Three Fingered Salute

LSW and I have sorted some of the issues out. It’s mostly time pressure and we get frustrated and because there’s nothing to take it out on apart from each other. There’s a few extra issue we’re going to have to deal with but it looks like things will improve.

However, just as one part of your life goes good another goes bad. The game has just died on my quite badly. I thought that last night I had finished the final beta, but on testing it failed on the handsets. It’s very depressing.

In the MXO, I’ve managed to level up enough to get what is known as the Hyper Jump ability. I can jump over flipping 20 story buildings!! That is why I join this game! Fantastic!

I'm going to have to put the blog onto hold as we're away on holiday for a few weeks. The In-Laws, LSW, Little Miss and Myself are off to Italy. I'm both scared and looking forward to the change.

Things between LSW and I have now hit an all time low. We had a major Barney this morning over changing a nappy and Little Miss was crying, LSW was screaming at me and I actually managed to hold my temper. I’m really wondering for the first time if I and LSW should be together. I’m now dreading this holiday.

Work is nuts. The Americans want this new demo website. I’ve got major bug fixes to sort out with the last client two releases and still got all this development work to do. Help!

The only good news is the game, which is almost ready for beta release two. I’ve got to start upgrading the website and then make an announcement on al the relevant message boards.

Work has gone ballistic again. Client one and Client four has been fixed but we now have yet another new client and this time it’s a really high class automotive producer. They’re higher than even client one. By that I mean the type of car they produce not the size of the company. This will be client (lucky) seven. The upshot is that the amount of extra work has been piled on and they’re not authorising overtime. I’m beginning to drown.

LSW and I are beginning to slide into a Low Ebb again. I think she has a lot on her mind which she’s not telling me and trying to talk to her about it is like getting blood out of a stone. Little Miss had a wobbly night last night (I must have jinxed it) but she did sleep through once she’d finally gone off. More teeth are coming but she seems to be handling it better.

The game is now working on a completely different phone’s Emulator. I was so shocked that it ran I almost fell out of my seat. It will be interesting to see what happens next.
I got the car back but I’m not happy with it. The Skirting has fallen off and now the alarm, immobilizer and radio refuse to work. What do you want to bet that it will cost even more to get that fixed? I ‘m trying to hold my temper but this whole business has kind of tainted the car. I just really want to get rid of it.

Things at home are actually settling down. Even though LSW and I are knackered, we are getting on OK. Little Miss is sleeping through every night so far but we’re not taking that for granted. We appreciate every night of sleep.

Work has gone nuts again. Problems with Clients one, two and four. However I did a very stupid thing. I’ve been working on something in my spare time, however, I made the mistake of showing this to Yankman, who immediately turned round and showed it to the customer (WHICH HE WASN’T SUPPOSED TO DO) and now the customer wants a demo! Note to self, don’t be that stupid again.

The game has progress a little with better splash screens and new buzzing on loss, but a major piece of testing still has to be done before the weekend. So much for going cold turkey with MXO, another two hours last night. MUST BE STRONG …

Now that was a rarity. A relaxing day out at Tatton park and a good day out shopping on Sunday in Manchester. Little Miss seemed to be running hot and cold. Looking at her teeth you can see why, the gums round the two molars are red raw. But she was a little star, charming everyone in sight.

LSW have begun to sort things out. Its going to take a little while but as long as there isn’t a major crisis over the next few weeks then I think we’ll be ok.

Work has shattered things again. Now they want to remove Access from our systems. It’s been used in-plant for client 1, if they remove that licence or say we don’t have a licence then I’m not going to support the old system if it fails. I do know if the worst of the worst an employment tribunal would come down on my side.

It turns out our new starter isn’t. He phoned in today, when he’s supposed to be starting, and said he was taking another position. Git! I wanted to be off this client two work and I’m now going to be stuck on it forever!

