(no subject)
Last Monday: last night of term at Poly and my third day in a row of fencing. Bit dead though - spent evening either epée versus Antony or foil versus Joanna. Must admit I was tempted to go to ULU on Tuesday just because it would have been such a dumb thing to do, except it was Dad's last night in the UK. After he flew off on Wednesday evening, stopped by at Kate's to pick up her PC for the great upgrade.
Thursday: learned I'd been pipped at the post in the office World Cup competition. Someone else had the same number of match outcomes but more correct scores. Still, 34% return on my albeit very modest investment isn't bad ;-) Discovered Comic Showcase had closed shop. WAAAHHHHH!!!! I used to go there when it was still on Neal Street. It was very much my favourite comic shop in the Tottenham Court Road area :-(
Also met Rob at the Poly armoury to clear it out. Was tempted to then go to Saxon to fence rather than the Poly social at the Heights Bar at the St George's Hotel but by the time we'd finished, it would have been tricky getting home and then driving over to Saxon in time so I opted for the pleasant evening of drinks with a great view of London. Nice place but I couldn't help thinking we'd have been better off going somewhere a tad less flash (and hyper-expensive) so the club's funds would have got us rather more food and drink...
Friday: spent doing more fine tuning on my newly upgraded PC and assembling Kate's. Ultimately got my Opteron 165 running stably at just over 2.5GHz (278MHz FSB x 9). It would boot into Windows and run 3DMark06 at 280 and higher but Half Life 2 proved a tad unstable (er... I wasn't playing games, I was just... performing a stability test on the PC!). Still, nice improvement on stock speed of 1.8GHz. Definitely happy. Next step - tweaking the X1900XT and maybe experimenting with decreasing the HTT bandwidth limit and raising the FSB speed again.
Saturday: had decided to further my English cultural education by accepting invitation to join Kate, colonel_maxim, lapinenoireuk and others to watch the England-Portugal match so drove over to drop her upgraded PC off before heading back up to West Finchley. Certainly an interesting experience, definitely felt deeply disappointed that England went out like that. Also has to be said, I do seem to have taken an unprecedented amount of interest in this World Cup. Ah well, doubtless normal levels of supreme indifference will soon be restored. Otherwise, though, a most pleasant afternoon and evening. Having seen his bookshelf and given his proximity to me, I think i shall have to visit colonel_maxim more frequently... Also got him to sign off on my black powder and shotgun certificate forms so that's one step closer to trying out musketry for me.
Actually, that turned out to be a lot sooner than expected - had to come back in the morning to retrieve my PDA which I'd left behind. I did have the offer of a dealer's pass to LFCC but decided I just didn't fancy it so I popped across to PC World to scope out cases. Given I pulled a fully functioning XP3000+, NForce 2 mobo and 9800 Pro and I have a couple of 180Gb HDs sitting about, I figure I should reinstall them and maybe retire the PII/400 in the loft. Hell, the Pentium 133 has been sitting in the loft for at least 2 years without being turned on. What can one do with super-obsolete PCs apart from take them to the dump?
Also popped down to Camden Town to hunt down missing comics and track down a few bits and pieces for the LOTNA Who-themed meet on Saturday. Got back and, following SMS and phone discussions, concluded that a) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is clearly a better stress tester of PCs than Half Life 2 or FEAR and b) I'd clearly been a tad too aggressive in overclocking Kate's PC... Otherwise, spent the evening flitting back and forth between Stalingrad and the Western Desert on Call of Duty 2.
This week's been distressingly hot thus far. Downside of working from home. KL might be worse but there'd be ceiling fans and air conditioners! On the bright side, it's now looking pretty likely that I can go to Beltring for most of the week now. Still screwed for Galactica One and the ECWS musters though.
Was going to go down to ULU to fence tonight but got load of work to do and I've got to head down to Bristol tomorrow morning. Will pack my fencing kit so I can drive straight from Bristol to Saxon on Thursday.
Thursday: learned I'd been pipped at the post in the office World Cup competition. Someone else had the same number of match outcomes but more correct scores. Still, 34% return on my albeit very modest investment isn't bad ;-) Discovered Comic Showcase had closed shop. WAAAHHHHH!!!! I used to go there when it was still on Neal Street. It was very much my favourite comic shop in the Tottenham Court Road area :-(
Also met Rob at the Poly armoury to clear it out. Was tempted to then go to Saxon to fence rather than the Poly social at the Heights Bar at the St George's Hotel but by the time we'd finished, it would have been tricky getting home and then driving over to Saxon in time so I opted for the pleasant evening of drinks with a great view of London. Nice place but I couldn't help thinking we'd have been better off going somewhere a tad less flash (and hyper-expensive) so the club's funds would have got us rather more food and drink...
Friday: spent doing more fine tuning on my newly upgraded PC and assembling Kate's. Ultimately got my Opteron 165 running stably at just over 2.5GHz (278MHz FSB x 9). It would boot into Windows and run 3DMark06 at 280 and higher but Half Life 2 proved a tad unstable (er... I wasn't playing games, I was just... performing a stability test on the PC!). Still, nice improvement on stock speed of 1.8GHz. Definitely happy. Next step - tweaking the X1900XT and maybe experimenting with decreasing the HTT bandwidth limit and raising the FSB speed again.
Saturday: had decided to further my English cultural education by accepting invitation to join Kate, colonel_maxim, lapinenoireuk and others to watch the England-Portugal match so drove over to drop her upgraded PC off before heading back up to West Finchley. Certainly an interesting experience, definitely felt deeply disappointed that England went out like that. Also has to be said, I do seem to have taken an unprecedented amount of interest in this World Cup. Ah well, doubtless normal levels of supreme indifference will soon be restored. Otherwise, though, a most pleasant afternoon and evening. Having seen his bookshelf and given his proximity to me, I think i shall have to visit colonel_maxim more frequently... Also got him to sign off on my black powder and shotgun certificate forms so that's one step closer to trying out musketry for me.
Actually, that turned out to be a lot sooner than expected - had to come back in the morning to retrieve my PDA which I'd left behind. I did have the offer of a dealer's pass to LFCC but decided I just didn't fancy it so I popped across to PC World to scope out cases. Given I pulled a fully functioning XP3000+, NForce 2 mobo and 9800 Pro and I have a couple of 180Gb HDs sitting about, I figure I should reinstall them and maybe retire the PII/400 in the loft. Hell, the Pentium 133 has been sitting in the loft for at least 2 years without being turned on. What can one do with super-obsolete PCs apart from take them to the dump?
Also popped down to Camden Town to hunt down missing comics and track down a few bits and pieces for the LOTNA Who-themed meet on Saturday. Got back and, following SMS and phone discussions, concluded that a) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is clearly a better stress tester of PCs than Half Life 2 or FEAR and b) I'd clearly been a tad too aggressive in overclocking Kate's PC... Otherwise, spent the evening flitting back and forth between Stalingrad and the Western Desert on Call of Duty 2.
This week's been distressingly hot thus far. Downside of working from home. KL might be worse but there'd be ceiling fans and air conditioners! On the bright side, it's now looking pretty likely that I can go to Beltring for most of the week now. Still screwed for Galactica One and the ECWS musters though.
Was going to go down to ULU to fence tonight but got load of work to do and I've got to head down to Bristol tomorrow morning. Will pack my fencing kit so I can drive straight from Bristol to Saxon on Thursday.