One of my biggest bugbears, is seeing people type the same way as they talk.
I am admin on a Scottish Car Club’s Forum, Type-R-Scotland.com…

It would seem we get more of our fair share of donkey typers (type r’s?) apt, this may be because of the ‘Glasgow’ contingent, and the cheaper pricing of Type R’s being accessible to NEDS, but holy fuck, how difficult is it to type something, it’s not as if we’re back in Nokia Text typing days where you were limited to 10 keys, you now have smartphones with full qwerty keyboards, and yes, actual keyboards that have a full range of letters…

to quote:

Hi lads
Av fitted a stainless steel buddy club spec 3 to ma CTR a got told then a bought the exhaust that a would have to buy a 02 simulator to get the engine managment light out but this hasnt worked does anyone have and ideas cause that ma battery light come on since a fitted the sensor. am not driving the car at the moment as a dont want to damage it.

thinking of just putting a standard one back on it. i only have the cat and the back box. how much will the rest cost me to buy? everywhere a look trys to sell me the full system?

any help would be greatly appricated. a hate having my ep3 at the door doing nothing.

Av – I have
ma – my
a – I
am – I am
trys – tries

It’s not like they have to type much more – just type fucking properly – damn COCK!!!!

That’s my rant of the day over!

Sarah Millican

Things change, that I know, but bloody hell – there’s masses of change in Edinburgh.

It was one of these weekends when we were asked by a friend to go to the Playhouse and see a comedian – Sarah Millican, and boy, she didn’t disappoint, very funny. See You Next Tuesday.
As it was a late ‘ask’ we were undecided as to where to stay etc, so we’d had a look around, and couldn’t really see much, Premier Inn, Travelodge, all (no offence) shitty cheapo hotels with nothing much going for them, Rose Street on a Saturday night? £84.99 – I thinks not. So I left it to Cheryl to find somewhere, and she didn’t disappoint either! – The Marriot – Residence Inn, on Simpson Load just off the meadows, in an area now known as either – the ‘Old Hospital’ area, or ‘The Quartermile’ (affectionately named as it’s a quarter mile from the centre of town).

Opodo have some good deals on – Visit them today:

The hotel itself has parking (£12 a day for residents), there’s 4 ‘pay and display’ parking spots out front, along with some double yellows, unbelieveably we managed to get one of the pay and display spots, and considering it was late afternoon, we loaded up until 6.30pm, and thankfully Sundays are freebie parking!! woohoo! (we were lucky though). We got checked in around 3pm, up on the 5th floor, and it was floor to roof windows.. I’m not afraid of heights, honest.. however – when we went in the room, 2 of the windows were open, I had a peek out, got the heebie jeebies then that was me – close the fuckers!

Hotel room – just a double room for the night – a bargain at £85 (considering travelodge was the same)
It had it’s own kitchen!! Microwave oven, a fridge that’s probably better than our own, a flatscreen TV, and a bloody funky – iHome docking station and alarm clock for your iphone, I have to say – I WANT ONE!!!! The room also had an expensive office chair, a funky showerroom, and a really odd toilet, if I was sitting on it – my feet were not touching the floor – that’s just odd – and makes for taking a number 2, erm, odd!

All in all – very good value for very good quality.

Had a great weekend/night!

Well, what a week, a few computer crashes (since October), a wee complaint, a wee discussion, and decisions made, it’s been a terrific week.
To top it all, I’m getting a new ‘assistant’ at work, basically – a person to input my data! woop woop – I know it doesn’t sound a lot, but it’s gonna help tenfold!
Second to that – I’m in receipt of a New PC, well, not strictly true, I’ve upgraded the internals, fantastic.

Here’s my story on the build…
Tuesday – decision day – decide the build. Alas no SSD, but that will come (eventually)!

Intel i7 Hex Core Processor….
Asus Sabertooth X79 Motherboard…
16gig Memory…
Liquid Cooler…

CheckDisk running

Wednesday 10am – The website is called Scan – and bloody ell – they are awesome ‘I Love Scan’
I ordered in a new Hard Drive as well, I can’t afford the SSD drive, as I still think they are a little too expensive, however – it will come soon!
I’ve also had the system overclocked to 4.5GHz!! Woop Woop!
I knew it wasn’t going to be delivered on Thursday as they ‘apparently’ run the system for a full 24 hours before sending to test reliability etc.

