Just a quick note to say I start moving today. The house has been cleaned and today at around 10:30 BST I will start moving all my crap. It's gonna be a lloooooooooonggggggg day. I won't have a phone line in there till Friday, and no BB till the week after at least. But I can still use bluetooth GPRS with my powerbook, so I will go online from time to time to check on things.

Over and out

Be There

Wow I'm excited about this alot! I'm lucky that my mum's flat is spot in the middle of London (Victoria to be precise), which is very close to alot of key things, eg westminster/downing street etc. But I'm not excited cos of the touristic value of it all, but cos the majority of pilot digital schemes include her area, which makes me very priveledged. That's why I've got 8mbit when the rest of Britain is excited about 2 (which I had 2 years ago). Ofcourse, Britain sucks compared to other countries (10mbit is the default in sweden, 100mbit in hong kong!!), but not for long!
Be have announced that their new ADSL2 service will launch in the next couple of months, comes with a free ADSL2 wireless modem, and will cost less than £30 a month with NO caps or limits. Best thing about it is, it's a 24mbit service! With my current 8mbit (runs more at 6mbit with headers), it takes about 20minutes to download a 740mbyte CD. So, multiply that by 3, and you've got yourself a pipe that can download a full DVD9 image one and half hours-SWEET!
The service is rolling out in central london first, so I've registered interest on the site, and let's hope they get it right. Let's hope it uploads faster than bloody 256kbit. perhaps it uploads at 10mbit LOL. Would be VERY useful, if you know what I mean ;)

Moving

I'm moving. Going out of my trusty old Flat number 2, and most likely going to house number 7 a mile down the road. Why? cos I'm out of a job here! my contract in Colchester has finished, and due to reasons beyond me, I'm actually unemployed for the next 6 months! I will be doing locum work though (ie paid lots to do nothing). I have to leave this flat (it's hospital staff), and such have rented a 3 bedroom house to rent with another unemployed colleague. Why 3 bedrooms? cos bedroom 3 is going to be our digital centre, with, hopefully, a big LCD TV, surround sound, and my old pc/consoles/his ps2 to play around with :)
good times I hope. We've also both got an exam come December though :s
So, today might well be my last post for a while. Tomorrow I get the keys and might just start moving stuff around, and will d/c my phone line here, to transfer it down the road. I'll be online from my mobile from time to time, but no blogging I guess.
Wish me luck y'all.. I've already been offered 2 locum posts so I guess there's no shortage there, but moving is SUCH a hassle.
SoB

Guild Crack

I never was into MMORPG games. Killing rats and harvesting for a living to increase my XP was never my cup of tea. I must admit, as a kid I did play alot of fantasy role playing books (without the dice, couldn't be bothered) and it was great fun! One day at around 1am I got possesed and went down to asda, and found myself buying a variety of dvds I don't want, one was guild wars. A MMORPG that had no subscription fees, so was a good way to check what all the fuss was about. Essentialy this game chucks everything out of the window and re-writes the holy book of RPG. To some purists (read: D&D geeks) this is not a welcome change. To short attention span people like me, spoilt rotten by arcades and id software, this is ideal! The game lets you play the usual rpg stuff (which is GREAT FUN) but more importantly also lets you join in to the player versus player action straight away, which is the best thing since the original death match! these games consist of 2 teams of 4 people randomly grouped by the pc, with the objective being anihilating the opposition. As it's a RPG, you get various classes battling out against each other, eg monks, warriors, necromancers, etc etc. I'm a healing monk, and I can't do anything to defend myself, but I'm very good at healing everyone and resurrecting the dead. This makes me a very valuable asset for the team, and also for the enemy! there's always a big warrior making sure I'm ok, and another 2 chasing my ass around to kill me! Playing is more fun than you can imagine, and really needs good co-operation to progress in the arenas! Problem is, last night at 23:30 I thought I'd play one game. Here I am, 6 hours later, 5:00am in the morning, typing at this while dreading today's 12 hour shift.
An addictive game if there ever was one, and a beautiful one at that. GET IT. FULL STOP.

