It's either very late or very early. My brain says the former, as I've not slept on this flight. I am as ever on the BMI flight from RUH to LHR, brain fried and horribly fuzzy. We're somewhere over Turkey but not yet to Istanbul - plenty of flight left yet then. Mecca is long behind us though, the map says Bucharest is straight ahead - what would I find there I wonder? The iPod is 'singing' to me, strictly speaking it's Dave Gahan and Depeche Mode, but that was long ago. Only the little white faced box is really working, Dave Gahan knows nothing of his performance tonight, much less to who.

I had words at one point, but I was too wrapped up in Iain M. Banks. I'm reading 'Matter' at the moment. Whilst I'm not sure I've read everything he's done, I'm much of the opinion that this is by far the best of the Culture stuff he's done - met him at a book signing many years ago, nice chap.

Why doesn't my mind ever switch off? I know I've not done a few things before I left tonight, and some of those that I did were not as good as they could have been. It seems a perpetual torment that I agonise over stuff that's not as good as I might think I could have done, yet those indescribably less capable than I, get away with turning out crap and couldn't give two hoots. I will die unhappy, knowing that however good I gave, it was never quite good enough (in my mind at any rate). I remain driven by the belief that I am slovenly and indolent and must try harder - where did I go in all this I wonder? I remain life's play thing to be directed at the behest of a greater cause.

That said, I feel more attuned to what's going on around me and feel better placed to influence it. If I want anything currently, it's my 15 minutes and the acknowledgement that I do contribute. I no longer wish to be someone else's passenger and desire the reward I feel I've earned. Clear a path, I'm coming through - something like that anyway...

The map says we're just over the Black Sea coast and are encroaching on mainland Europe, if only the dark (to me) Eastern nations, Romania I think, Hungary next. Places I know nothing of, though I did once meet a girl from Romanian girl serving in a bar in Bahrain. An image sticks in my head of her, as they have a distinctive look to them, that is very none British, or at least it was until the doors were thrown open.

We must be nearly half way there now and Tool are blasting out Lateralus. I'm nearly 48 and wouldn't trade this kind of music for anything - Stephen Fry, and his regular Tweets of Debussy and Mahler, I am not. Stick 6 strings on it and turn the fucker up LOUD! Moved onto Sian Evans and Kosheen - I don't mind that either. I have catholic tastes, whatever that means. Bucharest to our right now - what's it like down their?

About 3 hours to go, time for a doze I think. Dream of home maybe for a bit - not the place I left though. G'nite...

In the times in between posts, I do not cease to exist, but to you guys (I like like to think of you as my public), I may as well be on another planet, or never having existed at all. But no, I still find ways to occupy my time, but not in the particular time/space internet segment.

I can be found in an office, or on the road (driving on it not lying down - it's a bit of a bugger getting the tyre marks off cotton). On a golf course, or maybe in the supermarket. Sometimes I swim (not often obviously) or perhaps just shower. I sleep too, actually I'm rather big on sleep, it's where I should be now.

At the moment though I'm here, sort of de-briefing myself after this evenings' BBQ. I think it went well, the guests seemed to think as much too, least ways that's what they said; I for one am prepared to believe them, I have no reason not to you understand. It was a bit of a goodbye and fair-well event for someone who's been out here with our team for the last three years. He's still only 26 now and I'm sure he's learned a lot about how businesses run, even odd ones like ours :crazy:. He's been quite fun to have around and I wish him well in what he's heading off to, though I think he'll be back...

So for this evening at least, this is where I've been. Tomorrow I may well be somewhere entirely different, I just don't know where it will be yet or what may evolve from beneath the duvet of probability in the morning. I am hoping though that when it does evolve, it doesn't have to make the tea.

Till I come back then, chances are that I won't be too far away.

Since my last publication on this - Roland Boss DR-880 preset data list, the data for the instruments associated with 40 of the kits (at least one of each type) has been added to the Excel file. I've also added the bass tones used in each of the kits. As always, any comments on the file, especially corrections, would be welcomed.

Revised data file: dr-880_data.xls

Well I suppose I never said this would be quick when I posted about my attempts to map out all the necessary data for the DR-880 - Roland Boss DR-880 Preset Data List. I'm now well under way with mapping out the individual sounds used for each of the preset drum kits. When I say well under way, I've now hand transcribed the instruments for 40 of the kits onto a form I've created, and I've now got 12 of the sheets entered cell by laborious cell entered into Excel - that's 720 so far from a grand total of 6,000 that are needed before this can be considered complete. I wouldn't mind quite so much, but there is a sizeable amount of duplication going on here, then again, as there are only 440 sounds available to map across those 6,000 locations, that's hardly surprising. In an ideal world there would be an easy way of telling where the bulk of the duplication is, but the only way to find out is to look at every last mapping on the DR-880 to find out. How dull? Still I'm sure it will all be in a good cause... yeah right!

Created with the help of Photojojo's guide on creating your own planet using a panorama. Give it a try...

