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Month: February 2003

Personal: Technical Difficulties II

[Technical Difficulties]Well, I think I may have sorted the technical difficulties I’ve been suffering with my home Windows 2000 Professional PC. After burning off over 20 CDs worth of data (leaving my main hard drive nearly half cleared or half full: whichever way you look at it), running scan disc, disabling services, re-installing and de-installing device drivers, removing programs, attempting a defrag of the hard drive (it had 40% free space at the point – Defrag wasn’t showing an ounce of “white free space” though) and many many many other things: my machine now seems to be stablish. It’s working, I’m connected to the Internet and it hasn’t yet crashed.

Hopefully when I watch the 300th episode of The Simpsons [Order from Amazon.co.uk] it’ll be able to play the entire episode for me instead of totally freezing at arbitrary points. Fingers crossed! Of course, if it does work, I won’t have too much of a clue about what the problem is (I had to reset every single log file I could find to try and help the diagnostics) – but as I’m considering buying a second PC and making it dualboot with Windows and Linux (which variant of Linux though is still undecided) it may be a moot point.

In other news: I’m not feeling too good. Yesterday, I was in bed practically shivering even though the heating was on maximum – had a “head cold” all day at work and kept on feeling faint. I talked to both my parents this evening: my Dad is currently off work with the flu/cold and my Mother has Tonsillitis – I was with them both for 3.5hours on Monday for my sister’s 18th birthday… Co-incidence? Hmmm – we’ll see. I’m just going to have another Lemsip before I take a nice long relaxing soaking hot bath: thank deity it’s the weekend tomorrow. Time for me to recover!

Guess That Movie: XXVIII: The Time Machine (2002)

[Guess That Movie Round 28]Righto, here’s the new Guess That Movie image.

If you are a new player, the game is quite simple. Look at this 110x110pixel screenshot (nope, you can’t enlarge it) and see if you can remember which film it has been taken from. Once you think you know which film it is, leave a comment with your name (or alias), your email address (for my usage only) and the name of the movie you are guessing at. If it’s part of a series of movies – you MUST name the appropriate movie (so just saying “Austin Powers” isn’t good enough, you’ll have to say “Austin Powers III”), also if it’s a remake you must be specific which version it is (so “Planet Of the Apes” is too vague, but “Mark Wahlberg’s Planet Of the Apes” or “Planet Of the Apes 2001” would be accurate). I’ll then (when I get a moment) say whether your guess is right or wrong – if it’s wrong, you can guess again – if it’s right you get some points. And what do points make? Prizes!

Yep, it’s a whole lotta fun with prizes to be won. If you guess that movie within 12 hours of it being posted and there have been no incorrect guesses, you get 100 points. Every incorrect guess takes the potential score down by 5 points. 12 hours after the image was posted, the score drops by 10points – 12hours after than by another 10points: and then a further 10points every 24hours. So guess quick and guess correctly to score the maximum points! Once you’ve got at least 500points, you can “redeem” them for an Amazon gift voucher. 500 equals a £5 Amazon.co.uk voucher (or the equivalent of £5 in your own currency in your chosen Amazon store). And it’s all free to enter as well! Wow!

Go on – make a guess!
The Time Machine (2002) [Order from Amazon.co.uk] . Correctly guessed by Kymberlie R. McGuire.

Guess That Movie: Scores So Far III

[Guess That Movie images 19 to 27]Phew, has it really been another 9 images in Guess That Movie? The last image (number 27) was correctly recognised as being the non-pornographic “but about the industry” type movie Boogie Nights [Order from Amazon.co.uk] which starred Mark “Planet Of the Apes” Wahlberg as Dirk Diggler, Burt Reynolds as Jack Horner as Heather “Austin Powers 2/Lost In Space” Graham as “Rollergirl”. New comer “Blue Neon Head” correctly recognised it (and the “pornographic movie actress in real life” Nina Hartley) earning him/her/it an initial 80 points.

How does the score board read at the moment then? Well, I’ll be shortly contacting “Ph33r_m3” to ask him which Amazon store he wants his gift voucher for (he’s scored 590 points which equates to a £5.90 voucher for Amazon UK or the equivalent currency in the Amazon store of his choice), Kymberlie just missed out on a prize by getting 480 points (20 points shy of the “prize level”), third place we have LD with 445 points – then “Super Beastmaster” with 280. In joint fifth position with 100 points is andersja, Toby and KHD – 8th position is held by “Blue Neon Head” with 80 points and trailing at the back of the pack is “Dr G” with just 60 points.