ps: a cool moment in a match today was when I was the last one alive, with a big mofo warrior chasing me around to kill me. I decided to use the "Bring Back Life" spell that takes about 12 seconds to activate. I found a fallen warrior and started the spell, by that time the enemy warrior was whooping my arse big time, just as I resurrected the fellow warrior, I was killed by the enemies! My team mate then got up and kicked the other guys arse, and the team won the match. Gut clenching excitement at it's best! Oh and did i mention, GET IT! NOW!!

What time is that?

I have a confession: I am a gadget geek-addict-freak (whatever you want to call me). I like having new technology around the house, and love gadgets. I say that cos I just bought a binary watch. I think whoever designed this made it specifically for anyone old (and geeky) enough to have used C:\DOS\DEBUG.EXE
Now, can anyone guess what time it is on the picture?

ps: TurboDebugger ruled

Never ever do this alone...

play resident evil 4 in the dark!!
I never liked the resident evil games. My main gripe? the obscure puzzles, and the terrible controls (character-relative sucks). But, God gave Capcom brains, and Capcom gave us Resident Evil 4. More an action adventure than anything else, this game DEFINES all survival horrors, and all action adventures at that. A beautifully scary game, it's emphasis on action and the tense atmosphere it creates (even if you're not being attacked by mad european villagers!) make it an unmissable experience. Add to that the fact that you always know where you need to go, it's getting there that's the problem (Exactly my cup of tea), and also that this is the only game other than Half Life 2 that I've played that amazes you with something fresh and new each level!
Just take my advice, play the game (get a gamecube if you must, they're cheap now. Or wait for PS2 version), BUT NOT IN THE DARK! I played alot last night (and most of today as well) and trust me, hearing those creepy gregorian chants at 2am isn't funny. Scary indeed, but it has restored my faith in gaming and my beloved Gamecube. See you in Spain mortals.

Sweet Day, Bitter Day

Shame isn't it. How some people can REALLY ruin what was a happy time. Again, us Muslims are catapulted straight into the limelight with the bombings today in London. Just when you thought things were quieting down, they go and strike in the heart of the city, the very day after London was announced as the host city for the Olympics 2012. Yesterday was a great day, it was my birthday, we all went out for a great meal, and London won the Olympic bid.
Today, I walk in to a mess of doctors talking about how those "bloody Qaeda" are behind this, and you can't help but wish that you weren't arab nor muslim at that very second. Shame isn't it.

Cardiac Arrest A&E Resus, ETA 5 Minutes

12:30pm, 01/07/05: I was on call today, and as always I'm part of our world-class (my foot) cardiac arrest team. The bleep goes off and the announcement says "Cardiac arrest, A&E resus, ETA 5 minutes". Well at least I don't have to run half way across the hospital to get there, and I still have 5 minutes to go.
Wobbled down to resus and found a lot of people hovering around waiting for the so-called arrest. A 55 year old biker had fallen into the river with his motorbike, and was taken out of there by air ambulance. The general thought was that he had a heart attack on the road and the bike went out of action. In comes Mr Arrest and his heart wasn't pumping. He was also profoundly cold (temp 32 centigrade, normal 36.5)... shoot. We CPRed him and he needed some electric shocking to the heart, and for a few moments he looked like he was coming back to life, but that wasn't to be. Problem is, when someone has a temp of 32 you are legally obliged to continue resuscitation until they're temperature is "compatible" with life, ie 35 and above.. using tons of warm fluids and very hot blankets all over the poor guy, it took us ONE HOUR AND 30 MINUTES to get his temp up to 35, to then declare him dead. That's 90 minutes of jumping up and down his chest, running lots of blood tests, and generally chaos.
Moral of the story: DON'T DRIVE A MOTORBIKE