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Jesus Christ

Now some people are comparing Premier Ewart Brown to Jesus.

Well, here's another Biblical reference for you:

"Hear this, you stupid and senseless people! You have eyes, but you cannot see. You have ears, but you cannot hear." Jeremiah 5:21

My dad, my hero

"Just retrieved all your old Lego from the loft – see attached pictures.

Amazed ourselves with how much stuff you had and as you can see, still with some of the original boxes. Also with all of the instruction leaflets and booklets as well. The assembled pieces are just as you abandoned them, when you were about 10, for the computer! We even found an astronaut on a digger!

Hope this will have made your day. But to ship this lot to Bermuda would cost a fortune!!!

Dad"

Alas, I think he's probably right. Guess I'll just have to take a large, empty suitcase with me next time I go to the UK.

More pictures here. Thanks for digging it all out, dad!

Lego nostalgia

This is absolutely awesome.

I almost cried when I saw the Lego Galaxy Explorer again. It was my favourite Lego model when I was a kid, along with the Space Cruiser, Starfleet Voyager (so that's where they got the name from!), Mobile Rocket Transport, Alpha-1 Rocket Base and all the rest of the Lego Space stuff.

Don't suppose you've still got them up in the roof, do you, dad?

Tim Unwise

After reading the interview with American race "expert" Tim Wise in Friday's Mid Ocean News, I have completely lost all respect I previously had for him.

Two passages stood out. First, his response when asked if there could be racism against white people in Bermuda:

"I definitely don't think it's happening here... Real racism, in order to be effective, has to actually oppress people. We know what anti-black racism did. Here, in Bermuda, there is nothing that (Mr.) Scott or (Premier Ewart) Brown could do. Let's just say they absolutely hated white people - I find that to be a fanciful, almost absurd characterisation but I know many whites believe it - what could they do? This is a country that's entirely dependent on foreign dollars and tourist dollars for its economic vitality and those are dollars that are mostly invested and spent by white people. So they could absolutely detest white people and there's almost nothing they can do to them. It doesn't make it right for them to hold a prejudice, it doesn't make it okay or fair, but really what it comes down to is Scott and Brown and members of the PLP, their only power is they can hurt white people's feelings."

The Government of Bermuda has no power? Yeah, whatever you say, Tim. Tell that to the chef who was summarily deported for making a joke about the Premier. It might not have been racially motivated, but it was a clear demonstration of the power the Government has and is unafraid to wield, without any recourse to due process.

And outside Government, what about black landlords and employers? Do they have no power to choose their tenants and employees, should they so wish, on the basis of their race? How can you be so sure racism against white people cannot be happening here?

Second, his response when asked if he thought every white person here was rich.

"Absolutely not. But the reality is the white people who aren't rich - is their mortgage in the hands of a black banker? Is their job in the hands of a black employer? Is their child's education in the hands of a black teacher? If so, then at least theoretically they could have a point although we'd still have to excavate the practicality."

Er, actually, yes they are, and your caveat makes no sense. Do you know anything about Bermuda?

It's comments like these that have, over the years, caused me to lose any interest I once had in taking an active role in the fight against racism. By legitimising feelings of victimhood in some members of the black population, people like Tim Wise and the guilt-ridden appeasers at CURB are only making the problem worse.

(Misplaced) Enthusiasm

One of Aidan's most endearing features right now is the enthusiasm with which he often responds to simple questions.

"Would you like some toast?" we'll ask.

"Yes pleeeeease!" he'll reply, as if you'd just asked him whether he'd like to have a million dollars' worth of Tonka trucks.

It never fails to raise a smile in me. It's even funnier when it's completely inappropriate.

The other morning Aidan stubbed his toe while opening mummy's wardrobe door. His face wrinkled up.

"You're fine!" we breezily reassured, operating under the principle that kids are often more upset by the worry in their parents' faces than by any pain they're feeling.

Unimpressed, Aidan started to wail. Time to go to stage two.

"Did you hurt your toe? Would you like us to cut it off?" we asked.

The sniffles subsided. "Yes pleeeeease!"

The Pyro is a Bermudian

While debate continues about whether Team Fortress 2's Pyro is a man or a woman, with him set to receive a new weapon called the Axtinguisher later this week, there can no longer be any doubt about his nationality.

Making progress

Made quite a bit of progress in GTA IV yesterday, getting another 10% or so further through the game. I reckon I've got about the same to go again before finishing the main story, after which I'll probably leave it and go play something else. Compulsive completer-finisher I may be, but there are just too many other games out there vying for my attention now.

