Downtime (Sort of)

Well..

The last few days my blog hasn't been able to load for me, but was for others. According to my generous host, DigitalChild himself, he has two servers online. For some reason my ISP started directing me to the secondary host, which had a simple html page that I wrote in notepad ages ago, with simple links to songs I had uploaded.

I might be moving to another server, but that doesn't really concern anyone. Nevertheless, its working again now.

I plan to add a music player here which will play the songs I uploaded to my music blog, so look out for that.

Transport Tycoon Deluxe

Transport Tycoon has been one of my all time favourite games ever since it came out, which was a long time ago! If you don't know what it is, its a strategy game centred around transporting passengers and/or goods from one place to another. You can use trains, trucks, buses, boats...whatever tickles your fancy. Check out some screenshots.

Now...OpenTDD is a rework that has been out for a long while. Its made possible because the source code of Transport Tycoon was released a while back. The best thing about OpenTTD is that it runs on all major platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac) which is great for me since I have all those running at one time or another. It has many other benefits over the original game, which you can read here. You can download it there too. Thats only the OpenTDD files though, you still need files which you can grab out of the Transport Tycoon Deluxe game, for download here. And its all legal, because its now considered Abandonware.

I must admit I've racked up thousands of hours playing this game, trying to get the perfect train system or making millions every year from an efficient airport setup. So if you do give this game a go, beware, it is addictive.

Also, if you do find it enjoyable but a little outdated, you could always buy Locomotion, the very belated followup. (Only for Windows though)

Automatic Updates

How far must Microsoft go to annoy people? Automatic updates were annoying enough, popping up every 5 minutes prompting me to restart after it had installed some "Critical update".

So now it seems there's a new way... Instead of asking me if I want to restart, I say no, and it just stops asking me, it now has a timer. Once the timer reaches zero, it restarts your computer automatically.

The first time I experienced this, I clicked the "Restart later" button, hoping that the next time it came up, it wouldn't have a timer. So off I went to have lunch, leaving my computer downloading some rather large files that I wanted off BT. While enjoying my lunch I hear the chime of Windows signing me out for a restart.

So then, I had to log back into Windows, reopen Azureus, and jump at the back of the queue for a good seeder, another hour or so of downloading ensues.

Gg Microsoft.

Gg.

Mum's Birthday and Mercedes Benz

Thursday night was my mother's birthday, so Kristen and I drove back to Newcastle for dinner with the family. Two relatives from Holland are over, I got introduced to them and said "Hey, how you going?" and I get told "They can't speak any English". As if they would come to Australia and not understand "How you going?".

My Aunty is going deaf, doesn't know it, and therefore is very loud. She seemed very drunk although we were only there for like 30 minutes. When I asked her how much she'd had, she goes "A glass and a half [of wine]", I laughed.

Everyone was going crazy taking photos every two seconds. I look no different to the last 30 times you photographed me, lol.

My brother got a new Alfa Romeo 159. Its nice. He was like "I'm the only one in Australia with this paint job, and this interior". Did look good though. It runs on diesel, and the sound of the engine reminded me of my Opa's old Mercedes Benz. Was a nice feeling.

When my Opa moved to Australia during the depression following WWII, he always wanted a Mercedes Benz. I imagine he must have worked so hard to get one. I can't say I know much about his life, but I do respect what he went through to raise his family in Australia. What I do know is, that he sent my Oma, and their kids to Australia first, while he stayed in Holland working until he could afford himself to move as well.

That went a little off topic, didn't it?