Below are the 12 most recent journal entries recorded in Lum's LiveJournal:

Friday, February 11th, 2005
10:37 pm	Why all 3 political parties suck Well, election time is looming and I can't be bothered to go and vote. Well actually that isn't strictly true. I will go, I will write abusive messages in all 3 boxes and hand that in. It's called spoiling your ballot paper and if everyone who hated all the political parties did that then the spoilt ballot papers would probably outnumber the tories and the point would get across. Actually the way Michael Howard is going at the moment, the number of spoilt papers will probably outnumber them anyway! Anyway, I don't like any of the parties and here is why, Labour This is the party that said they wouldn't raise income tax, and then went and raised every other tax (including national insurance which is effectively income tax in that it comes out of your income), the party of spin, lies and decipt. This is also the party that has allowed the chav culture to grow to epidemic levels, the party that treats driving at 71 mph on a motorway as a worse offence than drunken fighting in a town centre (the former attracts a £60 fine and 3 points on your licence (which will put your insurance up by at least £50 if it doesn't tot up and get you banned) the latter attracts a £80 fine with no future repercussions. Conservative I fully support their plan to review all the speed cameras in the country and to raise the motorway speed limit to 80mph. I dont think it goes far enough, but it's a step in the right direction as far as motoring is concerned (more on that later), unfortunately that's about the only decent policy they've come up with, everything else they see seems to just be blindly parroting the opposite of whatever Tony Blair is currently spouting, do they expect me to beleive they'll actually follow it all through. Liberal Democrats I generally like the liberal democrats, but they have a few bonkers policies that I just cannot bring myself to agree with. I heard them advocating censorship a while back, though don't ask me which one it was or the context as I can't remember. While their environmental policies are well intended, how the hell are we going to power the country without nuclear power especially if they get rid of coal and gas. Windfarms and renewable forrests aren't going to cut it (and the latter puts out tons of CO2 anyway), nuclear power, despite it's flaws, is the cleanest and safest option. It's like aeroplanes which are the safest form of transport, just that when they do explode it makes one hell of a mess and everyone hears about it. Until we get fusion power sorted, we're stuck with fission as the best of a bad bunch. We could always sell the depleted nuclear fuel to the Americans for use in Iran if we can't find any other way to get rid of it! So in conclusion, you should all go to the polls, every one of you who is eligeable, and draw a huge cock in the tick boxes. Now for some other points of controversy that will probably piss a lot of you off. I hope the Countryside Alliance win their legal action (but I don't like fox hunting) That got your attention didn't it, especially all you furs. Let me be clear here, I am against fox hunting, it's cruel and unnecessary and I'm not even going to bother debating this with anyone, but I agree with them that the 1949 Parliament Act is a bad law and should be removed. Anything that stops the government from pushing through terrible legislation that nobody wants (ie. Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) and that the Lords wont allow has to be good. Yes the House of Lords is an ancient undemocratic and unelected institution, but they've done a good job at trying to block some of Tony's crazier schemes and I can't think of a better solution. Perhaps the fact that they aren't elected and can't lose their position as a Lord is what makes them so good. It doesn't matter how much you piss Tony off, he can't get rid of you.. though he is trying! I'm sure the anti fox hunting legislation would get through next year anyway. "hit me at 40 mph and there's an 80% chance I'll die, hit me at 30 and there's an 80% I'll live" (and why you should cancel your RAC membership too) You can't have missed this advert, which shows a dead child splatted on the road who was supposedly hit by a car doing 40, who then morphs into an alive though bruised child who was supposedly hit at 30, her voice is provided by someone who failed to get the part doing the voice acting for the Poltergeist movies. The street shown in that advert is utterly devoid of parked cars and has good visibility. Unless the child decided to darwinate itself by jumping out at the last second from behind a badly parked SEP field, then no driver with even a small amount of skill should be hitting them at 30mph. You ease off when you see them pratting about in the distance and you drop the anchors when they run out, or if appropriate you drive around them. The advert should read "Look where the fuck you're going and there's an 80% chance I wont get hit in the first place", however with todays drivers paranoid about speed cameras, with coppers hiding behind bus shelters and with police forces giving NIMBY busybody old grannies laser guns the driver's personal safety is better served