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Saturday, 26 February 2005. Oscar
Wilde said, “There is only one thing worse than not getting what you want,
and that is getting it!” See me? After all the frustrations of recent
times, I have been looking forward to having ‘do nothing days’. After six
of them I have been looking for something to do.
There
was a prog on TV about a young Russian girl who claimed that she had ‘x-ray
vision’, and could ‘see’ into people’s bodies. She was investigated by some
American ‘bunko’ specialists. The outcome was that they applied some
statistical tests and found that her diagnoses were within chance
expectations. I wasn’t happy with the statistical explanation, so I wrote a
prog to test it. Although it is obvious that the girl does not have ‘x-ray
vision’, the statistical argument does not seem to be valid. You may have
seen the news items about the cot deaths, where an ‘expert’ used the
statistical argument that it was less likely to have multiple cot deaths
than just the single incident. He was so wrong! Several mothers who were
convicted on his evidence have now been acquitted. The same ‘cock-eyed’
statistics seem to have been used here. They said that by chance she would
get four out seven diagnoses correct. My prog says one in seven! She got
four correct! I am not a mathematician, or statistician, I just have good
logic. I may put the full argument and the prog in my technical section
later.
The
problem that I have had about the FTP to Bravenet has not been
satisfactorily resolved. I have worked round it. You can follow the subject
here.
That’s
me not had meat for two months, and feeling OK. I’m also taking
multi-vitamins at a cost of 10p/day! Have to start on dairy products soon.
Right shenanigans about the Sudan.1 colouring scandal! The Quorn products
are not affected.
BTW,
if you are looking for the recent family fracas, see the previous page.
Google
has, at last, picked up on the Eileen Holland (the warden here) verbal
mugging pages. So anyone searching for her, by name, or others involved
will be taken to my basildoncouncil.org site.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wednesday, 02 March 2005. The
family scandal continues
here. Matrix
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Saturday,
05 March 2005.
Had a bit of a prob with my eyes last night. Not serious, but concerned.
Bored today. Getting my
mail during the past few days, I have had odd things happening with Outlook
Express. I thought that I had a virus. In the end, I found that it was the
McAfee spam killer. Bloody weird prog! If you disable after installing, you
get your email server settings corrupted! I have disabled it for good.
Always said that they were a bloody nuisance.
To counteract my boredom, I
have put up the story of the Russian girl with ‘x-ray eyes’. You may find
it interesting. See here.
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Sunday, 06 March 2005. I have just been listening to
‘Songs of Praise’, as I do most Sundays (with my cup of tea and bread &
jam!) I haven’t been able to settle for the past few days, and because of
the weather, did not go to the keyboard club, with Carl, last night. As I
say, watching ‘Songs of Praise’ I had a peaceful feeling come over me, and
then I had the picture of a ‘spoof’ page I did a long time ago to annoy
Chloe when I set up a site in her name. Gloria Hunniford was speaking about
her daughter, Karen Keating, dying of cancer, and I felt closeness. So, I
had a look at the page again. (This site is so big now that I have
forgotten a lot of what I have put here.) Reading the page, despite the
‘off-putting’ wording to annoy Chloe, I saw that does tell a good part of
the truth. I have come through some frightening times, and I haven’t
realised how well I have been able to cope. Well, that’s it! I have got
that off my chest! The page is here.
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Monday, 07 March 2005. Still a bit bored, so I have
updated my Welcome video. I have done it in Windows media rather than
RealPlayer as I have found a few probs with RP. It is 5 mins 35 secs long,
and just 1.8 meg. It seems to play OK at 200% size, if not leave it at
normal. See here.
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Tuesday, 08 March 2005. Now put up a version of my welcome
video for broadband. Quality a lot better - @ 3.71meg – twice that of the
dial-up version. Worth comparing. See here. Just done my bread
baking …….. smells great!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wednesday,
09 March 2005.
Still keeping myself busy learning. Now plugged the organ into MusicMatch and
done a direct recording of Danny Boy. Not too bad. I have compressed the
file a good bit, but it does not seem to affect the quality too much. Hear here!
You may like to compare it to the one I did on the Yamaha PSR620 a while
ago. Hear here!
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Saturday, 12 March 2005. I have given a plug to Carl &
Kevin for their music – hear here
– the two tracks by Carl seem the same,
but he assures me that they are different!
I see that Google have now caught up with my move to Bravenet. Insert
‘Eileen Holland’ insert Google and you get my pages about the lying twisted
cow. Also ‘Matrix Interiors’ has been picked up.
