Now first let me say I'm a big fan of 24, and the new season is very exciting, BUT either the FBI is full of computer illiterates (and they do like spouting their IT-banble) or they have the least credible threat of all time.

So, for those of you not watching it, the main threat is someone has a device that can hack the government firewall. Whoopy Do! All that means is that they can route packets of data past the firewall and into the private network behind. It does NOT mean they can log on to any of the systems behind it, they would need valid userids and passwords (no mention of those having been acquired) and even if they did, it is work of minutes to suspend the compromised userIDs, which in the days of Sarbaines Oxley auditing requirements they'd be able to spot from the audit.

But to me the real kicker is, it will take them hours to rewrite the firewall, yep probably true, but it takes one second to unplug the network cable that connnects the private network to the outside world. All critical systems will be designed to be able to run on their own network without any external data feeds for a while, and the sort of systems they are talking about are classic cases. Air Traffic control would have it's own private resilient network for critical data since it is too vital to rely on internet. The external connection will only be for things like feeds to civilian services (such as real time flight info on the web), all critical communication would be via a private network.

So for that sake of my sanity just pull the plugs and go after the terrorists without this unrealistic threat!!!

I have to say the latest 24 is rather typical of "Hollywood IT". They like to drop in mysterious terms like Ports, Packets and Servers, and even Mainframe (and then show you a Unix box). But then when they show you displays they have BIG FLASHING GRAPHICS for unauthorised access and user interface things that have NEVER existed in the real world. Do they think the whole world is full of IT morons. IT on TV today is a bit like driving a car in a movie in the 50s, you know perpetual swinging of the wheel from left to right. Anyone that's ever been in a car knows that's not right, so why the hell did directors, who presumably have driven, put it in movies - the same goes for IT - just stop it!!!

Well guess what I'm in an airport departure lounge again, second time this year already. Sat here at Phoenix Sky Harbor, bored cos there aren't that many shops to browse, and to be honest, I've been at this airport so many times recently the shops they have I've seen all they have to offer.

Still at least Sky Harbor has free WiFi which is good

Well I've had a good week, even the work went well

Been to my usual haunts in Scottsdale, Giligans on Monday and Thursday night for the Karaoke, I think this weeks selections I did were Neon Knights, Enter Sandman, She Hates Me, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Here I Go Again and Mamma I'm Coming Home. The guy running the Karaoke knows me know and announces me as I walk in Went to the Saddle Ranch on Tuesday night, boy that bull was getting a lot of action. Our waitress had a go on it hands free, and was walking funny for the rest of the night.

Wednesday, my usual fix of Ice Hockey, not NHL this time, no Coyote home games this week. Went to see the Roadrunners, but I don't think they turned up to play. Ontario Reign beat them 2-1.

Today was wonderfully warm, certainly for January, with the temperature in the low 80s, sat outside for a while but came in when I started to get a little crispy.

I think boarding starts in about 10 minutes now, so not long to go now, 8:30pm now, get back to London 2:30pm tomorrow, and then a 3 hour drive home, which hopefully I'll do on the correct side of the road.

C ya on the other side... Steamy

To make that make sense you have to realise I took the little kettles to the Panto - Snow White. With Sylvester McCoy as Orrible 'Erman, boy was he on form. You can certainly see why they didn't need to use much CGI for his regeneration in Doctor Who.

We got the works, spoons, hat tricks, gurning, eyebrows, hat wobbling and general insanity. And of course the line "Didn't you used to be a Doctor?" "a Doctor? Who?"

Haven't laughed so much in ages

Got to pack now, off to Arizona for a week.

In 2006 I did a blog summing up numbers for that year, well I did the same for 2007, so now it's time for 2008.

So first was the family tree, it really slowed last year as work took away my time to work on it, growing to 3775 relatives (only up 35 on 2007), 16 generations (unchanged), with the earliest birth in the 16th century at 1578 (unchanged), and 671 surnames (up 11). My Doctor Who archive has grown, I've almost finished re-encoding some stuff to a higher definition and a fair amount of new DVDs have been released this year. So the figures for that are now - 1548 files (up 53) across 107 (up 3) folders taking 269 GigaBytes (up 89), and covers 759 episodes plus spinoffs, spoofs and documentaries. Torchwood and Sarah Jane adds an extra 29GB (up 1.