by constantly watching the little speedo dial because everyone knows that when it hits 31 mph your car transforms from a little steel box with crumple zones, ABS, detachable wipers and a pedestrian friendly front end into OMG Ninja turbo Death Rice 2000 killing machine with ben-hur style rotating blade hubcaps and a razor edged bonnet scoop to ensure that an arm is severed off and swallowed because modern cars are evil and secretly use the same power source as the fucking Lexx. (oh and when you hit 88mph you go back in time, which is why they have speed cameras on motorways and dual carriageways. Time travel is illegal in England & Wales although CPS do not prosecute in cases that involve attempting to murder Chris Evans' grandmother as it is not in the public interest) Apologies for going off on a SA-style rant there but I currently have 9 points (all for speeding on motorways which are noteable for their lack of happy smiling children playing kerby and running into the road randomly to fetch their ball) and thus have been sticking accurately to speed limits. My driving standard has plumeted. Doing a constant 70 on an empty M74/A74/M6/M1 run takes me about 5 hours to complete and it numbs me into a stupor. There is no challenge beyond staying awake, no skill involved and my reaction times are reduced significantly. I have bought a device that is stuck to the dashboard and displays my speed in huge easy to read numbers to avoid the constantly staring at the needle syndrome, it has helped but I still feel that my driving is awful. By constrast when I get onto one of the interesting 60mph twisty B roads, suddenly I wake up and even though I'm pushing a lot closer to my car's limits (ie. on the corners) I'm a lot more alert, react faster, and if someone did step or pull out, I'd be far less likely to hit them. In the old days, that sign with the diagonal black stripe used to mean "de restricted" or "you figure out what the safe speed is", the law only got changed because Vauxhall decided to test their new supercar on the M1 to save a few pennies. As far as I'm aware no-one was killed when doing so. The other speed limits were originally intended as guidelines and frankly in a crowded residential street, 30mph is far to fucking fast half the time. A driver used to thinking for themselves will realise this and slow down automatically, unless the street has no parked cars and tons of visiblity, then they might drive at OMG 35 MPH! until they get closer to the (think of the) children where they'll slow down. Today's drivers just plod along at 30 beleiving themselves to be safe, and will still be doing 30mph when they splat into the little girl. 80% of living = 20% chance of dying, that's a lot worse than the driver who pays attention and avoids the collision or at least makes an effort to stop. What I don't understand is why many people of the more student persuasion beleive the Speed Kills propoganda, despite being the same people who protest the Iraq war. The government lied about the WMDs and you know this, they lied about the 45 minute threat and you know this, yet they regularly parrot "Speed Kills" in a huge advertising campaign and you follow like a bunch of sheep. Advertising is generally used to sell you Ronco products that you do not need and would not want but it's endorsed by Puff Daddy so go buy it you uneducated chav sheep. I guess Orwell was right when he wrote "repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth". It certainly explains the last election result! And the subject of government lies brings me onto another favourite. "1/3 of all accidents are caused by speed, therefore we need more cameras. This has been dissected in great detail on other sites, but in summary they arrived at this conculsion by adding together the actual accident causation figures that suited them and reaching 30%. These include "failed to judge other vehicle's speed or direction" (observation) "travelling too fast for the conditions" (eg 30mph in thick fog) and many others. The actual figure for accidents where "Speed in excess of the speed limit" is a /contributary/ factor is in fact 4%. If their advertising campaign was "look where the fuck you're going" they would be addressing a much larger cause of accidents, but until they invent the "Chav bint in an X5 screaming at her multicoloured kids" camera and put it in the school car park I doubt they will be capable of enforcing this one. However the RAC, supposedly a motoring organisation, recently repeated this bit of propoganda which is hardly in the interests of their customers is it? I would encourage any RAC member to cancel their subscription and join the AA or Green Flag or someone. I will be cancelling my RAC credit card as soon as I've secured a new one to transfer the balance to. As a final thought, when was the last time you saw a speed camera outside a school? Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: Ratpack - Ratpack takes you Higher (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 10th, 2005