Yesterday aside, I've now spent the last eight days writing my program for Mandy. In that time I've only left the house three times, and never ventured further than Ferry Reach. Starting at 9am and working until 11pm most days, I've been working harder than I do when I'm at work.

I've made good progress, but there remains a lot to do. It's proven to be a much more complicated piece of software than the inventory management system I wrote for Godet & Young, and I think I underestimated the amount of work involved. I've learned a fair bit about data binding in .NET and SQL Server Reporting Services in the process, though. The data binding stuff has proved considerably trickier than Microsoft make it out to be in their introductory videos, and I've run into several problems that I've struggled (and in some cases, am still struggling) to fix. I'm now going to have to work evenings and weekends to finish it.

As usual when developing, I've been doing a lot of swearing, but overall I've been feeling less stressed than I normally get at work. I think that's because at home I have at least been able to work uninterrupted, whereas at work I'm constantly getting emails and phone calls from people who need me to do stuff for them, which makes getting into a state of flow almost impossible. It's times like this when I appreciate the advantages an office with a door has over open plan.

The writing's on the wall

Aidan has started drawing on the walls.

He did it for the first time yesterday, grabbing a crayon and scribbling on the kitchen wall when mummy wasn't looking. Then this morning he found a pencil and used it on one of the walls in the hall, covering half its length before mummy disarmed him.

Time to break out the paint...

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.

While some of us spend the day on the golf course and others on the water, I'm planning to spend the day in Liberty City.

Still feel a bit guilty about taking so much time to myself, though. Maybe that's because when I was growing up Father's Day never seemed to be as big a deal as Mother's Day. But having been a dad for getting on for two years now, I can appreciate the value of having a day at the weekend to myself.

Busman's holiday

I'm taking this week off work to write a piece of software to help Mandy manage her summer swim program.

To speed development, I'm writing it in VB.NET, the same language I use at work. As the only licence I have for the full version of Microsoft Visual Studio (for those who don't know, Microsoft Visual Studio is the tool I use to write software, in the same way that Microsoft Word is the tool you might use to write a letter) is for an old version, I've opted to use Visual Studio 2008 Express instead. This is a free, but cut-down, version of the program, which hopefully will be enough for my needs. Unlike the full version, however, it doesn't include Crystal Reports, the tool I usually use to generate reports. Because of that I'm using SQL Server 2005 Express as the database (a free, cut-down version of SQL Server 2005), which gives me the ability to use SQL Server Reporting Services to produce reports instead. It also means I don't have to use Access as the database.

The downside of using all these free tools, apart from the lack of some features I'm used to, is that I'm not that familiar with them. In particular, I've never used Reporting Services to produce reports before, so there's a bit of a learning curve to go through. On the upside, the knowledge I gain could prove useful at work too.

The other problem with Visual Studio Express is that it doesn't support add-ons, which means I'm unable to use the excellent Resharper with it. This is a tool which makes the job of writing code easier, by providing some additional features not available in Visual Studio. I've only just started using it at work, but I'm already missing having to code without it.

Hopefully I can quickly get to grips with everything and have Mandy a working program by the end of the week.

Balloon

When Mandy went to retrieve our car from No. 1 Shed this morning she found not a wheel-clamp, not a parking ticket, but just a single balloon tied to it.

Weird, but not unwelcome.

Twitter problems

Twitter seem to be having a lot of problems at the moment. The badge in the sidebar that displays our twitters hasn't been working for a while, and indeed, I can no longer find the link that lets you set up a badge on Twitter's website. So I've removed it for the time being. The RSS feed should still work, however.

Locked out

Yesterday afternoon we went out on the catamaran "Rising Son" with the rest of the IT department from my work.

We were late getting to Hamilton to catch the boat, so decided to park in No.1 Shed on Front Street instead of City Hall. We needed four hours, but the maximum stay was three. We crossed our fingers and decided to take our chances.

We had a great time on the boat. But when we got back to our car just after 6pm, we discovered that the car park had been locked for the night about ten minutes earlier.

As a result, Aidan got to take his first ride on the bus. Judging by this picture, however, he'd have preferred to have the car too.

We went back to town this morning, on the off-chance that the car park was open on Sundays, but it wasn't. So now we'll have to make another trip tomorrow. Best case, we'll have a $50 parking ticket. Worst case, a $100+ wheel-clamp.

