Greater Manchester


Desktop Penguin

The first and, sadly, only time I used Linux was in 1996 when I was on a C++ course that was actually all about earning cash for the training providers. I’ve often wished since then that I had learnt more about it. I’m not brave enough to install it on my main machine, for fear of screwing up a double boot setup and the lack of desktop programs. The second problem, at least, is diminishing. As for the first, one of my aims for this year is to pick up a cheap old laptop and install the bare bones needed for writing- Linux and OpenOffice- so that I can sling it in a backpack and go write in Castlefield or out at the end of a summer ride.

Of course, what I really want to do is build a Beowulf cluster. Back at The Gas, after refurbishing the Manchester office, there was a room full of surplus equipment. It was like the King Solomon’s Mine of base units. If they’d only let me borrow a dozen or so…..


Two Lanes Good, Four Lanes Bad

My hatred of drivers never really went away. I’m sure they’re lovely people in real life, but I have to face them during their internal combustion lobotomy phase. Having said which….. There are lots of stretches of road in Manchester that could use a cycle lane, so which idiot had some made where there was already an off road cycle path?


Off key?

You know when it’s time to give up singing when your computer can sing better than you can.

Since Ian and me both write, I thought it worth pointing out a collection of dodgy science facts in the Hall of Infamy and some fantasy cliches. Just so we know what to steer clear of.

Did you try the “which science fiction author are you?” Need more info on the author, then start with the list of scifi authors. Need more info, then there’s the only decent sci fi encyclopaedia.

There’s a Manchester-based scifi group, didn’t know that before.


Hits log time again-
Seeing as so many people come here looking for GTA3 skins, I thought I’d put in some links to sites that actually do them. Anime character GTA3 skins. (Lots of annoying pop ups.) A bunch of cool looking skins. I’ve downloaded some copies and might have a go at making some myself (But bear in mind that I don’t yet own a copy of the game.) gta3 Britney skins gets a special mention, just for the sheer mix ‘n match beauty of it.
Also-
toys bay blades, burberry caps I’m not even sure what a burberry cap looks like, I just included it in the Manchester Earthquake appeal piece. Manchester earthquake About time someone came here for that. I was getting bored of the Dudley one. nell mcandrews, “beast sex clips”, lake cumberland nude pics, “hot sex fairy”, “ballistic matching”, naked scallys (there are some sick, sick people in the world.), buddha end of world, cinema 4d buddha, free lovemaking photography, “end of the word”

And sites that bounced to me-
BlueLand, Inner Balance, alexmcchesney, SubRosa (Which has a Dudley version of the Manchester appeal.)


I’ve actually been paid to spend the whole day surfing. This borderline cyberloafing is for a purpose, I’m hunting for funding for a hospital project.
Things I discovered-
I was almost as surprised to find that a Procter & Gamble exceutive hadn’t sold his soul to satan as I was to discover the company participates in animal testing.
The Guardian is controlled by a Trust set up to get round death duties that would have shut the paper down.
The Countryside Alliance really are scary. They’ve got data on all their ‘opponents’ that would make a Police state envious.
There’s a man in Cambridge with a huge collection of old computers so that when the first museum of the PC is built they won’t have to hunt out rare boxes.
Cocaine production is one of the largest causes of deforestation in the Amazon. Angus Deayton and John Leslie have got a lot to answer for.
And finally-
It’s the tower blocks in Salford that make it rain in Manchester. Damn those scallies!


