Pains, Trains and Chicken Stroganoff!!!

Well hello interweb at this bright and early time, 06.04 hrs. Ive been awake since 04.00 hrs but try as I might I cannot get back to sleep.
So I have decided to share some of my recent happenings with you.
The main reason I can't get to sleep is the pain in my right leg and foot. Despite the morphine and various other drugs it is still very painful.
Previous operations have had me up and about with very little pain within about 2 to 3 weeks but this time I am at 5 weeks and still suffering.
I keep trying to do normal things only to pay for it several hours later.
Last night I went down to my local railway station to take a few pics of the empty platforms due to the rail strike. Got a few nice shots and uploaded them there and then with the new MacBook Pro. Worked a treat.

The low light capabilities of the 5D still take me aback.
Called in at Tesco for wine and then picked up a Kebab on my way home.
Watched the Walking Dead with Viper then headed to bed.
Now I am feeling the pain. Felt a lot better when I got back but now I am suffering.
Sunday, Went for a 15 minute outing to the Botanical Gardens and got a few photographs there as well which turned out nice with the spring flowers and the first colours coming through.

Sunday also saw me back in the kitchen cooking proper food for the first time since the operation. I made Chicken Stroganoff which I must confess was pretty damn nice. Minutes to prepare and thrown into a slow cooker for 4-6 hours it wasn't much strain on me either.
3-4 chicken breasts diced and placed in the bottom of a lightly greased slow cooker,
1 pot of soft cheese (philadephia), I always use full fat as I find full fat foods have much more flavour.
1 can of condensed chicken soup, (and the same of water), a good couple of hands full of button mushrooms chopped, 1 Medium sized onion finely chopped and softened for 5 minutes in a pan with a little olive oil. flaked sea salt and ground black pepper corns to taste.

Mix the lot together in a bowl and pour over the chicken.
Leave for around 4 hours on high or 5-6 on low and remove the lid for the last half hour to help the sauce to thicken a little.

Stir occasionally whilst cooking.
You can serve this stuff up on rice, or with pasta or pretty much anything really.  If you're feeling really healthy a bit of broccoli and other veg would work well but once served ( I did mine over Penne pasta) sprinkle a bit of freshly chopped parsley over the food and enjoy.

I have managed a few more games recently in Mission Control and it was a pleasure to be invited for a few games with Mr Relentless UK from the Netduma R1 forums for a few rounds of Call of Duty.
We played Modern Warfare Remastered first and I was surprised at how well I did after over a month off, Still got most captures on Domination but that was probably due to Mr R covering my ass and shooting people from rooftops when I had forgotten to check, lol
Then we tried Infinite Warfare, Mr R kicked some proper ass on Team Death Match with around 49 kills and not to many deaths at all.
I as always on that game got spanked. It just does not play for me. Hit marker after hit marker.
Oh well, good job there are other games to play.
In other game related news GT Sport has been announced to be released on November the 13th In the USA and a few other places but here in Blighty we will have to wait till the 18th of November. That said the company that makes GT games are notorious for putting back the release of the games so we will have to wait and see.

Right then interweb, the bloody birds are sounding more like a football crown than a dawn chorus so I may as well get up and make coffee but I will in light of recent events leave you with this thought,
Joseph Campbell once wrote, "Find a place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain".
Joseph obviously never had 4 micro discectomy operations in the same place.

Peace out y'all, THE BAGSTAXXX

Operations, Cameras and the cost of living!!!

Hello interweb my old friend, it has been a while.
I initially began blogging with you to help me stop smoking back in 2011 and it worked very well and I have now been smoke free since February of that year.
I am currently laid up in bed after a fourth operation on my spine and so to help beat back the cabin fever I have taken to your zero's and one's once again.
The previous three times I have been back up and about by this time but to date it has been 3 weeks and 4 days which in no way sounds like it could be made into a Sinead O'Conner song.
I am only allowed to sit upright for 15 minutes an hour and to be honest that feels about right.
On the upside they didn't use staples to fasten me up this time so Viper cannot take great pleasure in removing them for me with tools that look like they came straight form the Spanish Inquisition.