Right, I’ve got to cold turkey on the Matrix Online (or MXO as it’s known). I’ve just got one of my three characters up to level 9 and the feeling of achievement was a bit worrying. I do spend a little too much thinking about what to do next, so I’ll have to unplug for a little while. But it is like electronic heroin.

A quiet night but the car is still giving me grief. Finally got the damn thing to the garage but now they can’t do the work until Monday. Aaarrggh !

Little Miss is now settling again. She had a bit of a cry but slept through. That’s almost a week since the last sleepless night. I hope it continues. The In-laws were up yesterday. They love looking after Little Miss.

It also looks as if the shower has gone again. I’ll have to deal with this issue before we go away on holiday or at least switch the water supply off to the shower.
LSW and I are talking again but only in the most strained ways. She now wants us to have a sit down meal tonight so that we can talk these problems through. What are the bets that Little Miss will have a bad night?

Another tense day. LSW and I are hardly talking. To be honest, I’m tired of trying so I’m just going to ignore it. There comes a point where the amount of effort used far exceeds the benefit gained. We’re both tired and ratty, so any conversation we have turns into a sniping match.

I’m finishing off a big lot of work for client two. I wonder when I come back off holiday if I’ll still be in work. We’re supposed to run through the testing and then the validation department is supposed to run their own independent checks. This has failed with so many of our releases that it’s worrying.

Little Miss has even more teeth coming through. Two top molars. She’s grumpy, clingy and screams out if anything touches the new teeth. Poor little girl is getting so much Calpol I’m thinking of buying shares.

I’ve managed to limit myself to an hour on the Matrix Game. 1-Nill to willpower but you do have to set an alarm to tell you the time is up.

LSW was ill over the weekend, so instead of getting the opportunity to finish off this damn game I had to look after both girls. This lead to the biggest argument between LSW and I, we’ve ever had on Sunday. It seems silly now but she was supposed to rest and instead she did housework. We didn’t talk for almost six hours and to be honest it’s really not over, there still is some simmering resentment bubbling under inside of me. Dunno about her.

So there’s no game work, I was supposed to come into work to upgrade some of client two’s work, that couldn’t be done. LSW bought this new unit for the hall that needed assembly before Little Miss started playing with the nuts and bolts. I told LSW to wait until later in the week but she opened it right in front of Little Miss.

Got a little time in on the Matrix-Online and I’m having a ball. It is so nice to escape from real life even just for half an hour or so. I’m going to take a small break from it so I can focus on the game this week.

Still no work from the Rentacoder website, it does seem to take quite a while to go through the bidding process. Etc.

Damn that Matrix Online. Three hours had gone before I realised what time it was. So Not much work was done on my game, but at least I’d got the breakthrough I needed with the graphic routines. LSW finished off the diploma and Little Miss passed out without a problem, so all quite on that front.

However, as per usual, its not all plain sailing. The car has got to get its locks replaced on Monday! £ 470!! £ 470!! I’m going to get £170 of it back from the insurance companies so I’m £ 300 down. If I ever find that little git who nicked the car keys... Actually, that doesn’t bare thinking about. He should pray I never find him.

The other problem is the shower (again). It looks like the valve has gone again so I’m going to have to check that out on Saturday and then order a replacement value through their replacement program. No showers for a week?

I was right about Little Miss. She did not want to sleep last night. Admittedly, LSW brought her home late and then we gave her a bath, which was probably a mistake. It woke her up. She didn’t drop off until about 10.

LSW went straight to bed and didn’t finish of her diploma. Unless she gets it done tonight then I don’t think she’s going to get it done and that means she’ll be nasty, moody and depressed and guess who she will take that out on.

Little Miss had an accident this morning. She’d already pooed her nappy so we thought it would be safe to let her crawl about with the nappy off. She was quite happy and was sat in front of me, playing with some boxes. Next thing I knew, she was standing and crying/ screaming. I picked her up and saw a huge turd lying where she was sat.

First of all, how the hell can a little girl store something that size inside of her! Secondly, I don’t know if she was upset because she pooed where she did or whether she was scared about our reaction. It did take a good twenty minutes for her to calm down, so I was twenty minutes late for work.