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Wednesday, 16 March 2005. Gradually developing my skills at
putting video on here. This story uses a wmv video that is 9.5 minutes long
and is less than 5meg. The story is here. Carl is now sitting
with me so that I can talk to a human rather than to a ‘brick wall’
(camera). I hope that this will motivate me to get it all on to DVD.
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Friday, 18 March 2005. I have been pushing my web site to
what I think is getting near to its limits. I am putting ‘large’ video
files for my autobiography on here. The files are about 30 meg each, and
are in Windows wmv format, and are about 30 minutes long. They play as they
download, so there is no wait. All seems OK. See here.
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Saturday, 19 March 2005. I have now tidied up the video
page and added some more videos. Enjoy! See here.
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Wednesday, 23 March 2005. My local Conservative councillor,
Andrew Baggott, visited today. Seemed a genuine guy. We talked about
politics and morality. I pointed him to www.basildoncouncil.org and www.northlandspark.org It’s unlikely that any of the points that
I raised on those sites will be followed up, as the implications would be
too far reaching. Though, I do have a Machiavellian motive in saying this!
(I must learn not to keep ’tilting at windmills’ – I’m too old!)
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Friday, 25 March 2005. You will have noticed that I have
given the site a bit of a face lift. I did it to get the hang of Word2004.
It is a lot different to the old Word97 that I was using for my web pages.
I really am getting old ………. Takes me a lot longer to lean how to do
things! Then …. bloody hell ……… I go and forget it all again! Never mind,
senility is the last refuge of the tormented man! As I said 2005 years ago,
“What a way to spend Good Friday!” Happy Easter!
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Wednesday, 30 March 2005. Spent an interesting time messing
about with a ‘tree’ to demonstrate how the site is set up. Have
a look here. You can use the links to see how it works. Just
use your back arrow to make your way back if you get lost.
Can’t seem to get the hang of setting the default settings for the
hyperlinks. Never mind it all looks pretty! Hope that you like the ‘new
look’ of the site. It needed a spring clean.
It’s now six years since I
started the site. I have put up the first edition of the site. It ain’t
‘alf grewed – from about six web pages to nearly 500! See what you think.
Difficult memories – but that is what life is about. Don’t use the email
link, it is now defunct. See here.
I had a fright on Sunday.
To cut the proverbial short, I sat on a chair that was not there, and fell
backwards onto the edge of the table. Banged the back of my head quite bad.
Dodgy when you’re 71 yo. Surprisingly it did no damage that I can tell. (No
sense – no feeling?!!)
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Monday, 04 April 2005. Progressing with the video theme,
I got an idea from the artist at Saturday’s keyboard club. Normally the
artist has a mirror to let you see his/her hands playing. This fella also
had a camera so that you had another view. I thought that I would have a go
at videoing me playing. Here is my first attempt. A bit embarrassing, but I
enjoyed doing it! I just jumped in at the deep end. Must get better as time
goes on?! See here.
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Saturday, 09 April 2005. My, Oh, my! I am a clever boy!
(Not really!) I watched the wedding today, and thought that I would have a
go at editing a version of the TV prog. It took me about two hours, and
it’s not too bad. As I am going to have a go at doing a DVD of me playing
the console organ, it has been good practice. It is 15 minutes long, and 25
meg. Hope you like it. Find it here.
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Monday, 18 April 2005. Now I have to say what a stupid
boy I am! The tape player on my music centre packed up, so I looked at
buying a replacement. I found one at Argos for £130, just what I wanted. It
has a turntable, and a three CD player. I have always told others that when
they find something that they want, to put the model number into ‘Google’,
and find the cheapest. I DID NOT DO THIS! Later I went on to Goggle to find
out the full spec for it. Lo, & behold, I found the same one in Comet
at £90! I could have cancelled it, but to ‘punish’ myself, (and being
lazy!) I left it. Some time ago I tried to buy a bread maker from Argos, and it did not turn up, so I
cancelled it. Later three were delivered, which I refused! Maybe the same
will happen this time, and I will get the Comet one. Knowing my luck, it
would be unavailable! Pic
of it here.
I wrote the bit above last night. The sods delivered the music centre as
promised, so I can’t cancel it! AND! I did not check that it had a mike
input and random CD play! I am getting old, and losing it! Never mind.
I see that an investigation
is to be made by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) regarding
£850,000 being misappropriated. I did tell them a while back where £5,000
went. See
here.