It does however look a bit like tyre tracks and lady parts. Anyway enough about my misery.
A short while before my operation I picked up a Canon EOS 5D MK3 camera and managed to put it through its paces a little before getting bed bound.

I have to say that I am very very impressed with this bit of kit.
It has a full frame sensor and the way it handles high ISO images can only be described as stunning.
The lack of grain and noise is images at stupidly high iso levels is simply amazing.
This shot was taken at 20,000 iso. yes 20,000

I also managed to get put and about on a couple of occasions and despite the crappy weather managed to get a few nice shots out in the Peak District.
I went for a steady walk down Wyming Brook which is one of my favourite places to visit but the levels of mud were on another level to what is usually there, thank heavens for walking boots that can be hosed down.

A few days later we had a light dusting of snow which didn't cause me and Thumper (or should that be Thumper and I?) much of a problem and also meant that I could get out to Stanage Edge which affords great views over the Hope Valley towards Mam Tor which always looks gorgeous in the snow.

I am proper itching to get back out there taking photographs because, well it's what I do. I love it and find it very therapeutic.
In other news I have not been able to spend much time in Mission Control and as such have been proper missing playing games on my Playstation.
Infinite Warfare had been playing so badly for me on my PS4 Pro that I gave up on the title after a couple of weeks. I try for a couple of games every now and then but I actually re purchased Black Ops 3 because despite it's issues It plays a world apart from IW.
Infinite warfare seems to be very much a game that you either love or hate judging by the feedback I have read from others and it would appear more people hate it than like it and there has even been rumour of a 5th Map Pack for Black Ops 3.
I am just glad I wasn't sucked into the hype this year to purchase the season pass or I would have been pissed.
Bollocks, just realised I've finished my cup of tea.

So Viper is itching to go on holiday but we are undecided to which direction to go, left or right.
By the time I am fit to go which will be around the end of May heading right towards thew Maldives will put us in one of the monsoon seasons but we have been before at this time and man did it rain but there were enough hours of sunshine to make it OK, plus I managed to get some great photographs to.
The other option is left towards the Caribbean and Viper is getting very excited about the possibility of two weeks on Young Island which I must admit does look quite lovely with a distinct lack of people which is good for me.

I have also decided in the last week to move over to the dark side and have purchased an Apple MacBook Pro.
There are several reasons for this. The weight is substantially less than my 17" laptop that I have been lugging around for years and as such will make it easier on my back.
It is also fast, very fast. Fast enough for me to make proper use of my Elgato Capture device and will even work with the stream command with webcam overlays to my youtube channel at 1080p 60 fps, so you will all soon be able to look at my ugly mug whilst listening to my dulcet tones swearing and using vast amounts of profanity late into the night as I get my ass kicked on Black Ops. lol.
Another reason for the purchase is so that I can carry it about with me to upload photos from the field which will be great for uploading pics to news feeds etc and will be great when I am travelling to upload pics to my blog etc.

Well interweb it has been nice catching up and hopefully over the coming days I will visit you again with a few updates and thoughts from the depths of what is left of my mind.
However for now, be safe in the knowledge that despite the cost of living, it is still quite popular.

Cheers Y'all THE BAGSTAXXX

PS4VR, PS4PRO and Narcissists!!!

Good afternoon interweb, it's been a while.
Just to get you back up to speed I have been a little busy of late with numerous things including a 17 night stay in the Maldives.
Had an MRI scan before I went away and upon my return I was summoned to see my neurosurgeon.
It would appear that I am going to need a 4th operation on my spine to try and alleviate the pain I have been suffering and it was with the recovery in mind I went off to spend a shed load of cash on mission control as I will be spending a lot more time in there gaming during my recovery.

First off was a PS VR headset, Couldn't buy one for love or money but I did manage to persuade a charming young lady in Game to sell me one that had not been collected yet.

Now I am not going to give a review of the PS4 VR headset as I do not feel that I could do it justice, you see I have a very bad astigmatism and my eyes are old and bent. The image simply would not focus for me with or without glasses or contact lenses.
Don't get me wrong the thing is great, comfortable with and without glasses and the VR experience is stunning but at that price point I simply am not willing to put up with a slightly fuzzy image because I am Mr McGoo.
So that had to go on Ebay but to ease my pain I invested in a Samsung 43" 4K UHD Curved screen for Mission Control.
A few days later I picked up a PS4 Pro as well.