I have got to stop playing the Matrix – Online so much. Four hours last night and I didn’t even realise. 5:30 to 7:30 and then 10:00 – 12:00, so apart from ten minutes on my game, it was a wasted evening in real life. My On-line personality had a very eventful time, mostly dieing. I just want to finish the start missions but I can’t see where I’m going with this.

Little Miss is now sleeping through again. It’s only take about two months for her to get back into routine and now we’re going to have a heatwave again. Bye Bye Sleeping through.

LSW has got to finish that diploma, even if I start kicking her up the bottom to do it. Once that’s out of the way, she should lighten up abit. Unfortunately the study is in a real state, mostly because of the tons of stuff that needs to got into the attic which has been piling up left right and centre.

I’m really getting into the matrix online and you can see the attraction of these MMOs. I’m just loving running around and doing missions but I’ve still got to get my head round the way the system advances and I’ve still got to meet a few people, other than wave and say hello.

LSW was on a real downer yesterday. It was mostly because Little Miss and LSW couldn’t leave the house because they were waiting for a plumber to finally fix the bath. At least that’s sorted but the shower is causing problems again and that’s something that will have to wait until the weekend. I just hope it doesn’t cause any problems in the meantime.

Work has, yet again, thrown me a ‘curve ball’. Client Two is having problems and I’ve got to sort out code which has more spaghetti in it than a Clint Eastwood cowboy movie. I hate this particular system and would quite happily let it rot if it wasn’t for the fact that it would get me fired. It’s Crusty Code, so I’ve get the standard response of “You’ve looked at it later than me so it’s yours now.”! My fists are itching so much.

Yankman has been giving me trouble as well. I’m only trying to help him out and I’m going the extra mile. Do I get any appreciation? Nope I’m ignored because I’m causing hassle. Well, screw him! He’s only getting minimal support from now on.

A gentleman with a good rating on rentacoder wants me to look at the doing some work on converting old spectrum games to J2ME and Two nights of little miss sleeping through, so things aren’t all bad.

Damn that Matrix Online is addictive. Thankfully, I was only on for half an hour.

Well, Little Miss seems to be a lot better. We think the ear infection and the virus has cleared up, but she has more teeth coming through. We took her to a zoological garden near Leak She enjoyed looking at the exotic birds and fishes and it was quite a relaxing day.

We spent the weekend at the in-laws because LSW Cousin got married on Friday and although herself and Little Miss went, I could due to work commitments. Rushed around in the evening to get down there in time for an evening do but it wasn’t a good do.

LSW and her cousin aren’t all that close and we don’t know the groom’s family at all, so we felt pretty isolated for most of the evening. Apparently, LSW and her cousin were kept apart from each other because of a feud between their respective mothers; even MiL doesn’t know what the cause of it was. So even though the two girls only lived round the corner, they’ve effectively grown up as strangers.

The Fil looks tired. He’s been running around for the last few after us, after LSW’s brother and keeping up with Little Miss. LSW is worried about him. He’d borderline Diabetics and doesn’t take much exercise. She doesn’t like to think about it but it’s always at the back of her mind. He has done so much for us, I think its only fair to think of ways to pay him back.

I’ve started playing the Matrix Online. It took two hours to set the thing up, half an hour to install the software and then an hour and a half to patch to the latest version. I then thought I’d just give it a few minutes, just to see what it’s all about. I ended up playing it for an hour. Oh Dear! Note to self, Half an Hour to an hour Maximum a day!

Little Miss was a horror last night, but at least she slept through. I’ve got a wedding reception to go to tonight. LSW and Little Miss are on their way to the ceremony even as I type. I couldn’t get the time off and I couldn’t really pull a “sickie” after what happened yesterday.

The new bath seems to be fine, except LSW complained that the new tiles don’t match and the plumber has lost the plug. This isn’t much except that we can’t bathe Little Miss and she hates showers. I’m going deaf from the amount of screaming she’s doing at the moment.

