Gaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhh MK IV!

[frances]

I know what gardeners question time (a gardening programme on the radio here) would say about something that is on its last legs and that will never recover.  But I assume that you have emotional feelings towards this feather and so want to keep it.

[Capt. Dirigible]

Bloody digital TV!! I hate it! I never had a fraction of the aggro I get with digital TV when it was analogue. On Monday I had an external ariel fitted..well the Council TOLD me I had to have one fitted and all the 'unsightly' dishes would be removed. Not that I had a dish. I had a  rigged up internal ariel but at least I had a clear picture and all the channels I'm supposed to have. Since the installation my picture has gone grainy..last night I lost the signal to over 50 channels and today I come home to find not a single channel available. From BBC1 through to 5 USA and beyond ..nuthin'..zip..bugger all!

I phoned the company to complain today and got a recorded message telling me that if I've lost a signal/channels it's due to the 'transition' to digital but surely, with an ariel on the roof of a block of flats in London I should have a good strong signal? Bloody typicalof Hackney Council. Probably gave to contract to the lowest bidder and it looks like they've made a right pig's ear of it!
If you pay peanuts you get monkeys!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

[Banfili]

I've got to get a digital dish because I live in a digital 'brownspot' -  some times everything is peachy, sometimes some of the channels are pffzt - but I knew that when I moved here - so far I haven't bothered, but I will after the end of the financial year.

[Aleister Crow]

A couple of years ago I gave up on television, shut off the cable service and never looked back. I don't miss it, or the expense.

Those very few shows that are worth watching can easily be found on the internet, and I can see them at my leisure, instead of being stuck with the networks' scheduling, having to worry about recording it, etc.

[Professor Phineas Brownsm]

A couple of years ago I gave up on television, shut off the cable service and never looked back. I don't miss it, or the expense.

Those very few shows that are worth watching can easily be found on the internet, and I can see them at my leisure, instead of being stuck with the networks' scheduling, having to worry about recording it, etc.

it makes sense..... but unfortunatly haveing a 2 yr old Cogling so its usful to have CbbC.

[Ezra Hogbin]

My Gah!
I paid £1500 two weeks ago at a DIY store for my new kitchen, which was delivered yesterday.
I put the TV on last night and the store is advertising 20% off everything this weekend.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

[Rockula]

On the TV thing...

If you're a TV watcher and in an area that has cable I can't recommend it enough. No ariel, no dish and no interference when the weather turns bad.

Also...hardly any Murdoch channels unless you choose to pay for them..which I don't.

My big 'G' today, as for the last week, is the low temperatures playing havoc with my hips and knees. Is this a 'double-dip' Winter or what?

[bicyclebuilder]

A couple of years ago I gave up on television, shut off the cable service and never looked back. I don't miss it, or the expense.

Those very few shows that are worth watching can easily be found on the internet, and I can see them at my leisure, instead of being stuck with the networks' scheduling, having to worry about recording it, etc.

it makes sense..... but unfortunatly haveing a 2 yr old Cogling so its usful to have CbbC.

TV for kids is the best invention since sliced bread! And it's more educational than the stuff we used to watch. Transformers, He-man, Roadrunner and Coyote, Tom and (I'm going to hit you with this pan and your face will make an imprint into it) Jerry. We've got Nick(elodeon) Junior. Now our daughter watches Dora the explorer (Dutch dubbed, English for Spanish) and Nihao Kailan. She knows how to count to 5 in Dutch, English and Chinese.  

My garhh of the day: A couple of weeks ago, my cellphone provider had a malfunction due to a fire. Who decided to make just one central distributing centre, I don't know. If anything happens to it, and it did, no one can make a phonecall. After a week they managed to fix it. Now to compensate the inconvenience, the provider decided to let everyone make free phonecalls and text messages for a week! Jey!!! But, that results in overcrowded lines and delayed text messages. Gaaaahhhrrr. Just compensate with €€€ instead of free calls!!! Ah, well. the free phone week is almost over.

My Gah!
I paid £1500 two weeks ago at a DIY store for my new kitchen, which was delivered yesterday.
I put the TV on last night and the store is advertising 20% off everything this weekend.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

you might want to look into that. Some stores, out of courtesy, give you back the 20%. They don't advertise with it or tell you at the store, but it might be in small print. My wife bought a dress recently and got the discount afterwards back.

[Aleister Crow]

A couple of years ago I gave up on television, shut off the cable service and never looked back. I don't miss it, or the expense.

Those very few shows that are worth watching can easily be found on the internet, and I can see them at my leisure, instead of being stuck with the networks' scheduling, having to worry about recording it, etc.

it makes sense..... but unfortunatly haveing a 2 yr old Cogling so its usful to have CbbC.

Something my seven year old had to get over. Luckily for her, I hooked the TV up to an old PC and loaded a hard drive with Looney Toons, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Ruby Gloom, My little Pony and so on, so it wasn't too traumatizing. 