At work I've only had 1 employer (unchanged), taken 34 flights (up , been to 6 different countries (down 2), 197 airports (up 2), across 2 continents (unchanged) and had 4 different currencies (down 2) in my wallet, often 3 at once. Also visited 7 different States in the US (up 3). Got selected for additional security screening 0 times (unchanged) . Missed 0 planes (unchanged), had 0 flights cancelled (unchanged), lost my luggage 0 times (down 1), flown Club Class 1 time (new entry). Flown a total of 76668 miles (up 42490).

Hotest tempearture this year was 48C/119F in Scottsdale (up 2C/4F), but it was a dry heat. Coldest temperature in Buffalo was -12C/10F (new entry).

My Sky+ box stands at 81% free (up 25%) and some of the stuff on there is stuff I've watched but not archived yet.

My TV.com numbers - 134 blogs (up 37) Posts 3985 (up 888 ) Level 16 62% (up 4).

But I'm ending with some important numbers in that none of my friends or family died this year.

Well no prizes for guessing which band I went to see on Sunday - yep the legendary Queen, this time with Paul Rodgers doing the yodelling.

What a night, Queen took the stage at 8pm, with no support band and kept pumping out the music solid until 10:20pm - astounding, and even then there were so many songs unsung.

I had to say I was a little worried how it would feel seeing them without Freddie, would it feel wrong, would we feel short changed, would Mr Rodgers not be up to the task. Well worry not, it was fine on all counts. Last time I saw Queen was their tribute to Freddie with all different singers, most of whom just couldn't cut it (Seal and George Michael being the notable exceptions). This time however Paul Rodgers showed us he was Freddie's worthy apprentice. Every song they did seemed firmly in his range, and he put his own stamp and style on the vocals instead of trying to be some "tribute" singer. Opening up with Hammer to Fall and Tie Your Mother down we were treated to a non-stop assault on the Queen back catalogue.

Inevitably we got the "break down" where the pace slowed off, but not the entertainment. Brian May doing Love of Your Life entirely on his own, just a stool, a 12 string and a mic, and boy his singing voice has improved. Then a bass drum and Roger appeared for '39, followed by the entire band turning up skiffle style, all on the end of a stage pier stretching into the middle of the crowd.

Then I have to say the most unusual and entertaining drum solo I have ever seen. Roger started just playing his sticks around the surfaces of the bass drum, then moved on to playing the bass players electric double bass with his sticks. Which was impressive enough until we then got renditions of Under Pressure and Another One Bites the Dust played by drum sticks - unusual, but freakier was to follow. He then sat back down at the drum and a road turned up with a High Hat, so he then proceeds to solo on the Bass Drum and High Hat, then a Snare arrived, and some Toms, and Symbals, and more Toms and more Symbals. Each new piece of kit dropped exactly into place by the roadie with Roger incorporating into the solo without stopping, just as if it had been there all the time. Until there was an entire second kit in the middle of the audience, all fully wired - astounding. Then of course he treated us to I'm in Love with My Car, which is no surprise as he sung that one originally on the album, but then we got It's a Kind of Magic, which is a hard song for anyone to sing, but sitting down playing drums!!!

The whole night was fantastic, we had a song with Paul Rodgers singing and playing guitar on his own, another with him on Piano, Brian May had his traditional 3 day long solo, so everyone was happy.

Then of course we were rapidly approaching THAT SONG, and I did wonder how that would be without Freddie, but they did us proud. The band played all the music for the start, but Freddie was providing the vocals from the video wall. Mr Rodgers didn't get his turn till the middle eight and he dueted the final "nothing really matters" with the big man - brilliant.

Of course that wasn't enough, so we got them back for 4 more songs, the excellent Comos Rockin (one of 5 played that night from the new album), Alright Now, We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions.

What a stunning night, topping off a stunning year of music in which I've also been to see Linkin Park, KT Tunstall, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Dio, Iron Maiden, Within Temptation and probably a few more I've forgotten about I may yet go and see Extreme this year and I've got my ticket for Metallica in Nottingham next February.