To be fair, she’s dealing with

An ear infection.
Another molar coming through.
The antibiotics for her ears means she’s now got thrush.
A viral infection due to the cough and clear runny nose.

Poor little girl when you think about it.

Just when you thought Little Miss couldn’t get any worse, she does. 1:30 am to 4:30 – 5:00 am. and she just wouldn’t stop screaming. She’d fall asleep in your arms but as soon as you put her in her cot, well your eartdrums hurt. LSW and I are actually being very supportive of each other at this time but LSW is now beginning to feel ill.

I had to take this morning off work just to catch up. LSW would have done the same but she had big meetings and so on. Hopefully, she’ll finish off the Diploma tonight and send it off.

I was supposed to put the N-Gage on Ebay last night but as you can tell, I wasn’t up to it. At least I’ve made a breakthrough with the game.

Well the plumber has turned up and the place looks a mess. I just hope that everything looks abit better when I get in.

I have decided to take a ½ an hour to an hour off from reality. I guess too much coding is causing me to go abit mental. I’ve got a copy of the Matrix-Online on the way at the moment, so I’m going to find out how addictive these games are.

Right, I’m going to have a right rant. Little Miss went off on one again last night and I officially cracked. I don’t know if it’s because after five days of little sleep or I’m just tired of her being ill but I am just sick of the sight of her. It’s the demanding attention or the throwing things in a temper, I need a break.

LSW says I’m depressed and need to see the doctor. I’m beginning to agree, whether it’s work, home life or even with the game, I can’t feel optimistic about any of it. And yesterday I was so up on life as well.

Six hours of Blissful Sleep. I have never felt so much better after only six hours in the land of nod. Poor little Miss is still suffering but she’s much calmer. She was giggling a lot last night when I got in.

The Building Company say that they’ll be round tomorrow to fix the bath, which is good and the check has arrived to fix the car, which is even better. I might even be mobile by next week.

LSW is cheerier about the diploma and even got put into the readers digest prize draw amongst the last 1%. There’s only a 1000 to 1 chance of the big cash prize, but that beats the lottery’s 14,000,000 to one against. Mind you we did get a scam letter from Ireland. I think I’ll send it into Watchdog.

I’ve finally started working on the game again, which has been a great relief. After a weekend of hell, a slight bit of normality feels like heaven.

Oh Lord what hasn’t happened this weekend. What we originally though was just teething in Little Miss has turned out to be something a little more serious. All Friday night she screamed, so me and LSW got no sleep. Saturday during the day she was ok but not herself and Saturday night was worse than Friday, so we phoned the emergency doctor who saw us right away.

She’s got an ear infection, the poor little girl is in excruciating pain and all we were giving her were half lots of Calpol. We’ve now got a lot of antibiotics, which will give her the squits, and a huge bottle of calpol like pain killer. Even last night she was so grumpy that she didn’t fall asleep until six in the morning.

This has lead to LSW and I taking stripes of flesh off one another. Verbally, I hasten to add. It’s amazing what four days of hardly any sleep will do to a steady, if occasional rocky, relationship. We have resolved to try and sort these problems out but there are difficulties in perception.

For example, Last night, at about four am, Little Miss was crawling over the pair of us wanting to play. I clapped her on her back to attract her attention and said ‘No’. It didn’t work, she just carried on playing as if nothing had happened. However, LSW thought I’d slapped her and just looked at me in shock. I had to then spend the next ten minutes, explaining that I didn’t hit Little Miss and if I had slapped or hit Little Miss would have been crying.

To be honest, I don’t think LSW believes me and I’m now worried that she thinks I’m going to start smacking Little Miss. That’s one think I’ve promised myself I’d never do. I got smacked a lot during my childhood and I seriously believe that it did me more harm than good. I don’t want Little Miss to ever feel that. The problem is convincing LSW that.

At the moment, it does feel that LSW and I are growing further and further apart and I don’t know how to resolve the situation.