I'm looking into stuff that's more educational, but as she's only here every other weekend, for now I just let her watch what she wants. If she wants something I don't have, I can usually get it by her next visit.

And GAAH this gorram weather! Near 90 yesterday, 75 today, 65 tomorrow...

[Siliconous Skumins]

A couple of years ago I gave up on television, shut off the cable service and never looked back. I don't miss it, or the expense.

Those very few shows that are worth watching can easily be found on the internet, and I can see them at my leisure, instead of being stuck with the networks' scheduling, having to worry about recording it, etc.

it makes sense..... but unfortunatly haveing a 2 yr old Cogling so its usful to have CbbC.

It *can* be done -  Just hook up the computer to the TV and use TVcatchup: http://tvcatchup.com  You will need to register to use it, but it is completely free and gives you most (about 90%) of the terrestrial Freeview channels streamed live (inc CBBC). It's what I use.
The picture quality is not bad at all, and as long as your broadband connection isn't too laggy, it plays flawlessly. All it does is make you watch one advert before the stream begins, after that the only ads you see are the ones broadcast on the channel you are watching, or until you stream a new channel. With a bit of tinkering you should be able to make it work with MythTv (Linux distro for TV / video), so you can select channels via a windows media remote control (just like watching real TV). Add in XBMC and you have a very nice media centre for all your TV and video needs.

SS

[Aleister Crow]

Elder Scrolls Online. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

"Hey, lets take this wildly popular single player series and make an MMO of it. We'll be rich as Blizzard!"

Completely missing the fact that it's popular because it's not an MMO...

[Augustus Longeye]

Elder Scrolls Online. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

"Hey, lets take this wildly popular single player series and make an MMO of it. We'll be rich as Blizzard!"

Completely missing the fact that it's popular because it's not an MMO...

Thank you!! EXACTLY!!!
What makes TES so friggin' fun is that by the end of the story you are literally a God of destruction, wandering through the world dealing death with nothing but a wiggle of your right buttock!
What makes MMO's fun is that everyone is on roughly equal footing (for the most part) and nobody can kill all other players with a wiggle of their right buttock!
The two are mutually exclusive!
~Longeye~

[Aleister Crow]

Elder Scrolls Online. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

"Hey, lets take this wildly popular single player series and make an MMO of it. We'll be rich as Blizzard!"

Completely missing the fact that it's popular because it's not an MMO...

Thank you!! EXACTLY!!!
What makes TES so friggin' fun is that by the end of the story you are literally a God of destruction, wandering through the world dealing death with nothing but a wiggle of your right buttock!
What makes MMO's fun is that everyone is on roughly equal footing (for the most part) and nobody can kill all other players with a wiggle of their right buttock!
The two are mutually exclusive!
~Longeye~

It gets even better. It's not even being developed by Bethesda. It's been farmed out to Zenimax Online Studios(founded in 2007 specifically to cash in on the MMO craze WoW started). This will be their first release.

No pressure there, hmm? Nothing at all like a massive horde of obsessive, angry TES fans breathing down their necks...

[Flightless Phoenix]

You've got to worry about a company founded in 2007 that HAVEN'T MADE A GAME YET.

That's really rather upsetting.

I loved Oblivion and Skyrim.

I hate MMOs.

I'm crap at games, so I don't want other people around watching my character walk into walls and die every 5 minutes!

Damn you Bethesda.

[Aleister Crow]

You've got to worry about a company founded in 2007 that HAVEN'T MADE A GAME YET.

That's really rather upsetting.

I loved Oblivion and Skyrim.

I hate MMOs.

I'm crap at games, so I don't want other people around watching my character walk into walls and die every 5 minutes!

Damn you Bethesda.

The year they were founded isn't what worries me. A six year development cycle isn't unreasonable; Skyrim took five, and they didn't have to worry about servers, game balance, griefers or a hundred other things (apparently they didn't worry about QA either, but it's better after that slew of patches).

What worried me is that their first offering is going to be a mostly unwanted MMO based on a huge single player franchise, and that they started it when World of Warcraft was flying high and spawning clones left and right(nearly all of which failed).

The screenshot I saw does not inspire confidence. Oblivion had better graphics, and it was Oblivion's success that funded this.

[LukeHogbin]

*snip*(apparently they didn't worry about QA either, but it's better after that slew of patches).
*snip*

The problem with Bethesda isn't that they don't worry about QA, but that they try to cram so many features into their games that in the end they have to remove half of them because they're unfinished and make the rest work as a whole.

I'd say their main problem in this field is prioritising tasks.

[Flightless Phoenix]

You've got to worry about a company founded in 2007 that HAVEN'T MADE A GAME YET.

That's really rather upsetting.

I loved Oblivion and Skyrim.

I hate MMOs.

I'm crap at games, so I don't want other people around watching my character walk into walls and die every 5 minutes!

Damn you Bethesda.

The year they were founded isn't what worries me. A six year development cycle isn't unreasonable; Skyrim took five, and they didn't have to worry about servers, game balance, griefers or a hundred other things (apparently they didn't worry about QA either, but it's better after that slew of patches).