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Wednesday, 20 April 2005. My brain is certainly
deteriorating (OO! OO! I spelt that right!) I had a go at MIDI again and had probs printing the
score. I had the prob a while back, and sorted it. But, I had forgotten how
to do it! This happens a lot now. To keep the ol’ brain ticking over I had
a look at the DOS progs which wot I have writ, to see if I could add a bit
of colour. Success, have a look at this example. I Ching. You will be warned about running
it, but, like all my progs, it is OK.
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Saturday, 30 April 2005. See my first attempt at a slide
show here
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Monday, 02 May 2005. Well ……. I really got stuck in to
learn this slide/video system, and it’s not too bad. The selection of
pictures could have been better, but never mind. The main problem was
getting the pictures to load in the correct order. I solved it by renaming
them in numerical order – quite a task. The Windows Media File is only
10meg, for about 12 mins of video. All in all, it has taken me about three
hours from start to finish, including the learning. Later I may have a go
at pre-planning a project, and be a bit more professional. The quality is
good enough to run it at 2X size. See here. (Posted later – tried it at
full screen and looks OK) (Now superseded – see below)
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Tuesday, 03 May 2005. Still aiming at improving the
slide show. It is now about 22meg, and the picture & sound quality is
excellent, even at full screen. Also I have improved a photo. BTW have your
sound on, because there is a commentary! See here.
(Broadband) Oh, hell! Just found that I put March instead of May
when I did the last update of the home page. Hope it did not put you off!
Told you …… I’m getting old!
Later …. Done a version for
dial-up. Just about acceptable at 2X! At 1.8 meg it is VERY small. See here.
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Thursday, 05 May 2005. As my name is Edward Charles
Aylward I have looked around the net for similar names. Some time ago I
found out about Theodore
Edward Aylward who was
a composer and organist and died three months before I was born. See
here. Now, I have found a Saint Godric whose father was an Ailward, and mother named Edwenna. Now is that, or is that not another coincidence? See
here. He talked to the animals – I was a ‘horse whisperer’.
He became a hermit – I am a bit of a recluse now.
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Monday,
09 May 2005. It’s a
terrible conflict to have! When I am busy, I long to have nothing to do.
But, when I’m doing nothing, I get that ‘itchy’ feeling to get on and do
something. At the Basildon Keyboard Club on Saturday, I met
a lady who does keyboard teaching in the local centre. It is also where my
neighbour, Trisha, goes. (Yes … some people do still talk to me!) So …… I
decide to have a go and learn how to read the dots. But …. by today, I
can’t be bothered! Why? All I can say is, “Lacking in motivation, and
commitment.”
This
morning I got up and just ‘couldn’t be asked’. I forced myself to go for my
walk. Came back and did the dusting. Couldn’t settle, so I made my bread.
Settled down, but still had the ‘itch’ so I did a new version of a card
trick that I have on my fun pages. It is for Broadband. See
here.
Watched
the VE Day +60, programmes on TV yesterday, Makes you wonder whether it was
all worth it, when only 60% of the electorate vote. The Blair faced liar
got in with less than 1:5 of the population voting for him. Eight out of
ten did not want him, or just couldn’t be bothered!
BTW,
listening to Radio2 just now, they had an hour on bereavement ……. Very
uplifting!
That’s
my bread just done. Better than shop bread, and only takes 30 minutes to do
four loaves. Very tasty ….. very sweet!
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Thursday, 12 May 2005. Never
thought that I would get a mobile phone! Anyway …. saw this offer in my Viking
Direct catalogue. Motorola C115 phone for £23.50 including
£10 worth of calls & 1000 free text messages (not that I would use all
the text messages!) At the back of my mind was the common thought that
being out I might need to get a taxi, or phone a friend (not got many of
those!). So really the phone only cost £13.50! I can top it up via the
web, sent texts via the web, and administer the account there as well. I
can even check on all past calls etc. The phone has a bag full of
facilities, and is not just a keypad & call button phone. As I see it,
it does everything except take photos. And, even phones that do, don’t have
a flash … so …..? Calls cost 30p/minute (but no line cost) – expensive, but
cheap in an emergency. I am using http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/
I
see that Richard Spendlove MBE has scrubbed the web site that I set up for
him. He did not bother to get someone to take it over for him. (or is he,
like me, …… ain’t got no friends!?) His site is still on here. See
here. Never mind, Merry Christmas to him! The URL www.richard-spendlove.com
is still active
I
go to the hospital tomorrow to have a camera check on my eyes to see if I
have retinopathy caused by my diabetes.
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Friday, 13 May 2005. Feeling
knackered! At the hospital this morning for the retinopathy check. I had
very little sleep last night, and that did not help. Had a lay down when I
got back, and slept for two hours. Doing this to keep my brain awake. The
drops they used are still affecting my eyes. The result was good & bad.
