James Titcumb

So Tuesday at work they attempted to build a Ferrero Rocher pyramid. We ended up building about 3 different pyramids, none of which were as impressive as the advert, as you can see. For the evening me and Hannah made a big old list of stuff to do:

• Do some my clients site
• Play Fallout: New Vegas
• Cook dinner
• Food shop
• Order Freyja’s main Christmas present
• Sell old mobile
• Do my accounts

Out of that list all I managed to do was do some of my clients site, cook dinner, and Hannah ordered Freyja’s present. It was a productive evening because of doing the website, but everything else was shelved so I left it to the next day…

… which was Wednesday. It was a busy day at work as normal, and we got lazy and ordered pizza for dinner. I did however get to play about 10 minutes of Fallout: New Vegas before we flaked out and went to bed.

Thursday was a day of many deliveries for Hannah. Our new tumble drier came, which has been fantastic in this November Rain (Hah! Music reference…). Freyja’s main Christmas present from me and Hannah arrived as well, a shiny new toy kitchen thing which cost a pretty penny, but hopefully she’ll enjoy. We also had Tesco come, which reminds me, I need to get on with doing the shopping for next week!

Friday wasn’t too eventful (well, it was at work, had a big old meeting to discuss Phones…) – Hannah was working in the evening, so I got some client work done. When getting Freyja ready for bed, the fireworks started of course though. They’re noisy and unavoidable and thankfully didn’t keep her up too much. The great thing is seeing her face when they went off and lit up the sky – I wrapped her up nice and warm and we stood out the front of the house watching quite an impressive home firework display by one of our neighbours. She loved it and pointed and squeaked every time one went off.

Saturday I went shopping for some Christmas bits – big mistake. It was horrendously busy and full of annoying people. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate crowds and the general public, so it was a bit of a nightmare for me. Standing in a shop waiting for them to look up the item because Hannah’s Christmas present happened to not have a price tag and me sweating buckets and Freyja writhing and crying in her pram is really not my idea of a good time. I tried going to town to look at some book shops, but it was crowded, annoying and Freyja started whining so I just had to leave. We had home made Tomato Soup for dinner (I thought it fitting, being fireworks “weekend”), which was scrummy and Freyja loved it too. She loves home cooked food, and I swear she has a “home-cooked-food” detector that makes her not want to eat anything else… she knows what’s good for her at least!

Sunday was awesome – me and 3 others from the Deco got suited, booted, locked and loaded for Russell’s private day at UCAP Virus. Everyone played fairly, I don’t think I even heard anyone utter the words “Take yer f**king hit!!” which was really good. People were being tactical, not being idiots, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. Monday again was uneventful – Hannah worked, and I was shattered so I flaked out and watched crap telly, just like Sunday.

Yesterday me and Freyja went for a trip to our boss Luke’s house for his birthday celebrations and had a canapé evening. Most of the couple of hours I was there was me chasing her around making sure she didn’t smash Luke’s glass cabinets filled with expensive-looking glasses with the pool balls she was throwing around violently… so it was a bit of a relief when she was settled down to bed. On the downside, it looks like I need my car looked at – the orange engine light has come on so I’m going to have to take it in to have the computer checked to see what’s wrong with it. Not that we can actually afford to get it fixed… Gah!

Anyway, I’d better get on with doing the shopping (I love shopping online!), and get Hannah some dinner! Ta ta for now folks, enjoy your week.

Oops, I missed the last 2 weeks posts. Admittedly for Friday and Saturday I didn’t even have a blog whilst I set up my new server configuration for High Availability. So this will cover the last 2 weeks. What’s gone on? Well plenty of stuff. I went to Combat South on Sunday which was fun, and took Phil with us for his first session. He enjoyed, Jon enjoyed and it was a good day (although raining to begin with).

Weeks progress as normal really – go to work, come home, give Freyja dinner, get her ready for bed, put her to sleep, collapse on sofa in front of tellybox. Normally on Tuesdays, Hannah goes to work as well so I’m left to do everything on my own, but there is an upside in that I get to spend time with just me and Freyja which is nice. If she’s in a good mood… She’s been teething lots over the last 7 days or so; her canines are coming through so she’s been mega grumpy recently.

Last Saturday me and Freyja made an impromptu visit to Somerset to see my granny who had just bought a PC (from previously owning a Mac) and couldn’t figure out how to get it connected. So I drove for an hour and a half up and fixed it for her. Things I do! Never mind, it was nice seeing them anyway!