I didn't realise they had already been working on it for 6 years, I misunderstood and thought that development was just beginning. Sorry.

Oh dear... those graphics...

[Aleister Crow]

You've got to worry about a company founded in 2007 that HAVEN'T MADE A GAME YET.

That's really rather upsetting.

I loved Oblivion and Skyrim.

I hate MMOs.

I'm crap at games, so I don't want other people around watching my character walk into walls and die every 5 minutes!

Damn you Bethesda.

The year they were founded isn't what worries me. A six year development cycle isn't unreasonable; Skyrim took five, and they didn't have to worry about servers, game balance, griefers or a hundred other things (apparently they didn't worry about QA either, but it's better after that slew of patches).

I didn't realise they had already been working on it for 6 years, I misunderstood and thought that development was just beginning. Sorry.

Oh dear... those graphics...

Seriously. Guild Wars 2 has been in development nearly as long; compare how they look. For the sake of the players, I hope Zenimax plans to work on that. It's due out next year, they'd better hustle.

And when they're done dancing, they'd better work on those graphics. 

[D.Oakes]

Told the fiance that I need to think.....

[Capt. Dirigible]

Start of a bank holiday weekend, Friday evenig ..I'm a bit sniffy. Wake up Saturday blocked nose..by Saturday afternoon I'm a snot factory and remain that way for three days solid until late Monday evening when my nose 'miraculously' stops running and clears..just in time to go back to work.

We had been looking forward to going to Ford Car Boot sale on Saturday morning(which is usually HUGE and has loads of good stuff) but the weather put the kibosh on that as only a small fraction of the usual amount of stall holders showed up. We then went into Chichester to checkout some charity shops but drew a blank. Although we did find a really cool retro clothes shop called One Legged Jockey..which had some great old clothes, uniforms, hats, shoes etc from all periods..sadly none in my size but worth a look if you're in Chichester. Apparently they have a larger branch in Portsmouth

[The Bullet]

Business trip to Beijing,

Yesterday had a few hours for spare so went to see China railway museum......CLOSED on MONDAYS. GAH.
Today up early. Meeting with the customers. One hour later my stomach got upset.
Rest of the team went on. I spent the whole day in the hotel room.
Have been to South Korea several times before with no problems.
Taken the same precautions (no tap water etc...) here in China.
Hope to be fit again tomorrow.

[The Corsair]

Finally getting involved in a band that has some serious potential but all the singers here are either nasally pop d!cks ore deluded metalheads who sound like they're throwing up spanners.

And, those of us have exam times that differ just enough that we basically have to wait a month, then get a window of about 2 months to do some serious work, then get stuck with exams again all the way through to Christmas

GAHHH!

[Ulysses Reynolds]

My backpack is filled with crushed banana. Now I get to go find a way to clean it right. I am not happy.

[Flightless Phoenix]

I'm having a crisis of faith in myself and my research.

I am writing a thesis about 19th century elite funerary practice, focusing on Highgate cemetery. I love my research (I'm sitting here next to a shelf of books about burial practice, Victorian cemeteries and human bone). I'm passionate about it and I work hard (there's a full set of waterproofs drying downstairs because I got head to toe covered in mud, leaves and rainwater when I spent 4 days at Highgate last week. It's taken two washes to get the grave dirt out of the knees). I think I write well; my undergraduate dissertation received a mark of 80 and my master's proposal was impressive enough to gain me funding this year.

My PhD funding application was unsuccessful; I know 150 people applied for 22 scholarships but I can't help worrying that the quality of my work has suffered without me noticing. We were promised feedback but haven't received any, so I don't know why. It was a stock rejection letter.

I first emailed Highgate for permission in SEPTEMBER and didn't receive a reply until APRIL. Now they are dragging their feet again and at a meeting one board member actually said 'Aww, you look like a baby' whilst I was photocopying the 1920 OS map... I'm 22 but I look young, is this why people don't take me seriously? I also constantly worry that the fact I look a bit alternative is going to hold me back; Goth researching dead things, how cliché!

Tomorrow is my PhD upgrade panel... This decides my future. If successful I get to treat this year as the first year of my PhD and finish a year early (meaning I might be able to afford to complete it, committing my life savings to the cause), if I'm unsuccessful my dreams of becoming a lecturer might never come true. Even if they do I'm looking at least 6 years working full-time in a coffee shop to fund my part-time studies before that.

All in all, now is a bad time to lack faith in my work and my ability...

[frances]

"Tomorrow is my PhD upgrade panel"

Blimey, anyone would be in a state the night before one of those!  Good Luck for the morrow.  (I expect that you know that you are having an attack of the nerves. )

So what if someone comments upon how young you look - that is their problem, not yours and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether you are a good researcher or whether you will become a good lecturer.  And I expect that you really know that too.

Go and have a nice cup of tea and dunk your biscuit for a bit of fun!