Yep, I've been to Rome again with Mrs Steam, and we had a great old time. Didn't take the little kettles because 1. I'm mean and 2. It was our Wedding Anniversary

Have to say I'm feeling thoroughly refreshed, and even this muddled goldfish of a site design isn't annoying me quite as much as it did.

Even managed time to make some posts on the Forum

It won't last though, got trips to Sheffield and Glasgow in the next two weeks, and back to Arizona and possibly California at the end of the month. So service may slip off again at the end of the month

Well I'm glad to say I'm back home now. I went to Dublin on the 9th, then straight to Scottsdale, home for 2 days then out to Copenhagen, finally getting back late Thursday night (thanks to the problems with UK air traffic control) and joy of joys, I'm not planned to leave the country till mid-November (well not for work anyway, me and Mrs Steam off to Rome for the weekend in October).

But the "who knows for how long" is about being here on TV.com, not here at home.

As I'm sure you've all noticed, I'm not able to spend as much time here as I did. Work's getting really busy, which is good because it means it's also really successful, which in the current climate is great news. Also because I'm away so much, means I need to spend more quality time when I'm at home.

So my patience is gradually wearing out with the design of this site. The new design is not very ergonmic, and not very easy on the eye, especially in the forums, having moved the avatar into a thick banner on the top of every post, for folks with banners in the sig as well it takes a while for your eye to be drawn to the actual content of the post. It's also now harder to scan down the side of a thread looking for a particular poster, and many more page downs before you get to the end of a thread.

To make matters worse, there has long been a problem on this site with the words s-t-y-l-e and c-l-a-s-s. Not particularly offensive words you might think, but you can't type them in any posts that include links. Why? Because there is a web browser hacker exploit that can do naughty things using the c-l-a-s-s or s-t-y-l-e keyword in a link. So it's not a bad idea to protect against the exploit. But it appears the programmers of the TV.com site took a lazy approach and appear to be simply scanning for s-t-y-l-e and c-l-a-s-s in the text (obviously without the hyphens), which of course then means words like c-l-a-s-s-i-c also get banned, which is great if the official website for your show includes that in all the URLs.

Now unless someone has rewritten the syntax of html while I was away, a keyword in html can ONLY be specified in the format "keyword=value" or "keyword = value". In otherwords the keyword, with the next non blank character being an equals sign. So come on guys, if you find one of the "bad words", is the next non blank character an equals sign? If it isn't, it's OK, let it through. But have they fixed it during the huge revamp? Of course not.

And now, whilst typing this long blog, I find another problem. Once you hit the bottom of the text box you are typing "in the dark" as the cursor goes off into no mans land, with no scroll bar appearing. You can use the arrow key to move down, which shuffles your earlier text off the top, but then if you use the arrow keys to go off the top to review what you've already typed, it doesn't shuffle back. The only way to see what's gone off the top appears to be Ctrl-A, Ctrl+C and paste it into wordpad, edit it and paste it back. Now I should point out I use Firefox and the basic TV.com editor, cos the WYSIWYG editor used to give me all sorts of grief, and I know enough html to make my posts pretty. I say this just in case folks using different browsers and editors don't see this. But if I'd released code like this in my job to millions of potential customers, I'd have been fired and deserved it. And even with the redesign you STILL cannot just search the forum you are in (which I'm sure is what people need at least 90% of the time). There's no wonder people post duplicate threads, if the thread you should post on is not near the top, unless what you need to search for has some very unique words in, you get loads of hits from other forums which are entirely pointless if you are trying to find out if someone has already covered the topic in THIS forum. It wouldn't be so bad if at least it listed the hits from the current forum first, and it gives you no clue as to which forum the hits are for (I'm sure it used to).

AND, I don't know about others on this site, but when I click on my user at the top of the page to go to my profile, I mainly do that for one of two reasons, to read comments to my blog, or to post a new one. Yet now there is no link on my profile page to paste a new one, no instead I have to now click on Blog in the menu on the left hand side and wait for the entire page to reload before I can get to a link to post a new blog. So now it costs me twice as much bandwidth to post my blog each time. Maybe I should send the invoice to TV.com

I'd love to know how many users they invited to the design meetings, how many were involved in the early usability tests, when the first cut candidate site was available how long was it made available for general try out and feedback. This is all standard practice for good software companies, I've worked on many software designs both as customer and supplier over the years and without a doubt the best results are from getting your customer involved early.