Click the image for the full picture

Once more into the hits log- with added commentary.
Searches that found me-
Dudley earthquake (or variations upon this) Earthquakes are good for business, I’ve had loads of people come to my site after this search. I think it’s a good time to mention all the earthquakes in Manchester this week.
GTA3 skins (including a large subset of GTA3 naked skins). I’m not sure how this one relates to me, but it’s second most popular one for finding me. I guess now that GTA3 is available for the PC it’s possible to make custom skins for the cars and characters.
Bay Blades This is either about a Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual rowing team or Bey Blades, which are groovy battling spinner game things.
how to jump rope basics naked Who thinks up these searches?
sultan of brunei’s car collection Here’s the article that comes out top of the search. The man has some wild cars.
umist beerfest 2002 Which I went to on Friday. Fun as ever. Random beerfest memories- finding the bar was so busy that the two people working it couldn’t keep up, I popped round and helped out, clearing the backlog so I could get served quicker- reunion with the exec members I worked with nine years ago- my beerfest song (Stupid Girl by Garbage) played without even having to request it [Beerfest ’95 or 96 I was more drunk than normal and dedicated it to my ex girlfriend]- Dave T declaring that he was going to get so drunk that he would become totally irresistable to women, but only reaching the point where he was ironically irresistable- having a discussion with Zoe about my favourite type of sheep [Jacobs, because thay have these cool horns you can grab onto and……… I’ll get my coat]
Sex Positions and “the corkscrew” Their emphasis quotations.
nell mcandrews naked It does work! No-one ever came here for Britney Spears naked, I guess I don’t get surfed by many canadians. The thing is, I don’t find Nell McAndrews that attractive, not even when she’s dressed up as Lara Croft.
“Maryland sniper” I’m glad for the people over there that it’s over, but I can guess that my friends the FReepers will be all over the fact that he converted to Islam.
beast sex clips Emily suggested I insert a sheep joke here, but after the Jacobs incident I’m not so sure. What is really wierd is that the link right after mine was to Georgeclooney.org
rubberised canvas supply uk ??????

And sites that bounced to me because we’re in the same rings-
Blueland, Digitalmayhem, Another Black Hole, A Clockwork Orange


Click the image for the full picture

You have to love a temp job where you turn up and the first thing they do is make sure you’ve got internet access. It’s all for work, of course, and doesn’t count when the connection’s been so crap for the last two days. I’m working at Wythenshawe hospital, a sprawling complex with institutional red brick building hived around by clunky functional concrete and shiny new steel and glass buildings. I’m getting way below my last rate, but it’s work.

The journey in in the morning involves a bus change at Wythenshawe bus terminus. It’s been six years since I was last in Wythenshawe and, if anything, the place has deteriorated in the mean time. The ‘town’ was originally conceived as a Garden City, a quaint thirties idea involving slapping a chunk of suburb into the countryside where there would be enough space for healthy open air-ness. Bad planning and the war meant that no real amenities were provided until the sixties when a dire shopping centre was poured into the town. Now, bits of the area look like warzones. It reminds me a little of Hulme in the early nineties, so there might be hope for regeneration.

Anyway, enough of that. Seeds

�One of the prisoners heard a guard mention a troop train?�

�When?�

Rey translated the question into Overall for Umat.

�Before sundown. That is all he knows. They would head for the siding south of here to let it pass.�

�We should move out.� Move suggested.

�We should. But��� Lensman surveyed the flat, featureless landscape. �If they decide to dismount and follow us, how far would we get before they caught us?�

�An ambush?�

Lensman turned back to Umat. �We have spare weaponry, and what came from the guards. How many of your men will fight.�

The question was only half translated when Umat answered, �All!�


First Dudley, now here. Manchester has just been hit by an earthquake! According to the news it measured 3.6 on the Richter scale. I felt something this morning. Like someone had run a car into one of the three houses in my mini block, but without the attendant crashing. I didn’t think any more of it until twenty minutes ago when the same thing happened again. I went to the window to check for cashed cars again and felt the wall move as another tremor hit.

Of course, in this age of WMD paranoia I thought it could have been from an explosion. Either way, I’m sure Al Quaeda will be blamed.


Time, I think, for another trawl through the hits log to see what sort of searches have been getting people here (working backwards, most recent at top)-

Call Loggers

motor bike crash video clips

Moonraker mov

ruby home page salt gene pool(????)

wattle and daub pics

escorts in manchester bella (you can guess what other sort of things came up on that search.)

spinneyhead (who’d have thought?)

horizontal windmill pics

Clips of Reed Low fighting

gta 3 problem

gta 3 load problem

buddha shops

pics of nucular destruction (nucular again!! Unless this means that Dubya’s visited my site.)

I know my place – two ronnies and john cleese (which was in here last time as well, so this just reinforces the chance that people will find it again. Whilst I’m on the subject of increasing hits and standings in listings, I think it’s time I mentioned Britney Spears naked again. There you go.)

