Wow, I just got back from Karate and in tonight’s session I got an Orange Tip. An orange tip is like the middle point between yellow belt and orange belt, and I certainly was not expecting it. I am pretty chuffed as I have been knackered all week and I considered not going (sooz was not going as she is still pretty ill), so I am chuffed that I went. 🙂

Just thought I had to share that with the world. 🙂

Well it seems that cloth support has been built into Blender, and it also seems that raytracing may have been added over the last few days. I think this raytraing support links in with the Yafray raytracer, and Yafray has produced some amazing results. This all exciting stuff. Also, when you have five minutes to download a 16MB file, go and see this animation. This is jawdroppingly amazing. It was done by some bod for their final year project. Amazing!

Last night was LUG night. Good fun, a few new members and plenty of curry. I was not drinking as I was driving, and we have our chrismas LUG meet next week. I now need to get on with some work.

Oh yeah, I added a Gallery (cue cheesy tony Hart music) to the site. I plan on adding a stack of photos and Blender art to it. I have added my first Blender project in there.

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Went to bed last night quite late, and had the joy of getting woken up by a phone call at 9am. I then needed to run around finding paperwork for the call. Nightmare I tell you. I am now sat here feeling rather tired, but I have stuff to do today. I might go to sleep for a few hours soon.

I was fiddling with Blender some more last night. I have been working on a scene to create a laptop style device with come simple controls. It is quite a simple scene and is still looking quite basic, but it is getting there. I probably won’t have time to fiddle with it today, but I am going to try and find a few hours later in the week. Today I need to revise some old writing and continue to develop some parts of it. I could also do with doing some software upgrades and installations soon. The TODO list is big and I need to get through it.

Just as I was writing this we had a knock on the door and I have had a draft manuscript of C++ GUI Programming With Qt 3 arrive. It is a mighty big book and looks quite cool. It is written by Trolltech trolls and is considered an official book. This is quite handy as I am doing a bit of Qt revision at the moment. I plan on giving it a good review and sending some notes back to Prentice Hall about it.

LUG meet so that should be fun – plenty of curry. 🙂

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I am mighty knackered. For some reason I could not sleep last night, and then when I finally fell asleep I woke up with that heavy nights sleep feeling. Now I am here working, I feel a bit tired. I woke up and came downstairs to see that shitty MasterCare have taken our TV away to be fixed (again). That means a tiny TV in the living room, and SOCOM just won’t be the same. D’oh!

Last night I came up with a brainwave for a new product I plan on developing. I am gonna keep my lips sealed at the moment, but I am looking into methods of developing it. In line with this brainwave, I also have a batch of new writing work on the horizon and I am just discussing some ideas with my pals at Linux Format.

Right, better get on…

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On sunday we went to a death metal all-dayer in London. On the bill were Deicide, Amon Amarth, Destruction, Dew Scented, Nile, Akercocke and others. It was a good gig, if a bit packed. The problem though was that it was at the end of a crazy week, and by the time th weekend came, I was feeling a bit rough and getting this flu that is going around. Sooz is infected with it, and although I thought I had escaped, it seems not. 🙁

Today I have been finishing off a review and trying to keep myself busy. I don’t feel well, keep going dizzy and I am freezing. I was gonna go and have a jam with Emelye tonight, but I think I am gonna have to cancel – I don’t really want to go out and drive and infect her and her family. Fecking flu.

Fingers crossed I will be fine for this weeks fun and games. We have Eddie Izzard, a gig at the Planet, LUG meeting and the usual work and guitar playing. I am looking forward to chilling out over chrismas, but I am sure something will pop up for me to do!!

Take it easy folks, and if you see me in the street, don’t come over and let me breathe on you.

Off to see Iron Maiden tonight. I first got into maiden when I was about 8 and first saw them live when I was 12 at Donnington Park in 1992. I am looking forward to seeing them again. Last night we went out for a meal with some friends and watched Pirates Of The Carribean on DVD. Cool stuff.

Alan and Jaymez from Conspiracy (my old band) are coming up for Maiden and so is Paul (from my other old band!). At some point I also need to finish my Seapine SCM review and fix some bugs here in some code.

This morning I spent a bit of time messing around on some of the Blender sites and I have spotted some extra info in the 2.2x manual. I am looking forward to giving these tutorials some attention next week.
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Tonight we did our gig at the Rock Cafe. Good fun, crap sound on stage though. It made the gig tough as we found it difficult to hear things. Anyway, good night and it was cool playing with Undefined and Viable. 🙂

Tonight I have added a new wiki to the site. The idea with this thing is that you folks can add whatever you want to it. It will probably sit there unused, but if it is there, something useful may come of it. I have also made the forum available within an IFRAME. This way you can view the forum within the site design. The direct link will still access the forum directly however. 🙂

Right, need sleep now. Goodnight!!

Just saw Machine Head tonight. Man, can those guys play live!! An awesome set by an awesome band. They also played Number Of The Beast, Creeping Death and bits of Electric Eye and A New Level. Pretty awesome and I got a good battering in the pit. 🙂 We have a gig tomorrow at the Rock Cafe in Stourbridge. Should be fun, and I am looking forward to getting our new tune in the set.

Today I was playing around with Blender some more. I started work on my first full Blender scene with some NURBS modelling. It is a kind of weird airport, and it is also my first attempts at using 2.3x (I am using the new 2.31a release). I am really getting used to this release, but there are a few things I still need to mess about with. I am planning on getting some of this Blender artwork on here eventually.

Some beady eyed readers of this site will notice the lack of music I have (not) put on here recently, particularly given the fact that I bought a spanking new sound card. The problem is that my PC is a creaking old beast, and I am in need of a new one. There are also some issues with the AMD chipset (VIA) that can cause problems with sequencing software, and I am going to look into getting something new fairly soon; maybe once christmas is out of the way. I can then use that machine as a review testbed and Linux distribution farm. At some point I also plan on getting some form of distributed processing going on. For this I will call on my buddy Jayne Hegar who can assist me with this. 🙂

Right, it is now very late, and Sooz is gonna bring me up some weird type of pork burger we just got from ASDA. I just got the new Ricky Gervais Live DVD and I want to watch it ASAP. He is awesome, and I will laugh my bits off. 😀

Here I am, sat in front of the TV watching Eggheads on the TV. I do like this, even though there seem to be some nutters on the Eggheads team. Clever people though, no doubt about that.

Just writing up a proposal now. Although they are important, they are never fun to write. Writing the main article/book is far more interesting, but the proposal has to come first. I think the reason they are not particularly interesting is because they take a long time to develop and structure in your head before you write it down. When you do a normal article/book, the plan is already set out so you can just get on with it. The other thing is that a proposal is so important, so it is the extra thought of getting it spot on.

Tonight I have a jam with Emelye (some more cello 🙂 ), and then I am gonna relax. We did a gig last night and I am knackered!!

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Well, got back from visiting family. It was great seeing my folks, my brothers family and my grandad. I look forward to seeing them at christmas. I came back with some gadgets and also took the dog up there. They loved him. 🙂

Back now and lots to do. It is late and I should be asleep – busy day tomorrow. Well, busy day full stop – this week we are seeing Machine Head, Iron Maiden, doing a gig, going to a Death tribute night, practicing, jamming and of course working.

Oh yeah – it looks like the Blender manual is selling well. I am pleased for Ton and the crew – I hope it really helps the Blender Foundation. I can’t wait to get it – I just hope it arrives before christmas. 🙂
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