The main reason for switching from Sony Bravia (which has been my choice for many years now) was that the Sony Bravia range seem to have dropped the ball from a gamers point of view and when the Sony's output HRD or 4K images the input lag that the processing adds in upwards of 100 MS which is not great to be honest.
After a bit of research I found that the sub 20MS Samsung only added around 2-5 MS input lag after processing.
It is actually a bloody nice TV as well and looks awesome in mission control sat between 2 Acer 24" monitors. The one on the left is for normal PC work and the new addition on the right is going to have a fairly high end PC plugged into it along with the Elgato capture card.
Ill be using it for video game capturing and editing along with photo processing.
Which brings me nicely to the PS4 Pro.

If I didn't need to buy a new monitor for bedroom 1 then I probably would not have got the Samsung or the Pro, but the TV died in bedroom 1 so I told Viper she could have the Bravia from mission control and Id get a new one. RESULT.
So with the Pro in my clammy grasp on launch morning I headed home to set things up.
I had already uploaded all my game saves to the cloud so I could download them later.
One thing to note is that you need to install the games before downloading the game saves otherwise the system does not recognise them.
After installing all my games and downloading a jigabobagigalot of patches and updates I was ready to fire things up and get shit rolling.
First off I noticed that the Pro is slightly larger than the PS4 and the finish is a kind of matt affair with the PS logo on top. I personally love the looks of it and the Light bar has been moved to sit in the middle of the front of the console.

It has had quite a big spec upgrade details of which can be found below,

PS4 PS4 Pro DUALSHOCK 4

Product name	PlayStation®4
Product code	CUH-2000 series
Main processor	Single-chip custom processor CPU : x86-64 AMD “Jaguar”, 8 cores GPU : 1.84 TFLOPS, AMD Radeon™ based graphics engine
Memory	GDDR5 8GB
Storage size*	500GB, 1TB
External dimensions	Approx. 265×39×288 mm (width × height × length) (excludes largest projection)
Mass	Approx. 2.1 kg
BD/ DVD drive (read only)	BD × 6 CAV DVD × 8 CAV
Input/ Output	Super-Speed USB (USB 3.1 Gen1) port × 2 AUX port × 1
Networking	Ethernet（10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T）×1 IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth®v4.0
Power	AC 100-240V, 50/60Hz
Power consumption	Max. 165W
Operating Temperature	5 ºC – 35ºC
AV output	HDMI™ out port (HDR output supported)

Now I wouldn't know a Terra Flop if I was pissing on one but what I do know is that the thing seems quieter and is fast as fuck.
The image that it displays from games like Infinite Warfare, Modern Warfare Remastered and Project cars is truly stunning.

I have not noticed any increase in lag on the games whilst outputting at the highest rates it can do but the image, man it is so sharp even up close that you could shave with it. Even from a couple of feet away you cannot see any jaggies or distortion or any sign of how the image is made up.
Is it necessary to upgrade to the PRO? No.
If you have a 4K TV and the spare cash I would say yes deffo.
Game had a deal on if you traded in your old PS4 and 5 games which is what I went for but that is now over I think.
Might be worth looking for some "Black Friday" deals or if you want to trade in your old PS4 here's a little trick for you.
Get a quote from CEX first as Game will give you 10% more than CEX offers.

In other news myself and a few other people on one of the gaming forums I visit have recently had to endure a rather unpleasant delusional narcissist.
 He had been trolling the forum with a load of crap as they do. I mean it is 2016, I didn't even think trolls were still a thing. That's just so 2000 man. Ah well as I have said before "Karma is a bitch and I got her on speed dial"

Anyway interweb it's about time for my afternoon nap so I shall leave you with this and bid you farewell.
“Narcissism falls along the axis of what psychologists call personality disorders, one of a group that includes antisocial, dependent, histrionic, avoidant and borderline personalities. But by most measures, narcissism is one of the worst, if only because the narcissists themselves are so clueless.”
and it is my humble opinion that the ‘Selfie Stick’ has to top the list for what best defines narcissism in society today.

Peace out yall, THE BAGSTAXXX

The Maldives, a non exhaustive guide!!!!