V12 engines

how far away could you hear the earthquake in dudley

amusing items dudley earthquake

pictures of earthquake in manchester dudley

free gay king pictures (I’m just reporting them, I don’t have to explain them.)

“raid.mov”

nude hunting camp pics

traithlon fetish suits

lift him over the threshold

And a few site who’ve bounced surfers here because we’re in the same rings-

Summer Daze?, mad musings of me, Autumn Blog, The Plastic Cat, Janitor, Destinyland, thereisnoarizona, luceo magazine, Colours of the wind, Notes from Atlanta

I’m also somewhere on this page.


Hey, I’m on holiday, okay. I’ve been enjoying the Lakes with an attention hungry Springer Spaniel and getting on with those geeky things- modelmaking, RPGs- that I have the time for in Manchester but never get around to. I think I’ve taken enough photos to keep me going throughout October.
Holiday reading-
e. by Matt Beaumont. Very funny attack on an ad agency, and office politics in general. Having it all told in e-mails may seem a risky ploy at first, but it allows for a sort of minimalism where you can easily unserstand all the events without needing the full narrative.
Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls by Robert Rankin. Odd, very odd, but endearingly so. There is so much time travel and such going on in Brentford that I’m surprised everyone doesn’t meet three versions of themselves in the High Street every day.
World War: Striking The Balance by Harry Turtledove. That’ll teach me to start reading a series with the fourth book. This one is proving hard going because the huge cast has to have their back story filled in as you meet them. It has an interesting premise- the Second World War is cut short by the arrival of an alien attack fleet which expected to meet medieval warriors and only has slightly better technology than the humans.


I’ll sort out the picture of the day just as soon as I get some shareware FTP program to upload the files.
Out searching for the kennels so I could rescue my parents’ dog (currently lying at my feet a very happy little spaniel) I happened across a beagle hunt trying to root out hares. I took a few photos, but they were probably out of focus. My opinion keeps changing on hunting itself- right now I figure it’s as efficient a form of pest control as any other- but I got the impression that the hunt ban proposal is actually helping the rural way of life. People have a common cause now, and I’m sure it’s bringing them together. I don’t remember beagle hunts happening before I moved to Manchester.
Seeds

The storm rocked the ship. It was an unsettling motion, but Jay was happier now her view was foreshortened by waves and spray. Holding tightly to the handrail, she followed Reed to the maps rooms.
Browdy was waiting for them. Salutes were exchanged and he led them from the outer, distribution, room to the inner, intelligence, room. Centrepiece of this room was a large table holding a map. �The world.� Browdy announced, redundantly.
Unlike all previous maps Reed had seen, the main landmass was not the centre of attention. Indeed, the great continent was split, its eastern half at one end of the table and the western at the other. Quite logically, this map concentrated on the ocean they were surrounded by. Jay looked at the great expanse of blue and felt her agoraphobia return.
A flag with a red X on it marked the position of Half Time base, about a third of the way across the ocean. There were other markers. Jay traced westward from the island and soon spotted the four orange headed pins that showed the direction beacons they had followed in. Tracking east she followed the coloured trail to another flag, this time with a blue cross. Unlike Half Time, this flag was moving, a track of pin prick holes traced its course. Other pins, and clusters of pins, described an arrowhead toward the blue cross.
�The storm should clear by tomorrow.� Browdy announced, �And there will be another flight arriving the day after. So it is time to show you the next leg of your journey.�
�I have heard of boats having flat decks fitted and becoming floating runways.� Jay waved at the blue flag.
Browdy nodded and smiled. �This is a more than that. A considerable amount more. Let me show you the model.� There was another large table in the far corner of the room. Lined up on one side were pewter cast model aeroplanes, tiny but still identifiable by make. They were grouped by flights and squadrons, a tally of the logistics involved. A few were parked on the model, to give a reference for size. �It is unlikely you have ever seen or heard of this.� Browdy chuckled.
�No.� Jay admitted quietly. �How soon can we get there?�


Ooops, missed yesterday’s post, too busy cycling the byways and canal sides out to Worsley. It’s a strange place to the North of Manchester that feels like South Manchester/ Cheshire. Very posh, and I got some dirty looks when I pulled up on the green with my bike.