Thursday – what happened – our work Server was down, so I wasn’t getting emails – grrr – no emails from scan to say how my ‘order’ was getting on… However – the server was working again on Friday morning – and just as I was reading my emails, ploof, a text came from scan – your order will arrive on the 24th Feb! – exact same time I was reading the email telling me the same thing…

Orphaned PC

Woop woop – then boom..
BSOD, Blue Screen of Death…
Computer – just because you’re getting replaced – gonna no do this!
Cue some really funny screenshots, from checking disk to being orphaned – how apt – the computer totally knew. totally.

Next – (after 2 reboots – the PC finally calmed down and started working) I received another text from Scan to say that the order would be here between 11.56am and 12.56pm, (I had been tracking it all morning anyhoo)! Finally – I could actually get on with some work, knowing that it would be here soon….
Well – 12.30pm – still no sign of it.. then..

Scan order Email

Waaaaa – Blood Boiling, fists a pounding… ran to the door to see if there was a delivery card – nope – nowt, WTF… did they try the wrong street (it’s easily done – I live on West main street and not the ‘East’ one), aarggg, my heart a pounding… back to computer – right – where’s the email – who the F to phone and scream down the phone, start putting in the number 084… KNOCK KNOCK…

Bloody delivery driver!!!
(delivery driver with a lack of sense of humour), ar*e had put in that so he’d meet his ‘time’ target – what a twa*.
So… after I calmed down – the boxes were here, safe and sound…

They're here

Sneak Peek

Now just 4 and a half hours to go until the end of my ‘officialish’ working day to get through staring at the screen thinking all geekish things…!!
It was a surprisingly productive afternoon…! Even after collecting Carmen at School, her explanation of a day trip the Fire Station made it sound brilliant! (and from what she said – her teacher Mrs MacGregor had a good day too – Firemen – do I need to say more?), when I got back from getting Carmen, I decided to have a sneak peek in the box… Sabertooth… nice..

Anyways, 5pm arrived – Cheryl home from work (Friday finish at 4pm), it’s a ‘I don’t need to make tea day’…! Carmen was also insisting on helping, from cleaning, to unwrapping, to popping the bubble wrap (it HAS to be done), a quote I heard from ‘Fiona Robertson‘ “Therapy is expensive…. bubble wrap is cheap. You choose. ”

Tidy(ish) Desk

First things first… if you’ve ever seen my desk – it ain’t exactly tidy… however – it is an organised mess, and I know where to find everything, honestly, so, needs must – I must tidy desk.. Cue the next 3 hours cleaning, (I even had the Mr Sheen out).. inbetween I had to go and have dinner. Breaded Chicken – it wasn’t the greatest.. but it still filled a hole – oh and a glass of wine, Black Tower White Wine – scrummy!

Anyways – after that – it was dive straight in – take the old bits out – clean the case – and put the new bits in – simple.
Of course not.

Well, I got the old motherboard out, ready to be replaced by the new one…

Old Motherboard

New Sabertooth Motherboard

So yes, no probs, all out, and all in.. New Harddrive in too… 1tb drive (Can’t afford the SSD drive for now).
Here’s me thinking a straight BOOT UP will happen… well – I hoped… – knowing full well that it wouldn’t…
And no, it wouldn’t.. nothing I did, boot sequence, nothing, nada.. zilch, diddly squat..
Had a wee google about on the phone, but couldn’t really see much, other than ‘I needed to buy Window’s again..’ and I’d need a DVD drive to connect to it too..
The reason I’d need a new DVD drive was because the new motherboard didn’t have an IDE connection – who knew?! – I didn’t!
Plus I couldn’t load a new Windows without the drive…

Error caught on video:

I tried so many times pause/play/pause/play/pause/play to try and read the blue screen error message!!

However – BED, sort it in the morning..

Nice kip after all that – I was shattered..!
First thing in the morning… Open up laptop – have a google.. realised very simply that I needed to PREPARE Windows for the new Hardware, and then install all the drivers for the new motherboard!
I thought though – I’m still gonna need a DVD drive, so I trundled out to PC World first thing, got a Bargain DVD drive that was supposed to be £29.99 for £14.99 – it was mis-priced – woop!

So – back home – I found out that I needed to use Sysprep – ON THE OLD MOTHERBOARD.
Cue the unplugging of cables, and hoping that I could fit and run the old motherboard without the need for taking the new one out of the case (with it being liquid cooled, I didn’t want to muck around too much if you know what I mean)!. Anyways, eventually got it all plugged in and together – pressed the start button – this time expecting the thing to crash like no tomorrow, however – I was pleasantly surprised – it booted up into Windows no problem.

So.. Sysprep..
A fatal error occurred while trying to Sysprep the machine.
Joy..
Google again – Sysprep.exe error – FIX BY STOPPING THE WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER SERVICE..
OK, let’s try that – woomph – worked first time.
Sysprep ran and worked first time..