Hello interweb, I am back for more ramblings today. I trust I find your 0's and 1's are all in good order and that you are well.
I am feeling a little put out today, ya see I got my leave from work sanctioned and logged and all put in order so that I can take off 25 days in October for an extended holiday.
That in itself is not what has made me feel put out, the fact that I am excited about it is. I don't really get excited about much to be honest.
I spent the other night (at work) trawling ebay and buying shirts, shorts and a pair of converse for my holiday. I never buy clothes, Viper buys me clothes and I wear them, That's just how it works in Bagstaland.
Anyway this will make trip number 10 to the Maldives so I thought I might put a little guide to The Maldives including some things to take etc.
So without further a do I shall begin with the Bagsta69's guide to The Maldives.

First of all would be deciding when to go. The dry season runs from November to April and this is when traveling to The Maldives is the most expensive. However other times of year which are sometimes called the monsoon season are far cheaper and whilst you do get some rain it does not rain all the time and it it is still hot. 9 of our trips have been in either April or October, just leading into the dry season or just coming out of it and the weather has never really spoiled anything, sure it has rained and we have even seen a waterspout but never had a total washout.

The added bonus to going at this time is the fact that it costs less than half the amount than going in the dry season.
On the plus side, when it does rain you can get some pretty stunning photographs .

Anyway after you have decided when to go you need to decide how to get there. You can fly direct, been there done that never again. You can fly with 2 stops which always seem to leave you with hours and hours stop over in an airport or you can fly via Dubai which is our personal choice.
Flying to Dubai on an Emirates Airbus A380 even in economy is a pleasure. The legroom even in economy is plenty and the staff are incredible.

We always get a flight that allows us a couple of hours to clear security and have a look around the amazing airport that is Dubai International.
After boarding a 777 to continue the journey to Male you can sit back and relax.
As you get closer to your destination you begin to see small islands dotted about in the ocean like small jewels and as you get closer and begin to descend the colours are stunning. They look just like they do in the brochure.

When you land and the doors are opened the first thing to hit you is the heat and humidity. Standing in line waiting to clear customs can take a while but you have to realise that you are now on Maldives time and that runs slower than a Jamaican after an afternoon on rum n coke and a few spliffs.
When you have been reunited with your bags it is a good idea to transfer a pair of shorts t-shirt and some sun cream to your hand luggage as depending on the method of travel to your island you may not see your main bags again for a while.
Onwards travel is either by Dhoni boat which is slow and quite relaxing or by speed boat which can be a bit butt bruising if it's rough. The other method is via Sea Plane which is just totally worth the extra if you can afford it.
Once you arrive at your destination the chill out can begin. If you are a drinker I would advise you go all inclusive as everything has to be imported to the Maldives and as such things can be quite expensive. Ive paid $125.00 for a normal sized bottle of Moet before for Vipers birthday.
One thing to remember is that you are now at the equator, its damned hot and the sun will burn you in minutes. High factor sun cream even if it is cloudy is a must. Do not think that you will get away with no cream for 15 minutes as you wont and you will burn.
I dont bother with the diving thing as I get to see so much just snorkeling off the beach that I have never felt the need to do the whole diving thing.
I always wear a t-shirt when snorkeling as well to help stop my back burning.

There is so much to see including some bigger fish like Reef sharks and rays it truly is amazing. An underwater camera is a must if you are traveling here and they don't have to be that expensive either but remember when you get out of the water to rinse off your camera as well as your ears. Every time rinse out your ears, I forgot this once and got an infection which was less than pleasant.

Other things that you can do in The Maldives are quite limited really but most resorts do day trips. Either snorkeling to different reefs or to the capital Male.
One thing that I never seem to be able to get across to people when I tell them about this place is the accommodation. For the most part it consists of beach villas actually on the beach which will have a large room with bed and some furniture and a bathroom which are mostly open air.There are also water villas that stick out on stilts over the ocean but having spent a few nights in one of these the water lapping against the posts gets really annoying.
These are usually cleaned in the morning and when you go for your evening meal they are cleaned again and the sheets on the bed turned down.
I always make a point of tipping the room boy on arrival and then another couple of dollars every two to three days.
Some islands have a tip jar for the gardeners who sweep up leaves all day keeping the islands looking tidy but if they don't I will usually tip them as well.
The beaches are stunning, pristine white sand and never seem very busy.

