dtgreenwood.com

It’s been a really busy week. A really busy week.

Whilst doing the normal work thing (apart from Thursday when I was ill) I helped with the Harrogate Phoenix Players production of My Fair Lady. Tuesday I went to the technical rehearsal where the stage crew learnt what they were doing and what they were moving.

Wednesday night I was on the Ollie C Show on RadioRSP as normal, which I always enjoy. This Wednesday we have Claire as our special guest and some special features that should be really entertaining, for us at the very least. So if you find yourself at a loose end then tune in on Wednesday night from 7-9.

Thursday night I spent doing nothing, which was nice but Friday night it was back to the theatre for My Fair Lady. After the show a large number of the cast and crew went to Jinnah in Harrogate for an Indian. Whilst I’m not the biggest fan of spicy foods, the Jinnah was fantastic. The service was great on account of there were 32 or so of us.

Saturday was spent at the theatre with two shows and a meal at Pinocchio’s in between. Claire joined us for the meal and then sat and watched the show which she enjoyed.

Today Claire and me went to Scarborough for some fish and chips, a traditional British day out! We also hit the arcades where we played on a large number of two pence machines and time crisis just because we’re both big kids when it comes to arcades, lol.

Isn’t it great when you revisit a piece of code and make it work better?! I am of course talking to any programmers out there but I’m sure anyone can relate to it in some way. It’s that great feeling that you’ve taken something that you’ve done in the past, learnt from it and made it better.

Well, today I’ve optimised my sites loading times. I’m working on a new design for my site, again, I know. The site before you, when loading the homepage is taking between three and four seconds to load, sometimes longer, which for a site this small is a rather long time. I investigated this and it turns out that my SQL statements were too complicated. I was trying to take all the data I wanted in one big call which turns out isn’t as efficient as five small ones. The things you learn huh. So now my new design is sweeping in at a rather swift average of 0.05 Seconds. Cool stuff.

Right, now time to go and correct the security floor I’ve just found :S

Today Claire and I went to The George in Wormald Green for lunch. We’ve been trying to go somewhere at least every two weeks for lunch or dinner as part of my new years resolution to get out and about more and so far it’s working. So we went to The George, in the off chance that there would be room as it always looks pretty busy and I must say that we’re both pretty impressed.

Claire had char-grilled 8oz steak burger in a bun topped with mozzarella, salad and chips and I had pan fried chicken breast on savoy cabbage, bacon and saute potatoes with a red wine jus. The atmosphere was great and it was refreshing to eat a restaurant that’s so relaxed.

I can definitely suggest The George for a great meal.

A quick update really.

It’s been windy round here for the last week, really windy. Between the wind and the rain me and Steve got a severe battering yesterday whilst trying to fix a roof. The wind was so strong that it took tiles off the roof and that was on the calm side of the house. So me and Steve had no choice but to get up there and fix it, not fun.

Last night I went and helped move scenery during for the local pantomime in Ripon. They’re doing a story of Humpty Dumpty and what I heard of it, it’s really good. I’ll be there again this afternoon and again tonight. I got roped into helping by Steve and now he’s ill so now he’s not going.

Anyway got to go now, I’m meeting Claire in town after her haircut and we might be off to get some lunch, woo

An odd title I know but bear with me, it may turn into a bit of a rant.

First off my remote control seems confused. When i press the button to fast forward on my TV DVD player it turns off and when I press enter it changes to TV mode from DVD. I know what a few of you will be thinking and yes I changed the batteries but now it’s happening more often now. Grrr.

[rant]Second, what’s with USB ports these days? Why can’t everyone who makes these thing place them all the same way up?!? I mean come on, how often have you been to a computer, gone to put your USB device in and it won’t go in so you have to turn it upside down? It’s just one of those small things that annoy me. Why can’t all the computer and USB hub manufacturers have the USB port the same way up and all USB device and cable people do the same thing. That way everything is the right way up and you can see the status light on your USB pen to know it’s working instead of having to turn your hub upside down. [/rant]

OK, now for something cool. Goto a website, any website and then enter the following code in the address bar. It’s super sweet!

Code:
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position=’absolute’; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval(’A()’,5); void(0);
source: destructoid.com

I’ve got plans for my bedroom over the next couple of weeks or so, oh yes indeed. I want to get rid of both the wardrobes in here and get some shelfs and a hanging rail underneath one of them to hang my cloths on. sorted. I also want to get rid of the glass corner desk that I’m currently using and get a good old fashion wooden table with four legs. Oh and a decent desk chair!

The only problem… I have to throw out and / or organise a lot of stuff before I can achieve any of this. Gah, I hate tidying up but I’m going to have to be brutal in what I keep as I’ve got way too much stuff!

As the title suggests I have indeed been playing with my website some more. On new years eve before I went out with Claire to the Hong Kong I made myself a tag cloud which you can take a look at here. The basics are there, all I need to do now is make it pretty and link each word to a search for posts tagged with that tag but that can wait. I’ve also stuck some links on the right hand side of my site to websites that I either read regularly or I feel need a bit of a big up. So take a look through, you never know

Me and Claire went cycling again today, just a five mile jaunt but a hard muddy one! Claire moans that there’s too much mud but it’ll build those leg muscles that we need much quicker so I’ll keep dragging her to it I want to go out again on Sunday before Claire goes back to University but we’ll see. I might end up going out on my own. At least that way I can only slow myself down instead of Claire as well :P.