11:02 pm	Just a brief note to let you know I'm still alive (just) Lots of stuff has happened, I finally solved the car problem by opting out of the company car scheme and buying a Twin Turbo Subaru Legacy B4 japanese import. I had it a month then someone drove into the back of it in November. It'll be fixed next week though. I still hurt a lot, I doubt my back will ever be fixed properly :( Oh and the guy who hit me wasn't speeding, just wasn't paying attention, probably too busy looking for cameras or something despite the fact that he was only doing 50 in a 70 (I was stationary). Speed doesn't kill, bad driving kills. Current Mood: sore Current Music: Altern 8 - Return to Techno City (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 9th, 2003
9:58 pm	New car next year. Well, my company have decided they really like me and want to get me a better car in the new year. Instead of just giving me the standard company car, they've let me pick pretty much anything up to £18K purchase price. (We buy, not lease) They suggested a Golf GTI as a starting point as they know the kind of vehicle I like (but they dont know that the new Golf GTI is a pile of shit!) Anyway, there's certain requirements here. - No smaller than a Golf (needs to carry a few PCS and boxes of supplies) - Not Front Wheel Drive (I want to try something different) - Not a BMW (I dont want the stigma) - Has to be bought brand new (else I'd ask for a Sierra Cosworth) - Has to be available in the UK - More comfy than the Golf, as that one gives me back pain - Good cornering and acceleration - Top speed less important, but not slowing for corners is good. - 4 or 5 door preferred - Fairly sporty - Definately not an SUV! - £18K maximum Currently leading the race is the Subaru Legacy 2.0i S, anyone got any better ideas? Edit: I forgot to take into account that they dont pay VAT! going for a 2.5i SE now :) Current Mood: happy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, November 28th, 2003
11:45 pm	I passed Max300 on Expert (or heavy if you play a Japanese version) the other day, about bloody time. Passed it again today on an EM2 machine at a motorway service station somewhere in Yorkshire. Much fun, yay. Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Omega - Max300 (duh!) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 24th, 2003
11:50 pm	A month later and I still have nothing interesting to say Well, it's been a month, stuff has happened, all good fun, ish. Got the laptop back in time for Ayacon, just. phoned the couriers "dont put it on the fucking van, I'll come and collect it", then got the guy who was getting a lift off me to install codecs and stuff on it while we travelled down. Con was interesting, A certain kitty had put an idea in my head that I go dressed as a catgirl this con, there's some pics floating around the net of me in a black rubber dress with kitty ears and tail trying to be cute, suprisingly quite a few people liked it. The guy I was sharing a room with was very scared, thinks I enjoyed it too much. He was right I'd been wondering off and on for a while if I was supposed to be a guy or not. Have largely ignored the idea, but my ex pointed out that I seemed a hell of a lot more relaxed like that, hardly the expected behaviour for a bloke prancing around in public in a dress for the first time. Much fun, even if it did get a bit warm in there, (hint: do not try to play DDR when wearing skintight rubber on > 90% of your body) Anyway, back to the point, not totally sure what I am gender wise. I think at the very least a significant part of me is female. I'll likely explore this in furrydom, most of the furs already know my character is a catgirl anyway, and unlike most normal people, they're not arseholes about this sort of thing. Spent one weekend with my ex, which was nice, went clothes shopping, I'm going to have to get another wardrobe, one smaller and less noticeable as I have a few nosey RL friends who I don't want to find out the above just yet. At least I have some more normal female clothes now. I just need some nice shoes, and maybe a little help with makeup. IfI can fix my voice maybe I'll even go out like that at one furmeet. Maybe Sheffield since there's usually lots of fursuiters there, so a catgirl wont cause too much concern in comparison. So, erm, mew! Current Mood: confused (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 20th, 2003
7:36 pm	I have nothing interesting to say Well, I haven't updated in over 3 months, then again I dont expect anyone to read anything I write anyways, it's not like I ever read anyone else's :P Anyway, here's a short summary of the last 3 months in roughly chronological order, in case anyone cares :) Got a new job, doesnt pay as well, but I get laptop and company car and super cheap fuel. Handed in my notice at the old one, they were fucking me around with poxy short contract extensions for ages so it's not like I had to give much notice. Week before the new job, camshaft on my Escort snapped, 4 bent valves, about £130 to get the cylinder head reconned. Still not done it because... Started new job, got myself a nice VW Golf to drive around in, wheefun. It goes quick and is fun to drive, never expected a post 1990 car to be fun, but I like this. Been driving all over the country, fingers crossed I haven't been done for speeding yet. I used to have two weeks of stress after any long trip incase I'd been got by a camera, even if you try to stick to the limit, it's easy to miss one sign. Now as I'm doing long trips almost every day, the worry is pretty much