We usually take a can of raid bug spray with us and spray along the door bottoms when we go out to discourage any bugs from going into our room on an evening and it works quite well as there are quite a few on all islands and mosquito spray as well, deet 50 or as an alternative Avon Skin so soft spray also helps keep the pesky critters at bay.
There are a few other creatures that reside on the islands including lizards and bats.

On an evening sitting watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean is one of the most laid back things that I have ever done. it is stunning.

And then as the light fades the lack of light pollution treats you to a view of the stars that many city dwellers seldom see.

For the most part though a trip to The Maldives really is a trip to paradise and it really does live up to all the hype.
Also remember to take home what you brought, this includes empty bottles of sun cream and punctured lilo's. There is no land fill or giant rubbish burning factories in The Maldives. It all goes to and island called Thilafushi and it is really struggling to deal with the waste.

And so I will finally leave you with a list of things that are a must to take with you, aside from the obvious stuff like toothpaste, lol.
Hi Factor sun cream and lots of it as to buy it in resort is really expensive (I paid $30.00)
After sun
Mossi spray at least deet 50
Flippers and snorkel
Underwater camera and plenty of memory cards
multitool
super glue
tooth repair kit
first aid kit
pain killers
Beach towel as not all resorts supply these
a small amount of washing powder
antihistamines
American dollars in small denominations for tips
Sewing kit
spare batteries
blue tooth speaker
4 gang mains thing as sockets are limited.
Mains travel adapter. some islands have UK plug sockets others don't.
 If I think of anything else I will add it later, for now Im going to try and work out how to deal with this exitement thing that has afflicted me, and remember this, Talking to yourself is a characteristic of the gifted.

Peace out Yall, THE BAGSTA XXX Roll on October :)

Back ache, Logitech G29 wheel and Serial Killers !!!!

Hello there interweb, Reverend Bagsta69 is back after a few months break, Why the break? Well to be honest there has been so much shit flying about in the world and hate on the interweb from internet keyboard hard men I simply couldn't be arsed to sit down and put my arthritic fingers to the keyboard.
Couple that with the world of pain I am in at the minute with what I suspect is another slipped disk for which I am chewing my way through a mountain if Morphine, Gabapentin Naproxen and paracetamol every day and writing a blog post hasn't really been a priority.
However I am here now and so would like to talk about my latest purchase for mission control.
The Logitech G29 Steering wheel and pedals.
With GT Sport coming out later in the year I thought Id spread the cost early and get the wheel first.

 I picked up a used copy of project cars as well as all the reviews have it down as one of the best sims out there.
On unboxing the first impression I got was one of having bought a quality product, it is weighty and smells like a new car.

Having owned the Logitech Driving force for many years (GT5 onwards) this is a major step up in quality and feel. The 3 pedals on the heavy base are stainless steel as are the flappy paddle gear shift levers which feel great and perfectly weighted and sprung.
The hand stitched leather cover for the wheel just adds to the quality feel of the wheel.
There are grooves on the underside of the base unit for the cables to sit in so that it sits flat on any surface and there is enough room in the underside to store any spare cable.

The unit clamps on the a surface in much the same way as the previous logitech wheels only this time you can then fasten down the bits you use to screw the clamp tight with to make the whole base unit look that bit tidier.
The wheel itself has all the button fixed to it that you have on your PS4 controller all within easy finger reach whilst gaming and the alluminium spokes to the wheel and blue top mark really set the whole wheel off as a nice bit of kit.

The Wheel can be used on PC, PS3 or PS4 and there is a small switch on the top of one of the inner spokes to set this to.
And so to actually gaming and driving with this wheel.
It feels great and very realistic, the force feedback gives a good feel back to you and the pedals are very realistic. The brake pedal unlike previous set ups gives more resistance the more you depress it giving it a very realistic feel which took me a few races to get used to if Im honest.
The base of the pedals has the usual drop out spiked bit to stop it sliding on carpet of rubber feet if using on a hard surface..

