a man on a mission, ten in less than a day. However, for every one I fix, it seems two replace it. I know they're only niggles (mostly crossing 'T's and dotting 'I' s) that are quick to do, but it does get stale fast.

I feel like flypaper. I destroy one bug, but I seem to attract more. I've come to the conclusion that I should really go on these bug hunts because it just attracts attention to me. Work has decided to assign me a Unfortunately I won't get it until August so I don't know whether to stay on till after then just to pick it up.

I don't know about work at the moment. It's convenient and I have the ability to go home at lunch. The problem is, as it always has, that I feel unsure around TMCM and I'm coming to the conclusion if he could find a way to get rid of me, he would.

LSW is in either one of two states, either tired or Angry. It feels like I'm back to walking round on eggshells. I'm sure this is just a blip but I feel that my patience and understanding is running out. I feel I'm going to have to dig deep to stop myself snapping at her. However, if in a year's time we're still at each other's throats, then I'll be calling it a day, no matter what the cost. I don't think that it will come to that because when the hormones or the house is not a factor, we are pretty good together.

I made quite a bit of progress with the game last night, which I'm really pleased about. The BBC competition entry is in, but if I hear anything, it won't be till the end of July. I've also decided that this weekend is where I finish the star wars story properly.

Strange that I feel I have to write a short story in order to have closure for a computer game but there's more to it than that. Every single little project I have started over the years has been left unfinished. Songs, Stories and Computer Game Mods, which are only quarter or half done, litter my hard drive. This looks like the first ever project which I've managed to get close to completion. I reckon if I can finish this little story and prove to myself that I can complete these projects then the game will stand a better chance of success.

The baby’s official birth date is 5 weeks away. This means things have gone into overdrive with the creation of the nursery. I’ve almost been electrocuted, taken small chucks out of my fingers and had two or three tearful fights with LSW. Not really what you call a relaxing bank holiday break.

Add to that, there was a panic on Friday. I was just about to return to work, when I got a phone call from LSW. She hadn’t felt right at work and she said she felt faint (In other words she almost passed out). As she works at a Medical Centre, they took her blood pressure, which was sky high, and sent her home. So we’ve had two Midwife visits and a load of panic.

The blood pressure varies too much for my taste. It’s when she gets stressed, then the adrenaline hits and the blood pressure goes up. Admittedly, almost being hit by other cars is enough to send my blood pressure racing, so I can understand this.

The fight stems from the fact, she wants everything done ASAP. This is because she wants to have a break before the birth. However, her plans are always very ambitious and both my and the Father-in-law have been working our tails off in order to get things right. But the pressure is beginning to tell. I have a constant headache from the stress and the nagging. It was when she found out that I was beginning to feel resentful about the amount of work I was doing, that the fights and waterworks started.

My father turns up today and hopefully that will mean the cupboard will get sorted. And a few new shelves will go up.

I’ve since discovered several huge bugs in our system and I’m implementing certain fixes. However, these reports have never been used properly if these faults are appearing because they pretty obvious when you look at them. I’m racing through our bug list in an attempt to close off as many as I can so I can move on to new stuff.

The game is basically on hold (again!), I’ve discovered how to get screens to appear properly within the Midlet and I’ve started to support Multilanguage. However, getting a basic prototype still seems a long way off.