The first I heard about it was less than a week before it was dumped on us, bearing in mind most users stay on their own program guides, mostly the forums at that, and the blogs. I think I eventually saw it on the front page, but my bookmarks don't take me there.

Sorry for the long blog, but it's taking me forever to try and catch up on what used to be my favourite place on the web.

Well when I was in Dallas recently I came across another of those amusing combinations of signs that really made me chuckle.



Now I do know why those two signs are combined, but I thought I'd leave it up to you guys to figure it out

Well I've been hiking in Arizona in 112F without the slightest hint of sore skin, but a couple of hours in Spain, lathered up in SPF 30 sun creme, and I went as crispy as an aromatic duck - ouch. And this was on the first day of the holiday too

The a few days later it was like I'd bought my own personal supply of cling film with me. I must admit it's nice to be able to sleep without waking myself up when I roll over again

I did find a very interesting name for a diving shop whilst I was over there -

(click for zoom)

But I'm back now, went down London on Tuesday to see We Will Rock You Again (this time with the kids) and had a great day. Got two more days before I'm back at work, and September looks like I will have 6 working days at home.

Well I look at my Level, and I'm level 16, last time I did any submissions I settled at level 14. So obviously now you get level points for a blogin and a postin, cos that's all I've had time for recently.

Well as you may have gathered, I'm back from Scottsdale, pictures below, but I'm not back for long, off to Spain on Sunday, this time for a holiday, and my laptop is NOT going with me - ah bliss. Off for a week, somewhere near Barcelona, then back for a week off in the UK.

But it doesn't last for long, September is a mess, First week is in Winchester, second week Dublin and Scottsdale, third week Scottsdale, fourth week Glasgow and Copenhagen. Then October back to Rome, but that's a personal trip

OK, so the photos. First out at the Tonto bridge, who says there's no water in Arizona


This is a huge natural arch just outside Payson...


Downtown Scottsdale was real nice, especially at night when it is a "little" cooler.


Then old town Scottsdale has a bit of a different look, complete with the Rusty Spur Saloon...

OK, this blog features "Where in the World is Steamy now", "Who locations" and "3 Nights at the Movies".

Where in the World is Steamy now...
Just got to my hotel room in Scottsdale, my body thinks it's 4:25 in the morning but the clock says 8:25pm. Oh and it's a cool 39C, apparently it gets warmer when it's light out - I have to say it's a little wierd looking outside and it being pitch black this early, back home Friday night we had a BBQ and it didn't get really dark till 11pm-ish, then of course we were still going at 5am, so it was a bit like getting on Arizona time in advance.

Who Locations
OK, so congrats to Asecooper for getting the two Dallas connections with Who (well almost anyway), so here's his prize - another Who location photo (old and new) - see how many episode locations you can see in this one...

Oh and there is a significant building to me on there as well.

Now then, that photo was taken a few seconds before the "other" photo in my last blog, so that might help folks figure out "Who supposedly lives there".

Three nights at the movies
On the Movie front, in the last two weeks I've been to see Hancock, Wall-E and The Dark Night, quite how I managed it given my current itinerary, but see them I have.

First Hancock, after I Am Legend this is very much a lighter popcorn film. I was impressed with this film, especially since most of the trailer was from the beginning of the film with some nice twists in plot and tone part way through, none of which I saw clips of before viewing the film. Such a nice thing to do in the days where some movies studios think a good trailer should be a summary of the movie.