Since I’ve been having computer problems recently, I haven’t been able to complete the work on the new Guess That Movie site so I’m going to do something I’ll probably regret… I’m going to keep GTM running here for another 9 rounds and keep the points rolling. Therefore if Kymberlie gets another 120 points she’ll be entitled to a £6 voucher in 9 rounds time – if a brand new new comer (yes you – the one that’s been too shy to guess up to now!) wants to try and manages to get all 9 images correct with the first guess within 12hours of posting: then they’ll be walking away with a FREE £9 Amazon gift certificate!

I’ll try and get the next round up and running as soon as I can (should be in the next hour or so). Good luck – and congratulations Ph33r_m3 – expect an email from me within the next 3 days!

Guess That Movie: XXVII: Boogie Nights

[Guess That Movie Round 27]Oooh – looks like two prizes may be awarded at this rate! Kymberlie managed to gain an extra 100 points by recognising Guess That Movie 26 as being taken from near the end of the Sam Neill movie The Dish [Order from Amazon.co.uk] which has put her at the 480 points mark. The Dish is about the first landing on the Moon (the Apollo 11 and the Parkes radio telescope helped bring the images back to Earth. It’s quite a touching story – admittedly it could be compressed to a 15 minute story if you were just interested in the ‘bare facts’, but the ‘human interest’ side of it makes it worth watching in my book (after Event Horizon and the Jurassic Park series, I think Sam Neill’s beginning to get just a little bit typecast as a scientist…)

Anyway – now for the slightly delayed round 27. As you may have gathered, this one isn’t for youngsters – but then again it isn’t “R18” material either (R18 is the BBFC classification for ‘sexual movies’ here in the UK – ‘R18’ indicates that it can only be sold to those over 18 and that it is Restricted for sale in sex shops). It IS a popularish movie, and IT HAS been shown on television (I actually got a shock a few minutes ago when I saw a preview for it on one of the TV stations I get: and it wasn’t the Granada Men And Motors channel either!). In the UK it was rated ’18’ (only suitable for persons 18 years of age or older), but the MPAA in the States rated it ‘R’.

That’s the only clue you’re getting for now…Good luck and get guessing!

A: Boogie Nights [Order from Amazon.co.uk] . Correctly guessed by “Blue Neon Head”.

Snippet: Happy 18th Birthday Sister!

*snippet* I’d just like to say Happy 18th Birthday to my youngest sister – it’s all downhill from now on 😉 Hope you like the presents and it was an very enjoyable meal (that my parents paid for: £160 for a total of six of us!). My two sisters talked more at that single 3.5hour meal (I’m not kidding!) than I think I’ve talked with all my co-workers since getting my new job: combination of my sisters being a pair of noisy bints (meant in a nice way of course) and my work colleagues being slightly more restrained (as in not needing a continues stream of conversation).

Couple of highlights… But I’ll blog about them tomorrow hopefully once a) my computer is running properly (it’s limping along somehow), b) I’ve had some sleep (I’ve eaten more in the last 24 hours than I have done in the previous week and I’m worn out), c) I’ve cleared my backlog of things to blog about (yep, I haven’t forgotten the next round of Guess That Movie – but if my computer crashes every time a moving image is shown: be it a copy of a VHS tape, a DVD or even a Flash animation – you can understand my problem).

Plus, I’ve got a few things to think about. I discussed my “new power generator” idea with my father yesterday and he couldn’t see a fault with it – now I’ve got to confirm that it is potentially viable and how much a prototype would cost to build (bearing in mind that if it works I can say goodbye to the electricity company, but if it fails – while, logically, it has to do – that’s money down the drain). I also need to think about a dream I had Friday or Saturday night – I try not to “read” too much into my dreams (mainly because if one hundredth of them came true, I’ll be scared), but this one’s just sticking with me for some reason. I’m not going into details as “a friend of a friend” could be reading this and hence it may get back to someone else – I know what I mean 😉

Night!