We went to see my skin and blister on Sunday as well which was nice but Freyja was very ill and sicked up all over our car seat! Oh dear, think it was a tummy bug, because I had the same thing on the Tuesday, how annoying. I spent all day in bed sleeping pretty much. A nice change, but I hate being ill as I feel really unproductive and useless… Anyway, a couple of days later and Hannah got it as well as she was sicking up all night, so we all got it in the end.

Friday came and Hannah got all excited as Rob Zombie tickets were released for his tour in February 2011. Needless to say she was on the phone before 9am trying to get tickets. I managed to get them in the end through TicketWeb, so we are going to the gig, hooray!

Tom came down on the Saturday as well, and we had all the good times. We went to Sakura Japanese restaurant which was exceedingly good – I love Japanese food and Sakura was great. Next time I must try their sushi as I had a rice dish (sushi + drinking = bad combination). Sunday obviously was spent being hungover mostly, although I wasn’t too bad – probably because Tom forced me to drink plenty of water before bed – thanks Tom!

And Monday was great too – had Phil over after work, ordered in some pizza and watched Harry Brown which was absolutely 100% fantastic. I’d highly recommend this film to anyone, and is one of the best films I’ve seen for a long time. Brilliant. You can read Hannah’s review on it, which pretty much sums up my thoughts as well. Last night I did some work on a client’s site, and I’d better get on with some more now as Hannah’s at work. C’est la vie!

As a promise to Hannah I’m making new regular “personal” blog posts that aren’t to do with geeky computery things. So here we go.

Sunday we went to see Tom/Soph/Joss/Luke/Laurie for a lovely schnitzel dinner and to have a bit of banter. It’s always nice seeing them as I don’t get to see “them lot” as much as I’d like to, but it’s so much more difficult organising to come up sometimes. Monday evening Hannah went out for drinks for Mark’s birthday so I was left at home, apparently I was asleep when she came back so whatever was on telly must’ve been interesting… Tuesday she was working so again I was almost left on my own, but thankfully Phil came over and we watched The Hangover which was surprisingly funny and worth a watch for some giggles. Wednesday we had an evening in by ourselves (a rare occurrence now that Hannah’s working many days!) so we spread out on the sofa and watched some telly. Thursday I went to a “focus advisory group” to help Leila formulate some ideas for her new business venture, the Esteem Engine, which looks very promising and I think she wants me to do her website, so that’ll be more work for me to do! Yesterday Hannah was working again so I invited Phil over and we watched a couple of “An Idiot Abroad” episodes over a few beers and curry.

This morning Freyja has been super cute and saying great words such as “teeth”, “cheese”, “daddy” and “mummy”. She can touch lots of parts of her body when asked to as well now – her nose, eyes, ears, teeth, tongue, head, toes and tummy. She’s getting so clever at things, and the other day she built a whole tower out of mega blocks whilst I was at work and being really social with Hannah’s friends’ babies. Unfortunately as it’s the weekend I have to change all the poopy nappies. Today we’re off to get my eyes looked at for suitability for laser eye surgery which will be fun, and tomorrow I’m going airsofting again, woohoo! Roll on tomorrow…

Yes, I’ve been doing more thinking and research into a new gun again, but this time I’ve been researching the British Army’s SA80. As far as I can make out, there are three that I could get, two are expensive, and the other appears to be pretty hard to find…

The Star L85A2 and G&G L85A2 are the expensive ones. There have been rumours that the G&G is a bit unreliable, but it does have a cool automatic blowback feature (which I don’t know if the Star version has). The Star version, I hear, is a very solid weapon, and fits the SUSAT (Sight Unit Small Arms, Trilux), unlike the G&G which you have to file. All very good, but these guns are upwards of £350…

I did a little more research and for some time ICS have been developing their own L85A2 (pictured above). Supposedly it is released now and available to buy for £285. It’s cheaper, and a lot newer. I might wait a little while for some reviews to appear…

I’ve been looking at various airsoft guns again as I’ve been wanting a second (or third if you count the SOCOM) gun for some time now. I’ve been in two minds, between an AK47, or an MP5. I think I’m leaning towards the MP5, I’ve seen a nice CA metal MP5 (see here). It’s a pretty gun, fixed stock, tactical light, and of course, it has the high quality build of most CA guns I’ve seen.

The only drawback of course, is that it’s £280 inc VAT, and I have £0 to spend on it… doh!

Edit: I’ve just seen this one, which is just £215, but is just a silenced version instead of one with tac’ light…

Edit 2: I’ve seen the cheapest so far, a CA MP5 A4 for £199.99! Now all I need is a penny shy of £200…