Next was Wall-e, if you haven't got any kids, borrow some and go see this film. I have to say it's fantastic, when only the robots are on the screen it is very easy to forget you are watching animation, Wall-e looks like a real solid physical entity, the lighting and cinematography is astounding. Comparing Wall-E's animation to what Pixar managed before is about like comparing analog TV with Blu-Ray. The story is both simplistic and deep in differing degrees (which makes sense when you see it) and how they managed to give so much expression to a machine without cheating and bending and warping parts was a joy to watch - guess what, I really liked this movie

Finally The Dark Knight, I packed my case before going to the cinema so it was another late night before flying. I have to say on first watch I'm not too sure about this film. Don't get me wrong it was excellent, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. Heath was fantastic as the Joker, I say Heath, well it looked a bit like him, but that was it, there was nothing of the Heath Ledger I'd seen before in there, which was truly amazing. The only bad bit of Heath's performance was there wasn't enough of it, I'd hoped for a few more face offs from him. I think the thing that blew it for me was two face, you see what I really liked about Batman Begins was that it tried to put Batman in the real world, all the body armour and gizmos were rationalised as having real purpose, and he got covered in bruises. So it galled me a little when I saw two face, don't get me wrong the visuals were well done, but for me they crossed the line from something that "just might" be possible, into a fantasy character - I just couldn't buy a face could exist like that.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the film, but I wanted to be wowed start to finish with a gritty comic book adaptation, and I nearly got it, till Harvey turned the other cheek.

Still chances are I'll go see it again this weekend here in Scottsdale, so second time round I might mellow a little

No not a Bilbo Baggins blog, but to let you know I'm back from the US, but off again on Sunday, this time to Scottsdale.

Well I thought I'd let you see what I saw. First a famous pair of buildings that if seen from the other side will remind you of a rousing theme tune, big hair and shoulder pads...


Then of course there is the sixth floor window...


And the obligatory Grassy Knoll...


So here's a question for my friends, what two connections are there between the Sixth Floor Window, the Grassy Knoll and my favourite TV program?

And just for kicks...

Who supposedly lives in the area just below the middle of the picture with the 6 tower blocks arranged in two triangles.

The winner then gets a picture with the locations of at least 5 of the episodes of my favourite TV show in it.

Well my friends may have noticed I'm not making my usual amount of posts here, sorry, life's kinda frantic...

Had a great time at Twickenham on Saturday watching Within Temptation and Iron Maiden, both were awesome. I had been looking forwards to Avenged Sevenfold as well but sandwiched between Within Temptation and Iron Maiden they were just ho-hum, no real presence. Would've worked better switching the running order in my opinion.

The Maiden set though was incredible, two hours of pure high energy nostalgia. Showing just how a stage show SHOULD be done.

Sunday morning, got to watch the finale, and loved it, nicely done. But not as promised tieing up all the loose ends

Work has gone mad, I'm working all hours getting stuff done, and from a clear horizon (travel wise), I'm now off to Dallas next week, then two weeks later Scottsdale (where I hear it's rather warm at the moment). And possibly Glasgow too

Well it's been 2 weeks since I got back from Cleveland, but things have been kinda busy, as you'll see...

The photo above was the view from my Hotel Room as I arrived, looking out over Lake Eerie at Sunset - sometimes I like my job

I got there around 9pm, met up with my colleage and set out to find something to eat. Now normally in the US this isn't much of a problem, but it appears that when there's no game on in Cleveland, it goes to bed early The only place open was here...



Still we ate well and then retired for the evening, the 2 weeks were going to be busy from a work perspective. As I was there two weeks I stayed the weekend, got to see the sights of Cleveland, which is basically this...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Also saw some evil weather whilst I was there. Storms blew in off the Lake real fast, and gave some pretty spectacular rain and lightening.


Though it wasn't all bad, got to pull in a ball game. The Indians won, but it was a 1 run game.


Since getting back I've been busy too, both at work and not. Got to see Black Stone Cherry, Whitesnake and Def Leppard in Sheffield. Been a fan of Whitesnake for 28 years, seeing them most tours, this time though I was REALLY disappointed. Either Coverdale's voice has gone, or his marbles have, as he screamed through some of his classics and the rest of the time just wandered aimlessly round the stage whilst backing singers took up the slack. Fortunately Def Leppard were great.

Off to see Within Temptation and Iron Maiden next Saturday at Twickenham, really looking forwards to that. Then it looks like the following weekend I'm off to Scottsdale,AZ for two weeks, and somewhere in July I've got to pull in a couple of days in Rome too - arrgh!!!