Interview with the Vampire…

I’ve never really enjoyed reading, so I rarely do it, except for technical stuff for work. Instead I spend hours in front of the TV, half watching things while I do other stuff. Recently I decided to try and reduce the number of hours I spend in front of the TV. I already do lots of physical stuff, so adding more of that seemed pointless, so I decided I would have a go at reading again…

I’ve always liked vampire movies, so vampire books seemed like the obvious first choice. I promptly sent off for the Complete Vampire Cronicles, which is actually just the first four of many vampire books by Anne Rice. I’ve just finished reading the first book, Interview with the Vampire. I’ve watched the film many times and I love it, so I was a little bit nervous about reading the book. I spent the first quarter of the book thinking, “that’s not how it was in the film”, or, “I wonder when such and such an event will happen”. By about half-way through I had forgotten about the film and was quite into it. Last night I finished it, and I must say it was one of the few times in my life I enjoyed reading a book.

In an attempt to keep my momentum I read the first paragraph of the second book, The Vampire Lestat. Hopefully, I won’t find it too hard to pick that up now…

I guess from my blog posts you will be able to judge how well I get on with the second book 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Crank and Children…

I went to see the film Crank on Friday. It stars Jason Statham, who’s pretty cool in The Transporter (1 & 2) and several Guy Richie films. Of course, I didn’t expect Oscars, but this seemed like a random set of scenes designed to thrill or shock loosely strung together. It seemed more like a student film project than a cinema release. Some bits were enjoyable, so bit were not. If you’re a fan, wait for the DVD. If not, forget it ever existed…

On a ligher note, several things happened recently involving children that made me laugh, grossed me out or just plain shocked me:
1) I was talking to a friends 7 year old daughter, who asked me about my wife. From there, the conversation went something like this:

Me: I don’t have a wife.
Her: Everyone has a wife!
Me: I don’t. I live on my own.
Her: Everyone lives with someone. Even John and Richard live together and one of them is the wife!

John and Richard are a Gay couple, so this cracked me up. So as not to offend, I’m not going to publish which of the guys she thought was the wife. 🙂

2) I was at a friends 41st birthday party over the weekend. At one point she walked up to me with a pretty young woman and said, “This is my niece, she’s 12 years old!”… After she left, there was a collective, “Oh my God!”, from the group of people I was standing with. Twelve year old girls should not look that way! It’s just wrong on so many levels…
3) At the weekend, I was in a kids swimming pool with my brother and his two kids. After a few minutes, one of the kids noticed something in the pool with us. The “Crap Alert” was sounded and there was a sharp exit… 🙁
4) On the way out from the pool my nephew said, “I want an ice cream. You don’t have to ask my mom!” The onset of lies, deceit and trickery in a childs mind. You’ve got to love it 🙂
Cheers

Tim…

My Pool Nemesis…

Over the months I’ve come into contact with several people who have competed for the the title of my Pool Nemesis, including:

  • Really slow, floats with the current, guy.
  • Middle of the lane backstroke guy with wide flappy arms.
  • Three quarters of a length diagonal lane swimmer girl.
  • Doesn’t swim much but gets in the way when I’m trying to turn girl.
  • Swim half a length and stop to talk to the life guard dude.
  • Refuse to swim in a clockwise clockwise direction in the lane, even when asked by the life guard, guy.
  • Stand still and chill out about 5 metres away from the edge of the lane girl.
  • Lean against the lane rope pusing it 1 metre into the lane girl.

I think today I met my true Pool Nemesis. She had drawn some of her super powers from virtually everyone I have encountered in the past. You’ve got to respect someone that can pull together so many different skills and integrate them seamlessly into a single package. Truely worthy of the title! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Random Rant Alert…

If you are sensitive to random venomous rants switch off now!

I know different countries have different attitudes to some of the following points, so please don’t be offended, but as an uptight English man the following things drive me nuts!

I hate it when people:

  • drop litter in the street. There’s no defence. It’s just plain wrong.
  • throw rubbish out of your car window. You may no longer be able to see it, but I can!
  • flick ash or your cigarette butts out of the car window. You have an ash tray. Use it!
  • drop chewing gum, or sticking it to objects so I end up touching it by accident. I’m a big fan of chewing gum, but when I’ve finished with it I put it in the bin.
  • jump queues. I’m bigger, faster and stronger than average, so if I really wanted to get to the front of a queue by force I probably could. The reason I don’t is I have manners.
  • let there dog go to the toilet in a public place, like a park, without cleaning it up. It may be fine in the countryside, but in a city it’s just wrong.
  • murder a soft toy and fake a suicide to cover your tracks. It’s the start of a slippery slope. Today it’s a soft toy, tomorrow it’s genocide. You will be found and dealt with. Right Doug
  • hog the middle lane on the motorway. Once you’ve overtaken, move over! (suggested by Jeff Moss)

The list could go on, but…

Cheers

Tim…

Yoga Mala…

On Sunday a friend held a sponsored Yoga Mala to raise money for a local childrens hospital. A Mala is a set of prayer beads, made up of 108 beads, so to complete a Yoga Mala you must perform 108 Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar A). I couldn’t make the event on Sunday, and my friend was planning to supervise, so we both did our Yoga Mala the day before.

It was quite an interesting process. It started off easy, then gradually got harder as I got progressively more tired, but at about 80 it became rather easy again. The combination of that and a tough Karate session have left me walking like John Wayne. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

FC6 Draft Articles…

I’ve written a couple of draft installation articles for DB10g R2 and AS10g R3 on Fedora Core 6 (Test 2).

I’ll revisit the articles once the final version of FC6 is released. I’m hoping the warning at the start of the articles prevents a repeat of the FC5 incident. 🙂

As expected, FC6 has diverged even further from RHEL4. There are a bunch of packages that either don’t exist or are deprecated. The software seems to work OK, but I’m not sure how many problems are waiting in the wings. It will be interesting to see how Oracle and RHEL5 get on together, especially where RAC is concerned.

Cheers

Tim…

Photo Shoot Update…

I just got some previews of the images that have been sent to Oracle Magazine…

I like the setup of the shots. The sky looks really cool in most of them, but I don’t. I tend to squint when I smile, so I look like I’ve got no eyes. Also, the shirt I wore was a bit of a mistake. There wasn’t enough contrast with the sky and it looks enormous, so I look like “I’ve eaten all the pies”. At least I won’t get recognized and mobbed on The Streets of San Francisco. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

Films I’ve watched recently…

I’ve seen a few films recently, but not got round to blogging about them, so here’s a quick update:

Snakes on a Plane – It’s like a high budget ‘B’ movie, but it’s really cool. It’s not going to win an Oscar, but Samuel Jackson is as cool as ever, and it’s a total bite-fest! 🙂

Lady in the Water – This had really bad reviews, but I liked it. It wasn’t as involved as previous films by M. Night Shyamalan. There was some suspense, some “make you jump” moments and quite a few bits I found amusing. I really dig the leading lady (Bryce Dallas Howard), who stared in The Village. She is in Spiderman 3, so perhaps it won’t be a rubbish as the last installment.

Revolver – I watched this again for the first time in ages. What a great film! Jason Statham is cool and I really like the whole vibe of the film. Must watch it more often.

Cheers

Tim…

Hallelujah…

OK. It’s been a long wait, but 10g Release 2 is now available for Tru64. There is still no sign of the 10.1.0.4 or 10.1.0.5 patches, but you can’t have everything. Of course, the big issue now is, how can I persuade the company to go for a migration???
This is definitely the last release for Tru64, so we’ve got to move to it, but who knows when?

Cheers

Tim…