Bugger.

Sex and the City

I'm seriously considering never going to the cinema in Bermuda again.

On Friday evening we went to see Sex and the City at the Liberty Theatre. There wasn't much of a plot, the dialogue wasn't as sharp as it could have been, and I have no idea why the writers felt the need to give Carrie an assistant rather than having one of the other women fill that role. But as a fan of the series, none of these things bothered me too much, and I just enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with the characters.

Alas, I missed the beginning of the movie (and the trailers that proceeded it) because it turns out that the folks at Liberty Theatre are just as inept as those at the Little Theatre. The picture was alternately stretched and squashed, sometimes spilling into the area above or below the screen, sometimes cut off. At one point they stopped the movie (to jeers and sarcastic cheers from the audience), but when it resumed the problem still wasn't fixed. It wasn't until five minutes into the movie that something approaching a stable image finally settled on the screen. Even then, however, it didn't look right, with black bars down the sides and the edges of the picture fading to black rather than being clearly delineated. The picture was occasionally juddery, and at one point the colour balance kept popping between warm and cool tones.

It's times like this when I wish I was still living in London.

Grand Theft Auto IV

I'm having a lot of fun with Grand Theft Auto IV at the moment.

I've clocked up about 25 hours play time so far, but have still completed less than 40% of the game (although the main story accounts for only 68% anyway). The story is engaging, my character sympathetic and the missions enjoyable and well-constructed (and not too hard).

The highlight came the other night, when my unintelligible Jamaican arms-supplier and I were given a helicopter to chase some guys in another chopper around Liberty City's skyscrapers, before blowing it out of the sky. Afterwards, I took the chopper over to have a look at the Statue of Liberty Happiness. The sense of freedom that I had flying around was amazing, knowing how long it would have taken me to drive a similar distance.

I also like that there's so much to do that's not central to the game, yet it's so well implemented that you want to spend time doing it anyway. The pool, darts and bowling mini-games are excellent and I've found browsing for clothes for my character oddly compelling too (if only I could find a pair of dark shades somewhere).

It's not perfect, however, and I still think the fawning review scores of 99% and 100% that greeted the game on release were rather silly. The graphics are fine, and the frame rate is good, but they're a bit fuzzy, with a lot of jagged edges on display. The missions have evolved little from those found in previous GTA titles. Having to keep taking your friends on man-dates to keep them sweet gets a little tiresome. Being unable to save part-way through a mission can be frustrating, since failure involves starting over from the person who gave it to you - which usually involves a drive back across town to the place where the action actually happens. Vehicles occasionally inexplicably disappear too. After taking a look inside the Statue of Happiness, I got back to the spot where I parked my chopper after to find that it had mysteriously vanished into thin air.

GTA IV is a great game, but it's not a perfect one.

Of thunder and forks

Aidan's language skills are coming on in leaps and bounds.

He's now pretty good at repeating unfamiliar words back to us, if he's in the mood. For instance, we were outside the other evening when there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. "Ooh, thunder," I said. "Funder!" Aidan replied, and kept repeating his new word for the next hour, whether he heard any or not.

As a result, I'm now taking extra care with the language I use when he's around. Unfortunately it's not quite as simple as that, as Aidan still has trouble pronouncing some perfectly innocuous words. "Fork", for example, often comes out as "fuk", despite our panicky attempts to correct it.

Cooper's Island

It's not often that you get to see somewhere in Bermuda that you've never seen before. But last weekend we did just that when we took a stroll over to the recently-opened Cooper's Island, Bermuda's newest nature reserve.

It's not really an island - it's the peninsula at the south-eastern tip of St. David's, just past Clearwater Beach, where the old NASA tracking station used to be. You can't drive down there - you have to leave the car at Turtle Bay and walk the rest of the way. Although the area is still littered with rusting and boarded-up buildings and other detritus left behind by the Americans, and the vegetation is a bit scrappy, it's worth visiting for its beaches.

There's one really nice, long beach on the northern side of the peninsula, a second on the southern side that wraps around a small bay, and two small beaches that have in character what they lack in size. Best of all, because the area has only just opened, and because you have to walk to them, they're still relatively empty. It almost feels like you have your own private beach.

There are plans to give the area a major overhaul, turning the old NASA mission control building into a museum and visitor centre, and offering environmental tours and water sports. I really hope that they don't overdevelop it though. Best visit now, though, just in case.