Wet Wet Wet

I think today must be the wettest day of the year - It has been raining here in Evesham non-stop for nearly 24 hours. The river is up, the drains are blocked and can't cope with the torrential rain that we've been having.....

I LOVE IT!!

Its funny that this time last year we were baking with temperatures well into the 30's (c). The following pictures show the difference - the one on the left is from this time last year, and the one on the right is from this year. Both pictures were taken using the Evesham High School webcam.

Holiday at last......

Well, thats another year over with... The school summer holiday begins today, which means I need something to keep myself pre-occupied for the next 6 weeks, otherwise I'm sure to go insane with boredom. No doubt I will pop into the school every now and again to do a little bit of overwork though.

It was quite weird actually when I was leaving the building knowing that when I return I will officially begin my post as Network Manager. So sad though to see my old boss going (retirement), and many other faces who I met and got on with during the three years that I have been there.

Oh well... When September comes, it means a new job, many new faces at the school, including a new Headmaster to get along with too. Not too sure if I'm going to welcome change though.... We will see.

Anyway, it's nice to see the holidays start with a lovely thunderstorm, which is taking place here in Evesham at this precise moment. Kieran is asleep in the bed beside me, all snug, while I'm just sat here typing away on my laptop, watching the flashes of lightening through our bedroom window - I love thunder, and I love the rain. I'm not a summer person, and much prefer being able to sit indoors in the warm and dry, watching a downpour outside while listening to Mike Oldfield or some easy listening music, which is why I've been loving what some of you would call 'one of the worst summers of recent years". I only like hot sunny weather if I'm abroad!!

Oh, and in case you are wondering where Michelle is while Im sat here looking after Kieran... She's gone to the Keepmoat Stadium in Doncaster to watch Ronan Keating and McFly perform live with a friend. She aquired a 'free' platinum ticket the other day which apparently means she's right infront by the stage.... Not my cup of tea, although I have told her to take lots of pictures!......

.... I really, really, really, really want to go and see Erasure perform live again.

Week in a post!!

It's been an interesting (and hectic) week for me. With less than a week to go before the school summer holidays begin, its all been go at school. After my promotion a few weeks ago, my replacement started on Tuesday so much of my time has been spent training him up. We had the staff ball at Dumbleton Hall on Thursday which went really well (hey, I was the DJ so of course it would have been a good night). Considering that we had an issue with lights (ie, we had none), we had to improvise with some christmas tree lights. It didn't turn out too bad actually, and everyone had a fabulous time. I had them dancing on the dance floor all night!




... AND Kieran went to playschool for the first time on Thursday.......

... Actually he doesn't start playschool officially until the 11th September but we were asked if he could pop down for an induction session. He absolutely loved it!!! Infact, the only time he cried was when Michelle had to drag him out to go home!!!! He didn't seem to care when Michelle left him to play with the other children on his own. He is so unlike me!!!! I cried the house down when my Mum took me to playschool for the first time and when she left me!!

So this weekend I have been taking it really easy, watching old episodes of Doctor Who on UKTV Drama, downloading more movie soundtracks (more on this later), working on a song that I've been writing for a few months now, doing some more photography and playing with Kieran and his 40 new toy cars that I went out and bought him on Friday.

4 more days to go and then I've got 6 weeks of lounging around!!!!! WOOHOOO.

Anyway, I will now leave you with another picture that I have been working on - "The Ship"

Stuart's Photography

I've been doing a bit of photography lately and I'm slowly adding the final finishing touches on several pictures that I have taken recently. I thought that I might share this one with you as I'm quite pleased with the end result.

Click the image for a larger view.

It is an often photographed view of St Pauls Catherdral looking over The Millennium Bridge in London.

Getting a bit crowded around here

Opps nearly forgot. Those of you who have read my blog since the very beginning may remember that this time last year I wrote a post congratulating my friends Pete and Gemma on the birth of their daughter. It was estimated that at the time the worlds population was 6,629,751,996

Well... exactly one year later the worlds population now stands at an estimated :-

6,726,149,983

Wow.... thats 96,397,987 more in just a year!!!! - (It feels like it, what with the number of migrants moving to Evesham lately!)

At this rate, the world's population should reach 10 billion around the 16th December 2034.

Right I'm off to bed now as I'm still recovering from last nights 'late night' at the Ball. I'm KNACKERED! Goodnight all!

Why I dont like playing computer games as much as I once did...

BEWARE..... ***** LONG RANTING ***** post alert.

I’ve come to the horrible conclusion that I just do not enjoy playing computer games as much as I once did.

I don’t think it’s because I’m getting old though. I think it has more to do with a lack of originality in the games of today.

While sitting at work this afternoon, I was thinking back to when I was at school, and how I would look forward to rushing home after the last lesson of the day to load up The Last Ninja on my Commodore 64 to see if I could get any further, or spending hours trying to discover a new room to explore in Castle Master. I just don’t seem to get that feeling of ‘wonder’ and ‘excitement’ anymore. I know that being married and having a young child means I don’t get to spend as much time playing games as I did before I met Michelle, but even when I do find the time to start up Tomb Raider Anniversary (my favourite game at the moment), or any other game from my rather large collection, I just can’t get ‘into’ the game like I did with the old classics.

Back in the 80’s and early 90’s there was a much larger variety of game genres available while today all we are left with are the countless number of first-person-shooters, racing sims, football and sports games.

Don’t get me wrong, I love shooters (especially Half Life 2 etc.), but at the end of the day, I’ve seen it all before. Ok, so the graphics may look prettier, but the game is still essentially a first-person shooter just like Doom which was released way back in the early 90’s. I've seen it before, show me something I've never played before!

What has led the game industry to this constant barrage of clones?

I think it was the demise of the bedroom programmer. Back in the days of Mastertronic when you could buy a game for £1.99, those games were programmed by talented young individuals who programmed simple yet entertaining games that would keep you coming back for more. These programmers were not afraid to try new things.

Can computer games evolve any more? We’ve got very close to having games render almost photorealistic environments in realtime but at the end of the day, are graphics the most important thing in a game? What about originality and gameplay?

Generally the way we play games now is no different than how we played games 20 years ago – sat in front of a television or monitor with a controller or joystick. The Nintendo Wii has attempted to try something different with its remote controller and nunchuk but at the end of the day are these that much dissimilar to the light gun?

Do you remember 20 years ago they told us that sometime in the near future we'd have computers that would project realistic virtual-reality worlds that we could interact with by using special VR helmets and gloves?

What happened???

How long before technology like that of the Holodecks used in Star Trek become closer to reality?