Seems that all is still not entirely well in the Tweetosphere. Tweetdeck works, using Chrome works, bit.ly works, but not Firefox. What gives here then? Can I not have a simply Tweetorific time using my browser of choice? Apparently not. Right, I'm off back the the delightfully black and gold (unlike Wolves) of Tweetdeck for a bit.

Seems Twitter is getting a bit of a battering at the moment - Twitter Status - Ongoing Denial of Service Attack, which is almost certainly why the widget down at the botton right of this page has gone black. It's a bit of a bugger really as I had exactly 140 characters I wanted to communicate with the world...

On the positive site, The Daily Smoke is now accessible, having gone AWOL a short while back. Hi Ellie! :D

As far as I can tell, you're the first person to link your blog, The Daily Smoke, to izdihar.com. Hopefully you enjoy reading what I'm writing, as much as I enjoy reading yours.

probably too late to be writing this to be fair, so I may be brief.

The last couple of days have been spent haring off down the Damman highway, either there or back. It's a drive of about 400Km each way and is pretty much as dull as dishwater. Mile after mile of empty desert, broken only by the sighting of the occasional camel and the monotonous regularity of the petrols stops along the way. It's not a journey that you could describe as having recognisable landmarks along the way, but after a few trips that way, certain features do allow you to tick off the time as you go. There are a couple of checkpoints heading out of Riyadh, one after about 20 minutes travelling, another after an hour. The red sand dunes the road cuts through, then the "Desert Eye" - a bit like the London Eye but smaller and smack in the middle of nowhere in particular, surrounded by a half built compound of some sorts. A little later come the farm with the long wall - that's about an hour from the end of the Bahrain Causeway, and gives you a clue that you're over halfway there. Some time later, you see the big mound with a rock on the top and then cross over a bridge with lots of (presumably) oil pipes running underneath. Then bear off right where the highway splits - one road to Bahrain and Khobar, the other north and off to Jubail. The last landmark of any note is as you pass behind the Royal Saudi Air Force Base at Dhahran - it was outside here, at the International Hotel, that you'd have seen all the journalists reporting the progress of the 1st Gulf War to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. Lastly is the Causeway itself and across to Bahrain, but not this time...

No, not this time. Myself and a colleague of some 8 years standing now, were off to check on the progress of a project that's been under way for some time. The practicalities of getting there meant that we probably spent twice as long on the road as we did on the site, but such is the size of this place. It's just a shame that the geography of the Central and Eastern Provinces doesn't really encourage you to want to explore it, just get through it. Quite how a people came to decide that the place was hospitable I don't know. It was a constant 45/46C in both directions and not a place you'd like to be stranded in.

I'm back now and tired, I crashed out for an hour or so when I got back, and have done nothing much all evening (CSI: Miami, CSI: Vegas, Law & Order, Sky News... yes, when I said nothing, I meant nothing). At least we're now into the weekend, and although there is the fortnightly shop to do, I will likely do not very much for the next two days. This is a good thing...

I was in the pub yesterday when I suddenly realized I desperately needed to fart. The music was really, really loud, so I timed my farts with the beat.

After a couple of songs, I started to feel better. So I finished my pint and then noticed that everybody was staring at me.

Then I suddenly remembered that I was listening to my iPod...

I don't often set out to criticise software applications, but in IE6's case, I'm willing to make an exception. Like many others around the world, it is the default browser in the company I work for - what a piece of garbage! Whilst the company web filtration software is arguably more of a direct impact on my 'research' activities, I cannot fault it's ability to do its job exactly 'as it says on the tin'. IE6 is a far more insidious piece of junk. For the most part it will display the web page you are looking for, but then there will be that piece of text that is now mysteriously left justified instead of centred, the comment field that is listed but not actually displayed, or the complete lack of the ability to spell check what you are entering when said comment field does actually appear. Its ability completely distract you from the task in hand must be almost unparalled - please would all the organisations still firmly clamped (like a buldog to a postman's leg) to this junk, have a rethink and then as painful as it might be, get rid of it? To what I don't care, IE7, IE8, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, anything but this. I implore you for the sake of browsing folk everywhere, please do the right thing...

As a start point towards beginning to create a fully specified Roland Boss DR-880 .ins file for Cakewalk Sonar, I've created an Excel spreadsheet containing the preset data from the DR-880 manual - this has taken a good few hours of my time and is supplied here without any form of warranty that it is 100% accurate or of any use to anyone, but I can personally promise that it's damned close! If you want to download a copy, then you may feel free, but this little exercise is far from complete and the next step is to try and map all of the instrument and bass tones across to the kits (6,100 mappings by my reckoning), and in doing so ensuring that the appropriate midi note numbers are assigned to them. On the off chance that I go completely mad, I may even try to map out the various settings of each instrument in each kit, but that's only if I can work out whether that has any form of usable value to it. Anyway, here's the file and feel free to let me know if you spot any errors along the way.

File Can Now Be Found Here

PS. This is not getting me any further practice with the guitar