constant. I must get myself another Geodessey or similar device. Work laptop turns up, XP2600+ 1/2gig RAM, 60gig HD, nice big screen, fantastic. Installed a triple boot XP Pro / DOS 7 / Gentoo Linux system replacing the default XP Home install (no I dont want to sign up for fucking SupaNet. I have cable FFS! I hate time computers for replacing the Internet Connection Wizard with their crappy signup program which you can't get rid of. I also hate them for providing a ghost image, but passwording the fucker, why! all I needed was a bunch of driver files because your provided driver CD is for a different model of laptop! Gentoo Linux is great, I'm not gonna run a Debian desktop again, will convert the desktop to Gentoo soon Got told of a 30p DDR 5th mix machine in Wakefield, played Hot Limit Maniac Double Long Version while singing the lyrics from We Drink Ritalin (sorry for the popup ad) Made one of my old servers collect my email and store it locally as an IMAP mailbox so I can get at the same mail from desktop or laptop Hard drive died in server Screen broke on laptop. Tomorrow I spend 3 days in scotland in work.. how am I going to watch DivXes now. At least there's a 50p DDR Extreme there. With not being stuck in an office bored shitless all day I haven't been following the news, therefore I'm not going to go on a rant about something political.. aren't you lucky! Current Mood: tired Current Music: Whatever my MP3 player was playing on the way home (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 6th, 2003
6:34 pm	No more Windows. Since there's now a Linux port of Stepmania I no-longer need to run that game under Windows, thus I have now been able to kill the last windows box in the house, meaning that all my PCs are 100% legit, yay! Fun with the PSX parallel adaptors though :( The DirectPadPro driver under Win98 could handle both controllers being connected to the one parallel port, the linux gamecon.o (or ddrmat.o) drivers can be made to detect both controllers, but I've not been able to make the second one actually work. I've gotten around it by installing a second parallel port and using another adaptor, but this is annoying an inelegant. Stepmania works wonderfully though, it's smoother than it was on Windows, only thing that's broken is the .AVI backgrounds, which are pretty but hardly a big loss. Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Naoki - Tears (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 29th, 2003
6:31 pm	Tyred Well, despite my initial promise of using this journal thingie to have a good moan, things are currently going rather well. Got myself a pair of Goodyear Eagle Venturas for the back of the car, and my god what a difference. I used to always lose the back end and oversteer when doing silly cornering, now the cornering is sillier and then I lose the front end, the whole feel of the car has changed and it's scary. I so need to wear out my front tyres so I can get another pair of goodyears. If I keep driving like this I probably will in a few months! Meet weekend which was fun. had kitty with me, lots of people who I didn't know and most of whom I still don't know cos I suck with names. Silliness, pub, drinkage, sit in a park and DDRage. Passed So Deep/Double/Maniac, my first double cata. Got to play EZ2 2nd move for the first time in ages, and got to play Taiko no Tatsujin again, owie my fingers hurt from that. And now time for a rant, this time about the SPECS cameras on the A616 They claim that the A616 is one of the most dangerous roads and that these cameras are there to stop it. to quote the article "But campaigners say a central barrier is needed to stop people overtaking". This is most likely correct, when you get to this road, you will have been stuck behind the same lorry or old codger since the other side of the Penines, by this point people are frustrated and likely to take risks in their overtaking. So why, therefore, do they put the SPECS cameras at the start and end of the few areas actually marked for overtaking (the end of one such area is shown on the picture on that article). Trucks will be driving on the limiter, ie. 56mph. The limit for trucks on that stretch is 40, and for cars it's 60, but the cameras do not catch the trucks as they don't distinguish between vehicle types. So, the area where it's safe to overtake, though an illegal speed is required, gets cameras, and the rest of it which is only a single lane each way is not covered by cameras, forcing people to overtake in the more dangerous areas. Oh, and these are distance and time devices too, with a reading taken at the start and end of the stretch, and an average speed calculated. One way to get past the trucks that you're stuck behind would be to overtake at 80, then anchor on and do 40, relying on the fact that the truck wont be able to get pase you in time, or perhaps you could tailgate the truck as you enter so as not to get your numberplate read by the camera. So, to summarise, instead of overtaking in a safe wide two-lane stretch of road, you have to either: a) overtake in the one-lane sections, possibly colliding with oncoming traffic b) overtake a truck then slam on and hope he doesn't hit you and cause another M1-style crash (see below) c) tailgate Many of you will suggest option d) put up with it, but face it, this isn't going to happen. Mr. BMW's journer is far more important than that of you or I and he will do something. So tell me, how does this particular camera installation aid road safety? Current Mood: annoyed Current Music: that Delerium CD that kitty brought with her this weekend (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 21st, 2003