Carmen Helping

So by this time – I had a wee helper..
Cue Carmen – can I screw something in Daddy..
She wasn’t actually too bad – she screwed in the old covers for the empty bays on the front of the PC – well done Carmen!

I’m starting her early – qwerty typist before she can write!

So.. next up was plugging everything BACK onto the new Motherboard again.
Then the defining moment – pressing the power button.

Tah-da!!

Starting services

Setup is starting services – WAAAAYYY further than the previous attempt!
Will it work, will it not… well – it did after a frantic hunt for the original Windows 8 CD, which I couldn’t find anywhere, I thought it was in the old Mobo box, however – that was Windows Vista, definitely didn’t want that piece of pish in! Anyways – long story short – I found it. typed in the serial key again – and weeeee all started working again..
YABBA
DABBA
DOOOOOOO

Full On PC - I Love Scan

PS – I only have 3 screens, the one on the far right of the image is ‘Gubbed’

Anyways – one immensely powerful PC at the ready – woo hoo!

I’m not saying I’m the brainbox of Britain, but bloody hell – some people are just plaing f**king stupid.
Take this fella – ‘Man in underwear crawls onto ice‘ from the BBc News website, and an absolutely idiot.

“Even though this ice appears to be strong it can be eggshell thin and anyone who falls through into the water below could get trapped under the ice and would only be able to survive for minutes in the freezing water,” he said.

“The most common cause is people chasing their dogs out on to the ice, and I urge people not to do this.

“It isn’t worth the risk. Dogs will normally make it safely off the ice and back to the shore – the same cannot be said for people.”

—————-
Today we lost one of the greatest Singers of our generation – Whitney Houston, what an absolute shame, money kills you, whether you’ve got it or not!!
I used to love her film the Bodyguard, and the music it contained, absolutely brilliant.

—————-

Nothing much else exciting, Carmen is back from Grannies, and she’s just hitting the sack now, (8.30pm) so hopefully get a wee lie in tomorrow, she’s off School this week, so it’s a ‘What to do with the Kids’ week!

Anyways – enough for now – bye!

Well well well…
Goosebumps from the off..
I’ve always wanted to see the Kaiser Chiefs play live ever since I saw them as the support act for U2 in Dublin back in 2009, (was it that long ago)?! So anyways, finally got the chance last night, and wow, what a bloody brilliant gig.
Let me tell you… the Intro, GOOSEBUMPS and then some! I want my MTV… I want my MTV, – oh my god – they’re playing Money for Nothing… absolutely bloody brilliant, however I knew it would be shortlived, the whole intro was fanbloodytastic, and as for the rest of the concert – it didn’t disappoint either. Ricky Wilson was brilliant, a true up and coming showman in his own right, he was about the stage like there was no tomorrow, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the O2 Academy in Glasgow, however it has quite a few bars inside the venue, so what does Ricky do, he runs round the stage, around the inside of the venue and starts singing on the bar, outbloodystanding, well done son.

All the favourites were played along with some current new songs, but all in all – a cracking night was had by all!
Songs that I remember
Intro – Money for Nothing
Angry Mob
I predict a Riot
Ruby <<<<
Na na na na na na
Love's not a competition
Never Miss a Beat
Every day I love you less and less

Superb.. some pix and the Intro Video:

Kaiser Chiefs Tix

I’ve only seen them once before, and they were the support act to U2 in Dublin back in 2009, they were superb (as was U2).

Best song… Ruby, followed by I Predict a Riot, I just love ‘Love’s Not a Competition’ – just ace! – The Angry Mob… there’s another goodie…
Ruby gets me all the time – Ruby Ruby Ruby Ruby….. waa-aa-aa-aaaa-aaa
Sitting here having a wee blog whilst the missus gets ready, then it’s off to the Quay in Glasgow for a quick bite to eat, then on to the gig… hope the traffic ain’t bad!

Better go, but I’ll leave you with my dear friend Ruby:

I’ve just read this on PaddyPower’s website, thought it was brilliant!!

We’re Lovin It’
Like many others, we abhor people that skip the queue. For that brief moment we wish all sorts of evil on that person and call him/her every offensive name we can think of. However, dear rude folk, it’s probably unwise to skip the queue at a McDonald’s drive-through. A North Carolina woman who drove directly to the pick-up window and tried to order her meal became involved in a standoff with staff. Twenty minutes later Evangeline Lucca was shot with a stun gun which we can all agree she deserved.
—————————-

All joking aside, I totally agree with it! Karma hits you biatch!

Highland Park Thor

Well well, what do we have here? A blog no less!