However, after about an hour gaming all of a sudden a message flashed up on screen telling me that my controller had been disconnected.
It appeared that it had and nothing on the wheel worked. I had to switch stuff off and restart. None of the cables had come unplugged but it seemed to work again fine when I had rebooted.
About an hour later the same thing happened again. Hmmmmm, not a happy bunny.
The message "your controller has been disconnected message appeared again.
Thinking that it was to much of a coincidence the old grey matter went into thought process mode and came up with the solution.
In the PS4 settings I had set it up to shut down the controller after 60 minutes of inactivity. I adjusted this to never switch off when inactive and the problem was solved.
Project cars is probably one of the best sims I have ever played and the physics of the cars etc is amazing. The G29 has so many things you can adjust in game as well it's like it was built for the game.
Best price I found was £170.00 from Currys / PC World. Well worth the investment for the improvements made in my opinion.
Click here to see a couple of laps of Le Sarthe in Astons. :)

And so before I drift off to chew on some more drugs I will leave you as always with some thoughts from the depths of my grey matter.
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we are living in order to live the life we need" and before you humiliate somebody, remember that humiliation is one of the biggest reasons people become serial killers.

Peace out yall, THE BAGSTA. XXX

BT, Ping and Tech Support!!!!!

Good morning interweb, a very sunny one it is as well although the clouds in mission control are very stormy.
I have just got off a 3 hour session with BT tech support, they couldn't support my left testicle if they tried as a team. Bunch of script monkeys with tick boxes.

You see I have for the past week been having a few issues with my online gaming, One minute I am kicking ass and taking names and the next I cannot hit the side of a barn.
So after taking the advice of Zennon jedi network master I ran a little bit of software called ping plotter. It is free to download and try for 14 days to help identify network problems etc.
To get any really useful data from it you need to just let the thing run and look at the data after several hours on several occasions.
Well I went to work and let it run for 8 hours on an evening with only my PC using the interweb.
At peak time I got my usual flat line 15 MS of ping great connection but around 21.00 hours onwards I was getting massive spikes that lasted for a minute of two. When I say massive I mean a sudden increase up to 2000 MS ping.

This is not conducive to a great FPS experience and so I thought I would take some screen captures and contact BT support when they started at 08.00hrs.
And so began my ordeal.
08.00hrs, I call BT support and am connected to an Indian sounding lady. She explained that I needed to do a line check which I had already done. She then explained that as I was having a problem with my speed she would need to do a few checks.
I explained I was not having an issue with my speed I was having an issue with ping spikes and 50%-100% packet loss.
She ran the test. My phone line crackled and clicked for a good 4 to 5 minutes before it went dead and I got a dialing tone.
This was not looking good so I went to make a cup of tea and gave her the chance to call me back which she didn't.

08.16hrs, I call back and have to give all my personal information again to the new Indian sounding lady and explain the issue I have been having.
She explains that as I am having a problem with my speeds she will need to run some tests, I patiently explain that I am not having problems with my speeds that I am getting big ping spikes and packet loss.
The lady runs the test anyway and after a couple of minutes asks if my internet is dropping out.
I again explain that my internet is not dropping out that I am experiencing large ping spikes and packet loss.

08.31hrs, I am again placed on hold for about 5 minutes and told that they were experiencing technical issues and I would be called back within 40 minutes.
09.11hrs rolls around and no contact so once again I call and can just hear call centre people talking in the background, after 2 minutes of this with nobody to speak to I try again and speak to another Indian lady who is tries to contact the lady I was speaking to before, I explained that she didn't know her arse from her elbow and could I please be put through to level 2 technical support as I was getting nowhere.
She agreed and put me through.
My call was now in a que and would be answered shortly.
09.34 still in a que, 09.46 still in a que,