The good is that there is no immediate alarm. The bad is that I do have one
small aneurism (swelling of the blood vessel) in the right eye. As it takes
years to develop, I expect that I will have ‘exited quietly stage left’
before I feel the effects.
I
looked on Google and found these two references - http://www.mydaddylovesme.org/MDLM18.html
- a touch too mawkish for me (though notice the ‘I had it, and it went
away’ this is what commonly happens to me!), and a NHS reference - http://www.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=27968
– which is informative.
I
had planned to do the shopping that I have avoided for a few months, but
with the eye drops and all, I couldn’t be bothered!
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Tuesday, 17 May 2005. Had a
very bad day Saturday, following yesterday’s eye test. I was giddy, as
though I was drunk. Can’t make out why it should have happened. (Carotid
arteries?) Took a sleeping pill and had an early night. Felt quite good on
Sunday. Did not bother cooking a dinner – just had a sandwich. The
giddiness comes and goes.
In
the days of yore, about five years ago, if you visited a personal web site,
you made an entry in the Guest Book. Not so now, people just come in and
leave. So, I have discontinued the guest book. Visitors can always leave an
anonymous message via my
contact page.
If
you built a nuclear shelter, what would you do if your neighbours tried to
get in? Shoot them!? (You only have enough supplies for one!) Last year I
bought a Calor Gas heater & camping gas stove as an insurance against a
long power failure. This year I have bought myself an air conditioning unit
as insurance against a heat wave. (Even a normally hot summer is bad for
me!) It cost £200 from B&Q. What should I do if my
neighbours try to muscle in? It’s only a small unit and would not cope with
more than two in a small room. See here.
Also
bought some good headphones (Trust Silverline 751B from Maplin
- £33), so that I can play the keyboards and organ after I have had a few
whiskies! See
here.
The
starlings are all hatching, and watching them is a lesson in parenthood!
When the fledglings first leave the nest they make a raucous noise and
pester the parents to be fed, and they are. But, after a couple of days the
parents stop feeding them, and indeed peck them if they become a nuisance!
They soon learn how to feed themselves. Now ….. that is really a lesson in
parenthood!
As
I have been getting a bit bored, I thought that I would take up a hobby. So
I am growing a beard! Well …… some old farts have a lawn for a hobby ….
Mine is just a wee bit smaller! I’ll let you see it as it progresses.
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Wednesday, 18 May 2005. Well
that was a surprise! (And no-one told me ….. and no acknowledgement of my
contribution …. Oh well ho hum hehe!) I was browsing around and found that
Richard Spendlove MBE has transmogrified the site that I set up for him to
- http://www.richardspendlovembe.piczo.com/
- well worth a look. The ads & pop-ups are a bit of a pain, but free
web space always has that penalty. My original is still here - www.richard-spendlove.com.
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Friday, 27 May 2005. Well
….. would you Adam & Eve it ….. last Friday I had a call From Arran
Homes to offer me a bungalow in sheltered accommodation at Lamlash! I took
three seconds to decide, and said yes. It’s a bit hard with Kevin and Carl
moving to Basildon a year
ago. But we do not see each other much.
There is a problem about when I should be moving. To keep the cost down, I
am getting a ‘return load’ offer. I take up the tenancy on 13th
June, but I may have to bring it forward a week to suit the removal people.
At
the moment I am 95% packed ….. I could move tomorrow!
Sadly,
I have not coped too well. Last night I almost dialled 999. I kept going
faint. Fortuitously it went OK. I took a sleeping pill, and was up at 6am, and did two hours of packing. I felt
brilliant! That’s the problem with this carotid artery problem. You could
drop dead in a second or live till 100! I just take it as it comes.
I’ll
let my friends know the new address and phone as and when I move.
The
weather today has been HOT! Gave me a chance to test out the new air conditioner
that I bought. It’s brilliant!
If
there is a while without any postings it will because I am on the move.
I’ll try to put something on here a day or two before the move.
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Friday, 03 June 2005. I will
be packing this thing up tomorrow, and will not be on-line until about
Sunday 12th June.
The removers are coming to uplift on Tuesday pm, and move me in on Friday
am. I will sleep here Tuesday & Wednesday, and travel up by train on
Thursday. I am buying a new cooker, pans, kettle and bed. That makes it
easier for me to move, and it all needed renewing anyway.
On Thursday night, I will be staying here - http://www.crescentparkhouse.co.uk/
- then go over on the 09:45 ferry.
With a bit of luck I will be sorted in a week! See you all soon – God
willing!
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