11:58 pm	Alarmed! Yay, got my car alarm transferred too, and it seems to work. I have remote central locking again. Cost me a ton, and the autoelec is scarily similar to on eof my uncles. But it is done and it is great, woo! Has to be some bad news though. My local DDR machine is broken :( Still, maybe they'll get a Euromix2 rather than fix or replace this one. In an ideal world I'd get to steal the pads from this one and hook them up to the PC. That would be nice :) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
9:40 am	Exhausted o_O Yay! Took my car to the garage, and actually found one that listens and does what you want. Basically the rally-spec exhaust on my car has never sat right since I had it moved to this car. It''s always ended up twisted clockwise and hangling low, and scraping on speed bumps. This lot actually listened when I said I don't care if the tailpipe is scraping against the bumper, I can just cut more of it away. Got me to hold it in the position I wanted it and clamped it up. And they put two clamps on because it's a rather heavy system. Charged me £12 which is nothing, would cost me more than that to hire use of a set of ramps. I think it will hold this time, and it sounds beautiful once again, sounds like it did on my old car. Off in 10 minutes to get my old alarm/immobiliser/remote-controlled-central-locking transferred over, expensive! Is handy having an auto elec living next door though, didn't have to tow the old car anywhere to get someone to take the alarm out. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Force & Styles - Heart of Gold (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 19th, 2003
12:28 am	Computer b0rkage Whee! what a night. Decided to try and fix the problem of my firewall computer overheating, by adding a few fans to it. well. First some background. I have an ancient Sun SparcStation IPC as a firewall, an almost-as-ancient Compaq Prosignia 500 P150 server (file, news, ftp) Stuck a heatsink on the hottest chip on the IPC, just sitting it there to see if it was gonna fit, it wasn't, it slipped. unbeknownst to me it had dregs of arctic silver on it's base which got all over the FPU, now I get FPU exceptions every 5 minutes.. So, I decide to push my SpacrStation 4 into firewall duty, configure the kernel, get Telewest to allow access from it's MAC address, nothing, can't get an IP address Eventually realies I missed an obscure option, socket filtering, allows DHCP client to work, set it off and it's going to take ages. getting impatient. The compaq server always was the firewall as well to begin with, but it was recently upgraded to 2.4.21 so I haven't compiled firewall stuff in, I decide to do this so I can get on the internet while I'm waiting. Compile kernel, copy over, run lilo, reboot. LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI LI that's that machine's bootloader buggered. need to download a bootdisk image to get it back! I've now gotten the SparcStation 4 working as firewallage, killed my main server, but I have net access back, it's gone midnight and I've had enough, drinkies then sleep I think. Current Mood: pissed off Current Music: Scooter - The Logical Song (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 16th, 2003
9:32 pm	First Post! Well, I've finally caved into peer pressure and set up an account here, whee! Probably just use this to have a good old moan about stuff and see if anyone cares, doubt it though. So, without further ado, let the moaning commence! M1 Crash Big pileup on one of the UKs biggest motorways, some old codger in a Honda pulls in front of a truck, causing it to skid, plough through the central reservation and launch a bunch of army tanks that it was carrying into oncoming traffic. Nasty stuff, the guy's currently being done for dangerous driving. Now, what's annoying me, I see people sat there saying, "good thing too", "lock the bastard up" etc. etc. but I'm willing to bet a fair number of them do exactly the same stunt themselves. I see loads of people pulling out without looking on the motorways, pulling into a truck's braking distance and generally driving crap. Every one of these manouvres is just as dangerous as what this guy did, just you were either lucky, or the skill of the truck driver meant an accident was avoided. Rumour going round now is uk.gov are looking to punish this guy with more than the maximum allowable for causing death by dangerous driving. If, as is likely the case, this guy is otherwise a normal, upstanding well behaved citizen, what good will it do really? He's probably never going to drive again anyway, and even if he did I bet he'd certainly do a hell of a lot better than 90% of the idiots out there. The only good it'll do is appease the Daily Mail readers out there, and help Tony win the next election. Wheeeee! Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Bang! - Shooting Star (The original not the Flip&Phil cover) (Comment on this)