09.48hrs, I get through to Technical support level 2 or so I thought. After giving my name address account number again I explained the problem.
The lady said that if my speeds were low they could run a test.
No shit Sherlock, We have been there before I believe and I ask what part of I am getting large ping spikes and packet loss is she having a problem understanding.
She explains that her department do not deal with things like that as they only deal with E-mail problems. What the Fuck!!!!!!
She could put me through to the department that deals with my problem and gave me the same number I had initially dialled at 08.00hrs.
I explained that they were of no help at all and so she put me through to what seemed to be an English based call centre.
An English sounding chap then ran me through all the security questions again and after I had explained to him that I was getting large ping spikes and packet loss and I could send him screen grabs of the data he asked what my speed was and could I run a speed test. FFS.
I duly ran the test and explained that the issue wasn't present at all times and after putting me on hold for 10 minutes came back and said that I need to run the test when the issue arises and let them know the results of the speed test.
I again patiently explained that by the time the issue arises in game and I have tried to run the speed test the issue has resolved itself as the test can take up to 2 minutes.
On hold again, He returned eventually to tell me that their technicians cannot do anything unless I give them the results of the speed test,
I explained that he ought to get a manager or next level person for me to speak to.
He tried to tell me that it was probably my PS4 causing the problem as they are apparently notorious for this issue.
I asked him how that could be when my PS4 was not even switched on when the problems were occurring.
He went to get a manager.
Said manager got on the phone and explained that she didn't really know much about my issue and was not even aware of what ping and latency was but would be escalating my issue to another department.
I wait with baited breath.
3 hours I will never get back.


And so internet let me leave you with these pearls of wisdom,
If you want help for an issue with BT broadband do not call bt broadband support because BT broadband support are about as much use as a fucking chocolate fireguard.

Peace out YAll, THE BAGSTAXXX

Energy, Suitcases and Lemons!!!

Good afternoon interweb, and a windy one it is to at Bagsta Towers.
I was just having my afternoon siesta when the phone rang and an Irish chap on the other end mentioned something about energy and bills blah blah blah.
I politely told him that I was not interested in what he had to say or sell and bid him goodbye,
He insisted that he wasn't trying to sell me anything and was just wondering when my current energy suppliers contract was up.
I informed him that this was very hard to actually get an exact date as I am not quite sure when my current energy supplier is going to die.
At this point the phone went silent for a moment but then the chap pressed further, Who is your current energy supplier? he enquired.
Photon, I replied.
Photon he replied in a slightly unsure tone,
Yes Photon, he's a hamster. We hooked his wheel up to the mains box and boy can he go when you put a pic of a pretty female hamster in front of him.

 You have just been wasting my time haven't you he said.
Yes, annoying isn't it I replied and hung up the phone.
These people really get me going calling at the most inappropriate times as well.

Complaining about such things in general I have found never really does you much good but I have recently just had a top result from complaining in a polite manner.
You may remember the fun we had with Vipers suitcase (again) on our last trip to the Maldives.
Well I had a spare few minutes on my hands and so wrote to Emirates customer complaints department explaining the issues.
I had a very pleasant reply apologising etc etc and as a gesture of goodwill as we are Emirates Skywards customers they credited mine and Vipers account with 10000 miles each. That is a net result  of around $800. Result.
Vipers new suitcase arrived this morning and my eyes have only just become accustomed to normal vision again.

Don't think that will get confused fora case belonging to anybody else.  She has been wheeling it around like a new toy asking if I want a go????
In other news, This week on the 9th of April 2003 American Forces rolled into Baghdad and toppled the monument of Soddin Insane. Despite my advancing years I still remember watching the whole story unfold on the news channels.

They draped the statue in the Stars and Stripes like a conquering invader more than a liberating force but I can forgive them for their exuberance and the flag was quickly taken down before a noose was placed over the head of the statue and it was torn to the ground.
In gaming news a new update is due out tomorrow for the PS4 which will enable users to do lots of new cool stuff including appearing offline.
The Black Ops 3 servers were a massive pile of shite last night and I gave up after about an hour with only one positive game.
The next Call of Duty has been rumoured to take place in space.
A small part of Call of Duty Ghosts was played out in space but never any MP levels and I for one hope the rumour is false.

The main player base of the game I believe is and has been crying out for boots on the ground action with no wall running or boosting all over the bloody map. I would place money on a large percentage of the player base even been happy to return to a WW2 based game.
Anyway Interweb it is probably time I bid you farewell for today as I feel another nap coming on and so I will leave you with these thoughts,
 "I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party."
and "No matter how hard you try to teach your Hamster general relativity, you're going to fail." However they are very good at generating electricity.
Peace out Yall, THE BAGSTAXXX