Seeds

As a collaborator, Aylo�s life should have been at risk every time he left his house. However, there were enough people- with enough influence, in the neighbourhood who knew the truth. He could even enter this darkest of dockers� drinkeries without fear and talk to two of the toughest gang bosses. �I think he is conflicted.�

�He is a Southerner.�

�His mother was of the city, and he grew nearly twenty seasons here. I also think he is of the type that is attracted to men, me in particular.�

�Pfah! That is the sort of arrogance that got your brother killed.�

Aylo struggled for a retort. The old man across the table put a hand on the woman�s shoulder. �I knew Aylo�s brother. He was only doing what he thought was right.�

�You were lucky he was unidentified.�

�Maybe one day he will be recognised as a hero of the resistance.�

�As will we all, hopefully. What information do you have.�

Blessed with a photographic memory, Aylo could do without carrying incriminating copies around. �They are sending two hundred troops out onto the Plains to search for the people sabotaging the railroads.�

�Who is sabotaging the railroads?�

�I think they are chasing shadows. It removes troops from the city.�

The man nodded, �Anything else?�

�Paper and a scriber.� Both appeared from the woman�s direction. Aylo drew a plan of the marshalling yards. �There was a report, about an air raid in the mountains. At a training camp for mountain troops. There have been a number of air raids in the region recently. None of them knows what it means.� He circled the most vulnerable junctions, the ones where traffic was too high.

�Neither do I. If I did know, it would be unwise to tell it to one who walks into the enemy�s offices every day.�

�You are right. Of course.� Aylo downed his ale. �I am just inquisitive. I should go.� Turning to the woman, he finally asked, �How is my nephew?�

�He misses his father.� She looked directly at Aylo to add, �And his uncle.�

�Yes. Well�� With luck, this shall be all over soon.�

I found some of my ‘missing’ CDs, appropriated into John’s CD case (who’d have thought), but still not the ones I listed- Sampled Vol 1, OPM- Menace To Sobriety.




Seeds

Kess had filled two small canvas bags with fine gravel and settled his rifle on them. The wind had picked up, so he clicked the scope offset up two. Squeezing the front bag shifted the target back into view. The autogunner in the far guard tower could strafe the whole assembly area, and had become the first target. There was another tower by the gate, target two, and two guards walking the perimeter. They were closer and presented easier shots.

Lensman had made position and signalled that Kess was gun free. He centred the scope dot on the autogunner�s head, exhaled slowly and began applying pressure to the trigger. Before the last of his breath had gone, he bought the trigger home. The report seemed so loud up close, but there were trees to deaden the sound, and the river would cover it as well. He brought the scope back into line and counted. On the second count, the autogunner�s head disappeared in a haze and his body slumped away.

Kess had ever seen the effect of any bullet on a human body, let alone one of his monstrous one digit shells. He put the disgust aside, fed another round into the breech and brought the second guard tower into view. He clicked the gravity adjust back up a couple and centred on this guard�s chest. Another breath out and the shot was away. He didn�t wait to see the effects of this round, shifting quickly to the nearer of the guards.

Boss Tunage- Wonderstuff- If The Beatles Had Read Hunter… The Singles, Wonderstuff- Eight Legged Groove Machine (I know I listened to this a few days ago, but I have two copies, this is the remastered one with extra tunes, Kingmaker- Sleepwalking (listed on amazon, but as unavailable. Come on, someone re release this, please. I spent six months of last year visiting record shops from Southampton to Edinburgh, via Croydon, Soho, Manchester and Cardiff trying to find a copy. In the end someone had to copy it for me. Definitely an argument in here somewhere for the music biz to set up their own cheap [pennies per song] online database of out of circulation music. Rant over.)



Easy listening- Grandmaster Flash Vs The Sugarhill Gang

No new prose today. I’m going to keep weekend posts limited to pictures and the play list so I can get on with some work. (So far today, the work has consisted of reading all the sections of the paper and watching bits of the Commonwealth cycling road race. Tomorrow it will include going off to Salford Quays to watch the triathlon then going for a bike ride if the weather’s nice.)