Thought it’s been a while, so thought I’d better get my finger out!

I’ve been working, working, working, pretty much all the time since the last post in September (Last year)….

We (I say we – I mean The Green Welly Stop), have some interesting bottles of whisky added to the site – the most recent one is the new Highland Park – THOR. Just stunning. For £120 though – it does cost a wee bitty much (for my budget anyhow)!

We’ve also got a nice Bowmore Horse Trials – the 2002 bottling, available at a penny short of £1000….!

What else have I been doing I hear you ask? Well – we’ve (Cheryl and I) been bringing up our Daughter… Carmen (as I’m sure you all know).. she’s actually just been given a certificate for a Poem recital – considering she’s only 5, and she’s learned (on her own I may add) a Scottish Poem – The Snawman by JK Annand. The first time we heard it was in a telephone call to her Granny, and we were kinda amazed to say the least. We’ve managed to upload a version of it to Youtube – so have a look for yourself!

What else… well – I’ve completed a couple of websites in the meantime.
A fantastic website for business services – Diverse Undertakings Ltd

Diverse Undertakings Ltd is a business advisory service – we not only investigate and analyse human factors in business, we also offer an implementation service so that what is recommended is also applied. Our fees are sensible and most often represent a small percentage of the business improvement that is possible through our reviews.

I’ve also been working on Glengarry House’s website – Tyndrum Accommodation on the West Highland Way, and I’m currently working on their self catering lodge website too.

Other than that, Christmas, New Year, and loads more…!

Have a great 2012 peeps!
Craig

some ichle waves...

We always get the back end of what the Yanks get, a load of wind.
And rain.
I took Carmen to school this morning and I was like a drowned rat/cat/dog when I got back home… I also went to the Post Office to collect an inconveniently missed parcel, and I was already drowned then!!
Damned Hurricane..

However – I can understand certain places closing, Cheryl’s work closed at 12noon because of the wind – but that is 150ft high, and kinda understandable…
On the other side of the coin – Edinburgh Zoo closed… I just want to know if anyone was brave enough to visit in the first place!
Hillend ski slope closed – why on earth did they open..?! people don’t ski in this weather do they>??? really?

Carnage in the Garden

I had to then close our back garden for playing – it was horrendous – we had houses blown down, hammocks blowing away, trampline bouncing… wheelbarrow’s upside down… As for the furniture.. I can’t actually remember seeing that… eek..!
Not long after that it was time to go and get Carmen from School – and god knows why the teacher decides that she’s going to take the longest time ever to come out… just urry up.. and of course – Carmen’s at the back of the line!! Typical!
Bike with Carmen in the Trailer was a nightmare riding back – there was a gust at one point which just stopped me dead. eek!
Thankfully it wasn’t pishing down at that point, just blowy!…

Relaxation now…
)

Well, that’s Carmen been at School for 18 Days – 8 of those were only half days, and the other 10, Full Days.
She seems to still be enjoying it – the first week she had an invitation for a birthday party! bloomin eck!
Then last week – another invitation – it’s Birthday Crazy!!!
There must be something with September babies.. hmm – 9 months after Christmas/New Year… no further comments required I guess!

Olivia's Party

So today was the first of those parties mentioned above.. even Carmen’s teacher – Mrs Macgregor was there too… however – she does have a child in the same primary 1 (albeit a different class), so I guess we can’t complain! lol.
£125 for a party, which includes a Circus Theme – with a bouncy castle and “fully trained” party co-ordinators.
The place is run by the local council, so I guess it wasn’t too bad!
We’ve got a £5 off voucher if we have Carmen’s party there!
They had parents up dancing too, (thankfully I moved the other way when Carmen came running), and the pic you see is of Cheryl and Carmen joining in the fun…
Carmen did have a wee moan, and decided she wasn’t going to play in the party games, which was a bit annoying, however – she ultimately doesn’t “really” know her friends yet… give it time.

Carmen’s birthday is thankfully a couple of months away yet, so (cough) plenty of time to organise!

Online Retailer of the Year Nominee

I’ve had mega work to do over the last week, with Google changing and updating requirements for their Google Shopping Feed, however (hopefully) most of the whisky side of things have been completed – it’s just the rest of the shops to go now…
PLUS i’ve got the boss asking when xy and z products are going to be online… hmm. we’ll see… !
On a HUGELY positive note, I totally didn’t know until I decided to open this month’s Whisky Magazine, that my site, The Green Welly Stop’s Whisky Galore was nominated for online retailer of the year! – wow how awesome is that – well chuffed to bits with that one!
Let’s hope the bosses are too… loverly.
Icons of Whisky winners for 2012 – next year???